Cookies!

Those of you that know me, know I don't bake. I shy away from anything that means sprinkling flour all over my kitchen. The extent of my baking consists of the already precut Tollhouse cookies and brownie and cake mixes that only require the addition of a few ingredients and my handy hand mixer. Viola! Cookies.

However, my more-adventurous Mom-in-law, decided to bake cookies with the kids during her visit this week. (I stayed away from the mess that was sure to give me a panic attack until they were done.) They made sugar cookies and decorated them with the assortment of candy we'd been given in our stockings and otherwise. The kids had a blast! And it made me feel like such a bad Mom because I don't do fun stuff like that due to my aversion to messes. Oh, well. At least I do gymnastics with them...they get a kick out of my back handsprings and splits.

Here's some results from their baking time with Grandma!

Christmas 2008

We had a great time on our CA Christmas vacation! The 14-hour drive to Antioch was split into two days and went pretty well! I don't know that it would have been quite so smooth without the Nintendo DS and the van's DVD system! And I packed all our food this time, so no yucky fast food stops (oh, wait, except In N Out, which is too good to be considered among the fast food yuckiness). We got to my sister's in Palmdale on Saturday night--and we were greeted with snow! The kids played in it a little on Sunday morning before we left for Antioch. The camera was packed and buried in the back of the van, so no photos :(. In Antioch, Peter's mom hosted an impromptu get together for some of Peter's childhood friends to come visit with us. It was a fun fun night! Monday, we went around visiting other friends. Peter flew back to Phoenix late Monday afternoon (he had work Tuesday-Saturday...the juvenile hall doesn't shut down, you know). Here's where the funny part of the story kicks in. About an hour before Peter is due to depart, he calls me from the Oakland airport to say he did not have our house key, as it was attached to the car keys and in my possession! There was not enough time to drive it over to him (and I shudder to think what the Bay area traffic was like at 6pm), so we decided to overnight it to him the next day. Thankfully, our friend Paul (a former co-worker of Peter's as well) said he could sleep at their house and we could mail the key to him. And, a current co-worker of Peter offered to drive him to work Tuesday and Wednesday. In the end, after quite an ordeal (and a ridiculous amount of money), Peter made it home. Christmas was awesome. The kids were so excited to be at Peter's parents house; we haven't all been there together since August 2005! Of course, we all got some fabulous gifts (I got my Furi knife--hurray!!!), but really, it was just nice to be with family. Of course we missed Peter but we called him as often as we could and took a ton of photos. We got to visit with a lot of family and friends we don't see often. The drive home was (almost) uneventful. My Mom-in-law forgot her medication, but we fixed that dilemma easily with a few phone calls. The kids had a great visit with their cousins in Palmdale on the way in and on the way out. It was just awesome to have quality time with our family!

Of course, Peter and I felt a heavy void this season, missing our little man. Our friends, the Slocums, despite their busy schedules, 2 kids (plus one on the way), and their own Christmas chaos, managed to make a new tribute DVD for Ezra. Peter and I watched it together upon our return last night. We both cried, remembering how much Ezra adored the Christmas tree. He would just stare at it for as long as it was in his view. This was before he got glasses, before we even knew what was wrong with his eyes. We miss him so much, but our so thankful for the memories we share with him.

We hope you all had special moments this season. Enjoy a little slideshow of photos from our California Christmas!

Tagged by Audrey

Ahhh, see, I don't need myspace bulletins or Facebook notes to do surveys...


5 Things I Was Doing 10 Years Ago
1) Studying developmental Psychology at UC Santa Cruz (I was a junior)
2) Adjusting to living on my own
3) Trying to make a Long-distance relationship work (it didn't)
4) Meeting LOTS of new people at Merrill college dorms
5) Still mourning the death of a friend

5 Things On My To-Do List Today
1) Go to Target (check!)
2) Go to Lowes (check!)
3) Date with Peter (check!)
4) Update blog (in progress)
5) Organize the chaos of Christmas (in progress)


5 Snacks I Like
1) Kettle corn
2) Tillamook cheddar cheese with Kashi 7-grain crackers
3) Reeses Pieces
4) berries of any kind mixed with organic vanilla yogurt
5) Kettle chips


5 Things I Would Do If I Was A Millionaire
1) Buy a house with a garage and back yard (in CA, preferably)
2) Buy my parents a house
3) Put my kids through college and grad school
4) Get a pedicure every week
5) Get digital cable/DVR

5 Places I Have Lived
1) NoHo, CA (18 years)
2) North Hills, CA (3 years)
3) Santa Cruz, CA (5 years)
4) Grover Beach, CA (3 years)
5) Mesa, Arizona (3 1/2 years and counting...)

5 Jobs I Have Had
1) Camp Counselor (5 summers!)
2) Nanny (4 different family over 6 years)
3) Teacher's Aide
4) Music/video store clerk
5) gymnastics teacher

5 People I Tag
1) Charlie
2) Peter (yeah, here on this blog)
3) Korri
4) Amanda
5) Karyn

Christmas Greeting!

We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! Thank you for sharing all of our special memories!

(P.S. Can you tell that J combed his own hair? I forgot to fix it before we recorded the message.)

Season's Greetings!

We leave tomorrow for CA. We will be spending Christmas in Antioch with the Ferrantes/Eastburns. I don't know that I will have access to internet, so I probably won't post anything till the weekend after Christmas, when we get back. (Although I do have a special Christmas message that is scheduled to be posted on Christmas Eve--so check back for that!) Till then, enjoy the cuties in their Christmas outfits.








We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!!

We've Got A Birthday Girl!

Our little girl is four years old! Its so difficult for me to fathom...they grow too fast! I remember everything about the time that I was pregnant with her, about the labor, and the delivery. It was my best pregnancy and an all-natural labor and delivery (which I had wanted with all of them, but it didn't work out that way). She was also my easiest child for everything. She's become a bit of a stinker now (what with the terrible twos and threes), but I hope as she continues to develop that that will fade. We just had a small thing here at home. Just us and my parents. Alayna has a few kids she plays with, but hasn't made any attachments yet to a particular friend. (She asks to play with my friend's son Nolan ALL the time, but when we do get them together, they don't even really play...) Maybe next year she'll build some friendships in Pre-K and have a "real" party. Today, we just got a few balloons, I made a cake, and we had a few gifts. We got her a play kitchen, which she loves! She also got some accessories to go with it from both sets of grandparents. It was a great afternoon of family fun!

4 Year Old Girl!!!

Advent Conspiracy

In lieu of a Christmas tree this year, Peter and I are donating the money otherwise spent on that to a very important cause. We aren't going to be in AZ for the holiday and it seemed just a novelty to get a tree for the sake of decoration (no, we don't own a fake tree). We discussed this after our church service this weekend and thought that the money could be put to MUCH better use. This particular cause gives clean water to communities where thousands of children die every DAY from the contaminated water. We can all be God's answer to their prayers!

So, even if you aren't a believer, this is a very worthy thing to do. Because there is always someone worse off then you. Honestly, if you have access to a computer and the internet (and most of you from cell phones) then you are far better off then 2/3s of our planet.

Think about it...

They drink, bathe, and cook with the same water...




http://www.adventconspiracy.org/water/



P.S. We are also NOT doing Christmas cards this year...I've been hesitating too much on them and now its too late to get them done and distributed in time. So, I thought, hey there's another "x" amount of money for clean water.