Happenings

Gianna turned 1 year old at the end of November. The poor 3rd child only got a small family party with balloons and a cupcake. I think she had fun!

At the beginning of December we went down to San Diego for a little vacation/business trip for Matt (he was taking a sales class). The kids and I went to the USS Midway (aircraft carrier), played at a park, and went to lots of drive thrus! Other than the kids getting sick, we had a nice getaway!

These are our kids with some friends in our "new to us" suburban! Thankfully, it didn't break down on our trip to San Diego, but just the other day while we were at the park. With the help of another friend, AAA, and my husband, we were all rescued and the car towed to the shop. Yay!

kids

Justus loves his babies!

Who is this big girl???

Quite the comedian!

Q-PONS

Some people make fun of me for using coupons, which I pronounce, Q-pons, but last night when I saved over $9 at Safeway, I decided it is totally worth it! I think this might be my record. The shopping did take a bit longer this time, as I wasn't really prepared (many of the crumpled coupons were at the bottom of my purse or mixed in with expired ones in my dilapidated coupon envelope). Thankfully I was by myself and didn't have to worry about the kids getting in my bargain way. At the checkout, I decided to treat myself to a 3 Musketeers Mint bar. When did candy bars start to cost $.99?? Wow! Anyway, it tasted good and was worth it. Now, I've got to go send in the 20% Timex rebate for Matt's new watch. Happy Christmas shopping and even happier savings!

Testing, 1...2...3...

Did I really just post a video on here?? I'm feeling very talented. I'm a lazy poster these days, but maybe I'll bust out a few posts this week. Stay tuned...

E.T. Phone Home

Yes, it was E.T. in that picture that Ezra drew. He wouldn't pose with the stuffed E.T. (which used to be Matt's when he was a kid), so Justus was happy to stand in. Ezra wanted to watch E.T. tonight, but instead we watched home videos and let me tell you how LONG it went on for.

Justus FINALLY ate all of his dinner tonight, so he was able to have some ice cream. And, he really wanted to get ALL of it!

I'm an Aunt!

Kyle and Jamie, my brother and sister-in-law, had their first baby on Saturday morning. Her name is Brianne Hisako Whiteside and we are all SO excited to meet her! It is going to be very fun to see my little brother be a dad. A totally different role than I have ever seen him in, but I am confident that he will do a great job!!

Halloween

Can anyone guess what Ezra was for Halloween this year? He finally got a pilot's jacket to wear so he was very happy and hardly wanted to take it off the whole day. Justus started the day being Thomas, but he really wasn't too excited about that costume. Thankfully we have all the makings for a cowboy so he was happy to change into that. I really wasn't sure what Gianna was going to be dressed up as, but finally it all came together. With some wings made out of pipe cleaners and tissue paper and packing tape, she was an angel (or while brushing her teeth she was the tooth fairy). We went to the mall to trick or treat and the boys had the funniest looks on their faces as people were putting candy into their bags. It really is like that Seinfeld routine,
"everyone we know is just giving out candy??!!" The little minds just have trouble understanding the concept. We then picked up Matt from work and headed over to our friends' church's Harvest Festival. More candy and some games and a mini bounce house. They loved it. Ezra and Justus even tried their hand at the balloon and dart game, which was actually a bit scary. Thankfully they didn't hurt anyone.

Who is it?

Can you guess Ezra's new favorite movie? This is the main character.

Hint: It's not a new movie. When it first came out Matt and I were kids. I hated it and he loved it.

Some Pumpkins

'Tis the season to go to the pumpkin patch! Here are some photos...

For the Love of Airplanes...

A couple weekends ago we went up to the city to see the Blue Angels during Fleet Week. It was the first time I have seen them and I have to admit that it was quite amazing! We viewed them from Treasure Island and they were just flying over our heads, it was the perfect spot to see the show.

Now, normally when Ezra draws or colors, there isn't much that is recognizable on the paper. He does know how to draw a really good cross (or a "t" or an "x") though! So, the other day when I made him draw his own airplane, this is what he came up with:

It was pretty funny. All of a sudden he started shouting, "I did it! I did it!" I was so proud that later on I taped it up on the door. When he saw it up there during dinner, he asked Matt who put that up there. Matt told him I had done it and asked if it was okay. Ezra said, "No, I want to take it down." Matt asked him why and was told, "The wings aren't right." Oh well, it's still up on the door and I think it is great!

(Is it me, or is it hard to write a conversation???)

