Our Christmas 2008

So Christmas is over. I'm kind of glad actually. It's always so frantic and busy, plus we eat too much. :( But we did have fun, and the kids really enjoyed their presents and having Gran-Mom here.

Christmas Day was spent in two places. The morning was at our house, where the kids woke up to stockings. Then we have a big breakfast. After that....presents! This year, Josiah played Santa (to pass out the gifts), Nicole the elf, and then William the reindeer.




After we opened our presents at home, we all headed to my parents house for more gifts, and a big dinner. We had a lot of fun...It made it very memorable knowing this is our last Christmas in the states before we head to Northern Asia.

And to end this post...here is a video to get a glimpse into my family. This is my brother when I gave him my gift (a calendar from despair.com).

Merry Christmas!

We wish all of you a Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

December Update

We've been pretty busy these last few days. Keith's mom is here for Christmas. She's been here since Thursday, and we'll stay til the 28th. The kids are REALLY enjoying her visit. They've been showing her all their Christmas videos, and even got her to play the Wii with them! Too funny. My mother-in-law is 74, so she deserves some credit for playing that with them. :)

Can't believe Christmas is only 5 days away! This year has just flown by. I guess with fundraising and all that, we've stayed so busy that I feel like this year was only a day. We've made significant strides in our monthly budget and are looking at closing that last bit in. We should be in Northern Asia sometime in the beginning of next year! Yeah!

Well, I'm off to take my mother-in-law shopping, so I'll leave you with a parting picture. I took this of the kids yesterday in our front tree. It came out great! Merry Christmas, everyone!

The Great Snow of Oh-Eight

We woke up this morning to this:

It's snowed quite a bit last night. And thankfully stuck to the ground so the kids were able to play in it this morning.
But of course being South Texas...it's already melting away. But at least it stayed around long enough for the kids. William woke up at 4:30 this morning so that he could play in it. :) We promptly sent him back to bed til 7:00. The kids had a blast and made some great memories. Not sure who had more fun, though...Keith or the kids. :)

It's Snowing!!!

I can't believe it. It's actually snowing!! I can hear it now:

"Grandpa, tell us of the Snow of Oh-Eight."
"Alright, kids, just have ya a sit-down and I'll tell ya of that great year."

Here's our miraculous snow:



OK, so it's not a northern blizzard, but it sure is cool! :)

"All I Want For Christmas...

is my ONE front tooth, my ONE front tooth, oh my ONE front tooth..." I don't think that's really how the song goes, but that's how Josiah's gonna sing it this year.

Christmas Puppets

I found these adorable Martha Stewart puppet kits at Walmart the other day.
I gave them to the kids today and let them put them together.
They loved it! And they came out really cute.
I don't know how I did this, but I only got 3 puppets and Caleb was a little upset that he didn't get one. So, Keith took Caleb to Walmart to pick one up for him. When they get back I'll post a picture of Caleb with his puppet.

**Update!! Here's Caleb with his puppet.**

A Trip to the Local Fire Station

At our home school support group meeting on Wednesday, we made food baskets for the fire departments in the area. Our family volunteered to take one to the fire station in our small town. So, this afternoon Keith took the three big kids and delivered it. The men seemed to appreciate it, and a young lieutenant took the kids on a tour of the station. Here are a few pictures from the trip:

Our Disney Trip

I mentioned before that we just took a trip to Disney World. So, I'm finally going to let everyone know how it went. It was great! We had scheduled some meetings in Florida, and since we were going to have to stay a few days, we decided to use those days at Disney. :) We were able to get some discounts so that helped as well.

The kids had a blast. Everything was so new to them. I wish we had had more time to ride everything and see all the cool sights, but I guess we'll just have to make another trip in the future. :) I could probably describe every day to you and every single thing we did, but that would just take too long and too much energy (which I don't have right now), so I'll just post some pictures and you can fill in the blanks. Enjoy!

"We're here!":

HUGE Mowgli and Baloo:

Our hotel:

Rarin' and ready to go:

On Thunder Mountain:

You should know who this is:

Big Band, Magic Kingdom:

Hey, Pluto!:

Magic Castle, all lit up:

Caleb with his new Mickey:

I'm Dreamin'...

Thanksgiving 2008

Can't believe we just celebrated Thanksgiving! My, how this year has flown by.

