Attitude of Gratitude!

We had a great time on Thanksgiving on Thursday. I think we had the smallest celebration ever, only 14 of us! But it was cozy and intimate...and relaxing! My nephew Jeremy made his first pie, Dutch Apple...delicious! Great job Jeremy. In the pictures of the table you can see people lighting candles...as each family member said something they were thankful for and then lit their candle. Our favorite was Tori saying she was thankful for "my wamiwy", or my family for those not familiar with Tori Talk.

Today is move day...we are moving into my parent's former home. This is a move we've been planning for over three years, and the whole reason we moved out to the ranchos. In the past week, we moved my parents into their new house (on the front of the property), stripped wallpaper in the old house, scrapped the acoustic ceiling, sanded doors and the ginormous pantry, pulled up carpet, retextured the ceiling and walls, painted the entire house and put new flooring in the bedrooms. We also packed up the house we are living in. Kevin has been working from about 7 a.m. to midnight every night. Extreme Makeover Home Edition has nothing on us! We had a lot of help from friends, special thanks to Jay and Mikendra McCoy! We packed up my kitchen on Tuesday, so Mikendra called church friends to schedule meals for the rest of the week. We are so grateful to be part of such a supportive church family at Flipside!

I'll have some before and after pictures to post soon. In the meantime, here are just a few from Thanksgiving. We are truly thankful and grateful for a God who carries us through difficult times.

Crazy Hair Day

Lizzie's school, Sierra View, recently celebrated Red Ribbon week with various activities each day. One of the days was Crazy Hair Day. Of course, since Lizzie's hair was crazy, Tori had to get in on the fun too. I think the pictures speak for themselves...

Curveballs

Life has thrown us a couple of curveballs recently...we're still trying to figure out how to hit them out of the park.

So I've been a bad blogger and haven't updated lately, sorry!

In a nutshell, I missed Halloween, pix below. I was a doctor, Tori a policewoman, Josh a fireman and Kevin was our accident victim. What about Lizzie you ask? Well, we explained that she was our foreign exchange student...she was dressed as a Japanese Princess...

Right after Halloween Josh had an ear infection and so was treated with Amoxycillin. On the eighth day of his treatment he broke out in a terrible rash. Pictures also below. My poor boy! But through it all, he still was such a happy baby.

Even though we are trying to figure out the curveball, especially before life throws us a slider, we are very thankful for our children, our health and specially for our faith, without which we would be feeling pretty hopeless now. Happy early Thanksgiving!

Congratulations Kristina

What a great weekend for my neice, Kristina Regier, our favorite water polo fish. On Friday Edison (Kristina's school) beat Bullard (their MAIN rival) in the CMAC tourney semi-finals 7-4 (Kristina had 12 saves).

And then Saturday, for the league tourney championship, they beat Sanger High, the team that had beaten EHS 3'xs this year and we won 6-3!. Kristina and the girls played unreal and Kristina was selected as the All-Tournament Goalie! Wahooo, what a great game. Here are a couple of pix...


One of Kristina's many saves


The victorious team


Kristina's fan club (from left, Alyssa McNeely, Kristina, with Tori in front, Lizzie with the goalie hat on and Lindsey McNeely)