Girls Night Out

Because we don't do "sleepovers"  we have "late nights" instead.  This is a night that they can invite a friend over till 9:00.  This is huge when you consider that their bedtime is 7:30.  It was Abbys turn for a late night.  She had cute Amanda come over.  They played for a little bit & ate pizza.  We then went to the play Aladdin.  Alyson & Cosi were in it.  The girls loved it.  After we found the them & they gave them flowers, we got pictures with them.  They are such good girls & incredible examples to my girls.  

We had enough time to run over to Article Circle to get ice cream.  We had a fun time.

He Makes Our Day

Craig is such a fun person.  He always is goofing off, teasing & playing with everyone.  The other morning before school he stuck McKays arrows on his head.  We had to take a picture.  

I love you!  Thanks for making our home so much fun!

Cali

I know my sweet husband has journaled about our trip to California, but I have some memories I don't want to forget.

McKay became quite the the photographer on our trip.  Every time I turned around he had the camera taking pictures of everyone and anything.  At times I would pick up the camera to scroll through them and there would be 5 new self portraits of McKay.  I kept thinking he was quite good, so on the after the day @ Disneyland I had him take pictures of us coming back on the shuttle on the way to the car.  Both had my head cut off, other then that they were quite good.  :0)

Here's some of his pics during Cali

Abby loves Disneyland, she always has.  She's my little dare devil, which you would never know by her sweet disposition.  Craig had taken the older two on some rides while I took (fought) with Josie & took she & Kimball to see the princesses.  When we had finished I called Craig to see where they were so we could meet up.  They were @ the next train stop riding the cars.  We got there @ the perfect time.  We looked over the railing and Abby was just starting to take off with Craig in the passenger seat.  I could hear his scared laugh.  After the ride they get their "Drivers License".  She was so proud & felt like she was a fantastic drive.  I can definitely wait till she's really sixteen.

Josie always amazes me with what she says.  We were in Balboa for Laurens reception.  Most of you probably know about Balboa, we didn't, we had no clue.  So to set the stage, because I'm sure I'll forget by next week, Balboa is a part of Newport.  It's a very upper class area.  The homes are nice, double story, set close together, very well kept and quite expensive.  Part of Balboa is an island, in order to get there you have to take the ferry.  Stage is now set.

As we were walking to the ferry, the older two had skipped off in front of us, Craig & Kimball were trying to keep up with them, Josie & I were enjoying the homes along the way.  While we were walking we crossed a lady who was walking with her cute little dog in hand.  The dog & the lady were dressed casual & yet decked to the hilt at the same time.  Josie walked right up to the lady stopped right in front of her and said "Love that. It's so pretty" as she touched her @ least 4ct. diamond ring.  The lady was super nice and kind of chuckled and said thanks.  Josie told her she was welcome and was on her way.  

Kimball was so funny trick-or-treating.  I think he thought it was like the game when you go to peoples homes and ask for something "bigger or better".  He would hold on to the piece of candy he had just received walked to the next house and try to trade it for one they had.  Craig would take the candy from him and put it in his bag.  About 3/4 of the way through he finally understood that the entire bag of candy was his.  All at once it just clicked.  He grabbed the bag away from Craig drag it for a few doors then handed it to me.  He wouldn't let Craig come close to the bag.  Which totally made me laugh for several reasons, 1) he has a little love hate relationship going with me  2) I'm the least trustworthy with candy.  I guess he'll learn that by next year.  

When we're in Cali we love to stop by the Spectrum Center to grab something to eat & walk around.  The kids love to play in the fountains.

Isn't my husband cute.  I volunteered him to put his tennis stringing skills to work by tying crystals from the chandelier at the reception.  When we got there I recognized the Waldrons from the PV 6th Ward.  I was shocked to see them in California.  Of course we were all curious as to who knew who.  They're Kirks grandparents.  They are neatest people ever.  It was such a fun surprise!

Cali was a fun quick trip.  We were so happy to see Lauren happy, with such a great guy.  They are adorable.  The kids love him as much as they love, her which is huge, because they think she's the bomb!

