A Recommended Recipe

We got two packages from Desi's Uncle for Christmas. They were filled with wonderful gifts for all of us from Neil and Peggy. The books are wonderful...there's one that is the Polar Express where you shine a flash light through it in a dark room and it shines a picture on the wall. Very unique books that we are all enjoying. Thanks so much for your thoughtfulness Neil and Peggy!

One book was a cook book and Neil recommended a recipe on page 27. Here's a scan of it.

If you cannot read it it says:
ELEPHANT STEW ALA ELLIE DORR

1 elephant (medium)
salt and pepper
brown gravy
2 rabbits (optional)

Cut the elephant into bite-size pieces. This should only take about 2 months. Add enough brown gravy to cover. Cook over kerosene fire about 4 weeks at 465 degrees. Makes 3,800 servings. (To extend it, add the rabbits, but do this only if necessary, as most persons do not like to find hare in their stew.)

Ha ha ha!
~Rose

The Christmas Photos Will Have To Wait

Hope and I just got invited to go to a musical downtown tonight! Our long time friends the Schaffner Family are in Colorado visiting their oldest daughter and husband. I guess they had two people who are not able to go tonight and they though of us!!!! Desi will stay home with the younger kidlets and Hope and I get to go. We are so excited. The musical is Irving Berlin's White Christmas (my all time favorite musical/Christmas movie) at the Denver Center for Performing Arts. Time to get gussied up and be ready for our limo pick up...can you believe it?!
~Rose
p.s. It's still snowing and I found the cutest little bird foot prints in the snow on our porch. We hung a soda bottle bird feeder near by so we can watch the birds from the window.

Super Sledding Saturday

Last Saturday we were invited to my parent's house for lunch. Honestly I didn't really want to go since I still had so much to do, but looking back I am so glad we did. I think we all needed to get out and enjoy time away from home. I thought we could try sledding if it was warm enough. The sun was shining so we geared up to go out before lunch. Levi got a present early: a little sled thing with a seat and seat belt. The kids took turns pulling it and if for that day alone, it was worth the price! Desi and mom worked on setting up a berm to start off from and away the kids went. I love our "boogie board" type of sled. It's flexible and light weight. I think we may need another one...it's hard to wait your turn when 6 people are sledding. We all went down, even Grandma and Desi and I. What fun! I love being outdoors when the ground is covered in snow. It's magical. I feel God's love when I am in His beautiful creation.
~Rose

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? ~J.B. Priestley

Weather is a great metaphor for life - sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and there's nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella. ~Pepper Giardino

There's one good thing about snow, it makes your lawn look as nice as your neighbor's. ~Clyde Moore

Snowballs and Uno

This shot cracks me up...it's so hard to get all four kiddos in one shot, and i just love this moment that I happened to capture.
And Levi in the Tigger costume- too cute!
Hope made snowballs for everyone with our snowball maker. I know, a snowball maker...we got it on clearance at the end of the season and it's great!

Yep, they eat their snowballs. I explained how dirty the snow really is.
They don't care. Gross.

My Christmas card helper. Seven year olds are great!

My dinner helper. Counter tops are great!

Our new favorite past time. UNO. We LOVE this game...especially Owen. All five of us play and I am amazed to see Owen and Emma learning their numbers as a result. We play Sponge Bob Uno where there is a wild card that when played the person with the least amount of cards has to pick one from the deck and one from the players to the right and left of them. Very exciting. The kids are learning the joy of playing games and are learning that you can lose a game and still have fun. Good lessons for little people!

I just finished my Christmas shopping last night! What a great feeling. I have 7 packages to mail and still have a bunch of cards to mail as well, but we still have over a week. We made peppermint bark to give to our neighbors...hopefully this afternoon. The sun is out and Denver is defrosting, which is nice. I am hoping for a White Christmas though.

As far as exercising goes, I LOVE water aerobics! I was so sore for two days from Friday's workout. I am usually getting two 30 minute stationary bike workouts in every week as well, but would like to up that. I am finding that it is difficult to start out on the bike, but once I get over that "hump" I really can enjoy the workout and all that sweat! I am amazed at how getting moving is helping me to get up earlier. I love to sleep. Always have, always will. I had been wanting to get up earlier though to have some quiet morning time to read and pray. For awhile I was not exercising and just doing my morning time but it was so hard. Now it is so much easier. I did not expect that at all. Thanks for all the encouragement from you my friends!

