This Is Us

WOW! It's been crazy... With Nicolas going out of town so much, Melissa watching 7 kids, trying to buy a house, school, piano lessons, dance lessons, homework and practicing we haven't had much time to breathe. We are hoping to get to the blog more once we are in our new house (not sure when that will be) and in a routine of everything. The kids are getting big. Brichette is loving 3rd grade, Xander is loving 1st grade (although it's hard on him going all day), and Zain is almost 2. Nicolas has been made a Foreman at work. He likes it, and is great at it! Melissa is watching 3 more kids, so has a total of 7. She loves it most days... just not those days where NONE of the kids listen. We are hoping to get family pictures taken in a couple weeks, so watch for those pictures. We will be posting some pictures soon.

Here are the kid's new Easter outfits for this year.

We spent Saturday with Nick's family, because Colleen had to work on Sunday, and spent Sunday (after church) with Melissa's family. Saturday: We had a BBQ and egg hunts. It was so fun because we were all there (us 5, Lichelle , Brodie, Alysha , Cris, Renee', Kaleb, Allie, Ashton, Sofie, Mieshka , Matt, Jacob, and Alex[we missed you Matthew]). After we ate, Zain and Sofie had an egg hunt. Then the rest of the kids had an egg hunt. Then it was the adults turn (except Dieter and Colleen... they hid the eggs). They always put money in the adults eggs. Every year we get the most money, but this year Matt and Mieshka got .50 more than we did. :-D Sunday: We had a BBQ and egg hunts with a lot of Melissa's family at her parent's house. It was crazy as usual, but fun. There were lots of eggs to find and the kids really enjoyed it. They let the little ones ( Zain , Ryan, etc.) out first, then the older ones. That way the little ones had a chance to get some eggs. ...

So Zain decided that he is big enough to do everything the big kids do... including sliding down the banister.

So this years new toy for the family was a Trampoline. So far we have had so much fun on it, and can't wait for all the fun times to come.

So Xander decided that he wanted an Army theme birthday. We sent out Camouflage invitations, and played "army" games. When the children arrived they were given dog-tags with their name and ranking on it. It went by age so the younger children were Privates and went up to General (Melissa is very creative). The first game they played was Capture The Flag. They were separated out into two teams (with an even of older and younger/ boy and girl). They hid their flags, then had lots of fun finding them. The next game they played was Battle Ship. Melissa printed off battle ship pictures and made one giant board (with the help from Nicolas and their friend Juston). Once they sank a ship they all received a prize (so their were 5 ships and they all received 5 prizes). The last game they played was Captain Says. It's Simon Says, only you say Captain. :) Than we had Ice Cream and Cake and opened presents. Well we hope everyone who came had a great time. Thank you!

It is so hard to believe that our baby girl is 8. She is so beautiful, wonderful, special, amazing, smart, talented, caring, loving, happy, spirited. We are so happy to have her for a daughter. We waited for a long time to have her and am so happy she's here. We are so happy that she wanted to be baptized and is so excited about it. We are so grateful to have the gospel in our lives. It has helped us through lots of trials and helped us grow closer together as an ETERNAL FAMILY. This is just one step she has taken to grow her own testimony, and show everyone how important and wonderful the gospel is. We love you so much Brichette! XOXO!!! *When Brichette was blessed Melissa and Vera found red shoes for her to wear. So Melissa decided that since she wore red shoes then, she needed red shoes for her baptism. So Melissa, Vera, and Lorena hunted for red shoes. Melissa told Brichette that whether she likes it or not, she is wearing red shoes for her wedding. :-D

Yes, she is already 8. Like we said before... time sure flies. We decided that since her birthday was so close to her getting baptized that we would just do all of it on the same day. So we gave her the present from us and the kids before her party, as did Dieter and Colleen. That way she had some presents and didn't get so overwhelmed with them at her party. We had to send away for her present because the only store that had the Leapster Explorer in pink was Toys R Us and they were out of stock. So as soon as it got here we gave it to her. She has really enjoyed it. After she was baptized we had her birthday party. We had chili cheese hot dogs, which were really yummy! We played balloon games. Relay race with gum chewing contest Stop the balloons. They had to try to pop each other's balloons without getting theirs popped (the balloon was tied to their ankle). I hope she had fun! There were lots of family and friends there to celebrate with her. We love you so much! You are a...

