Fall Fun~

I am so behind on blogging I planned to do a summer recap, but we did so many fun, amazing things it is too much to catch up on.  Maybe some other time I will get to it, but for now I can catch up on some fall fun!

 Pumpkin patch!  

 Thanksgiving at Papa's house.  I have a picture exactly like this 14 years ago when Mikayla was a baby.  It is on my instagram account if you're curious.  My name is 5thiesens on there.

Our baby girl!!

 The Hierlmeiers plus spouses.

 Someone had the bright idea to do silly upper lips for the goofy picture.

 And this would have been our Christmas card picture, but unbenounced to me at the time Zach was still doing the silly upper lip face. I might just still send them out! LOL!

 Celebrating my Mom's 70th birthday at Olive Garden.  We surprised her!

 Me and my Mama!

 Zach at his Winter Band Concert.  He is playing the Baritone Saxophone this year and loves it.  Although I think he might be the only boy big enough to hold that thing!

 Mikayla before her Homecoming dance.  Thankfully, Landen is still the only man on her life!  She went with a group of her new friends from her new high school.  It has been an adjustment, but she is doing ok.

 She has blossomed into a beautiful young lady!  And she is 5'10" now! Crazy!!

 Zach got to play with Mikayla's high school marching band for middle school band night.  He is 4th from the right barely carrying the giant saxophone. But he loves it!  Exactly 20 years ago that very night Jeff and I went to a high school football game on our first official date!!  

 Landen really wanted to take the big kids to the Noah's Ark exhibit at the Skirball museum, so we had a fun family day there.  They are always mostly good sports about doing the things Landen wants to do.

 Oops, some more pumpkin patch fun!

 Landen suddenly loves coloring and took great care to color this bear exactly like the picture in the top corner.  I am homescholing him for Kindergarten and it is going very, very well.  We are having the best time and he is such a willing, bright student!

Really great personalized sight word pad from Frecklebox!

 A beautiful, awe inspiring Socal sunset. This is out my bedroom window.  Words can't describe the beauty God paints in these southern California skies and pictures barely do it justice.

 ~Halloween~

An astronaut! 

Landen has been obsessed with the space shuttle Endeavor since we first saw her at the Discovery Science Center when he was 3 1/2.  He loves learning about planets and space and can tell you all about Endeavor and many other space shuttles.

 Zach decided to be Sheldon Cooper. Ha!  We don't let him watch The Big Bang Theory, but I think his friends at school tell him he reminds them of Sheldon.  Or maybe he just likes to say bazinga!  It's not incorrect to say he is a genius and knows it!

 The Three Thiesens!

 Our beautiful kitty cat! 

 I don't know if this video will work, but it is Zach's solo at his concert. Enjoy!

Mikayla's 8th Grade Graduation!

Now that she has already started High School I'd better blog about how Mikayla graduated from 8th grade back in May.  We searched and searched for the perfect dress and I thought what she chose was just beautiful.  And she is just beautiful inside and out!  She had a great middle school experience and graduated with a 3.74 GPA.  We couldn't be more proud of our sweet Mikayla Paige!

So proud of our girl!!

Pre-K Graduation~

Landen graduated from Pre-Kindergarten!  He was so proud and so were we!  He really loved going to school this year and I agree it was a great experience for him.  The year really flew by fast and he grew so much.  

Landen and his teacher

With his diploma

And these are the iPhone pics from that week.

They said to dress "Hawaiian"  & I thought he looked so cute!

 The last day of school which was the day after graduation and also the day we celebrated his 5th (almost) birthday at school with donuts!

 He said, "Mama, lets take a picture together!"  Such a sweetheart.  

And just for comparison, these are from the first day of school.

He has long since grown out of those shoes and the shorts and shirts barely fit him.

Disneyland!

We finally made it to Disneyland!  We had planned to go for Zach's birthday, but he ended up getting the stomach flu.  Poor guy was so miserable!  We finally found a day last week that worked for all of us and we just went for it.  The big kids still had to miss school, but no major tests or presentations were missed.

 We have learned that the only way to avoid terrible traffic thru L.A. is to leave by 7am.  It's tough to get up early but we just can't stomach paying for a hotel.

 We got there a little after the park opened and got all the standard pictures in quickly and immediately got Space Mountain fast passes for the big kids plus Jeff.  Every time in the past when Zach has tried to go on it it has shut down, so this was a must since it was his day!

 Some sweet lady walked by with her young daughter and offered to take our picture.  I almost cried I was so thankful. I think she was an angel!  My day was complete after this, everything else was gravy.  Also, I used the tip I saw on pinterest to take the picture on the right side of the castle so there aren't a bunch of people in the picture.  It worked!

 We hit up Buzz Light year first because it was a short wait then Zach and Mikayla went on Star Tours all by themselves.  This was the first trip they did rides themselves and a few times went to get things like fast passes and souvenirs by themselves.  It was awesome!  

We did the teacups next which is always something we do first and we all enjoy it.  Although, I was in a cup with Zach and he spun me so fast I could barely walk off the ride.  I hadn't eaten since 6:30am and I think an empty stomach is worse that a full one in this case.  We then had to go on a search for a dairy free snack before I thought I might pass out.  We finally found one at the Carnation restaurant.  They had a pre-packaged blueberry muffin that was gluten, soy, and dairy free.  Just including that in case it helps anyone reading this.  Restaurants at Disney are good about allergens in foods, but NOT the snack vendors.

He said, "Hi, I'm Olaf and I like warm hugs."  

 We found Olaf!!!!  He was on top of the building where Ana and Elsa were, but the line for that was 2 hours!  So thankful none of our kids are in to princesses.

 This is a little out of order, but while the kids were on Star Tours we went over to the new Innoventions exhibit. On the way up we stopped because Matterhorn was in the background! It's where the Carousel of Time used to be.  That was always one of my favorites! But clearly outdated, so I guess Ironman is better.  Landen loved it and really wanted to wait in line to see Captain America, but it was an hour wait.  We don't wait for Characters!  The Ironman guy was just an exhibit and you can walk right in to see him.  

 After we met back up with M&Z and watched the Jedi Knight training show.  They loved watching it together!  So Sweet!

 Zach and Landen and Darth Vader and we didn't even have to wait in line!;)

 Then M&Z and I went to Pirates of the Carribean while Jeff took Landen to Mickey's Toontown.  The wait for Pirates was only about 40 minutes.  I've waited 2 hours before at Disney World when it was summer and super humid, so I think that was totally fine.  I enjoyed "hanging out"(as the kids say) with these two and it was one of the highlights of my day.  They have to talk to me if we are stuck in line!

I guess we needed another treat because this happened.

 While we were on Pirates Jeff accidentally met Mickey Mouse in Toon town.  Landen wanted nothing to do with him.  He's never really liked his picture taken with characters and he was also getting tired, but at least they saw him! Although the photo person did take a picture but I have yet to see it.  Apparently Landen is hiding behind Jeff's leg.

After Autopia, Monorail, and the Train we used our Big Thunder Mountain Fast Passes and we loved it!!  They just refurbished it and it was a lot less jerky than I remembered.  We all wanted to go again, but the wait was 75 minutes!  No thanks!

~To be continued