Since we're posting video

Now that we know how to post video to our blog we thought we'd share our favorite comedian - Brian Regan. Our whole family loves him. If you are looking for a video to buy go to his site www.brianregan.com and buy his I Walked on the Moon video. Your whole family will laugh.

The Beauty in Ugly

While we were in Tahoe we went and saw Jason Mraz in concert. Here is a video clip from the night we were there. This is a song he wrote for the show Ugly Betty, which we haven't seen but we love the song.

Been Away

Derek and Denise have been away on vacation and the kids have been at Grammy Bakers so that's the reason for no updated posts. The kids had a lot of fun hanging out with Grammy and Mandi. We're thankful that we have both families so close. It is nice for the kids to be able to spend time with grandparents, aunts , uncles, and cousins.

Derek and Denise had fun on their trip to Tahoe. We'll post pics as soon as we get them downloaded. We went with a few friends & Denise spent some time before the trip making goodie boxes for each of the cars going up. Megan at one point commented that she thought Denise liked putting together all the fun stuff more then the trip itself - there may be some truth to that. Each car had the following goodie box.

Inside the box was this cd complete with travel tunes to make the 8+ hour drive seem not so long. It was full of travel themed type songs.

The box also contained pajamas for everyone. Denise enjoyed working on the pj's but was especially thrilled with how her personalized ribbons turned out that were tied around the pajamas. She now wants to make ribbons for everything - hopefully she escape this phase quickly before she puts ribbons on everything.

Are you kidding me?!?!

Can this really be California? We are freezing! Denise was reading the paper this morning and saw an article titled..."The big chill descends on O.C. as mercury drops to 26 degrees" the article included a picture of a frozen fountain from someones yard. Denise decided to investigate our own fountain and sure enough the little birdies that frequent the fountain now have an ice skating rink. Since the ice looks just like water we have included a rock in the pictures so that you can see that is sits on top of the ice and doesn't sink to the bottom.

Signs of a successful marriage

We have hit a milestone in our marriage. We have now been married so many years that our wedding gifts are heading to small appliance heaven. This little toaster has seen us through our days as a newly married couple to our present situation as parents of four hungry kids that can never eat toast at the same time because the toaster is too small. We'll miss you little Toastmaster but Target here we come!

Happy New Year

Derek hauled beds downstairs so we could have a family slumber party for New Years Eve. It was a nice quiet night at home. Derek and Megan spent the earlier part of the evening at a youth fireside that Megan loved. She was glad that she went - it was a great experience. We spent the rest of the evening lounging around until midnight and then watched the ball drop in Times Square. Here's to a happy 2007!

RIP

We're reluctant to post these pictures because this was a fairly traumatic episode for our family but we'd like to keep this updated about our lives as much as we can. You may notice from some of our Christmas pictures that we have a hamster cage. Megan decided to buy the other kids a hamster for Christmas. She and Denise went out shopping for one and came home with an adorable little hamster. The kids were thrilled on Christmas morning when they saw little Hammy. To make a long and very tragic story short - Hammy died on the 27th. It was in the evening when Denise went to play with her and found her dead. Derek sat the family down and broke the news to the kids and the flood gates were opened. Derek headed to the backyard and dug Hammy a grave while Denise worked on the headstone. We held a brief, heartfelt funeral for little Hammy and buried her under one of our trees in the backyard. The kids cried themselves to sleep and a few of them woke up the next morning and continued to cry. We had to be in San Diego the next day for Denise's brothers wedding so we were glad that tears had been dried just a bit into the trip. Megan had a friend come along to help babysit while Derek and Denise were in the temple. Halfway through the trip a suggestion was made to Megan to quite talking about Harry Potter to her friend (she had been going on and on and on and on). Luke piped up with, "Why don't you tell her about our hamster." Thanks Luke! The tears began yet again. But all was well when we finally made it to the San Diego Temple.
Rest in piece Hammy - we miss you!

Congrats USC

The football teams from USC and Michigan were visiting Disneyland when we were there. Luke wanted to get autographs from the players and Nate wanted to get pictures so we hunted down some players. These guys were super nice and were happy to pose for some pictures and autographs. We're glad that USC won the game - Go Trojans!

A Very Mickey Christmas

Santa delivered Disneyland passes to us for Christmas so we headed off to "the happiest place on earth" the day after Chirstmas. We braved the crowds and had a fun day. The kids also got Disney Dollars in their stockings so Luke used his money to buy an autograph book. Emily already has an autograph book so the two of them had fun running around the park getting autographs from different Disney folks. Nate got a surprise while the kids were getting an autograph from Goofy. Goofy got up to hug the kids and Nate jumped in Goofy's seat. Goofy wasn't going to let Nate get away with it so he planted himself right on top of Nate. More autographs...
Denise loves this picture of Luke because it conveys how he is at Disneyland. He wants to go on the big rides with the big kids but he is still so scared of most rides. This was on the rocket ride at California Adventure. He is trying to smile and act like it is fun for him but his nervousness is showing through.

Merry Christmas!

The traditional Christmas morning picture taken before going downstairs to see what Santa brought.The Christmas morning disaster. It stayed this way for two days because we left for Denise's parents house soon after opening presents and didn't get home until late Christmas night and the day after Christmas we were at Disneyland.
I loved this picture of the mess with our All is Calm All is Bright sign in the background

Where's the glitter when you need it?

Luke had gotten some reindeer food from school to sprinkle on the ground on Christmas Eve but of course Denise put it away so it wouldn't be out cluttering the counter and we couldn't find it on Christmas Eve. Luckily, this is a tradition we have done for a few years and Denise is skilled in the fine art of reindeer cuisine. Oatmeal & cranberries were mixed up (we were out of glitter - which is essential so the reindeer can see the sparkle on the ground and know to come partake of the food) We hoped the reindeer would see the food even though we were out of glitter but just to be sure they would get something to eat we left some apples on the plate for Santa so the reindeer could eat those instead.

Don't ask about Megan's hat in the picture. It is a beautiful disco ball of a hat that she got at a friends Bat Mitzvah and we think she wears it just to make Denise crazy. We should have left the hat out with the reindeer food - there is no way the reindeer could have missed the moonlight reflecting off the hat and maybe they would have eaten it too!

Christmas Eve

The tradition of dressing up for the nativity lives on even though the number of young kids present at Grammy's has dwindled a bit. Next year some adults might need to get in to costume. We love Nate's angelic stance and face in the second picture - tell us you're not grinning looking at it?!?!
As always the kids had fun playing with cousins. Devon and Allie were here with their kids. It is always nice when the kids can play with cousins they don't see very often.