I'm back!

As you can see....Jake is thrilled to be there.

We framed and gave this picture to all the grandparents.
My Aunt playing the piano with all the kidlets.    She was kind enough to let them ALL play the piano at once.  
Christmas dinner at our home.
Mr. Jake getting in trouble....well, not really with that cutie patootie smile.
Jake's been having a hard time waking up from his nap.  Grandma helped him calm down.
"CHEESE"
Christmas Day
Christmas Eve at Nanny and Papa's House.

Side note:  That evening we went to 1 of 13 Christmas Eve services at Bayside Church in Roseville.  This is a MEGA church.  You actually have to have tickets to get into a Christmas Eve service.  However, it was well worth getting there an hour early.....the service was AMAZING!!!!!  I was crying the entire time... I'm such a geek. ;)

I thought I would take a few weeks off from blogging.  Our friends, the Ciraulos, are on their way to spend the night at our home, so I only have a few minutes to get some pictures uploaded from Christmas.  I have so many things update everyone on.  Here are a few of our favorite holiday pictures.  

As you know I am still so horrible at this blogging thing so EVERY picture is out of order.  No time to fix them. :)

My Life

Since some don't really know the city that we moved to, I thought I would post weekly pictures what Rocklin is to us.  It's kind of like a little Winter tour. Enjoy!

I thought this picture was too cute not to post.  We are riding our bikes home from the park and Alise was helping Caitlyn go up the hill. Sister love!

Our favorite park....and it's walking distance!  It's like a free amusement park.  There's even a water area in the summer time.
We pass little ponds on our way to the park.
The girl's future high school - Whitney High. It has so much to offer, even culinary classes!

 You can  see the stadium from our home.  Our football team just won their division and now on to state!  Go Wildcats!
This is one of my favorite things about Rocklin.  There are little rivers and open spaces every few streets.  It's so beautiful up here!  This is our view from our master bedroom.  Love it!!!

A Magical Christmas Moment!

Santa!!!!!!!!!! On a fire truck!!!!!  Going down our street!!!!!  At 8:45 at night!!!!!  And my kids missed it!!!!!!!

I'm so bummed.....but, what a super cute moment.  You should have seen all the kids running out of their homes in their jammies to see Santa on top of the firetruck yelling "ho ho ho" on the loud speakers and his helpers handing out candy. 

 I love the area we live in!!!!!!!! It's so family oriented.

What a magical and unexpected surprise for all these kids.

So.....my neighbors probably thought I  was a complete dork running down the street, with my camera, to get a picture of Santa to show the girls in the morning.  This was the best I could do. :)

Christmas Time

Does Jake even notice there is a Christmas tree in the room? Nope!

How excited they are!

Oh, how I love the sweet moments of Christmas time.  This year the girls were able to help me decorate the tree and actually got the hang of it.  I was super worried about Jake pulling the ornaments off, but he could really care less about the tree. I remember we had a gate all around our tree just a few years ago when the girls were itty bitty.  How quickly the years are passing by.

 I'll keep posting our sweet Christmas moments every so often.....when I remember to bring the camera. :)

Tagged

Ok....I got tagged by one of my good girlfriends from our old stomping ground. Thanks Liz! ;)

Hmmm.......what is on my nightstand.?????

Well..... since Dave and I still do not have any bedroom furniture, except a bed, (we decided to sell most of our old furniture before we moved since we had to live in a temporary home until our house here in Rocklin was finished.) I'll just tell you what is on the floor. :)

The Love Dare by Kendrick - It was seen in the movie Fireproof, which Dave and I have yet seen.  I heard it will CHANGE your marriage.

Inside my Heart by Robin McGraw - ok....I've only read a few chapters, but she does have a lot of good things to say.

Multiple Blessings - by Kate Gosselin- I'm done with this one.  It's always interesting to me how large families run the day to day.  I did not carry 6 babies at one time, but it did bring back a ton of memories being on hospital bed rest for 2 months (Kate had to endure a few weeks more than me) & surviving the first year of higher order multiples.

The Bible - which I need to read more of.

Real Simple Mag.

Family Fun - a great one!!!!

Ok....I don't read a lot of my friend's blogs .....if you have one please tell me! So, I tag 

Denise Tehrani.

Dinner with good friends.

On our last night in Tahoe we went over to the Klayko cabin for a yummy dinner and smores.  

We love our new home and are forming such a great community, but still dearly miss our friends from the Bay Area. It was refreshing hanging out with friends that really know us and our kids. 

The girls missed Caleb!!!!

What I am thankful for!!!

What I am thankful for:

Jesus dying on the cross.

My amazing husband

My terrific kids

My wonderful parents and in-laws

Super friends

A beautiful home

Dave's job

Food on the table 

My computer - to connect with friends and read blogs. :)

STARBUCKS!

My list could go on and on......

Here are a few pictures of our trip to Tahoe for Thanksgiving.  We were really hoping for snow. Luckily, the small storm that came through left a fine layer of snow up at North Star.  So away we went on our hunt to find just one tiny mountain to sled on.  We had a wonderful time sledding, drinking some hot cocoa (lots), seeing Santa at Squaw Valley, playing at the park, feeding the ducks at the dam and having dinner with our dear friends, the Klaykos (more on a future post).

