Christmas is over... =( Here comes 2009!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.   The kids had a pretty good one.  Here are some pictures of them opening their presents...

All Smiles

I wonder what it is???

Such determination!

A Hannah Montana Guitar!!   Yeah!!

My Christmas list...

The kids always get to create a list of all the things they want for Christmas and so as adults why aren't we allowed to do the same thing? Well here is my list and it's not the list it should be...

1) I would LOVE a Canon EOS camera where I can interchange the lenses. Here is an example of what one looks like

Now granted, this particular camera costs about $2600! And probably doesn't come with the lens you see here, but there are others that are about $1500 that I would love to try out. ;0) Hint Hint to the Santa Clause out there...

2) I have had the urge lately to teach the kids how to play piano. Now granted, they are only 2 & 5, but I feel they would enjoy it and I would have to teach myself again as well. I remember hating that I had to practice every single day when I was yonger, now I look back and wish I would have taken it more seriously.

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's been a while since I have actually had the time to sit down and write a post on this blog. It doesn't help that my computer is still down for the count so I make due with the small amount of time I can still hubby's work computer or actually get some writting done at work... that doesn't happen too often. =) I don't think that many people actually come by anymore since I don't write

Well next week is Thanksgiving... wow how this year has flown by. So many things have happened this year, too many to list in one post. Maybe I'll get to those when the time is right. =) For Thanksgiving my father-in-law and his wife are coming over and we will enjoy Turkey and all the fixings. Then on Black Friday we are going to the lake instead of shopping.... well maybe that will change and the guys will go to the lake..... ;o) There are going to be some KILLER deals especially with the economy the way it is!! I'm not sure I want to miss this one!! Then on Saturday we are driving up to Sedona and Jerome. I know most of you have heard of Sedona, AZ but for those who haven't heard of Jerome, it's a little town about 30 minutes from Sedona and it's an old mining town from the early 1900's. We are staying in the Jerome Grand Hotel which acording to their site is one of the most activly hauted locations in the US.

They even have Ghost hunting package that you can purcahse as a guest of the hotel. Unfortunately we won't be doing this, not because I'm scared, but because it's only Monday thru Thursday and we are staying on a Saturday night. I don't think I'll get an ounce of sleep that night. Every sound I hear will make me open my eyes to search around the room for a ghostly apparation.

I will let you all know how the weekend went... if we make it back!! hehehe

Hope Kids Event

On Saturday we were lucky enough to be able to go to Scottsdale and enjoy a Hope Kids event. Since Isabella had her two best friends stay the night Friday night, she was allowed to bring them as well. So the girls and little David had a blast jumping in the bouncers, going down the slides, eating hot dogs and pizza, climbing the rock wall, eating snow cones and cotton cady and then finally riding the ponys and the train. Wow!! Needless to say, they really enjoyed themselves.

'Come my young Padawan'

Isabella's First school picture

I just had to share Isabella's first school picture. I jokingly asked how long it took the camera guy to get this shot, because our child does not know how to sit still for pictures... trust me! ;o)

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month!!

Here is an email I received from Rob with Hope Kids... you might have even received this email from me if you are on my list. =)


Dear Families,

Help raise funds for Pediatric Cancer Research without opening your wallet.

September has been designated as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. HopeKids is proud to announce they are commemorating this month by partnering with Children’s Cancer Research Fund in an interactive web campaign titled CompleteTheCure. The goal of the campaign is to bring awareness to the childhood cancer experience — the progress and the challenges.

CompleteTheCure.com will feature six short video clips about childhood cancer. For each video clip viewed, a corporate sponsor will make a donation in support of pediatric cancer research. The more times the videos are viewed, the more funds that will be raised to help advance promising childhood cancer research. You can visit CompletetheCure.com, watch the videos and watch the money add up that will go to research.

A couple of ideas to help spread the word:

Post the website and information at bottom of every September journal entry so everyone visiting your caringbridge site sees it and visits the CompleteTheCure.com.

Set CompleteTheCure.com as your homepage for September and visit it over and over again and keep clicking on the videos.

Forward this email to everyone in your address book and tell them to do the same.

The people that watch the videos the more awareness we can create about the importance of childhood cancer research and the more money we raise.

For Hope,
Rob

Labor Day weekend

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. Every Labor day weekend for the past couple of years we have gone to Ensenada. But this year we decided to stay here and enjoy the new boat on the lakes. David's sister arrived Thursday night from Houston and his brother, Eric arrived Wednesday night. So on Friday they all went out to the lake. I didn't end up going to the lake on Friday because Isabella had school and I had to drive into work. So I don't have any pictures from Friday, but I have some pictures from our trip to Payson and the Natural Bridge. Very beautiful up there and a fun little hike.

Here are a few of them and some cool pictures of some flowers...

