Getting in the Christmas spirit

Here we are getting into the Christmas spirit. We have been kinda bah-humbug people and decided we needed to do something about it. This year the kids were more involved in the decorating. They were having so much fun helping. Believe it or not we actually didn't have one thing break...except maybe Greg's back. It was tons of fun and now it is beginning to feel like Christmas!

Elayna

I guess if you are tired enough you really can sleep anywhere! She is leaning on the couch with her toes on the floor. It was adorable!

Adam and his trains

Seeing that working with trains runs in our family it is no surprise that our kids love to play with their toy trains. Adam is the most passionate about them. He loves to make all the sounds and can spend hours down on the floor playing. We have 3 trains sets and he is asking for more. I am very proud of how well he is building his track. He usually asks for help and will give me ideas of what he wants. This time he did it all by himself. It was neat to see him include the bridges with track going under and around. The small break in track in the inner circle is because we couldn't find the double-outie piece to fit. It didn't take away from any of his fun though.

finally...a family group photo

It is extremely difficult to get a picture of all the kids together. I know this one isn't posed perfectly or anything but it is adorable just the same. All the kids are doing great and growing like weeds.

Sharing

Last night just before bedtime the kids all decided they were hungry and the only thing that would satisify them was Ramen. I cook some up and Zach eats all of his and goes to wash. Adam and Elayna take their time...often because there is lots of play going on as well. Zach apparently was still hungry and came back looking for more. He sat down next to Adam and started pointing and signing more. Adam says 'ok zach. one big bite and that's all.' So Adam gets this huge fork full of ramen and then tells Zach to put his hands down and open his mouth. It was so random and cute to see.

A Little Dancer

Elayna loves watching Little Einstiens on Disney channel. She has especially likes to follow their actions and sing and all that good stuff. Last night we were watching the history channel and out of the blue Elayna breaks into song and dance. It took us a couple minutes of watching to figure out that she was dancing from Little Einstiens. She was singing pirouette or jump as she would do it. It was adorable. One of those times we wish we had a video camera. Anyways here is Elayna dancing and singing.

Tag, You're it!

So I got tagged by Chrissy. Here are 6 quirks about myself.

1. I am obsessed with the color/scent of orange.
2. I can sleep just about anywhere at any point in time.
3. I am constantly playing an imaginary piano with my fingers if I am not using them to talk with. My hands feel a need to always be moving.
4. I am a photo-taking fanactic. I take my camera with me everywhere.
5. I love animals and have them in every room in the house.
6. I love to dance when I am alone. I have no rhythm but it always feels good to bust a move!

So Monique, Sharon, Jeanie you're now supposed to post 6 quirks about yourself and tag 6 other people via blog. Have fun!

The saga continues

So what really happened was....
On Saturday when the people came and set off my car alarm it was because they were stealing my liscense plate. I have gone through all the trouble of letting the police know, going to the dmv to fill out papers and get a new plate and all that. Now I am getting notices from an impound asking me to come pick up my car. Funny thing...I have my car. Now we are trying to figure that all out. I should of just let them take my car. This has been more trouble than its worth. Oh-the car in the impound is another minivan; same make and model. Of course it is also a stolen car!

like I say...a minivan???

So I guess the guys who tried to steal my van were bored because they were back today. I just got my van back on Thursday night after being fixed and then having an alarm installed. Good thing I did cause the morons came back today about 2pm and set the alarm off. Can you believe it?!?!? 2pm on a Saturday!!! Come on!!! I didn't actually see a person but there were obvious details of them being back. They have been going over the fence behind the parking lot. There is a lot of electrical wires and a meter box on the side of the parking structure and today they have partially pulled it off the wall during their climbs. I hope they get schocked!!! I am beginning to feel like they really want my van. Greg parked in our spot the entire time the van was gone and no one messed with it. For them to come back within a day of it being home makes me wonder. Thank goodness for the alarm...can't afford another deductable right now.

