October fun...Part 1

Where "sweet" meets Spooky!

I'm sure there will be many parts to this post! I love October...especially in Arizona! I love how the days are still warm and the nights are absolutely perfect! The greatest thing about fall decorations, are the fact that they go along so great with their new frightening counterparts! Phil and I are huge Halloween Fans! I love to decorate and we love the excuse for a party! Never ending sweets and company dressed to impressed! Who could hate this wonderful holiday?

Phil was in Denver on business Monday and Tuesday and when he got home last night, he brought me a present from the airport, the October edition of Martha Stewart Living. (He knows how much I love "decking" out the house for Halloween!) So it inspired me to get out all my Halloween decorations! Yay! I started on the outside with a few things here and there. I'm no where near as good at decorating the house or the outside as probably most of you are...but I have so much fun doing it!!! I know, I know, but I do! Over the years we've picked up quite a few decorations, and it's always so fun to pull them out again! The kids were so excited when they got home from school yesterday! They all had to walk through "the witch's curtain" I made from the idea I found on http://www.marthastewartliving.com/, by slicing up a garbage bag and hanging it down over our front porch!

It started out easy...I was so excited...

Okay...so it didn't turn out quite like the picture showed...but you get the idea!

My newest door addition!

Falling in love with fall!

This is the picture that sums "fall" up! I love it! My parents snapped this a few years ago on a road in upstate New York.
My banister will never be as full or beautiful as my mom's...but it reminds me, in part, of our stairway when I was young!

The rich color of pumpkins just yells fall!

It's that time of year when September just melts into December! I love it! I love the idea of it becoming a little cooler, the rich colored decorations strung throughout the house, and a new reason to bake! I guess I've acquired my love for decorating and baking from my mom. She's always so inspiring!

When I was younger, my mom would set the mood every year with decorating for the holidays. It would usually start in September with the fall leaves surrounding our front door continuing inside, up the stairway banisters. She has such a knack for making everything look so good! I love my memories of coming home from school with the front door being decorated! It usually meant that mom was in the "fall" mood and everything in the house (furniture mostly) was being moved around to a new location for the holidays! As a kid, that was so exciting! Now as a mom, I see that it is still exciting! (It usually takes away the "want" of new furniture for a while!) I love seeing and hearing how excited my children get when they come home from school now and get the same feelings I did! I'm not even 1/10th of the decorator my mom was and is...but I still get excited for the holidays and it's nice to see that it's still contagious!

My attempt at putting the "sweet" into fall! My pumpkins that I proudly painted a few years ago on a "Super Saturday"! (still my favorite kind of Saturday!)

Happy Fall... and thanks for the many inspirations Mom!

Seattle at six months...

6 month Stats:

Height: 27"
Weight: 19lbs 6oz
Teeth: 2 (bottom front)
Hair: still bald
Drooling: Like a leaky faucet
Food: Bananas, Carrots, Peas, Pears, Peaches, Sweet Potatoes, and Rice Cereal
(She can put down two stage 1 jars at one sitting!)

2 teeth!

I love going to the checkups...where they weigh and measure...and somehow surmise how they're doing compared to everyone else. In her case, she's in the 90th percentile...which is perfectly fine! (Brooklyn was off the charts until her 2 year checkup!) With each child I get to hear more new things...I take the good, leave the bad, you know how it is. This time it was bottle feedings. He said she shouldn't be drinking so much formula any more...just baby food, rice cereal, and water. He said formula is great...but just not as much! What? Did I miss something here. Some of my baby's didn't even start eating baby food until 9 months! I just had to smile and nod. (Something Phil would never be able to do.) I just figure...I've had 5 flipping kids...somehow they all survived and didn't become obese by being fed formula instead of water. I guess this change is no different than the sleeping positions. When I had Brooklyn, she was to only be put on her tummy for bedtime...Boston and Paris it was on their sides...Madison and Seattle...on their backs!! I think as a mom...you just figure out what makes you feel most comfortable!

