The Big day at home.

Brian got me a video camera, it is so small and cute and I can make our videos into a DVD at some point. I took this video of the kids playing Band hero and laughed so hard I had to share it! Movies was the theme of the day, here is Brian opening a few. Spencer loved his bongo drum! Christmas day was different in a lot of ways this year. The first one being we told Joseph we act as Santa. We felt it was important for him to know that we aren't lying to him about Santa so he will believe us when we tell him of the truthfulness of the existence of our Heavenly father. He took it well, his face was so surprised and then he was very interested in helping wrap, do stockings and who was going to eat the cookies~! We also wrapped everything (Emmy was my biggest helper with that) so there weren't Santa piles.

Another difference was our Christmas party at church was a devotional and was full of songs of the season which I really enjoyed. On Christmas Eve our friends brought us a surprise dinner of enchiladas, southwest and blueberry pie, since we were going to Rah Rah's for dinner I didn't think we'd use it so I put it in the freezer. The next day I was a little sick and tired and not feeling like cooking the big meal I had planned so we pulled ou that meal and had it. Its nt what we have for Christmas usually, but it was a very nice gift and was very handy! They gave us sour cream for the enchiladas and whipped cream for the pie and almost all our kids learned the difference. Emmy told me its like salt and sugar they are both white, but are very different. It was super cute when Celia ate a spoonful of sour cream expecting whipped cream and said I don't like that! On Christmas day we came out to open presents at 7am since I sent the kids back to bed at 3am. Emmy hadn't been to sleep and I was tired so an later start on the day was nice. We took turns opening presents, everyone had so many lol, Amazon was incredibly convenient this year hehe.

The day after Christmas we had Rah Rah over and ate our Thanksgiving day meal ans Emmy called it. We had Turkey(yum, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing that I cooked in the turkey for the first time~, the Holmes cranberry sauce, veggies, and the black cherry pomegranate Christmas tree jello. It was yummy and we had a great time visiting with Rah Rah. Over all it was a lovely Christmas time and was just fine to change things up a little bit from the norm. Bri and I have plans to go out New year's eve which is unusual too cause I'm usually visiting my folks in Los Angeles. Its going to be great and hopefully the kids will have fun at home too!:)

Christmas Eve 2010

It is very nice to have family in town to celebrate the holidays with. We visited my folks for Thanksgiving so we stayed here and had fun at home with the family nearby.:)

Celia really wanted to sit in the highchair! my kids love the traditions of what we usually do!






Christmas Eve was great. The kids were happy and excited about all the festivities, family around, and gifts. We went to Rah Rah and Papa's for Christmas Eve dinner. Spence did pretty well and sure wanted to hang around Rah Rah all night. When I told him she is going to stay here, he gave me "the eyebrows" and pushed me away while moving closer to her. It was nice to see Phillinea, Willow, Jeremiah, Jason and meet Jason's new girlfriend and her two kiddos. Celia loved her Tutu and Homemade blanket from Rah Rah. She danced around like a ballerina for us and sat cozy on Papa's lap with her new blanket.:) Papa took a picture of our family sitting on the couch. It was great to get us all together in one shot. I love all the kitchen tools from Rah Rah and Papa. The red cast iron pot was a great gift. I kept saying wow this is really nice.:) It was a pleasant evening and we were glad to get together and eat good food, and visit.

A Christmas Miracle

Okay this isn't the miracle part, but I wanted to include these pictures.:) Emmy and Celia have outgrown their dresses so we got them new ones. They both have gotten so tall and are all legs.~ It is so fun to buy girls clothes. I love my beautiful daughters.~



The past few weeks have been out of control busy. I made a conscious effort to slow down and that has helped a little. Brian has been very busy at work. He has had presentations various inspections and so forth. He has done well and ended his busy time by speaking in our Christmas devotional at church last night. We had Young( our respite worker)scheduled to come watch Spencer, but it fell through. I really wanted to see Brian speak and participate in our ward's festivities. With a lot of prayer and preparation Spencer was able to sit through the full two hours of the Christmas program! He has worked on sitting at home and his limit is usually 15 minutes tops!!! We try to help him sit through church every week, but he usually lasts only a few minutes before becoming loud and pulling on us to take him out of the church. On Halloween we went to the dinner carnival and it was only two minutes in before Spencer was crying and wanted to leave.

