Thanksgiving Artwork

Young kids and big "kids" alike helped to create artwork on thanksgiving evening.

Each of us contributed to the THANKFULNESS TREE - Let's see what was shared:

on each leaf is written something the person is thankful for.

WHAT ARE YOU THANKFUL FOR:
- You.
- For friends and family, and a very productive and positive year. also thankful for turning 30 and not freaking out!
- For all the family being together in thoughts and love. For healing me from my heart condition. Bless Gina & her family for opening her house this Thanksgiving. Bless Rojielynn, Ron & Eric also. I love you God.
- For forgiveness. That Jesus was my sin sacrifice...that I get the opportunity to spend eternity in heaven with my brothers and sister in Christ, and tonight, with family and friends, I have a taste of heaven on earth.
- Family & Friend. Sharing Special times.
- For my family and friends. also, for Nico having a great year so far in 1st grade.
- A gracious God, a loving family, a supportive boyfriend, and the many blessings we have.
- My family and friends, my health, my job.
-That Lola Arcega is recovering from her recent illness
-GOD. FAMILY. FRIENDS.LIFE.
- THE 3 'F's: FAMILY. FRIENDS. FAITH.
-Husband. Son. my puppy. Family, Friends & Community.
- I am very thankful for GOD who is the Head of my life, I am thankful for Eternal Life, I thank God for hearing and answering my prayer. I thank GOD for a place of worship service, I thank God for salvation. I thank God for my life, health, and strength. I thank God for the rain. I thank God for fellowship with new people. I thank GOD for all his blessing. I thank GOD for seeing my 53rd birthday. I thank GOD for waht HE has done in the past, present, and future.
-That all my children and grandchildren live in California.
-I am thankful for my entire life.
- Family. Friends. Food. Sleep!
- We are really thankful for family and really good friends. We are thankful for our freedom to worship how we choose and mostly for the sacrifice Jesus made for us.
-I'm thankful I don't have to get my house dirty. instead we can get mess up Pete's. I'm thankful that FOR GOD SO LOVED THE WORLD THAT HE GAVE HIS ONLY SON THAT WHOSOEVER BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT PERISH BUT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE JOHN 3:16.

And what the children wrote on their thankfulness leaves

-that God sent Jesus as our savior

- my pteradactyl

- for the gifts I got on Christmas

- for drumming sticks

- for Christmas lights

- that I like God

Here's the crayon art:

Mousecapade

Watch this video AFTER you've reached the bottom of this page.
Grand Finale Video of Mouse-capade SOLVED?!
This is how the story ENDS =>
this mouse has been affectionately been named DaViD (minus the vowels). Well, DaViD is M.I.A....we think he's lingering back there and possibly activated the open/close button? we'll see.

=================================================================

HERE'S HOW THE STORY BEGINS:

Strolling through the Wild animal park with sis, nephew, & kids....phone rings...

Me: "hi"

Marnster: "it's a random call. Well...susan picked me up and came in through the front door, we left through the garage. when we got back a few hours later, the front door was locked but wide open. i know we shut it, but it didn't latch shut. we went through the entire house with a bat. then we kept hearing a sound in the family room...over and over...it was coming from the TV stand! i pushed the coffee table up to keep the tv stand door from opening and keep the mouse inside"

Me: "oh NO!!!"

Marnster: "we stared at it pushing against the tv stand door for half an hour. it really wants to get out! what should we do?"

Me: "pete is used to handling mice at work. i'll call him"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A few hours later...................

dear husband arrives at the empty place, and we can hear the rhythmic thuds of something pushing against the door of the TV stand! it's pushing hard too, it keeps moving the door forward a quarter inch.

The excitement is building!

We keep the kids up on the stairs to watch.

My parents advised trying to catch it with the trusty vacuum extension, so that's ready to go.

We've all got gloves on!!!!!

Big sis and I are VERY jumpy, and squealing LOUDLY, as we have to hold open the TV stand door..that magnetic door keeps shutting, we have to hold it open....

for pete to catch it!!! well that mouse wouldn't come out of the half open door...so look at what we see here............

Five on Friday

1. What a fun filled week!
2. No shopping for me today. too bad payday isn't til NEXT friday
3. We started with an almost empty fridge on Wednesday morning, and now it's packed full of all those wonderful leftovers.
4. Maybe i'll make turkey soup out of the turkey bones that were left.
5. I'm thankful for friends, new and old, and family -- especially those who blessed us with their company yesterday :)

Thanksgiving Time

It was an honor to host the annual Thanksgiving potluck for the first time.

This tradition of five families joining together for dinner has been celebrated for at least 25 years...plus, friends, friends of friends, extended family, and on and on.

The history starts with the 'guys' who met in the US Navy in the early 1960's, friendships continued to blossom and grow,

as their families grew (thru marriage & children),

and circles of friendships grew.

The special thing is that each of us know that each year we can count on this gathering happening at someone's home. This year, it was especially true, as husbands and wives, parents and children, siblings, grandparents & grandchildren, were separated by many many miles.

At this moment, many of the "guys" were hanging out in the family room.

Everyone is facing toward the camera in this wonderful family of six!
"Turkey!"
Kitchen talk
Cheese!
Laughing out loud!

