I Smell Turkey

Okay, first of all up above, that's Beau, his dad Uncle Tim (Dan's oldest brother) and Dan of course at Beau's last football game. He played for Azusa and is getting married in January, we can't wait! Meanwhile, there's a quick shot of Ruby Stimer and the twins playing from Wednesday, and most importantly, some of the cookies I slaved over for Lorelei's "Thanksgiving Feast" in kindergarten. So I thought I was really clever, choosing this recipe because you can get the pre-made pilsbury sugar cookies and just decorate, how hard could that be? turns out, it was harder than it looked. I thought a lot of them sort of resembled orange frogs more than turkeys. Oh well, I tried. And there's an assortment of the fall crafts my kids did. My friend gave me the idea of taking pictures of the kids' crafts and keeping the pix rather than storing piles of artwork for years. I was very on board with that since I figure this is just the beginning for me, I still have 3 more kids to do the kindergarten thing yet. I also loved the little toilet paper roll corn someone in her class passed out, they filled the roll with candy, wrapped it with shredded yellow tissue paper to look like corn then twisted on green tissue paper to look like husks - adorable!

Trying to Get a Christmas Card Photo

Okay, so I need to be quick because I so should be grading essays right now, but I just had to comment on our Saturday adventure attempting to get a family photo for our Christmas cards this year. Most of you have kids and know how difficult it is to get all of them looking at the camera. My girls were NOT cooperative this weekend. One would look and smile, and then another would look away, and then another would do one of those weird, forced, fake smiles. What was funny was Dan & I thought to ourselves, "well at least the the ones just of us will turn out good because we can look at the camera." So we're looking at the pix afterwards and we look at each other with these sort of mutually pained expressions, and Dan says I guess we're not as good looking as we thought we were." Yeah, time to hit the gym and start researching age-reversing creams....

By the way, thank you to our amazing neighbors and photographers, Kat & Chet Hervey. Check out their website herveyphoto.com You guys are the bestest neighbors ever, we love you, and you can come watch our TV whenever you want to. Thanks for being patient with our stinkers on a very windy day.

Oh & one more thing, I started researching Christmas card companies. Last year our cards were amazing, done by kitenotes.com (Sandhya's sister's company). She also has done my baby announcements, etc, and I LOVE her stuff, however, this year we're simplifying things ($$$) and went with peartreegreetings.com. But if you want a fancy cool card I'd go with kitenotes.com or vistaprint or papergoods.
Above are some of the shots we're not using since we're going with a group shot vs. several individuals. And yeah, those are tutus they're wearing, that's why I have four daughters okay, I like pink.

So I Watch Too Much TV

Shows I currently am obsessed with:

1. House: Yes, I've been a follower from the very 1st episode. This is my most fave show ever, besides The Gilmore Girls season 2 which remains first in my heart forever. House is a tough one to catch up on because it's in at least its 4th season, but lemme tell you reasons you should watch. The writing is amazing, and so witty. Hugh Laurie who plays Dr. House is such a miserable, complex character that I can't help but root for him. I want him to fall in love with his boss, Cutti and be happy, but then the show would be worthless and over (Think back to when Angela & Tony finally hooked up in Who's the Boss, it was lame after that). Another thing I love in the show is the "bromance" or friendship btwn House & Wilson (played by Robert Sean Leonard whom we all fell in love with the first time we watched Dead Poets Society when we were 13 ('89 baby, '89).

2. Life: Strangely, the lead in this show reminds me of House, but better looking - bonus! He's the guy from Band of Brothers. This show is just rilly, rilly, rilly good, and it makes laugh, and there's an ongoing mystery to solve in addition to the weekly mysteries. It's only just in the middle of season 2, and all of the episodes are on line via NBC, so when you have to take a sick day some day, watch it already. You'll love it.

3. Life on Mars: Okay, so I'm not obsessed with this one yet, but I'm interested enough to TiVo it and watch it with Dan each week. The guy's kinda cute and there's a lot of weird stuff going on that's kind of interesting, and Lisa Bonet was in the season premiere, come on, you know you still love her from her Denise Huxtable, I wear big sweaters days.

Shows I can miss, but when I catch them I like them.