I was determined to make this time work.~ We brought his pecs(picture exchange communications system) book to have him ask for food at dinner, he had his favorite bristle blocks to keeps his hands busy, to keep him occupied, and I had a bag of M&Ms for back up when he decided to get loud. Oh, and he took his sleep medicine he takes nightly on time which happened to be before the party.:) We watched a slide show of the ward participating in various activities through the year. The kids enjoyed seeing when our family members photos were shown. I felt the spirit very strong and was extremely pleased to have the whole family listen to Brian and be there for the songs, food, and musical numbers. Brian talked of love, hope, and charity. Also, how we can know Christ and try to become like him. Spencer stayed up way past 11pm at home , but it was great that he did so well earlier in the evening. It is always great to be together as a family and to feel warm inside.

Christmas Carnival~

All four of my kids attended a carnival for those with disabilities and their siblings yesterday. Emmy is a Miamaid now and her class was and taught about Autism last Wednesday. It was cute how Emmy said she knew about everything they were talking about. Of course she does, she has lived with Autism in her family for a while and she does so well with Spencer.:) These Miamaid girls, there were around nine of them made a cute carnival with games, music, food and fun for these special children. I was very nervous to say the least to leave Spencer there especially after he tried to steal all the frosting as soon as we arrived. Tammy Scott and Karen Lancaster are the Miamaid leaders and they did such an amazing job. All the prayers and good work from this group made it possible for me to get a little painting done on a Christmas gift for Emmy, a little bit of wrapping, and Brian and I were able to go to In-n-out for lunch. I really needed the break as I was coming down with some sort of cold in my throat. I appreciate that opportunity for the ward to serve us and was feeling so blessed as they thanked me for letting our children come.:)

Merry Christmas

It is that time of year again. Happily, this year I did my Christmas cards early only because I knew I wasn't going to try for that ever elusive family picture. I found that it is much nicer to pick photos I have taken throughout the year that I like and use those in our Christmas card. I'm sure my family appreciates not having to see me all stressed out trying to get them all to look straight and have real smiles on their faces.

I really am focusing more on relationships as we enter this holiday season. I want to take it slow and see how people are really doing and be as helpful and cheerful as I can for this time of year that can be so stressful and upsetting to some. I am feeling happier as I focus on the loving plan of salvation of which I know to be a truth in my life. I plan to try my hardest to not beat my self up over my weaknesses. We do what we can and it all seems to work out. I'm grateful for my wonderful family, extended family, and friends who love and support me. I truly am blessed.:)

A KJ Christmas

This year's Christmas party for Brian's work(KJ) was pretty different from other years, but very nice. We were able to get a babysitter after asking more then half a dozen people. I prayed things went well and they did! Spence fell asleep at 6:30pm yay. we arrived a little early to help with the set up. We helped put up an artificial pre-lit christmas tree. I felt like a pro on how to assemble them since we have had artificial trees at my parents house for a lot of years growing up!

I enjoyed all the great conversation with Brian's co workers. We talked about so many different subject from earthquakes to hiking to various books and movies. We joked about how similar the GPS in cell phones can track you walking around the house to Harry Potter's magic map.:) We talked about Colorado by the cabin, Whittier, and I was surprised they knew where both those places were. I was happy to hear how beautiful Multnomah falls and the hikes are around the Columbia river. Apparently, there are several waterfalls to go and see.:) The veggie appetizers were yummy and the hot chocolate Brian made for me with vanilla milk mixed in was a nice, warming treat! It was a great night and we made it home on time with the kids in bed, which made me happy.

Hiking Coloma

Tammy climbed the manzanita tree!
Beautiful Bridge

I took this picture of Heidi near her dreamhouse:) She thought it was such a neat house!

I braved a pioneer cemetery( not my idea) but this fence was cute!
I had a chance yesterday to go up into the Sierras and hike around. The weather down here by our house was gloomy, foggy, and raining, but when we reached placerville we had gone above the cloudiness and were in a beautiful area.I went with two friends; Tammy Scott from my ward, and Heidi Van Woerkom from my book group. Heidi has made a hiking group and it seems they've gone to many neat places. I said that I'd love to come and I'm so glad that I did. The mountains around the American river are just beautiful.

