Where's Joel??

Every Sunday morning it is the same routine. We all try to sleep in. Eat breakfast at 10. Then shower everyone and then eat lunch at 11:30 so that I have time to shower and get ready for church.

Well this morning I thought...Why am I making 2 meals an hour apart? Why not just have breakfast a little later and lunch a little earlier. AKA brunch!!

AH, the stress that was lifted off my shoulders. So as we sit down to eat at 11:15ish I look around and count heads only to find that 'thing 4' is missing. No one has seen him all morning.

We call out, but no answer. We look in his room, no Joel. Weird!!! So I go in and check his room and there he is sound asleep at 11:15 in the morning!! Now there's a kid after my own heart!

1st Missing Tooth

Jared finally lost his first tooth. He has been asking when his turn would be to loose a tooth. Many of the kids in his class have already lost teeth and he wants the tooth fairy to came-BAD!


This morning he told me his tooth was loose. Well if this was Ryan or Josh it would have been a week or more before they got up the courage to pull it out. But Jared remember, wants the tooth fairy to come, so uncle Jeff said he would pull it out for him. A few minutes later he comes running in my room to tell me...'it didn't even hurt'.

He sounds so cute talking through the hole in his mouth. At church he opened his mouth to everyone to see if they would notice that he was missing something. Darling!!!

Snow and Santa

Last night we were anxiously awaiting the highly publicized snow when finally around 7:30pm it came!!! Ryan had just gotten out of the shower and was in PJ's. Josh was in shorts. But as soon as it was spotted the kids ran out front to be in it. Well as soon as they stepped outside Santa arrived!!! There was so much screaming that the neighbors ran out to see what was going on. It ended up being a block party with EVERYONE on the street out. Joel wanted nothing to do with it. 'His car is too big'. So we stayed by the house and watched from a distance.


Ryan and her friend Sade.
The kids with our darling neighbor and her baby.


Santa comes every year into our development, but because we live on a dead end street he never stops at our house. It was so fun to be out in the snow and be with wonderful neighbors.

John dressed the kids in there snow stuff and we finally called them in at 12. Yes he let them stay out until MIDNIGHT!!! (he's the fun one. I wanted them in at 10, but dad won)

Flag Football

Coach Allen, Jimmy, Coach Dad and Josh

John and our wonderful neighbor Allen coached Josh and Jimmy's flag football team this year. This was our last game so a dad brought those things to go under their eyes to help with the glare from the lights. :) The boys loved it!!



Josh-running like the wind :)

Josh loved getting the ball and he claimed he was the fastest so I took this shot with a long shutter speed so it looks like he was in fact, like the wind.
(just a little bit of braggy, brag from his mom...he is super fast and hard to catch once he got the ball.)




Coach Dad & Josh

I'm not sure who liked the season more...John or Josh? It was wonderful to have John out there helping the boys and spending time with Josh.

We hope that John will be able to do it again next year for both Josh and Jared.

Halloween-Finally

I thought I better hurry and just at least post the kids at Halloween. Ryan-"dead cheerleader"
Josh-"hockey player" Jared- "Darth Maul" Joel- "A bone guy" (his words,:)) and our neighbor Jimmy-"bobba fett)

John and I went to an 80's party the week before. John was Richard Simmons. (short shorts, a big yellow fro and tank top) and I was a punk all decked in fluorescent pink and jelly bracelets. The pictures of us didn't turn out but my friend posted us on her blog at erikanickel.blogspot.com.

Man I'm WAY behind~ Thanks Becca for kicking me in the butt today to get this thing updated :)

A Christmas Carol....in November??!

Ryan and I had a chance to be in a local performance of...'A Christmas Carol'.
She wanted to be in it and I got roped into it. (long story short-I went to her first practice and sat by her for moral support and ended up in the show). It was so fun!!!

We spent a few months getting ready. And did 7 shows. We meet new and wonderful people. We got to spend every Saturday together for 3 months. We missed a ton of sleep. (practice usually ended at 10pm. and we did this 4 nights a week for 3 weeks-good times!!) Ryan never missed a school assignment and never missed a beat with piano. She was amazing!

Would I do it again?...ABSOLUTELY!


Before the madness begins



Ryan chilling out in the 'Green Room' during the show


Ryan and I ready to roll

Soccer

So this soccer season I have missed my fair share of Josh's soccer games. As in almost all of them!!! I hate it! I did finally make it to one.

He is such a maniac out there. Although he didn't have his best game, (he only scored once and blocked 3 goals.) it was great to hear him say that it was fun for him to have me there.

He's so yummy!~

NO FEAR!!

