12/31/06: Happy last day of 2006! It has been a really nice week with Christian working shorter hours than usual because it's been a slow week at work and I took some days off from work to finish up my vactaion time before the end of the year. We have had a lot of fun family time around the house and at the dog park.
Last night Christian and I went to our Sunday school class' annual holiday party at the Loves' house. It was super fun as always!! It was a re-gifting gift exchange which is always a good laugh. We came home with a bath set for me and Mexican bowl set (with bean dip included) for Christian... pretty funny!
Tonight we have another party to go to.. well, more of a get-together than a party I guess. The Ross', the Aguilars, and the we always get together for New Year's Eve dinner- no kids. Tonight, the guys will be playing poker and video games while the gals will be scrapbooking. Now that's my kind of party!! Dinner, drinks, desert, and scrapbooking, YES!
Happy New Year you all! May this coming year be a blessed one for your family!!
12/27/06: Our family had a wonderful Christmas! We spent Christmas Eve morning at church for the girls' programs. My parents and Christian's parents came to that and then came over to our house for brunch. Christian did a beautiful job cooking, baking, and decorating for brunch at our place. The girls' programs were really cute; Maddy did a nice job on her duet.
We spent Christmas eve night at our evening church service (Christian and I volunteered for childcare). Then, we headed out to Corona for a nice Christmas Eve dinner at Lito and Lita's. It was nice to have family surrounding us, morning and evening for such a special day!
We came home on Christmas Eve to "Help the elves" put together Emma's new kitchen that Santa brought. We finally got into bed at 1 AM. We had a repeat of last year with EXCITED girls getting up to see what Santa brought in the wee hours of the morning! Madeline woke up at 1:30 to find the gifts from Santa, she was extatic, but Christian and I decided we were not opening presents at 1:00 in the morning this year. Emma and Maddy came in our room at 3 AM and 5 AM wanting to open presents. When they came in at 6:30, we finally got up and opened presents with them. All 3 of them were thrilled with their gifts! Madeline got a discman with a Hannah Montana C.D., and a baby doll with Chicken Pox. Emma got a play kitchen with all the kitchen utensils. And Landon got a firetruck and a Hot Wheels Storage suitcase for all of his cars. They all got tons and tons and tons more presents from family and friends. Our kids are so spoiled and blessed to have people in their lives to treat them so generously!! Thank you everyone!!
In the afternoon on Christmas day we went to my parents house for a nice Christmas dinner that my mom prepared. It's always a little chaotic with all the kids... but so much fun!! We stayed the night at Tina's house and then had a fun day together on the 26th. Christian and Luis went for a game of golf at the Lindero Country Club, that's where we had our wedding reception almost 10 years ago! They had a good time playing golf and having lunch.
It's hard to believe that Christmas is over! It all went so fast. Next Christmas will be here before we know it... I'm sad it's over, I love the Christmas season! Merry Christmas and happy New Year to you all!
12/21/06: Today was Madeline's last day of school for the year. She is now on Winter Break. It will be nice to have her home with us for a couple of weeks, like the old days. We have plans in the making already...tomorrow we are going to see Incredibles on Ice (our Christmas present from Amanda and Luis). We are looking so forward to it! We also plan to go back to the La Habra Children's Museum, a few playdates, and some child friendly craft projects.
We are still not quite ready for Christmas. Christian and I are hoping to get some more shopping time in tomorrow night. We have not wrapped a single thing, and we neeed to plan the menu for a Christmas Eve brunch at our house. But, I did get my Christmas cards out today.
Wrangler is a great dog! He is really mellow and sweet. He enjoys going for walks and he loves to lay at our feet when he's in the house. He does have a tendancy to chew stuffed animals and toys. Christian is going to take him to dog obedience school starting Jan 11th for an 8-week course. That will be good bonding time for the two of them.
Landon is still not walking. I thought he would be by Christmas. He is cruising along the furniture and climbing onto the sofas, but walking just doesn't interest him quite yet. We'll see???
