Carson and Lexi

Carson has always had a special place in his heart for Lexi. Today he said "Mom, we are going to have to have 5 bikes when Lexi comes home. When is her brain going to be finished?" I told him that her brain would be sick for the rest of her life. He said "But she is our child. We love her." I really hope that someday we will be able to go to China and visit Lexi and that the kids get a chance to meet their special sister.

Help her come home!!!

Isn't she adorable?? No, she's not mine! My friend Marianne in Idaho is bringing her home to their family soon. The orphanage donation has increased from $3000 to $5000. Marianne is a dietician and has a 4 week eating plan that she will base around your height and weight for just $25!! Go to her blog at http://www.jonahsfamily.blogspot.com/ to sign up. You can pay her through PayPal. Scroll down to her August 26 blog entry to get the link to the PayPal link. It's a great deal for a great cause!!

Here is all the information from her blog:

I have been racking my brain for ways to further reach our goal to raise the orphanage donation for our daughter's orphanage in China. We have been so blessed to know she will be home soon . I feel honored to be her Mama. I know it will all work out in the end, and that the donation we are required to take will help feed and house the many many friends of our daughter's who will remain in China. I want to offer my services as a nutritionist in a way that is easy and effective no matter where you live to help raise the last chunk of money we need before we travel. SO............drumroll please:) ...... haha I've always wanted to say that:)...I am going to offer a 4 week plan for ANYONE who wants to loose weight, make their metabolism fire up, and feel so good you can't imagine!!. I usually give this infornmation out ovver a span of 4-6 weeks for a client to help with their weight loss goals.I work with heart patients, diabetics, fibromyalgia and overweight clients on a regular basis. THIS WORKS FOR ALL OF THEM!!!!! I use a very flexible, very "real life" plan for my clients. You eat real food, you will just be paying more mind to WHEN, HOW OFTEN, AND HOW TO "FOOD COMBINE" to get your body to burn fat around the clock!!!......THIS METHOD GIVES YOUR BODY NO OTHER CHOICE but to burn FAT! Your body composition will change . Let me repeat.......your body composition will change!! I have a friend who did this, and I saw her go from 28 % body fat to 16% in a matter of a couple months! I tried this and within 4 weeks I had dropped the weight I gained this summer worrying about my baby:) It is fool proof and EASY! Exercise 3 days a week is suggested . Anyway, I can't say enouph about this method I use. I have watched it work over and over and over again! You have the power to train your body to burn fat all night long!!! EVERY NIGHT!!!! So, the details. I have put together a "packet" if you will with ALLL the instructions, the food amounts and recipes from my own kitchen that I have developed to fit this plan. I have spent almost 2 years putting all this together. I have done the thinking for you! NOW all you have to do is plug it in and EAT!!!! ( you will eat alot trust me! 5 times a day:)!! It is very flexible and YOU decide what you want to eat......just order it and you will see for yourself! So the plan is.....when you order, just go to the paypal widget here on my blog. The price is only 25.00!!! The average client doing this is about 225.00!! So DO IT NOW FOR 25 bucks!!! SEND ME A NOTE THRU PAYPAL( you go to the "Orphanage Donation " widget below -just keep scrolling down) WHEN YOU DONATE WITH YOUR ADDRESS, HEIGHT AND WEIGHT,. This will give me the information I need to get you started. I also will be available ANY TIME for questions and tips........via my cell phone or email. Picture yourself lighter, happier and healthier for a GREAT cause!!

Healthy Choice

Every time my husband went out of town I would stock up on frozen meals for me and feed the kids mac and cheese, hot dogs, and other junky food like that. It was a vacation from cooking for me. Every time I heated up a frozen meal, it was awful!! Yuck!! Last week I bought a couple of Healthy Choice frozen meals. Have you guys tried these?? Seriously, they are good!! I mean, fresh meals are definitely better, but this the closest to the real thing there is!! Okay, this is a silly blog post. It is amazing what is exciting to the stay at home mom!!

My kids need diversity training

On the way home from school today Kendall was talking about how excited she was when we move to Sacramento that we are going to get her a Bento style lunch box with rice and egg molds. I told her that some of her new friends might also have Bento lunch boxes because there will be lots of Chinese kids in her new school (it is 29% Caucasian and 28% Asian). She said "What!! I have to have Chinese friends??" Now I have to explain that her school here is very diverse. She has lots of friends that are Hispanic, African American, and Caucasion, but not many Chinese (because there aren't many Asians here). I said "Kendall, your sister is Chinese." She said "Oh yah, right." I guess Presley isn't Chinese to her, she is just her sister.

New House!!

