Emma and Owen

I know I have just posted a ton today, but I have to catch up before vacation! Here are a few recent pics of my little Emmaline that I just love...I think she's the most photogenic (is that spelled right?) child that I have (for the time being that is).




Owen's big wheel bike has been "loved" so much that it's starting to fall apart. We were wondering if we could order a replacement front wheel since that's the part that is breaking. We were at Costco last week and saw this beefy big wheel for only $40 and bought it for Owen. It's HUGE and will take him a bit to get used to. It has a hand break and is nice and sturdy...all four kids like it and will get tons of use from it.

The box is almost as fun as the new bike!

~Rose

Book On Tape

My mom recently gave us two boxes filled with books on tape and two tape players. The kids were so excited to see the "new" books and use their own tape player and head phones. Hope even ate lunch last week while listening to a book! We have had lots of quiet book time recently thanks to you Grandma Kate! Thanks so much!




~Rose

I Almost Forgot!

Well, Levi turned 10 months old April 26th and I almost forgot to take the obligatory photo with Teddy Bear. All four kiddos have had their pic taken with Mr.Bear each month of the first year of their lives...hopefully one of them will appreciate the effort! Levi has just gotten crawling down, but if he's in a hurry, he still drags himself army style. He is babbling a lot now...says "da da" "ma ma" and "bu bu" but I doubt he associates those with anything or anyone in particular! He loves to eat and being the fourth has tasted much more table food at 10 months than Hope did at the same age :) Yeah, he's had a bit of ice cream...oh well! His newest thing...and it's so cute...is to tense his whole body with a big grin and I say how STRONG he is and then we giggle and he does it all over again. He likes to suck his thumb still and is a big time cuddler...lays his head down on my shoulder...mmmm, I can almost feel it now...the best feeling! He's down to one nap a day (but it's a long one) and is pretty content to be left on the floor and play with whoever is near. He absolutely LOVES our cat and can spot animals outdoors very quickly. He can almost wave and point and tries when he sees any animal. He is such a joy and gift from God and I am thankful to have him in my life.





~Rose
p.s. pic of Levi in the box was taken by Micah...need to give props where they're due you know.

New Hat For The Little Man

I happened upon a great sale at Children's Place recently and got Hope and Owen some clothes for the fall all for $5 or less! I found this cutie star hat for 99 cents and just had to get it. Isn't my little man such a cutie pie?!


He's growing so fast! I need to post his 10 month old pics soon!
~Rose

Art and our Cat

So, I've been working on my weekly schedule and last week implemented it (mornings only). One of the things I wanted to make sure I did with the kids for homeschool was art & music. We either dance to different types of music or do art and listen to classical music. This week we made butterflies out of coffee filters, clothes pins and pipe cleaners. We got out the water color paints and as soon as the kids were set up, Bedhead jumped on the table and settled down right in the middle of everything.

Owen's creations...he hung them on the mailbox.

Emma's little beauties...

~Rose
p.s. the schedule is going well...it really helped me realize (I wrote it down) what I want to accomplish each day. I have re-arranged a bit, and have yet to make it through the whole day (we're easing in) but this week I got done a LOT more than usual :) One big change for me: I switched to laundry M-F (one to two loads a day) instead of all 8 (or so) loads in one day...why didn't I switch sooner?!

In Honor Of Brent (one of my hero photographers)

Brent is the master of still life...so this is my ode to him! I found this in the girls room and thought I'd try my hand at a pic or two...don't ask me what this is or where we got it...I have no clue.
We miss you Brent and Lisa!
~Rose

Zapatos

Desi got me a new pair of shoes last week. He called from Steve and Barry's University Sportswear and asked me if I wanted a new pair of pink shoes for $14.98...oh yeah! Quality stuff at my kind of price!
Starbury sells everything for $15 or under and sells exclusively at Steve & Barry's who will have a new line from Sarah Jessica Parker soon where everything will be under $20 bucks. Stephon Marbury, former all star and current guard for the Knicks, grew up poor and wanted to make a line of shoes and clothes that any kid could afford. I thinks that's amazing and worth supporting.
My new shoes...