Well, we went to Keith's mom's house for Turkey Day. We actually were at Keith's brother's house for Turkey Day, but we stayed at my mom-in-laws house for a few days before. Make sense? On our way down though, we stopped in a small town for lunch and came across this cool motel.


It's Tepee Motel. Get it? Neat, huh?

I didn't really get any pictures of the acutal day, but we had your typical dinner, and everything tasted real good. :) I did take this one picture of Caleb, though. Cute! (Wish I had a photo-editing program to take the red-eye out. Sorry.)


We came home on Friday, and today we decorated the tree. The kids LOVE this part of the holidays.



The tree looks much better when you can see the colored lights.

Then after the tree was decorated and dinner was eaten, the kids decorated a gingerbread house. I bought one of those kits at Walmart. They really enjoyed it.


Whoo, talk about a busy week!

We're Still Here!

I know it's been too long since I've updated, but it's been a busy month. We just got back last weekend from a trip to Florida (and Disney World!), and we're leaving Monday for a trip down south to spend Thanksgiving with Keith's family.

Right now we're packing because Keith is preparing for a trip to north Louisiana for a meeting. So, I don't have any more time to post right now. I'll try to get another post out in the next few days about our trip to Disney with some pictures. So, until then...

World Fair

We had our homeschool World Fair yesterday. All of the kids did a great job. Each family picked a country and presented it at the World Fair. We were also supposed to make a dish from the area.

The country we picked was Thailand. We made some fried wontons. Not sure if that's Thai or not, but it was what I had. Here's our poster that we made.


Nicole presented our country. She was really nervous and didn't want to go up by herself, so I stood behind her while she talked. She did such a great job! I was so proud of her for getting up despite her fear. So grown up. So, here is Nicole presenting Thailand.

Today is the Day!

Today is election day!

Don't forget to go vote!

Nicole's Back At It

After a long "break", Nicole is back to blogging. So, check out her blog. I'll see if I can't get William to post something on his. Don't hold your breath.

Sha-lo-cat

Playing With Clay

Another joy of fall is the freedom to sit on the porch and play with clay for hours. With the temperatures being so nice outside, the boys can enjoy their clay. We have a rule that they can not play with clay inside because we've found it in some unusual places.

Enjoying each others company.
A Josiah creation. (It's a guy pulling another guy by the leg)
A William creation. (A person shooting a dragon)

Hello, Fall!

I just love the fall. The weather gives me permission to start baking. It also get us all excited about the upcoming holidays. I can't wait! We'll be at Keith's mom's house for Thanksgiving this year. Should be lots of fun.

Back to baking...today I made some pumpkin bread and Lollipop Cookies (really called Play Dough Cookies). And yesterday I made fresh pumpkin puree and I toasted the pumpkin seeds this morning. Making fresh pumpkin puree was an adventure in itself. Don't think I will turn that into a tradition. But I had never done it, so thought I would try it. Well, now I can mark that off my list.

Here are the Lollipop Cookies. They look really neat. They weren't sweet enough, but were lots of fun to make.

Update on my Mother

I posted a few weeks ago about my (Jaime's) mother being sick. They have now diagnosed her with myelofibrosis. It is incurable and they have said there is a high possibility of it developing into leukemia, but there are trials being done at MD Anderson. So, she has an appointment there at the end of the month. But we are believing that the Great Physician will heal her, and she is staying very encouraged. Thank you to everyone who is remembering her.

After she received the diagnosis, my dad asked all of us kids and families to go over for the weekend. So, of course we all showed up. We had a good time visiting with each other, and the kids swam in the back (ah, the benefits of living in S. TX). Caleb really enjoyed playing with his little cousin, Jordan. Here's a little video of the two of them playing with the kitchen curtains.



I guess that's about it. I will try and continue to update about my mother every now and then, so everyone can keep up on how she is fairing. Thanks again for all of you who keep thinking about us and encouraging us.

Hurricane Ike

Well, we survived Hurricane Ike. It's still hard to believe that it hit directly on top of Houston. We live on the east side of Houston, which everyone knows the east side of a hurricane is the worst. So, we did evacuate. Keith and I actually parted ways. He took Nicole and Josiah and went to Lousiana because he had a meeting near New Orleans and a meeting in Mississippi. He said they got some winds over there, but he was fine though there was flooding "down the bayou".

