More birthday pics...

There were way too many good pics to choose some and I couldn't resist posting them....

This was actually before the party started...she was tired of waiting

Kara wasn't that interested in the clothes

Trevor waiting for a cupcakeMiss Chelsea

Michael with his bumble bee antennas
Miss Madison.... Papa...not cooperating for the pic...he almost has the same facial expression as Maddie!!
A very tired Michael with daddy

Auntie Corinna and future Auntie Lacey

Michael was having a "hair raising" moment
Michael and MadisonMiss Bumble bee Scarlett

Kara's Birthday Party

Kara had a great time at her "mini" party last night! Some family and friends came over to have some yummy bumble bee cupcakes and spoil her with wonderul presents!

I am also very excited because Kara can finally make the number 3 with her fingers...we have been practicing a lot.

The birthday girl!!
I'm 3!! Happy Birthday to Kara
Blow...blow...blow....
our family...thanks Donnie for the great picture!
a close up of the bumble bee cupcakes I made her. I bought a silacone baking dish that was shaped like flowers and then used whipped frosting to make the bees on top.
My mom gave me the great idea to use sliced almonds for the wings...I was so proud of the end result...felt just like Sandra Lee!!
24 cupcakes!!!Tearing into her gifts
wow!! a computer..thanks grandma and papa
The star of the evening!

Happy 3rd Birthday Kara!!!

Our sweet Kara is 3 years old! I can't believe how fast the last 3 years have gone by..and I know the years are going to continue to fly by.

Kara is such a joy to have around. She is a very energetic, fun-loving little girl and big sister!

I hope you enjoy the pics of my little girl....

Kara's 1st picture...

January 27, 2005

1st Birthday...enjoying every ounce of her cake
January 27, 2006

My little "Strawberry Shortcake" celebrating birthday #2
January 27, 2007

My very stylin' 3 year old!!
January 27, 2008

Soooo......

...it's been awhile since my last post. Many things have been going on. First I got sick with a sinus cold and still am suffering from the lingering cough. Michael is working on teething....he is getting all 4 top teeth at once and already has 2 on the bottom. My little man is ready for some steak....according to Donavan!

He can now pull himself up to a standing position and has started to furniture walk...oh boy! Kara can no longer run to the safety of the couch because Michael can now follow and continue to bug her.

It is so funny to watch them interact with eachother. There are times when they clearly are getting on each other nerves and others where they love each other dearly....usually followed by Kara pushing her brother down...that's some big sister love for ya!

Kara is now sick...and right before her birthday! I came home from work today to find she had a 104.3 temperature. SCARY!!!! Gave her some tylenol and put her in a tepid bath and then called the Dr.

Luckily after 30 minutes in the tub her temp dropped to 102.3 and is now teetering around 100.2

Have orders to call the Dr tomorrow for a possible appointment with her.

I can't believe my little baby is going to be 3 in 2 days!! She has been developing so many new skills lately...impressing us every day.

I am very excited because she can finally count to 10....lots and lots of practice on the computer. Gotta love FisherPrice.com!

I'm out for now..will post pics later.

a word for 2008....

So after reading Sally's blog I started thinking of a word for my life in 2008! I actually thought about it for a couple of days now and I came up with:

Patience

I have noticed lately that my patience with others, my kids, husband, and myself has gotten a little shorter.....especially after a long day at work.

I simply adore and love my family more than anything in the world, but when I would have a long day at work and come home to a toddler running wild throughout the house and an infant wanting only you.....my fuse would be just a bit short. I would start to feel extremely guilty about becoming somewhat annoyed or upset that things weren't relaxed the way I wanted them to be. Obviously I know that as soon as you have children your life won't be as relaxed as before....but some days you just hope.....

My beautiful daughter is such a joy to have around. She is on the verge of turning 3 years old and is discovering so much more everyday. We still are working on the potty training, which definately takes a lot, I mean a lot of patience. Michael is also learning new things everyday...and even though almost everyday it is hard for me to do things around the house without him crying for my attention at any given time, I should feel blessed to be loved that much!

I admit that I do lose some patience with my wonderful husband, but then again who doesn't lose it with their spouses....especially during hunting season...hehe.

Now when it comes to work, I love love love my job. I am thankful to have a wonderful teaching job at a wonderful site.

I enjoy my class even though they are very squirely.....I have a lot of young ones (late birthdays) in my class...and some days it takes a toll on me. However, I love what I do and I learn so much from each of the students that walk through my classroom door.