Desi's new shoes...

~Rose
P.S. Just watched 10 Items Or Less with Desi tonight...I loved it! But then again I love Morgan Freeman and Paz Vega (Spanglish). The music was fun...but for those of you that don't do movies with cussing...you'll have to skip this one (rated R for language). Note: this is a "talkie" with not much action but I thought it was a great story...funny, charming and I learned that I love latin hip hop!

Homeschool in the Information Age...

Hope uses Math U See for her homeschool math. They provide this wonderful online drill that we can use to see how well Hope knows her math facts. It's just amazing how many useful websites are out there that we use for refrence while homeschooling!
~Rose

Zacchaeus and Mexican Food

Hope drew and wrote this today for her homeschool. I just love her Bible Notebook...it's so sweet and I know I'll cherish it for years to come. I think Hope is quite the artist and is gifted in art...but I'm her momma, so I think she's pretty great at everything :)

I was emailing Denise and Kameron about receipes recently and sent my favorite Mexican dinner to them...chicken enchiladas, home made beans and home made salsa. Kameron copied it into Google docs...so if you're interested, check it out. These three recipes were from other peeps and I tweaked them to my liking...that's what's so great about cooking right?!
~Rose

Uncle Micah

Here's a few recent pics of "Uncle" Micah...with the kiddos.
A few nights ago they all had to climb aboard to say good night...

Micah took 12 amazing??? pics of himself on our camera...this is my favorite...any pics on the camera are free game for the blog and he knows that.

Twins?

Gotta get rid of that baby mullet that Levi is growing...2nd haircut time...

Micah has become part of our family and we are blessed to have him over often. The kids love him and he's great with them as well...although he's better at riling them up than settling them down :)
~Rose

Greek Salad, CU Boulder and Freedom Writers

Thanks again to Kameron...check out her blog on my blog list...for this tasty greek salad. I bought some flat bread, spread hummus (from Costco) all over it and dumped some salad in the middle for a wrap...soooooo good!


We got some good news yesterday: my brother Jason got accepted into CU Boulder and will start in the fall. He got into a Christian frat house super close to the school and will move in May 1st. He'll be a bit further away, but now we have a good excuse to go out to Boulder :)

Desi and I watched Freedom Writers last night. What a great movie. I really enjoyed it and was inspired at how much one person can really make a difference and touch lives by just being there, being real and really caring. If you haven't seen it go rent it now. And if you have seen it...what did you think?
~Rose

Happy Earth Day!

My mother is retiring from teaching at the end of this school year. I went to her classroom yesterday to look through her teaching materials and books. She asked me if I'd be interested in anything to use for homeschooling. I just grabbed a ton and decided to go through them tonight and giver her back the ones I won’t use. I found this gem and Desi urged me to put it up in honor of Earth Day. I just laugh looking at this cover. The publication date is 1983. So, it's Eath Day-go hug a tree...but keep your shirt on!
~Rose

Blast From The Past #4

Looking GOOD!

Josh, Caleb and Desi...not sure of the date...maybe Josh knows...maybe 2001?
~Rose

Blast From The Past #3

This was from my first semester in Twin Peaks, CA at Calvary Chapel Bible College. We went sledding with a group of friends and just had a blast.
Pictureed here are me and two of my roomates: JJ and Amy.

Amy had a car...wahoo! We took a trip to Joshua Tree, CA and went scrambling around on the rocks. I remember being CRAMMED into that car. She tried (graciously) to teach me how to drive a stick shift, but alas, I still don't know how to drive one!
Pictured here are: Me, Amy, Mark, Steph, Mark & JJ.

I'll have to post some more from CCBC some time. What fun memories!
~Rose

Blast From The Past #2

Here's the second in my 4 part installment of "Blast From The Past"...
These pics are taken at Disneyland with my HS BFF Kameron...on June 19, 1995. We were finally finished with High School...now what? I don't think we were thinking about that at Disneyland...just having a good time. We also took an overnight trip down to San Deigo...shoot-what's the name of that little rich beach city? God has shown Himself quite faithful to us over the past 11 (almost) years since then. Well, I have a TON of fond memories of all the great times we had together Kameron, so thank you! You are a blessing.