Catchup Power Blogging

My hiatus is now over & there is so much that I've wanted to journal about.  But of course it's me, & I can't remember from min. to min.  so I'm sure this will be totally random & all over the place but let the catchup begin.  

The reason behind my hiatus is a very fun project that, as always, turned out to be larger then first anticipated, "The Baird Family Favorites, A Collection of Recipes & Such".  

For probably the last six years or so my mom has been wanting to do a family cookbook.  At one point she even started collecting hand written recipes from family members.  She proceeded to try to type each one in.  She very quickly got discouraged and quit.  Over the years she has brought it up several time.  The last time I agreed that it would be really nice not to have loose papers floating around my cupboards.  That's all it took.  Once every ones recipes started coming in on email, it started to become really fun.  I would be places & wonder if by the time I got home I would have fun new recipes in my in box.   

With layout, formatting, editing, etc.  the project took on a life of it's own & hundreds of hours on the computer.  I don't regret any of it.  However every time I saw the computer my head would start to get that buzz you get when you've been looking at the screen to long.  

After everything I think the book turned out great.  I was really excited about it.  Even with all our crazy mess ups (some quite large!) it was a fun project.  It's amazing how with such a simple thing as recipes I felt closer to my extended family.  It was like a little portal into their lives.  I'm very grateful to have had this experience, but I don't think there will be a 2nd edition from this editor.

chargers vs colts

On Sunday night I watched the chargers vs colts.  It was awesome when the colt's got the ball in the beginning.  I also like it when the chargers run the ball. I love the game

Needed the world to know

Last night I was talking to my wife about a girl that had been on the tennis team at BYU.  She is finishing up her degree and has been trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life.  She was thinking about going to grad school.  Well earlier this week she told me she has decided to follow a similar career path as me and go into tennis coaching.  When telling McKenzie this she blurts out "WHAT WOULD YOU WANT TO BE A COACH FOR, what a waste of all that schooling."  Yes Mckenzie is now sleeping on the couch.  

So we went to Cali for Lauren's wedding (Lauren Jones is our assistant coach on the team at BYU) over halloween.  We made the most of the trip by spending a day at disneyland, going swimming and having a blast trick or treating around the Jones's neighborhood.  It is amazing how fun road trips can be these days.  At one point McKay was playing the Nintendo DS, Abby was listening to music on the ipod, Josie and Kimball were watching a movie, and McKenzie and I were listening to an audio book.  Needless to say the trip down and back was very easy and enjoyable.  I sure am grateful for technology.  The first day there we went to Disneyland.  We got there right as they have the music playing to open the park for the day.  Josie is dancing down the main street just being Josie (no inhibitions).  

People are looking over just smiling at her.  We went straight to the young kids area in particular the Dumbo ride.  Well Josie didn't like that to much, the other kids including Kimball loved it.

   

So then we went to the toad ride to get Josie excited about being there.  That went even worse.  So then we tried the peter pan ride, by this point Josie is in hysterics'.  She is screaming refusing to go on any other rides because they are to scary.  The rest of the day was great, the lines were not that bad and we went on whatever we wanted numerous times.  Josie of course didn't.  Kimball loved every minute of the nine hours we spent there, he is just as fearless as McKay and Abby.  After disneyland we went back to the hotel got changed quickly and headed for the Jones for trick or treating.  

Once there we started around the streets.  All our kids enjoyed this, Kimball being 2 now really enjoyed the treating part of trick or treat.  He would not let anyone hold his bag for him.  That was his candy.  The kids had fun and none of them are really shy, but Josie man alive that girl is absolutely fearless when it comes to social settings.  She was walking into peoples houses to check of their dogs, or their pretty decorations.   As it got later in the evening  a couple of families had gathered out the front of one there homes and were a little inebriated.  Well they were alot inebriated.  Josie just goes right up and starts chatting with them.  Making sure they gave her brother (Kimball) his candy.  These people loved Josie, needless to say it took a while to move onto the next house.  The rest of the trip was great a blast all the kids were fun to be with.  The drive down and back were just what I needed, some time to think.