Lea known as LeLa

Lea has grown up so much over the last couple months. Since Kiley is in school from 8-2 everyday Lea has become such a good helper. Her relationship with her brother Ben has gotten stronger and she is listening better. She is such a joy to be around and has such a loving heart.

1.) This is a picture of my new niece and Lea. My niece was born about a month ago and she is so cute. Lea was in love with her and wanted to hold her all the time. Lea can't wait to be able to snuggle her again soon.

2.) Almost everyday since we arrived in LA Lea has been in our backyard riding her bike around and around the fountain we have. She has gotten so good at riding I am shocked at her skills. She falls every once and a while and after she does she just gets back up brushes her self off and tries again. She was so determined to learn how to ride it was amazing to watch her. Everyday she gets better and better. One day we were driving and Lea saw a girl about 8years old riding a bike with her mom and the little girl stood up on her bike and was pedalling. When we got home Lea went straight to the backyard and started trying to ride standing up. After a few tries and a couple scratches Lea accomplished her goal. I love to watch her when she is determined to master something. I am so proud of her when she final gets it down.

3.) Lea changes her outfit about 10 times a day. One of the outfits she likes to put on is her ladybug costume from last year. She loves to try it on and then dance around the house. She has the cutest little face. One day I will get her to stop with the outfit changes but for now I will just keep taking pictures.

4.) I believe that I am getting pay back from my childhood. So, now I will explain. When I was young I was a major handful from climbing trees and getting stuck to fighting with kids and getting kicked out of preschool. Now, thankfully Lea is not as bad as I was but there are many things that are the same and one of them is Leas love for climbing. She will climb anything and everything. One day when she was 10 months old I found her in the middle of the table. I love the spirit and excitement in her smile when she climbs a tree or a fence. This picture was taken outside First Covenant Church. She was so excited she did not want to come down.

5.) I love this picture it just shows the silly side of Lela.

Instead of doing multiple posts I just figured I would do per child. Here are a few fun things we have done over the last couple months.

1.) Ben and I are so proud of that red motorcycle. Ben and I found that at Walmart for $10. What a deal! We got it home and I put it together. I was sceptical that I was going to be able to do it but I actually read and followed the directions which I normally don't do. Once I had it put together Ben was so excited he zoomed around the house all day long. He has such a huge fascination with motorcycles.

2.) This picture was taken after one of the worst afternoons ever! We decided to walk to Kiley's school to pick her up. It is only about 6 long blocks away we had done it before and it was not fun but thought this time would be different. It was not hot but I brought water for the kids just in case. One of the streets we have to cross is a major street and then we have to walk down that street 2 blocks. So I put Ben and Maverick in the Jogging stroller, Lea rode her two wheeler (which I will post the video of her riding later) and we put a scooter on the stroller for Kiley. Oh and I had Roxy attached to the stroller. We set off! The ride there was perfect no problems. Once we got there I met a really nice Christian mom who has children about the same age as me it was great. We picked up Kiley and then started back we were in front of Kiley's school and she was riding her scooter in front. She all the sudden stopped and in order to avoid smashing into her I swerved to the right into gravel. Well, apparently mixed in the gravel was thousands of thorns the size of a quarter. They covered the three tires of the stroller and as i tried to push the stroller they just dug in further. So, I got the bright idea to start pulling them out. DUH! All the tires obviously popped and now we were stuck. The stroller would no longer move.
To finish my story we sat on a patch of grass for about 20mins so that I could calm down and prepare for the walk home. It took us an hr and 15mins to get home. Our stroller is now ruined but the good part of it all was that the kids were so exhausted from the walk (because all of them had to walk including Ben but not mavy hehe) that they all took a nap!

3.) This is one of my favorite pictures from the last two months. We met some friends (the Pena's) in long beach for some fun in the sun! Trisha made Ben into a mermaid and the kids played in the sun all day. The kids had a blast and it was so nice to see some friends from home!

4.) This is Ben on his birthday. Since we were not in sac for his bday we had just a small little party with some of the new people that we had met. It was a blast getting to know new friends. We also had an old friend of mine that was there too. It was an enjoyable night. You can tell Ben was happy by the ice cream on his face!

5.) We WERE (story for another day) potty training Ben and one of the things he liked to do was pee in the grass. I was shocked since I don't have any brothers but from what I found out is that this is a common thing for little boys.

Well, this is some of the things that Ben has been up to. I will update Lea next!

Maverick is Growing

Maverick has been all smiles the past couple weeks. He is getting so big so fast.

The Big Move-In and Unpacking

Brian had two weeks off so we were able to unpack most of our belongings. I also had a wonderful friend come with us to help with whatever was needed, it was so sweet of her. At one point we lost Ben, I found him sitting behind a bunch of boxes doing some unpacking of his own.

A New Adventure

I have not posted in quite sometime. I tried facebook and have not done very well. I figured since I had this blog set up I would start posting again. I really enjoyed doing it when I had the time but with the growth of our family my time became focused on them and not on the computer.

Just to give a quick update since the last time I posted I have had two more kids and we are now living in Whittier CA. Crazy! I never thought I would live anywhere but Sacramento. I guess you truely never know what God has in store for your life. We picked up our family of six and moved to LA for my husband Brian to attend Biola University. He is enjoying school and has learned more in the last three weeks than he has in the last three years. I am enjoying the nieghborhood much better than our previous one. It is so quite no lightrail, transients or traffic. FABULOUS!

The next couple post are going to be about our arrival here in LA. I am going to start with the picture of our house and about the funny pictures I took along the way to get to where we are now.

Winter Time

During this time of year one of our favorite things to do is adventure up to Apple Hill. We greatly enjoy the crisp air along with all the different smells. We went up with some friends and had a blast. Here are a few pictures of Lea and her friend Jayden playing. They also have fun stuff for kids to do.

You are Caller 25!

I was sitting on the couch Friday (before Thanksgiving) late afternoon feeding my nephew Tyler when I heard on the radio to call and if you are caller 25 you could win Alan Jackson tickets. So I thought what the heck I will try. I started calling and was caller 10. I was shocked to hear the person on the line say anything, I had never gotten through before. I stared at the phone for a minute and decided to try again. I called two more times and all the sudden someone was talking to me. They asked me my name and what I was doing, I said matter of factly "sitting on the couch with my kids". The person then said well get up off the couch because you have WON! I started screaming with excitement like a kid in a candy store. I had really never won anything before even those little raffles that people have at work I just don't have good luck. But this time I had actually won! The only problem was it was 4:45pm and I had to pick the tickets up by 5:30pm. I had my nephew Tyler with me and the girls this was going to be a challenge.

Well, I shoved the girls in the car, crammed Tylers car seat in and raced over to the KNCI office. I was totally late because of traffic but the were awesome and waited for me.

The concert was the next night and we had a blast. The tickets were in the lower level and were perfect. We were only a couple rows from the floor. We got there a little late because we made dinner for our babysitters, my big sister who is the best big sister and friend in the world and Micah who is also great. James Otto was up first then Trace Atkins and then Alan Jackson. It was such a great concert. I liked it because it was really chill. Sometimes it is nice when the singer does not try and over perform.

The moral of my story:

Even though you might not succeed or have any luck for a long time just keep trying eventually you will! JUST KEEP SWIMMING! (If you don't know what I just said watch Finding Nemo)




I was trying to teach Brian how to take an America's Next Top Model picture.

Trace Atkins

Alan Jackson