MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!

"ELF"-ZILLA

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! We are so WEIRD!

Pretty in Pink, but all candied out!

Happy Holidays from Alex, Heather, Krystal, Cecilia, and Godzilla.

Here are two other pictures of Rebekah that I meant to post and forgot. They were taken on Thanksgiving day. See you guys in a week. WooHoo!

Rebekah got new earrings for the holidays, and she just loves them. It's her first pair of "dangly" earrings, and she feels so grown up with them on. Now, I always have thought that Rebekah looks like me, but this picture reminds me so much of Ali. That's Ali's face! She's got her cute little nose and her eyebrows. I love it!

Merry Christmas from the Elys

Waiting for Santa to come down

Harley's tree!

All ornaments

are Yorkies.

Roger's Worst Nightmare-Nine feet and

hundreds of lights

Our kitchen pig

My cute little girl

Don't you all wish you had a little girl this cute?! Yes, I am a bit prejudiced. I think my kids are the cutest kids in the whole world!

Hopefully tomorrow I will get around to posting Joseph's birthday pictures.
Can't wait to see you guys in a few weeks.

What happens when your kids are unsupervised...

Yesterday I was teaching Rebekah how to feed Simeon with a bottle, and this was what happened when the rest of the kids were unsupervised during that time...

While I was helping Rebekah in my room Sariah comes screaming at the top of her lungs into the house. She comes in my room wailing that her lips and tongue are burning, so I tell her to run to the bathroom and drink some water. She evidently had been picking the last of the peppers out of the garden and decided to eat some. She comes running back from the bathroom and wails that it's not working, so I get up and get her some milk. She drinks a huge glass of milk and starts wailing again, "it's not working. My lips are burning!" I get up off my bed again where Rebekah is with Simeon and have Sariah get a tortilla to see if that will help (works for me), but that didn't do the trick. Poor girl had eaten a Thai dragon pepper, and they are hotter than a jalapeno! I finally get the bright idea to get an ice pack out of the freezer and put it on her lips. The relief was instant, thank goodness. I tell her she can stick her tongue out if she wants to cool it off also, and for some reason that sent her into a fit of giggles. Silly kid. I talk to her for a minute, and realize I hear the cat meowing somewhere in the house. I look up and see...

, Joseph on the barstool in front of the washer having the time of his life. He has the cat in the washing machine and is opening and closing the lid over and over again. Thankfully I didn't have anything soaking in there at the time. I asked Joseph, "Did you put the kitty in the washing machine?" He looks at me with this huge grin on his face and proudly answers, "Yes!" Ahhhhhh!!!!!
Our cats put up with a lot from our kids. They are real troopers!

I had the hardest time not laughing at what Joseph was doing. It would only have spurred him on to new and higher achievements in toddlerhood. Poor Sariah looked terrible after her ordeal, and honestly, I had a hard time not laughing while she was trying to cool off her mouth. She puts absolutely everything in her mouth, and this time the results were a little over the top for her. Her lips were red and swollen for a few hours, and her face was slightly puffy too. At least the other cat was with her and not being terrorized by Joseph. Like I tell all those strangers that ask how I mange to have so many kids, "Life is always fun at our house!"

Where are your pictures?

All right Nancy and Heather, where are pictures of your kids for Halloween?

Halloween

Our little pumpkin

Here are some pictures I took of the kids for Halloween yesterday. They had tons of fun at the trunk or treat. Yes, I do mean TRUNK or treat. We go to church, and everyone opens their trunks and decorates and the kids go car to car. It's great, and we know everyone there, so we don't have to worry about the candy, and we don't have to walk or drive for hours to get to different houses. They had the barbecue going with hotdogs and there was also chili and cupcakes to eat. I stayed up until 11 the night before making costumes. As always, I'm a champion procrastinator. I still didn't finish the costumes until right before we left at 5:30 to go visit our neighbor. Hope you guys had fun. Now we have all this candy, and I just managed to get rid of all the candy in my house (by eating it all in one day). Now I have to deal with all the junk food here again. Grrrr....

