December 2008

Hi Everybody!


I've decided to attempt a new blog mainly because we've been getting lots of complaints. I'm hearing lots of "you're not sending enough pictures" or "we don't even know your kids anymore since we never see them". I've been told it's the little day to day things people would like to know so you've now been warned this will probably be BORING and full of day to day things. Read on at your own risk. Since this is my first one here I'm going to try to hit the high points you already know and toss in some photos you've probably already seen. With my January entry I'll try to surprise you. But hey, they can't all be winners.


As most of you know, we bought a house here in Goodyear, AZ in November and have been consumed with moving and the holidays. It all hit at once so to say it's been a stressful couple of months would be an understatement. The new house is much smaller than the rental we had, but our mortgage is also less than our rent was so it evens out. I've also discovered to my delight it's faster to clean. (The downside is it's faster to mess up.) We LOVE the house and have been getting all kinds of requests for photos. I took a video but have been having issues getting it uploaded on youtube so I plan to give up and make do with photos. (Which I haven't taken yet, and the house isn't photo ready at the moment so I'll say the dreaded "soon" word again. We hope to have photos of the house SOON.)


We took the yearly Christmas photos which always thrills Tim and the kids. (You should hear the sighing and groaning when I call them in to take the pictures!) I know most of you have seen them but to break up the text and to practice using the blog stuff here I'm putting them up. So, here is what I call the "crazy picture", and just for the record I was trying to do a goofy face also but they all had me cracking up too much. I guess Kylie thinks that is her funny face?

After many attempts and several "I look fat" complaints by me, this was our Christmas card photo:

Of course I have to include the "Oh my gosh your kids look so much older" photos. So, here ya go:

Now I'll try to do a bit of info on each of the kids by themselves. I'll start with Kylie. She is now 12 going on 18. She's in 7th Grade now, or would be. She's very into music and loves the bands Panic at the Disco and Fall Out Boy. She has posters on her wall and her big Christmas gift was a purple iPod Nano she named Brendon. For those of you who aren't aware of this, she names all her favorite electronics. Her cell phone is named Ryan and her Nintendo DS is named Smitty. She even named her purple earphones but I can't remember what names she picked for those. She's kind of liking a boy who's kind of liking her back, which as you can imagine just thrills us to death. She's also a total girly girl who's into the mall and make up. She now won't leave the house without a shower, blow dry, and make up application. She has an awesome sense of humor and we're always laughing or joking around about something. The teenage moodies have hit though, so we do have our "Eeyore" days as I like to call them. Thankfully they're not THAT often.....yet. Here is her Christmas "she looks 16" photo:

As for Collin, he is now 9 and is thrilled to be a preteen. (I've been informed by Kylie and Collin that 9 - 12 is considered preteen.) He is already wanting a cell phone and a MySpace page, but we've managed to say no for now. He is super funny, very tenderhearted, and he's into electronics, gadgets and video games. His big Christmas gift was cash that he put with all his gift cards from this Christmas, his birthday, and last Christmas. (He's a saver not a spender.) With all of that he went and bought himself a desktop computer that is better than ours. He's so happy about it, and Tim's been in Collin's room daily playing his flight simulator game there because, "the video card is better". Luckily Collin truly doesn't mind sharing it and has never complained. He would be in 4th Grade and is doing great. Here is his Christmas "he looks SO much older" photo:

Tim is still a Business Analyst at Genworth, and he's really enjoying his job. It wasn't that fun on New Year's Day when he worked all day or had to get up all night every hour to check on the program that was running, but thankfully those kind of days are rare now. He's been a concert fiend this past year. He dragged me to ufest over the summer, which you can imagine how fun an outdoor concert in 115 degrees is for me. It's a big grouping of hard rock bands, which for me ended up being surprisingly fun after all because of the "interesting" hard rock fans that showed up. People watching at its best! Tim then went to see Joe Satriani without me, and the other night he saw Austrian Death Machine as well. I'm sure you can imagine why I didn't want to go to Austrian Death Machine. Death metal isn't my thing really, but according to Tim it was very entertaining and funny. Yes, I said funny. Go figure.

I'm still homeschooling the kids and staying busy. In November I went to see Kathy Griffin without Tim. (He didn't want to go.) After getting there I realized it was probably good Tim didn't go because he would've been one of maybe 2 straight guys there. Would've been funny for me though if he had. I'm also planning to coach volleyball again for Kylie's team. That and all our running around to all the activities we do keeps me very busy. I'm in charge of a book club here for older kids, and I also lead a novel writing group that Kylie does as part of her school. We do the monthly activities our home school group does and we also go to a weekly PE class that the kids love.

I'm still learning how to do this blog here, so I hope you'll endure as I get the hang of things. I also hope to take more day to day photos and include them in each month's post. Email me if you find me slacking or missing a month! Be sure to check back in the beginning of February for our January info. Also, I hope to have some house photos up soon as well. Happy New Year to everybody!