Merry CHRISTmas!

Wishing you WARMEST Christmas greetings from Sunny Florida!

May the Force be with You!

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Actually, it was just last month on Halloween!
I'm not sure how this happened, but all the kids decided to be Star Wars characters!

Sara started this whole thing with Princess Leia. She's become this Star Wars fanatic lately - so she and Jake have something to talk about.

So Jake was Darth Vader and he walked around saying things like "Your powers are weak old man." It was hilarious!

But I have to say, my greatest shock came when Anna said she would be Yoda! That ugly little creature that speaks in backwards sentences! Anna thought it was great having her face painted green. School pictures were THE NEXT DAY - so as I applied that green make-up I said a little prayer that it would all come off! Prayer answered! That night, she carried my ipod with an external speaker and they marched around all night to the Star Wars theme and the Imperial March (that's Darth Vader's music!) - everyone loved it.

Halloween gets scarier every year!

So... our great neighbors, John and Cindy opened their house to friends and family and hosted a Halloween party. I've said before that we have great neighbors... but honestly, sometimes they scare me.

Mitch and Kelli - stuck in the 70s!

Our hostess, Cindy had a small problem with some crows...

And here is Cindy's husband John - the dead guy in pumpkin pants... and our beautiful Greek goddess, Jo, whose husband could have come to the party as a Greek god, but instead...

chose to come as mustard. I'm still trying to figure that one out! ;-)

And here we are... and I can say without a doubt - this is the last time we dress up as cave people!

Yep - this is Greg with hair - pulling mine!

Anna's Busy Brownies

Anna's Brownie troop has been busy! They meet once a week and usually have 2 or 3 other activities a month! In October, they visited a farm with a corn maze, Great Harvest Bread Co. - where they learned how to make bread, and the local police station where they learned about safety and that policemen and women are our friends! (That's if you're not speeding! ;-) )

Anna and Jillian, children of the corn! Scarey!

Anna, my little goat-girl!

Anna, Jillian and Jarod - lost in the corn maze!




















At Great Harvest with Baker Steve and awesome bread!
















At the police station getting safety tips from Officer Clifford!

Can't get enough of Disney!

Here we go again...
I know you're probably tired of seeing pictures from Disney, but HEY - we live in Florida - two hours away! Ya Gotta GO!! And anyway our annual passes expire soon and we had to make sure we got our money's worth!!

Here's Sara doing her imitation of a Pirate Pear - yeah don't ask... it is Disney after all.















Jake - he's all boy! If you look closely you can see that Greg's shirt is wet - we had just gotten off Splash Mountain - yeah we got SOAKED!




















Anna got to ride a horse...




















Hard to beat Eeyore! He's too cute!

Soccer Star!

Another season of soccer for our little man, Jake. He is doing very well and having a great time with his team the Fireballs!




















In this particular game, he scored 2 goals to help with a 6-3 win!

Back to School ;-)

"It's the most wonderful time of the year!"
Did you hear those angels singing?

Of course, I'm only joking - kinda! School has finally started back and this year all three of them are heading off to a brand new school! We met the bus the first day with some of our wonderful neighbors!

Beach Trip

I know what you're thinking... yes, we live at the beach and yes, we took a trip to another beach! We traveled to Myrtle Beach, SC for our second annual beach trip with our friends! (Friends who lived or live in Idaho - where we all met!) With five moms and eleven kids we had a full house and a fantastic time!

Swim Team

Aren't they sweet?
My little swimmers!

Just When You Thought it was Safe to go in the Water...

This is probably the only sport where all my kids are on the SAME team!
So here we come... the Heritage Landing Hammerheads!
For some reason, I managed to get pictures of all three kids while they were competing in backstroke! I'll try and post some more pictures soon...
Anyway, this first one is Jake WININNG his heat in the 6 & under 25 meter backstroke! He was so proud of his ribbon and showed it to anyone and everyone who got near him the rest of the day!






























Next we have Anna ready for her 7&8 year old, 25 meter backstroke... she won her heat too!






























And Sara - ready for her 9&10 year old, 50 meter backstroke! She has to go down and back! She didn't win her heat, but got first place overall because there was a disqualification!

































The kids are all doing super in swimming - all three could use a little more work on their diving, but that will come with practice. We have a great program (and lots of wonderful people who volunteer their time) here in our community which makes for lots of team spirit! There's over 80 kids on our team and it's really neat to see them cheer for their teammates!

Jake's Preschool

Jake has had a great year at preschool!
He attended Turning Point Christian Academy and loved it. He made lots of new friends, many that he will see again next year in kindergarten!
















They had several visitors including some baby rabbits and an alligator!

They even came to visit me at the Fort!

The graduation ceremony was really nice, the kids sang and quoted scripture. There was a slide show set to music and not a dry eye in the house!

I totally lost in when they played the 'graduation march' as the kids walked down the aisle to get their diplomas! Isn't he just the cutest little graduate you've ever seen? I think so, but then again I may be a little biased!!