Finally on a more touchy issue.....patience with myself. I often become very frustrated with my self image. After having 2 babies I definately want to shed some weight. This is where the lack of patience comes in.....I want to see results as of yesterday. I have come to an understanding that if I want to lose the weight in a healthy way it is going to take some time....time that I am now willing to wait.

I hope I haven't put you to sleep, after reading about why I chose patience as something to focus on through out the coming year!

A couple of qoutes that I found.....hope they will quide me through my quest to learn to have more patience!!

Saint Francis De Sales:
Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.



"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance."--Franklin P. Jones

8 months old!!

Michael 8 months old today!! He is such a happy boy who definately loves his mommy. Michael hates when I leave the room even if he is with Daddy! It feels sooo good to be loved that much!

As of right now Michael can sit all by himself, scoots all over the place, can get up on his hands and knees (but gets mad very quickly because he can't go anywhere), and he has 1 bottom tooth in!!

We love our Monkeys!!!

The kids' Great-Grandma JoAnn (my mom's mom) made they cute sock monkeys for all her great grand children in California...12 in all. I remember having a sock monkey from her when I was little. Michael and Kara love their monkeys very much.

Pick your battles....

...is what I am trying my hardest to do while raising a very active almost 3 year old! Recently Kara has been occasionally choosing what she wants to wear. Well yesterday she insisted on wearing her Halloween shirt. So I let her, well then she thought that since she had her Halloween shirt on that she should be able to go trick-or-treating. That was fun explaining to her that she couldn't go trick-or-treating....she kept telling me that she could. Well anyways, later that night after her bath I started to put her jammies on. Oh no, that wasn't going to happen!! She through a huge fit, had to wear her Halloween shirt. I took a deep breath and gave in....so we compromised.....jammies on first and she could wear the shirt over them.

Dude....you say it's his birthday????

We wanted to wish a very happy 30th birthday to our good friend Mr. Adrian Rawlings.

I am happy that he now joins the ranks of being at least 30 along side of myself and his main squeeze Sally ( she is 30 too) hehe!!

Anyways I leave you a picture of Adrian posing in his Rendezvous garb....

Happy New Years

I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years. Mine was very low key. Kids fell asleep and were in bed by 9pm and I sipped on a Smirnoff Twisted Raspberry (it tasted so good, haven't had anything remotely alcholic in well over a year) and watch some T.V. Oh and I was pouting too.....Wayne was supposed to be off, however he got called to go back to work to take care of some unrulely "house guests" of Merced County. He left at 6:45pm and didn't get home until after 12:30am. So I missed my right after midnight New Years Kiss! I got mine around 1am.

As I was sitting and watching ball drop and seeing all those people having fun and all dressed up I began to feel a bit down about it. Am I getting to be an "old" tired house wife. I have never gone out on New Years Eve.....never experienced being out with my special man on that particular evening and getting that "glamourized" midnight kiss while everyone excitedly welcomes in the New Year. Tell me, is that sad or am I being a tad overdramatic and just feeling sorry for myself?

Oh well....back to reality......I do have to say I am looking forward to a very Happy 2008! My daughter will be the big 3 years old in exactly 26 days...yea! Michael is growing so fast and he is working on crawling and has his first tooth. I also have a great husband who I absolutely adore!

To you and your family I wish a very happy, healthy, fun-filled 2008!!

Good Times...

The day after Christmas we went over to Sally and Adrian's house for some dinner and to visit with friends. We finally got to me Aiden, Steve and Carol's little guy. He is such a cutie! All the kids had a great time playing and we had fun visiting with other adults.

Aiden
My little carpenter...Michael
Madison and Michael making music

And now for the wild and crazy kids....Kara, Rachel, Charlotte, and Adrian

The girls had a blast playing with Adrian...he would pick all 3 up and swing them up and down in the air.....they would end up laughing all tangled up on the floor.

Finally some Christmas Photos

being crafty...

I love the look of felt ornaments...my mom gave me a few that were on our Christmas tree when I was little. So on Saturday I decided that I would make some as gifts. I made 3 for my friend from work, her birthday is on Christmas Day! They were a snowflake, simple circle design, and a tree (no picture..oops). I then made a green and white heart like the blue one in the pics for Wayne's grandma. The rest of them are in the pics below. These were not hard to make, just took some time with my kiddos wanting all my attention.Back Row: the first one with the football is for Trevor. I made it in his team colors from Rookie Football. In the middle is the one for Scarlett. She is an animal lover so I decided to make her a scottie dog. I love scotties, and love how this one turned out. The last in the back row is for Chelsea. This is also a favorite of mine.

