Dancin up a storm

Last Friday Saige missed the school bus and came over to see if Maya had time to play. It was right after breakfast so no one was doing school work quite yet. I was working out on the rebounder and a great song came on the CD. All of the sudden, all four kids pour out of the woodwork and start dancin up a storm! They were too cute so I grabbed the camera.

Things are spinning out of control!

Things are really spinning out of control over here.

Yesterday- right in the middle of a very serious and structured school day....
I scooped Maya Rae up and got her onto my back.

Then I took off spinning....and spinning.....and well.....
That's enough spinning!!!!
Maya thought this was AWESOME but mom could only take so much without either barfin or at least falling on my very dizzy face! ;)

A play day with Danny

Monday was Martin Luther King Jr's Bday....

Because all of the kids had the day off my Aunt and I made arrangements for Danny to come over and play with us. Danny is my cousin and the girls 2nd cousin. Though these two are from two generations Maya Rae and Danny are just 6 mo apart. I think that's cool.

Anyway- We all had a very nice visit :) These two played all kinds of games, jumped on the rebounder, went outside, scootered inside the house, played dress up to name a few. The big girls played a few games of Uno with them. (Elanee was invited to a Bday party in the middle of their Uno game:)

At lunch Danny was so pleased with my veggy pasta and the cookies Elanee made that he said, "You people are so good at the making stuff from scratch thing!" LOL. Well thanky! (just for the record...his moms an awesome cook)

Danny brought a little craft project. These are the two picture frames that the kids colored. I took picture of them and made the frames into fridge magnets.

What a fun day. We cannot wait to do it again soon!

Maya's Noble Steed

Yesterday Maya Rae gave her scooter a make over. She added a face and then a wig.

I thought it was a crazy cow but Maya corrected me...

"Mom....its my Noble Steed!"

LOL

CRASH!

What happened here!?!?!?

Poor Jody! Geesh! What a strain of bad luck this week.About 5 days ago he was going to work in the morning when a young man decided to pass him on a double yellow, up hill and on ice! Well- a Mac truck was headed the other way so the guy swirved in hard and wiped out Jody's front divers side bumper, light and cracked the grill.

Jody, of course, spent his morning at the Sheriff's dept filing papers then at the insurance co filing a claim. So that was that. At least he was fine and the car was drivable.
Then last night he came in just raw. He was headed home from work in his already damaged car and two deer just trotted right out into his lane and stopped dead in front of him. He had no choice but to plow right through them both! The hood flew up so he couldn't see and he pulled over. He ended up crawling home with the pierced radiator steaming, his one light shining at the trees, the fluids pouring out and.... his head hung low. He said he nearly hit two more deer just 10 miles later due to
his wild eye head light.
To say the least the car is not drivable. Considering the (lack of) value of the car its totalled. Now we are just waiting for an adjuster to come out and assess the thing. This is the 3rd car thats been totalled in 10 yrs. Poor Jody! Again- thank God he is ok.

Cloth Bob

This is Maya Rae and her newest creation~ Cloth Bob!
She was up early this morning and went right to work sculting a lone sock into this little guy.
She stitched him eyes and a nose and even gave him real hair.

We thought it was cool that he even had a butt so he can sit down unassited.

Vayda's Decorating

After the Xmas tree was taken down last week Vayda decided the top of the dresser was too bare and went to work decorating it. I was surprised to see this lovely lay out of doobly dos from around the house.
Here is a box that Elanee got at Xmas. It had contained a nice jewelry set. I really liked the Asian thang it had going on. Vayda set it up here open with a Greatest Name charm and the Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah inside and a set of prayer beads pouring out. Then there is a little Indian-ish container next to it. Behind that is the aroma therapy candle with river stones on top.

On the other side of the lamp is an art print of Abdul-Baha (son of Baha'u'llah-hes kind of like a saint for the Baha'i faith. We do not worship him. We look to him as a prime example of an exemplary Baha'i life.) Then there is a Chines green tea can with incense sticks and two books....Tablets of Baha'u'llah and Gandhi.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to You- and you and you-

and yes...even YOU!

2009

Wow! I guess I am shocked every year at how fast the year went. :) Well, I am again shocked this year. 2008 was a rockin year. I would have to say it was among the happiest years of my years married to Jody. We had a good one. We have both grown alot over the years and that has made for a happy marriage. The marriage is, or course, the foundation for the families happiness so the entire houshold was happy too. I am sooooooo looking forward to 2009. Its gonna be an even better year! We have big plans and will have big changes ahead and we are really excited to have another year of happiness together :)

Wishing you all true happiness this year! Lets stay positive, pray, and live life to the fullest!

Winter lake- aaahhhh

A romp at the lake in December.....What were we thinking?!?!?!

A couple of days after Xmas it was so sunny and warm out that Jody suggested we go for a walk by the lake.
Maya Rae and Saige were all excited and wanted to bring their bikes so Jody kindly loaded them on the back of the car and out we went.

We expected it to be a little cooler by the water so we brought some extra 'swaddling' (as Jody called it) for the girls.
Though Jody makes it look very tolerable here in this picture....
It was NOT!!! It was freakin FREEZING!!!!

I thought we were all going to die!!!

The girls tore off on their bikes and were out of site in moments. Jody and I walked for a little while. We were worried that the girls would be half frozen so Jody ran all the way back to the car and drove back around to another entrance to the park to find the girls.

By the time he got there I had met up with the girls who WERE frozen and as they said- suffocating from the freezing wind in their faces. They were very grateful for the rescue!

We all loaded- THANKFULLY- back into the car and went across Geneva to get Vayda from a friends house.
After 20 min in the car the girls were thawed out again and back to being their normal total goof ball selves. We'll be waiting for spring before we try that again.