Another Snow Day

What a fun four day weekend! On Friday I had a lazy day at home with the boys. Then on Saturday, Liz and I went to the Scrapbook Expo in Costa Mesa and spent way too much money. On Sunday her mom made us yummy waffles and then on Monday we took the boys back up to Mt. Pinos. They are really liking the snow. It was quite warm up there and then of course they love the pizza in Frazier Park on the way back.

Here is Christian on one of his many slides down.

Sebastian, hanging out before his turn.

Alexander, practicing on his bottom.

Randy, with one of the boys. Yes - I have no clue which on it is. LOL!

I just realized that it is Sebastian because of the red and black gloves. :)

I need to post!

I realized after reading my Aunt Jen's Christmas card that I am way behind in blogging. I have been so busy. There that is all the excuse I will make. :)

So, let's play catch-up. Christian is in the 4th grade and realizing that he might have to learn how to work when it comes to school. Everything has been too easy for him up until this year. Poor kid! The twins are in pre-school, the same one that C went to, so that is cool. They have a lot of fun and seem to be learning all that we have not taught them, so that is a God-send. Pre-School also helped with the potty-training during the summer, though Alexander went through a few days of regression last week - BRAT!!

Christian is very much into Lego's right now. He and Randy have a lot of fun with them. The twingles love all things Star Wars.

I did get a new camera for Christmas and since it has a snow setting, we went up to Mt. Pinos yesterday to try it out. So fun!! We are going to try to go up at least once more this season.

I will try to be better about posting, especially with my new camera. :)

DCI Finals

Before Randy, Andrea and I went to Finals this last Saturday at the Rose Bowl, we went to the Freelancer Reunion. It was so much fun. I didn't realize how much I missed these people. Dan even mentioned that it has been 20 years since our rookie season. Time sure does fly. I loved meeting spouses and seeing pictures of kids. It was a blast.


This is a pic of Randy and I with Al. What fun!!!

And here is Andrea & I with Tom & Lance.

Boot Camp

For those of you wondering, I did finish my first month of Adventures Boot Camp for Women. http://venturabootcamp.com/home.html
It was so fun, hard but fun. I really needed to get out there and just exercise and this did it. I am most excited that from the 1st Friday to the 4th Friday I was able to cut a minute off of my 1-mile run. I can't wait to see what I can do next month.

Do you have a person like this?

Someone who brightens your day with a smile. Not a usual friend or family member, just someone that you know and look forward to seeing during your day. For our family that is Beth. We met her about 3 years ago while she was bagging our groceries at Ralph's. She wanted to talk about the twins since she herself was an identical twin. I found myself always going to the lane that she was working in just for a quick "Hi" and "how are you doing" She always had a great story about her family. The stories were sometimes hard to understand due to disabilities from a premature birth. But worth the trouble. At 45 she and her sister lived together and were very close. I would see her riding her bike to and from work - always with her helmet on. And I assume that she was wearing it Friday night when some 20 year old guy ran a red light and hit her before driving away. Beth died early Saturday and left behind many grieving friends and family members. When I went shopping on Sunday I knew it would be hard. But seeing all of these sad people in black was worse than I thought. By the time I left the checker, the girl bagging my groceries and I were crying hard. They had a great write up about her in the paper that day, I learned so much about her and her activities. And it was a little comfort today to hear that the driver turned himself in.
We will miss Beth and her smiles.

Look Who Turned 3

Yes - The Twingles turned 3 last week. They are getting so big and talking nonstop. They have an interesting LOVE/HATE relationship going on. And they are off to pre-school in August.

I guess I should use this post to catch everybody up.
Christian turned 9 in April. He had a Pirate themed party at the fencing studio where he and Randy take classes. Here he is taking Captain Crook down.



They next day we took all of the cousins to see Thomas the Tank Engine in Fillmore. They had so much fun!


Then in May Christian made his First Holy Communion. We were very proud of him. He took it very seriously and understood what a great Sacrament it is. He also looked so good in his shirt and tie.





Today is my first day of summer vacation, so I hope to be better about blogging. So sorry to those who keep emailing me that they want new pictures. I promise to do my best.

This makes me laugh because I feel I never say the right thing.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well. An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly. You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view. A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Christian

I was going through the Easter pics tonight and came across this one of Christian. I love it! It is after the egg hunt and he has emptied his eggs into a bag. I am not sure why he has his book in his basket but it is so him. He always has a book out. Here he is surrounded by relatives and noise and he is content with his book.

Egg Hunting

Every year we say that we need to cut down the amount of eggs we hid. Over time most of the kids in the family are too "old" to hunt eggs. But with only 7 this year hunting, we still brought way too many. It is fun though. My sister Andrea bought the kids wax eggs that were filled with confetti. She then had her son Logan crack one on Randy's head. He waited hours to get her back, and you can see that she wasn't ready for it. What a fun day!

