Daffodils

We have a few daffodils blooming this week so we took one apart to learn more about it. Ava drew a picture and we found some information about each of the parts and labeled her picture. Fascinating!

When the wife's away. Daddy will play(work) -- Changes around the house

So we finally found a color for the house. Our house was white with pink/purple trim. UGLY! We've had a few colors on the wall for choices. (Our neighbors love that) We removed some shutters by the front windows and the walls behind were a different color. So our house has be paint starved for awhile. We'll we got some paint quotes. They were not bad. But being somewhat handy and really having nothing else to do during this nice warm spell, I thought I'd tackle the painting of the exterior. (Plus I spent the house painting money on something else.... ;)

BEFORE

(With trial paint on wall, trim has already been primered)

HERE is a sample of the trim color currently, and the before pic for tomorrow

WAY more prep then indoors. Cleaning, scrapping. priming, etc. My neighbors have come by to chew the fat while I was working, none have ever offered a hand, I guess they hate painting as much as I do. So here are the first two days were of painting. All around the front door and front walls. Doesn't look like much, but this is not stucco on the front. Its wood and raised boards, so lots of EDGES. The rest of the house is going to fly compared to this section. :) I hope. The color is Kelly Moore Ocean 02 (A kinda blue, grey, green) With the white house color, two plus coats will be required. Which is why today's changes were not that extensive (painted Fridays areas again.)

END of FRIDAY

END OF TODAY

PS: I'm home alone with Ava and Jillian b/c I sent Sara and Eli up to Portland and to the loving hands of our good friends, the Johnsons. Ava and Jillian have been playing really well together. We have also done some fun things together (I only get a couple hours in a row before their hungry or remember that I'm home. ) Denny's for breakfast, Chuck Cheese for games and prizes, McD's, the park today, Eric's Deli.

Eight Years of Love

Where we first met. Summer Camp between our churches in 1993.

I first asked Jon to come to my 15th birthday party

Our first date at MHS Winter Ball

Sadie Hawkins Dance 1994

LHS Senior Ball 1995

Westmont Graduation 2000

Our Wedding Day, January 7 2001

Our favorite wedding picture

Our honeymoon to Tahoe where it snowed and snowed and snowed and we lost days of pre-paid lift tickets. We watched all the movies released that week and on the rare non-blizzard day took a snowmobile ride.

Our first anniversary to Mendocino

Jon's graduation from SJSU 2002

Beginning our family

Our first family picture: Sara, baby O in tummy, Jon and Sasha our cat!

Our new family, April 2003

Jon and I celebrate eight years of marriage today. How exciting! I found some pictures dating back to high school, where we first met. I cannot believe so many years have passed by. We've not only grown together but have literally grown up together. Its special having that connection to one another through so many experiences and exciting moments. Here are some pictures from our first meeting to the start of our family.

Turkey Trot--Thanksgiving Day 2008

This is the chaos I speak of. Note the kids just running loose, the adults lined up yelling and photographing. This is like 1/10 of the chaos that ensued at the end of the race!

Jillian and Ava show off their medals

Ava running her little heart out

Jillian holding on to our friend from church

The so-called "staging area"

