Thanksgiving 2009

Here is our wonderful turkey!

Serena in Mommy's apron, ready to help!

Starting to get stuff to set the table...

Here I am, cheesy smile and all! I was getting ready to baste the turkey for the first time and thought we better take some pictures! So, we only got pics of me and Serena...LOL the big kids stayed in PJ's and someone didn't have make-up on...and Brandon actually slept thru our wonderful Thanksgiving dinner.

Making the mashed potatoes. We had a nice time cooking and eating and the weather was wonderful, I couldn't have asked for anything more this day. Thanking God for my wonderful family is a must! I am also thankful we are all together on this day.

Andy's Birthday Party ~ Nov. 15th

These are pics from oh a week and like 3 days ago... I am getting more current, just hang in there, LOL Here is my sister-in-law, Belinda and her son Andy, celebrating his 2nd birthday and her daughter Brianna. Click here to see when he was just a newborn.

Look at that smile! And Serena eating her pop-sickle!

Cyrus, Brandon, Andy and Serena. She looks like she is trying to get out of the way, LOL

Here we are singing Happy Birthday to the birthday boy. We had fun and they even had a jolly jump for the kids. It is neat to see all the little dudes around the same age, all growing up.

Kylie's Soccer Days ~ past

I could not resist doing a post on Kylie's Soccer days! I have this picture, which is actually a players card, on my counter in the kitchen so I see it every day! She was only 7 when she first started!

Here is her last season playing soccer! She was 13! She played Fall and Spring seasons for almost 7 years! Give or take one hear and there when I was busy with babies...LOL She has had so many cool jerseys, one time even pink! Never did get the horrible neon green, but if she played now and had that color I bet she would love it! Soccer is a great sport, I love it!

Serena's Soccer Days ~ 2009

Here is the button I got to wear during her first season of soccer, I am so proud!

Here is her trophy: Girls US AYSO Region 68 2009 and that soccer ball spins!

Here is her piece of the team banner. For those of you who don't know what this is I will explain. You pay some money to the team mom and she gets a cool banner for the team, with their team name on it and traditionally their name over or under a soccer ball. Then, at the team party, someone cuts up the banner and gives the girls their name with the soccer ball....I think I should have saved these from Kylie's soccer days and made a quilt! LOL anyways, here is Serena's.

Here is her team, coach and assistant coach. From left to right: Serena, Alexiz, Lalani, Chantel, Jazlyn and Donella. You can't really see it, but in the middle of the banner is a glass slipper...so cute!

Putting Away Halloween Decorations

Ok so I had a huge long post I was going to do to accompany these cute pics...you know about putting away Halloween decorations and the kids climb into the 20 gallon container, they look cute so I take a few pics and then forget they are on the camera. LOL

Guess I won't be getting any Mother of The Year Award anytime soon for that will I!

I also have to take some pics of Serena's soccer trophy ....I just am behind, guess I need to change my blogs name to "Catching up with Serena and Brandon..." or something like that, since I can't seem to post anything on time!

So, my goal is to post every day....starting this week. I will catch up and post her trophy tomorrow and then try to move on to more current things...well soccer only ended at the beginning of this month, so I am not that far behind! Well, I am busy working (babysitting from home Mon-Thurs) and I also babysit for 2 hours on Fridays at my church....no to mention I am home with children ALL the time, so I just need to make the time to post, right?!

I want to get Thanksgiving pictures on here by Friday and then move on to other fun stuff.

Blogs I Follow Part 3

Ok here is another rather interesting blog I found, again from Readers Digest.

http://briannomi.wordpress.com/

This guy blogs from Iraq, he is in the Army. He is also a lawyer and has his practice right here in Camarillo! Small wold, huh?

I have not read it completely, yet. But I will. I just wanted to share this with you. I found his website a while ago and forgot (...yes forgot) to add it to my list of blogs that I follow.

Check it out, it is interesting!

