December Catch Up!! (Hurry, don't miss it...)

Ok, quick synopsis of Decemeber.
Christmas tree hunting -great fun!
Broken Digital Camera - not so fun!
Sonogram of the new baby - awesome, everything looks perfect (I think its a girl...nothing to base it on, but mothers intuition?)
Christmas party after Christmas party - great time with family and friends
Brynn's first time iceskating - she cried almost the entire time
Christmas Eve Eve - fun with the Mittelstadts
Christmas Eve - amazing church service and fun with the Andre's
Christmas morning - family time, then more family time
Christmas day and dinner - (we got a new digital camera - YEAH!!!!!) family time with the Nelsons
2 more Extended family dinners - everyone got the privilidge of sharing christmas with us this year...
Today - Cannon hurt his cute little pudgy ring finger, so sad...
Tomorrow - New Years Eve party with friends
New Years Day - Brunch with more friends
Friday - Leave for Hawaii

I will stop there. I am so blessed and excited about this upcoming year. The trip with family to Hawaii, a new baby coming to meet us, Brynn starting preschool, Cannon mastering sleeping in a "real" bed. So much to look forward to. I pray that you all have a full, exciting and blessed New Year as well.

Christmas Blessing

Our family received the most wonderful surprise in the mail a few days ago. During this season, the kids and I love getting the mail, because of all the Christmas cards, pictures, and newsletters. They love opening the mailbox, and finding all the letters, and I love opening the letters and catching up with all of my friends. We got an unusual letter, with a blurred postmark, and no return address that felt especially heavy. I was excited to open it and expected the possibilities of multiple pictures, or a thick letter from friends. Instead, and to my absolute amazement, was an unsigned Christmas card, with two very generous gift cards inside. What an amazing thing to find! I called Rich, and we both talked about who in the world would think of us for such a great gift. We are completely stumped, and utterly grateful for such a fun and thoughtful anonymous gift. I am still smiling about it! Merry Christmas!!!!

Happy Holidays

Ok, so I know that there is controversy about the whole "Happy Holidays" vs "Merry Christmas" thing. I went out to dinner with friends a few nights ago, and they were saying that they have to be careful about what they say to people at the workplace. Oh my....I feel sad about it. It is the most joyous time of year, and not because of the presents and holiday bustle. This cartoon made me laugh in a "oh my" sort of way...

Merry Christmas everyone!!!!

Hee Hee

Thought this one was funny too!

Broken Camera

I am sure glad that Christmas is coming. Our digital camera broke, and I have been dropping hints like crazy to my mom that a new camera would be a great present.
Rich is back from Juarez. He had an amazing time, and can't stop talking about the ministry and opportunities that he had down there. I don't know what is more of a miracle: that we survived the 5 days without him, or that he didn't get an unhappy tummy with all the spice and different foods down there....
The kids are enjoying their time running around the our Christmas decorated house, and I am enjoying all the ornaments that I find scattered around. I am so "lucky" to get to redecorate my tree every night...
No new pics to post, due to broken camera (another huge hint for mom) but here is a funny cartoon.

Oh Christmas Tree

Picking out the perfect tree has never been so fun. Not only did we manage to all agree on a tree only 20 minutes after arrival, but we also didn't have to carry any children as we traversed among the millions of trees.

Brynn chose all the little ones to love,

Cannon gathered sticks (for goodness knows what reason),

Treks bounced around, and Rich and I just had a great time.

Success!

December 1st!!!!

Well for all you planners, and even more for those of you who don't, only 24 more days until Christmas! We got a jump start on the Santa experience for the kids this year. Cannon had his 18 month pictures taken, and while we were waiting to view and agonize over which ones to get, and which ones to discard, we went to get both kids some lap time with Santa. He's different this year, and that is a fact in itself that I am sorry to know. Why should I know which guy usually plays Santa, and if there is a new one or not. I am officially a holiday mom.
Cannon wasn't his usual chipper self for the entire morning, and we all suffered. Brynn was happy to go and be out and about, as usual, but I think that Cannon would have rather stayed at home curled into a ball under his crib. He was that fun to be with.
We couldn't get a smile out of him for his photo session with the photographer, and it just got worse as we dragged out our time at Coddingtown. He was in full blown tears, mouth open, wailing on Santa's lap, and after a short trip on the holiday choo-choo train, it was temper tantrum time. Fun, fun. The "elf" taking the Santa picture tried to get me to buy the one that was taken in a split second between sobs, but I laughed so hard at the crying one, that I had to get it. Enjoy!