Scarlet Fever

So today has not been fun at all. Let me start by saying yesterday was a great day. Zach had a rash in the evening and I gave him some benedryl and all was well. This morning however was a different story. Zach woke up in a lot of pain. He had a rash that covered all of his body, palms and soles of his feet included. I took him into the dr. where they diagnosed him with scarlet fever. Zach is now on antibiotics to get him better. He has been miserable today and thankfully has been asleep for a few hours now. Zach didn't show any signs other than the rash. He didn't have a fever, never complained of a sore throat. He might of tried to tell us and we misinterpreted what he was trying to communicate. We feel terrible it got this far but how could we know? Any prayers would be welcomed!
A Quick explanation of Scarlet Fever:
The disease occurs mostly in children between the ages of 2 and 10 years. It's caused by infection with group A streptococcal bacteria - the same bacteria that causes strep throat. Symptoms typically appear three days after exposure to another person with the illness, although this incubation period can be anywhere from one to seven days.Scarlet fever typically starts with a very high fever of up to 104 degrees F and a sore throat. These early symptoms are followed by nausea, vomiting, headache, and abdominal pain. Twelve hours to two days later a distinctive scarlet rash appears -- first on the neck and chest and then all over the body. The rash feels like sandpaper. In areas of skin folds -- the armpits and the creases at the elbows and the groin -- the rash has a bright red color. The tongue also becomes swollen and turns bright red. After three days the rash and fever usually disappear, but the tongue may remain swollen for several more days. As the rash fades, there may be peeling around the tips of the fingers and toes and in the groin area.

a minivan???

So our van has been broken into twice now. Both time the idiots failed in their attempt to actually steal it. The first time it happened was Tues. night. Somehow they let themselves in and messed with the ignition. They didn't steal anything or break anything. Very courteous with the exception of trying to steal my van. The second time was last night. They were a little more reckless but just as stupid. They broke the passenger side window to get into the van. They again were messing with the ignition and were too stupid to realize they had succeeded in what they were doing when they got caught. Greg and I were watching TV and kept hearing something outside. Most of the time when our neighbors are outside working on cars at night they let you know. This wasn't our neighbors cause they were trying to be quiet, no music or loud talking or anything of those sorts. About 9pm we peeked out the window and saw 3 guys in our van. I called the police and Greg grabbed his gun and out we went. Needless to say the guys got away. They climbed on top of the covered parking and went over the fence. They did steal a folder of CD's (mostly church, kids and country music) and a screen for our portable DVD. They also left a hammer, butter knife, rock chisel and a 12 inch flathead screwdriver. The police came and took pictures and all that stuff. The steering column is torn apart and there is no window. We can get it to turn on with a lot of work but can't drive it. They messed with the electrical wires too and now it is unsafe. We cleaned up all the mess, took out the 5 carseats and said goodbye for a bit. It is now getting fixed at the dealer. Greg and I are going to share his car until things get taken care of. Needless to say we are going to be putting an alarm on the van now. We had talked to our friend yesterday about doing so and were planning on taking it in today. Guess the idiots beat us to the punch. So if any of you see 3 young hispanic/asian boys about 6 feet tall and wearing black and white give me a call. I would love to have a talk with them. Until then be careful. This happened in the early evening. We suspect they had had about 15-20 minutes in the car when we found them. That would put them there about 8:30 at night. The scary thing is I am known to go out about that time and Greg was supposed to be at work and just happened to call in sick cause I've been sick. All the what if's scare me. What do you do?

elayna's friendly words

Elayna is truly a friendly person. She loves to say hello, goodbye and wave to anyone she meets. Today we went to a shopping center to get a few things. Greg went to one store with the boys and I took Elayna with me to the other store. While walking back to meet Greg we encountered a man smoking on the sidewalk. Elayna was memorized when he blew the smoke out of his mouth. She was excited saying 'look mom! butterflies! moke!' I tried to tell her in the simpliest way possible that what he was doing was wrong and smoking is bad. She of course ensued with all the why questions but finally accepted the fact that I said it was bad. Just as we passed the man Elayna calls out "bye bad man!" While I am thankful she got the concept of bad I couldn't of walked any faster. Maybe next time I could explain that good people sometimes do bad things.

Pumpkin carving

Every year we host a pumpkin carving contest. This was our 3rd annual contest. Everyone brings an uncarved pumpkin and tries to create the most original design. You can use a pattern but only after you draw it freehand in front of everyone to make sure you don't cheat. At the end we hold a silent vote to decide who wins. This year Jeff and Heather are the winners. After we are done with the pumpkins we pig out (or at least I do) on all the treats. It is always a ton of fun. Let the carving begin!

