Mission inn on sunday and Christmas Eve

Just pictures for now 😊

Mia's song. So funny!!!

Catch up

I'm doing a catch up in pictures. When I post on my iPhone I never know how the order pictures will appear so I will attempt to explain each.

First pics should be of our family on a trip to oak glen Riley's farm. We went with Kevin's parents and saw this awesome bridge and had them take a picture and it was one heck of a surprise but the pics turned out great (warning you will see these on Christmas cards).

Next is the girls thanksgiving feast at preschool. They played their self made drums and ate their awesome feast. It was a good time. There is also a pic of ethan at his feast with a few of his friends. Owen was there too but I forgot to get a pic.

Next was the 1 pic of thanksgiving of my parents and the grand kids in the lobby of the hotel we were at. Every thanksgiving we go to the central valley in ca and spend time with our family out there. We always have a great time and they put on such an awesome party- thanks this year to Margie and aunt barb for hosting the 2 days.

Oh ya, there are a few of laila, Cassie and the kids and I at Disneyland. It's so magical this time of year.

Last picture is of emery with her new bling. I took it with my phone so it's bad but I had to document the ear piercing.
She now looks like a girl-- I'm thrilled!!!

We are back to school and work and passing illness after illness around out house. We have all been sick and it sucks. Anyway sorry for the short post on my phone but I've been so bad about blogging I felt I had to post something.

Orphan Sunday Video

Our church makes Orphan Sunday a big deal. It is a wonderful day with a big lunch after with speakers and reps from Adoption and Foster agencies. This year they asked to do a video on our family that was shown in the service. I think it turned out great! I was shocked they were able to put together anything in the chaos of the taping as the kids were all over the place, but it turned out awesome! Here it is!

Finleys Halloween hair

Pictures from Finley's Birthday

Finley had a great birthday weekend! She had her fun cousin sleepover at my parents and then a partying sunday. I attempted another do successful photo shoot in the back yard before the party but my good camera was dead ( for lack of use) and the girls were not overly cooperative. I got a few usable pics but at least it was documented. Finley was sick of cake by the sunday party so she asked for pumpkin pie instead. We were happy to skip the cake:). Great birthday with one happy birthday girl!!!

By the way. I have no idea why it is arranging the pictures this way. I've tried to change it to Finley's birthday pic first but it won't let me. I'm on the blogger app and it's ticking me off. Anyway Finley's alone pic was meant to be first- uggg!!

Happy birthday Finley!!! We love you so very much!!!!

Making Finley's birthday cake

*sorry for any errors. I dictated this on my phone.

Lots going On around here. We have been very busy but honestly I just have not had much time for blogging. By the time i am done with work and we get dinner on the table and kids ready for bed and finally I have time to relax, I'm literally falling asleep on the couch. I hardly ever watch TV anymore as I'm pretty much ready to go to bed by 9-930 at night. I have been waking up pretty consistently in the morning to work out, so 5:15am comes pretty early. I am enjoying it though and truly has feel better since I've been working out. I'm still not eating very good so I'm not losing any weight but I feel much stronger and healthier just because of the workouts.

Tomorrow is Finley's 5th birthday. We are so excited and she is even more excited than you could ever imagine. I'm kind of sad that her school does not allow us to do any parties or send any cupcakes so we were not able to make the planned cupcakes after school today but we did make a cake instead. It was fun to bake with the girls as I always enjoy doing but finley greatly enjoyed making her own birthday cake that we will you tomorrow. Tomorrow we will take her to get her gift that she is going to get choose from the toy store. Again, she could not be any more excited. After that she has a sleepover over at my parents house with all the other granddaughters that has been planned for several weeks. Back when it was planned we didn't realize it fell on Finley's birthday but it's really cool now because my mom is planning a big party at the same time so it will be like a big sleepover for her birthday just at her grandparents house. She is so excited she can hardly sleep. We will have a little family party on Sunday after church and that will be her celebration for this year. It is so fun to watch how excited they get over the small things that we tend to disregard as we get older. I hate counting my birthday now but for them, five years is a monumental accomplishment. I will try to take actual camera (not iphone- sorry) pictures of her birthday to post on the blog a bit later.

Overall things of been good just really busy. Having the boys in so many sports is just really hard to keep up with. We now have an official rule of only one sport at a time from now on. We have learned our lesson with Ethan being in football and in hockey. Never ever ever again will we allow two sports.

The girls are doing great and loving kindergarten. Mia is ridiculously far along and is pretty much at the first grade level in most things. Finley is perfect for the transitional kindergarten program. She definitely is not kindergarten material yet but she is coming along nicely. I always say, she is been learning a language for the last year and a half and the academics will come later. Her teacher agrees. Emery is just a little freaky sweetheart! She is so much fun and has such a great personality and is truly loved by all. My mom and mother-in-law have been watching her each every other Wednesday and they just enjoy thoroughly the time they have together with her. She is so much fun one on one and just keeps you laughing with her little personality. She is learning so many new things in her speech is coming along. Overall we're doing pretty darn good. Not many complaints :)