My most exciting Christmas gift

I have never owned a pair of these, I mean like the real things but for Christmas this year, Bryan pulled out all the stops and these ugg boots are on their way in the mail, actually coming from china, oddly not Australia but oh well. I can't wait to wear them in Tenn. next week.

Families growing up!

so I was thinking today that it is so strange to see my family (my sisters) growing up. I don't feel I am getting older with each passing year but for some reason in my head my 11 year old sister is pregnant and my 13 year old sister is getting married to a man who has two children that will be living with her full time, she too will be a mom. But honestly they can't be growing up because I am not getting older right? We are all still young in our heads how time does fly. I can't imagine how fast it will go with my own children. Here is a picture that was taken just 'yesterday'

Christmas 1991
I was 11, sarah 8, rachael 6, Jessie 3

P for Pass!!

Big news...Bryan passed his first Architecture exam. He did it on his first try, no one else in his office has passed this test on their first try. He is brilliant, I am sure. The exam is the first of 7 that he has to pass in order to get his California Architecture License. His goal is to be done sometime around the end of 2010. So now he is going schedule his next one for sometime around march and study study study until then. So I am free for the next 3 months after 8 pm :) .

Cabin Fever

So it has been almost two weeks since I put our family in a sort of quarantine. Sadly we are still dealing with coughs, only now with different people. Kevin and Adam have come down with Cabin Fever, me too actually. and we are losing our minds. The whining at my house has reached max capacity and I can't wait for Christmas b/c cough or not we are going to see family so we are getting out of the house regardless. Here is what it looks like today. Yes that is a Costco bag of croutons.... They are watching Rudolph.

To go for #3 Right Now or Not!

(there are 8 years between my youngest sister, Jessie, and I. We were 12, 14, 16, 19 in this picture)

Reasons To Go for it:

close in age

getting it over with sooner

hopefully they will play together better

There will be extra eyes in middle school and high school if they are closer

I could be done having children by 32ish even if I end up with 5

that whole be happy and multiply thing (truly there is no greater blessing/gift than children)

When all the people that have asked me if I am expecting ask again I could say, yes 3 days...you noticed?

or Not:

being pregnant is not fun especially with two little ones

getting pregnant in the near future would put all my kids birthdays in the fall, near Christmas in a clump.

People will start wondering if I just make babies and that is all.

3 is the giant leap, I have heard.

HHHHMMMMMMM................................................................

a Blessing at Costco?

Tuesday I was to make a salad for 80 people, a ceasar to be precise. I was going to take the easy way out and buy the already made ones at Costco, throw it all together, add extra lettuce, they always give too much dressing and call it good........Ha ha ha, this falls into the best laid plans...blah blah blah.

In reality they had none of the salads this week that they ALWAYS have. So here I am, not a salad person, without a clue. I go to where the romaine lettuce is and throw 5 bags into my cart and stand there thinking what am I going to do????? Along comes another woman with 4 bags on lettuce in her cart. So I stopped her. "Are you making a huge Caesar salad by any chance" I ask her. "yes, actually" she replies. So I pick her brain for 5 minutes getting an idea of how much lettuce I need and ending up getting a recipe for Caesar dressing. Apparently she has made the Caesar for their family Christmas dinner Party for 50 people for 10 years. So I take the recipe and decide to buy some dressing at Ralphs. Whoa, show up at ralphs and it is like 10 bucks a bottle for the cheapest big bottle (best price per oz) I need 4 bottles, "oh, no" I think. I was supposed to be doing this for relatively inexpensively. So I take out the recipe written on my supercuts value card and start buying the ingredients and got them all took them home and made my first ever dressing. People even said they liked it. I don't know what I would have done if I had not run into that super nice lady. She could have said yes and went on with her shopping but she stopped and gave me all her tricks. I hope when someone needs me I don't feel overwhelmed by my children and brush them off, or rush away. I hope I am like this lady and make someone else's day a little bit easier.

Knotts Merry Farm

We had such a blast at Knotts last week. We went with the Cooke Family and all the boys got to ride lots of rides and I even attempted one roller coaster with Shel (and had a good time doing it) Here are some highlights in pictures.

(This is the only ride we could get Joel to ride)

We finished the night with a game of air hockey which Bryan and I miserably lost and some dance dance revolution and so as to not to get off my losing streak, I totally got beat by Joel... GO JOEL

Papa and Mima

Saturday was a fun filled day with really no naps to speak of. We went to OC to visit Mima and Papa. We all went on a bike ride to the beach and then to lunch then to a park and back home (papa and mima's home) where we got some more play time in. The kids always have a blast with their grandparents here are some cute pics from our visit.

so proud to do it all by himself

a good book for all

Trains, always a Kevin fav.