The offer on our first choice house was accepted!! We beat out the second highest bidder by just $1,000!! If everything goes well we will be in by the middle of October. We LOVE it!! And if you are like me and love to watch House Hunters and could spend all day looking at houses, we have videos of a house just like ours. Derek videoed this other house about 6 weeks ago. We are so glad that we didn't get it, because our house is in such better shape!! So if you are interested, go to http://www.youtube.com/user/ameliser and click on the videos that say Avocet house.

Labor Day Weekend

We have had a great Labor Day Weekend here in Sacramento. The drive up by myself with 4 small kids was tough, but they did great! The kids have been having a great time swimming in Shannon's pool and playing their Wii. The kids have done great and Landon has done so much better than he did on our Utah trip. We will be so sad to leave tomorrow!!

On Sunday we went up the 50 to Sly Park and had a picnic at the lake. We then decided to drive up to Tahoe. We went around the lake and up to 80. We didn't stop and get out in Tahoe because it was WAY crowded and took about 1.5 hours to get around the west part of the lake! But it was a great Sunday drive!!


We put an offer in on 2 houses on Saturday. We like them both, but one of them we LOVE. Of course, everyone else will love it too and it will get multiple offers. We are hoping our offer will be strong enough!!

It's amazing what you find when you move.....

I was so excited to find a tote in the garage that had some clothes for Presley that I hadn't realized was there. When I picked up the tote I found something on the garage floor. When I inspected closer I shuddered because I thought it was a snake skeleton. I went inside and got some tongs and started to pick it up and it kind of freaked me out. When I got it inside I realized that it was a lizard. Funny that I was a little scared to pick up what I thought was a dead snake, but when I realized it was a lizard I wasn't as scared. Poor little lizard!! He must have gotten stuck in between the totes and couldn't get out. I'm assuming it was from last year because I think it would take a while for it to decompose like that!!

Playing around with Picnik

I've really been thinking lately about buying Photoshop or Lightroom. Anybody have suggestions of which they like best? It will probably be a few months until I purchase either one, hopefully after we get settled in Sacramento. So until then, I am using http://www.picnik.com/. I really like it and it's free, though I'm wanting to do more now with my pictures. Of course, I really don't have a lot of time right now either. Maybe when the kids are ALL in school!!

Here is a picture I took a couple of weeks ago. In Picnik I boosted the color and saturation just a little.



This is the sketch feature


Cross process - faded some


Lomo-ish - faded some


Kendall did these two with the doodle action. She had a lot of fun with it!!



When I get an editing program, I will have to work on this picture again and see the difference it makes.

Bathtub bandit strikes again!!

Yep, I found Landon in the bathtub again this evening. I assumed he was upstairs playing in his room. He couldn't have been in there more than 5 minutes. This time he left a nice brown present behind - yah, gross!! I am scared of the fact that he is actually getting into the bathtub without me knowing it. I think I need video surveilance in my house!! Or maybe a hook and eye latch above the door to my bedroom. Gads!!!!!

Landon disappeared again

At least a few times a week I go looking for Landon. I always have to make sure I know where he is. Remember my post on him getting stuck in the garage? Well now that Phoenix has had 27 days this year of 110 degrees or more, I panic about him being outside. I am always wrangling him back inside. Tonight once again I went looking for Landon. I went upstairs and heard happy sounds coming from our bathroom. He had taken off his clothes and diaper, climbed into the tub, turned on the cold water (thankfully he knows which one is the cold), and was having a great time filling up the tub with water. GREAT!! One more dangerous place I have to look for him!

He also now is potty training himself. With his sensory issues and struggles with potty training Carson, I wasn't even going to TRY until he was at least 4. Well, now he takes off his clothes and diapers, sits on the potty chair, and tinkles a few drops. All good right? Well, then he decides to dump it into the potty. He loves to say "Bye Bye pee pee" and watch it go down the toilet. Good thing he is only "sprinkling" the potty chair. What about when he does more than a sprinkle and then tries to empty it by himself? I think I need a separate bathroom for the kids in training!!!

Presley says goodnight!!

Carson Quote

"I like Darth Vader because he is very powerful and he's a dad."

Last of the vacation pics

I don't have a lot of pics from our vacation. Landon had a tough trip this time (though he has done really well on all the other trips we took this past year). I spent most of the time battling him and trying to keep him as calm as possible, so I didn't get a chance to use my camera a lot. Of course we also really only had 2 full days on vacation, so not a lot of opportunity for photos!

Vacation pics - Bowling

After Kendall's baptism, we went bowling at BYU. Kendall had a great time with Sadie and her cousins!

Annie has great form!!

Kendall, not so much.

Did my daddy really just bowl a strike???

