Family Pictures

We had these pictures take back in October when Alan's Mom and Dad came to visit. I am now getting them posted. I know I am a little slow, but better late then never.

As you can see the girls are in pink and the boys are in brown... funny even the dog is a boy.

A very nice picture with Alan's parents

Little Man has grown up so much

Princess G, what a sweetheart

Don't let this innocent face fool you

I think we are in trouble when they get older...

Tagged!

Tagged Part 1: Find the 4th picture from the 4th file

This is Princess G at the Ronal McDonald House in Denver.

Tag Part 2: Crazy Threes

1. 3 show I watch

Ugly Betty

Grey's Anatomy

7th Heaven (reruns)

2. 3 Favorite Restaurants

Texas Roadhouse

Taj Mahal (Indian)

Olive Garden

3. 3 Things That Happened Yesterday

Went shopping with a friend

Decorated the Christmas Tree

Played games with friends

4. 3 Things I'm Looking Forward Too

Christmas at home

Going to ride the Polar Express next weekend

Playing in the snow

5. 3 Things On My Wish List

Princess G getting better for good

Taking the family to Disneyland

getting my house clean and organized to stay

6. 3 Things I Love

My family

My dog

My friends

7. 3 Things I Can't Stand

Telemarketing phone calls

my kids yelling at me

bad drivers

8. 3 People to Tag - Your IT!

Natali

Lisa R.

Linda

Where have we been....

It has been a rough few weeks in our house. We have all been sick. I seemed to got the worse of it. Better me then Princess G. It was a pretty bad virus. About the time we thought it was over it hit a second time, and harder then the first. We have been in and out of Doctors making sure that Princess G was OK. The funniest part was that when we took her in the Doctor looked her over and simply said, she has a cold. That's it, a cold. I don't think I have ever heard that before with her. We just laughed, and took her home. She is doing so well. Her cold did turn into a touch of Bronchitis, but she is better now.

In other family news, Little Man moved to a new school. We found that his reading is still way above grade level, however he is struggling with math. This new school will work with him on both levels. We asked him if he wanted to move and he said YES. He had not issues with the change. He already knew lots of kids at his new school from church, so it was an easy move. We like the schedule better. He goes Monday thru Thursday. Having Friday off. We like that because Alan has off every other Friday, so more family time.

Sunshine is doing well. Her hair is growing back in very nicely. She loves to color. She would color all day if I would let her. However we still have other things to get done. We had been having problems with her waking up in the night and waking the other kids and keeping them up for hours in the night. We never knew this was happening until the other kids would complain about how tired they were. We talked to her Pediatrician and she suggested Benedryl before bad. It took a few weeks to change her sleep schedule but we think we are finally there.

Not too much else going on here. We are looking forward to our trip to Durango, Co to ride the Polar Express in December.

I hope to back up and going again and keeping our blog a little more current. I will add some pictures of the kids soon.

Twitight....

I will admit it, I went to a midnight showing of Twilight. OK it was really 12:03 am. The theater that we went to had 4 showings, 12:01, 12:02, 12:03, and 12:04 am. I was really lucky to have got tickets the day of the show in the 3rd showing. I was able to talk two friends into going with me. I think I may have even been brave enough to have gone alone. But thankfully Anya and Holly were die hard too. We got to the theater over and hour early and the theater was almost full. We still were able to find 3 pretty good seats.

As for what I thought of the movie. I really enjoyed it. I think with a lot of books made into movies you can tend to spend a lot of time comparing the movie to the book. I did a little but I got into the movie pretty quickly and really enjoyed it. I liked that it was clean, they still leave a lot of the intense stuff to the imagination, so it is not very bloody or too graphic. I liked that a lot. I really enjoyed the music. I thought that the music really pulled you in. I have to say that I really loved the movie. I think it was worth the midnight showing, and being a little tired today.

Halloween Post... Finally

I have been very behind this week. Princess G has been sick, so everything got behind. I am trying to get back on track. I know lots of people have wanted to see the kids all dressed up for Halloween, Sorry it took so long to post the pictures.

Halloween was a three night event for us this year. On Thursday night we went to a Trunk-or-Treat for a friends ward. The kids had such a good time. The ward we went to is the ward we spit from just over a year ago. It was nice to see everyone and visit. On Friday night we went to our ward Trunk-or-Treat. We also had a chili dinner. I really enjoy seeing all the kids dressed up and how much fun they have. Of course our kids love getting candy. Sunshine is a true candy-aholic, so she loves Halloween. We think it is her favorite holiday. On our third and final night of Halloween, a few of our neighbors thought it would be fun to do a little neighborhood Halloween carnival for the kids. We all set up games at our houses and the kids went house to house playing games. It was a really great way to get to know some of our neighbors better. We had dinner at one of the neighbors house. It was a ton of fun. We are hoping this will become a annual event. By the time Saturday night was over I was Halloweened out. I am glad the kids had fun, but I am more glad that it is over.