Happy Sunday to you. May you find time to connect with your Creator and enjoy some peace, joy and love of family or friends. Find your Uno deck and grab some kids for some fun!

~Rose

We Love Snow!

But then again, we don't exactly live in the mid west! Here in Denver we get snow, the sun comes out, melts it in a few days and we're ready for more. It does not stay "white" all winter long here. I doubt I'd love it as much if I had to deal with it daily for months on end. Here are a few pics from the kids playing outside tonight. They were in and out all day, usually playing alone, but tonight all four got in on the action. Even Bedhead (our cat) made it out for a bit. Owen called to me, "Mom, there's a mystery out here! Some dog got in our yard! Look at the foot prints!" I was sort of bummed to tell him it was the cat, but he thought it was pretty cool anyhow.

Hope got to go with my mom to the Ladies Christmas Tea last night. It was sort of short notice and I wish she had something really fancy to wear, but she looked wonderful in her cute brown outfit. She even got new shoes to wear with it! They had a wonderful time. Thanks mom for taking her!
~Rose

Tidepools and the Beach

After saying goodbye to Kameron and Steph, we headed down MacArthur Blvd to the Crystal Cove area. Thanks to Kameron's recommendation we had a blast at the beach. I LOVE the beach and it is the thing I miss the most living in land locked Colorado.

Our Family

Beautiful views

The tide pools and coast

The kids enjoyed finding critters. A lady came out and showed us good places to look and what the rules of the tide pools are. Good stuff to know.

We found this cool coral just laying on the ground.

The kids quickly tired of carefully walking along the rocks and such, so we moved over to the beach. The kids loved the wet sand, running away from the water and finding treasures. Hope asked me why we didn't bring our swim suits. It was so warm I was wondering the same thing. We all got pretty wet. Oh well.

Levi loved the wet sand and chatted with the water. Shells were good for throwing.
It was so stinkin hard to pull ourselves away from the beach. Next time we visit Cali, we are spending more than a few hours here. It will be an all day event!

~Rose

Every time we walk along a beach some ancient urge disturbs us so that we find ourselves shedding shoes and garments or scavenging among seaweed and whitened timbers like the homesick refugees of a long war. ~Loren Eiseley

Camping In The Desert With 9 Children!

So, we got back last night from the desert. We were about 10 miles from Yuma, Arizona. It was about a 5 hour drive from Temecula, CA where we are staying. We drove up in the motor home and back in a car. David and Sharee brought up their 4 neice/nephews and a friend as well so it was a full house. We played games, rode the quads, enjoyed campfires, made new friends and just relaxed! What a great trip :)

The Gang: Four adults and 9 children!

Hope learned how to ride the little 50cc "little red" and went around this berm track over and over again. Owen learned how to ride it as well and Emma and Levi got rides on it with an adult.

I think we really got hooked on this desert dune thing!

David and Desi on their last ride together. They went out to the dunes and rode up the "hill" twice! That's my man!

This is the "hill"...at the top are two large sand rails and I think that is a quad near the top. David and Sharee are on their way up. I was not comfortable on the 400cc bikes (I rode it once) and my little 90 would not make it up. The hill was way too intimidating for me to go up alone, but I got to go up in Dave Van Hulzen's beefy 4runner. It was probably the most fun I have had since my roller coaster days. We rode with a large group of sand rails and quads and spent probably close to an hour in the dunes going in and out of the bowls.

Sunset on our last night. Buddy (the Adam's dog) was a big hit with Levi. You could hear Levi calling "Buuudee" when he saw him.

I took close to 200 pictures out there, so I have more to share, but this was all I time to load up today. More to come at a later date. We had a blast camping and it was relaxing and fun to be there with many families and kiddos. Hope made a friend named Selah and they are going to be pen pals. Thank you David and Sharee for bringing us out along with your kiddos. This will be one of the most memorable trips our family has ever taken. We are truly blessed and enjoyed our time with you both.

~Rose

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning

California Adventures With Grandpa Des

The above pic was taken last Wednesday while waiting for our plane to arrive in DIA. Notice the two goofs to the left of Hope. The next few pics are from the following day when Des Sr. (aka: Grandpa) took us to In-N-Out and Knott's Berry Farm.

This is my favorite shot from the day. Little Emma enjoying Lucy's Tugboat so much that she can do "no hands" all by herself!