Hot Cocoa after a long few minutes of sledding. :)

Sledding for the first time.
Thanksgiving Dinner. Thanks mom!

Holiday Parade

Again, my pictures are in the wrong order, so we'll just tell the story backwards.  I'll be computer savvy someday! :)

We went to our first town holiday parade here in our new home.  However, nothing beats the Festival of Lights parade in Los Altos.  How I will miss that tradition.

Anyways, this parade was great!  There were lots of kids, candy and floats.  In fact, it lasted 2 1/2 hours.....I think everyone in the town was in the parade. :)

So, we have moved Jake down to one nap, as you can see, he can hardly stay awake as we drive home.

The parade marching down the street through the entwining trees.  A beautiful, festive, fall scene.


The fam!

Thanksgiving Treat

For the life of me, I can't figure how to turn this picture so you'll just have to lay your computer on the side. :)

If you have kiddos, this is such a fun project!  I had 6 neighborhood kids over and they each made one of these rice krispy  turkey treats.  So simple!  So easy! So cheap! So fun!  I wish I could take credit for this idea, but I did get this off of another mommy blog.  Enjoy!

Pink Pancakes!

I come back from Starbucks and this is what I find.  What dad would make pink pancakes to make his little girls feel special? In my opinion, Dave has to be the best dad ever!!!!

Sacramento Zoo

It feels like it's been a long time since I've updated the blog.  Dave's been gone a ton and I feel like I'm just staying above water with all the daily activities.  My mom came last week to help me with the kiddos while Dave was in Florida.  What a blessing she is!  We decided to take the kids to the Sacramento Zoo.  What a great zoo!  It's a lot smaller than San Fran. ,but the animals are closer, it's less crowded and the weather is much warmer.  I took only a few pictures since I ran out of memory and the battery was dead on my camera.  

There were triplet tigers!

I have a few posts I'm working on.  I just have to get my act together to download the pictures.  Stay tuned! :)

Favorite Blogs

As some of you know, I LOVE to visit other people's blogs and get ideas for teaching my kids, to get encouraged with my faith and to learn about money saving tips.  Here are a few of  my favorites.

www.makeandtakes.com  - I LOVE this site to get craft & homemaking ideas.  The author has simple and fun ideas for moms who stay at home (even moms that work :) ).

www.blissfullydomestic.com - I could spend all day at this website.  There are ideas for every subject!

www.momsintheright.com - Ok.....If you are politically on the conservative side this is a great blog for you.  If not...don't even visit there. :)

girltalk.blogs.com - This blog is written by sisters in which I've found great encouragement in my faith.

www.moneysavingmom.com  -  Some of you may not know that I am super frugal and love to save money.  I love to budget and think of new ways to simplify our home and life.  This mom has been so helpful in saving our family money  and helping me maintain our budget.

 

Happy Halloween

We had such a fun Halloween!  I really wanted to go back to the Bay Area and keep all of our past Halloween traditions, but also wanted the girls to experience it here, in our new neighborhood, so I decided to stay at home.  So glad I did (even though I do miss all our friends. :) )   We have been really blessed with such an amazing neighborhood!  My dad was walking around with us taking pictures of the kids and stated this scene (our whole neighborhood trick or treating at the same time) looked like a scene from when he was a kid.  I mean, there had to be 40-50 kids, all around the same age, running around, going door to door.  The parents were chit-chatting in the street with drinks and the kids were playing and having the time of their lives.  In the Bay Area I would have had my "mommy" eye out for my kiddos every second.  Here, I feel at ease and safe.  We really had a great day and are ready to begin making traditions in our new home!

Here are a couple picture of our Halloween evening:

This picture is hard to see, but there are about 15 little kids running around the tree while 20-30 adults are hanging out in the street.

Jake the turtle!
We had my parents and another family over for pizza before trick or treating.

Boo You!

We got Boo'd!!!!!!!  A ghost (a neighbor) went around our neighborhood and left goodies on our doorstep.  It was now our turn to "boo" another neighbor.  Dave took the girls down to our neighbor's house, rang the doorbell, left the treats and RAN!!!!  Surprising enough, the girls were super quiet in hiding.  Every neighbor got into it and now is sporting a "boo" ghost on their door. So fun!!!!

Getting ready to "boo" our neighbor.

The "boo" ghost!

Disneyland!

This past weekend we went to Disneyland to celebrate the girl's birthday.  I can't even describe how much fun we had!!!!!!!  If you can afford it, no matter what age your kiddos are, you should go!!!  There is nothing like watching your kid's faces light up.  I don't understand when parents use the excuse that their kids are too young and they will never remember it.  I don't remember my trip to Disneyland when I was 16. :)  They won't remember, but you will and you'll have pictures to prove it.  Ok...here are some many pictures of our great trip.

Jake already tired from our busy morning.

My mom, dad and baby Jake.
Our whole family.
We had lunch with the princesses.  Priceless pictures!
Jake couldn't wait to meet the princesses!

Trying to get a group shot. :)

Again.....trying to get a group shot. :)
My amazing roommates from college and their sweet families.