Before he left for LA, he dropped the rest of us off at my mom's. They live NW of Houston. We did get some huge winds there, but nothing really happened except some broken limbs and things. We were without power for 6 hours. Not too bad. :) This video shows the winds after the hurricane had already passed several hours before. Can you imagine in the middle of it? It was a little scary.



We were able to go back to our own home 5 days later, which was when we got power back. We were met with the neighbor's big pecan tree in our driveway and part way on our house.


Thankfully there was no damage to the roof. The neighbors finally came and chopped it up, and they all, including Keith and the boys, hauled it in pieces to the ditch. So, life is finally back to normal here. Our grocery store is up and running and fully stocked, and gas is not hard to find here.

We sure are glad it's over, though.

Still Here

Yes, we are still here. Unfortunately I don't have a lot of time to do a detailed post of our latest activities, but I will post again when I have time. I'm sure everyone is wanting to know how Ike affected us.

But right now, I'd just like to ask everyone to remember my (Jaime's) mom. She went into the hospital last week with trouble breathing...and they found that she had a VERY low blood count. Long story short...they have discovered that her bone marrow is not making blood. They did a bone marrow biopsy last Thursday and have found that she does NOT have a serious cancer or leukemia. But they still don't know what is exactly wrong with her. They are continuing to run the test on the biopsy this week, and hopefully, we will have some answer on Thursday when the results come in. She is at home right now, but is doing poorly. But thankfully, we know Who is in control and our trust is in Him!

The Next American Idol???

Sung to Relient K's "Charles In Charge".

Happy Birthday, William!

Today William is 9 yrs. old! Yeah, William! I made a Mario cake with Keith's help. William loved it. And he got a few presents and a nice amount of cash from all his grandmas. So, Happy Birthday, William, we love you and you are a joy to your parents!

Almost End of August Update

Here we are almost at the end of August. I can't believe how this year is flying by. I thought I would include in this update a little bit of everything.

It's school time again! Yeah! I love this time of year...we have so much fun buying our new school supplies and curriculum. We went to our annual home school convention. We had a lot of fun shopping and looking at all the cool stuff that has come out. You can almost get overwhelmed by the amount of curriculum available these days. But luckily, I went with a list of those things I wanted and stuck with it. We gave each of the kids a small amount of money to buy whatever they wanted. They made some interesting choices. :) So, we officially start our school year on Monday with the rest of Texas. I figured that was a good way to go.

Our "fund-raising" is going well. We are making progress, and Keith keeps very busy with phone calls, meetings, and traveling. We aren't traveling as a family too much lately because it's hard on Caleb (and the rest of us sometimes, too), but Keith always takes one or two of the big kids with him. I'm talking about the overnight trips. Also, we just completed our newsletter and will have them all mailed by next week.

Health has been a bit of an issue lately. The kids have been passing around bronchitis. I tried treating it myself as long as possible, but the fevers just wouldn't go away and the coughs were getting worse. I feared pneumonia, so I gave in and brought each one (when it was their turn) to the doctor. Nicole goes this morning; though, I know exactly what the diagnosis is. They have each had to go on antibiotic which treats it very quickly. I hate putting them on antibiotic, but when you have to you have to. It's literally been years since they've been on one.

Well, I guess that's our "almost end of August" update. Hope that brings everyone up to speed. And speaking of traveling, I'll leave you with a Caleb car moment. Enjoy!

Cake Decorating--Buttercream Roses

I'm finally posting pictures of my buttercream roses. I thought they came out pretty good, but still need lots of practice. Oh, and just wanted to add that we don't eat all this cake decorating stuff. OK, we did eat the cupcakes and the clown cake, but not all the practice icing I make. And I haven't made a cake since that clown cake. Just wanted everyone to know that we are not eating a bunch of junk. Just making it and throwing it away. :) So, here are my roses:




I really liked the multi-colored flowers. What happened was I made a bunch of different color icings, and since I was just practicing, I dumped it all into one container. So, I ended up just adding all the colors into my decorating bag, and that's what came out. Cool, huh?

Some of the flowers came out with rigged petals. I guess cause I put too much air into the icing when I made it? Mamaw M., a little help, please?

Pool Time

Sorry for the delay in posting. We went swimming at my parents house this weekend; so, here are a few pictures to keep everyone happy. :)






I know most of the pictures are of Caleb, but he was just so darn cute!