Belated Pictures from Yosemite

Tending the Heart of Virtue

Our book club last read this book, Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child's Moral Imagination, by Vigen Guroian. I HIGHLY recommend it! One of my first thoughts is that I have been lied to for much of my childhood. Stories such as Pinocchio and The Little Mermaid aren't just movies by Disney, but really amazing and redemptive stories that have been altered by the entertainment mogul. I was a reader growing up, but definitely not so much of the classics as Guroian writes about (think Babysitter's Club and Choose Your Own Adventure). We still have a ways to go with the boys. They were almost able to sit through a reading of The Velveteen Rabbit the other night. Guroian uses this story to discuss its themes of love and immortality (the rabbit becomes "real" in the nursery because of the boy's love and then becomes Real, like a real rabbit, by a Greater Love). He contrasts the idea of "teaching" morals to that of allowing the child to discover or realize how morals are essential for building a life of character and value. There does seem to be a fine line between the two sides, especially as we are living and raising our children for Christ. We have much to learn! I am looking forward to the reading and educating of my children, so my own education will have a chance to be redeemed!

The Chariot of all Chariots

Boy, would I attract A LOT of attention with this contraption!

It's the Valco Trimode Twin. First, it's a double jog stroller. Then, you attach the toddler seat at the front, so you've got a place for 3 children to sit. Theoretically, it looks like you could then attach the Hitch Hiker Ride-on Board, so an older child can stand and be pushed around as well. However, I'm guessing this might be pretty heavy. 4 children, 1 stroller, might be asking a lot. Speaking of A LOT, did I mention how much this chariot costs? With the toddler seat, a whopping $799!! Yikes!

So, way to go stroller inventors! Keep 'em coming!

Fun in the Mud

Luxury Item

Here is a great contest to enter for all you baby wearers out there! I've seen this baby carrier on the internet and am very curious to see how it works and WHY it is so expensive!!! It's cute, but wow, definitely a luxury item. Simple is having another great contest, hosted by babySNAZZ, where you can win one of these carriers! I've had fun browsing that site, isn't this onesie a super gift idea? Anyway, check it out when you've got a moment!

YAY!

We got our gift card in the mail the other day, since our camera was not repairable. I HIGHLY recommend getting the insurance on an item like this! Unfortunately, we didn't get it in time to take on our Yosemite camping trip. I'll have to get pictures from my dad to post later. It is always great to vacation with family. My dad and his girlfriend cooked and brought most of the camping supplies for us. Matt's dad was there to provide the occasional comedic relief. They all also babysat for Matt and I to go out to breakfast at the Ahwahnee one morning. We celebrated our 5th anniversary a few days early. Matt had steak and eggs and I had eggs benedict, which was awesome!

The whole family hiked up to Half Dome! Just kidding. We just looked at it from our campsite. This was the first time we went camping with all of the kids, with any of the kids, actually. They had a great time! It is just so nice for them to be dirty, dirty, dirty, and not have to clean up! Okay, I did use a baby wipe to wipe their faces sometimes. They played in the Merced River, rode their bikes around, played with their tractors and watched the garbage man pick up the garbage each morning. Ezra's favorite part of the trip was seeing an F-18 fly around for a while. It was probably Matt's favorite part as well!

Here are some other miscellaneous photos, including some from the fateful day that our camera was dropped in the pool.

Justus loves Matt's motorcycle! He is potty trained! He loves his cowboy boots!

This is Ezra's big boy bike he got for his 4th birthday. He is totally a big boy, weird!

Priceless

Testing positive on an expired pregnancy test: $.50
Walking into Walgreens with my 3 kids in tow to buy a new pregnancy test: Priceless.

I didn't walk in Walgreens, but I thought it would be funny if I did. I did take a blood test to confirm this pregnancy, wow! I don't know the due date for sure, but am guessing it will be in March. I've heard many comments, "You're brave; You're crazy; You would have made a good Mormon; You guys are like bunnies." I have a feeling that my life as I live it now is going to drastically change with this 4th baby, which isn't bad, just different. That's what this whole life is about anyway, right? Dying to self... And to top it all off, we are going to have a home birth! Yes, to the world around us, we are officially crazy!

No photos...

I haven't posted any new photos lately because our camera fell into the swimming pool. Justus picked up the camera and before I could tell him to put it down, he had dropped it, it bounced once, and landed in the pool. Oh well, it's really not that big a deal, as this is the 3rd camera we've owned and last time we were smart enough to get the accidental insurance! Yay!

New Blog

I've been enjoying this mom's blog that I found one night. She has some really cute kids and is truly growing and challenging others in her/their faith in Christ.

I think I just gained 10 pounds from reading this....

