The first "have-to" haircut

Ketchup sat in the worship service with us on Sat. night and I saw her playing with her hair. I noticed something white in it, and told myself it's just glue since she had done a craft during her class right before the service. I had forgotten all about it until I was showering her last night. That is when I asked how she got the glue in her hair and then I heard those dreaded words, "It's not glue, it's gum." Since I had completely forgotten about her hair and let her sleep on it already, there was no using ice or peanut butter solutions for this one. Only one thing would work, the scissors. At least I didn't have to cut her hair up to her ears. She kept saying that she wanted her hair short anyways. Needless to say, only Mommy and Daddy will be enjoying gum for a long time to come around here.

I'm Back!

Today is the best I've felt in a long time. Very little pain and well-behaved kids made for a great day, so I'm able to finally blog again. I will have to blog about the whole surgery experience, but there's not enough time today.
I will say that Ketchup's reading has taken off and she also begs to do math (she is so unlike me in that way). Bounce has also started reading and seems to be catching on well.
Last week we studied kangaroos and I could overhear them playing for a while not quite sure what the game was. But when I saw all the reading flashcards scattered all over the floor, I had to ask. They said they were kangaroos and Ketchup was the mommy kangaroo who was teaching her joey (Bounce) how to read human words. That is definitely a fun way to learn!!

Different worlds

I've been meaning to share a funny conversation we had with Ozzie's nephews during our Christmas vacation. We were eating ice cream with them and one of them (ages 7 and 9) told us that they had made up rapper names for themselves. I think they were something like "Funny Bonez" and "Gangsta Boy." We continued talking about rapper names and their bling for several minutes. Bounce then finished off the conversation by telling us why he liked rappers so much, "because they have candy in them."

Is it mean???

Bounce used to have a horn on his bike. He thought he had lost it, but found it in the backyard yesterday. If you were to ask him about it, he would probably looked at you with a puzzled look on his face. That is because he doesn't call it a horn; he calls it a "honk."
Ozzie and I think it's so cute and funny at the same time that he calls it a honk that we find ways of getting him to say "honk" again. Bounce has yet to catch on and we might be mean parents for not correcting him. Someday we will I guess, but if he's 18 and driving and says he had to use his honk in traffic, you'll know what he means.

Christmas Conversations

I was reminded that I'm way past due for a post so this is for you Cara.

We spent Christmas at Ozzie's parents house this year. We arrived on Christmas Eve around dinner time. We had only been in the house about 2 minutes (I'm not exaggerating either) and Bounce asked "Where is the chimney?" I said they didn't have one, not understanding where this was going. He wanted to know how Santa was going to get into the house without a chimney. I assured him that lots of houses don't have chimneys and Santa can also come through the front door. There must have been doubts swirling in their heads because after they had opened their gifts both Bounce and Ketchup continued to state their amazement that Santa actually "got their lists."
A few days later I was privileged to be sitting in the van and waiting for Ozzie and his parents and overhear the kids conversation about Christmas. It went something like this.

The kids were quoting from a Veggietale movie about a kid wanting lots of toys like Billy and Ketchup went on to explain to her brother that the true meaning of Christmas is Jesus.
Ketchup: Christmas is not about presents or candy or lights.
Bounce: Yeah, its not about toys. Its about Jesus Christ.
Ketchup: No, it's about Jesus' birth. You say Jesus Christ at Easter.
Bounce: Oh, okay it's about Jesus' birth.
Ketchup: But remember to say Jesus Christ at Easter. You can say it then.
Bounce: (shouting at the top of his lungs) Jesus Christ is Lord!

Sometimes waiting is such a blessing!!
Here are a few pics from Christmas

I love their excited reactions in these first 2 pictures.
This is Bounce wondering how he actually got this gift because he asked Santa for it. But I had told him I didn't think Santa would get it because it said ages 8 and up. So Bounce said after opening it that "Santa got me what I wanted even though it was too big for me."This is a picture of our complete Jesse Tree (a great type of Advent "calendar" that traces God's plan throughout the Bible leading up to Christ's birth). This was a new tradition for us that we all really enjoyed and learned a lot from. A great picture of the kids and Ozzie's parents.(for those who noticed (i.e. Ozzie) the above descriptions aren't really links, I just can't figure out how to change it and I'm ready to go to bed.)

Disney Dreamin'

Bounce woke me up last night as I was in the middle of a disney dream. I dreamed I was shooting brightly colored sour cream containers with my Buzz Lightyear gun. I almost told him to hold on and let me finish my game, but sanity took over and I realized my dream is showing how my mind is moving from Disneyland - the happiest place on earth- to home - the normalcy of life. So in my dream I combined Bounce's favorite ride with my grocery list for today. Now if grocery shopping were really that fun, I would have no trouble getting the kids to come along and behave better.