Some highlights from the hike were seeing all these beautiful red manzanita trees and many beautiful green bushes with red berries that seemed like a Christmas decoration I'd want in my house. I enjoyed seeing beautiful houses amidst the hills and fall leaves climbing the switchbacks. I warned the girls I get hungry every couple hours hehe, so I had a little bit of my turkey sandwich and a granola bar on the hike. After we were down the hill we smelled a fire that was amazing. We think it was maybe cedar burning. It was near this cute rustic hut in town, a perfect place to cool down and stretch taking in all the ambiance. The smell from the wood was so heavenly. The town of Coloma is so cute, I also saw a fire stoking in a nearby blacksmith, Sutter mill although it wasn't running. We also saw some kids coming for their school field trips,just like Emmy and Joseph.:)
I enjoyed the company of two amazing women and the fresh air and exercise did me a lot of good. Heidi also brought homemade banana nut muffins we enjoyed and we listened to Christmas music in the car.:) I am excited to go again, this new group I joined hikes about every three weeks! I am grateful tat Rah Rah could watch Celia and get her off to school so I could enjoy this wonderful experience. It was quite the task getting all four kids out the door by 8:15 am on a friday, but it was well worth the effort.:)

Too close not to go.

Since we had driven ten hours in Thanksgiving traffic to get to my parents house,I really wanted to make the most of our trip. And whats a trip to southern California without seeing the beach?!


Emmy loves these glasses lol. I tell her Hermione from the Harry Potter movie needs to come and repair them so we can take off the tape. She thinks they are fun and funny.


I used Emmy's camera to take the pics. It was bright out so I couldn't tell how the pictures were turning out. Her camera has trouble with lighting, so I was very pleased with the whole retro look of these pictures.:)


I love how Celia's hair flips around in the wind as she hops around on the beach.:) She is a happy girl.
I love the Beach and its neat to go to Huntington. I had had such fond memories there. The kids were asking about the bonfire pits. I remember many a night with a bonfire there roasting hot dogs and marshmellows. I also remember laying on the beach for hours in the summer growing up. I loved being so close to the ocean I had to pass by there before heading home.

Yay, We Went!

Celia is really into princesses and I had a dream of taking her to Disneyland to see them. That dream came true. We went to Disneyland and saw so many attractions. I really enjoyed the 3D Micheal Jackson show. Its nostalgic to hear him sing and see him dance like he did when I was a little girl. The whole theatre moved to the music and made us dance, it was cool.

We loved visiting the pasta and pizza place in tomorrow land like we always do. Pirates of the Caribbean was great and the haunted house was so cool all decorated up like the nightmare before Christmas for the holidays. The room with the dancing ghosts was a gingerbread house and I could smell gingerbread. I noticed too when we arrived at the escalators to go get the tram from the parking lot to the park, it smelled like cotton candy! They do know how to make it a pleasant place there! The cast members that worked there were nice especially in the gift shop(of course). We had to get Celia some sweats since she was soaked from Splash Mountain. The guy said you're from Sacramento? Then he said not Folsom? Not marysville? He listed lots of other cities near us, it was kinda cute. Celia also got a huge princess pink lollipop the size of her head that entertained her the rest of the day.:)

I loved the believe fireworks display set to real Christmas music, not just jingle bells and the show Fantasmic was just awesome. It got cold and the lights were dimmed when we were by the lake and they had a snow machine on while they played I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.:) We ended the evening on the jungle cruise. I heard Addison talking about the jokes they told and it was cute to see Joseph duck when they shouted get down and things like that. I think Space mountain was the favorite of the cousins. I love how they've changed it . Its much darker in there and the ride is set to some cool synthesized disco music.:) What a wonderful time it was and everyone decided it was their best Disneyland trip yet!


Celia first screamed bloody murder ont he Matterhorn the I wrapped my hands around her and had her close her eyes in the dark parts or when we saw the yeti then she was smiling by the end.:)




Celia and Cinderella. Celia ran up and hugged her after she was finally able to go and visit Cinderella. We waited a while to go into the Fairytale Faire. You can take a picture with the princesses and we listened to Aurora tell her story while we ate lunch. The older kids were great sports to go to this, but they had just rode the Matterhorn so they were just fine.:)
Celia told me today she doesn't like fast rides she likes slow. We took her on very fast rides like thunder mountain railroad. Emmy,Celia, and I sat in the very back. It was so much fun to hear them screaming with delight and cracking up. Its great to see my girls so happy.:) In this picture we had jsut used handsantizier tanya had in her purse. Emmy left her purse onthe ride, but they gave it to us right after! Everything went well with not many mishaps, I love it.~