Two food posts, in 1 night!!!??? I don't post for over 2 weeks and then I come back with these! I try not to go to the Pioneer Woman too often, there is just too much to read and too little time. However, tonight I sneaked (snuck??) over there and started drooling over this. Biscuits and Gravy are probably my favorite breakfast food ever, even above eggs benedict. Seriously, her recipes just look awesome and it is pretty amazing that there are step by step photos! Great inspiration!

Rumpledethumps, Colcannon, and Bubble & Squeak....

What??? We had this recipe for Rumpledethumps in our farm box newsletter today. I've never heard of it before, but I had all the ingredients and it looked tasty. It's pretty much mashed potatoes, mixed with leeks and cabbage (didn't have broccoli to put in), lots of butter and a dash of nutmeg (the recipe called for mace, but all I had was nutmeg), and chedder cheese on top! I had some purple potatoes in our bag this week and purple cabbage from last week, so our rumpldethumps dish was definitely purple! The recipe was adapted from a Moosewood cookbook, but said that it is similar to colcannon. My Joy of Cooking said that colcannon is an Irish dish. Wikipedia linked the Irish colcannon (substituting cabbage for kale) to the Scottish rumpledethumps (topped with cheese) to the English bubble and squeak (using leftover meat and/or vegetables, chief ingredients usually are potatoes and cabbage, then all is fried together). There were actually lots of other variations from many other European countries, all similar to a hash or hodgepodge of leftovers. I think next time I will put BACON in my rumpledethumps! YUM!

Happy 4th

Ezra turned 4 years old on Saturday! We celebrated with lots of airplanes and flying things, dinner at the Watsonville Airport, and a cake that actually looked like a space shuttle!

Walking Freakshow

On Saturday, Matt went to the Giants game with my brother. The kids and I were going to hang out at a mall somewhere and then pick up Matt after the game. We decided to go to the Stanford Shopping Center and have Matt take the Caltrain from the city to Palo Alto. So, I wanted to go to Nordstrom and check out the Anniversary Sale (plus I was picking something up for a friend) and as soon as I walked in, I seriously had so many people staring at me/us, it was pretty funny! What was so interesting about us?? Well, I was wearing Gianna in the baby carrier and pushing the boys in the double stroller. Nevermind you that were dogs all around us (yes, inside Nordstrom!) and they weren't even seeing-eye dogs or little feeble dogs, but BIG dogs!! I guess it is normal over there to bring your dogs shopping with you, but your children, now that is just crazy! As we made our way over to the other side of the mall, I didn't even attempt to go into Neiman Marcus or Bloomingdales, I did see strollers and children and more dogs. Guess where we played? In the McDonald's play area (which is indoors), after we ate a hot fudge sundae. Finally we finished walking around the mall, made our way back to our car, and still had time to kill before Matt's train arrived. I wanted to find a Target, but according to 411, there wasn't one in Palo Alto. So, we drove around until we found a park and were able to play amongst the commoners who were sitting on the grass and playing with their children. I don't think saw any dogs there (they probably have special dog parks in that city). Anyway, it was a fun adventure and hopefully we were able to show the world that you can have 3 kids and still go shopping!

Majestic What??

Aren't you supposed to WANT to look like the model??

link to link...

My mom is in town this weekend, so that leaves me with some free time! I just spent a good hour (if not a little more) "surfing" the contest websites found here:
http://www.prizeatron.com/
I will keep you posted if I win anything....

Bowling Baby!

Ezra started a bowling class through the parks and rec a couple of weeks ago. He had a personal best this week (a score of 87!) and has been enjoying seeing bowling on ESPN. Did you know that they have outdoor bowling alleys? Crazy! Anyway, Ezra continues to wear his "pilot's outfit" daily, thankfully I got another white shirt, so he can switch between the two. This other picture is what I found on his feet after he took off his shoes when we got home from the library today. I guess that means I haven't been keeping up with laundering the boys socks! Oops!

Co-pilot

Ezra has recruited his little brother to be his co-pilot...

Wow! What a Contest!

You know me and my constant search for a good deal! Here is a great contest to win a bevy of baby-wearing items!

CSA

We did it! We finally signed up for a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) through Two Small Farms and have enjoyed our first week! It is wonderful that our pickup site is just a couple of blocks away, super convenient! I was worried that we would have too many vegetables to eat, but we've actually gotten through all of them (except the avocados that are still not quite ripe). My dear husband has been a champ, eating spinach and collard greens like a real pro!

Good Neighbors

We are fortunate to live next to great neighbors in our duplex. I know we are noisy, but they love us anyway! Bob and Cheryl took this picture and framed it for Justus' birthday gift. It is a good one of the brothers!

