Some Fun Pic's

Here is a picture of the kids playing while I was packing. I just went through my camera and found some cute pictures to post!
Here are Joya and her cousin Violet doing Papa Sir's salute! He has them stand to attention and then Salute. It is very cute. For those of you that don't know, Violet and Heather are now living with Christi right down the street from us! Joya and Violet love one another so much and have enjoyed playing together almost everyday since they moved here! It is so cute how Violet says Joya's name she says "cousin Jaw-a" I love it!!

This was just a fun picture of Timmy going to town on his spaghetti but he wouldn't let go of his ball he was holding. It amazes me how he loves balls, he would probably sleep with them if I let him!!

This was Joya's last day of gymnastics. They were presented up on the stage there and then ran back to us parents! She loved gymnastics and it was good for her to know there are other authority figures that she needs to listen and follow directions from! The bottom picture is for Uncle Jeffrey, Timmy's hair looked especially red that day!

It's Been A While!

It has been a while since I blogged last and a lot has happened! We moved three weeks ago and that would be the number one reason for not blogging. I had a good majority of our stuff unpacked and settled right away. Tim's office and my craft room have suffered, but we need a few things for those to be finished. A desk for Tim's office would help him be more organized and have space to put all his supplies on! I would love a sewing table, but that is not in our near plans, the garage must be finished before we move on the luxury items!! We also have to do something with the back yard, but that has to wait for good weather to even put grass in!

The second reason I have not been blogging is the kids have not slept through the night since we moved...until last night. It was the first night they both slept the majority of the night and I was not up at all hours of the night...it was wonderful!

The third reason is I have been doing a lot of work to start our new ministry call HOME. Helping Our Moms Excel. we are now meeting frequently to be ready for our April meetings. We will meet every Tuesday at NW Hills. It is a well needed ministry for the moms of young children at our church! Tim and I also joined a bible study with couples from our Sunday school class, and I am still doing MOP's and co-leading a bible study on Wednesday mornings. There is a lot on my plate and even more on Tim's as he was just given a new territory to sell to. He now sells to half of the state of Oregon, everywhere south of Salem...its a lot more territory to cover, which means more time to travel. We are making it all work and have made spending time with each other more of a priority since it has to be planned and there isn't much down time to hand out together!

The fourth reason is Timmy is walking! He is a busy boy and I have to keep my eyes on him, he loves to get into cabinets and drawers, which most of them are fine for him to be in. Joya is a very busy girl, she is finishing gymnastics this week and we are not signing her up again but instead going to make more play dates and have more time at home until we start swim lessons in the spring. I still haven't figured out how I am going to do both of them at swim lessons because they both have the have an adult to hold them, Joya is not old enough to do self taught lessons...next year!!

First Steps and First Hair Cut

Timmy has taken his first few steps by himself! He started a few says ago, and only takes a couple steps at a time, but he is walking on his own!! We are so proud of Timmy, he is 9 months and walking!! He is still so happy and easy going! He has started eating diced foods and since that has started he doesn't want the pureed foods anymore! When I feed him baby food, he spits it out or tries to grab the spoon from me to feed himself. Timmy has also adopted the hand signs for "more, all done, and water." It makes communication with him a little easier! Timmy and Joya are finally feeling better. They are still on antibiotics for their ear infections, but they are acting and feeling a whole lot better! I cut Joya's hair the other night! I can't believe I did it and right after I cried, it was hard to watch her long hair, that took so long to grow, go away! I do think it looks cute and matches her personality! She is a little spit fire and her little bob hair cut works!

Joya's been having a hard time going to sleep at night, she is pulling everything out of the book from monsters in the closet, to "tell me one more story," to "I need some milk." She is saying that she doesn't feel safe, protected and that she just wants to be in her "new purple room." Anyway we are praying with her and for her to be able to get to sleep fast and stay asleep through the night!!

Christmas and the New Year

We have had a great and fun couple of weeks. It started a couple of Friday's ago when Tim's younger brother came out from Houston. He stayed with us for the week and the kids just love their Uncle Jeff! That Sunday we went to church and then headed down to Eugene to hang out with Tim's older brother and his family that flew in from Houston Too. Dan and Kim have a son Josh who is 5 and twin boys who are one year old. Josh and Joya love each other and act like brother and sister, they play great, fight and then play great again! Anyway we headed down to Eugene on Sunday and found out that Josh was sick with Croup. He was struggling, poor little guy, he is also allergic to Toby, but seemed to do ok this trip. We got to spend every day with them, going down to Eugene everyday and coming back up to sleep in our own beds. Wednesday we went and cut down a Christmas tree with all of the kids and Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma and Grandpa also took the older two up to the snow in the mountains. Joya had a great trip! Kim and I also went shopping with the babies one day! We played a lot of games, did some baking with Grandma, and even fit in a trip to Chucky Cheese! Travelling back and forth made for long days, some days with naps and some with out, which were much longer days! The twins got croup by the end of that week and my kids had it by Sunday. I took them in to the Doctor on Monday and they were put on steroids for their cough, then Dan's family came up to play at our house. It was a fun week with them and a fun time on Monday too. All of the kids played really well together and in spite of all the sickness! Here are some pictures to prove it.