Turkey Overload

We survived Thanksgiving! Rich was disappointed that he could only put down one helping of dinner. He had, unfortunately, filled up on my rosemary spiced walnuts prior to the feast. The kids have colds, but managed to charm all the relatives as usual. Even with snot dripping down their faces, people still wanted to be surrounded by them. (I don't get it...)
I brought home some leftovers, and will eat turkey sandwiches (whole wheat bread - slightly toasted, with mayo, turkey, salt and pepper) for a few days. Saturday we head down to Marin County for another Thanksgiving. This one will be filled with lots more eating, and tons of visiting time with relatives.
Just for sentimental sake, here is a short list of the things that I am thankful for:
1. My family
2. My warm home
3. My church
4. My friends and family
5. My pregnancy
6. My dog
7. Yummy food
8. Good jokes
9. My favorite TV shows, and a VCR to record them with (no we have not stepped into the world of digital TV, DVRs, etc)
10. Diet Soda

Brynn's List:
1. Mom
2. Dinner
3. God
4. God loves me
5. Jesus
6. Lord
7. The people who didn't be naughty
8. Leaves that are pretty on the trees
9. Pictures
10. Carpet in our rooms

Cannon's List:
1. Turkey (It really sounded like he said this)
2. Binky (This could have been the first one...)
3. Thank you

Thanksgiving Season

I love this time of year. The holidays are almost here, the weather is turning slightly, and most of the leaves from the trees are either a beautiful color of red, or lying on the sidewalk ready to be kicked and crunched by happy walking feet. I am being a slight overachiever this year, and have started to tackle my Christmas gift list. I am half ashamed and half proud that my shopping is almost done. I love picking out the perfect gift for someone, and I love the anticipation of them receiving it.
On another note, Thanksgiving is next week. Its not my favorite food holiday, contrary to the rest of the world. I would much rather eat steak than turkey. Rich looks forward to this day for months and months. He loves the family time, the day off, and also the food. I love the fact that he is happy. A friend sent these cartoons, and I almost bust a gut (mine is rapidly expanding, by the way) laughing. I thought that I would share. Enjoy!!!

New Words

It's always a joy to hear your child learn to say new things. They have finally figured out how to communicate in the way that most people accept as traditional. In a few short months they go from crying to grunting to giggling to jabbering to syllables, and then finally to real, recognizable words. Every day we are amazed to hear new identifiable words come out of our sons' mouth. It's almost a better form of entertainment for us than most TV shows.
Cannon recently started muttering a word over and over again on Thursday. It had been rainy and foggy, and so we started teaching him those words. He rolled the sounds of the letters around in his mouth, and started to repeat over and over again "fog". He has nailed down the 'f' and the 'o', but the 'g' is a little bit tricky to get just right. So it sort of morphed into a hard, guttural 'ck' sound instead. As I listened to him, I went a little bit pale. Since kids usually mimic what they hear their parents say, this was going to reflect rather badly on Rich and I. Imagine if you will a 18 month old boy toddling around mumbling "fock, fock, fock, fock". Now, imagine him saying it at some friends house, and in the grocery store, and AT CHURCH!!! Unfortunately we don't have to imagine, because it all happened.....

30th Birthday!!!!!

Wow, what a day. Give me a few moments to bask in the glory of having an entire day dedicated to me! Nothing beats a birthday, and this one was great!

