Facebook

Ok this might be kind of hard to read, but here is a list of some of my facebook statuses from the last year. It's pretty funny to go back through them and think about what was going on at the time. :)

My most used words in Facebook:

• Used 13 times: Lol
• Used 13 times: Kids
• Used 13 times: Time
• Used 11 times: Happy
• Used 11 times: Smile
• Used 11 times: Child
• Used 11 times: Laugh
• Used 9 times: Understand
• Used 9 times: Morning
• Used 8 times: Friends
• Used 7 times: Youngest
• Used 7 times: Thanks
• Used 7 times: Say
• Used 7 times: Love
• Used 7 times: Think
• Used 6 times: Great

Time flies

Well November has come and gone... things always seem to get a little crazier at the end of the year. Tack on all our added homeschooling responsibilities and things get REALLY crazy!
Anyway, let me back track to where the last blog left off.
We had a good Halloween. The girls dressed as butterflies and Tim was a ninja. We had a party with our school group... games and lots of candy. We were going to go out to a fall festival that weekend, but Erika turned up with a fever, so we ended up just staying in and watching movies.

Well the weather has been so nice here, we have been outdoors A LOT in the last month. In fact here it is mid December and the predicted high today is 78 degrees. Anyway, here are some shots from hiking and the zoo.

We also had a good Thanksgiving. It was pretty low key. We had a school party and the kids got to be Indians and pilgrims. LOL you can guess which one most of the kids picked to be. :)
Then we spent some time with family. It was nice.
Now we are into December and looking forward all the lights and decorations and celebrating Jesus' birth. We did decorate the house this past weekend, I just have not had time to upload the photos yet. Plus with our school group we are going on a double Decker London type bus to look at Christmas lights on Thurs. I know I am getting excited for that. Anyway, Christmas always makes for some good photos... so I should have more to post soon. Thanks for checking in, and Merry Christmas.

Busy Bees

Wow this last month has flown by. I cannot believe it almost the end of October. Well, this last month has been pretty busy...
While we enjoyed the end of Sept with some nice weather and extended trips to the zoo and playgrounds, October came in with a bang. We had a massive storm that dropped quarter and golf-ball size hail and an inch of rain in less than an hour. It looked like snow at our house. We were fortunate that no major damage was done, as we had friends with home damage and car damage. We are grateful for that. We were, however, rewarded at the end of the storm, with a beautiful double rainbow. What an awesome site and reminder. :)

Mike and I had our first night with no kids in over 5 years. The older two had a birthday party sleepover and we have a wonderful friend who offered to keep Erika for us.

It's amazing what a good nights sleep can do. No one wandering in at 5 am (or earlier... as Erika is prone to do) or having to rush to get up and feed the kids, or get them ready to go... it was sooo nice. Mike and I went on a date and then relaxed at home. (Insert contented sigh here). But, then we were back to being mom and dad. We love our kids and did miss them though. But they all seemed to have a good time.

We decided to celebrate Erika's birthday a little early. We just had a family party at park. It was fun. October may have started off with a bang, but the weather has been very finicky. It was still in the 90's on Sat, but the kids were just happy to be playing outside.

We were planning on picking pumpkins with our homeschool group tomorrow, but again with the finicky weather. The news is saying there is a 60% of rain, so it's looking like that will be postponed. But we will be hitting the zoo this weekend with my folks and we will get around to picking pumpkins, plus Halloween, so I should have more stuff to post before long. Thanks for checking in.

Update

Sorry for the serious delay in updating the blog. Seems to me I have been posting a lot of updates lately. Hopefully I can get back into a regular posting routine now that we have the new computer and we are getting back into the swing of things school wise.
We were with out a computer for several weeks and I am now playing catch up, trying to update everything that was on my other system. Lemmie start with the current and work back to where the other blog ended. :)
We are doing well. We are "officially" back in school. I say that, but yet we have not done much this week due to illness. Nothing major, but it has been just enough to be disruptive. :P Although on Sat. we did get some running around in and we are now the proud owners of a pet fish named "Purple" (Take a guess who named it...LOL), 2 venus fly traps and 2 octopus plants (I am hoping the plants survive awhile as I want to use them for part of our science project this year.). Anyway, now Lex says Lenny (our guinea pig) has a fishy friend. LOL.
In August we attended a DiamondBacks game with my folks. We had a really good time. It helps that they won. :) This was the kids first pro baseball game. Tim is really into sports now.

He has informed us that now he really wants to go see a Cardinals football game. Heh, so we are looking into what we can do. :)
We spent some time at the zoo over the summer... they have a splash pad and open at 6am, so we like to go early and watch as they feed and take care of the animals, and then when it starts to get hot we are already to get cooled off in the water. I will just post all the zoo shots here. :)

I would love to post a lot more, as I tend to be camera happy... LOL but I know that would take up a lot of space. I am still trying to get hubby to work on getting my email back up, so anyone who would like more email me and I will send some more to you once it is back up.  :)
We also spent some time at my in-laws pool along with the kids' Uncle. We always have fun. Erika just cracks me up though (and scares me a little)... she has no fear and just wants to jump right in the water.

We also have been out in the back quite a bit. We have been playing in the water and have also endured the occasional rain storm. The kids will take whatever opportunity they can get to play in the mud.

It has been a quite summer over all. We are certainly hitting the ground running now though. We started back to our homeschool group last week... I should have the pics up soon. October is shaping up to be one busy month with only one weekend where we do not have plans of some sort . We are also already looking ahead to the holidays to make some plans, so if you want in, now would be the time to book some time with us... LOL. Anyway all that promises to make for lots of pics and updates. :)
I am ending with some random shots of the kids. Enjoy!!

Update

Here are some random shots from our summer so far. We have been to the Arizona Sea Life Aquarium, the park, zoo and Tempe Town lake. I have also included some random shots I thought were cute! All in all a good and busy summer so far. :) I should have some more pics to post after the 4th and I will try and get in a comment or two then as well. Hope everyone is well and having a wonderful summer. Thanks!