Here is a picture of all the grand kids with the grandparents and then a picture of all the great grand kids with Great Grandma!

After everyone went home we spent the next few days at home trying to recover from croup, but it just got worse and on New Years eve we spend the evening playing cards with my parents and then at 11 they went home. Our kids woke up with major fevers at 11:30. We took them into the urgent care today after Timmy not sleeping except for two hours . Both kids have ear infections. They both had their first dose of medicine and had a great nap,and they are both acting better! Praise the Lord their might be sleep tonight!!

One Pound of Hair!

I went and got my hair cut today, I decided to chop it off and donate it to "locks of love". Once the ponytail was cut off, it immediately felt lighter, but I didn't realize it was a whole pound heavier! I weighed it when I got home!! Here are some before, during, and after pictures!

I really like the final product! It is completely different and I like it! I have only had short hair like this two other times in my life, once when I was six. My brother cut my hair when we were fighting and we had to trim it to my ears to cover the cut. The other time was in the eighth grade, and I didn't like it on me then. I have a really round face and it made it look even rounder then! Somehow I don't feel the same today even though my face has not changed.

Last week I worked Mon-Wed. and we spent the other two days catching up on everything I wasn't doing at home! We also decorated for Christmas, but minimally because we will be moving in the next couple of weeks.... still waiting for a closing date! Here are some pics of Joya putting the star on the tree and Timmy finding his reflection in the dishwasher!

Piggy Flu

We are going on day 8 for Joya and day 7 for Timmy. Timmy spiked a fever back up to 102 this morning. Joya had another low grade fever yesterday after her nap. We have not been fever free for over a week now! I told Tim this morning that I don't know if were going to make it through this! My flu is in my back, probably also due to always having to hold one of the kids! Both Joya and Timmy liked to be held and cuddled while they don't feel good. Here are some pictures of the poor little darlings, res around the eyes and running noses. All that didn't stop us from dressing up to support our beloved beavers today! Its a big day for the Beavers and we will watch the game with our orange on and from the comfort of our couch!!

Thanksgiving

Well we had an interesting Thanksgiving! It started the Sunday before Thanksgiving, I got sick with bronchitis and was put on meds on Monday. We left on Tuesday for California after Tim and Paul worked for a half a day. We stopped in Redding and staying the night at my Grandparents house, they weren't there, but we invaded their house anyway. We got on the road at 10:30 the next morning and got onto Grammy's ranch at about 3 on Wednesday. At this point I am still the only one sick!! We all go to bed and I took a night quill because Tim told me to get a good nights sleep and he would take care of Timmy. The only problem is when I am not the one to replug Timmy or tend to him he really wakes up and has a hard time with me not being there...Mamma's Boy! Anyway Tim woke up with Timmy at 1am and tried to settle him down, he woke me up at 2ish and I was so drunk on cold medicine that I could not nurse him in good conscious! Anyway Tim got him settled down until he woke up again at 6am, by then I was able to nurse him and he went back to bed for a couple more hours. Joya woke up Thanksgiving morning feeling "puny", those are her words. She took several naps and by the time we found an old school thermometer she had 102. We gave her Tylenol and took her in Friday morning because nothing was helping get her fever to go down. She was treated for Strep Throat. Timmy came down with the really high fever that night, so we decided to leave Grammy's ranch early on Saturday and make the whole trip home in one day. Both kids just wanted to be held but they did a great job on the way home. Timmy had such a high fever that he would sleep for 20 min and wake up for just a few minutes and then go right back to sleep. It was a fast trip with everyone getting sick including Tim's parents, we are praying hard that Grammy and everyone else we exposed does not get sick!!

It wasn't all sickness while we were on the ranch. The first day we were there Joya got to see and feed a lot of animals! We took her up to the horses and put her and Timmy on an old mare bareback, she wasn't so sure of it but Timmy loved it. She also helped Aunt LarryAnn feed all of her wild pigs. Aunt LarryAnn gets a truck load of old bread and feeds her pigs and some of the cows that. They sat in the back of the bed of the truck and tossed the bread over the edge. It was so cute, Joya would yell to the pigs to "come and get it or I'm throwing it out the window." She loved it!! On Thursday after our big meal, Aunt LarryAnn went and caught Rosie for Joya to ride. By this time she was not feeling good at all, but she still wanted to ride for a minute. She rode for a small time, but then wanted off and to go lay back down. I know if she was feeling better she would have been on Rosie all day! Timmy loved it though! On Friday a friend that played with Tim in Arizona now lives int he Bay area, he and his girlfriend came out for the afternoon. It was really fun to meet his girlfriend Christie and to see Troy again. We took them around the 16000 acre ranch on 4wheelers. It was a fun time before everyone got sick! That evening everyone got sick. Paul and Marilee were so sick they went to bed at 7. I was up during the night a lot with both kids. We packed up Saturday morning against Grammy's wishes, but we felt like we needed to get the doctor. We made it home by 12:30 Sunday morning. The kids did a great job on the way home! This is Great Grammy painting Joya's nails because she found her nail polish in the bathroom, and Grammy was sweet enough to do it even though it was very hard for her to see!