8 years

Yesterday was Bobby and my 8 year wedding anniversary. I can't believe it's been 8 years!! We actually started dating April of 96 our senior year of high school. I was thinking that time really does fly by, but when I think of all we've done - it seems like it's been 20 years not 12. Here we are - 8 years later - finished our Master's degrees (which looking back probably wasn't even worth the time or effort; neither of us are using them, and we're still paying off the student loans we had to take out to get them:) We're on our third house, 10th car, gone through 2 motorcycles, 3 pets and three kids. Alot has happened and boy have we grown along the way. Praise God for his faithfulness along the way. I just have to say, thank you hunny for loving God, loving me and loving our babies - I know I am a blessed woman:)

Baby Stellan

I'd like to request prayer for baby Stellan. He's an 8 week old baby who is currently in the hospital fighting RSV. Having had Briley in the hospital at 7 weeks with RSV I know how scary and life threateing this can be. He's having a very difficult time, and they are talking about possibly having to intubate him. You can follow his family at www.mycharmingkids.net
Please pray for his quick healing, and for comfort for his parents.

Spoon?!?

So this morning I had the bright idea that maybe Briley was ready to feed herself yogurt. You can see what happened.

My first lunch with out Baby #1:(

Brock goes to preschool 3 mornings a week. We pick him up at noon, and then head home for lunch. Last week he asked us why he doesn't get to stay at school and eat lunch like alot of the other kids get to. He said he wanted to. My first thought - no way it's not going to be long before he's off to school for most of the day, and I'll only have weekends to enjoy all three meals with him. I love making little meals, and eating with my funny little ones. Daddy saw the panic and sadness in my face, so he came up with a compromise, that both Brock and I could live with - Once a week Brock could stay and eat lunch with his classmates that stay. I know it sounds so silly, that I'd be sad, but he's just growing up way too fast - next year is kindergarten!!! Well, yesterday was his first day staying for lunch. I packed him a lunch in his new lunch box that Santa brought, and off he went. And YES I did miss him at noon when I only made 2 little lunches not 3:( - He did have fun eating at school though - Somehow I think he and Daddy might push for more than one day a week.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

My cursing 2 year old

Dane, my 2 year old can't pronounce the "s" sound - it comes out as the "F" sound. This has become a bit of a problem lately. I took the kids to Michael's the other day because I needed to get a few supplies to finish some bow orders - I bribed them with suckers at the end if they were good. It was crazy busy, and the lines were all at least 5 people deep. As soon as we got in line, Dane's eyes wondered up to the counter where he saw suckers. He remembered my promise, and knew he's been good -he decided it was time for his treat and tuned to me yelling "Mommy!!*ucker!! The look on the surrounding peoples faces was priceless. He said it with such passion and volume, that everyone in all 4 lines heard him. As he passionately repeated himself - getting louder and louder, I tried hard not to laugh. In front of me were two older women giving me the most disgusted look. I'm sure they were thinking, what kind of mother is this, letting her 2 year old use such fowl language - no wonder our youth are such a mess!! Finally I was able to pull myself together and I had to explain to everyone in the line, that me son was not cursing, but rather that he can't pronounce "S" - it comes out as "F". He is not vulgar - rather he just wants a treat. It did take some a few minutes to figure all that out, but then they all joined in in my laughing, and the women in front of us quickly changes their expressions.
The next day, my mom and I took the kids to see Santa, and we were talking in the car about what the boys were going to ask Santa for. Brock, of course - transformers and Dane - first said "*ucker" but then changed his mind to M&M's (he's my happy eater:) Brock turned to him and said, "No Dane, you said sucker, you need to tell Santa that you want a sucker." Dane - turned to Brock, and with great passion yelled, "No Fucker, M&M's" He continues making this declaration to his brother until both my mom and I were crying from trying to hold in the laughter. Thank God my boys don't know that it's a curse word, and they really are being innocent. Brock thought we were laughing because Dane only wants candy, no toys. I realized at this point I had to work hard with Dane to NOT say what he didn't want (A *ucker), but only what he did want; M&M's when he talked to Santa. We practiced enough, and Dane stuck to the game plan - we avoided offending Santa, so we think he still plans on giving us a visit Christmas Eve:)


Poor Briley had fallen asleep and got woken up to see Santa - she was not happy:(

Juicy

So my sister-in-law Lina used to work in the children's department at Nordstrom - I don't know how she did it - I would have spent my entire paycheck and then some on clothes for the kids. Being surrounded by all those cute clothes for hour after hour - I would have caved. Anyways, when Briley was born, she brought this cute Juicy sweatsuit to the hospital. I'm so excited - it finally fits:) Thanks again Lina - we LOVE it.

