Wishing you a wonderful holiday!!!

Snow Day 08'

I know what you're thinking....No way did it snow in Hemet?! You'd be right too if that was your train of thought...this year so far anyway. However it did snow at my brother's house in Victorville along with many of my other family members getting almost 2 feet of the white stuff!!! We spent the weekend in Victorville to celebrate Christmas with my dad's family and to let the kids play a bit. We'll be doing some serious playing in the snow this weekend as well and will post more pictures later.

Vikings finish 3rd overall

Joseph's football team lost their playoff game with a final score of 12-6. The boys were crushed however we are so proud of them all for playing with all their hearts the whole season through. They lived, ate, breathed & even dreamed football (the dreaming was per coach's orders...lol)!!! The Vikings finished strong with 3rd place in their division=)

VIKINGS WIN!!!

In an amazing upset the Vikings (Joseph's team) won the Raiders 18-7 and became the 3rd team in a 3 way tie for 1st place in the division!!! Playoffs here we come =) The kids played their hearts out today and used every skill, play and trick they have learned over the last two months. It payed off big time too! Even if they lose in the first round of the playoffs we could not be more proud of Joseph & his teammates. However, we plan on going all the way to CHAMPIONSHIPS! Wish us luck and check back some time next week to see how the first round went.

She Walks!!!

At nearly 11 months old Evelyn walked today! She took 3 steps unassisted and had perfect balance. It was particularly special because Steve had just got home from work and she walked over to say hello to him=) We know it wasn't a fluke because just a minute later she took 2-3 more steps to get to me. Now it is just a matter of convincing her that she can do it all of the time. However, I don't think it will take long since I put up my Christmas tree yesterday! Hopefully we'll be able to post a video soon.

Busy, Busy, Busy!

OK......so let's play catch up once again. Joseph unfortunately lost his bid for Historian =( However, he is still singing in the school choir and playing flag football 5 days a week. His team is currently 6-1.

The girls are doing great! Evelyn has cut her 5th tooth and is about to walk any day now. Madison is doing wonderful in school. She received Student of the Month on October 31st.

I am still looking for work but am enjoying my time as a stay at home mommy. Steve is working, of course, but is trying to get more fishing in on his days off. Well, that's about all for now but I promise to try to post at least two times a month.

Joseph Runs for Office

As some of you may know, Joseph decided to run for Student Council. The campaigning only lasted one week but it was a long one! We all pitched in and helped him out from making posters to putting together pencils with his name and picture on them. Today was Election Day for Winchester Elementary and our kids were prepared for the hardest day of campaigning yet. Both went to school armed with goodies to hand out with Joe's name to wearing large campaign buttons reminding everyone that Joe is the man for the job. Anyway....we are all so proud of him (and ourselves for that matter..lol) we wanted to share his posters with you all. Tomorrow the winners are announced so check back for the results!

Fall Festival

Tonight we celebrated Fall Festival at our kids school, Winchester Elementary. This gives the kids an opportunity to wear their costumes and celebrate with their friends since they are not allowed to wear costumes on Halloween as the school feels it is a distraction to the learning process. Here is a preview of what they will look like on Halloween =)

Joey G, Evie the Peep & Maddie the Queen of Hearts
Madison w/ her teacher, Mr. Wible

Joseph w/his teacher, Mr. Miller

Evie the Peep

Evelyn walks.....with some assistance.

Catching up!

Well, it has been a very busy last couple of weeks for us. At the end of September we went to Oak Glen apple orchards with a large group of family to celebrate my Aunt JoAnne's birthday. We had a wonderful time!

Joseph has started playing football, singing in the school's choir and being a good student all around. It has been an amazing year for him so far. Not to mention that we just went to Six Flags Magic Mountain on October 11th to celebrate Joseph's 9th birthday! Steve & I still have not been able to figure out how the time went so fast =(

The girls are doing great also. Madison is not involved in any sports or dancing at the moment but spends much of her free time playing with her friends. As always, she is doing very well in school also. Evelyn just turned 9 months old and is almost walking. On October 5th she said her first two word sentence...."bye, bye momma". It was great to hear but at the same time sad because I was trying to get her to say goodbye to her Nanny, not me!! She is such a good baby and we are having such a great time with her. Madison loves playing mommy to Evie and is a big help!