Cheek-to-Cheek is my favorite way to take pictures Buzz & Bizz are so thoughtful to include Lolo & Lola in the picture :)

All arms wrapped around and smiles

Decorating our CHRISTmas pine

On thanksgiving weekend, our tradition is to decorate our pine tree to remember Jesus coming down from heaven for us, celebrated on Christmas. This year we decorated before turkey-day because our special guest, Grandma, was visiting a bit earlier.

Here's baby Jesus from our nativity scene

"Je(s)us!" says our little one.
Our tradition starts with a story about the First Christmas, our saviors birth, and ends with cocoa as we watch our claymation video of the First Christmas.

Grandma is reading "The REAL night before Christmas", a book she gave us.

Next is a book with Christmas stockings that can be filled.

Our tree is a hodge podge of a variety of ornaments. We decorate our tree with ornaments given to us over the years and a simple prayer for the giver of the ornament. It's a great way to reflect back on the people that have blessed us by being a part of our lives, even if just for a season.

The evening ends with Aunt Sammie's arrival. By this time, grandma and the boys are singing CHRISTmas carols...and Aunt Sam joins in too (she even keeps the beat with her dancing feet!). That video of the four of them is for "their eyes only".

Here are the boys though:

We've always loved this season of remembering Jesus' first coming...so it's a pleasure to start a few days early!

This one's for you, Lola!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOLA

You are loved as you are

Have a wonderful day

Things -to be thankful for- Thursday

Our little one has had the childhood transmitted disease (in the chicken pox family) oral virus since wednesday the 12th...
Every cloud has it's silver lining, right?
Between my husband and I taking turns being caregiver and going to work, we were able to find the blessings of caring for a very needy, clingy, uncomfortable, child with fevers from 101 to 103.7 over a period of six days:
1. Watching movies under a warm blanket
2. Bonding with Daddy


3. As a family, with so much time at home, we got the Christmas tree and lights up -- ready to decorate thanksgiving weekend -- which is our tradition.

4. When he had an appetite back on day 6, we had pancakes!

5. We enjoyed "puppet shows" when our sick little toddler had some energy: here's kessy, our pet one-eyed snowy owl..... 6. Although most of the day was spent like this (below), the small part of the day that he dozed off, our older son and i got to do "artwork" which actually ended up in the completion of all my scrapbooking projects, minus journaling!

7. The dentist recommended yummy stuff that'd the kids and adults would enjoy: here we have sorbets, dairy free frozen desserts, we also had soy yogurt, soy cocoa milk, popsicles, liquids, soups.

8. A bowl of soycream with rainbow sprinkles, soy cocoa milk, and strawberry sorbet soothes the mouth

9. A chance to pull out some toys that we haven't played with for awhile

10. A "care package" (only part of it is shown here) that lasts and lasts and is full of the sweets for the kids

30 + 8

We all had a chuckle after watching this 16 second video being played back. There are enough candles on my cake to illuminate the room...and also darken the room to a "black out" when we blow them out! The funny thing is that there were a few candles shaped into the numbers 38 -- there weren't even 38 candles on this cake!

whatdga do?

Even though my parents are out of town today, they were sure to greet me on my birthday.

Not only that-- they were the first ones I heard from: at 5:20 in the morning!

they know i'm an early riser...and

how cool is that? i love that about them -- they

stayed up late in their time zone to be sure to wish me a great day....

----------------------------

[i hope that today brings back memories for them about the day I was born. I heard it was a rainy day, friday the 13th...and I couldn't wait to get out..so I was born at the doctor's office instead of the hospital! ]

----------------------------

.......mom asked, what are you doing today? so , here's the 411.... after a long trafficy one hour ride home from work, i was greeted with smiles and a special home made meal including my sister's signature salad (i love her salads) with spinach, red onions, slivered almonds, pear slices, and vidalia onion vinagrette.
...my dear husband took on the task of making my favorite non dairy dishes including alfredo-style pasta, a streusel layered coffee cake, and fresh baked bread while caring for our sick little boy today.

what a blessing that my sister joined us

check out this poster card...

here's the four of us. i'm wearing the kids' puppy caps,

those'll be great for the next silly hat bunco

Thank you friends for your thoughts, words and calls on my birthday. they each brought me a smile and i pondered "where did the time go?"... i went down memory lane remembering how and who i'd spend past birthdays with (theirs or mine)...my 18th at Corvette's diner eating a ruby burger...my 21st at a Comedy Club in downtown La Jolla, seated front row center and being included in the comedian's routine...my twenty-something seeing the musical Cats and eating out at Prego ristorante.....

now here i am pushing 40... i am so thankful for each little blessing that fits together in my life right now. Thank you Lord.

Flashback to the Country Fair

The boys dressed up as cowboys for our church's annual country fair on Oct 31st. Here is our little cowboy and his pony:

Neigh!

This pet horse has been around for three years :)
Mom sewed up 4 big holes just before we headed out of the house:

Daddy met us there

See the cowboy on the left hanging on to his hat? these real ponies really trot.

The horse in the foreground is carrying our little cowboy AND his pony:

Dancin' to the music with lollipop in mouth

One of my favorite pictures of this guy:

Fall season at the Park

On October 26th, we met Daddy at work and hung out at the tail end of that day's Pumpkins at the Park:

Our pumpkins:

"Scarecrows are my favorite"

popping out of the tube slide

"Here I am!"

"I hol(d) my baby pumpkin"says our little one