Some new things she's figured out recently:
She's been getting up on her hands and knees for about a month now, but would fall forward like an inch worm if she wanted to go forward. (It was nice because she didn't really move very fast this way.) However; like all good things, this has come to an end! She's been crawling around for the past week or so and can now go from crawling to sitting up! She's been frustrated with this for a while, not being able to transition from one to the other, but she's finally got it down! This morning, I laid her down in front of the t.v. with a bottle (shh don't tell her Dr.) and within minutes she was over by my stairs! Wake up call! Had to pull out the trusty gate! Madison was just as disappointed as I was. (The stairs are her gateway to the never ending snacks she finds in the pantry.) She's getting more spoiled...when she wants to be held or cuddled, she will stop at nothing, until it happens! She goes from thoroughly p'd off...to totally sweet mid scream! It's really something! During the day Madison keeps her busy and "acts" silly to get her to laugh! They both seem to love the attention! When the older kids get home Boston loves to play with her and make her laugh too! It's one of the first things he does as soon as he's home! Paris is still her second "mommy"and smothers her every chance she gets...a lot of love there...sometimes a little too much. Brooklyn is great to have around when showers or dinners are needed!

This was the cutest picture...then I noticed she blinked!! Oh well...I love the "chubbiness" on her elbow!

"Flash Back Friday"The younger years...

I was looking through some pictures and came across some sweet elementary pictures! This was Flip and I when we were both in Kindergarten. Check us out!





He was in 8th grade and I was in 6th! He looks just as young as I do! He still gets all the "young" comments! Just the other day at work someone asked if he was 24 or 25??? Are you kidding me?



This is as good as it got, as far as "sports" or activities in high school, for me. I think Phil played basketball and baseball though! (He said he hated all cheerleaders in high school...maybe it's a good thing we went to seperate schools then! J/K)

I also found some pretty classic family photos! Check out my brother, Tyler in this photo below! This is one of my all time favorites...just because I love how "classicly" terrible we looked! This picture was taken on a Sunday in the cultural hall at church...I have no idea why?!



I loved the family picture on the left because I thought I looked hot in it! I remember curling my hair and really trying to make myself "gorgeous" for it! I love the way my brother Blake is standing on the side too! He still looks exactly like that! A total stud!

The three "wise men" vs. The three Jokers!

Phil's activities look a lot more "reverent" than ours! I have no idea what we were doing in this picture...Shavonne on the end looks flat out scary (sorry shriv!), Sarah looking a little sexy, and Me...probably the mastermind behind what ever was going on. (We were probably dropping things off the ledge on our brothers down below. We used to call their names and tell them that mom wanted them...then when they came under us we would "bomb" them with stuff! Weren't we the greatest!)

BIRTHDAY SHOUT OUT!

I just wanted to say "Happy Birthday" to my sister-in-law Shauna and my friend Alisa! Hope it's the "Best Day Ever"!

Boston's Sweet Note...

Last night as we were looking at all the pictures of Phil and I...I asked Boston if he thought I was a cute little girl and he said no I wasn't that cute. He was pretty nice about it, but just said I didn't look that good. So I was giving him a hard time saying that I thought I looked very pretty! Well this morning he brought me this note! I had to laugh. I told him that I really wasn't that cute...I was just kidding. He said he knew but he wanted to give me a note anyway. I love this kid! (and all of the notes I get, good or bad!)

What's for Dinner?

Chicken and Dumpling Soup

This may not look very pretty, but it does taste pretty...good that is! A lady that Phil works with, knows I like to cook, and gave him a recipe for me to try. She says it's one of her favorites. I decided to tweak it a bit...I didn't have all the ingredients it specifically called for, including potatoes and barley, so I improvised a bit, adding dumplings cut into "fall" shapes and rice instead of the barley.

It turned out to be a perfect "fall" recipe...especially for those of you in the colder climates! My kids all loved it, including Brooklyn, who hates all vegetables so if you're interested in trying something new...