Celine

My wonderful husband forgot our anniversary. So I thought shoot for the sky for your birthday...RIGHT! So I dropped not so subtle hints that I would love to see Celine Dion and Oh look she will be at the Tacoma Dome 2 days after my birthday. :)

I wasn't sure we were going to be able to pull it off. Saturdays at our house are crazy!!! Josh starts soccer at 8:30 almost every week. Ryan and I are in a play so practice starts at 9am. John takes the boys with him to soccer, back home to clean the church, (it was our week). Then it was off to take football pictures. Right after that Josh had his first football game of the session. I ran home and picked up Joel for a birthday party. (he only got to stay for 45 minutes cuz we had to get home by 3:15). Then we all meet at home to pack the kids up to go to Grandma and Papa's house over night. Our dinner reservations were in the Harbor at 6pm. The concert started at 8.

We made it to mom and dad's by 4:30 and then on the way back to the Harbor I thought....'this is crazy! We have been running around with our heads chopped off since 8:30.' John suggested that we just park at the Dome and catch light rail into downtown and find food there.

It was perfect! After about 2 stops, I spotted Indochine so we jumped off and had a YUMMY dinner at a nice slow pace. :)

The concert was AMAZING. Her voice is incredible and she had great energy. We were on the second row so I snapped a few pictures with my contraband camera. The pictures stink but at least I got some. After, she walked down by us to leave so I snapped that close up and then shoved the camera back in my bag.

What a great night. And to top it off we had no kids at home, no mother-in-law home, JUST US!

So is John redeemed?....YEAP!

My Babies 4!!!

My Joelie turned 4 last week and I wanted to get this posted long before now, but we can only do so much, right?

I asked Joel what he wanted for his birthday and he said, 'I want a Darth Maul lightsaber and Gabe to come over.' So that's what we did.

We went to lunch together at Burger King of all places, then it was off to the dollar store for 'weapons' to play with. (they each picked out a gun. not the same one surprisingly)

Then it was home to dress up and get the bad guys. I had weblos so he got to go over to Gabes for a bit and then it was home for pizza and presents.

Fun day for my yummy boy!

My 4 year old going to school

Joel and Gabe playing power rangers.

This picture was taken about 4 or 5 months ago.

I forgot to get one of them playing on his birthday. :(

Off to school, and yes he does his own hair! Love it!!

California

MY TEMPLE!!!!

This past weekend my mother-in-law and I had the opportunity to go down to California and revisit some of our old stomping grounds. I grew up in the East Bay Area and she grew up just across the bay on the hill over looking the city.

Our purpose for going down was not just for leisure, we found out that her sister-in-law, John's aunt, had passed away so we went down to see family and help in whatever way we could.

We ended up having a day to ourselves to see the sites. We went to the Oakland California Temple were John and I where married. There was no one on the grounds to take a picture of us together so we each took one of each other. The fountains had just been turned off for the evening which I was really bummed about but it was still so beautiful.

At the visitor center they have there we saw that they were having a showing of some sculptures of Christ. We decided to go see. They truly where the most amazing things I had ever seen. There was probably 10-15 individual depictions of Christs teachings. Him walking on water, raising Lazarus from the tomb, Marry and Martha with Him, Teaching the Pharisees, Cleansing the leper. And the list goes on. They were so beautiful and brought on so many emotions and gratitude for our Savior. There were some in the room who were about to go through the temple and I thought 'what a great way to begin and evening, being reminded of Him who made us.' I have to admit I was slightly jealous of them.

The trip was short cuz I was itching to get back to my kids and hubby but I had a great time getting to know my mother-in-law better and spending time reminiscing with her about life and family.

Trip of a Lifetime

Two weeks ago my mother-in-law asked me if she could take Ryan and Josh to go see Uncle Jeppie-Pie at the Naval Academy. At first I was really apprehensive, I don't fly well and so it's hard for me to think of my kids going on a plane. John on the other hand was all for it. This was on a Sunday night that we decided to let them go. I cleared it with their teachers and we told them Tuesday night to pack their bags cuz they were going to Washington DC and Annapolis to spend 6 days with Grandma and Uncle Jeff the next day!!!

They had the time of their lives!!! Grandma spoiled them and took them everywhere.

Stopped in at the White House

Outside the Naval Academy with Grandma


Josh with control of the camera-(not bad)

They spent a day in class with Jeff and toured the grounds of the Academy.

And saw the Capitol Building, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial, The Library of Congress, The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, toured a destroyer and as Josh put it, 'saw real guns that shoot people'.

I'm sure that I missed lots of stuff, but it was hard to decipher their pictures. Most ended up being pictures of their hands or deer on the side of the road. I've dicovered that you can never have too many of those. :)~.

Their favorite part of the trip?...watching Jeppie-Pie play hockey and ice skating on the hockey rink. (I know we could have taken them to downtown Tacoma for that but it's more fun to fly across the country to do it-CRAZY!)

Finally

I've done it, I've done it. Guess what I've done? I've started a blogspot but I haven't told anyone.


Ok, so I've told my family but I couldn't come up with another rhymn. (You will soon see that 'creative' is something I don't do all that well.)



I thought it was high time I joined the rest of the world and blog. I've always just thought of these things as a journal which I keep the old fashion way,...on paper, but it has been fun to keep up with friends and family with these things so...here I am.



Happy blogging everyone~