The little pirate
Actually, she's been stealing everyone's candy all day, so I guess I picked the right costume for her this year!

The happiest pirate

The little witch
(with no hat and the costume that wouldn't stay on. I didn't make it, or it would have. hehe)

The pink butterfly fairy princess.
(not much of a surprise with that one is it?!)

Here's a picture from the wedding. Maybe since I'll be out of work for a couple of weeks, I'll have time to upload some more. I am SOOOOO ready to have surgery. I am completely sick of lounging around. Yesterday Toufik went and bought a recliner so I will have somewhere to lay for the next few days. However, I've seen every movie I own a couple dozen times, and daytime TV is horrid, so I am not sure what I will do for those long hours. Nothing like a forced rest to drive an over-active person insane!

Playing in the grass. It took all summer to grow the grass in the back yard, fascue, rye, fertalizer. tons of water!!!!!!! Now only a few weeks left before it disappears again.

Taking in the sun before it gets to cold for winter

Well, we had our first sonogram and they gave us a new due date of March 31st !!!! November 19th we should be able to find out boy or girl. For now it looks kinda alien!

Pictures of baby Simeon

Here are some pictures of Simeon now that we are home. So far he looks the most like Rebekah when she was a baby. He's a happy little (big) boy. Hope you guys are doing well. I can't wait to hear what Heather is having.

Fires again

It's fire season here in California again. Here's a picture from my back yard. Once again Camp Pendleton was on fire. That makes twice in one week. There was one that was going last night, but I didn't get pictures of that one. It was even closer than this one from earlier in the week. Thankfully they are getting these fires put out pretty quickly.

Getting ready for a day at the park

HA!!! finally getting up to speed with the family

Here's our most recent family picture. We had family reunion in June with Jacob's family here in California. Gotta love that face Rebekah is making.

So, I had Joey signed up as a car rider, and he told me 2 days before school started that he didn't want anyone picking him up, that he wanted to be a bus rider! I had to change all the paperwork to let him ride. I got to be there today for the first ride and he looked WAY too little to be riding a bus!

Well, Joey had his first day at preschool. This was taken at 7 am this morning right before we left for school. He was so excited! When we got him there, I asked him if he wanted us to leave and he shook his head yes, of course, he never even looked back at Joe or I. No...I didn't cry! Came close though.....

Hello everyone. Your Dad will be in Oklahoma for 11 days starting Thursday. YEAH!!! We are having a reunion (kind of) this Saturday. My step-son and my nephew and his wife are coming for lasagna and Kansas Dirt Cake. The boys grew up together and it will be fun to see them both all grown up.

Don't expect very much from us. Our life is pretty boring. I do like the website. You did a great job Tiffany.

Hey everybody! Once again, Tiffany is the most industrious of us and created a new site. Maybe this time she won't erase everyone else's photos! :)

This is a picture of Toufik and I in DC, one of about 1500 we took. I'll try to post some other photos from the wedding and the trip. Love you all! -Ali

Just a couple pictures

Hey guys, here are a couple pictures of the kids. The one with Elizabeth and Nathan was on the way back to Charlotte after Ali's wedding. The one with the kids in matching shirts was for the Fourth of July. We let the kids paint their own shirts. That was fun (for the kids at least!).

Eight more weeks until my due date. Yikes! Five kids ages five and under! Love you guys.

Let's get started!

So everyone, I want to be able to see all the family, and I want to know what is going on in your lives. We all have digital cameras now, and except for Heather we all have internet. Let's start sharing. This blog is much easier to use than the old website, and it's free. All you have to do is load some pictures and type your text. Super simple. It takes maybe a quarter of the time to load pictures as the old one, so no excuses! We all have 15 minutes once a week or even every other week to log on and say hello, so get to it. Heather, even if you can't load pictures right now you can still check them out at the library on the internet. Actually, when we lived in Texas you could upload pictures onto the web at the library if you had a USB drive. Let me know if you have one.