Christmas Eve Family Service

Ryan the shepherd

Katie the angel

The children's choir

Before we left for church

A Visit from the Tooth Fairy

Last Sunday, while in church, Ryan lost his first tooth! It had been loose for what seemed like an eternity, but was a few months. The bottom one next to it is loose too, but it will be a while before that one comes out. The tooth fairy visited and left $1.00 for his tooth. He is very excited and loves to show off his new hole in his mouth!

Bethlehem Choir Concert

This past Sunday, Ryan and Katie took part in the choir concert at our church. They were wearing their new blue robes (donated by their Grandpa and Rydell Cadillac) and did a fabulous job singing! Here is a link to the concert: http://bethlehemsblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/choir-concert-was-really-special.html. The total time is a little over two minutes and you will be able to see Ryan and Katie about 1:15 into the video. They will be in the front row, third and fourth from the right. The kids will be singing again on Christmas Eve at 5:00 at our Family Christmas Service. All are invited to attend!

Our Day at Disneyland

What a great day we had at Disneyland! There is something about the holiday season at Disneyland. The lights, the decorations and the snow. Yes, it snows at Disneyland a few times each night before the parade begins and also during the fireworks. As we were waiting for the parade to start, they started a light show on the outside of It's a Small World. During the light show, it started to snow. The kids had such a good time trying to catch the snow! The parade was fabulous and it was fun to see the kids excited when their favorite characters came down the parade route. Ryan had on his birthday button, and even got a "Happy Birthday" from some of the characters in the parade! I love Disneyland, always have since I was a little kid when my mom worked for Disney. It's great to be able to share all those great memories with my own kids.

Happy 7th Birthday Ryan!

We spent Ryan's birthday at Disneyland. I had made a reservation for us at the Plaza Inn for their special birthday celebration. We were each given a cake to decorate and then Ryan and all the other birthday kids got to go up so we all could sing happy birthday. Then they were greeted with a visit from Mickey and Minnie. It was a cute celebration lasting for about 40 minutes and Ryan was certainly surprised!

San Francisco Zoo

Last Friday, we got to spend a good part of the day at the San Francisco Zoo. It was a great zoo and had some really nice exhibits. Katie's favorite was the zebras, Ryan's was the tigers and Natalie liked the monkeys. They have a great children's exhibit with a petting zoo and an insect house, along with some really neat owls and birds that they had outside on display. My favorite were the bears, both the polar bears and grizzlies (who were sisters). It was fun to spend the day with our family!

Daddy and Natalie

Katie brushing one of the goats in the petting zoo

Katie with the flamingos

Ryan & Katie pretend they're prairie dogs

The grizzly sisters

Thanksgiving with the Cousins

We spent this Thanksgiving it in the Bay Area with Steve's sisters, Christine, Frankie and Alex, and with Uncle Kevin, Uncle Bar, Max, Ally, Sammy, Barrett and Harrison. It was a short trip for us, but it was a lot of fun! We had all the Nakata family kids under one roof, so we were able to get some great pictures. It was great to be with all of the aunties, uncles and cousins for a few days!

The Girls - Ally, Sammy, Katie & Natalie

The Guys -Max, Barrett, Harrison & Ryan

As Ally stated, "We are a good-looking bunch!"

I happen to agree!

My Favorite Birthday Cake Ever!!

Last Friday, my dad took Ryan and Katie for the day. They took time out of their day to make me a birthday cake. It tasted and looked great! Thanks to Ryan and Katie for their outstanding work!

Salute to Kids Day

On Saturday, I took the kids to Woodley Park for the Salute to Kids day. Everyone in the entire San Fernando Valley must have showed up for this event! It was packed! There were rides, entertainment, and of course, firetrucks and police cars. After about an hour, the kids were done because it was so crowded. Oh well, at least it was free!

Annual Christmas Pictures

A few years ago, my friend Ingrid had beautiful pictures taken of her son and daughter. She told me they were taken at Hooper Portraits in Newbury Park. They recently moved to Thousand Oaks, and are well worth the drive. We have used them for the past few years for our Christmas pictures of the kids, as well as some outstanding black and white photos of Ryan and Katie 2 1/2 years ago. Valerie, the owner, is great with the kids and always manages to make them laugh. What I love most, is that she seems to capture more of their natural smile, and not some phoney "cheese" smile. My plans are to go back next summer to have a family picture taken as well as individuals of the kids. These two pictures were taken while we were waiting for them to set up the studio. Natalie isn't in either one, because she was too busy exploring. You will see one of their photos in our Christmas card in the next few weeks.

Under a Blanket of Smoke

We woke up this morning to a blanket of smoke that was over our house. Since the Sylmar fire started, the winds put the smoke right over us, along with a great deal of ash and dirt. We are not in the line of the fire, which is about 3 miles away into the hills. I just hope that we can get some relief from the winds and heat soon.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Former Bruin, now Laker Jordan Farmar

That's right...it's basketball season. On Friday, UCLA had its second exhibition game against Biola. It wasn't much of a game, but still a lot of fun. Natalie stayed home, as well as Ryan, who decided he wanted to stay and play games with our neighbor Michelle. So Katie went along. She was excited because she wanted to go down on the floor and take pictures with the team. That is her favorite part! Now remember Katie's love from last year was Kevin Love. She still says that she misses Kevin, but from the looks of things, she's moved on. Of course, Ryan's favorite Bruin, now Laker, Jordan Farmar showed up to the game. Afterwards, he stayed and signed autographs and took pictures with the fans. Needless to say, Ryan was a little bummed when we told him the next morning. When Katie took her picture with Jordan, I told him about Ryan. Luckily, he will be at a few more games this season. I'm sure Ryan will not miss another game this season!

Alfred Aboya

Josh Shipp

Drew Gordan

Jrue Holiday

Election Day

I bet you can't tell who we voted for? The kids really got excited on election day, especially after going to the polls with me. Ryan kept asking all day when we would know the results and then sat and watched the returns with me. They were both excited when Barack Obama was announced as our next president!

Halloween

Natalie in her Minnie Mouse dress

Wonder Woman

Optimus Prime

Natalie decided she had enough trick-or-treating and
just wanted to sit on the sidewalk and eat!

Trunk-or-Treat

Mom and grandma with the kids

Last Friday we attended the Fall Festival at our church preschool. We had dinner and the kids got to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. After the movie, we moved to the church parking lot where many people decorated the trunks of their cars and the kids got to trick-or-treat from car to car. Katie was Wonder Woman, Ryan was one of the Transformers, Optimus Prime and Natalie was dressed in her UCLA cheerleader outfit. The kids had a great time, and also got to load up on candy!

Our homemade spider

Park Play

On Monday afternoons, we meet with other APS kids for PE. Currently, Ryan is playing soccer and loving it! While Ryan is in class, I let Natalie and Katie play over on the playground. Natalie keeps me very busy, because she tries to do everything Katie does. She has no fear! I managed to snap a few pictures on my phone of the girls playing.

You would never guess from this picture that she actually liked the swings!