Isak and Kira's Birthday!!! Nov 2017

Isak and Kira turned 5 years old!!!  I seriously loved my four year olds and was actually a little sad.  But I'm excited for them to be five too.  I think age four was great and I enjoyed them so much.

So here's some pictures.

Isak with his birthday hat from school.

We opened gifts.  They each got a lego set, a play dough set and a puzzle.  Here they are working on their legos.

We took all the kids to McDonald's for lunch.  They each got a kids meal with a toy.  They loved playing on the indoor playground.

Kira finished her lego set...a grocery store with a cart and register too.

Isak's was a cabin that you can build three different ways.

48 piece puzzle of Frozen.

Their birthday was on a Saturday and there was no school on Friday, so I took birthday treats to the kids at school on Thursday.  It was so cute and fun to watch them.  I brought little cupcakes and taffy from the store.  The treats had to be store bought and unopened.  Kira wanted to give the taffy and Isak wanted to give the cupcakes.  We ate the treats outside.  The kids sang and their teacher gave them the birthday hats.  I watched the kids play a bit and then recess was over.  I took the kids home because it was easier than coming back an hour later. :)

The babies enjoyed celebrating too.  And hey, they turned 18 months old on the same day. :)

Isak asked for rainbow cupcakes and Kira wanted an ice cream cake.

Aren't they just cute?!  It was so fun to celebrate our little 5 year olds.

Oakland Temple Nov 2017

Continued from the previous post (Golden Gate Park)...I started to take pics of the family, when a sister came up to me.  She said she was a temple missionary photographer!  She wanted to take our family picture.  So she spent about a half hour taking our pics in front of the temple!  I LOVE the pictures!!

She emailed them to me.  She even edited them and removed the chocolate from Sofie's shirt!

I like this one.

She asked if she could take some of the older kids running to Nels.  Some of her pictures end up in the Ensign and so she wanted to get some different poses.  We said "sure!"

I think this one is my favorite of this kind.

Sisters.

Kira is so sweet to her sister.

Sofie showed off her wave.  :)

Isak loves to do his "silly" smile.

Brothers.

You can definitely tell which pictures I took...the ones below.  I wish I was a professional photographer...maybe someday.  :)

See Isak's crying face.  I don't remember why he was sad.

So then I just took one of Kira and Sofie being cute.  Then the Sister missionary saved me!

These two cute babies! 18 Months old.

Noah enjoyed the freedom...

Kira kept a close eye on Sofie.

We stopped in the visitor center to go potty and enjoyed getting stickers from the missionaries and looking at the beautiful statue of the Savior.  

The kids loved seeing the temple and walking around the terrace.  Nels said, "See Bec, we came to the better lighthouse."  :)  He was right.  It was perfect.  When we include the Lord in our plans, He makes them even better than what we imagined.  And I got my family picture.  It definitely turned out better than I imagined.

The above photo is my favorite.  Then we drove home and recovered from our adventure.

Golden Gate Park - Nov 2017

November 10, 2017 - Nels took the day off.  We went on my wild crazy idea.  The goal for the day was to get a cute family pic at a cool place.  I dressed everyone in plaid.  Kira and Sofie had matching pink plaid.  I really wanted to see Point Bonita Lighthouse, but it's only open on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  I knew that!  But for some reason I had it in my head that it was open.  So anyways here's how the day went.  We loaded up the van and I packed an awesome picnic and the kids's boots. Why boots? Because it was a rainy day as we drove to San Francisco!

We arrived at the Golden Gate Park and the kids loved jumping in puddles.  Well, the older ones did.  Then the rain stopped, the sun came out.  The kids played on the playground.

It was a cool playground.  Ah!  A giant wave. :)

The babies got out for a bit.  It's stressful when they are up and about.

Then we had our picnic with strawberries and sandwiches and hostess chocolate cupcakes to celebrate Isak and Kira's birthday.

They loved the cupcakes.

There were these cool steps.  I asked Nels to take a pic of me.

Then we loaded the car and I thought I should call the lighthouse to see if it was open.  Um no, of course not on Friday.  I was soooo sad and mad at myself!  A dumb mistake.  I was so upset, I said let's just go home.  As we are going on the freeway we came to a split - one way to San Jose (home), one way to Oakland.  It hit me - let's go to the temple!  Nels didn't even hesitate and took the exit to Oakland.  We arrived and there was rain here and there.  I started to take pics of the family, when a Sister came up to me.  She said she was a temple missionary photographer!  She wanted to take our family picture.  So she spent about a half hour taking our pics in front of the temple....to be continued on the next post...