12/19/06: We had a rough few days here with the loss of our dog, Bodie. Christian took it the hardest. He couldn't sleep for days and has been on the verge of tears at every moment. We knew for a couple of weeks that Bodie wasn't acting like himself, but we were denying that there might be a serious problem. I took him into the vet on Thursday because he wasn't eating,seemed to be in great pain, and was lethargic. That's when the vet found 6 lumps and said that it was lymphoma. We knew that there was no reason to put him through chemo therapy and radiation.... it just would have prolonged the inevitible. We brought him in to the vet to put him to sleep and ease his pain on Friday. Christian was planning on being the only one in the room, but Madeline really wanted to go in, so we let her. Christian cried and cried and Madeline rubbed his back and arms. Christian said that she was in there to support her Daddy not to say good-bye to her dog. Maddy can be such a gentle and nurturing little girl. It was hard on the whole family. We will miss Bodie so much. There will never be another dog like him....... With that being said.....
We got a new dog!!!!
So far he has been called Ralphie, Rodeo, Roper, Bandit, and Kip, but I think the name that is going to stick is "Wrangler". He looks a lot like Bodie. Many of you won't be able to tell the difference between the two. He's a two-year-old black and white labrador - border collie mix. Christian went to the animal shelter on his lunch break yesterday "just to look". He saw Wrangler and played and wresteled with him for awhile and decided he had to have him. I met them and picked up the dog so that Christian could return to work. Wrangler is the sweetest thing!! He followed me around the house all day yesterday. He was curled around my feet no matter where I was. He has been great with the kids too. Maddy and Emma threw him a birthday party last night. They invited kids from the neighborhood to meet their new dog and we served sugar cookies and hot cocoa. We know it was rather fast to adopt a new dog so soon, but Wrangler sure has brought smiles to all of us! Welcome to the family Wrangler!
12/19/06: Madeline's piano recital was so much fun! It was one of those "Proud Parents" moments that we live for. She played beautifully- not one mistake! She went up on stage with so much confidence. She wasn't nervous at all. First, she played the "I Like" song. Then, a little later she played "Away in a Manger". We were all so proud of her! Luckily both of her pieces were at the beginning of the recital because Landon and Emma wanted no part of sitting though it all. They were both pretty wiggly. Christian and I took turns taking them into the foyer to walk around and get the wiggles out. Lita and Nana were there to see her too; they were beaming with pride also. Madeline was the youngest one in the recital, it was priceless!
There's something 'bout an ol' cowboy and his dog.
Today, I will be easing the pain of my best partner. Bodie Boy has Lymphoma and is in great pain. I have decided to not take any heroic measures and let him go with the same dignity in which he has lived. All that remains are the memories and great times I had with him. He has been so good to our family and to our children. Maybe not so good to the mice and birds in our yard. We will forever miss the sounds of his bark as he chased the planes that flew above our house. It is amazing what will be missed once he is gone. Like his annoying habit of getting in to the trash and passing gas while we were watching TV. I will always remember the day we thought we lost him and how he jumped all over me when he was returned to us. I will forever miss coming home to his wagging tail and seeing his snout under the gate while I pulled into the drive. When I was in New York, he moped around the house for the whole week, and now I will do the same for him. Five years ago I rescued him from the animal shelter, just days before they were going to euthenize him. All the way home, riding in my truck, he was kissing me and kissing me and kissing me. Since that day he has always loved to lay on my stomach and kiss me until I just could not take it anymore. This gentle dog will live forever in my heart and in the memories of my wife and children.
"Lord, I pray that I love you, Like this ole dog loves me. Yeah, Bodie, he's the perfect example, Of the type of Christian I should be."
12/13/06: Landon is starting to repeat words quite a bit now. He'll do some words, but sometimes he resorts to sign language. Last night at dinner we were asking him to "perform". It went something like this:
Landon say, Mama.."Mama". say Dada, "Dada", say Emma, "Emma", say Madeline, "Lala", say Bodie, (he pants like a dog). Say night night, "nana", say Papa, "Papa", say Grandma, "Gama", Say Lito, (he pats his head), say Lita, (he pats his head), Here comes the funny part... Say fire truck, With a high pitch squeal he goes, "Woooooooooooo" and then laughs. We all started laughing, it was adorable!
12/11/06: Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmassy weekend. Saturday we (mostly Christian) spent the day baking cookies in our new oven. He made three different kinds of cookies. The girls and I helped here and there, but Christian was the king of the kitchen most of the day. The cookies were all fabulous and we had a fun day in our warm house. The outside lights got hung and the festive lawn decorations are out. It looks likes Christmas at our house!