1 cube butter

3 ribs of celery (chopped)

3 carrots (chopped)

3 cloves garlic (chopped)

1 Zuccini (chopped)

Salt and Pepper (to taste)

1/2 tsp garlic salt

Montreal Steak Seasoning (to taste)

1 1/2 cup chicken broth

3 large chicken breasts

1 cup minute rice

Dumplings (recipe follows)

In a large pot melt 2-3 Tbs. of butter over medium heat. Add all the vegetables, stirring occasionally, until vegetables soften, about 10 minutes. Add broth. Cover; simmer 10 minutes. Cut chicken into 1 inch cubes. In a frying pan melt remaining butter and garlic salt over medium high heat. Fry the chicken in the butter mixture until chicken is done and browned on sides. Add chicken, 6 cups water, rice, dumplings, Salt and Pepper, and Montreal Steak Seasonings to taste. Place the lid on the pot and allow to simmer. Approximately 10 minutes, or until rice is tender and dumplings are floating on top. Makes approximately 8-10 servings.

Dumplings

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1-2 cups flour

2 Tbs cold water

(this should make a very stiff dough) Roll the dough out thinly and cut into squares or shapes.

Paris Scored a Goal!

Paris' First Goal!!

This week the entire fam traveled out to watch Paris play, yes even Madison, in the scorching heat! Yikes. There was such a huge difference from last week's 9:00 game compared to this week's 10:00 game! Whew! I'm glad we have a bye next week to allow the October mid 90's to settle in! Luckily Sandy was smart and brought an umbrella to shade the babies!


This week Phil was more than happy to give us the score...everytime we scored a goal...all 15 of them! (He doesn't believe in not keeping score! ie) "Everyone can't be a winner!")It was pretty sweet! Paris even got a couple of good kicks, and scored a goal! She was very excited with a smile from ear to ear! Afterwards we celebrated by going to Barros Pizza nearby...we heard some good things and we will have to say...YUM! Madison wanted to play so badly, but her foot just hurt her too much! It was sad to see her "benched" with good old mom, dad, and Seattle while the other kids hung out in the "arcade." Hopefully she'll be feeling better soon!

Sydney, Maddy, Paris, and Karina

4 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed...

Just one of those days! You know the days where it seems like it will never end...yeah...that was yesterday, my Friday! Friday always starts out fun because its "garbage day"! Madison is frightened to death of garbage trucks! She can hear the rumble and squeal of their breaks for miles! We have no idea why she is, but starting at around 6am(garbage collection starts at 5:30am) she starts to come unglued! We've tried waving to the garbage man, going outside to watch the garbage man, and talking about how nice garbage men are...(ours drops our cans everywhere...but atleast waves to us.) Nothing works! She just closes her eyes tight, as he passes.

When the kids got home in the afternoon, garbage collecting was over, and she was now able to let loose! I guess it's been awhile since she and the other kids were told the story about the Monkey's Jumping on the Bed...yeah well my kids forgot that one. Anyway, Brooklyn came downstairs around 4:45pm and said that Madison hurt her foot jumping off the bed. I know I should have been more concerned...but with 5 kids...I've seen a lot of minor injuries to say the least:) So I tell her to put her down and I would look at it in a minute. After about 15 minutes, I kept hearing her whine and I when I went to take a look at what she was doing, I saw that she couldn't stand up! She had this confused look on her face like, something is really the matter with my foot! I felt so bad. I decided to call my dad for a little medical advise and felt better not rushing her to the ER. I kept telling myself it's not broken...probably just a sprain...and it will probably feel better in a couple of hours!

12 hours later...2 hours of sleep...and lots and lots of crying...I decided it was time to go into Good Night Pediatrics! Luckily their hours are 5pm to 5am, we walked in at 4:53am! After 3 X-rays they decided that they needed a "Pedo Radiologist" to look at the X-rays because it's either a hairline fracture or a dislocation! Great. The one time I decided to shrug it off...so they put her in a little temporary splint until the X-Rays come back in 48 hours!

I had her pose with her new "boot". Kids are so resilient! She still gets to where she wants to go by crawling and bringing things back with her mouth! I had to laugh and take a picture. We have a full schedule today, so she'll be getting held a lot! (I'm sure she'll love it!) P.S. As I was writing the date down at 4:57am this morning...I noticed it was your birthday dad! So Happy Birthday Grandpa!