Adam has just carved his first pumpkin. he did everything himself from drawing his outline, cleaning it and cutting it. Everyone was very proud of him L-R Shirley,Elayna, Ashlynn, Felicity

Greg

Beth and Richard

Jeff and Heather

Jay and Maranda

our Phoenix adventure

So we went up to Phoenix on Thursday night to attend my friends wedding Friday morning. It was just me and the kids as Greg had to work. Everything is fine and dandy on the drive up and then Shaunton watched the kids so I could go with Monique to see Owen. It was a good time and as far as I know the kids were good. Friday morning I woke up to hear/see Elayna chowing down on some tylenol and ibuprofen. I called Greg asking what I should do and he gave me the number to poison contol. I called them and they recommended I take her into the ER quickly just in case she overdosed. (it takes 17 ibuprofen 200mg. or 4 tylenol 500mg. to overdose) I spent the morning back and forth at the hospital and Moniques house. I missed the wedding and all the festivities. Elayna did not overdose but there was meds in her system. She was happy overall and slept quite a bit. I am very bummed I didn't get to go to the wedding. I do get to go to the reception tonight which I am excited about. Elayna is a lot happier today and back to her trouble-making self. We got home last night and just crashed. At least everyone is ok.

a new salt water tank

We recently got a saltwater tank. It had a couple fish in it. Nothing special. We added some rock and were planning on adding more fish later. Well we happened to walk into the pet store at just the right time one night. Their saltwater tank had completely crashed and they had finally decided to take it apart and start from the very beginning. Since they had all these fish and no place to keep them we quickly bought them and added them to our collection. Now our tank is looking very good and full. As it turns out we have a stinker of a fish that is picking on everyone else (yellow tailed damsel) so we decided we are going to take it out to save all the other fish. Easier said than done. We ended up pulling out most of the 70 lbs. of rock in the tank to get the little bugger. So we get the fish out and set the tank back up and all is well. So a couple of days later (last night) Elayna decides she is going to be helpful and feeds the fish....the entire, brand new bottle of fish flakes. This is very bad as it throws off the balance of the water and all that good stuff. Unfortunatley we didn't have any salt or good water ready. So Greg takes off to the store to get the stuff we need and I stay home and take all the rock back out of the tank and start cleaning the water. Easier said than done too cause the rock has to stay covered with water the entire time. By the time Greg got home the water was red and got very stinky. We spent 2 hours filtering water, doing treatments and getting the water balanced back out. We then put all the rock back into the tank followed by the fish. Now we have a nice, clean, semi-new saltwater tank and hopefully we don't lose any fish. Our fish now include 2 maroon clowns, a chromis, a bi-color, a 6 striped rass, a starynight goby (gramps), a butterfly and a watchman (gobi) with his living companion shrimp. We had some stars but they have been losing their limbs for odd reasons and then we can't find 2 of them anywhere, even when we took out all the rock. We are going to start our clocks over for another 4-6 weeks before we buy any corals. What an adventure! I just hope we don't go there for a long time to come!

kids say the darndest things

All of our kids have coined their own phrases that only that child will say. It is adorable to hear everything that comes out of their mouths.

Zach: I need a hug! (used almost every 2 minutes)
Adam: It matches! and How you doin?
Elayna: Don't whack me!

Zach and Adam use their phrases correctly and all the time. Elayna will share hers with anyone approaching her...don't know why other than Adam does run by spankings. We are very impressed to hear their conversations with each other too. Its like they have their own language.

scary words

Some of the most terrifying words are 'uh-oh mom. I made a mess'. They are scary for the mess it means can be anything. Especially when your little girl is newly potty trained. These were the very words Elayna came yelling to me. She was crying and very upset over it. She asked for help so I went to investigate expecting the worst. What I found was she had been drinking out of my cup of water and spilled it all over the floor. She quickly told me to get a towel and she helped clean up every bit of it. Then she said "all better!" Kids are great!

Elayna's recliner

I guess if you can't get comfortable in any thing you have you just have to make something yourself. We do have a recliner, although it is very incomfortable. We also have 2 couches in the living room to relax on. I guess Elayna just needed her own space for a moment. She stayed in the basket for a good hour or so just chillin.

Adam gets prepared

Adam had picture day at school a couple of days ago. He helped pick out his shirt and even requested a belt. We combed his hair and washed his face and then he says "ok mom, take my picture". So here is his pre picture for school. He told me he said cheeeeeeeeeeeeese!

our zoo day

Today we went to the zoo. I figured everyone had had a long week and this would be a nice treat for the kids. I loaded them all up and off we went. We had a great time. They ran everywhere. And if I wasn't running with them they were calling to me to catch up. Even Zach was getting in on the encouragement and told me to run. Amazingly we saw a couple animals during our 45 min. run. I thought for sure they would be slow (we don't take strollers anymore) but nope. I was exhausted by the time we got home ready for a nap and hoping the kids would rest too but again I was wrong. They weren't worn out enough I guess. Now at 5 in the afternoon they are begging to take a nap. It truly was a fun day filled with lots of high energy activities. I guess I was the only one that had a long day.

