Christmas Decorations

Decorating for Christmas, I remember fond days of my youth, all gathered around the tree happily putting up Christmas ornantments, wrapping the tree in silver and gold tinsil. So what happened at our house.
First there was an angry mom trying to get the house clean so we could decorate. An irrated 8 year old who wanted to go play, two crazy girls singing their own versions of Christmas songs. A one year old who was crying non stop. Oh and dad who gave up on us all. But what seemed like forever we finally finished and the house looks great, but sure was not a good start to the Christmas holidays. I will post pictures later, I'm off to another "fun" family Christmas activity. Decorating Gingerbread houses I hope it goes better.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1129162036

The feast in the Crazy Kitchen

As you can see our Kitchen isn't huge, it's not small either, but it was busy and full of Great food. If you notice Taylor is eating a deviled egg, that was a big hit with the kids. Oh and you know your pies are good when your father-in-law eats a piece after each meal for the next 3 days when he really shouldn't be. He is normally very good about that stuff. That's the best compliment of all.

The pies

Oops, I should of put this first, but that's ok, what do you think of my pies? We had pumpkin, banana cream and apple (my families specialty.) If you notice Michael decided to take a taste test of the pumpkin. I was not too pleased. But like he said, I had to make sure it was ok. Silly boy. But we had a full house, 3 grandparents, and an Aunt and Uncle. But it was fun.

I think Michael enjoyed his pumpkin pie more with the whipping cream.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was great, but it's nice to at this end of it. It was a little stressful. But I have to say, Isn't my turkey pretty? Of course my presentation could of been a little better, it was a last minute picture just before my masterpiece was carved.

Play Time

Now those with Children you can't tell me your kitchen has never looked like this.

Fall

Yesterday when I walked outside I think it actually smelled like fall. It even felt a little like it here in Sunny Calironia. It was an overcast day and cool. My friend has pictures of New England fall on her website, and it made me really miss those seasons. Fall was one of my favorite. The cool crip air, the smell of people burning there yard waste, to me it always smells like smoked ham. I love that smell. Well This is the closest to fall I'll get. They are take of Drew in our backyard in a bunch of leaves, my friend inhanced the color from dull brown orange to a brighter orange, Thanks Harmony.
It's not quit New England but he is a lot cutter.

Ouch!

Ok, so I'm trying to update my blog and Drew gets into the silverware holder in the Dishwasher (which the girls had out emptying). Anyway Drew grabs one of the blades for my slice and dice thing it's like a grater with slicing blades. Needless to say he sliced off a chunk of his fingernail and is bleeding everywhere. I had put three band-aids on it and it still bleed through.

So just so you know this is why my blog is not updated very often. There isn't enough me time with four kids.

Poor Drew.

Sea World

Excersising

So I have been going to the gym and doing pretty good. I went Monday morning, only to be called by the kid care people. Drew doesn't like it at all. So 5 minutes of workout, does that count? yea me and my friend both got called within seconds. But I redeemed myself and went later that night. So for that I think I deserve a gold star. I went again today, and did pretty good.
It's funny but I was actually excited because I always feel good afterwords, which is a weird thing to say when you stink and are sticky with dried sweet (is that too much information).

This is awful, just ignore all the bad spelling, if you know me, that's who I am. A bad speller who forgets to use spell check. Oh and I forget to put in web page addresses, here is the tar pit web page. http://www.tarpits.org/ Man I'm really off today. Not very exciting but a little update.

And the Winner is....

The cute little pumpkin.

Me

This is super ebarrasing, but yea that's me. Mark had the nerve to ask why I didn't dress up. Funny huh.

Halloween

I'm so late here's some halloween pictures, Michael didn't cooperate, He didn't want his picture taken. So I don't have one of him. But Drew was one of the winners for his category. he was too cute. And just if you can't tell he had "leaves" drawn on his head.

The Tar PItts

The tar pits where very intersting. It was fun and very interestring. The kids loved it. Just in case you don't know what it is. Here's the web page so I don't have to try and explain, yea I'm lazy.

Taylor

Here's some more, Mark's Granmda is part of the purple red lady's group or whatever it's called anyway this are just some of the fun clothing the manikin wheres.

Dress Up

Here's Savannah in the wig from Grandma manikin. Isn't she funny, I mean serious. With her pet spider.

