Christmas Morning

It was another glorious Christmas morning in Casa de Fisher.

We told the kiddos not to get up before 7am due to our late night and they came bounding in our room at 7:02 a.m. ~ such good little listeners.  Our rule is that we all go downstairs together and Daddy takes our "stair picture."

The three little fish were so excited to see if Santa came . . . he did!

They had a blast opening their gifts and playing.

Transformers, Rescue Bots, Dolls, Crafts, Cars, Clothes, Books . . . FUN!

They were also extremely excited to give the gifts they had bought or made for others.

So precious!

 G surprised me with new running shoes that feel so great!  I tried them out and no knee pain ~ YEAH!!!

 G's gifts mostly focused on his new smoker.  He was thrilled and plans on trying it out tomorrow!

 We always open our stockings last and the kiddos LOVE finding 

gum, toothbrushes, candy and other fun little gifts.

After opening gifts, we had our big Christmas breakfast, finished our Christmas devotionals and finally got to put Baby Jesus on our advent calendar ~ the kiddos argue so much over who gets to put up Baby Jesus, so this year Mommy did it!

After breakfast, the kiddos settled down to watch Alli's new Barbie movie and play.

Super relaxing and fun!

One of best parts of this Christmas morning was that Daddy finally matched the rest of us in our Christmas PJs.  Usually we wear our matching Hanna Andersson long john style PJs but G has always refused to wear those so this year when he said he would wear lounge-style PJs if I made them, of course I had to do that.  The kiddos were so excited to get in their new PJs last night!

Such a fun, silly time we had dancing around in our matching PJs!

Santa Visit 2014

 Our 6th year visiting Santa at the Log Cabin was a success!

 All three kiddos were excited to give Santa their lists but Luke could hardly contain himself.

As soon as the family before us started to leave, he shot off my lap and scurried over to Santa with his list that had only one item on it ~ Grimlock, a Dinobot Transformer.  We looked over and there he was, chatting away with Santa about Transformers.  Too, too cute!!!

Big brother went next and Eli was excited because he wrote his own list this year!

He wants all Transformers from Santa . . . Optimus Prime, Bumble Bee and Omega Supreme.

That last one, Omega Supreme was hard to get when G was a kid, even harder now (going for over $300 up to thousands on Ebay for used ones and you can't get them new!)

Luckily, he accepted Santa's comment that we don't always get everything on the list 

and surprises are fun too :-)  Silly boy would NOT look at the camera but still very cute!

 Alli patiently (or not so much!) waited for her turn to share her list with Santa,

which she made into a scroll this year.  On her list is new rainbow goggles, a marker maker, dresses for her dolls, a gymnastics suit and her ultimate wish is a So Truly Real Linda Murray Doll.

We love that she is still a little girl asking for little girl stuff!

Three very cute 'lil fish with jolly, old St. Nick.

Such a fun visit once again!!!

The fun continued in the evening when we went downtown for the tree lighting celebration 

and enjoyed a tractor pulled hayride.  It is the most wonderful time of the year!

LCS Christmas Concert 2014

Last night was Alli's Christmas concert and she was darling.

She picked out her dress this year and was so excited to wear it.

The girl has her own style and Mommy is trying to back off and let her have fun :-)

 It was a LONG night, with the concert taking nearly 2 hours and Alli's part was the last 10 minutes.

All of the kiddos did fairly well considering how long they had to sit there quietly.

Alli was super excited to get roses from her fan club after the concert.

 Poor Luke was done for by the end so no pictures of him, but he was there climbing on Uncle Z.

Also part of the fan club was Barbie Pop Pop, Uncle Z and Uncle Tony :-)

After the concert we were so hungry and enjoyed some yummy Mexican food at a local restaurant.  

It was donating a portion of the proceeds to the school so we saw lots of friends.

A very fun and tiring evening!

Family Photos 2014

Since Luke was born, we have been extremely blessed to have the incredibly talented Heidi Stephens of Sunrise Photography take our family pictures.  She is amazing and we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the way she captures the sweet, silly, sassy personalities in our family.

It such a cold day, and had even snowed that morning!

 Eli was cold but still happy to flash his sweet grin!

 Luke, on the other hand, was a bit challenging and we are 

super impressed at how great his pictures turned out!!!

 Then there was sweet Alli who would like to have a Senior photo shoot now.  

Seriously, this girl LOVES to have her picture take, especially by Mrs. Stephens!

We cannot believe how grown up she is looking these days.

Sweet and sassy!

Alli's 2nd Grade Picture

Doesn't get much cuter than this sweet girl!

And, of course, the comparison of the last three years :-)

Can't believe how grown up she looks these days!

Alli's First Cross Country Meet

This year {to Mommy's great delight!} Alli decided to run cross country for her school.

I could not be more excited!!!  

My dream is that all three of the little fish will LOVE running as much as I do 

{or did before the three knee surgeries!} 

Thankfully, it is off to a great start as our Pink Fish loves to run and has really enjoyed practicing with her team at school twice a week since school started.

The whole family was super excited to watch her first meet this afternoon.

It was held at Bellarmine Prep and there were TONS of schools and kiddos participating.

So cool to see all the children excited to run!

We LOVED her uniform shirt, which says "Lord, watch over me today as I run".

Thanks to the bright yellow {and her bright pink shorts!} we had no trouble spotting her :-)

Although there are lots of kiddos on her team, they broke it down by gender and grade.