The Force Is Strong With This One

Looks like Dane and Brock aren't our olny Jedi's:)

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I'm finally BACK:)

Our computer has been broken for about a week now. I had no idea how much I used the internet until now. It's been horrible - I feel so unconnected to the outside world - maybe I need to get out more:) Let me try to catch up - alot has happend in the past week.
First, the night in the tent... Dane was ready for his own bed by 9. He's my sleeper and he was ready for bed. Brock however is our night owl if we let him, and he was driving his sleepy brother crazy with all his talking. Brock staying in the tent alone until 10:30 when he decided to crawl into his own bed. It's now a week later, and the tent is still up in the landing. The boys love playing in it so much that I havn't taken it down yet.

Second, we had a COOKIE PARTY last week with some friends and their little ones. We usually exchange Christmas gifts with the kids, but we decided this year, with things being so tight that we'd have a cookie/sweet party instead. The kids had a great time... lots and lots of sugar:) These pics are of Heather and her two (Avah and Brenan), Desi, Brock, Dane, Briley and Denise with her little one, Sadie.





Thirdly, we went camping last weekend. We took our motorhome to Anaheim and camped next to Disneyland, and then Pop and Weezie (Bobby's parents) joined us for a fun, cold day at Disneyland. The last time we went Dane was just a baby. The kids LOVED it - I have to admit, I think all 4 adults did too.








I also made a smilebox of the day

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

While we were in Disneyland, my boys saw Jedi swords.... oh they just HAD to have them. We'd promised them that they could each choose a small toy to get to remember our fun day - of course they had to choose a weapon:) This is a picture of Dane in the motorhome that night with his sword. The next day at home, I was unloading the dishwasher when I heard a funny sound. I guess it had been going on for a while but I just hadn't noticed due to the clanking of unloading the dishes. My little Jedi, I dicovered, had decided to take his new sword into battle with the Christmas tree. It's amazing how much damage a plastic sword can do on glass ornaments. I think the final count was 14 shattered balls. I'm sure you can only imaging the anount of glass. So, I just have to say - Christmas morning is going to be a bit dangerouse at our house - I really tried, but I know I didn't get all the broken pieces out of the gifts. I'll have bandages and tweezers ready and waiting.

The Tent

So I took little Miss Briely and we headed out to do some stocking shopping while the boys stayed home with Daddy and took a nap. When we returned, we found the tent (that we'd set aside to sell at the garage sale since our family out grew it) up in the family room. Before I left, we'd built a fort out of sofa pillows, but apparently that kept falling down, so Daddy had a better idea. The kids LOVED it-so much, that they begged us to let them sleep in it tonight. I wasn't too excited about the boys being alone downstairs all night - I can ONLY IMAGINE what they'd get into, and our house is way too big, we'd never hear a thing.



So we decide to compromise. We have a space on our landing that was suppose to be our library with book shelves and desks, but that project hasn't happened, so we have the perfect tent space:) -in the hall between the boys rooms and ours, with a baby gate blocking the way downstairs for Mr. 2 go on 16 year old - Dane. I filled the tent with blankets, pillows, flashlights and books so now we just have to see how it goes. I'll update tomorrow - I have a feeling around 3am we'll have a little blue eyed visitor wanting to climb in our bed:)

I've Been Tagged

Okay, so this is the third time I've been tagged... but only the first time I've responded - I think it's time:)

I've been tagged again.....
Rules: List 7 Random things or Facts about yourself.

