Around here we live for the weekends!

Yet another weekend come and gone. This weekend was pretty busy with my command's kids Christmas party on Saturday and Gabriella's birthday party on Sunday. We managed to fit some shopping in there as well.

For being thrown together at the last minute the kids party was pretty good. There were games, a big bounce house with a slide attached, pizza and cookies to eat, and a visit from Santa. All the kids that showed up had alot of fun.

My goofy kids... Sean has always loved bounce houses. He's such a goofball when he's jumping around in there and whenever we see one at a party or fair it's the first thing Gabriella heads for. Usually you have to drag her out when it's time to go.

One of the games they had was a magnetic dart board set. How long did it take the kids to figure out the wall was metal too? Not long... they were trying to see who could get the dart to stick the furthest up the wall. Sean had to borrow someones shoe to throw at it and try to knock the dart loose.

A rare moment waiting in line for Santa.

I can tell what Gabriella is thinking: "Should I only tell him one thing I want or hit him with the whole list?"

Sean has gotten too big to sit on Santa's lap... but he's not too big to ask for a present.

OMG!!! Makeup!!!

Sean got a Zoom-O. It comes with propeller disks that spin and fly straight up, but instead of a rip cord it has a small electric motor. So you just push the trigger to launch it. Yeah I'll be finding these up on the roof next year when I put up the Christmas lights.

We got two of them because they have a basket to catch the propeller so you can play pass with someone. Sean got the hang of it pretty quick, but I'm still working on the hand eye coordination of it.

Yeah they fly really high... They can sit on the roof till I'm good and ready to get them.

I saw Kristi making a stocking ornament and thought I can do better than that. Hers came out awesome, mine... not so much.

Gabriella's Birthday Party.

Well I lucked out let me tell you. Kristi was supposed to work this weekend but it got switched at the last minute. I knew that there would be at least 10 little girls showing up and to tell you the truth I was scared.

This is one of the best things about California, you can do almost anything outside. For a craft all the girls made princess crowns.

Lily was so mad because all the girls were using the purple glitter glue which is her favorite color.

Even my buddy Brad showed up for the party.

Demi, Gabriella, and Nicole.

The whole motley crew: Demi, Alicia, Gabriella, Nicole, Mireya, Maya, Jazzy, Cora, and Lily.

Since it had been raining the last few days off and on (truly a rare event for southern California) it was all wet out back and I had no place to hang the pinata. So this was my brainy idea. Tie it to a telescoping pole with some light rope and stand on a ladder. I must have forgotten how a lever works because that pinata felt like it weighed 50 pounds.

Cora is just four and I swear she swings a bat better than her two older brothers who were on my baseball team.

Every kid there is thinking "Gimme that bat!"

Woosh it's swing and a miss for our birthday girl... she hit with her other two swings.

Lizzy was watching me almost the whole time... I think she was waiting for me to fall off the ladder.

Craig is from Scotland and his favorite sport is soccer, or as he calls it football. With a swing like that he should try baseball while he's living here.

Big brother is batting clean up. This swing caved in the whole side of the pinata. Sean's next swing tore it right off the handle the rope is tied to.

Happy Birthday To You... You Live In A Zoo... You Act Like A Monkey... And You Smell Like One Tooooo....

You can't see the package but this is a Polly Pockets set... yup some of the pieces are already missing.

Kelsey got Gabriella some books. One on marine biology and the other is a fortune telling book. It told Gabriella in a year she would live by the beach... Well we'll still be in San Diego so close enough.

Brad got Gabriella the "American Idol" dance pad. That was a real hit.

Here are the sparkly red shoes she has begged months for....no more like a year or so.

Little Kira says Gimme cake!!!

Thanksgiving weekend...

So you may be wondering, how did we spend that 4 day weekend? Well Kristi had to work Friday and Saturday so I was forced to shop on "Black Friday" for her but the rest of the week end consisted of this...



Yeah it was kind of like that but no snow... (and I didn't sing joy to the world). I did short out some lights and an outlet on the front of the house. All the lights seem to be working now and the house looks pretty good. We have people driving down our street every night checking out our display. Kristi and Sean got some pictures.

I found some dead bulbs on one of the snowflakes. The $4 bulb tester I bought is so fun.

Gabriella got bored helping on the garage roof. She was up and down that ladder so much.

Sean helped out with straightening the icicle lights.

All in all I spent 2 days on the roof trying for "Perfection" but ending up with "Good enough for government work" (just joking).

This is how it turned out... Not to shabby.

