SNEAK PEEK!!!

Here is a quick sneak peek of some of the professional family pictures we had done a couple weeks ago. The amazing photographer just finished editing the pictures and is sending them to me on a CD tomorrow, but for now she sent a few to give us a sneak preview!!! I am thrilled and if the 100 pictures on the CD are anything like these, I am going to be one happy mommy. By the way, we have never had professional pictures done with the exception of the church directory. Pitiful I know but we finally did it and I am so pleased. Let me know what you think.

Love this one!!!



We were just kidding when she took these pictures with Owen and the glasses but I kind of like this pic!


It's small but I like the one of the girls and Kev and I. In the other picture the girls are scowling at each other because Finley would not hold Mia's hand and she was upset.

My handsome boy... I mean teen!!!

I love this candid pic

So what are your thought? I should have the CD with over 100 awesome pics on it so I'm sure I will love going through and picking my favorites. Ill share more soon.

Ethan's Junior High Dance

Ethan is growing up so fast and is now in 7th grade on his way to 8th. That is such a trip to me as I met my two best friends (Laila and Laura- twins)in 7th grade and we are still BFF's today. I just cant believe how old he is looking and he is actually sounding like a man- his voice is low!! Every year on the day before Good Friday, our school has a dance for the junior high and they learn swing dancing in PE for weeks before so they get to practice their swing dancing at the dance. It is a great kick off to spring break and the kids look forward to it every year. Owen cant wait till next year when he is in 6th grade and gets to participate!!! Our good friends always rent a limo for the kids and this year their daughter was in 6th grade so they rented another limo for her friends too. It was quite a scene at their house with all those dressed up junior high kids. They were hilarious to watch-- man do I not miss those crazy days!!!

This year one of the 7th grade parents decided to have an after party for the 7th graders and their parents. The girls and I went with Ethan and it was a nice time until midnight when we headed home. Kevin was not able to be a part of anything because the 5th grade class at their school also takes a one day trip to San Francisco on the day before Good Friday as well. Kevin went with Owen and they had a blast!!! They fly up from Ontario to San Fran (its just a 1 hour flight) early in the morning and then do a tour through China town with free time and then go to Pier 39 and eat at Bubba Gumps (Kevin and Owen won the Forest Gump trivia game) and then they boarded a boat to Alcatraz for a tour and some free time. They then went to the Exploratorium and then headed back to the airport. It is quite a packed day but they had a really great time. The only negative was the flight was delayed 3 hours so they didn't get home until 1am-- yikes!! Luckily the next day was the start of Easter break!

All the kids in the living room

Sammy, Benny, Ethan, Zach and Jared-- Great Buds!!!

The girls in front of their limo

The dashing boys in front of theirs

Such handsome boys

Ethan looks thrilled to be in this picture-- oh well- had to do a mommy and son pic :)

The boys inside the limo

The girls in their limo-- Heidi in the front is Jared's sister who is in the 6th grade. They are the family we went to Hawaii a few years ago with.

The girls with Ethan in the limo-- they looked like ragamuffins- we had gone from school and home for 45 min to get Ethan dressed and then to our friends house for the limo and they were thrashed-- dirty and tired-- poor things.

An attempt to smile-- if you look at Mia's eyes, they are red and swollen. We thought she had pink eye but it turned out to be a virus- she never had goop in her eyes. She ended up having an ear ache too so we just treated the symptoms with motrine etc. and it was gone in 2 days. We stay away from antibiotics as much as we can. According to studies, we in the US over medicate and most things we throw antibiotics at is actually viral and it does nothing to get rid of the illness. That is why when the kids are sick, we just treat the symptoms and usually within a few days they are totally fine-- if not, we will go to the DR, but that is always a last resort-- ok, off my soapbox :)

The limo dropped the kids off at the dance. Ethan is going through the doors into the dance. Believe it or not, the man right by the door, Mr. Keen and the man closest to the camera, Mr. Sorensen were both my teachers in JR. High at the Christian School I went to. They are still both in Christian education and are amazing teachers.

Ethan flirting with the girls.

So we said good bye and Ethan had a blast. We then picked Ethan and a friend up and went to the after party. We got home around 12:00am (the girls had fallen asleep hours before) and we all went to bed and finally at about 1:30am, Kevin and Owen arrived home from their exceptionally long day in San Francisco. Great day for both boys. Now they are on spring break but sadly, the girls and I are not. So, the boys are heading to the farm tomorrow and are spending the night till Wednesday evening and then I am off Thursday and Friday where we will do something fun.

Until then-- have a great week!!!

Please keep Finley in your prayers.

Update - Finley had a really hard time being Put to sleep. They had to give her the meds it would take to put an adult to sleep and she only weighs 34 pounds. She fought sleep like crazy and would just thrash her body around. KeV was holding her the whole time but she just thrashed and throw her body back and keV was having a hard time even keeping a grasp on her. Finally after 1.5 hours of trying to put her to sleep, she finally gave in. The MRI went fine and we were able to be with her in recovery. With the large volumes of medications she was given, she had a hard time waking up. We sat with her for almost 2 hours before she finally woke up. She was not happy when she woke but was not freaking out. She had some juice and after about 2.5 hours in recovery, they let her go. KeV picked her up to leave and she threw up all over Kevin. Poor kev was puked on and when she was thrashing before the MRI when she was heavy medicated, she emptied her bladder on him too. Needless to say keV was happy to get joke for a shower :). On the drive home she continued to throw up everything she had drank. She fell back asleep on the drive and has just been very slow all night. Towards bedtime she started to seem back to normal but still clumsy and kept bumping into things. Hopefully she will be back to normal in the morning.