1. Biggest Loser: Don't judge me, it's inspiring, and it makes me cry, and contemplate exercise. Bethie's in love with Bob the trainer. Then there's Jillian. She kind of scares me, but I like her.

2. Oprah: What? You think I don't know how annoying it is when she gets all preachy and self-righteous and starts telling you you need more "me-time" in your life (which is so not biblical people, think about it)? Look I know where she stands & that half the stuff that comes out of her mouth is mumbo jumbo, but seriously, there's nothing more fun than a make-over, there's nothing cuter than Nate Berkus, and everyone loves a good Gail story.

* Please note: I did not feel the need to bring up Regis and Kelly because I think we all should know by now that the first 15 minutes of the show (AKA host chat) are a daily ritual in my life that I LOVE. Kelly Ripa's adorable, love her self-deprecating humor, and Regis is 77 YEARS OLD, and still funny and relevant and occasionally sincere. I'll never forget the time he cried when his cat, Ashley died. It moved me.

So fellow bloggers, what are you all watching?

A Master's Moment

So this past weekend, Dan & I drove to Santa Clarita for the memorial service of our friend Ashley's daughter, Reese.  The service was at a church right next to the college (TMC).   We attended there almost 11 years ago now!  The event was bittersweet.  It was difficult of course to hear about the loss of a loved one, difficult to see grief in it's most tangible form, but it was also so encouraging.  As I sat through the service, I glanced around at so many familiar faces, faces I hadn't seen in a long time, and I felt so completely comforted by those faces.  I can only explain this because of the common and intensely unifying bond in Christ we share. 

I understand that just because I attended a Christian college, that not all of the people I went to school with were believers, but I do believe that many of them were sincere in their faith.  I look back and I realize what a profound influence the college had on my life.  The minute I walked onto that campus I remember being struck by the difference in the people there.  So many of them that God specifically brought into my life were so grounded in their faith at such an early age.

I am grateful for the college, for the friends that I made there, because I know that when trials and tragedies strike many of them will not waver in their faith, rather they will cling to Christ and His word in their time of need.  I saw evidence of that this weekend in the lives of the Kostjuks and in so many of the other families there.  For that I am truly thankful and truly blessed.

If you have a moment...

I had just posted my Harvest pics and recent post, and started scrolling through, checking through my other blogger friends blogs. If you have a moment, read the Kostjuck blog. They lost their little one this week. Ashley was on my wing and college, and I've been so amazed by her family's testimony in their time of suffering. Their faith has been a truly beautiful example to me and I'm so grateful to them for that. Their posts have never been discouraging or depressing, but always full of joy and hope. That is only because of Christ. What a reminder!

Bring on the Harvest Festivities!

First of all I wanted to mention that I've noticed other mom-bloggers write down the little funny things their kids say, and I always forget to do that even in their baby books and stuff. But yesterday, I was changing Morgan's diaper, and Noelle randomly says, "When I grow up, I'm going to have 3 kids and a bald baby named Goliath."
My response, "Oh really, is the baby going to be cute?"
"yeah, and bald." Okay, so we've established the bald thing. (Interestingly enough, Noelle was my only bald baby). Anyway, I thought it was cute. I'm looking forward to a grandbaby named Goliath. Maybe she'll name his sisters Delilah and Jezebel.

So meanwhile, been insanely busy and crazy around here. My classes are turning out to require more time & effort than I had anticipated (live & learn). So first of all props to my hero hubby who has been doing a lot with the kids lately to help me. Secondly, shout out to Bethie who watched them for us the other day so we could go out. She's the bestest. (She also glittered up the sugar pumpkins in the pic. above Martha Stewart style, cute huh, those are real pumpkins) We saw Body of Lies that night, and it was really good (sensitive to cussing and torture scenes, don't go, I just closed my eyes). As far as festivities go here's the lowdown:
1. Preschool Silly hat parade (their alternative to Halloween)
2. Carving pumpkins with Denny and his kiddos.
3. Pumpkin cookie decorating play date with the church at Beth Catalde's house
4. For the 3rd year in a row, for Halloween (Reformation Day I mean), my cousin Eliza and her husband & kids came over for dinner and we went around trick or treating and got the kids all sugared up. It was pretty fun. We were supposed to go and be the face painters today at our church Harvest festival, but looks like we're rained out this year!