Along with the lights we had to get the trees up, yup plural. Now, why do we have two trees in the house? You can call Kristi and ask her because I'm not brave enough to put the reason in print...

Here is mine and the kid's tree. These are all the ornaments we've collected over the years. The ones Gram gave Kristi and I when we got married for our first Christmas tree, and the ones given to the kids each year.

Here is Kristi's tree, I call it the "Martha Stewart tree". I like the way she did it. It took her alot of time to get it just the way she wanted it, and it looks good in the living room.

So I guess it's almost time to start putting things under them... Two trees should mean twice as many presents for me!

Next Saturday is Gabriella's birthday so on Sunday I get to host a party for 10 little girls while Kristi is at work... stay tuned to the blog for pictures of that one!!!

Does baseaball season ever have to end?

That right there is the beauty of living in So-Cal my friends. "Winterball" is in full swing out here and sign ups for spring ball are ready to start up in the next few weeks. Here are some pictures from todays game at Serra Mesa Field... (Neat feature - click on a picture to enlarge it.)

Sean got to pitch the first two innings of the game.

This is the second time he's pitched for the team this season.

Here is his normal position. He's shaping up to be a great catcher.

His hitting has come around pretty well too.

So what is Gabriella up to? We tried to get her into soccer then tee-ball, but I just don't think team sports are her thing. She just likes to socialize too much. When she wanted to try cheerleading I thought hmm maybe this will work out. It's kinda the best of both worlds... she's on a team and being active; and she gets to laugh and joke with other kids while doing it.

She's cheering for the "Raiders" flag football team... yeah they didn't have a "Pats" team.

I think we found her sport. She's having so much fun. Next year she will be cheering for the Pop Warner football team in our area: The Tierrasanta Cougars.

Go Raiders!!! (These are the only Raiders who will have a winning season this year!)

Here are the kids Halloween pictures this year. Gabriella wanted to be a demon fairy and Sean wanted a skull face. He found a cool black hooded robe.

Here are the little kids in the neighborhood: (left to right) Maya is Wednesday Adams, Lily is a princess, Gabe is a zombie, Gabriella a demon fairy, Marcus is batman, Jasmin a Cowgirl, and Naji is a bumblebee.

Sean wanted to do his own thing this year. He wanted to hang out with a friend and pass out candy at his house.

That's it for now... We'll keep ya posted.

Weekend update...

On Thursday Kristi's new camera was delivered... Guess what we've been doing? Yeah lots of pictures. I figured she has been dealing with a "point and shoot" digital camera long enough, so I ordered her the Canon Digital Rebel XTi 10.1 mega pixel Camera. It's allot like the Canon 35mm we bought back in 2001, well except you get to see the picture on the screen right after you click the shutter. So yesterday (Friday) we headed for one of San Diego's best picture taking places, Balboa Park. We started out by the huge fountain at the science museum and headed in toward the center of the park at a snail's pace. Kristi had to have at least 5-10 pictures of everything. Hmm... let's under expose, nah over expose, maybe I can get the water to blur, but the light just isn't right on that flower, etc. Here are a few of the pictures she took (she took a total of 102).

Here is the fountain outside the science museum.


This is the tower and dome on the Museum of Man.


Here is the same spot but I like how she got the sun in the clouds and the reflection in the lily pond.


I just like this picture...

This was a good perspective shot. Kristi used software to make it black and white.

We had a discussion today about tuning pictures with software. Now I'm not talking about "Photoshoping" a third eye on to Gabriella's forehead... I mean adjusting the light, color tone, that sort of thing. Kristi said it's cheating, I disagree. Do you think Ansel Adams got all those pictures with out a little "tuning" in the dark room? Same thing if you ask me.

You can tell Halloween is almost here. Gabriella has been asking to get pumpkins for the last 2 weeks. With the wildfires going on out here the pumpkin patches have been closed, so we ended up at Wal-mart picking out pumpkins. We got them on our way back from Balboa Park around 7 pm, and about 2 minutes after I took them out of the Explorer, the question that I would hear over and over started... When are we going to carve them? After it was all said and done the kids pumpkins came out pretty good with minimal effort from dad... Kristi is working this weekend.

Gabriella waits patiently to start carving her pumpkin.

Both kids look so enthused...

This is the first time Gabriella has been willing to stick her hand inside a pumpkin... usually I have to do it.

Such concentration.

Sean did almost all his carving himself.

Sean's is the ghost in the window, Gabriella's is the bat. Not too bad, huh?