My brother Jason in 6th grade (he graduated from 6th grade at the same time I graduated from 12th).
He was really into motorcycles then as well.

~Rose

Angel's Rejoice

Hope created this page in her homeschool Bible Notebook today.
(The lost coin was in the woman's daughter's bed.)

This is taken from 'The Parable of the Lost Coin'
Luke 15:8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Beautiful.
~Rose

Blast From The Past

With my 30th birthday looming, I thought I'd post some pics from my younger days...ha ha! Really, I still feel like I'm in my early 20's. Perhaps it's having 4 young kids??? I don't know, but 30 doesn't sound bad at all...in fact 30 is still quite young!
As I was looking for a picture to post for Tim's birthday (I have one of Tim with a HUGE, I mean HUGE beard somewhere, but could not find it-bummer), I found these old pics of me as a child. They were printed in April & May of 1981 so I was 3 or 4 years old. Jason didn't come around till I was 5.
Our kids laughed at my "white" hair. I think I can see Emma in me...perhaps the cheeks?




~Rose
P.S. more "blast from the past" to come...Got one of Jason in 6th grade, me and Kameron at Disneyland (when we were seniors), a few from Bible College and one of Josh, Caleb and Desi in the old Murrieta 'hood.

By now, everyone has heard about what happened at Virginia Tech yesterday. I was brought to tears as I watched the news...thinking "No...Not again!" "How could this happen?" I was up early this morning~just me and Levi~making coffee and thinking about what happened. I thought of how quickly our lives can change...in an instant, really, and we really do not know what tomorrow may hold. This sort of shocked me into realizing that the people God has in my life are so much more important than anything else in this life. I pray that I would not hold grudges, let my anger remain, or fail to tell someone what they mean to me. Let’s not hold back with our love, thoughts, actions and prayers for the people God has in our lives…we don’t know how long we’ll have them. It’s so easy to take the people in our lives for granted…let’s not do that anymore!


I checked my Google Reader this morning and saw a new post on
Girl Talk. They wanted to give some websites to help equip Christians to discuss the problem of evil in the world today. One of the sites was a link to Albert Mohler radio program entitled "Tragedy in Blacksburg: Explaining Evil in a Morally Confused Age. " I listened today and really enjoyed it. Dr. Mohler provides the biblical answer to the question everyone is asking: “How does something like this happen?” I’d encourage you to listen when you have about 30 minutes.

Some things that really stood out to me as I listened were: The fact that we are all sinful, that every intent of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually…apart from God’s grace that is. It’s not a question of why did this happen, but why doesn’t it happen more often? I believe the answer to that is God’s GRACE! He is the only thing holding this world together and without His amazing grace the world would literally fall apart.
I read Ephesians 2 today and was blessed…here’s the beginning:

1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

~Rose

Our New Friend!

Meet our new little friend & neighbor Saijel! We met her and her family mid March and invited them to Emma's party. Saijel and Emma are only a few months apart in age and Saijel's brother is close to Levi's age. We've been hanging out with Saijel most Fridays since and just love her and her family.





~Rose

Yum and Yum!

Awww...he's cute even wearing sister's sunglasses!

I tried Kameron's Taco Salad recently and we loved it! I had to take a picture...yum! The cilantro lime dressing was delish :) We just had the Deep Dish Taco Pizza last night and are gonna have the Greek Salad tonight. Thanks again Kameron!

~Rose

Don't Break The Ice!

The kids got some Easter money from Desi’s grandparents…Thank you Daphne and Nelsons! They pooled their money and used some of it to buy a new game. Don’t Break The Ice is really fun. The person who makes the polar bear fall is out and everyone else plays another round until there is a winner. Our whole family has enjoyed it tremendously. Uncle Micah even got in on the action…and took these photos.




~Rose