The Woodland Adventure

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

Our first Halloween in our new home: I am now learning wisdom as I become a more seasoned Halloween mom, that at least two out of our four children are bound to change their minds at the last minute about their costumes. Ben ended up deciding to wear his badly torn ghost costume from last year instead of the brand new Anakin Skywalker costume he insisted on a few weeks ago. Jeff also changed from Spiderman to Venom. Sarah was true to Rapunzel, although I now know why the storybooks always show her with a long braid. The wig became a huge knot in about ten minutes. And Jacob was the cutest vampire ever!

2010-10-29T14:55:00.001-07:00

So I had fun finally putting some music on our blog and I had to put 'Fireflies' on first because the kids LOVE this song so much - -well, that and 'Hey, Soul Sister' (doesn't every child love this song? I think it must be the ukelele!). Anyway, since this is our family blog with mostly pictures of the children, and we've been listening to this song somewhat constantly since our move, it seemed only natural! This picture is from June. We finally have a real back yard for the kids to play in and they were so excited for their first run through the sprinklers after a long winter.

New Location, New post (finally)

2010-10-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

So, for all of you who know us, we are not always the most consistent at things like blogs, but I was looking at all of these seriously outdated pictures and entries and realized it's time to update. So here goes... We moved! We bought a new house! We have gone a whole year without getting pregnant. Yes, some very important milestones have occurred as our so aptly named "Woodland Adventure" continues...

Happy 3 Month Birthday, Jacob!

2009-05-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Jacob turned 3 months. It's hard to believe how fast it's gone by. He's such a sweet, good baby and our first one to sleep through the night before his first birthday! As you can see in the photos, the kids adore him too!

Ben Loves Octopuses!

2009-05-03T19:11:00.000-07:00

For a project for school in Ben's 1st grade class, he did research on octopuses and made a poster. I have to say that even though I dread anything involving being "crafty", we had so much fun working on it together! Growing up in London, things were pretty much just writing and maybe painting or drawing a picture. But I did have a recollection of using a certain kind of tissue paper where if you layer and glue pieces of them together, the colors bleed into each other. That was our ocean and then we had fun finding pictures of octupuses online and writing the information underneath each picture. I loved watching Ben get so creative and passionate about something. He used pipecleaners for seaweed and colored everything with his own patterns. He was so proud of himself and so we had to take a picture!

Ben the Pitcher!

2009-04-28T22:42:00.000-07:00

Well, Ben had the time of his life at his baseball game on Friday night when he got a great hit, and then his coach let him try pitching! He has been begging to do it all season and he finally got a chance! Last year he was in T-ball so this is a whole new world. Check out the concentration on his face. Now if I could just get that kind of focus from him when I ask him to clean his room!

Happy Easter!

2009-04-28T14:21:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures we took at our Annual Easter Egg Hunt put on by our Church. There were literally thousands of eggs all over the ground and when those kids charged the field, it felt more like "Lord of the Flies" than a sweet Easter outing! But every one got plenty of candy, and it only took me a week to get all halves of plastic Easter eggs and half-eaten candy out of the bottom of our mini-van! But it was worth the fun we all had together!

Time to play Catch-Up!

2009-04-27T22:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know it has been a while but it has been a crazy few months and I am sitting down for the first time ever to figure out how to do this! Mark has been the one doing it before but he has asked me to catch up for us and so if it doesn't look very good, it's because I'm still new to the blogging world! If you know me, you know that for the most part, computers and I have a hate-hate relationship! Then when you add in the beautiful weather we enjoy here, computer time pretty much stays in last place on my priority list...

So I've posted some pictures of the last few months and hopefully will do the rest of our catching up in the next few days...To be continued...

Sebrina's Attempt at Beautiful Christmas Pictures

2008-12-21T18:17:00.001-08:00

As the tradition goes in our family...each year at Christmas time it is absolutely critical to get new cute pictures of the kids. So with camera in hand Sebrina was determined to get some nice pics of the kids. I had already left for church so we wouldn't have to sit in the parking lot and Sebrina began the photo shoot. Some of the pictures turned out pretty cute except for the fact that Ben's collar isn't button down...sorry son, I'll look out for you next year!

Putting up the Decorations

2008-12-21T18:11:00.000-08:00

As part of our manly duty, this saturday Dec 13th, Ben and I went out and put up our Christmas lights. There were no injurys and the family is quite happy with the results! P.S. you'll see Sarah's idea of "helping"...next year I am thinking of "helping" in that kind of way as well!

The Elusive Hunt for the Perfect Tree

2008-12-21T16:59:00.000-08:00

For Family Home Evening the entire clan headed to the Christmas Tree farm. We let the kids run around like crazy and animals and Sebrina and I eventually found the "perfect" tree!

Ben the "Baller"

2008-12-07T21:04:00.000-08:00

Hi All- Here is picture of Ben decked out in his Basketball gear! This is his first year, and after the first few games he is getting aggresive and really enjoying it. Yesterday he made a basket and was one of the team's heros!

You Gotta Love Denny's

2008-12-07T20:54:00.000-08:00

We are a little behind here, but for Thanksgiving we made the migratory pilgrimage up to Danville to have Thanksgiving with Sebrina's parents. As is common with 3 screaming kids in the car, we made a stop at Denny's (not our choice, but the kids were very persuasive!). We ordered a truckload of food and to my surpirse, ate every last scrap was gone. I swear we ordered enough to feed a small village in Africa, but Ben came to rescue eating all of his Mac & Cheese, half of Jeff's and polished part of Sarah's hamburger and all of her fruit. As if that wasn't enough he ate half an order of cheese fries and was begging for a milkshake at the end. I watched in shock, half horrified and half the proudest pappa ever! Then it dawned on me, that we are going to have 3 of these animals in the house soon and I started to tally up the grocery bill in my head! Heaven help us...but if you're ever with Ben and can't find something he likes head on over to Denny's!

2008-03-28T17:11:00.001-07:00

Well, this has definitely been a miletsone week for baby Jeff. He is now fully crawling and when I came into the nursery to get him up yesterday, he was sitting up in bed. I guess it's time to lower the crib mattress! We had a lovely day today going to Irvine with friends to a fantastic community pool. The kids loved it and Ben and Jeff wore their matching shark swimsuits. Sarah is getting less timid about the water. She has the highest pitched voice that any toddler could possess. When she saw the water sprayers come on in the play area she turned around in circles crying, "Help, help!" It's been a great day.

2008-03-26T14:57:00.000-07:00

Well, we have finally joined the ranks of bloggers. I have to say that this will be an experiment since I am so old-school when it comes to technology. I depend on Mark for all that! So hopefully he will keep it going. But since our families are so spread out and I am not known for my diligence in email correspondence, I thought this might be a good way to keep in touch with every one at once and journal for our family! So this is it... our first posting!