It's been a while!

Wow, what can I say. The last 3 weeks have been a whirlwind...to say the least. We moved into our house 2 days before Christmas. Didn't give it a whole lot of thought, just wanted to be in before Christmas so the girls could wake up in their new home that morning. It was a wonderful gift!

Dakota had her Christmas performance for tap class. Paityn performed too. So fun to watch. Can't wait 'til next year when Soy can join the fun! I'm glad DK was able to do this considering she was sick for her preschool Christmas program.

AB and T-Tam were here for the holidays along with my aunts, uncle and most of my cousins. It was so nice to have everyone in town. We celebrated Christmas Eve in Lemoore with my in-laws and carried on all the same traditions. Some of those include a gift exchange where someone ends up with this decorative light up lawn cow :) And we can't forget decorating gingerbread houses.

Look at all our men...aren't they so cute!?!

Another great tradition was all the young grand-daughters and great grand-daughters opening their pajamas from Grandpa. Which brings me to Frank Albert, my grandpa. He passed away and left us December 31st. We're deeply saddened. I know though that God has a plan. He gave us Christmas with him. He was surrounded by all of his family. For those of you that don't know, this is my mom's dad. He lived in town. I'll miss my occassional stops when I'd bring the girls by to visit him. He'd always make sure they got cookies from his cookie jar. I'll even miss him getting uptight over the fact that the girls would play with his 50 cent stuffed cat doll he got at a garage sale. I'll miss talking politics with him, when we'd agree to disagree. I'll miss asking to borrow his furniture dollies and telling him I'd get them out of the shed and then showing up and they'd be all ready for me on his porch. I'll miss watching him fall asleep on the couch and then him waking and saying he wasn't falling asleep. I'll miss taking the girls over to swim while he'd sit and watch from the patio and then bring them out popsicles. I'll miss when he's grumpy and getting him to laugh or smile. All these things I will miss! But I know he is in a better place. Thank you to all our friends and family for your love and support!

November Updates!

We celebrated Ramon's 32nd Birthday!

"Monkey see Monkey do"- Celebrating Thanksgiving and Jonna's Birthday a day early!
We had a nice Thanksgiving with family.
Here's a few pics of the recent house progress. Looks like we should be in before or soon after Christmas. We're very excited and looking forward to the move...hopefully it's a smooth one!
Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving and here's to a Merry Christmas!

Baby Beck will be here soon!

Saturday we had a baby shower for Tamra and baby boy ?Beck

We can't wait to meet him. We had such a fun time with family and friends.
Tamra looks beautiful and is definitely glowing. So glad we could share this time with her.

Aaron was here too. They guys were able to go golfing that day.

Here's Tam playing our A to Z shower game.

The girls were so cute playing too! Dakota and Paityn helped serve dessert.

Girl cousins on mom's side. What is this boy going to think of all of these girls?

Halloween Festivities

Pumpkin Carving...the girls love to do this with their daddy!

Dakota got to dress up for tap class (Alice in Wonderland)

"Rodeo Cowgirl" Dakota. Her Preschool class had a Halloween Party! And Indian Sawyer in the background.

The "Sandlot" Halloween Party/Carnival...thanks to "Vava's" beautiful property. We all went as characters from "Alice in Wonderland". Ramon- the "Madhatter", Me- "Queen of Hearts", Dakota- "Alice", Sawyer- the "Cheshire Cat"

It was such a fun time for everyone. There were several booths for the kids to play games and get candy, a pig roast, a costume and baking contest, a live band, movie showings of Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and Monsters vs. Aliens!

Fall Updates!

The house is moving along. This was taken about 2 weeks ago. Since, they've put the garage doors on, the doors in the house, front door, etc. They're now working on the driveway and walk way cement and starting to paint the inside. They should be putting our cabinets in next week.

More pics to come!

Here are the girls at the Pumpkin Patch. We met Dakota and Paityn's Preschool class there. We got to go on a hayride, go through a corn maze, listen to the pumpkin story and finally pick out our own pumpkins.

4 cute little mice!

Here's Dakota and Paityn at their tap, ballet, gymnastics class. They love it and sure are good at it! All that dance works up an appetite. Here the girls are at Papa and Nanny's making a pizza.

We hope all is well with you! We're looking forward to the nearing Holidays!
Have a FUN and safe Halloween!!!

Recovering Quickly

Just wanted to tell all of you thank you for praying for Dakota and her surgery. She is doing awesome! The whole time leading up to it she kept saying, "when is it, I want to get this over with". Well the day came yesterday and she was cracking us up the whole time in the waiting room in her "scrubs" acting like a little old man! Anyways, she went back to the O.R. with a smile on her face looking forward to the cotton candy air she got to breath in through the mask. They repaired her right inguinal hernia orthoscopically. She has a small incision below her belly button. It was only a 20 minute procedure but we didn't see her for about an hour and a half. They give her time to wake up, etc. Now that we've been home almost 24 hours it's been a challenge for her to relax and rest. She had a couple visitors and wanted to play. Luckily she slept all night and hasn't really had any pain. She'll return to school Monday and will still have to take it easy. So again, thank you for all your thoughts and prayers!

Bend a what???

Maybe it's my lack of patience or creativity, I don't know. But I can't seem to figure these darn BENDAROOS out! If you've seen the commercial and have a child 10 or so and younger then you know what they are. Dakota requested these fun little wax strips for her birthday. So my sisters got them for her. She got the Flowers and Butterflies and the Animal Bendaroos. They come with an instruction sheet of the different creatures, etc. you can make with step by step instructions. These are for age 3+ mind you. After trying on her own for awhile, "D" asked for my help. Note: no pic. of my "pinky the pig" creation. I couldn't even show you how my pig turned out. When I got about one third of the way through it was falling apart. I know we tell our kids, "practice makes perfect"...ummm sorry not with these things. Even a twenty-something, mother of 2 can't make a step by step pig! So I suggest getting rid of the inventors ideas before your child has you trying to do them and let them make up their own creation!