Thanks so much for all your prayers. Now we need to pray the results o the MRI show positive. Thanks again!

In about a half hour Finley will be put under general anesthesia for her 4 hour MRI. This MRI is of her brain and all 3 spine areas. This is to get a baseline for the spina bifida clinic to be able to follow her in the future. Unfortunately she has to be put under for a long time so please keep her in your prayers as we have no idea how she will respond. I will update as soon as it is over. Thanks for your prayers!

New Bathing Suits

I ordered the girls some bathing suits online (Kate Mack) and since we got them it has been too cold to swim. This weekend it was in the high 80's and we went to a friends house for a party and the girls got a chance to try out their new suits. Before we left I took some pictures. I got Mia the 2 piece because she loves 2 piece swim suits and got Finley the matching one piece. I think they look adorable on the girls and I love them in red!!!

My little model!!

Finley is not quite the model type-- we are working on a natural smile-- lol!!!

Making an attempt at modeling

There are little dangle cherries on the suit which are adorable and she loves them!!




Much better :)

Off they went playing. We are going to have to lower Finley's suite a little bit :)

Playing with the shopping cart

Love these little suits!!!!

Happy Referral Day Mia - 4 years ago!!

Yes, I am a bit late posting on Mia's referral day 4 years ago but better late than never. We have been so busy and the weather has been strange that we have not had a day to go out and have a little photo shoot. Well today was the day. First off it is Friday and not only do I not work on Friday's but the girls are off preschool which means we have a day of relaxation so we decided to head outside on this beautiful 80+ degree day to attempt to get a few cute shots. I even got my nice camera out which is rare now days. Mia was all smiles and was happy as can be to pose for pictures-- Finley-- not so much-- uggg!! It went pretty well but ended on a lovely tantrum by my sweet Finley but other than that blip, it was great and my beautiful Mia was proud as can be to hold her referral picture.

Mia, you are such an amazingly wonderful girl! We love you so much and are so thankful for everything you are. You have been such a tremendous addition to our family and it is as if you have always been with us. You are smart and funny and sweet. You are a natural leader and people love to be around you! You have taken the addition of your new sister like a champ and have been a wonderful teacher and role model for her. We all love you so very much and we thank Jesus everyday that you are part of our family.

Love, Mommy

I took so many pictures that I made some collages to make it easier to post

So beautiful in all ways!! I just love my little Mipi!!!

Finley wanted to get in on the referral picture action. I love the look on Mia's face in this picture. She looks so proud.

You can click on the collage and it will get bigger if you want to see the pictures close up.

Then we started on just taking cute pictures and Finley complied for about 3 minutes and then decided to oppose everything I tried-- not fun-- uggg!!

So beautiful!!

Mia on the other hand was all smiles and loved that the pictures were for HER!!!

I tried to get Finley happy with bubbles-- didn't work too well. If you click on the collage you can see that she is crying in one of the pictures. Mia loved the bubbles and was chasing them around our yard.

And the throwing a fit collage. She was so mad but I was standing my ground and I would not let her go back into the house until she stopped crying ( for a variety of reasons but mostly she was being very mean to her sister and I was not going to let that happen). She lasted about 10 minutes then I moved her to time out - out of the sun (she is so fare I was worried she was going to burn). She finally stopped and she came in and watched Kai Lan and had lunch.

Overall, the pictures were for Mia and she loved the whole thing so all is well. Here-- Happy 4 year referral day-- a little late :)

PS- The dress Finley is wearing was given to Mia many years ago by our good pal Kim. My friend Laila loved it so much that she had one made for her daughter Ava. Well, the other day when I was at Laila's house we decided to clean out Ava's closet and get rid of things that were too small. Besides getting a truckload of beautiful dresses, Ava had grown out of the matching dress as the one Kim bought Mia so we now have a matching pair (as well as a bunch of other matching dresses-- Laila and I have the same taste in girls clothes). I have always loved this dress and actually used it in our professional family pictures we had done yesterday.

Fun Day at Disney!!!!

We decided to take a Disney trip at the last minute with my BFF’s Laila and Laura and Ava. We had such a fun time and even indulged the girls in face painting. It was a lot of fun and Finely even went on the Matterhorn (i.e. fast roller coaster) and loved it!!!! I think she will be a bit of a dare devil like her sister and brothers which is fine with me since I love fast rides. Now all we need now is to get Finley to grow about 3 inches so she is tall enough for the 40 inch and over rides. Mia is barely at the 40 inch mark with shoes (one ride they let her on and another they said no—so we need to make sure to wear thick shoes next time) so we are going to have to get Finley some 3 inch platform flip flops so she can ride all the big rides too :)

My handsome boys at the Tron thing at California Adventure-- Ethan does not look like a boy anymore-- he looks like a teen-- yikes!!!

Finley getting her fave painted

She concentrated so hard!!

She loved the results and kept looking at herself in the mirror

Soooooo PRETTY!!!

She did not want to wash it off at night-- too cute!

Awwwww!!! Ethan can be so sweet to his sisters and sometimes not so sweet

Mia's turn

Applying the glitter

Awwww....

All the girls with their Princess painting!!! Ava looked so cute!!

All the kids together

My pretty girl!

Finley loved the carousel

Laughing at her brother

Mia got the high road on Ethan's shoulders

Finely-- not quite so high :)