Now on to the kids costumes. I don't know about everyone else but "helping" pick kids costumes is a big pain. If you ask them too early what they want to be they will change their mind 5 times, if you ask too late then they get what ever left overs you happen to find. Well this year we were the latter one. Little man found a great Pirate costume that he actually really liked and was happy to wear. That was after 3 stores and nothing better. I have to say thought that after I bought it, he got really excited and didn't even complain. Princess G was a little harder to work with this year. She had been sick the whole week before Halloween so one, I did not want to get anyone else sick, and two, I didn't want her to get anything else. They my brilliant friend Linda said you should dress Princess G up as a Doctor with the mask and all so she will be protected. I loved it. From then on poor Princess G had no choice. I told her if you want to do anything for Halloween she had to dress as a Doctor. She was not to excited about the costume, but she wanted the candy more. Smart girl. Well luck for us we have a great friend who happens to be a Pediatrician at the hospital and got her at the Doctor necessities to look the part. The best part was her costume was free, and disposable. Then there was sunshine. What to do with her. Well I happened to pop into Marshals to look around and they had a very small selection of costumes. I had not even gone in thinking to look for a costume. Well I thought I am here I will look. I found the cutest Skunk costume. It was so perfect. I told Sunshine she could be a skunk because she was my little stinker. She loved it. And let me tell you she played the part so very well. She even would go around and pretend to spray people. I just had to laugh. What else could I do?

This really was a great Halloween. The weather here was so beautiful. It was pretty warm even into the evenings so everyone really enjoyed themselves. On a side note I decided to not dress up this year. Alan however decided to go as a rock star. It was pretty funny.

Now it is time to prepare for the Holiday season. I am so not ready for this.

Had to share

I just thought I would take a moment to share. I have found a website that I can not live with out. It is www.edhelper.com When I started looking for resources for home school this site was recommended to me. At first I just looked at it and moved on. I have now come to appreciate the full value of this site.

My biggest fear when starting home school was that I would miss some major concept for reading or something dumb like that. Once I bought the curriculum for Princess G that fear was gone, thankfully. As we started doing school I realized that my biggest problem was keeping Sunshine busy. Edhelper has been our answer. I have been able to make coloring sheets, writing practice, and any thing else I need for her. To have full access to the website it is $20.00 a year. Trust me after everything I have seen out there this is so cheep. As I have surfed this site I have found even more value. I have been able to make activities for Princess G that go along with her lessons, and I have been able to make some worksheets for Little Man who is not doing as well in Math as we would like. (He is an amazing reader and has focused all of his time there, so his math has suffered) I am so excited to help him get caught up with the work I have found on edhelper. I just thought I would share in case anyone has a child who needs a little extra work, or for preschool aged children who need to be kept busy. Check it out and enjoy.

Just a idea for you...
- Sunshine is learning her letters by sight and sound. She also enjoys tracing them in a work book I had for her. However she was not ready to try to write her letters on her own. I was able to make pages that are just tracing the letters. So I printed them, then I laminated them, one letter in the front another on the back. She can trace the letters with a crayon or dry erase marker. I can wipe it off, and she can do it again. Everyone is happy.

Movie Review

I had heard about the movie Fireproof a few weeks ago and I watched the trailer on line. I could not wait to see the movie. So tonight Alan and I went and saw Fireproof for our date. The first thing I noticed was that the theater was packed. I am not exaggerating when I say there was not one empty seat. And you have to understand that this movie has been out for several weeks. For the most part it seemed that it is a couples movie.

As for the movie. It was so good. We laughed and cried. OK, so I cried. For those of you who are not familiar with the movie here is a link so you can check it out. Go To FireProofTheMovie.com
This is a wonderful movie about the importance of communication, love and support in a marriage. The movie is about a couple on the brink of a nasty divorce, and both are ready to give up. The husband is challenged by his dad to try the Love Dare for 40 days. The movie follows the husband (played by Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains) as he tries this challenge to save his marriage.

We loved this movie because the whole point is Christ and our relationship with him, and how that relationship affects our relationship with our spouse. The church who produced this film did an excellent job with the script, and casting. We can't wait for this movie to come out on DVD.

We feel that our marriage is doing pretty good, however we can always learn something new.

Alan says we should all support movies like this, I have to agree with that one. I would love to hear opinions from anyone else who has seen the movie.