He's off to Iraq now

This is our good family friend Sgt Brinkerhoff who is currently serving in the Air Forces at Luke. He is being deployed to Iraq this week and we were invited to see him off at the airport this week. Along with being sad, but grateful for his service, we were able to join his family to say goodbye... Many of us have family members who serve in the military and we are so thankful for their time they give to our country.

Snowflake, Az trip

This past weekend my kids had a four day weekend break from school, so we decided to take a trip up north to Snowflake. We traveled with our good friend Becky who luckily enough has her parents who live up there so we could stay with them. While on our way up we decided to play in the snow on the side of the road, but the snow was not soft at all. Despite the hard snow we managed to throw a few snowballs at each other and get cold enough to call it quits for the day. Becky's son Daniel loved the snow and followed Frankie everywhere he went. We were able to visit the LDS temple up on the hill too, and it is a magnificent sight to see. We had a such a good time up there that by the time we had to leave we were so sad to say goodbye to her parents who are like grandparents to my kiddos. Snowflake didn't even have that much snow either, which was a surprise to all of us. Anyway we had a great time together and can't wait to go back to visit when there is more snow on the ground to play in.

Sweet Memories

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Our Christmas week in Safford

This year for our Christmas we decided to head to Safford, which is where my mom lives. My younger brother David was able to be there to visit too, so all the more fun with them. Christmas morning was filled with excitement of opening gifts and having David over for most of the morning. Later on in the day I took all seven children to Mt. Graham to play in the snow. Crazy? probably but we had a blast until they were so cold that they wanted to leave. The wind was blowing fierce, so that caused us to only stay for about an hour and half before we left down the mountain. For the rest of the afternoon they just jumped on the trampoline and watched movies while I rested and recooperated from our adventures. Least of all to say we enjoyed visiting with David's two young children Malaysia & David Jr. who we rarely see anyways and they had fun seeing all of us too. My kids were sad to say goodbye to their cousins by the end of the week, but had a great time together while it lasted. By the time we ended up leaving Safford it was snowing outside and it was a beautiful sight to see all the snow falling as we drove back to Phx.

Just us.....X-mas fun

Today we finally put up our tree and had fun together on a Sunday afternoon. Decided to get the camera out to take some silly pics of us while we were in the mood. Not the best ones, but thought we would share what we have so far. Now that Christmas is getting nearer my kids are getting into the spirit and love putting up their art projects made at school on the tree. So to all who have their trees up, well don't you just love all the homemade ornaments from your loved ones. I know I do when I see how proud they are of their creativity just hanging there for all to see. Merry Christmas and Happy New Years.....

APS Light Parade

The annual Phx downtown APS light parade was a spectacular sight to see. We enjoy going to this festive event where there are literally thousands of lights to lite up the cool night skies. The kids loved all the entries that were displayed for the hour and half that it lasted. I liked the float of the soilders myself and below it is shown to honor our servicemen. The train float reminded me of my mom who just loves trains, and it was very beautiful as it past by us as you can see. There were so many floats that were amazing, but I posted just a few to give you an idea of what we were able to see last night. Happy Holidays.......

Our Thanksgiving Day...

Our Thanksgiving Day was spent with friends and family nearby this year. The kids loved to help get the side dishes ready for our meal by peeling the eggshells for our potato salad. We started our day out by watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade in the morning, which was so fun to see together with our friends Becky and Daniel. Later on we headed over to my sister's place to join their family feast. The kids played with their cousins there, and then walked over to the park to play flag football, while we cheered them on. So our day was so fun with those we loved....Hope everyone had a great turkey day.

Mesa Az Temple

For our family home evening night we headed over to Mesa to see the nativity displays inside the visitors center. These are just a few of the beautiful nativities they had from different countries around the world. They were amazing to see how many they had laid out around the room. The temple grounds are also decorated now in their Christmas lights and let me tell you it is a sight to see. My kids and I go see them several times during the holidays and its always fun to see every time we go. They also will be having their nightly concerts, which is such a special way to feel the awesome spirit on sacred grounds. So if any of you have a chance during this busy time a year to take your families to the nearest temple near you for an opportunity to remember our savior.