Here's a few lessons from Disney:
1.) Wear very comfortable walking shoes and start training for all the walking at least a month beforehand. My thighs were cramping as I walked down Tarzan's treehouse for the 2nd time in a row.
2.) Do not go in the summer if at all possible. I cannot imagine having to wait in line for hours with young kids in tow. We were blessed to be able to go when most kids are in school. We literally walked onto rides like Buzz-astro blasters and Pirates of the Carribean. I remember waiting for hours for Star Tours as a kid and was thrilled to know we only waited 10 minutes for that ride.
3.) Take strollers or set aside a large chunk of change to rent them there. We didn't do this until the 2nd day and it saved us a big headache from kids whining about sore feet and wanting to be carried everywhere.
4.) Most importantly, spend more time looking at your kids' happy faces than at the rides themselves. I got such a kick seeing Ketchup squeal in delight on Star Tours and Mulholland Madness. She is my new rollercoaster buddy. Bounce starts off with fear and by the end is laughing and smiling and wanting to ride again.

Here are a few of the over 500 pictures we took.


Both kids had some one on one time with one of their favorite characters. Buzz and Bounce showed each other their muscles and Ketchup and Minnie went for a little walk. Ketchup couldn't believe she was just walking off with Minnie.

The lights everywhere in the park were amazing. This is right in front of "It's a small world."

The kids squeals and screams at the fireworks were one of my highlights.


Thanks Mickey Mouse for wonderful fun and memories!!

Happy Birthday Ketchup!

Six years ago today, little Ketchup was born. She was a beautiful little baby and I was amazed as I held her that this tiny person was my child that I was responsible for. Reality hit the second night in the hospital when she screamed the entire night. There were many times that night that I wished I could have given her back, but six years later, I am so thankful that God has blessed our family with her. She is caring and sincere and has a laugh that is so contagious. Her is a walk down memory lane....

"Finally"

Bounce has been a little perturbed at the attention given to Christmas despite not even celebrating Thanksgiving. Today we were setting up our Christmas tree and the characters on the kids show he was watching were talking about Thanksgiving to which he excitedly yelled out "Finally, somebody is celebrating Thanksgiving instead of just Christmas."
We are thankful for many things this year and since we'll probably be out of touch for the next couple weeks (Thanksgiving in AZ and our Disneyland trip!!), I thought I would focus on Thanksgiving for this post- before I start stringing the lights on the Christmas tree!

We are especially thankful for God blessing us with the sale of our house and purchase of our current house. We feel so at home in our new house. We have so much more time to enjoy instead of spending it in traffic and feel so less rushed as we are much closer to everything (except God :-)).
We are also thankful for God's blessings despite the economy. When you see so many people hurting and struggling, we are so grateful for all that we have been blessed with.
We are thankful for our healthy kids, fantastic family and friends and the freedom to learn about God and His world as we homeschool.
We are thankful for Christ for "of Him and through Him" are all things!!

Off the wall

We celebrated Bounce's birthday by going to one of those big pizza/game places. As Ketchup and I were crashing into each other on the bumper cars, Daddy and Bounce were losing money fast on all the games. Then they got to the "Big Bass" game and Bounce pulled the lever. An alarm sounded, Bounce won the grand prize - 1,000 tickets!!!
Daddy said people gathered around in amazement at the mass of tickets spitting out of the game. At the end of the night, we had totaled about 1200 tickets. The kids were excited because they finally were able to pick out a prize "off the wall" instead of just the cheap ones in the case right in front.

Here's a link to a pic of the big win!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3070/2999288051_d2311404f5.jpg?v=0

Happy Birthday Bounce!

Four years ago today it was election day and we were able to watch all the news as we held our new little baby "bounce" in our arms. He was a little baby (6lbs. 5oz.), but very happy. We had no idea how much personality our little boy would have. He is so much fun and has so much energy. He can talk your ears off and remember everything you said even when you think he's not listening.
We look forward to many more fun years with him. Here a short walk down memory lane.

3 more things

I had wanted to post about 3 things but hadn't had time until now.

1.) Ketchup's Tata left sweet notes for Nana at our house since they stayed with us at different times, so Ketchup was inspired to leave "I love you" notes under all of our pillows on several nights. She left a big heart for Benjamin under his pillow the night before his surgery.

2.) We surprised the kids by telling them we are going to celebrate their birthdays in Disneyland this year. They were so excited and Ketchup started to well up tears of happiness. She's going to be a crier like her mommy I'm afraid, but now they both understand what it means to cry when you're happy; they just didn't get that before.