Front Row: the blue and grey heart is for my grandma on my dad's side. I really like how the denim blue and heather grey look up against eachother. In the middle is one I made for my grandma on my mom's side. It matches the tree ornaments that my mom made for everyone at her cookie exchange a few weeks ago. The last one in front is for my mom. This one seems very retro to me. I loved it so much that I made a second one for me!!

Here is another shot of them.

I love being somewhat crafty! I will never compare to what my mom does...she is the master of craftiness!! But I can work well with felt...last year it was our stockings, this year ornaments, and hopefully next year it will be my tree skirt.

Look what we did!!

So I loved the way Sally's girls' hair cut looked so I decided to have my mom cut Kara's shorter. I must say that I absolutely love it, love it, love it!!
Michael just hanging out in the car

So I had to join in on the fun too!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1349101996

Hope you enjoy it!


Here is one of my parents and brother...

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1349716421

When it rains...it pours!!

Have you ever felt scared to leave your house? I'm and feeling that way right now! Everyone who reads my blog (I can probably count them on one hand) knows about my misrable ordeal with the basket on top of my car mishap last week. I thought that was a horrible day...well fast forward to today. I get to my mom's house to find out that Kara has a yucky stomach bug and made a mess of my mom's living room. Get her home and off and on we are visiting the bath tub to clean my poor girl up. Wayne gets home and decides to work on his new hobby...knife making. All of a sudden he rushes in straight to the bathroom and says he needs help. You guessed it he cut himself. It's not a little cut either....both of us bandaged him up as best we could and decided that he needed to make a trip to the E.R. Wayne is not one to go to the Doctor let alone the hospital unless it is bad....so it must be bad...well at least worthy of 1 or 2 stitches.

So here I am keeping a constant vigil over Kara trying to catch her before she gets sick on my carpet of couch and wondering how bad Wayne's cut is and how long will he be sitting in the wonderful E.R. that Merced has to offer.

Here is the BIG question: Do I call in for a sub tomorrow or go to work?? I do know that sub or not I have my first day of teaching a Language Arts Intervention tomorrow right after school and I will be there for that!!

I am trying to be optimistic that next month will be much much better than this month.

My camo clad cuties

So Wayne ordered Michael and Kara some camo outfits! He did this when Kara was a baby so he had to do it again. I do have to agree that they are very cute all dressed up!Daddy and his "little hunters"
Where is Kara?Now this was Kara in her 1st camo outfit...around 3-4months.

Her and Michael look so much alike!
Where is Michael?
They look like they only have one torso in this pic...kinda creepy yet cute.
Michael was trying to eat the camera

Busy week and just a couple of cute pics

This week has been a very long busy week for me. Tuesday morning I was putting the kids in the car and set my tub of lesson plans and materials on the roof of my car....well I forgot it there and as I was going up Bradley Overhead on Yosemite Parkway the tub went flying with all my stuff in it. Couldn't stop so I took the kids to my mom's house turned around and had to retrieve my lesson plans..which to a teacher is like a bible! Well laying in the road I found half of my binder with all the lesson plans mostly intack with only a few tire marks on them. What a relief...well then I turned onto Baker Drive (back way to Coffee Rd) and littered all over the place was...yep you guessed it...my stuff.

I managed to find my almost completed application for my clear credential and a ziploc bag of halloween pics of the kids.....my dad, the wonderful dad that he is went out and picked up nearly all my papers....even though he has a bad cold...chills and all. Aren't dads AWESOME!! All he asked for in return was to bring him some chicken noodle soup. After school Trevor and I drove over and picked up the remaining papers...well the ones we could get too.

I am laughing at what happened now, but on Tuesday I wanted to go home and crawl back into bed!!

Well enough about that...I leave you with some cute pics of the kids and stuff.

Kara loves to wear my shoes...don't you love the black heels and pull-up look
My handsome Michael
Madison came over to help her mom take our picture for our Christmas card and decided to chew on my chair....

What....I'm not doing anything!!

Isn't she a cutie!!

Cristmas Parade

So last weekend was the Christmas parade in Merced. It was pretty chilly out, but the kids were happy to see the sites and catch any candy thrown their way! Chelsea was marching in it with her school band...Weaver Wild Cat Band.

Scarlett, Kara, and Trevor waiting for the parade to start

Michael all bundled up and cozy

I love this picture of my mom...what a beauty she is

Mr and Mrs Enos...aka..Tim and Corinna

My dad and Billy....look a likes!