~Rose

Sometimes It's Good To Be A Veteran

Grandpa Des got all 7 of us into Knott's for only $51!!!!! Can you believe it? We arrived shortly after lunch and stayed till the 6pm closing. The weather was cool and cloudy (wonderful) and there were hardly any people there! The kids were pumped and a bit overwhelmed at first. Camp Snoopy was a big hit.

Owen's favorite ride: Charlie Brown Speedway-where the best ride operator ever let the kids ride three times in a row. Emma's favorite ride: the airplanes (even though she never got her's up in the air). Hope's favorite ride (and mine): the LOG RIDE! We did it three times and I could have done it more. Love it! We talked Owen and Emma into joining us on the first go and they were so stinkin scared! Owen said he was not scared, but did NOT want to ride again. The only ride we had to wait in line for was for the stagecoach. All in all it was fantastic. We got home with kids in bed by 9pm. Not bad.

Thank you Grandpa Des for a wonderful day at Knotts and tasty dinner after. To quote Hope, "This was the best day of my whole entire life!"

Tomorrow is Tim and Lauren's rehersal and dinner. Des and Jan will babysit so we can go together. Pray for the kids to be good for their grandparents! We are still working on babysitters for Sunday afternoon (the wedding is from 2:30-8). I'm planning on splitting the kids up if we can so no one is overwhelmed by our four loud children!
~Rose


We should all have one person who knows how to bless us despite the evidence, Grandmother was that person to me.
~Phyllis Theroux

The best baby-sitters, of course, are the baby's grandparents. You feel completely comfortable entrusting your baby to them for long periods, which is why most grandparents flee to Florida.
~Dave Barry

Library Day!

Every Thursday we go to the BIG library downtown. They have a wonderfully fabulous story time and free craft at 10:30am. I go every other week with all four kids and my mom to help. The other weeks she will take one or two kids alone. We have really enjoyed getting to know Miss Christy the librarian. She uses colorful voices as she reads, has the kids get up for dancing or songs and uses a theme to tie in the books and craft. Two weeks ago I brought my camera to capture a "trip to the library" for posterity's sake.

The day was so warm we ended up getting wet in the fountains in front of the Art Museum. Mom and I were cracking up because of how happy Levi was (squealing with laughter) and then the older kids started playing follow the leader (Levi was the leader). It was one of the funniest things they have done in a long time. I'm sure the sophisticated adults sitting around sipping their lattes were appalled.

Thanks again mom for all your help and not running away from the noise our kids create.
~Rose

What? No Snow on Halloween?

It usually snows on or the day before/after Halloween. Because of this we have usually stayed in our warm house or gone up to Thornton to enjoy the Kylander's fireplace. This year we decided to stay home because Desi had a late afternoon meeting.

The weather turned out to be wonderful. After dinner we suited up the kiddos and hit the streets. Our friend Brian came over with his two cutie pie dogs (his wife was home sick). We saw almost all our neighbors, met many new neighbors and had a blast! Once home we quickly handed out our large bag of dum-dums. It's amazing how CUTE kids are in costumes.

The best part of the night was as we were almost home. A full grown woman came up to the door behind us to trick or treat with her Safeway bag. She had no costume and Desi talked with her a bit. She wondered why people were hassling her for asking for candy and she said Halloween is for adults too. Yeah, that is my neighborhood.

It was the best Halloween for our family yet. I think the reason is the good weather...who wants to trek through snow or bitter cold wind? I think of all the "holidays" that we Americans celebrate, Halloween is the most community centered. When else are most people's porch lights on and doors open with a smiling face behind it? Hope you enjoyed last night too!

~Rose

Art Class- Henry Matisse (And an Autumn Project For You To Do)

We skipped art class for the past few weeks. This weekend we studied Henry Matisse. I even found a cute book from the library with works from Matisse in it. He was a painter but got ill in his later life and started to "draw with scissors" in bed. The featured piece is called The Sorrows of the King. We got to do a collage piece with musical instruments. The first one is Hope's and the second is mine. I am enjoying this art class as much as the kids!

This is a banner that Hope and I made 4 years ago. It says Give Thanks and is made from construction paper, raffia and bits o' nature. The last two pics are close ups of a few letters. Some were glued on and some were sewed on. This is a great project to do on (or before) Thanksgiving. Take a little nature walk with lunch sacks for the kids. Have them gather bits o' nature to use for making the banner. I have loosely stored this for the past few years and it's done amazingly well. Hope you enjoy it if you choose to make one!

~Rose