3.) After Bounce's surgery, he was in pain. He told me his tummy hurt, but he didn't want me to tell the doctor. It didn't make sense to him that he felt fine before the surgery, then after the surgery that we explained would fix something in his tummy, he actually felt worse. How could he be hurting if he was supposed to be "fixed?"
It made me think of how God has to prune us of things in our lives. We feel fine; life is good. We are perfectly comfortable, but God knows that there is something in our life that needs to go; it is keeping us from being "better." So God has to fix us by doing surgery, or pruning us of that thing or person that is not His perfect will for us. After the pruning, we are in pain. We hurt and it doesn't make sense to us how this is supposed to be better. Only He knows and can see the perfect, completed picture of our lives. I'm glad He knows best even if I have to be painfully pruned, but you'll have to remind me of that the next time I get cut by His scalpel.

Time to Catch up

Here are some pictures to fill you in on our fast flying month of October.

After studying frogs and giraffes, we had a fun day at the zoo with some close friends. It was neat to see the animals we had been studying up close.

My parents have had to come in town this month at different times in order to help out with Benjamin after his surgery. Ketchup and Bounce enjoyed their Tata while he was in town at the beginning of the month. They were able to wrestle and wrestle some more and my dad proved to be here at the right time to use his post hole digging expertise to help us put up a new fence.


This is a picture of our new backyard. We are enjoying the big, established trees and have completed the fence (just needs stain). I also put my "farming" skills to the test by getting the yard ready and then laying grass seed. We now have the beginning of a green lawn, but it took me about 3 weeks to recover from those 3 days of physical labor.

Bounce had his hernia surgery on Oct. 16th. He did really well. He was nervous at first, but relaxed and that "goofy juice" worked like a charm. My mom came in town to help me with the near impossible task of keeping him from bouncing or running or anything active for 10 days after. We have a countdown going and he has 2 more days to go. Here is a picture of my mom helping him figure out the DS that his cousin lent him to keep him on the couch. I think I can safely bet that a DS will be on Bounce's Christmas list.


Doesn't seem like that much when I put this all together, but it's amazing how much time has passed since I last posted. Life is busy but good!

Things heard around our house this week

During school:
1. A song about metamorphosis that I made up so the kids could remember the word.
2. Lots and lots of frog stories (The Frog and Toad books are their favorite).
3. Weird facts about frogs like only the males make noise and the females have smaller ears.


During chore time: On sheet day (the day I wash the sheets on the beds), Bounce and Ketchup ran up to me and he asked, "Can we serve you by doing your bed?"
What a sweet kids to know they are serving and not just doing to do things.

During meal time: We watch the squirrels every day as we're eating and on Friday two squirrels began to mate. I nervously waited to see what would be said or what would happen next. Ketchup said, "Look, it's a piggyback ride." Then the female squirrel would have none of it and they started wrestling. Bounce after watching them for a few minutes rolling around and wrestling said "I wish I was a squirrel."

Our First Week of School

We finished our first week of school on Friday. In theory, Ketchup is in kindergarten and Bounce is in preschool. We studied clocks to start off the year with the theme of using time wisely. We had fun making our own sundial and pendulum and I had great pictures to show off, but I can't find the usb connector for the camera. I thought I had checked everything off the I haven't found it yet list. Oh well.
The kids enjoyed their first week. Ketchup had her first spelling test and aced it. Bounce will have his first letter test this coming week, so he has that to look forward to.
We also had our first soccer games of the season. We pretty much picked up where we left off last season. Ketchup scored 5 goals and Bounce was good to want to play in the second half since most of the boys were tired (it was hot). His poor little team just becomes timid on field although they pretty much matched up in size with their opponent. He said he had fun though, so it was a success for him.
The kids were disappointed we couldn't do school this weekend as they're excited to learn about frogs as our next theme. I better go get my plans for the week ready. Hopefully I'll have some fun frog facts in the next post (and some clock pictures as well).

We're IN!!!!!

I wanted to title this post - Moving in - AKA - world record number of Walmart trips in one week topped off with another trip to Lowe's/Home Depot.
Finally I have a chance to update the blog. We are in our new house and the picture of Kailee from the previous post is how I feel today. I have about 5 more boxes to unpack- hooray! It is starting to feel like home and I even was able to put up a few things on the wall yesterday.

Highlights of our new home:
Seeing the kids squeal with delight as we watched a squirrel during breakfast.
Playing hide and seek and finding really cool hiding spots.
Kids taking a "short-cut" to get to other rooms of the house. Our old house was like a box with one hallway; this house has options.
Bella, the dog, chasing squirrels in the backyard.
Being able to cook and eat dinner last night after soccer practice because our drive home took 15 minutes instead of 45 minutes!

The kids have discovered me (see it's easy to get lost in this house) and are now asking for things; gotta go for now!

What's going on....