"What? I only bowled a 250?"

Oh puuuleeeez!!!!

Kendall planned ahead and color coordinated her undies with her bowling shoes.

Beautiful Sisters

The new third graders

Friends Forever!!

Cousins!!

Bento-style lunch!

I recently read a post at one of my favorite blogs: http://gesweinfamily.com/. They are a family with 2 young school-age children that are from Texas and have lived in China for 2 years. I love reading about all of their China adventures. Recently she posted on bento lunches that she was packing for her girls. I realized that that is the type of lunch that would be perfect for my kids. It is small portions of a lot of different things. I did it today and they loved it and ate really well. I don't have a bento lunchbox (yet!!), but I realized that I did have these baby food containers that I had saved. I use them to make individual portions of pudding and jello, but they are perfect for lunches! Especially for Carson since he has low muscle tone and these lids come off really easy. This is Kendall's lunch tomorrow. She is having grapes, pretzels, froot loops, and a boiled egg. She is also having some mini rice cakes that aren't in the picture. Once I get to Sacramento I want to try and find an Asian store with some bento lunchboxes. There are a ton on Ebay, but hopefully I can find one there or in San Francisco.

PS - Remember my gripe from yesterday about the lady that was parked at the kindergarten/first grade drop off? Well today as I was pulling up, she was just leaving. Yay!! I pulled right up in back of another car. The kids got out of that car and then the mom got out of the car and proceeded to walk her children inside!! I was stuck because I had pulled up close, there was a Suburban behind me that had pulled up right next to me, and there was another car behind the Suburban. I had to do the little back and forth going inches at a time until I got out. Oh well, it's not like I was in a hurry or anything!!

My Gripe!!

Okay - I have just one little gripe. Every morning I take the kids to school and there is the regular drop-off and then you go up a few yards and there is a seperate drop-off for kindergarteners and first graders (they have a separate playground). There is a mini van that is there EVERY morning parked in the drop-off area and just sitting in her car with her child. The other cars have to try and pull in front of her or they pull up right behind her, thinking she is just dropping off, and then cars get backed up behind her waiting for her to leave. The curb is RED!! It is a DROP-OFF area!! And there is a parking lot just 5 yards away if you want to park your car!!!! The first couple of days I gave her some slack - she has a New Jersey license plate so obviously is new here. But you would think after a couple of days of backing up traffic and people having to pull in front of you, that you would figure it out. I hate it when people are so self absorbed they don't recognize how what they are doing affects other people (like the parents in the first row of a school program that stand up to video blocking everyone behind them). On the bright side, that is really the only gripe I have today. Life is really good!!

Quick update and vacation pics

I'm back!! Things are starting to calm down a little here. Derek is in Sacramento and has been at his new job for 1 week. He really likes it and is happy to be back at work again. About 85% of the house is packed and the kids and I are still in Arizona sweating while he is enjoying the nice weather! He is house hunting and hopefully in the next month or two we will be joining him......right about the time the weather starts to be perfect here in Arizona.

A few weeks ago we went to Utah for a quick 3-day vacation. We celebrated Kendall's 8th birthday and then she was baptized there in Utah with most of Derek's family there with us. We stayed with our wonderful friends the Greenhalgh's and had a great time. It was a really good, but short, vacation!!

Landon likes the candles the best!

Nephew Jacob enjoying the candles too!!

Kendall and Sadie have been friends since they were babies! Even though we haven't lived close to them in 3 years, the girls always pick up right where they left off!!

I have a few more pictures to post of our trip coming soon!!

Carson Funnies

"When God built the earth, did he use a crane?"

The kids started school last week. Carson was a bit nervous about going back, even though he went there for kindergarten. The mascot is a hawk. He told Derek the week before school starts "It's a hawk school and I'm scared of hawks!"

I have lots to catch up on this blog and hopefully in the next week I will get a chance to update. Until then, it's back to packing boxes. I'm up to 150 so far!!

The Job!!

Derek was laid off about 9 months ago and his severance runs out August 21. He has had no luck finding a job. We focused in on Sacramento as our ideal location and have really felt that is where we should be. But there are basically no jobs there so we looked both there and here. He went in for an interview with PG&E (the electric company in Sacramento) a couple of weeks ago. He had applied for 2 positions and the interview for the first job went really well. They told him he was a very strong candidate and that if he didn't get that particular job, there was the other job he had applied for that he would be a strong candidate for as well.

