size 4T

As we all know, Gilly turned 4 on December 20th. For Christmas he got some new super cool Guess jeans size 4T. Here is how they fit......we call this the uni-pocket (due to idiotic photography its not as funny as it was in person)
no, he's not sucking in
Thankfully the kid has inherited his fathers "lean" gene

umm..no comment here....

Christmas Nebulizer

Oh what would the holidays be without the nebulizer!
This is actually the first time he's fallen asleep with it which was good because its also the first time he's had a full treatment without bugging his sisters or the dog with the smoke.

Christmas morn

ahh, the morning my children wait for all year has arrived. Surprise of all surprises was Gilly waking up first at 7:30 (not bad) with his eyes as big as saucers. He went for his sock first, unusual since they are generally an afterthought
Abby posing in front of her stable
Em reading her letter that Santa wrote to her about how good she is
This is where the kids spent most of the morning (notice that Jeff is included as one of the "kids", he was just as excited to set up this train set as Gilly was).

Christmas Jammies

Oh the joy of new Christmas Eve jammies! We spent our evening bouncing around the house and eyeing presents under the tree. This year was different from Christmas past as we were missing Jeff's sisters and their families. For as many years as Jeff and I have been married (13) we have always opened our Christmas jammies on the 24th with Jill and Jen but this year Jen is in Australia, Jill in Washington. We missed them dearly but the tradition continues in our home thanks to Jan scouting out and getting the greatest Christmas jammies. Now, if I can just get these kids to bed.........

Happy almost Birthday Mr. Gilly!

As I am gearing up for Gillys big day tomorrow I have come across some of the great pictures that turn Garrett Benjamin Jones into Gilly and Chooch.Letting us dress him up like the Taliban
Letting us dress him up like Vincent Price (I know I've posted this before but it still makes me laugh)
Eating the Eucerin cream with a toothbrush (thankfully not mine)
Wanting to fit in with the girls (see Pam you have nothing to worry about)
And wearing this silly grin and constantly saying "Dad (sometimes mom if I'm lucky) I loff you.

the equestrian Jones

As we all know, Em is somewhat obsessed with horses. I mean, spend five minutes with the kid and you get the picture (she is even communicating with me in grunts and neighs as she gallops down the hall causing all the knees in her pants to wear out). So we often try to fill her days with trips to the stable......this is Nito in his hoodie (she thinks this is the funniest)
trips to AA Callisters (ugh, a cowboy store that she loves but I loath)

and anyplace that may have something that might resemble a horse. Sometimes I just feel so tired.......

Christmas snowmen

This year we are making snowmen for the kids to give their friends. To do this you buy tube socks, fill them with rice and decorate (I don't have one finished yet so you'll have to use your imagination). I started this project late last night while all the little ones were pretending to sleep. As the story always goes...I ran out of rice and the project is waiting for my trip to Wal-Mart so I just kind of left everything where it was last night (which is where my procrastination comes into play). This is how I found Gill this morning after his bath and I just had to snap a picture because it is so reminiscent of my leg warmer days!

Reflections (the contest)

This year the theme for Reflections was "I can make a difference". Well we all know that Em is big on fishing so we decided to participate. She said she could make a difference by keeping rivers and lakes clean. She make the fish out of Sculpy clay and we helped her hang them in her bucket. She won for her age group! Yeah Em! (I still need to take a picture of her with her trophy and post it).

Nito...

By now most people know about Nito...(he is all she talks about) so I am posting some pictures of Em and the reason she gets up every morning This was our first lesson a few weeks ago so she looks a wee timid

Em in her height of glory

Legoland (I promise this is the last vacation post!)

This was our first trip to Legoland and if you have small children it is a must, we had a blast! Everything is made out of Lego's (Pam, we feel that Bryan should get a job there!). Em taking on Darth Vader (or Dark Bader as she would say)
Grandma being a good sport and riding the coaster with Abby
Em was a little excited for this ride, does it show?
Em just wanted everyone out of the shark so she could have one on one time with him...

at last.

Treasure!

While at Huntington Beach (thanks largely to Jill) the kids were fortunate enough to dress up like pirates and dig for treasure

Abby, Emily, Gill, and David dressed in their pirate getup
Jeff teaching my innocent children how to flash "west coast" gang signs
way to go Em! Way to make your mother proud!

Darran told this funny story of his great great great grandpa the pirate (which was hilarious because his Australian accent reminded me of captain Feathersword on the Wiggles)

ahhhh...the treasure was found!

