New Do's

The Stoddard's and the Hilbus' are known to have some pretty thick hair and a lot of it. Well, our little Elle just doesn't (yet). About 6 months ago, I noticed she was losing a lot of hair. I took her to the doctor and the dermatologist, we had a blood test run (everything was fine), but they concluded that due to a lasting fever she had in the beginning of the year, it may have caused a mild form of alopecia (hair loss). Luckily, it did start growing back in, but she unfortunately looked like she had a mullet, with the spikey regrowth on top and her long thin hair. So we decided to cut it pretty short. It's so cute, but I am glad she's not old enough to realize how much hair we cut. She does like it, but as you can tell from the pictures, she was a little schizo about smiling for the camera that day.

Then, yesterday, we gave Mae her first official cut. She was sporting a little mullet as well, so we trimmed that up. She was not a big fan of the scissors as you can see.

I Heart October!

October is one of my favorite months in Vegas. The weather finally cools (usually). We have perfect temps almost everyday. The kids are outside nonstop, and it's the beginning of the holiday season. We had one of those great October days last Friday with the kids playing outside in the afternoon and then Bud surprising them with a backyard campout that night. The girls and I slept in the house, but the boys were troopers and stayed in the tent all night. Even when Jake got a bloody nose, he wouldn't come in the house (that was fun to clean up the next day). The next morning, all the kids loved playing in the tent, especially Mae. She quickly found the doggie door and would crawl through it over and over.

Uh, I Don't Think So...

Bud's brother Mark and his wife Jenni were in town the last few days. They are definitely the "fun" aunt and uncle who the kids get really excited to see. Unfortunately (for us), they both have iPhones. The twins got so hooked on the different games they could play. A couple days ago, we talked about how Christmas would be here soon and they asked if they could write their Christmas lists. Here's what we got from Jonah:


Mark made the point that if we got him one, we would take care of five of the items on his list. Yeah, he's 6 - he's not getting an iPhone. Oh, and apparently we can talk to Michael Phelps for the gold medal.



I do have to say though, the iPhones take great pictures. Jenni took a couple cute ones of the kids:

Sweet Peace

Just a little "shout-out" to Bud who's been kind enough to take all four kids to karate this week when the twins go on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. I can't believe how nice one little hour of peace can be. Thanks so much!

Vacation!

This year we have a lot of big celebrations on my side of the family - my parents 40th wedding anniversary, my moms 60th birthday, me and Bud's 10th anniversary, me and my brother-in-laws 30th birthday, my other bro-in-laws 40th birthday, etc. So, instead of having parties every other month, this year we rented a beach house and made a week of it. It was so nice to do practically nothing. Unfortunately, Bud had to work a lot, but lucky for me my sister's kids were there who love to help out and play with my kids. We did Disneyland on Wednesday and there were hardly any lines, although Bud and I both came away thinking it would be a good few years until we went back. The rest of the week was filled with boogie boarding, sand castles, some failed attempts at meals (the stove and oven seemed to have it out for us), a visit to the Dana Point tide pools (awesome!), cards, campfires, and way too many smores. A big thank you to my folks for inviting us all to come and spend a week in the crazy pink and blue beach house. Maybe in 10 years we can celebrate like this again!

Aargh!

I really want to post pics from our beach trip last week, but I can't find our camera. Stay tuned...