Sunday we had two Christmas parties to attend. One was a friend of ours, Kyle, who had a party at the bowling alley. The girls had a lot of fun with that, and Christian and I did rather well (since the bumpers were up!) From that party we headed off to my church staff and elders Christmas party at church. We had a great time there as well! With all of that we even managed to get to the park to have our pictures taken by our friend, Pat, in the middle of the day. Quite a productive weekend!
12/04/06: Madeline lost her top front right tooth! She looks so cute! It has ben loose for about 6 weeks. She has been pushing and pulling at it for weeks. It bled quite a bit when she finally got it out last night, so I think it wasn't quite ready, but Maddy wanted it out. Her main motivation was to get her name up on the "I Lost a Tooth in Kindergarten" chart at school. I hope the other front one comes out before she grows in this one. I just love the look of the two front teeth missing!!
12/03/06: Last night when Madeline was looking at one of the handicapped parking places she asked, "If those are parking places for the handicapped people, how do they get to where they want to go if they leave there wheelchair in the parking spot?"
(She thought the parking place was only for wheelechairs...not cars)
12/3/06: Last night we went to a Christmas tree exibit at Rose Hills in Whittier. It was a free community event hosted by KOST 103.5 radio station. There was real snow and snow runs, Santa Clause was there, tons of Christmas trees on display, food, fun characters, puppet shows, and more... It was really fun; the only thing was the lines!! There were long lines to do everything. I guess we should have expected that, being a free event and
all. The kids really wanted to see Santa, but the line was 2 hours long (outside in the cold). We decided to wait in the snow line and let the girls do the sled ride down the hill. Maddy started to fall off hers right in the beginning of the hill so she dragged her hands in the snow! Needless to say, she didn't like it. Emma LOVED it! She flew down the hill so fast laughing all the way! It was fun to see some of the characters walking around, but Landon was VERY
afraid of them. If they bent down to talk to him, he started screaming! After that we went to Starbucks...our kids all love frappucinos...Is that bad???
12/02/06: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! This weekend we put up our tree and decorated the house for Christmas. Last year at the after Christmas sale at Target we bought a 4 1/2 foot tree for the living room. Our living room just isn't big enough for our 7 foot tree. So, we decided this year we would do a small one on the table in the corner. Yesterday when we took it out of the box for the first time we all thought it looked nice, but Madeline said, "That's not a Christmas tree!!, That's way too little!". She came up with this idea of putting the big tree in the toy room. We had already considered it, but we thought it would be a lot of work to do two trees. Well, Maddy won...she really wanted to do the big tree. Christmas is for the children and we thought if it will make the kids happy to have the big tree, we'll do it. And we did! We have both trees decorated and the house looks ready for Christmas. Only 23 days to go...
12/02/06: Recently I have been asked to add aditional roles to my postion at Santa Ana College. I am now a trainer for the Americorps Program. This is a program that is funded by a grant through the government to encourage college students to serve in the community. There are two avenues that the students can take through the program. One is a mentoring program where the students "adopt" a foster child to spend time with, kinda like a big brother/ big sister program. The other is becoming a tutor in the local elementary schools. My job is a trainer for the students who are doing the tutoring. I did my first training class yesterday at the college and then I will continue to do my Tutoring Young Readers in the Spring Semester. I have been asked to teach Tutoring in Math as a class for the Spring too. It is only a 3 hour class once a week for 5 weeks each, so I will be teaching classes a total of 10 weeks in the Spring. It is really nice to be able to supplement our income this way because it is not that much time away from the family. I enjoy doing it and it keeps me updated on recent changes in the elementary schools. I would like to go back to teaching elementary school some time....but I have no idea when?!? For now, this is perfect!!
11/28/06: Emma learned to pump on the swings all by herself this past weekend. This morning she swung for about 15 minutes while I was doing laundry in the garage. She is sooo proud of herself!
11/25/06: What a wonderful time of year this is! The weather finally got down into the 60's and low 70's during the day so it is feeling more like fall. How strange it was to have all those hot days during November. I'm glad it's a little cooler now.
For Thanksgiving morning we went to see the Landers' new home in Oxnard to have a nice Thanksgiving day breakfast with the whole Landers clan. It was a very nice way to start off our holiday morning. Afterwards we headed to my parents house for the festivities. We were all so happy that Great Grandma Ham was out of the hospital and going to spend Thanksgiving with us, but it ended up that she got the flu and couldn't make it. We were disappointed not to have Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Ham there with us. It just wasn't the same. Although we are very very thankful that she made it through all of her surgeries and is recoving quite well.
