Happy Halloween

Flamenco dancer and dragon - Jodi's friend Landon came to trick-or-treat with us
The tiger got a Crunch bar and no plastic wrapper was stopping him!

"the flying monster" as Cora dubbed it - it was a ghost that moved up and down

The "cheese" pictures before the adventure began.

This is the way to go - a free ride and free candy!

The one day of the year when its okay for my children to take candy from strangers. Sadly these "strangers" are people in our neighborhood, people just don't get out and mingle with their neighbors like they ought to - myself included.

The kids had fun going door to door though and they have plenty of candy to last many a week if we do a piece a day. (yeah right!) Mommy and Daddy sift through the candy and make sure its okay for the kiddies to eat so it might not last as long as we think.

All Ramdomness...

Here is just some random things that are happening right now - a list will save me multiple posts which I just don't do!
1. Canning and dehydrating food is my life at present. Pears today, applesauce earlier this week and dried apples. Yummy! I would like to finish however so I can start finishing my curtains, all the windows are still naked!
2. Marcus officially came down the stairs all by himself because I found him where I did not leave him!
3. Fall is here and our backyard is beautiful! There is so much orange and red and golden yellow. What a wonderful time of year.
4. Cross Country has Regionals on Saturday - go boys, run fast!
5. Our cat has discovered she's a mouser - wahoo - except for the presents on the doorstep.
6. Jodi gets to be part of her first Primary Program at church on Sunday but odds are she'll just suck her middle fingers and shyly smile at the congregation instead of saying her part and singing.
7. Cora loves singing her ABC's
8. Jodi has a group of "friends" and their names are Allie, Callie, Ballie, Fallie and Sallie
9. We'll ask Cora to bless the food or say family prayers and she won't until Jodi starts and then we've got double coverage.
10. Any day now we'll have 3 children who are upright bipeds. Oh, boy!

Flamenco Princess turns 4!

We bought this in Spain because its darling and because it suits our singing dancing princess. It is the age of the princess fetish and Flamenco frills and fringe can be soo princess.
This was me being ambitious with only a few hours to work with.

I pulled it off and Jodi loved her birthday cake which is what really matters!Hooray for Fancy Nancy - someone Jodi can relate to!
We love you Jodi and we're so glad you can bring the fancy into our home

- it wouldn't be home without you!

(p.s. click on the title of this post for the rest of her bday pictures)

Singin' Time for the Pink Princess

The Europe Trip

Okay so here is a brief synopsis of our trip to Europe in July. Eric and his fellow Senor headed up a High School Spanish club trip for this summer and there were enough students who signed up to go that Eric and I were FREE chaperones! Wahoo! We got to spend 2 weeks overseas. (I feel snobby saying it that way!) We started in Spain with a side trip to Morocco and then went up to Paris and then to London. It was a BLAST and we are so fortunate to have my parents in town so they could keep the kids for us. I will keep adding more pictures as I get them organized and arranged in my albums. I also think I'll add a few online Picasa albums you can peruse so its more bang for your buck - its free so click away. Thanks for being patient.

The Great Outdoors

Cora has amazed me yet again and you are all going to hear about it. She is proving stubborn with potty training because she still has "accidents" more than I think is necessary, however she thinks she's found a solution. Enter "the great outdoors" and the rustic technique - if you gotta go then pull down your pants, take them off and proceed to go potty in the grass! Don't worry about where you are, neighbors landscaping, by the mailbox, take your pick if there's grass you're good! Sheesh girl!
In her defense when we went to go pick the grapes that we juiced yesterday (28 quarts and 12 hours worth!) there was no where handy to go potty and so we "watered" the grass so to speak. She just took that as the norm rather than the exception. At least she's learning from Mommy.

p.s. Eric says my title of the previous post was uncalled for and so if I offended any of you I do apologize, I was teasing -- but if you deserved it.....we love you anyway!

This is for you whiners!

Okay so I've had several people tell me I need to get on the ball and post the pictures I've been promising and I'm gonna give it a try today. I've got grapes in the steam juicer and while I'm waiting for the grape juice I'll come and go and get a post done. Give me a break though guys - Marcus alone is keeping me busy with his improving mobility skills (no walking yet thank goodness!) Anyhoo here is some Europe pix for you - I'll pick a few of my favorites!