Let me brag about my hubby for a few minutes. Rich took it upon himself to entirely plan my 30th birthday. He worked on it for months, and I was amazed at the results.
We started off the morning with pancakes - or as we call them - mancakes. Yummy. I will give you the recipe if you really want. Then the kids were dropped off at Bamas and we took off for the first part of the day. We went to Safari West. It was amazing. It is surreal to take a safari throughout the hills and see tons of varieties of animals that are usually found on the African continent.
We had up close and personal contact with 18 ft tall giraffes, and watched impalas bounce skittishly along the hillsides.
We saw long horned cattle, buffaloes, and gazelles. We watched zebras graze on the grass, and wildebeests prance around. (Ok, so they don't prance so much as scuttle) It was weird to think that we had just driven a short distance and were now surrounded by all these exotic animals enjoying the freedom of hundreds of acres of Sonoma county hills.
After our 3 hour tour, we headed to Calistoga for the most delicious BBQ that I have had in a long time. Then we headed home for our scheduled "nap". My hubby thinks of everything! A pregnant lady always needs her rest!
We had "dinner plans" at 6:30, that turned out to be a well planned surprise party for me!
My very first one! I was very surprised, and immensely enjoyed seeing all my friends and family. Rich had everyone write a letter and send a picture to put into an album for me to cherish forever. It was pretty special, and I cried over a few of the entries.
All in all, it was a day dedicated to making me feel special. To my friends that helped out, thanks. To my family that opened up their home, thanks. To all the people that took the time to write down some letter of affirmation, memory or remembrance, thank you so much. To my hubby, who spent more hours on this day, than he did helping plan our wedding - you scored major points and I LOVE YOU!!!!

Happy Halloween!

We had a busy, yet mellow Halloween eve. We actually only made it to 2 houses, but they were important stops. My parents came over for dinner, some friends stopped by with their kids, and then we took off for aunties house. At aunties we were greeted with tons of candy (the good kind) and hugs for the kids. We then went to Bama and Poppa Bills' house, where we met up with all the cousins. It was a great night, and we were able to see all the family.
Brynn was supposed to be a cat, but adjustments had to be made so that she could be a "princess cat". Cannon was a chicken, and did he turn heads!

The Princess Kitty


Chicken


Some of Brynn's friends stopped by for some treats.

The Family at auntie's house. (My legs looks crazy!)

Pumpkin Tales

So the family sat down last night to carve pumpkins. Rich handled all the heavy machinery - he literally pulled out his drill and hole saw - and Brynn scooped out the insides of her "perfect" pumpkin. Cannon even participated by throwing some of the "guts" around the kitchen a bit. He wasn't too excited with the texture of the pumpkin guts, but they were fun to throw and squish around. While they were busy cleaning out the insides, I was salvaging the seeds for a yummy roasting recipe. The two large pumpkins yielded a good number of big seeds, and Brynn's "perfect" pumpkin was a jackpot of "perfect" little seeds. Funny how the smaller pumpkins seem to have more seeds, of better quality. As I cleaned, drained and soaked the all of the seeds, I was reminded of another Halloween pumpkin seed situation.
Last Halloween, I had the bright idea to take a HUGE pumpkin from the freebie section of Craigslist. Rich grumbled and groaned about having to go pick it up, and load it into our car, and then unload it into our garage. I had successfully roasted seeds from our normal size pumpkins, and was gun-ho about doing some more. The HUGE, free pumpkin was nothing but a win-win situation for me.
We put it in the garage, commented on it's enormous size, and of course, ran out of time that day to do anything with it. A day turned into two, and then a week. I finally had time to go out and begin carving up the pumpkin for what I thought was going to be a mother load of seeds to roast. Boy, was I wrong. Apparently - as our carving last night demonstrated - the larger the pumpkin, the less quality and amount of seeds there seem to be. We opened up that HUGE pumpkin - with the help of a saw-zaw, and hammer - only to find the insides full of mold, and about 6 rotten-looking seeds. What a waste. I was shocked, disappointed and even a little bit mad. I wasn't the only one who was mad. You can only guess Rich's dismay when he found out he had to cut that enormous pumpkin into trashcan-size pieces so that we could dispose of it slowly. (This being another family issue, since we have the smallest trashcan that the garbage company offers in order to save a bit of money.) It took a weeks to dispose of all that pumpkin, and I didn't even get any seeds. Bummer.
The moral of the story: (true for both gifts and pumpkins) the best things come in small packages...