(okay, this is the second post of Gill and his crack but it seemed as if every time we went to the beach his pants would get wet at the bottom and they would slowly drift south, and as we all know, Gilly doesn't have much of a bum to hold them up, thus leading to constant crack exposure. Besides, who could resist putting a pirate flag there?)

the views of California

This post is dedicated to the views of California......Thanks to Gilly and Jeff we could see out the front windshield.
This is what we saw when we stepped out the door facing east
and this is what we saw facing west

and this is the full moon rising.

we are HOME!

Between Disneyland, Legoland, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Long Beach Aquarium, the Beach and swimming pool there is much to post and many pictures to go through so I am just going to start out with some of my favorite highlights: This (by far) is my favorite sign

This is Jeff warming up a hotdog on the tailpipe of the car...yes, Gilly was that insistent on a hotdog and we were in no mans land!
How we spent our Thanksgiving after the feast
Darran and the girls jumping from a small sand dune on the beach less than a mile from the condo

Things were so busy that I got a picture like this everyday of Gill. He caught naps whenever he could.

Em's stories....

Em tells some pretty great stories (she gets it from her dad) and she is constantly telling them. Yesterday she was telling the little Vietnamese guy who was painting her toenails (brown like a horses hoof) all about her horse experience that day when we fed Nito gummy bears. The guy just smiled at her and nodded because I'm sure he didn't understand her. Anyway, here are some of her stories from school (don't fret, I'll interpret).... A scorl (squirrell) named chipy at my cabin, it dit (bit) my pece (pinky) and i wuss (was) bleding (bleeding).

Once upon a time in hors (horse) land ther was a mad hors (horse) and it was bucing (bucking).

I just love little treasures like these!

Faker!

So this morning rolls around and Em wakes up acting very lethargic with no appetite. She is complaining of a sore throat and says she just doesn't feel good. I did what any mother would do, I called her school and told them that she would be staying home today due to a sore throat. I believed her because Gilly and I have had a bit of a cold lately so its logical to think that maybe she had caught the bug. Yeah the jokes on me....
I told her that we couldn't go horse back riding tomorrow if is she was sick. The next thing out of her mouth was this "oh, I'm not really sick mom, I just needed a break from school. Now, can we go visit Nito (the horse) after we drop Gilly off at school?" (since its early out all week I'm not going to march her into school, besides, who doesn't need a day off every once in a while right?)

WARNING: a picture in this post may be offensive to some so read at your own discression....

So my mother is one of the most thoughtful people I know, she prepared this big Thanksgiving feast a week and a half before the actual holiday so that her kids wouldn't feel obligated to choose which house to go to for Thanksgiving. It really worked out great for all because all my siblings (minus Rachel) were there and we had a fabulous feast for she is a superb chef. My kids of course ate only little smokies but we did catch Gilly doing this to her famous "Chocolate Lush"...

And then this.

(he actually uses that finger as his pointer finger but it drew such a reaction that he just kept on flippin). Bad Gilly.

Just a little note about the music I've added.....

So I have a few friends that have music on their blogs. Okay, no biggie. But after a few times pulling up blogs and having the music blare at me it started to kind of irritate me. I gave my BFF a little grief over this but then I pulled up her blog and it was the sweetest entry and to go along with it there was a song that really added some emotion to it, yeah I was touched. So I spent the majority of my day making a play list and I had a wonderful, fun time thinking of all this music that just goes along with my life. You see, I can mark periods of my life with music, as probably most people do, and it was fun flashing back to the days where Heidi Cottle and I would be waiting for a patient to come out of surgery (at the ugly hour of 3am) and we'd listen to Dave Matthews and laugh about putting the wrong dentures in someones mouth after surgery. Or the time when I worked at South Davis Community Hospital and met some of the funniest people I know who introduced me to Radiohead and Ben Folds Five. There are songs that remind me of Jeff and the concerts we used to go to before we had kids(Beck and U2), songs that we would hear over in Europe driving through Belgium while I tried to read the map (Will Smith..eeek), songs that remind me of Tonya driving with JT blasting out of her van, songs that remind me of my kids. And there are songs that just simply speak volumes to me. So if the music bugs, just hit pause and you can still read along or you can be brave and listen.
j

round em up

As some of you may know, we have turned into quite the horse enthusiasts (thanks to Em). We decided to take them for some short rides before we started lessons to see if they would like it. Well they did so guess what we start tomorrow....yup, horse riding lessons. yipee! Em (who thinks she is a horse) enjoyed it the most.
Gill could barely see what was going on because his helmet was falling over his eyes
but he still loved the horse
And Abby was just a little timid. I can bet you that after a few lessons she'll say that it "kinda, ya know, gives me a headache" as I'm sure the price for the lessons will give me.