Egg Decorating

After we got back from feeding the horses, it was egg decorating time. The twins only wanted to do one each, which was fine. The bigger kids did 2 I think. Then the mommies and Tisha did the rest. I had fun trying different styles.

Easter morning

Easter started nicely with the twins sleeping until 7:30 - Yea! Then we had to look at all of the Easter basket goodies.

During the morning, Tisha(my niece) needed to pick up her prom dress from her mom's house. So she suggested we take the kids so that they could meet her horses. I had never been there, so I was excited also.

Here they are looking at the ponies.

Feeding them some hay with Tisha and Becca

Christian petting Romeo, I think. It could be Juliet.

Their favorite part was feeding the bigger horses carrots.

Cottontail Days

On March 30th, we went to downtown Ventura for Cottontail Days. The boys had a great time. This is a picture of Maya (my one and only student teacher from years ago) with her son Aedan and me. Here is Christian going down one of those big slides he loves so.

Here is Alexander touching a snake.

And Sebastian with a lizard.

We have no egg hunting pics. because it was over so fast. It is hard to believe that the twins would come down with a stomach virus the next day that would last most of the next week. Poor guys!

First Penance

Christian made his First Confession on March 24. He did a great job and we were so proud of him. We are also very excited for his First Communion coming up in May.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Today we went to the 19th Annual County Ventura St. Patrick's Day Parade.

We had a lot of fun. The kids were very excited to see the motorcycles.

And we also liked seeing our friends Peter and Becky in their pretty Ford.

But I think their favorite thing was drinking over priced hot chocolate.

Christian started to get bored about 3/4 of the way through.

But my favorite part was buying the new refrigerator we desperately needed to replace the avocado one we have had for almost 15 years. And it was old when we bought it in college. I also bought a pretty pink iPod shuffle to listen to while I try to get my 10,000 steps a day in.

A good day was had by all. :)

Tall Ship(s)

The Lynx

On Saturday we took the boys to see the Tall Ships that ended up being the Tall Ship. One was missing. But the boys had fun standing on the "pirate ship" though the twins had more fun watching the people on the boats that passed us.

This is Christian pretending that he is about to crash into something.

Alexander, not to sure about the whole thing.

Sebastian watching the private boats - He wouldn't turn around for the picture.

So much for Resolutions

I make them and I break them. My intentions are good though. And I gave chocolate up for Lent and it has been a big sacrifice (which it is supposed to be). I miss it so.
I have a problem with my babies getting older. Half of me wants them to stay babies and the other half of me can't wait to get them out of their 2's. They are driving us crazy. Randy and Christian stayed home sick yesterday, I went to work because I want to save my sick days for when I can't get out of bed or for something fun. I usually use them for the kids though. Anyway, I was driving home after picking up the Twingles and I mentioned that Daddy and Christian were home sick and that Mommy was sick and was going to rest when we got home. Sebastian starts wailing that Mommy was not sick and she can't rest. Ha! But I did. I went straight to bed while they were eating dinner because Randy was feeling better. It was WONDERFUL!!! I miss those times were we could sleep in and Christian would sit on our bed watching cartoons. Not these guys, they want breakfast at 6 am (at the latest). So Randy sleeps in on Sundays and I get Saturdays. But today I had to drag my sick self out of bed early to make my 9 am hair appt. I am glad I did, it looks cute. But will never again after I wash it. I need to go to cosmotology school just to learn how to dry my hair the way she does. Oh well.

San Diego

We are here in sunny SD visiting my inlaws. On our way down, my youngest sis called to say that they were visiting her inlaws also. So the Chase family came to visit. Andrea and I went to a SB store called "Scrapbook Your Life". I had never been there before and it is only 10 min. away. How did I miss that? No idea. It is 5,000 square feet and looked like it will be a great place to visit when they get all of their CHA stock in. But they had a great selection of Technique Tuesday stamps that I love. I will be back on our next visit!! Then we took all 11 of us to one of my favorite restaurants - Fellipe's. They love kids there and bring them pizza dough balls to play with. It was a fun day. My sis's family went back to her sister-in-laws house and today we are going shopping for kids jackets. Grandma Zsa-Zsa has decided that the boys need denium jackets and who am I to say "NO"?

Another New Years Resolution

To be a better blogger. I need to take the time to type my own as well as read those of people I know.
I think "The Cold" has finally left our house. It stayed for about 5 weeks and was very unwelcome. Randy and I both took sick days for the boys and none for ourselves. I miss the time when a sick day meant I could stay in bed all day. One of the days was just for Christian and he was very excited that it would be just the 2 of us, even though he was sick. Poor kid has gotten the short end of the stick since The Twingles were born. I am going o keep the twins at day care on Friday for the holiday and just spend the day with him. But it will have to be at home since Randy's car is going in for brake work and he will have the van. So no outings for us. But we find something fun to do.