These four friends did such a great job running and cheering on one another.

Alli did such a great job running 1/2 a mile and finished strong ~ her smile was priceless!!!

She was so excited to get her ribbon and snack at the finish line :-)

Of course, she was happy to pose for pictures with her cheering section . . . 

Way to go Alli, we are so proud of you :-)

We are looking forward to many, many more years of XC meets!

Alli's first day of 2nd Grade!!!

After a fabulous summer vacation, today was the beginning of the 

As much as we all enjoyed our summer break, these three munchkins were pretty excited!

No more sleeping in, but then again, our kiddos think 7:30 is sleeping in so it's not too bad ;-)

All three were excited to get up this morning for school, of course, only Alli actually starts today!

It is so hard to believe that our sweet baby girl is now in 2nd Grade.  

Where did the time go???

She was happy to see her lunch packed and backpack ready to go when she came downstairs.

She requested ham and cheese frittata, apples, cheese, and bunny grahams for lunch :-)

She was a trooper taking pictures during breakfast and the annual tree pictures.

Then there were more pictures at school too . . . love that she loves having her pic taken!!!

She has her good buddies in her class and is super excited with her teachers!

She sat right down and got started on her word search.

All smiles when the boys and I left.

I cannot wait to hear all about her first day of second grade!!!

It's not even 10 and her brothers have asked 

at least 15 times when Alli will be home ~ they miss their big sis!

Guess we're all excited for her to come home :-)

Hop on Pop

This weekend, we had the pleasure of spending lots of time with Great Pop!

Making for some very happy little fish :-)

Since Barbie Gramma and Grandpa were off with friends, and Uncle Z was busy,

we got to spend the weekend with Great Pop and we had a blast doing it!

 As soon as Daddy got home from work on Friday, we headed over to his place for pizza and playing.

 The kiddos were having such a great time that they went to sleep pretty late.

Of course, as soon as they got up, they immediately headed down to see Pop.

In fact, every time we went looking for the boys, we usually found them snuggled up with Pop!

It was beyond precious and we are thrilled they have this time with their Great Pop.

Sunday afternoon, we took the kiddos to Wild Waves for rides and swimming.

All three munchkins had fun on the rides.

 And loved when they could all ride together :-)

 While Alli and Daddy went on the ferris wheel, the boys rode space ships.

I couldn't believe they were both big enough to go alone and didn't want/need Mommy.

It was a hoot watching Lukey up there, who was always a bit higher than his big bro.

He was waving and grinning nonstop!

After exhausting the rides, it was off to the pools where the kiddos had fun swimming and splashing.

The wave pool was the biggest hit but given that both boys had colds, we decided to head home early.

Back to have dinner and play with Pop so no complaints out the little fish :-)

What a fun weekend with special memories.

Diapers are a thing of the past!!!

This incredibly adorable little man is now a proud member of the big boy undies club!

Although he is still two, Lukey desperately wants to go to preschool in the Fall just like big brother.

Eli's school agreed to put him in the 3's class despite not being 3 because they saw how ready he was this year as he begged to stay in school with his big bro each day BUT the caveat was that he had to be fully potty trained.  I truly thought this would be a deal breaker but we explained to Luke that if he wanted to go to school (he does!), he had to go big boy potty.

I planned to start it in August but the Wednesday (July 23rd) after we got home from Disneyland, 

I got the crazy idea that I might as well just give it a try then so on went the undies.

So I couldn't turn back, I had Eli take all of our diapers down to our neighbor for her little guy.

We decided to use the 3 Day Potty Training method with Luke since we had a deadline.

It definitely took longer than three days but in less than a week, he figured it out!

We tried M-n-Ms as the potty prizes with little excitement but he was all over stickers.

A friend had given us a bunch of Toy Story Stickers and Luke found them July 28th.

When he asked if he could have one, I said sure when he went potty.

Well he was all over that!

Beginning that morning, he would come running to tell me when he had to go potty.

He is even staying dry all night now :-)

Who knew that printing out a picture of Buzz Lightyear and putting stickers on it could be so cool?!?!

The ultimate potty prize was a big Buzz Lightyear toy just like Eli's from Disneyland.

Lukey finally earned that this week and the boys LOVE playing "big Buzz" together.

Although it is hard to believe we are done with this "baby" stage, the diapers will NOT be missed.

We are all so proud of our big boy!!!

Fishing with Uncle Danny and Cousin Kyle

This little man was so excited to go fishing with his Uncle Danny today,

even better was that cousin Kyle was going too!!!

The trip was made even better by Uncle Danny getting him his very own Spiderman fishing pole!

The pole worked great at catching little fish and only had to be fished out of the lake once itself ;-)

Last year, after seeing the little fish cooked up, Eli was convinced Uncle Danny stole his fish,

so this year, Uncle Danny suggested they clean the fish together {at our house!} so Eli could see how small they really are after being cleaned and cut.  Eli loved the idea so I agreed ~ yuck!

But there was NO way I could refuse this sweet little face!

So my kitchen smells fishy and scales everywhere since Eli was in charge of scaling the fish.

He took his job so seriously and was beyond excited to be one of the big guys.

What fun!

Little brother was none too impressed that he was not invited this year . . . perhaps next year.

Uncle Danny is such a great uncle and these kiddos are so lucky to have him!!!