Family Birthdays

We celebrated Dave and Kera's birthdays this month. Dave's is first on the 7th, then Kera's is the next day on the 8th. This year Kera decided instead of having a friend party she wanted to go with our family to Classic Fun Center and go rollerskating. It was a lot of fun. Kera's loves to go out on the rink and skate. She still needs me there to hold her hand, but once she got going she was doing pretty well. For Dave's birthday we had a yummy chocolate cake and ordered chinese food for dinner. Then saturday we went to see Valkurie. I hope these two enjoyed their birthdays. We love you daddy and Kera!

Here's Kera with her Strawberry Shortcake cake

Blowing out the candles

Kera opening her presents

Jacob gave her some eyeshadow because she loves make-up!

mom and Kera skating

Here we are getting ready to go skate again

Nice face Kera!

Eating pizza at Classic fun center



Kera loves her candy!!

Here's daddy blowing out his 32 candles. Yes I did put them all on there!

My latest addiction

I know many of you have already discovered this and I'm now just figuring it out, but I love facebook!! I was surprised to see just how many people have facebook accounts. I didn't really know what facebook was until my sister, cousin and some friends were talking about it and said I needed to sign up. I thought it was like myspace, and that's really not for me (especially with all the negative stuff you hear about myspace and child predators not to mention all the teeny boppers who're obsessed with it) but facebook is not like that. I like that I can log on and see new updates and messages from people. It's so cool to get back in touch with people that you haven't heard from in years. You can also chat with them. Well I'm sure I don't have to tell most of you about this since you've been doing this for awhile, but for those that don't have facebook accounts, you should give it a try. It will amaze you how easy it is and you can see all the friends that everyone has on their friend list. It's great, but it is very addicting, especially at first when you're getting all your friends on your list and you get messages from all these people and every time you log on there's something new to see. I try to limit myself, but it seems like as soon as I log on I get sucked in and before I know it an hour has gone by! So here's to my latest addiction!! If you need to reach me, just check me out on facebook. :)

Christmas 2008

I know I'm a little late in getting these christmas pictures posted. We had a crazy past few weeks. Christmas this year was a lot of fun, except when our whole family got the stomach flu. Dave's parents drove here from Texas to spend christmas with us. We were all excited that they made the long drive out here to be with us for the holiday. Unfortunately soon after they got here Dave's mom got sick with the stomach flu, and luckily nobody else got sick until after christmas was over. Kera and I were sick the day after christmas, then Dave, Jacob and Michael were sick and throwing up the Sunday and Monday after christmas. Yes that's right, even our 3 mo. old Michael had the stomach bug and the poor little guy was puking like the rest of us. I've never had a child that young get the stomach flu, so it was a little scary. I was watching him every second and waiting for the next round to hit him.

We had a great holiday despite that. The kids both got spoiled from Santa. Jacob with a wii, and Kera with lots of Barbie stuff, including her most favorite, the Diamond Castle. She also got a toy dog that swims in the water. (It has become an essential bath toy now). We hope you all had a wonderful christmas as well. Happy 2009 to everyone!!

Kera's Barbie horse and carriage

Jacob discovering Santa got him a wii

Little Michael in his reindeer outfit

He's smiling a lot now, it's so fun!

The kids with grandma and grandpa



Kera, Michael and Jacob in their new pj's

Happy holidays!


We wish all of you a very merry christmas this year. Only 3 more days to go. Dave's parents are driving here from Texas and they should be arriving in the next hour or so. It will be fun to have them here visiting. Christmas is such a wonderful time to express your love to family and friends. I'm grateful for each and every one of you.

Love,

Dave, Staci, Jacob, Kera, and Michael

Jacob's 1st grade christmas program

On Thursday Jacob had his 1st grade Christmas program at school. Jacob has been talking about this program since October when they started practicing their christmas songs for their program. He'd come home singing one of the songs they were learning that day. I love hearing Jacob sing. He has a very sweet voice and he is really good at keeping a tune. We got a flyer sent home a couple weeks ago saying when their program would be and the time. Jacob made sure that both Dave and I would be able to attend. So after months of practicing their songs, the program turned out really cute. He looked so nice in his "Sunday best" as instructed to dress in. He also was very animated and paid careful attention to the teachers who were leading the music. Each child got to hold something up for the different songs. His was during the song (poem really) called "presents". He got to hold up some blue mittens. Here are a few pictures and video clips from the program.

Jacob's teacher, Mrs. Wood

Jacob singing his heart out (on the bottom left)

(Jacob smiling for the camera, notice his good posture-they probably told them over and over to sit up straight)

My Thoughts

Okay, so I've been playing with my blog layout and putting new little widgets and pictures and things on here, but for some reason I find that so much easier to do than writing down my thoughts on an actual post. I have to admit that I've had mixed feelings about spilling my guts on my blog for all the world to see (who am I kidding, probably more like 10 people). I do not want to be one of those people who shares everything on their blog without hesitation. I guess I'm more private than that. And I don't want to brag about my life and my kids and everything all the time. So what I'm trying to say is, I know this is my own blog and I should be able to write whatever I want, but at the same time I know other people are reading this and I can't just share my whole life on here, especially when my blog is not private. So that's what I struggle with. What to share and what not to share. I want my blog to be an online journal of my thoughts and record of events so that I can print it off later on and keep it. I haven't really been good at keeping a journal lately either. I feel bad for little Michael because I want to write down thoughts on this time in my life with a 3 month old and two other little kids. I know I'm gonna want to read about this time later on. But it seems like since I've had Michael someone pushed the fast forward button on my life and there are just so many things I want to do with my time, but I never get it all done. I want to be better at time management. I really have a problem with that. Example, it's almost noon today and I'm still in my PJ's and I haven't done anything except nurse Michael (twice), fed my kids breakfast, and somehow forgot to feed myself, and basically have spent the rest of my time playing with this blog. Selecting new music takes longer than I thought. See, so how did the whole morning disappear and this is all I have accomplished?? I really should eat something then go get in the shower and try to be more productive with my day. Ie: clean my house, take my shower, make my christmas cards, etc. but for some reason I'd rather sit here and play with my blog and write about it!
Well, I don't know if this is making any sense, but it may explain why I haven't been doing much blogging lately (except change the background and post silly elf yourself stuff of course). I just can't decide what I want the purpose of my blog to be. Is it for me just to use as an online journal, or is it for family & friends (and those mysterious blog surfers who may stumble upon my blog) or can it be both of those things? How much info is too much info? My husband would say that it should be private and that I shouldn't share much personal info at all, but I enjoy reading about other peoples thoughts, and I often learn stuff from reading them. So I'm going to attempt to make this a blog for myself, and if others enjoy it too, great. Now the question, should I go private so I don't have to worry about stalkers and my children's safety? I know some of you have had issues with this. But at the same time I like the fact that people can find me and read on here without having to log in and ask for my permission. Any thoughts here??
Now I'm done rambling. So if you have any opinions about the subject, please feel free to comment. And I'll get back to posting pictures and recording events soon. Just not now, I've got to start the productive part of my day now and close this computer. :)

My little elves

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