This is the first leg of the trip. Malaga Spain and the Mediterranean and a ferry across the Strait of Gibraltar to Morocco.

This last picture is at our "layover" in Morocco - we waited here until it was closer to time to go back through passport control and on to our ferry back to Spain. Morocco was amazing. It was an eye opening experience. I felt like we went back in time a century or two

(I get overwhelmed when I go through 1500 pictures trying to pick the ones that will impress all of you with the fun things I got to go see and then I just don't pick so here goes.)

Last Summer Play Date

This was a recent playdate - the last before everyone was in school.

The kids got such a kick out of this! I wanted to hop on and ride too.

This is a park that is close enough that we can walk to it - Love that!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!!

We're back! We've just had a fabulous 2 weeks storming through Spain, being romanced by Paris, and "Minding the Gap" in London! It was a blast and now we have 1200 pictures to sift through before we can actually post some but we plan to in the very near future! It was a lot of fun to experience all those new places together as well as be together without our kids. As much as we love our 3 little munchkins it was so nice to have that time together to make a good relationship even better!
Until we post again hope each an every one of you have a wonderful August! (yikes its August tomorrow!)
xoxoxo

Our House

This is our new house. I know we've lived here for 2 1/2 months now but I'm finally getting pictures up! I don't have more of the process of fixing the inside because Jodi got a hold of the camera before we got our new computer set up and deleted oh only 200 pictures off the camera! (most of which were "fix up pix" of the house!) We sure love our house! Plenty to work on and room to grow.

Kids, kitties and kandids

It worked so well for Marcus the girls needed one. You can see our new kittens - Boofer and Snugly - as well as any other wildlife we came upon. (sorry Renae!)

Mighty Mighty Marcus

I went through and picked some of my favorites - enjoy the many faces of our little man.

Marcus

Here he is! This is the happiest baby on the planet! You can see how blue his eyes are and his 2 little teeth. He is usually this happy - honest! I can leave him sitting on the floor with a few toys for quite awhile and he is content and quiet. You can't miss the rolls! I love the dimples in his hands, his "thunder thighs," those cheeks and there is something about the rubber band wrists that just gets to me. Too cute if I say so myself. This is my kissable, huggable, squeezable baby boy!

Cora-dorable

Our little Cora-bella. Here is our little scientist. She is outside without pants or shoes - very typical. I'm just glad she actually has panties on! I love her cheesy grin. Her hair is usually messy and going whichever way it pleases (Eric says with her hair out of her eyes she's a totally different little girl!) yet right here its just about right for Cora. I see so much behind those eyes! I had a hard time finding a piture for Cora because she's just always all over but when I saw this one I knew I had the perfect picture to show my Cora-dorable!

Jodi Bug

Here is our "Jodi Bug." I just loved this picture because it captures her so well! She's got such a great smile and her eyes just help light up her little face. Pink. Not only the dress she's wearing, yes it must always be a dress, but the cup. We are color segragated in our house. Pink for Jodi, blue for Cora. I wonder what Marcus will use? Of course it wouldn't be Jodi without the curls as well. This is our Jodi Bug and we sure do love her!

I am so behind!

Hello again! Man are we excited to have the internet again. Anymore you feel like a fish out of water without the internet. (at least I did!)
Life is busy but we are all healthy and still happy.
Jodi is loving the fact that can get away with wearing a swimming suit 24/7, Cora loves the fact that we have a chain link fence she can climb up and hang off of, and Marcus loves sitting up and watching what is going on in his world - namely his crazy sisters!
Eric loves that school is done on Monday and that I might let him sleep in once or twice this summer, I love that school is almost done because then we'll see Daddy (with him coaching track, umpiring baseball games, and being in the Bishopric we haven't seen much of him of late) and then Mommy can have 5 minutes peace on occasion.

I owe lots of pictures and I'll get on that but time is precious and at the moment I'm needed elsewhere. We love you all! Happy Graduation to those who are due congratulations!