Aunt Princess

One of Elayna's favorite things to do is to look at the wall of family pictures. We have pictures of all family from all occasions. We got to one of my sister Chrissy's wedding. It was of all the girls surrounding Chrissy in her wedding dress. Elayna found me but was having trouble with everyone else. She pointed to Chrissy and I told her it was her aunt. She said No Mom!!! Not Chrissy...Aunt Princess! We looked at several other pictures and when we came back to that one she still insisted it was aunt princess...not Chrissy.

a sweet surprise

One of our friends called me this morning to ask if we lost our tortise. We don't have one but went to investigate anyway. What we found was a small desert tortise. It had been hiding out in my flower bed. It was very cute and friendly. The kids all got to say hi before we let it move on its way. We don't know where it came from or where it was going but it was great to see it on its journey.

a rude awakening

Apparently I wasn't watching the kids too well (I was doing laundry) and they opened the door to my bedroom and ran in. They hopped up on the bed and started jumping...all 5 of them. Little did anyone know Greg was still asleep. I don't know who was more scared: Greg or the kids. All the kids came running when Greg woke up and yelled 'what's going on!?!?!" I can't help but laugh. Sorry Greg---hope you still get sleep!

Another day, another story

Today has been another long day. Greg took another step of achieving a dream and got his salt water tank. It is looking really good. There are only 4 fish and 1 star fish and no corals so we still have a ways to go. I will post pictures once things settle down from all the movement.
The kids have been sick too. Even the kids I watch are sick which makes for a long day. They are all trying to be happy but just want to sit in front of the tv. It all works for me too. I haven't had a good nights sleep in a few days. Our kids seem to have trouble sleeping or thinking they need to sleep. Zach has always been one to wake up and wander around the house. I usually leave snacks out, a pillow and blanket on the couch and the tv set to a kids channel. Elayna has started following in this practice and it is killing me. She was up from 2-5am. Zach has settled down and I figured things would get better but no...little girl has to do it too. Sorry for the complaints. I am tired. Need sleep!!!
Overall today has been a good day. We did have a lot of excitement with the new things and now we are all going to bed...me first!

our zoo

Every year we go to the Tucson Reptile and Amphibian Show. It happened to be this past weekend and we had a great time. Anything you could possibly want is there from animals to supplies to jewelry honoring your special pet. You can also interact with some animals including snakes, tortises, monitors, alligators, frogs and lizards. We got ourselves some new frogs to fill our empty tanks. We have tinctorius cobalt morph, azureus, and costa rican auratus. We added leucomelas, pumilio bastimentos, and vittatus. Remember these are all posion dart frogs. Most average 1-2 inches in size, some are no bigger than your thumb nail. We feed them fruit flys and springtails. They are all seperated in different tanks with misting systems. Greg does all of the maintaining and I help out when he's out of town. Our kids enjoy them as much as we do. We can't wait until next year to add more to our collection.

our frogs

tinctorius cobalt morph

costa rican auratus

azureus

pumilio bastimentos aka strawberries

leucomelas

vittatus

Adam's special treat

Adam is a very lucky guy. I took him and Elayna to Burger King for breakfast today as a special treat. We ordered our food, paid and were waiting for our order. Adam walks up to the counter and says "I want a hamburger" to the lady behind the counter. She asked if he wanted cheese and he answered yes. She went and got him a cheeseburger and gave it to him. She didn't charge me for it and said it was on the house. ( I should of had Elayna ask for a shake or something too) Adam refused to eat the french toaster sticks I bought for him...and the hamburger. We ended up coming home with all his food. Once we got home he sat down at the table and ate everything. What a lucky guy!!!

Zach's talking box

Zach recently got this new box to help him communicate better. It list of names include a talking box, AAC, ACOM, springboard. He loves it so far. It really is a neat machine. It is a little computer with a touch screen that helps you talk. Anything we can say verbally Zach is able to replicate with his box. It has really helped us to understand him better. He is able to tell us exactly what he wants, where he wants to go, etc. His favorite things to ask for are pizza and cookies. You just pick your picture and the computer will say what you picked. When you are done building your sentence it will repeat the entire phrase back to you. Zach takes it everywhere he goes. We can also customize it to things pertaining to our family. It is awesome!!! Thanks to the linguist who invented it.

Adam and Brooklynn

This is one of Adam's favorite friends. Her name is Brooklynn and I have been watching her since May. Adam goes around the house cooing at her and tries to make her laugh. He will get on the floor and crawl, encouraging her to follow him. He is a very sweet boy and a wonderful brother. Someday he will make an excellent babysitter and daddy.

Elayna's fish

Elayna is trying hard to make fishy lips. Adam has mastered it and is trying to teach his sister how to do it too. We have teased her about becomming a turtle instead of a fish.