Pictures of our recent Adventures

Joseph with Uncle Scott at Oak Glen (9-28-08)

Madison in a fire truck at Oak Glen (9-28-08)

Evie at Joseph's football practice (10-10-08)

Batman, Superman & Supergirl...aka Uncle Paul, Joseph & Madison
@ Six Flags Magic Mountain (10-11-08)

Jean, Maddie & Katie at Six Flags (10-11-08)

Maddie, Steve, Jean & Joe at Six Flags
(10-11-08)

1st Tooth

Evelyn cut her first tooth today....finally =) She has been teething for almost five months now. The bottom left tooth broke through this morning. You can see a little of it but you can most definitely feel it! We are so excited!!

She's Crawling!

Finally, Finally, FINALLY! Evelyn began crawling today =) For a while now she would get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth. I was so excited this morning that I called Steve at work to share the news. Just last night we were both saying how we wished she would just crawl already and now she is =)

Baby giggles are the BEST!

Silly Girl

We went out to dinner last night and Evelyn was doing some silly stuff. I couldn't help but record it on my phone so that we can share it with all of you. ENJOY =)

Evelyn is getting so big!

Evelyn has grown by leaps and bounds! It is so hard to believe that she is nearly 8 months old now. She has recently figured out how to get herself from off of her belly to sitting up. When we saw her do this we clapped and cheered for her. Evie then mimicked the cheering by clapping for herself. Now she claps when ever she does almost anything. It's so cute =)

Evelyn is also trying to crawl and walk. She gets up on her hands and knees but then tries to climb to her feet. It's pretty funny....although she doesn't think so. Evie gets very frustrated. She is pulling herself up on people and standing up all of the time.

1st day of School

It's here.....it's here....it's finally here!! It's the first day of school for Joseph and Madison. I love our children dearly but they have been driving me crazy all summer long. This is the first time that I have been home with them for an entire summer. It's exhausting! Although my sanity is happy that it may return (somewhat) I am also so sad to see my baby's get yet another year older. At least I have Evelyn and her discoveries to help keep me busy =) However, she is also growing rapidly before our eyes.

Where a kid can be a kid!

The kids and I escaped the house for a little while and went to Chuck E Cheese the other day to play. Joseph & Madison love that place. They are always asking to go there. Since we have been stuck in the house most of the summer we went to run off some energy. The girls and I took pictures but Joseph, of course, was too cool to =)

Evie's vocabulary is expanding =)

Evelyn began to talk about a month or so ago. Her first word was "baba" (bottle) which she said all of the time. Which is fitting since she loves to eat =) Well, this past Sunday she added a new word to her vocabulary and the winner is.............. "dada". This, of course, made Steve very happy! She does everything with much excitement and talking is no exception!!

Evie & Tony go night-night

Evelyn is finally big enough & strong enough to hold her own around my nephew Anthony(he's 15mo old & big). This is exciting because they can actually play together now! Well after playing for a little while on Saturday night both of them were both very tired so I put them down together. It was so cute to see them sleeping in the same crib =)

Evelyn turns 6 months old!

Evelyn turned exactly six months old today! Where has the time gone? She's now rolling over both ways, sitting up unassisted, and started drinking juice from a sippy cup today. Evelyn loves the water so I took a video of her bath this morning to share.

Evie at Silverwood Lake

I just thought this picture was too cute not to share with everyone!

Evelyn rolls over!

I've been home with the monkeys for almost a month now and each day I place the baby on her back or belly and just wait for her to roll over. Of course, she never quite makes it all the way off of her side. Well, yesterday I had a doctor's appointment so I had my mom watching the kids. About 30 minutes after I leave what does Evelyn do but roll over of course! Luckily she gave a repeat performance when I picked them up from my mom's. I can't believe I forgot how amazing the firsts really are!!!

Can you believe we were ever this young?

Thanks to some great friends I was able to come across these pictures (and others). It is so hard to believe (looking back now) that we were ever so young. The kids took a look at these and laugh at what mom and dad used to be =)

Caring for Sissy =)

Joseph fell asleep while taking care of Evelyn while I showered.

He's such a good Bub...very helpful and loving!

Yummy breakfast!!

Playing around!!

Evie loves being a naked monkey!

My girls can't get enough of eachother =)

Evie takes her first swim!

The baseball season has finally come to an end!

Joseph's baseball season has finally come to an end and the team celebrated with a pool party and BBQ. All of the boys received trophies for their hard work and effort. They played a great season!

Joseph and his trophy

The team receiving their trophies

Time to Catch Up.....

Madison's soccer season has finally come to an end. Her team celebrated their season with a pizza party where each player received a trophy.

