Christmas Fun

Christmas was a bustling time in our household this year! We made cookies for Santa and sampled some of the sprinkles to make sure Santa would like them. :-) We hope your Christmas was Merry as well. I hope you enjoy the New Year!

There were many books this year and the kids really wanted to have them read to them.

Mom loved the cuddles from Ellie and her grandsons!

Tickles for Ellie!

Christmas night was fun to play and laugh with everyone.

Here's a Doctor's Kit for Ellie to play. When we say "cheese" this is her look. So if you see her smiling with her eyes open it's to see if we took the picture yet. I love it. Grandma even listened to her heart beat and measured her pulse!

Sunday night service is special, but made especially so by these cute little boys who use their lips to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus!

Church-dressed Ellie.

Cookies for Santa and Carrots for Reindeer.

All the purses and jewelry, you bet Ellie knew it was Christmas.

A very Merry Christmas to all!

For more Christmas Fun see Grandma L's blog http://notsocandidcamera.blogspot.com/2007/12/christmas-pictures_29.html

Boats

Little did I know how exciting life on a boat, especially a cruise boat could be. We went on two boats between our time in Hawaii and our cruise. One was this one, a sub, and we could only walk single file and the other was the one below, our cruise ship. Quite a difference. Both were fun to tour, but only one is fun to truly live on.

It's always fun to dress up and especially getting to have Eric in a suit ~how handsome!

We had quite the different attire during the day! I love climbing the rock wall, just not real ones! :-)

Fun Food

We had a wonderful time getting to eat different kinds of food. Pineapple was everywhere! If you ordered a meal at McD's pineapple came with it!!!! We even had pineapple ice cream with pineapple on top at the Dole pineapple plantation. We had a different experience every night and I loved trying everything new! I thought Hawaii was great for their weather, but the food was delicious! The different venues also provided a great atmosphere. Here we had our own hut!

This was a favorite for the food and view. It does a 360 degree rotation to show you Wakiki. We went at sunset for the best views!

Here Ellie is trying to keep her hat on her head due to windy conditions.

One of our dinners we ate inside but it was almost like we were outside since the restaurant opened onto the beach. It was so windy that the sauce we poured onto our fish didn't go straight down, it poured at an angle. The food was superb and the memories we have will always make me smile!

Speaking of smiling, whenever we had a buffet the kids loved it because that always meant more than one kind of dessert!

Eric loved the all you can eat because that meant more of what he loves!

Here was a Mexican restraunt that gave everyone balloon hats. Luke was scared at first but when everyone else joined in the fun, so did he.

Here's one more view of our food. If you're a meat-eater than this is heaven.

Howdy!

Here is my little girl gone cowboy (or actual cowgirl.) She had on Luke and Daniel's boots and so I added the hat Aunt Lisa gave her to the ensemble. Hope you all are enjoying the Christmas season!

More Hawaii

I could possibly write on Hawaii the rest of the year and next, but I won't. I'll just add a few here and there. The first full day there we went straight to the beach and the boys loved being able to get wet in the ocean. We've been to Monterrey, but that is COLD! They still played, but just not as long and they certainly didn't boogie board in CA! Everyday was, "Are we going to the beach today?" How fun that we could go!

Ellie was the most adventurous one that first day and Daniel had to hold her up so she didn't fall down in the waves. He was such a big helper the entire trip. It's just like him to want to help and watch over his little sister.


I didn't know there were jellyfish in Hawaii, but yes, they exist. Apparently they come 8-10 days after a full moon. Thankfully we were at the tail end of that and there were no incidents. We had a wonderful time just playing in the water and sand. Sand pictures can come later though.

After this body surfing adventure, both boys thought the ocean was fun!!!! We decided to try boogie boarding after this and the boys had tons of fun doing that too. I'll have to share more pictures later. Hawaii anytime is a great time!

Happy Thanksgiving

Here is a sampling of our Thanksgiving guests. We also had Great-Grandma and Grandpa W over to my mom's. The place was filled with beautiful settings, wonderful company and cute little kids. :-) It's always great to be with family!We were able to get two great pictures of both Grandma's!Here's one more picture of one of the table settings. I hope you all had a Thanksgiving filled with Joy!

Ellie's swimsuits

I always thought children have one or two swimsuits during the summer and that is how many the boys own. Not Ellie...she owns.............six! We only brought four to Hawaii, but oh my! When I realized she had so many I about fainted! Some were gifts, others hand-me-downs, and only one did I purchase. Honestly, they are all different sizes too! She fits into them all so I don't really know how they size these things anymore!!! We used them all, but I just thought it was hilarious and something that had to be shared. I love them all for different reasons, but each one has it's perks. This one has little fish that her Aunt Jerry gave to her and I put little red bows to match. (I just love girly touches!)

This one is a white and light blue with a yellow duck on the front. It has a cute cover-up that came with it that matches. (My mom will tell you I love to match!)

This one is from my wonderful sister who gave this to Ellie last year! She still fits into it so I brought it along. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of the purple and white polka dot one that I got to buy, so I will have to just show you a picture of her with more " accessories." Enjoy!

Hawaii

As most of you know Eric's parents took us on a trip to Hawaii in November. It was a great time and although it is winter there as well, it was beautiful weather. Only one day or actually night it rained and it rained 9 inches! The rain was great because we were able to do other activities without feeling like we were missing out on going to the beach. There was this amazing ranch on the opposite side of the island where they filmed many movies and also the show LOST! I really felt like I was in a movie and the scenery was just breathtaking. There's so much to love about Hawaii, but this one was one of my favorites!

We went on this old bus without windows and it made me realize that they don't make vehicles like the old days. This bus was amazing! We stopped right in the middle of this mini lake and then started again with no trouble. Then going up the hills so steep I would have gotten out of breath just walking, the bus had no trouble.

Here's a few of the movies!

If any of you remember this was the scene in the first season where they play golf. We also saw some of the bunker where they shoot also. I'll show more beach pictures later. This was just one of the fun days spent in Aloha land.

To see a sneak peak at Hawaii you can see Eric's mom's blog at http://notsocandidcamera.blogspot.com/2007/11/aloha.html

Crusin'

It seems we've been gone a long time, but this one was just a short cruise to just experience the cruise life. We had a wonderful time with Eric's parents and my parents seemed to have a great time with the kids. Truly Eric and I are so blessed to have wonderful parents! I will post Hawaii pictures later, but for now these are the pictures I have so far.

They grow up fast

I've heard it said that kids can't wait to grow up and now I have my own who also want to grow up faster than I would like. Here's a few sayings from the past few weeks:

Luke age 3 - When talking about his next birthday he says, "I want to be six for my birthday."

Daniel - "Tomorrow I want to be 18." I have no idea why; he just picked that number.

I hope time slows a little bit because before I know it, they will be six and then 18! Soon enough "tomorrow" he will turn 18, I just hope it doesn't fly by too fast!!!

Our Costumes

I truly love to dress up. Maybe it's just the kid in me or maybe I'm really just relating to Ellie. :-) Here Eric is my gansta' boyfriend and I'm a flapper girl. We had a party to go to just the two of us. Ooooohhh how fun!!!
Eric also dressed up for Halloween at work and he was guess who?????

Yes, he's C. Kent or is it Superman?! I couldn't resist being his L. Lane even if it was only dressing up for the kids.