Last week the guy from the second job called and asked for references. On Monday we heard from some of Derek's past coworkers that PG&E was calling them for references on the second job he applied for. We were trying not to get too excited because he hadn't even gone in for an interview yet. On Tuesday the guy called to talk to him. He took the call upstairs and the kids were downstairs running and playing (in Arizona they have to use the house as their playground since they can't go outside). I kept telling them to please keep it down. Finally I told Kendall that daddy was on the phone talking to the guy about the electricity job. She said "Oh." Then she said "Just a minute" and she walked over to the couch, knelt down, folded her arms and started saying a little prayer. Then Presley went over next to her and started to do what she was doing. There was some giggling involved, but finally she said "I have to pray because daddy is talking to him RIGHT NOW." Then Derek came down the stairs and I whispered for him to look around the corner at Kendall praying for him. But then he told me that the phone call didn't go well. They asked him about systems that he hadn't worked on before (though he could learn them) and that the guy said he would let him know if he wanted to bring him in for an interview. He said it didn't sound like he was even going to get another interview. He was so bummed because not only was it a job, but it was a job that he really wanted and thought he would enjoy.

The next day, Thursday morning, I went to the dentist and on my way home Derek called. He said he was having a bad day and needed to talk to me and asked how close I was to home. The plan was for him to take the kids to Landon's OT appointment and he should have already been there. I figured he must really be having a rough day. He has had some rough days here and there. He was laid off 9 months ago in the worst economy in our lifetime, his severance was running out in less than a month, and we have 4 small kids to feed, so I figured today was just one of those days. I pulled into the driveway and he was out in the garage. He told me he needed a hug, hugged me and then whispered "We just need to pack everything up. I GOT THE JOB!!!" WHAT!!!! I was in shock. We were jumping up and down and crying. I felt like I did when I made it for cheerleader in high school. I was in total disbelief! The rest of the day we just paced around the house because we couldn't sit still. We went to the China Buffet restaurant, the same one we went to when we found out he was getting laid off 9 months ago. His new job starts just 11 days before his severance runs out. There will be no break in our income!! It was the best day of our lives, except our wedding and birth and gotcha days of our kids of course. :)

Then yesterday reality set in! How in the heck are we going to pack up this house, find a place to rent, and move in just 3 weeks!! His new job starts on August 10. Hopefully somehow we can buy a house very soon. We have had one very big miracle and still need one more!! We know that is where we should be and it will all work out somehow. It has been an incredible and stressful past 9 months. We have another month of stress and then hopefully we will start to feel some normalcy in our lives.

Thank you all so much for your prayers. We have had so many people praying for us. We know there are so many out there that are still in great need during this time. We are so grateful for what we have and are thankful for what we have gone through. It has made us even more faithful. We know Heavenly Father cares so much for each one of us and he truly does answer prayers (especially those of little children) and blesses his children in His perfect timing.

Changes

About a month ago Derek took Carson on a church Father/Son campout. Kendall and I (and the babies) went to the store to get some munchies for our Girl's Night. We were looking at the candy and on the other side of the aisle were the magazines. Kendall spied "Tiger Beat" and her eyes got really big! She picked it up and was totally engrossed. Could she buy it? Absolutely!! When we got home she sat down and starting reading. She loved reading about all of the details of her favorite Disney Channel stars. Just last night on our way to the fireworks she was reading her beloved Tiger Beat in the car. She said "Did you know that Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens are engaged!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(with a squeal of delight)" Nope, I didn't know that. She said "It says so right here in this magazine!" I guess it must be true!!

It is sad to see our little girl grow up, but it is also really fun. I love that I can have a real conversation with her about real things. She is my favorite tv buddy when we watch House Hunters. We went shopping the other day and I was trying on clothes and she said "No mom, that doesn't look like your style."

Our family dynamics are also starting to shift. Just recently my sister-in-law announced that she was pregnant. Everytime she announced this in the past, we followed her lead shortly (not because we were following her, it just ended up that way). This time I had absolutely no desire to be in her shoes!! As our kids are getting older, we are starting to experience more freedom. We had a rough go with our newborns and were "held up" inside our home longer than most are. Though our 2-year-olds are definitely a lot of work, it really is getting easier. I was a nanny for 10 years before I had my own kids. I don't even want to try to calculate how many diapers I've changed!! I'm have been elated each time over the past year that we got rid of baby stuff: Exersaucer, high chair, bottles!! Wooo Hoooo!! If we ever do add more children to our family (a VERY long time from now), they will come to us potty trained (we hope!!) and ready for school!

We have other changes happening too. Derek is still looking for a job. We really want to move to Sacramento and feel that that would be the best fit for our family. The economy is bad there too, but Derek had an interview on Thursday. It went really well, but we are trying not to get our hopes up. So I ask your thoughts and prayers to be with us. We know that if this is the job meant for us, he will get it. It's times like these when we really do rely on our faith to pull us through.