Calissa's 10th Birthday

Calissa turned 10 on Friday!  I can't believe that our baby is 10.  Where has the time gone???

Calissa had a craft birthday party again this year at her Grandma's house last Saturday.  It is fun for her and the girls and super easy for me since my mom preps and runs the whole thing!

 She had a few friends that came.  This is her friend Rachel making a paper purse.

 Janel, Haley, Gracie and Jocelyn making cards.

 Natalie and Calissa.

 Grandma and Kyrsten making bookmarks.

 Aunt Tina came to help again this year.  She was in charge of the purses.  Thanks Tina!!

 They also made these cute bags with m&m's in them.

 Then it was time to open presents ...

 and go a little crazy!

 Blowing out the candles!  

 Some cute real flowers and cute money flowers!

 We ended the party with milkshakes made by Grandpa and Calissa's favorite chocolate cake!

 Friday was her actual birthday.  We started the day with homemade cinnamon rolls!

 Make a wish!

 Excited to get a gift card to get a manicure and pedicure!

(Don't you love her bangs that she cut herself last Sunday???  Really??? She's 10!!)

 We're having fun with Just Dance too!

 Her last present from mom and dad was some sticker, activity, paper doll books! 

That night we went to In n' Out for dinner.  A new one just opened by us in Pleasant Hill. (Don't you love my finger on my lens?)  We were In n' Out pretty fast.  Sunday, we celebrated with homemade Chicken Noodle Soup and tomorrow we're headed to Benihana for her out to dinner meal.  I think she's managed to celebrate for a long time!!  Happy Birthday Calissa!  We love your excitement for life and the joy and happiness that you bring to our family!

Crazy Hair Day

Last Friday was crazy hair day at Calissa's school.  Calissa thought that she should just not brush her hair that day, and as crazy as that is, we decided to go a little more crazy!

We decided to put in as many pony tails as we could.  She had fun with her crazy hair ... but then again she is a little crazy anyway!

Lizard Attack!

Thursday when I got home from school with the kids, we were only going to be home for about 10 minutes before we had to leave again for Activity Days and Baseball.  I had subbed all day and was tired!  I was trying to listen to the four messages on our answering machine when Parker walking in and interrupted me.  I said, "Parker, I'm trying to listen to the messages!"  As he was walking away I heard him mumble ... "Well, I kind of thought you might want to know that there is a giant lizard in the bathroom."

Needless to say, I paused the machine and went into the bathroom to see this big lizard!  I took a picture (because I needed to put it on the blog) and told Parker to go get me something to catch it.  He brought me in a glass and a postcard.  This lizards was about 10-12 inches long and wasn't going to fit in a glass!  Then, he brought me a shoe box with an attached lid.  Again ... not going to work!  I went off in search of another box and a thick piece of paper to try and trap it.  Once we had gathered everything I went down to try and catch it, it crawled behind our vanity!  I tried to think of a way to get it back out again.  I brought in my hair dryer and turned it on full blast and tried to blow it out.  Didn't work!  Running out of time, I shut the door, shoved a towel under it and then left, hoping it would come out while we were gone! Unfortunately it didn't come out.  We waited the rest of the day Thursday, all day Friday and most of the day on Saturday.  It never came out.  I was convinced that it was gone.  We finally opened the door and cleaned the bathroom on Saturday (which you can see by the floor needed it).  Saturday night we were at a party and got a call from the kids saying that they had spotted it in our bathroom.  The kids kept an eye on it until we made it home.  Parker did think that a picture frame fell on it and squashed it.  I'd much rather find a whole, alive lizard, than a squished one!  We came home to Parker laying on the floor in our hallway keeping an eye on it!  I caught it with a box and a piece of cardboard and set it free outside (where it made it's way back towards our house ... hopefully to live in our bushes and not our bathroom)!

Gold Rush Days

Gold Rush days was last Wednesday for all the 4th grade.  I got to go and help that day for the festivities.  The day started off kind of rough when the presenters for the gold panning didn't show up, but after we re-adjusted things, it was a fun day!

 In one room, they made these cute dolls.

 In the room I was in they designed a stake to stake their claim and we also made butter!

 In the 3rd room, they saw some slides about the gold rush days and made a leather bookmark.

 They also got to take a picture in their Mining Shack.

It was a fun day and I was glad that I got to help out one last time this year in Calissa's wonderful class!

(PS - It was her teacher's birthday that day too!  Happy Birthday Mrs. Johnston!)

CHS Varsity Volleyball

Volleyball is over!  We are having some withdrawals here in our house.  It was a fun season.  Parker learned a ton and had a great time.  They didn't win much, but they improved so much over the course of the season and will be much better next year!  We are proud of Parker and how well he played and the attitude that he had this season. 

Parker #5 Varsity!

Our last home game was Senior Night.  I made Volleyball cookies for our one Senior and NG's 7 Seniors.  (They had as many Seniors as we had players on our Varsity squad).

Coach Ernie, Tyler, Hao, Nick, Arjay, Parker, Johnny, Clayton and Coach Conley

JV and Varsity.  Our last home game.

 Last game at Clayton Valley.

Parker doing an awesome jump serve!

Who needs to be tall?  Not Parker!

Here is Parker playing in one of their last games of the season.  He is the one in the gold jersey.

Clayton Valley mascot and Conner.

 They were so nice to come and hang out with Calissa and Kyle! Calissa thought it was pretty funny!

 Morgan and Conner after our last game!

Looking forward to next season!  Go Concord!!

CALL Major Braves

Conner is playing baseball again this season.  He is on the same team that he was on last year.  This is his last year in the Majors.  Next year, if he decides to play, he'll move on to Juniors.  It's been a rough season again.  Their team has only won 2 games (out of 20 so far).  Conner has played really well.  He's played most of the season at Short Stop and has hit really well!

He's also had a chance to pitch quite a few times.  He doesn't throw super fast, but he's pretty accurate.  We've been proud of him and the positive attitude that he's displayed this season!

Here's a video of him getting a strike out!