ASU Sundevils

The past few days was ASU's homecoming week and we tried to show the spirit by attending their parade in Tempe. We caught the tons of candy they threw and we even got a couple of T-shirts to proudly own.
We sadly weren't able to attend the football game saturday, but we had fun just the same. We even tried some delicious navajo frybread, which is my favorite. YUMMY!!!
Anyways, they had games for the kids to play and win free ASU gadgets. So if there are any sundevil fans out there, you missed an awesome block party and parade....

Halloween Fun

For our Halloween this year, the kids enjoyed several events around the neighborhood. The ward had a trunk-or-treat event where the kids were able to get goodies from the safety of the parking lot. Frankie decided to be ninja, but switched to a fireman later on in the week. Ana was a diva girl which had me perplexed enough to wonder what that exactly meant, but she knew what it was. As for Sabrina and I we just dressed as ourselves, and were too lazy to be creative. My kids went trick-or-treating with little Daniel who was superman after changing his mind several times earlier. We had lots of fun to say the least, and hopefully they're not too sugared up to get them to bed now. Hope everyone had great Halloween this year with your little ones.
We were able to visit Aunt Lottie who dressed up as a dead corpse bride for her work and to pass out her goodies. I thought she was clever, but she was tired of wearing it by the time we arrived at her house. She designed it herself which doesn't surprise me with her superb sewing skills. She had vampire teeth that were awfully scary to see her smile with.

Here Sabrina and Ana had their faces painted silly for fun.

Happy Birthday....

This is a special contribute to all of those who celebrated October birthdays. To name a few would be Mandy, myself, and cousin Sarah, and my mom Biz. The kids made this cake all by themselves, which turned out pretty delicious. We sang "Happy Birthday" and blew out the candles the kids put in an "h" form, which was creative I thought. Anyways, have a super month guys and just know we were thinking of all those who turned a year older or wiser as the case may be.

Im a Great Aunt....

Yesterday little Joshua Dominic was born at Tucson Medical Center around 7:34 am. So my oldest sister Priscilla is now a first time gramma. She was so excited to hold her first grandbaby all day. He weighed an even 6 lbs and was 18 inches long. Her two youngest girls Vanessa and Alex came along thinking they could hold him, but were told disappointedly that they were not old enough to go into the unit to see the baby. They were so sad that they weren't able to go in, but were happy about being first time aunties. As you can tell by the photos that he is just so sweet and precious. I just loved holding him and now proud to be a first time great auntie...

Cousin fun...

This evening we were invited over to our cousin Mandy's house to visit and have dinner. I was thrilled that I wouldn't have to cook anything and I could take a break from the kitchen. Its always so much fun to go and dirty someone else's kitchen and dishes....Hahaha( sorry mandy) We had such a good visit while the kids played the Xbox 360 games(Halo 3). Some time later little Savannah woke up to join the fun. She is just the happiest baby ever. We just loved holding her and watching her try to learn her new trick of trying to walk. She is very mobile now and most everything she holds goes right to her mouth. We were trying to get her to walk without our help but she was too smart for us to even let go of our fingers. We just laughed every time she would turn herself around when we tried to pry her fingers from ours. Savannah is nine months now amazingly and is very chubby as you can see by her pics. She is content with anyone to hold her and pay attention to her cute antics. We were so sad to have to go and leave our cousins, but we had a great time catching up with each other. Fun was had by all as you can tell.

The Park

There was a barbeque at the Indian Steele

park for some friends, so we decided to go

raid their fun. Here are the kids having some

fun in the water. We thought this was pretty

cool to see...

Saturday fun as a family

Here are some recent photos of our newest adventures around the valley. We started our day out going to watch a parade downtown Phoenix, which ended up at Indian Steele park. We were able to participate in several activities where the kids visited several booths to win prizes by playing various games. Ana and Frankie had a ball with this and loved getting all the free gadgets they gave out to them.

Later in the day we headed up towards Seven Springs area where we love to go as family to hang out. It has a spectacular view along the way and we usually take our lunch up there for our hikes. The weather was great, but has cooled down a great deal, and we had forgot our jackets. We had a wonderful time together, and as we were riding home in the evening hours the beautiful sun was setting over the horizon. In the picture below is Sabrina catching a crawdad, which I got to ride home with several of them. (Disgusting, if you ask me) Anyways the kids had a fun time as did I with our crazy adventures for today.