A video from April 2009

Here is a video of my kids dancing....this was in April, so Serena was just 3 months shy of being 4 and Brandon was 20 months..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvv49ED-Jd0

Hilarious! Just wanted to share it with you all since I have nothing better to do then be home taking care of a sick kid and when I say sick I mean puking and the runs....Gatorade and Kid's Pepto Bismal....bubblegum flavor, yum! Now, I don't know if she has a bug or if it was something she ate...

Blogs I Follow Part 2

I received an e-mail in response to my last post on Blogs I Follow from my Aunt Elly. She is 100% German and grew up in Germany and then came here....not sure how many years she was there before coming here...guess I should have asked her, LOL
Anyways, I did ask her if I could post her e-mail on my blog and she said yes! so here is her e-mail:

Mel, I read it, and again, how fortunate we are that we live in a country where we can express our opinions so freely, even to a fault sometimes.

when I grew up in West Berlin, shortly after the war, people were regularly kidnapped and taken to the East and it was a very unsettling time, so I can sympathize

And I remember each time we had to travel by car from West Berlin to West Germany,, we had to drive through East Germany, since West Berlin was like an island in the middle of East Germany, and they had specific routes that we were allowed to drive on, and they would check us over and search us and our cars when we drove into East Germany and then we were allowed so much time to make it to the checkpoint at the other end )to make sure we did not stop and maybe talk to people in East Germany or heaven forbid try and meet up with our relatives whom we were not allowed to see since the wall went up,
and people who stopped and maybe gave an east German a pack of cigarettes or something were picked up and thrown in jail for indefinite times, there were no diplomatic relations to help them get out at that time, they also could make us sit there and wait at the check points because they could, I remember one Easter when we drove to visit our family in the West, they made us sit there for 12 hours, no reason, just harassment.
And the Russians would fly their MIG airplanes so low over the city that I could see the
pilot from my window at work at the Chamber of Commerce (I was on the 2nd floor of a 7 story building) and they would commence to break the sound barrier, just because they could, and it goes on and on and on.....

Stories like these amaze me and make me realize how fortunate we are living here in the United States and the freedoms we really do have!
Just wanted to share this with all of you!

Blogs I Follow

I follow a few blogs for reading purposes and for fun. Some are just so interesting and others take me a long time to read ( since I have kids running around making noise all day, LOL). I once found a blog to follow while reading a story in Readers Digest. It is called Generation Y. It is a blog by a woman who lives in Havana, her name is Yoani Sanchez. She writes it in Spanish and then it is translated into English. Some of her stories are harsh and I have a hard time reading them. She has to blog secretly and I have not been reading it for a while, but the last post made me want to write about it. If you want to see her blog click here.
I am always amazed at what goes on in other countries, which is probably why I like reading Yoani's blog. Sad things happen over there, things that I could never imagine happening here. I just want to say I am happy to be alive here in the United States and grateful for my family and that we get to make our own choices and we can blog and no one can tell us we can't.

Fantasy Basketball Update

Well, after being the General Manager of my Fantasy Basketball team for what a week? or so, I am not happy to report that I am currently in 10th place out of 12 teams! This is just horrible, but I must tell you that I have 4 hurt player, yes 4! That is horrendous! I do have Kobe, so that is awesome, but man the rest of the team needs to get better and step up if I am going to be in 1st place by the end of the season.

I am happy to report that the Lakers won last night in OT against Houston, 103-102!


Here is my Laker Bear, isn't he cute??? He is a Build-A-Bear that I got years ago, doncha love his jersey?

Halloween 2009

Brandon was Chewbacca

Serena was Barbie as the Three Musketeers, she was the pink one

carving pumpkins

We carved pumpkins Friday night and I never did take a picture of them completed! oh well, there will always be next year...LOL

So, we took the kids Saturday morning around 11 to Old Town Camarillo and they went Trick-or-Treating in the stores along the boulevard. It was fun. Brandon was in the stroller some of the time and walking the rest of the time. They got a lot of candy.

Then on Halloween night, Serena was the only one to go out. Brandon was too sick to go, so he stayed home with Daddy and Hayden. Later that night, Kylie and Hayden went to a Haunted House across the freeway in what used to be Sizzlers. They had fun.

Now to just get rid of the candy!