Eli on a rare moment when I let him out of the stroller

A family shot before Jon's race

Jon, Ava and Jillian participated in their first ever Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day this year. Jon ran his first 10K and the girls ran a short foot race. It was a truly chaotic day. First of all, who knew so many people liked to run? And on a national holiday at that? The place was packed. We got Dad all set up for his run and then the girls and I waited around for their foot race to begin. Now when you become a parent you realize that all non-parents have no clue when it comes to children. Get this: you were supposed to put your race numbers on your child and then leave them in a staging area arranged by age. So Ava went to one area and Jillian to another. They would then run the race by age. The youngest went first. They would start it and the kids were supposed to run in a straight line for the finish which was a huge grassy area full of people, parents and non-parents alike. Then you were supposed to somehow just find your parent before the next set of kids was released. It was insanity and chaos all rolled up in one nice package. I was so stressed primarily because Jon was not back yet, I was holding Eli and I had to be in four places at the same time: Ava's staging area, Jillian's staging area, the finish line and the starting gate for the next race. I was about in tears as I was terrified to leave any of the kids alone with the mobs of people around. Fortunately, at that moment, I saw a family from church and I yelled out to them. They willingly took Jillian from me to the start of her race so I could wait at the end to catch her. Ava, well, you take a chance with the oldest and I left her alone in the staging area and told her to stay put. What else could I do? Just as Jilly was about to run Jon showed up. Thank God because just as I expected, it was pandominium as parents swarmed in to take pictures and shout at the kids and then it was a mob scene as about 50 two and three year olds ran to the finish line where parents were yelling, workers were steering them to grab medals and relatives were greedily grabbing the treat bags for the kids. Words cannot express what a scene this was. Think hundreds of large adults and fifty little children while loud music played and people were grabbing kids left and right and rushing the treat booths for medals while they start the next race to add another 75 kids to the mix. I think the kids had fun, I'm not sure. The coolest part for them was that their paranoid mother wrote her cell phone number in pen all the way up their forearms so that I could be called if we had been separated. They showed everyone all day. Oh, and Jon? He ran his 10K in 57:56 minutes or 9:20/mile.

Sweet and Silly

Fall Fun

We had some unseasonably warm weather in November which made for just perfect days playing outside. Our tree seems to be a little off and lost its leaves after every other tree on the street but they finally came down and the kids enjoyed them. Eli especially loved having Ava throw leaves on top of him. And, yes, Jillian wears a princess costume just about everywhere!

Halloween Fun

The kids enjoyed their Halloween at Trunk or Treat. Ava was dressed as a butterfly, Jillian was a princess and Eli a monkey. We had a great time with them and they looked adorable. Jillian had another unfortunate run-in with a blow up tunnel. So far she has had a bounce house collapse down on her and last year she freaked out in the tunnel and became stuck. This year was no different. She went in and I waited....and waited....and waited. Ava came out and matter of factly stated, "Oh. Jilly is stuck in there and crying" and ran off. So I had to climb in after her and retrieve her sobbing and snotty. We are NOT doing that again.

Budding Artists

Jillian showing off her masterpiece, its two people and I know one is Eli because she always draws him with his hair sticking straight up.

Ava shows off her art, a girl standing in the rain under and umbrella next to a house with a purse. She is especially proud of her name written in cursive.

Jilly is desperately trying to learn how to write her name. She's doing a great job! She's a lefty which is making it more difficult than I ever expected to teach her. So far it looks like Eli may be a lefty too. How does that happen? They say lefties account for 10% of the population and Jon and I are both righties but 2:3 of our kids are lefties? A statistical anomaly.

Vote for our Sharks!

Resemblance?

Jon sent this to me. This is Ava at 14 months, the age Eli is now. Amazing how similar they look. I try to tell people all the time that Eli looks like Ava and they never believe me....

Montecito Tea Fire

A bit of a sad weekend for me here as I watched my alma mater, Westmont College, suffer serious damage from the Tea Fire in Montecito, CA. The college lost quite a few buildings and the faculty, many of whom live adjacent to campus, lost a huge number of homes. Amazingly, there were no injuries to the students on campus. If you think about it, please pray for those Montecito residents who did lose their homes and for the campus itself. The thought of "beauty from ashes" comes to mind as I pray that Westmont is able to extend itself to its surrounding community and offer hope in this hope-less time. I am thankful to be a part of that great community and my prayers go out to everyone affected.

Gobble, Gobble!

The girls and I made use of the pinecones falling from the neighbor's tree and made some decorations for the fall. I had made something similar in grade school that my mom still has and it was fun to repeat the craft with them. Here they are displaying proudly their creations!

Ava's turkeys

Jillian's turkey