Thanksgiving dinner was a little different this year as we planned to have my grandma's wheel chair there. My parents moved the dining room tables to the family room downstairs so she could eat with all of us (normally we eat in the dining room on the second level). So, we made it a "serve yourself in the kitchen and carry your plate downstairs meal". It worked out pefectly for everyone....except me. Picture this:
The children got served first and sent downstairs to begin eating. I put all of Landon's food on his highchair tray and all the kids were set! Christian has his plate ready and he's kind of pinned in between others. I go back up stairs to serve myself my food. When in the backgound I hear, "Mommy, Emma spilled her milk." So, I go downstairs to clean up Emma's spill and then back to continue serving up my plate. Then I hear Madeline burst out into tears about eating something gross. Immediately I get upset with her because that's not the way we've taught her to behave if she doesn't like something on her plate, and she knows that. A couple minutes later we find out that she had been chewing on a peppercorn that was floating in the gravy. Her mouth was burning! She was pretty upset and couldn't get the taste out of her mouth so she complained about everything she ate. Then, I go back upstairs to do my plate when I hear, "Auntie Julie, Emma spilled her milk again." I'm starting to lose my patience now.... I go down stairs, J.T. had already cleaned up the spill, but I was pretty irritated with Emma's carelessness (not to mention Christian in the background saying, "Why didn't you give her the sippy cup that I packed for her?" (I thought we had forgotten it). By the time I got down stairs with my full plate of food, Landon was finished eating and ready to go play on the STAIRS! Luckily, Amanda volunteered to play with Landon while I ate my dinner.... Needless to say it wan't the most relaxing Thanksgiving! After all that comotion, it was still a wonderful day!
11/16/06: We just found out today at piano lessons that Madeline's piece for her recital is "Away in a Manger". Robert played her a few different Christmas songs at her level and she got really excited when she heard "Away in a Manger" because that is the song that she is doing for a duet in the church Christmas musical this year. She and one other little girl will be singing the second verse of the song as a duet. Madeline's piano recital is going to be on
Thursday night, December 14th, and her Christmas musical at church will be on
December 24th at 9AM. Everyone is welcome to come to both performances.
Emma's 2's-3's class will be singing two Christmas songs in the morning church service on Christmas Eve also. They will only be performing a couple of minutes, but those little ones are soooo adorable!! We would love to have all of our friends and family there to see our talented, sweet, and adorable (OK, so I'm a little biased) children perform.
11/16/06: Our baby Landon is growing up to be a little boy! He is driving his cars and trucks all over the house making all kinds of car noises. It's so cute to watch how different little boys can be from little girls. He crawls on his hands and knees and goes from the kitchen to the bedrooms with his trucks making "vroom vroom, and honk honk" sounds. At this age both of the girls were in love with baby dolls: cuddling them, feeding them, and patting their back. But not Landon, He loves his trucks!! Needless to say, Santa will be bringing Landon bigger and better cars, trucks, and fire engines this Christmas. He will be so excited!
11/07/06: Last night before the kids went to bed we did our nightly ritual of reading "2 books before bed". Usually I let each of the girls choose one book and we sit down together and read them in their jammies. Emma chose "The Prayer of Jabez for Little Ones". It's a sweet little board book that goes through 5 or 6 main points of the prayer of Jabez from 1 Chronicals 4:10. It's a kid version of Bruce Wilkinson's "Prayer of Jabez". Anyway.... At the end of the book it has little conversation questions: 1. What is your biggest blessing? Emma- "my night-night", Maddy- "Having a house, food, and Mommy, Daddy, Emma, and Landon." 2. How does God help you not to be afraid? Emma- "I can call Mommy and Daddy." Maddy- "I pray and God will protect me." What can you do to make God smile? Maddy- "Get out of the bath right when I am supposed to." Emma answered this last question by saying, "I would tickle him!"
11/06/06: Can you believe it is 94 degrees outside right now?? When we got home from school I let the kids fill up the pool, get on their swim suits and go swimming! Is this crazy?? It's November! It's a little much for me; but the kids certainly are enjoying some extra fun in the California sun. Whatever?!?!? I'm game for anything!