We're Alive

Hello All!
We've moved finally! Its official we are now in the "New House" as Jodi dubs it. The old house is the "White house."
I apologize but we're going offline for a little while to save a few dollars while we get settled. I wanted you all to know we are well and that things have just been a wee bit KrAz around these parts. I don't feel like I've sat down (besides nursing Marcus) for the past month. I'm ready for a slow summer but we'll see how it goes!
Hope you are all enjoying spring weather because I'm so glad I can send my kids OUTSIDE!
Lots of love!
We'll be back but I didn't want anyone to worry! :)

Just Us

Pockets are cool things!
We made these for Daddy for Valentine's Day
Oh, Mommy I got it on my hands! Gee how did that happen?
Cora made no such pretenses - Here I am and this is what I did, is there something wrong?
He looks like a boy - okay duh but I"ll explain myself. With jeans and his shirts he's not just "baby" he's all boy and that is something we've been waiting for around here. :) Aunt Katy he's wearing the shoes but you just can't see them.

The House

See how happy we are for a new house?
This will be my sewing room - I can work on a project and actually leave in the middle without having clutter central in my living rom!
The "girls" room
The play room (Marcus will be in the master cuz I don't want to have to walk down the hall in the middle of the night)
The 3 season room off the back of the house

The dining room
The family room - the fireplace will not be purple for long!
Looking from the entry way into the living room
From the living room towards the entry way
kitchen

Its a hallway - wonder whats down there? :)

This is our new house and here are the before pix - we should have some after pictures for you in about a month. Lets see what kind of magic we can preform!

Pack it up and Move it out!

Hooray, hooray! We got it! We bought a house in a nice neighborhood that we can grow into as well as work on and boy are we excited! I'm debating on whether to put numbers on the blog but I'll do it anyway cuz I'm so happy with the house we found.
This house we found has 2 stories and a basement, a fenced backyard with a shed, 2 car garage, 4 bedrooms, a fireplace and a 3 season room off the back of the house. Three years ago it sold for 168K and we're buying it for 98K. When things are on sale you stock up right? :) We will start the fixing up process tonight becasue the biggest problem is that there is no carpet. Previous owners had pets and I"ll just tell ya a major scrubbing and new carpet is necessary! The smell is basically the problem and a few minor things we can fix up as we save up. We won't know what to do with all the space but I will not complain about that! When we get pixtures we'll have to get them up here. Before and afters are always fun to see.
Just whistle while you work will be our theme for the next few weeks!

The Search...

We all search for various things though out our lives, whether it be the perfect pair of shoes, just the right garage sale bargain, a favorite recipe or in our case a great deal on a house. I LOVE a good deal! Right now is the time to buy a house in our area (and many other areas I think) and so there are a lot of houses on the market. I want the most bang for my buck, hence THE SEARCH. We thought we'd found the house right after Christmas but that didn't go through so we kept looking. Yesterday we looked at several and we think we've finally found something that, if it works out - we got a deal! Has the search really ended? We don't know. Does this house get us excited - you bet. Mind you these deals we find require sweat equity and we're not afraid of that. To quote Dave Ramsey - "Live like no one else so later you can live like no one else!" I hope we're making the right kind of financial sacrifices to ensure our children despise debt and have financial peace in their lives. It makes such a difference! We'll keep you posted!

Kiddie Kandids

First lessons
uhhh...so far we like this little guy
Marcus lines up against his Chan cousins
Future gymnast?
Ballerina - no question! This girl likes the "fancy" stuff

Hello everyone! I've had a busy month. Life in general keeps me on my toes. I tell ya 3 kids is quite the job and so my vacation in January was quite nice. I got to spend a week in WA state with Eric's family and it was just Marcus and I. Eric got to hold down the fort at home and he did a good job! He was very glad to have me back and let's say there is a new appreciation there.

We are all doing great. We're about to put our house up for sale and are trying to keep an eye out for a good deal we can buy. We are ready for a bit more space - my sanity is crying out for just another bedroom and another closet or two at least!

We hope you are all well.

xoxoxoxo Happy Valentines to you to!