On the Road ...

We are visiting family for the holidays. Which really just means two of the days are filled with a whole lot of driving! We love getting to see so much family and enjoy the time away, but man the drive is long. The trip out had a few highlights we wanted to share though.


Man those Arizona sunsets are awesome! It was hard to get a photo that wasn't blurry while driving so sorry about that. Also the pictures never do the color justice.


I guess it makes it nice to travel when the sun gets behind the mountains because then it is just beautiful and we got to watch it until it was gone.


Our major highlight of the trip was this semi-truck. He didn't have a large load...



but the dump truck on the end sure made us smile! We seriously slowed down after passing him to get a photo of the tonka truck! Too funny. The extra load must add a bit of fun for the semi driver. We were sure laughing!
We will post Christmas photos and snow stuff soon. I hope everyone's holidays are going well!

Daddy Time

We are so happy to have Daddy around again! He is between semesters at school (still waiting on grades) and so we have had so much great Daddy time! It is funny to me that Daddy gets a lot of quality sleeping time with the kids. Sandra has been napping more these days anyways :). They were so cute together!


Then Mhari found them. She loves Sandra's bed (which Sandra is not happy about) and having Daddy in it made it even more fun to wake everyone up!



Grant is a true Daddy's boy. He just loves him. Jeff has been taking the boys to school and then picking up Grant from school (Talmage is part of a carpool) so that's been even more Daddy time! Grant has been to the auto store, tire store, and home depot with Daddy. They have sheds picked out and Ford trucks too. I'm not sure if it's brain washing, but Daddy did tell Grant and Talmage to tell me that we need a shed in our backyard. I'm sure they are ganging up on me! I don't have a problem with it, it just comes down to the money... always money.
Anyway, Grant has decided that everyday when he gets home Daddy and he need to lay down together for a while. They were napping on our bed earlier today too. It is so sweet to see them bond like that!


Then there is our Punkin! She is doing so great with Jeff. She will go to him and play and laugh. She was having a great time being thrown up in the air too. She still prefers Mommy, but she says "Dada" now. I just love it when they play well with Daddy and don't just love me.


Here they are on top of Daddy. I told Jeff that he doesn't look as happy in this photo. Then he reminded me that He had over 130 lbs on him. I guess that will weigh you down. When they are that cute I don't know if the weight really matters :).


We love Daddy and we are so grateful that we have had some extra special Daddy time! We aren't looking forward to another busy semester, but the faster they come the faster they go. Even though life gets busy Jeff tries to spend some special time with us. I love all that Jeff does for our family and what a wonderful father he is to our kids!

Happy Birthday Chica!

This week we celebrated Sandra's 3rd birthday. She is growing up quite quickly! When we were picking out what kind of cake she wanted she said she wanted a cookie cake. I thought that was a good idea, since we may be all caked out by the end of the month with 3 dec birthdays. I went through different kinds of cookies to see which kind she wanted and she said "Sugar!" when I mentioned sugar cookies. I don't know if she just liked the idea of sugar or if she really knew what sugar cookies are. Either way it worked out well.


We made one really big heart for the cake and a little cookie 3 to go on it. When picking frosting color I wasn't surprised that she chose pink. She is very girly!

She enjoyed eating the cookie, and getting messy. Making cookie cakes may be a new tradition in our home :)


She was so ecstatic to open her presents. She gave the best expressions and every time she said "It's Mine!" I guess we need to work on our thank yous.


Sandra loves dresses so I made her a new pajama dress, a leopard print jumper and a play skirt. She loved opening them up. At the end of the present opening she wanted to try on every clothing item she had received.




The last clothing item that she wore for quite some time and then all the next day was a dress up Cinderella dress, shoes, crown, and scepter that her Grandma Whitmer gave her. She had a great time being Cinderella. She is always dressing with blankets around her to be a princess so it's good that she has actual dress up clothes now! Sandra is a great girl and so creative. We just love our little Chica!

Building our first house!

Yes, this is our very first gingerbread house! How fun! The kids thought it was the best thing ever and are calling it the gingerbread man house. They want to make a gingerbread man to go with it :). This is all courtesy of our secret elves, so I shouldn't try to take any creative credit. We are just happy to have the experience together as a family! Such fun!


Daddy was in charge of dispersing the candy and helping the kids to create the house.


They also had to sample some of the materials to be sure that our building supplies were up to code :).


Some how I ended up on the masonry crew. That's okay because man was that cement good!


Our finished product. I think it turned out well.
It is still standing at this point, however the kids have asked to eat it every day (even that night) since then. I think it's not going to last much longer.


Here is our attempt at a snowman from frosting. He's sagging, but hanging in there. Hard to make circles, but fun trying :).
Such a fun memory to share with our kids!!!

1 year old Punkin!

Our little Punkin is officially 1. We celebrated her birthday on Monday for family night. She was not sure what to do with the presents. By the last one I think she figured out to pull out the paper from the bags. She liked her presents, but still unsure of what was going on.



Here she is with her cake. The candle was very fascinating for her. I had to blow it out before she got close enough to actually touch it :).

Once the candle was gone she knew what to do... put the hand into the cake. She wasn't very aggressive, but did enjoy eating the cake. This was better than Sandra for her first birthday who wouldn't touch the cake (she was afraid of the candle), but not as good as Grant who went face first into his cake :).