Cannon enjoying the pumpkin carving.

Brynn adding to the pumpkin seed bowl.



The finished products

Last years HUGE pumpkin - sigh-

Camera Ham

Say "cheese"!

It Goes With His Eyes...

I walked out into the garage the other day and this is what I saw.


Apparently the artwork was tasty and pretty....


I have changed 3 blue poops today...

Pumpkin Patch

Rich had Saturday off, and so we headed to Petaluma to a really great pumpkin patch. There was so much to be seen and done at this place. They had a giant field of pumpkins, cut-your-own flower gardens, castle, jumpy things, pepper garden (a little odd, I know), corn stalk maze, hay bale maze, hay bale climbing structure, haunted houses, craft barns, live animals, cow milking demos, tractor rides, BBQ food, tamales (again, random), old engine demos, and even - for the die hard education seeker - a fun barn filled with tons of facts about farming, pumpkins, and cow milking. We spent hours at the pumpkin patch. We even were able to bring the dog. I highly recommend this place. It was a blast. (Everything cost money, so if one was to do all the activities, it would be pricey, but you could get away with not spending anything and just walking around enjoying it all.)
Of course, for all of our time there, I only got a couple of great pictures of the kids, and no family shots at all. Drat. Maybe next year???
Cannon was loving being outside - he is our little outdoors nature boy, and Brynn was very excited to pick out the "perfect" pumpkin. Here are the best shots of the day.

He tried to push it around for awhile just to show us how strong he was.

Brynn with the "perfect" pumpkin, watching the cow milking demo.

Long Time No Blog

I have a million excuses, but none of them really matter. My camera batteries were dead, pregnancy, my house is always dirty, etc. Truth of the matter is, I just haven't made the time to do any blogging lately. But - I am back!
I had a great weekend away with an old friend from high school/college. She lives down in Hermosa Beach, and offered to let me come and visit for a couple of days for some well needed rest and "me" time. Thank you Katie!
My morning/all day sickness has started to wain, but I am still about 3 weeks from feeling good again. I actually feel really old. My hips ache, my back aches, I am tired.....who thought this would be a good idea? Oh yeah, probably my husband.
The kids are doing great. Cannon seems to learn a new word every day, and although we don't understand them all, he is doing better communicating what he wants. He knows a few baby signs, and that certainly helps fill in a few gaps. His proudest smiles come after he says thank you (sounds more like "daint two") and we respond with a "good boy"! Brynn is wanting to be involved with everything that I do. She wants to help cook, she wants to help clean, she wants to push the shopping cart at the grocery store. I often find her trying to keep Cannon on the straight and narrow while they play, and although I am proud of her for trying to help out, I have to remind her gently that she is not mommy. I don't want her to grow up too fast! She is excited to share a room with Cannon, and I am waiting to see what happens.
My birthday is coming up, and Rich has something exciting planned, but I am not sure what at this point. I do love surprises, and he is doing his best to keep it all from me. A few things have slipped, but I can't wait to see what is going on. More to come on that one...
I will do some more catching up tomorrow.

First Photo

8 weeks along

Here is the first official photo of the baby. I had a doctor appt. today, and we found out the due date is May 6th (the day after Cannon's 2nd birthday) instead of May 4th. I will most likely be late, so hopefully there will be some space between the birth dates. I was so happy to see a little heartbeat, and know that I am truly pregnant. This one has been different, and I was worried about it. We are truly blessed.

Good Times

Sorry, haven't had a chance to write much lately. I am a little overwhelmed with stuff (understandably) and the blog just doesn't seem to get done. Here is what is going on. We had an awesome 3 day weekend a bit ago. Got a lot done around the house, and I really enjoyed having Rich home to do all the cooking and dishes...
We finished up working on our hot tub patio (nice timing I know) and it looks pretty great. The hot tub is still out of order, but whose complaining.

We spent some time outside gardening, planting and enjoying the last bits of summer as a family. I probably should have put sunscreen on the white kids, but oh well.