I thought I'd fill you in since I posted last

The Olympics - the kids and I have enjoyed watching the Olympics. They now recognize Michael Phelps and enthusiastically cheer him on. They were awed by all the gymnasts could do and attempted to perform their own gymnastic feats on our couch. I let Ketchup stay up late 2 nights and watch the women's gymnastics. She almost made it to the end both nights, but not quite.

We also quickly made the transition from keeping the house in a near to perfection showing state to an anything goes, see how many messes the kids can make at once state. While we were still showing the house and I was cleaning all the time, I wondered if how easily I would transition to a real-life looking house. Well here is the answer (the kids tent in the living room).

And I'm letting them fingerpaint as I blog, so I must have made the transition a little too well!

We also have seen God use our mission trip to Guatemala to help Bounce. A while back I asked Ozzie if it was OK for Bounce to have one testicle larger than the other one. He told me that was normal, so I didn't think any more about it. In Guatemala, Ozzie translated for a man who had the same problem but on a larger scale for 15 years. The man was treated and left the clinic healed and pain free. Upon returning home, Ozzie thought it would be best to have the doctor check Bounce just in case. Well, he does have a hernia and will have surgery mid-October. Who knows how long it would've taken us to realize something was wrong if God hadn't brought our attention to it in Guatemala. I even was able to witness a hernia surgery there, so I have a better idea of what the doctors will be doing. It is amazing to see how God is always working even when we don't realize it.

We are moving next week, so I don't know when I'll be able to post next. We are excited about our new house. It will be closer to Ozzie's work and the church. Originally, the kids weren't too thrilled about moving from our neighborhood, so I explained how many things we would be closer too. They quickly came to the conclusion that we would be closer to everything. This was the kids conversation about it the other day...

Bounce: Will Preston (their cousin) be able to spend the night again?
Me: In our new house, yes.
Ketchup: We'll be closer to Preston in our new house. Don't you remember we'll be closer to everything!
Bounce: Except God.

So I guess we're moving closer to everything, except God, but hopefully we are continuing to draw closer to Him as we trust in Him for the kids' health and all the details that go with closing and moving. He has been so faithful and we are excited for the next season of our journey with Him!

If....

Conversation overheard today while the kids were coloring:

Bounce : If you weren't my sister, I would want to be your friend.

Ketchup: If you weren't my family, I would like being the only child. It would be quiet around here and mommy wouldn't have so much work and it would be really quiet during quiet time.

Bounce: But I am your brother

Ketchup: I'm just saying IF.

Bounce: (still questioning and confused)

Ketchup: It's OK because if you weren't my family, you would be my friend or my cousin and we could still play together.

Bounce: (content with her answer moved on to the more important superhero conversation).

By Request

This post is only here because of Ozzie's request (you'll understand why in a minute).

We were eating lunch today with the kids and Bounce started talking about Wall-E. He first mentioned how it was so funny when Wall-E was trying to play the Wii without a TV. Then he said it was so funny when Wall-E couldn't see because he had covered his eyes with "that thing." We asked him what he was talking about since we didn't know what "that thing" meant. So Bounce stood up and walked over to me and pointed to my chest area and said "You know that thing that covers this big thing and this big thing (as he patted each one)." Bounce then learned that the original "thing" he was referring to was called a bra.

Daddy's new favorite phrase now is "that big thing." See why I would've rather not posted!

Totally Awesome!

Last night Ketchup and Bounce's cousin spent the night and we all were wowed by the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Ozzie and I enjoyed the show and seeing the kids' reactions to everything. It was neat to hear their comments, so I thought I would share.
Just imagine 3 kids screaming the following:
"Totally awesome"
"That is so cool"
"Amazing"
I think Bounce wins the commentary award for his comment "That is unbelievable!"
Definitely a memorable night for all.

On/Off Switch

My mind has a very touchy on/off switch. This is why I'm awake before 5am this morning. If the kids get up during the night, my mind will usually remain off and I can quickly go back to sleep. Tonight Ketchup's nightlight went out. Thought was required to find a new bulb and replace the burnt out bulb (note to self: never again buy light bulbs at the dollar store), so my mind quickly switched on to accomplish the task.
However, switching it back off is a different story. It's as if I am pulling on the switch, hanging from it, trying to get it into the off position, but it just won't budge. So I lay in bed thinking about what I should be doing instead of just lying there in the dark.
Turning off my mind is typically difficult to do without the help of Tylenol PM or Nyquil and I'm afraid Ketchup has this disorder, too. It takes that little girl a LONG time to fall asleep. Bounce, on the other hand, is just like his daddy, within 30 seconds he is out like a light.
So, here I am blogging instead of sleeping - plotting how many cups of coffee I'll need later this afternoon!