I took this picture... ;o)

Here is all of us... from the left: Me, David, Isabella, Eric, Carla, little David and Bilal (Carla's fiance)

Carla and Charrito

A Historic day in American History!!

It doesn't matter which side you are on... yesterday will go down in history and our children will be reading about it in their history books.

We have puppies!!!

For those of you who don't know, we have two Boxers, a boy and a girl. Well, when two dogs love each other very much they make puppies! =)

Our puppies were born Sunday in the middle of the night, so they are now 4 days old.

Here are the pictures....

The morning they were born...




















Day Two

Picture day for Isabella

Today is Isabella's first picture day for school. The first of many to come. We woke up early to make sure we had enough time to make sure her curles were in the perfect spot. I am hoping that they will turn out well. Not thinking, I should have snapped a picture of her with my own camera. oh well!! I can't wait to share them with everyone, we ordered the biggest packege so hopefully we will have enough to go around. If not, it comes with a CD! whoo hoo!!

I found out that they do pictures in the fall and the spring... so I probably didn't need to go for the gusto package... oh well, it's her very first school picture... we are entiled to go BIG! hehehe

This past weekend we went to the lake and had a pretty good time. Isabella took some pictures on her own. She did good, by that I mean she captured every unflatering side of me she could possibly get! =)

Here are a couple pictures that are 'blog approved'!

Happy Birthday David! (big D)

Happy birthday to a wonderful husband and father. I hope you had a wonderful day!

From Anderson Cooper's CNN blog... Iraqi has a $80 billion suprlus!!!

Wow, look at me!! Two posts in one day?!?! What is wrong?!?! I must have a fever!! I just couldn't help but post this blog from Anderson Cooper's site. I can't believe that we are paying to rebuild Iraq when they have this much money just sitting there, especially while America is in a recession!!

Here is the link to this story: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/08/06/evening-buzz-iraqi-oil-outrage/

Evening Buzz: Iraqi Oil Outrage
Posted: 08:41 PM ET
Permalink 29 Comments

Oil accounted for 94 percent of the Iraq's revenue from 2005 to 2007, a U.S. report says.

Maureen Miller360° Writer

Cha-ching! Oil revevues are making Iraq rich, very rich. According to a new U.S. audit, the Iraqi government will have a budget surplus of up to $80 billion by the end of the year due to soaring oil prices. But auditors say over the last two years, Iraq only spent $947 million dollars to pay for maintenace of roads, bridges, vehicles, buildings, water and electricity projects and weapons. At the same time, the U.S. was spending a lot of your tax dollars in Iraq. Auditors say since 2003, Congress has approved $48 billion for so-called stabilization and reconstruction efforts in Iraq. As you might imagine, some lawmakers on Capitol Hill who voted on that cash assistance are angry. Democratic Michigan Senator Carl Levin said today, “This is not rocket science. They’ve got tens of billions of dollars in surplus in banks around the world, 10 billion in American banks alone, they wrote a check to get that money into the bank, they can write a check to reimburse us for the reconstruction costs.” This may leave you asking: Why isn’t Iraq paying more? Tonight, find out why. We’re keeping them honest.

And, we’re on the trail with the latest developments in the veepstakes. Who do you think John McCain and Barack Obama will pick as their running mates? Tonight, we’ll show you some possible auditions for the job.

Plus, there are new details in the search for little Caylee Anthony. The 2-year-old Florida girl vanished in early June. Her mom is behind bars and was charged yesterday with child neglect and filing a false statement, but not with her daughter’s disappereance. Investigators say Casey Anthony didn’t report her daughter missing for more than a month. Today they took a new step in their investigation that’s made a lot of headlines. That’s in our crime and punishment report.

All that and more tonight on 360°.

Hope you’ll join us!

The Keyes Family

I just wanted to share the link to a family that we have come to love very much. They have adopted our two kids as their God Children.

The Arizona Folks

Their site even has music!!

Here is a picture from their site. They are soooo cute!!

Isabella's First day of School!!

This is quite a milestone for any child. But this was an especially important day for our little Isabella. After being diagnosed cancer at 18 months old, you as a parent can't help but think that she won't make it to see 5. But she has beaten all the odds and kicked cancer's butt. She is now a normal kindergartener offically today! We can't believe that she started school already and can't wait to see her grow up and reach other milestones!

Happy 2nd Birthday little David!!

Spencer Dolling

Today I learned that another family lost their child to NB. His name was Spencer Dolling. No words can ever express how he will be missed. Here is a video that was made a while back that he narrated himself. Very touching: http://www.lehmann.ca/soundslide/spencer/spencer.html

Here is his Caringbridge site in case you would like to leave comments for the family to read.
http://www.caringbridge.org/canada/spencer/

Such a sad sad day... =(

Isabella's 5th Birthday! Happy Birthday Bella!

Video

Colbie Caillat Lyrics Bubbly [LyricsYouLove]

Grand Canyon during the winter....