11/05/06: Yesterday we made our annual trip to Yucaipa to go to "The Apple Farm" for a day in the country. Since I was in elementary school I have made the trip up to Apple Country with Jen Landers and her family. Yesterday was probably about our 15th time. We had a great day; the weather was mild. It was a perfect day for a little hike and a nice picnic lunch. We traveled to our usual three apple farms: Los Rios Ranch, Perrish Orchard, and Snowline Apple Farm. This year Jen brought pictures and scrapbook pages of all the years that we had gone to the Apple Farm. Some we were gaulky kids, others we were teenagers, some were with college buddies, some had other friends and family, or me pregnant with Madeline, Emma as a toddler, or even last year with Landon as a newborn baby. It was a great idea of Jen's to bring all of those pictures to take a trip down memory lane! I love going to the apple farms...and to think next year, Sean and Michele will add another baby to the trip. Fun, Fun, Fun!!
11/2/06: Emma is doing this "baby talk" thing lately. Normally, she speaks cleary and has a pretty wide vocabulary for a 3 1/2- Year-Old. But lately nobody would know it. She's doing babbling baby talk (goo-goo-ga-ga) stuff and she's even making her own words up for things to sound babyish. Maybe it's because Landon is starting to talk a little now and we all think he's cute?? Who knows, but hopefully she will be back to herself soon. I know we need to be patient with her; there's probably some psychological middle child / big sister explanation for it. But for now, it's simply annoying! Gotta love the stages of early childhood!
11/2/06: Halloween night went really well for our family. The kids behaved great at church while I was there early for more set up and prep for the evening. Christian came straight from work, a very long day for him, but the kids had fun with us and they enjoyed trick-or-treating with Daddy at home too.
The girls loved the look of their costumes but they were not comfortable at all. Both of them complained all night about being itchy, hot, and uncomfortable...not to mention Landon didn't like his hat either! Oh well!! They got tons of toys and candy and were thrilled with the festivities of the evening!
10/31/06: Happy Halloween!! today Madeline went on her first Kindergarten field trip. She had a great time at the farm. There were lots of animals, a pumpkin patch, and vegetable crops. Her favorite part of the trip was holding the baby chicks. She was looking so forward to holding a chickie; but was a little dissapointed when she got handed a black chick instead of a yellow one. (Kids?!?) In spite of the color, the chicks were still her favorite thing! Unfortunately I couldn't go because I had tons to do for the Fall Family Festival and I would have had to arrange childcare for Emma and Landon. I hope to go on one field trip this year though. Check out the pictures from the trip..I gave my camera to Tracy, C.J.'s mom. She took lots of great pictures for me.
10/30/06: I was itching for a change of hair style so I was going to get my hair cut. Emma really needed one too. Madeline's bangs were chin length and I thought hers would look cute if we cut it too. So, all three of us went to the salon and got matching hair cuts. Emma's was just a little trim, mine was a change, but I've had it like this before. Madeline on the other hand, has never had short hair before. We went from waist length to the middle of her back in May, and now we took it all the way up to her chin! She likes it and so do we. I love that we all have the same cut... and boy was it easy to do their hair this morning!!
12/11/06: Merry Christmas! We had a wonderful Christmassy weekend. Saturday we (mostly Christian) spent the day baking cookies in our new oven. He made three different kinds of cookies. The girls and I helped here and there, but Christian was the king of the kitchen most of the day. The cookies were all fabulous and we had a fun day in our warm house. The outside lights got hung and the festive lawn decorations are out. It looks likes Christmas at our house! 
11/25/06: What a wonderful time of year this is! The weather finally got down into the 60's and low 70's during the day so it is feeling more like fall. How strange it was to have all those hot days during November. I'm glad it's a little cooler now.
11/06/06: Can you believe it is 94 degrees outside right now?? When we got home from school I let the kids fill up the pool, get on their swim suits and go swimming! Is this crazy?? It's November! It's a little much for me; but the kids certainly are enjoying some extra fun in the California sun. Whatever?!?!? I'm game for anything!
10/30/06: I was itching for a change of hair style so I was going to get my hair cut. Emma really needed one too. Madeline's bangs were chin length and I thought hers would look cute if we cut it too. So, all three of us went to the salon and got matching hair cuts. Emma's was just a little trim, mine was a change, but I've had it like this before. Madeline on the other hand, has never had short hair before. We went from waist length to the middle of her back in May, and now we took it all the way up to her chin! She likes it and so do we. I love that we all have the same cut... and boy was it easy to do their hair this morning!!
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