Rich has really enjoyed Cannon, and all the "boy" things that they can do together. I am sure this will only get funnier as time goes on...

A Tale of Two Cleesas

Brynn has two puppies that are near and dear to her heart. She takes these puppies everywhere. She sleeps with them at night. She feeds them at the dinner table. We cannot go on without these two puppies.
When Brynn was about 18 months she named one of the puppies Dwayne. We have no idea where she got that name, but we enjoyed her creativity. About a year ago, the name was changed to Cleesa. (Like Lisa, with a "C" in front) Instead of naming them Dwayne and Cleesa, they were both Cleesa. The two Cleesas.
Well, like every other car trip, one Cleesa came with us. We were zipping down a four lane road with the windows down (can you see where I am going with this???) and I hear a wail from the backseat. "Cleesa!!!!" I looked out my rear view mirror to see a small tan stuffed puppy bouncing down the road behind us. Now, this is not the first time that we have lost things out the window. The well-known rule is that we do not go back for anything. If someone holds something out the window, and it gets dropped, we say 'Goodbye' and drive on. I pulled over into a parking lot, and turned around to talk to Brynn. She had huge tears welled up in her eyes, and with a wavering voice said, " I guess that I have another puppy at home that can be my favorite Cleesa...". It broke my heart. She was trying to be so brave. I told her to pray to God that He would help Mommy figure out a way to go get Cleesa from the middle of a road. She prayed, "Dear God, please help Mommy find Cleesa, and don't let Cleesa be scared." So we turned around and searched the road for the little favorite puppy. We found her, and then watched her get run over by a semi, and a school bus, and numerous cars. Pretty sad sight.
Needless to say, I parked the car, hiked up the road, waited to dodge between lanes of busy traffic, and rescued Cleesa. Brynn held Cleesa close and sniffled the whole way home, whispering "Its OK, Cleesa, you are safe now. You are not lost anymore."
I think that this time, the punishment would have far outweighed the crime. Sometimes you just have to let the rules go....

Left Alone

This is what happens when you leave daddy and Brynn alone with a camera....

Hot Tubbin'

The saga of the hot tub continues. We got a "great deal" on a hot tub last January, and were totally thrilled with the idea that we could sit in our backyard, enjoying time together in the warmth of a humming hot tub. Rich and a few friends spent 6 hours moving it from a house less than a mile away to our yard, and there the story begins. The hot tub sat, and sat, and sat through the early spring months, and then most of the summer. Every once in awhile we would get inspired and spend a few hours working on it, moving it, putting up siding around it, etc. I even made a list of all the stuff that had to be done in order for us to enjoy it. (I don't think Rich responds that well to my lists...)

Fast forward a few months. It is now late September. We enlisted the help of Marlin, whose expertise in wiring was thoroughly appreciated. They spent two full evenings, while Sara and I watched, cheering them on, trying to wire the tub, and put all the parts in the right spot. When we heard jets and the blower fire up we were ecstatic. Turns out there were some more issues, but we were definitely closer to getting in and enjoying some hot tub time.


Well, Saturday night, it was all working. We got in, and enjoyed the warmth and coziness of the tub. The kids splashed around, jumped from side to side and generally enjoyed themselves.

It was all fine and dandy until the jets kept me up all night long. Each time the tub would go through a filter cycle (every thirty minutes) the jets would blast on, and it sounded like a car motor running right outside of our bedroom window. I finally woke Rich up and asked him to turn it off before I ripped all my hair out. (Who knew that I could be like that in the middle of the night...)

Trying to solve the jet problem, Rich followed the advice of our neighbor, rewired some stuff, and turned it back on. No jets. At all. Not a good sign. He rewired, rewired, rewired, and rewired again. No jets. He couldn't even get it back to what it was doing before. Bummer. Soooooo, as of this point, we are again hot tub-less and so very sad....
Whatever.

Another One???

This should be fun.

Future Sleeping arrangements for our home....
(the title of this sleeping unit picture is actually "3 kids on one wall...")

What the back of our car will look like!