Can you believe it? He turned one in November. Crazy how fast they grow up. Before we know it they will be coming home with our grandkids. :) We ordered his cake from Fresh Market so we could get a free little one for him to dig into. They did a great job on the cakes. He had a sports theme. We had the kids do a treasure hunt for prizes, then split it all up once they found the treasure bag. He loved opening the presents and playing the the tissue paper, wrapping paper, and bags. Since then he has enjoyed the toys and it was great to have new clothes for him. Thanks everyone!

On Saturday before we left we went to Huntington Beach. It was so cloudy and cold that Melissa decided not to get in so she could help keep the kids warm when they needed her to. Nice excuse huh?! LOL! The kids had so much fun... even Zain and Grandpa. Nicolas and Brichette went out a little further and gathered lots of shells. Which Zain even tasted, Yuck! Grandpa found some sea weed, and Zain loved the feel of it. After they were done playing, we stopped into a gift shop/food walk-up and bought some souvenirs and ate lunch. The food was very good!

On Friday we went to Universal Studios. Even though it's that far miles wise from Anaheim, it took us a good 3 hours to get there because of the traffic. It was chilly, but we still had lots of fun. We took the tour, and experienced the cool King Kong 360 degrees 3-D. It's on the tour, and is VERY cool! We watched the 4-D Shrek movie, which is also very cool, and went on the Mummy ride. We love that ride, it's such a rush. This year Brichette was tall enough to go on it... sadly Xander wasn't (which really disappointed him). We love the waiting room. Then those that wait with the kids, don't have to wait in line! It was really nice because you could actually get your picture taken with the characters (unlike a certain somewhere we went for three days and only got a picture with a couple of the characters). You didn't have to wait for them to get to their "spot" or have the line close right in front of you because it's time for them to take a break....

Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday we went to Disneyland. On Tuesday they had the Halloween celebration. They would close the park early (6:00 PM) and then you could come back in and participate in their Halloween celebration... for an extra $60.00 per person. Yeah... We didn't do that. That's ridiculous. Everywhere else it's included in your admission... you don't have to buy another ticket and come back in. Really dumb. So we decided that we didn't want to do the early morning on Tuesday and have to leave at 6:00 so we did it on Thursday so we could stay late also, and get a lot of time in one day. Thursday we got there about 7:00 (early entrance is from 7-8 AM). We were able to get in before they opened at 8:00 AM, so we could get autographs from a lot more characters and rode rides, and get some fast passes before the rush of people came. We got there before almost everyone and thought... oh great, we get to park on the lower levels of the parking structure... NO, ...

Tuesday we went to San Diego Zoo. It is a long drive, but doesn't seem that long because it's all Freeway, and not a lot of traffic. We got there in the early afternoon (about 9 or 10) and stayed till they closed. The kids had a lot of fun... they just love animals. We walked most of the way, but didn't feel up to walking back at close. So we rode the "sky ride" back to the entrance. They will only allow 4 people on a car, which includes babies. Yeah they wouldn't let Nicolas, Melissa, Brichette, Xander, and Zain all ride in one. So Melissa took the three kids and Nicolas rode with his parents and the stroller. Seems a little silly, but whatever.

We got into California late Saturday night. Got to our Hotel and ready to get into our beds, but when we try to check in they gave our rooms away that morning. They had us go to two different rooms next to each other, but not with a connecting door, for that night and will move us to two rooms tomorrow with a door that connects. They weren't even going to give us anything for them screwing up... giving our rooms away to those people because they paid them too, is what we think. Anyway we got into our rooms, settled down and went to sleep. Here are a couple pictures of the kids playing in the Hotel room: Sunday we packed all our stuff up again, left our luggage at the front desk then headed off to Sea World. It was so fun. They had little booths set up for the kids to Trick-Or-Treat at, and it was FREE (unlike Disneyland... they wanted an extra $50.00 per person for their Halloween at Disneyland), they had inflatable sea creatures in costumes. The kids could have worn their costumes...