1. I spent two summers living in Kenya Africa in the bush

2. So yes, if you think through that, no bathrooms, no running water, I didn't shower for weeks, and weeks and weeks... I tried bathing in the river - found out there were not only hippos right down stream, but giant water/land snakes that are big enough to eat cows. Then my second attempt, in a beautiful waterfall resulted in four leaches on me. So I had to stick to a bucket of muddy water all summer.

3. I ran the LA Marathon with out one walking step in just over 4 hours:)

4. I absolutely LOVE snowboarding, and spent many many weekends in Big Bear riding in college because I always had a season pass at Bear Mountain.

5. I also LOVE rock climbing and can't wait until my kiddos are old enough to learn how.

6. I speak a little Swahili - I used to be much better

7. I had 9 family members (including Corinne who's kind of family) in with me when Briley was born. I got to see Heather's first, Avah be born. I think it is one of the most amazing things in life, and I wanted to share it with the women in my family and my hubby. Thank you Dr. Channell for going against hospital policy and letting me have a cheering section:)

Smilie Briley

I just had to post a pic of my littlest one. She's been so sick for the past few weeks, and she's FINALLY starting to feel better - after 2 rounds of antibiotics.

Napping?!

So, Brock is now 4 and doesn't nap every day to my dismay. I do insist on days that he doesn't nap that he spend the time his brother is sleeping relaxing (actually calming down) by reading a book or something. I'd say he takes a real nap about 3-4 days a week (usually days he goes to preschool). Today, Tue. is not a preschool day, but I thought since he's had a pretty wild morning running around the house like a mad man, that he might actually take a nap. I needed to work on some more bows for my boutiques this week. I put the boys down, it stayed quite:) I assumed Brock had fallen asleep. After I made a few bows (new kinds - I had to add pictures - I think they're pretty cool:) I went to check on Brock - this is what I found. I put him down in jeans and a t-shirt and when I went to check on my little sleeping man... Now you can see why there are 6 superhero costumes wrapped under the Christmas tree - they all love to dress up:) You gotta love the coon hat???!!!! Power ranger, spiderman web shooter, pirates of the caribian mitten, flip flops and a coon hat??!!

CLEANIN OUT THE GARAGE

I don't even think I can put words to describe the mess our garage was in. When Bobby closed his office, tons of stuff came here - in the garage, right on top of our mess. Needless to say... we had a big job this weekend, and the boys... well they tried to help:)

BLACK FRIDAY

I can't believe it, but we did it, we joined the crazy people at 3am doing Christmas shopping. I swore I'd never do it. I never really saw the point. You can always find great deals at places like TJMax and Marshals at normal shopping hours, there's no need to wake up as some ungodly hour a shop. However, at thanksgiving yesterday, some family members were talking about the amazing deals from 4am to 6am and then from 6-1. This year we aren't really doing gifts. We decided since everyone is so tight this year, let's only do gifts for the little kids, and just enjoy each other and celebrating Jesus's birthday. But, since I have three little ones and a nephew I still needed to do a little shopping. My boys are REALLY into dressing up and transformers. So the day after Halloween i bought a ton of superhero, transformer and other costumes, and this morning at Kohl's, my husband covered the needed transformers. the plan was when the alarm went off at 3:30 I'd get up, head to Kohl's get the things we needed (which included a Christmas tree - they were 70% off) and then head home. However, Briley had other plans. She woke up at 1 am and wouldn't go back to sleep. I tried everything - the mess up in her nap schedule from Thanksgiving really messed her up. So at 3:00 when it was time to get up, Bobby had to go:) Briley freaked when I left the room. She only wanted Mommy. So, my wonderful husband headed to Kohl's at 3:15 and was greeted with over 200 other crazy people waiting in line - SOME EVEN WITH TENTS!!!! THEY'D CAMPED OUT!!! By 4 when it opened there were over 400 people in line. What the heck!!! i had no idea there were so many crazy people. When the kids and i got up at 7 Bobby had just got home, and had just finished setting up our new Christmas Tree. What a rock star Daddy he is:) We also got another fun surprise. While he was bringing in our Christmas decorations from the garage, he brought in a box with what the boys call "Our new pet, Optimus" Optimus, the mouse was let go after we decorated the tree. He was quite cute though:)