It is strange to think that it's only been a year that she has been part of our family and yet at the same time wow, has it already been a year!? She is a good baby and becoming more independent all the time. She has started talking and repeating sounds so that is fun too. It's great to see babies learn and grow! Mhari is such a blessing to our family! Happy Birthday Punkin!

To our Secret Elves...

First off to update those who are not our Secret Elves, we have Secret Elves! They are very sweet and have brightened our Christmas season incredibly! They bring a surprise each night and the kids can hardly fall asleep because they know something new will be waiting for them.


One night we got the story of the candy cane with a box of candy canes. Too cute! The story even uses one of our daughters names in it (maybe just a coincidence, but still fun to read)!


A different night the kids each got a coloring book, crayons, or a book (for the baby). They love them! I think it's funny that something so simple can bring such joy. It is so true for my kids though. Sandra loves her princess book and the boys love theirs.... especially all the dinosaur pictures.

Here they are showing off a sample of their dinosaurs. Talmage started naming his today.


This is a small sample of the pile of colored and cut out dinosaurs that live in my home now. Talmage has to feed them and take care of them. They even missed him while he was at church today.

So onto the story... Talmage after the third day or so wanted to do something fun for our secret elves, then we could be secret elves too. Well, without the secret part, but still elves :). I couldn't think of anything to do since we don't know who they are. Then my friend mentioned we could leave something for them on our doorstep. Well, we tried last night, but the elf that dropped the goodie off didn't pick up our surprise for them.... so without further delay....

Dear elves... Thank you for the wonderful surprises! The kids love it as does mommy and daddy! Please let us do something for you. We have prepared a treat and a card for y'all! We will leave them on our doorstep and hope that you take them and enjoy it together as we have enjoyed all the surprises thus far. Thank you again, it has been a wonderful treat for the kids and has made every night so exciting in our home!!!!

If you know the elves, but are not the elves in question, please pass our message along! We would love to share our surprise with them!

Thank you again... Williams elves :)

UPDATE....

Yes, they came again (seriously, this is so sweet of them), but this time the goodies were taken! If they read this (I doubt it) I'm glad it worked, but otherwise still glad that we were able to share something with our givers! Happy giving season to all!

Grateful for Indians

I forgot to post my cute picture of Talmage as an Indian from before Thanksgiving. They did a "thanksgiving feast", which was really a glorified snack, but they all got to bring something to share and practice their manners. Parents weren't invited so no photos of that. They did get to dress up though and wore their outfits all day. Talmage's Indian name was "Little Turtle". He said he picked it because he likes animals.

I'm planning all of these wonderful ideas to post, but nothing has happened yet to do it. I have some elves to talk about as well as upcoming birthday/holiday stuff. We are also getting closer to finals being done :), as well as going out of town. Life is busy, but going good. Grant has ear infections, but feeling better now. I may do another reality post, just so you can get a feel of some of the craziness, but then again, if I get around to it :).

I am grateful for wonderful kids to love and teach. I also am grateful for a dedicated caring husband. It really all comes down to those relationships. I have great family and friends and a warm safe home. There are so many things to be appreciative of everyday!

8 is Great!

Happy 8th anniversary Hunny!


Here are some of the photos we took for the announcements. It doesn't seem that long ago, but time moves so fast these days! I still can't believe we have 4 kiddos!

Isn't he cute?

I had been planning our wedding for about 2 years. It was great to have it finally happen! It's been a great 8 years and I'm looking forward to an eternity more!

LUVU

~ meme

Yay for Fall!

Some more of the great photos from the Botanic Gardens! 

 

Beautiful Chica!

 

 
Love the leaves!

 
Little Punkin

 

 
Talmage

 
 Poor Chica tripped and skinned her elbow :(

 

 

 
Grant being a lion!

 
Love them!

 
Sweet Girl

 
Almost 1!

 

Fall Colors!

Yes, here in Texas we sort of have seasons. This is the most fall colors I think I have ever seen (being from phx and all). With the kids out of school for the week I went with my friend Melissa and her kids to the local Botanical Gardens. It was so beautiful! The kids especially loved the leaves and climbing the rocks (that they weren't supposed to be on). I could go every day just to enjoy the colors. Besides one trip, the kids did really well. They even went down for naps easy! It's too bad Jeff has so much studying to do for finals... we missed you Daddy :).


Playing on the broken column.

Grant throwing leaves. When we were leaving he was sad because he wanted to go back to the leaf pile.

Mhari didn't like the leaves. Maybe it was just that I put her down, not so much being in the leaves.

Running! They had a great time playing together in the grass field.


I love this photo of Sandra. Such a great action shot. She reminds me of an airplane :).

I made a slide show for you to enjoy more photos, I'm sure you were just wanting more! I seriously took over 100, but had to narrow it down a little! This was a chance for me to take some candid photos and maybe end up with some good enough for a yearly update for each kid too. What do you think... any favorites?

Crazy Coupe

So I forgot to post this a month or so ago... better late than never :)

My kids rarely play with the cozy coupe cars the way they are supposed to be played with. They have been used to help climb the fence, get on the circle swing, jump off of, climb the tree with, or various other uses. Here are just a few I captured one day with the kids :).


Laying down inside of it. Sandra has the Rambo thing going on with the head band.


Sleeping on top of, upside down car. That looks comfy :)


Picking up. Yep, they are weights now. Grant sure is strong.

Kids really are funny. I wonder who comes up with toys. My kids weren't in the testing group anyway :)