Buddy Bday

Two years ago today I was in labor with Justus Scott! He was born at 4:06pm on 06-06-06. He shares his birthday with his grandpa Jay (whose twin brother, Scott, had passed away the previous August). Now Matt's dad will always have someone to share his birthday with! We went to Toys R Us last night to spend some money that Nana Kay sent and Justus picked out a set of 6 motorcycles (I think some of them are already broken). Speaking of labor, did you catch this story on the Today Show this morning?? It is crazy, this woman was pregnant, found out there was a tumor growing with the baby in the uterus and taking up all the blood/nutrition that the baby needed, so they took out the WHOLE uterus, cut out the tumor, sewed it back up, put it back in the mom, and the baby was born 10 weeks later. CRAZY! Now that is a medical miracle if I ever heard one.

Let the kid fall already...

Last night I was reading this post about letting boys be boys and I had to comment. We've already visited the emergency room two times and have had our fair share of bumps, bruises, and blood. Just today we were at the park for a parks and rec play day and I was surprised at how many moms were trying to corral my boys, to keep them away from getting hurt. I was a bit on the quiet side today, as Ezra had already taken a spill on his bike, and let a couple moms direct Justus away from an area that he might have gotten hurt (although he was playing in the same space a little bit before and there was really no danger). Ezra ended up falling again and actually got a good size drop of blood on his shorts. If it weren't for his dramatics when he does fall, it would probably be a good testimony to these moms that kids can and should get hurt once in a while. I will now be investing in one of these to keep in the diaper bag/stroller, as I keep having to borrow band aids when we are out.

Whipping Cream

This week I bought a small container of heavy whipping cream. For the last 3 nights I've whipped the cream and enjoyed eating it with strawberries and when those are gone, by itself! Tonight was the best, I added some chocolate and ate it with some strawberries we got at the Farmer's Market today. SO good! I almost forgot that I also own (thank you Lindsay!) one of those stainless steel cream whippers! I've got to keep that thing filled up!

9-1-1

Have you ever dialed 9-1-1 before? I have a few times in my life, never for help for myself, but others I'll see, usually as I'm driving by. One time we were driving over Hwy 17 and on the side of the road saw a lady wailing on a guy, with another lady getting ready to jump in, I think to help the other lady out. I think (my memory is getting foggy) we pulled over at the next turn out, but we couldn't really see anything. Anyway, I thought it was worthy enough to call and report the incident.

Today, I called to report (what looked like) a bum fight. We were driving on River St. (next to the river) and cars started slowing ahead of us. Finally we see 1 guy on one side of the street yelling at another guy on the other side of the street. We passed them and I turned around to see the 1 guy taking some swings at the other guy. The other guy got away and was yelling for help. We pulled into the parking lot and I called 9-1-1. One of the things I hate about calling 9-1-1 is that there is an echo, have you ever noticed that? Anyway, the lady asked me to describe the guys and it took me a while to say that the 1 attacking was African American male and the other one was a Caucasian male. It would have been a lot easier to say the black guy was chasing the white guy, but I didn't want to be accused of racially profiling or something like that. What is this PC world doing to me?? Anyway, as we were walking downtown, we could see through the parking structure and there were 2-3 police cars attending to the dispute. Crazy!

TMI

Have you ever really looked into the life of an ant? It is pretty fascinating. Here is the link to find out everything you could have ever wanted to know about them. I was watering the lawn today and noticed that I had disrupted an ant home, so I got closer to check them out. There were ones with wings, ones carrying eggs, and regular ones just trying to get away from the water. Pretty disgusting. I had goosebumps then and when I was reading about them. Even though the Bible praises the hard work of the ant (Prov. 6:6), they still gross me out.

Bad Blogger

Yes, I know I am a BAD Blogger. But, hopefully these pictures will make up for the last month of not posting anything!
Here is our mini-Giants fan. She went to her first game last Thursday, one of the hottest days in the city ever! Bummer!

On Friday, we went to the Aerospace Museum at the old McClellan AFB. The boys were so excited to see real airplanes, it was pretty fun! Gianna had a nice time in her car seat.


Ezra's favorite part of the museum was the gift shop, where Grandma bought him an F/A 18.

This is Ezra's favorite outfit. He calls it his, "pilot's outfit." He always wears it to school, I get in trouble if I forget to have the shirt washed. Thankfully school is only 2 days a week.
We got home on Sunday and the Legge's stayed with us for a couple nights. We always love spending time with their family and wished they lived closer! Their kids are Autumn (5 yrs. old), Ben (3 1/2 yrs. old) and Peter (4 1/2 mos.).

I'll try to be better about posting, really...