Fires

WEll this is a little late, but we had a fun time with the San Diego fires, heres an exceprt from my journal: Sunday October 21, That evening the air was pretty smoky, it smelled like we had a camp fire outside our house. Come Monday morning it was all clear and nice, I don’t even remember smelling smoke, when I took the kids to school. Well at 11 am I got a call from the school saying they where going to close and we needed to pick up the kids because of the bad air quality. When I left to get the kids I couldn’t believe how bad the air was. You could see ash falling. And some people had masks on and where covering there faces with there shirts.

Still I was not worried because the fire was far away. I later went to work out at the gym and came out my car was covered in ash. I had been talking to a friend earlier who was deciding if they would have to evacuate or not. I told her she was welcome to come to our house. Which they ended up doing.

They spent a lot the night watching the news, watching for the fire and how close it was coming to there house. When I woke up at 3 am to feed Drew they told me a new fire had broke out on Mt Miguel which we can see from our street. So we kept watching trying to decide if we should leave, the base of the mountain is about 2 miles from us (which is where the fire stopped). But you got to understand that if the winds pick up the fire can skip a mile. And we are up on a little hill. Anyway after we saw all our neighbors leaving we decided to go, if nothing else we would have better air quality. The ash was really coming down and the smoke was awful. Both Mark and I felt like we were getting chest colds.

So we loaded up our valuables, mainly pictures and scrapbooks and important papers and headed to L.A. for better air. We went to Mark’s Grandma’s house. Later that evening we learned that it was safe to go home. The areas that where mandatory evacuation around us where allowed back. WE decided to stay until Thursday (we left on Tuesday morning) Just so the air could clear up some more.

If nothing else came of this we did get a great visit with Mark’s Grandma the kids had a lot of fun, we went to the park out to eat. And the Le Brea Tar Pits. Which was very interesting. The girls had a lot of fun dressing up in Mark’s grandma’s manikin clothes and wig. Poor Drew had a fever the whole time though and didn’t get much sleep. Mark had to leave the same night we arrived, since at his work they were getting more patients from hospitals that where closing. Overall it was worth it to feel safe and breath slightly better air. Even though there was small amounts of ash falling there too.
All I can say is the devastation is awful. When we where driving home we saw a lot of burnt areas, the air from LA to san Diego was full of smoke, it was like a really bad smog day. And it got worse as you got closer to Camp Pendleton (north of San Diego). So many who have lost there homes. I’m am so thankful we were kept from harms way this time. If you know the area at all you know how dry it is hear. They are saying with one of the fires north of us that the person who started it knew what to do to cause the most damage. It’s so sad.

But not all was lost we had a fantastic Halloween party at our ward house Saturday, Drew one for his age group for the cute costumes. Poor savannah complained how she didn’t when but she was beautiful and she was a beautiful ballerina.

More Jumping pictures

Mmmmm...Cheetos

Orange fingers, and orange mouth can only mean one thing... Cheetos. Someone snuck the bad and was secretly eating them. Little does she know you can't hide this evidence very well.

Deceptivaley Delicous

My new favorite cook book is by Jessica Seinfeld, Jerry's wife. It's all about hiding vegetables in your food. I've used some of her recipes and than done some of my own. Tonight I made sweet and Sour meatballs from a ward cookbook, I added pureed carrot about 3/4 cup and flax seed. The kids didn't even know and they ate it up. They love sweet and sour meatballs. I also added pureed cauliflower to the rice, as long as the sauce was on it, you couldn't tell. I've also made scrambled eggs with pureed cauliflower, very good with a little cheese. I was going to take a picture, because eventually I'd like to make a cookbook to pass on with pictures. Oh and another great one was "Fruit Punch" pureed rasberry's, pureed pineapple, and pureed carrot, with some water and a little sugar, very good. The kids loved it and so did Mark. Not a hint of carrot.

Jumping!!

Did I mention we got a trampoline, for Free! The kids love it. They have a lots of fun out there, so far no injuries.