Joseph's baseball team only has 2 games left in the season. Last night (6/3/08) Joseph had the game winning RBI and was named Player of the Game again. He was also awarded the game ball. I don't think his smile could have gotten any bigger! His team has played an amazing season =)

Miss Evelyn.......finally got her ears pierced today! WooHoo =) We were finally able to talk daddy into it.....once he said yes we drove straight over to the mall and had it done. She only cried for a few seconds and then it was all done. It's soooooo cute. She was also talking and playing with herself in the mirror today. It was so hilarious. She could entertain herself for quite some time doing that....she loved it =) Hopefully I'll get some video of that soon.

You scream, I scream, we all scream for Ice Cream!

Player of the Game- 5/10/08

Madison played an amazing defensive game on Saturday! She came sooooo close to making a rebound goal but hit the post. She played in 3 quarters of the game and had no fear mixing it up with the other players. For this she was named player of the game!!!! The Wizards record is at 3-5-2.

Baseball was a 50-50 split this week

Joseph's team had a horrible loss on Thursday with a score of 19-5. In their defense the other team consisted of kids who have played together for the last 3 years and some of whom are actually sponsored and play All-Stars every year. On Saturday, the Cubs played a great game and squeezed out a win with 7-6. As of 5/4 their record stands at 5-2.

She Speaks!

It was a rough week in the world of Indoor Soccer =(

Madison's team wasn't as fortunate....they lost both games played this week. On Wednesday night her team lost with a score of 8-1. The other kids were excellent players and were just able to get it done everytime they had the ball. Friday night our kids played so well but still lost 6-3. Madison is finally getting brave and is now fighting her way into the game, stealing the ball & attempting score shots! She played an amazing game and we couldn't have been happier with her performance =) The Wizards currently hold a record of 3-4-1.

Winning again...woohoo!

Saturday (4/26) was a busy but very exciting day for the kids. Joseph had his game at 11 am and Madison had her's at 11:45 am. Needless to say Jean was on the go most of the morning. Luckily we had just enough time to watch Joseph hit a single and be safe on 1st base. As soon as he was safe Jean was loading the girls into the car to take Madison to her game while Steve stayed behind with Joe. The Cubs ended up winning and their record is 4-1.

Madison's team played an amazing game with only 7 out of 11 players showing up. Their are 6 players in the game at any given time so with only 7 our pour kids didn't get much rest at all. They were amazing though and demonstrated some of their best team work yet! Maddie almost made 2 goals and had an awesome save as goalie. It was very exciting! The Wizards won 5-0 and their record currently stands at 3-2-1.

Another one bites the dust =(

Well we had a very unfortunate loss in soccer today to the Tigers. The final score was 5-0 which leaves our record at 2-2-1. Even with the loss the kids still had a great attitude.

Maddie and her partner in crime take a break =)

Sleepy Girl

She feel asleep while we were at dinner......it was just to precious to not take a picture!

Steve catches some tuna =)

Steve went fishing on Friday with a group of friends from work. They took a charter boat from San Diego and went to the Coronado Islands in Mexico. He caught two bonita and a barracuda.

She Smiles!

She always stops smiling and chattering when I take out the camera. I was finally able to catch Evelyn smiling!

It was a week of losses =(

Well, we knew the winning steaks couldn't last forever..... Both kids had two games this week and each lost one.

On Wednesday (4/16) Joseph's team ran away with an exciting win of 19-1 against the Rockies where he had a solid single in the last inning. Unfortuantely the Cubs suffered an upsetting loss of 10-1 on Saturday (4/19) to the Devil Rays. As the coach (Steve) stated...."they just got tired in the end and that's when the other team made their big plays". Seems like our boys have finally met their match and we look forward to winning them next time we met! The Cubs record now stands at 3-1...which is still great!

Madison's team had a game on Thursday (4/17) and succomed to the Swarm in a close 1-0 loss. On Saturday (4/19) they played an amazing game of defense to keep the score tied at 2-2. Madison also suffered his first injury of the season by tripping over a player's foot while trying to steal the ball. She fell and hit her head on the floor but quickly shook it off and rejoined the game. It was by far their best game of the season....their team work was great =) The Wizards are currently holding a record of 2-1-1.

Player of the Game....4/12/08

After winning by a landslide....17-1 against the A's, Joseph was named "Player of the Game"! So far his team is off to a great start with a record of 2-0 =)

Wizards win 4-3....so far we're 2-0

Madison's soccer team played a great game on Saturday to pull out their second win of the season. She did well but at times was distracted by wanting to be the cheerleader (Steve's description) rather than a player. Still all in all she has a great time and that's all the really matters.

Taking a well deserved water break.

Maddie does a victory dance!

Madison and her teammate celebrate =)