Shots and Burns

Sounds like something out of western. We have already had a lot of fun this week. Monday was pretty good until I was busy putting Drew to bed and the girls where supposed to be brushing there teeth. But when I came out of Drew's room, Taylor was complaining that her fingers hurt, and said Savannah turned on the curling iron. Taylor said Savannah turned it on and she was just going to pretend. Well I looked at her hands and didn't see anything, and she didn't want to put them under water, so I figured it must not be too bad, she wasn't crying. So I put her to bed and she complains they hurt so I get her something cold to hold. A little bit later she comes back out and says again, "It's not working." So I take a look and than I see the blisters beginning to form. What a terrible parent I am. So I get her a cold wet paper towel to hold. To make a long story short Daddy came home and saved the day with Motrin and lots of loves.Tuesday we had a Doctor appointment for Drew. I brought Taylor along, she needed some shots updated. Thankfully Mark showed up so he took Taylor to get some shots, and I hung around with Drew to wait for the Doctor. Oh boy what a fun Doctor, not! He was weird. He also told me about 4 or 5 different studies. And told me not to worry about Drew still nursing, see he's part of the Breastfeeding coalition and he says they have some mom's still nursing there kids a little at age 5. Yea! Not for me. Mark brought Taylor back and said she did great she didn't even cry. I was surprised, she got treats after. It wasn't until later she told dad, "I cried you silly head." I later learned she bawled, she and Drew got 4 shots. But they all seemed to survive. Oh except poor Taylor's leg was really aching later just before bed, she couldn't even walk. But Tylenol seems to fix all things.

Birthday Celebrations

October is a busy month for us. There are several birthdays in our family this month, two of them are Taylor and Drew. So we have had birthday celebrations for two weekends in a row.
Drew's birthday was Tuesday October 2nd, he turned one. What an exciting year for our little boy, or should I say big boy. After a tough begging to life, Drew has overcome all of those obsticles. Just before his birthday he started to crawl, a real crawl. He has been doing the army crawl for a while now but he has been on "all fours" for the past two weeks now.
Tonight he actually took 2 1/2 steps by himself. He was so proud of himself. He wanted to keep going and practicing. So I guess it won't be too long now.
He is full of emotion. He is happy, most of the time, but don't get him angry. And you know when he is angry, and when he doesn't want something. He gets mad! He'll push my hands away. He'll turn his head away. And he is so funny when he doesn't like food he just spits it out or takes it and drops it on the floor.
Last Sunday we actually celebrated Drew's birthday. He had a cute basketball cake, since he loves balls. He really enjoyed it. I don't know how much made it into his mouth, as I found most of it on his seat. When he was opeing his presents we noticed that he had red spots on his cheeks and around his mouth, we wondered if maybe he was allergic to his cake, who know's. Maybe just over load on the first time with sugar. He got some fun gifts, balls, cars, and clothes. He loved it. He had a great day.

Lets not forget Taylor. She turned four today. She is our little princess with an attitude. She's a sweetheart though. She had a great birthday, we celebrated it on Saturday. She wanted a princess cake so that's what we made. A princess with a purple dress. She is really into Dress ups, so what else should she get for her birthday? Dress ups of course. She got a beautiful blue cinderella dress from Grandma and Grandpa Porter, and 6 pair of princess shoes from Grandma and Grandpa Breese. Mom and Dad gave her a "kid friendly" camera, which she calls cramera. She has probably taken about 100 pictures already dropped it about 25 times, but that's what it's for. She loves it. And it's digital, so we can either download, print or Delete. she also got some cute clothes. She had a lot of fun. Grandma and Grandpa Breese where here, and Great Grandma Dedee. It was great fun.
In the morning she was able to go with Grandpa, Michael and Savannah and got doughnuts. In between General Conference we went to lunch at In and Out burger. I dont' think she ate more than just fries. After we went to a "pumpkin patch" where they are have pumpkins, rides and games. The kids had a lot of fun, and Grandma Dedee treated. The first "ride" they wanted to go on was a really big blown up slide. So the kids waited in line and as soon as he doors open, Michael, Savannah and Taylor took off. Well Michael and Savannah made it to the top, but no Taylor. We told Michael to help his sister, so up he went again, and he passed her. Taylor froze, she wasn't going to move, everyone was trying to climb over her, the worker tried to help her she was probably 3/4's of the way up. So I asked if I could go and help her. She was crying now. But we got to the top and she did not want to go down the slide, so I had to lift her up and hold her as we went down. It was pretty fast. She didnt really enjoy it. Thankfully we there was a smaller slide next store. So she spent about 10 mintues go up and down that slide. The kids also went on a little ride with swings on it, even Drew got to go. Savannah played in a bounce house as Michael and Taylor went on a car ride. We opted out of getting any pumpkins there since they cost a fortune. So later after the birthday party and the second session of conference we went and got pumpkins from Vons while the men where at the Priesthood session. We painted the pumpkins on Sunday it was lots of fun, and the pumpkins turned out great.
Over all it was a good day.