3rd Annual Family Compound Thanksgiving

We have had such a wonderful Thanksgiving break. There are so many things to be thankful for but mostly for being able to have so many family and friends around to help celebrate. On Thanksgiving we held our Annual Family Compound Thanksgiving and some how managed to increase the number of people from last year's 20 to 30 this year. And amazingly enough we were missing to very special people this year, my cousin Tyler who is away at college for the first year and good old Uncle Jon, who also is away at college. We missed you both!!

It was a beautiful day here and we had awesome food prepared by all who came. Because we were all having such a great time we didn't get many pictures. But here are a few to give you a feel of our Thanksgiving feast.

Enjoying a break from cooking


Rainbow Jello

Jamie's Norman Rockwell Turkey

The Boys Cooking


The Fest!

Then on Friday we decide to start a new tradition in our family. Remember our 12 dollar, 125lb pumpkin we bought for Halloween. Well with the Christmas decorations making their way out we need to say good bye to the pumpkin. We knew our goats would enjoy munching on it but how to get it down the hill to their pen?! For those who have been to our house they know the "hill" we are taking about, vertical straight drop. And thus we began:

The Annual Pumpkin RollThe kids helping Matt push it across the flat part of the driveway

Serafina's turn to push by herself.

Sam's turn to push by himself. This was the push that sent it down the hill.


And the pumpkin takes flight.

The pumpkin decides to go off roading.
(note my dad's car in the trees, yeah next year we will make sure no cars are parked at the bottom of the hill. At this point we realize Matt's and my car were down there too!! Luckily the cars were spared!)


The pumpkin in its final resting place. It hit a rock when it went off road which split it open. It also ran into our shed busting one side of the door. The thunk sound it made was wonderful, and luckily Matt managed to fix the door!

Matt moving it into the goat pen. It was still heavy even with part of it missing!

We are looking forward to next years pumpkin roll and learned a few lessons with this first one!! I am also hoping that Trevor and Jen decide to bring their big pumpkin over for use to roll down the goats. That way we can get a pumpkin roll on video!! YouTube baby!

Oh deer...

No that is not a typo in my title.

It was bound to happen.

We live on a country road, between hills, with lots of wild animals.

Turkeys, foxes, deer, etc.

It was dark..no street lights....


Then there were a pair of eyes...right in front of my car...deer eyes.


I couldn't swerve in either directions....I did hit the breaks, trying to slow and give the deer some time.

But the deer was frozen by my headlights....

We hit it.

My mom and I were in the car, it was a big thug we didn't know what to do but the car was still driving and we were just a few feet from our road. So we headed home. Matt said we did the right thing.

The next morning we looked at the damage done to the car and found this:

Dent in the hold and the silver panel thing broken and lose.

And the bumper was out of whack too.

I assumed this was going to cost a pretty penny to fix, and with the headlight out and that silver piece flapping every time we went anywhere it was not an option to just leave it ugly for awhile. Oh and the poor deer did die, he was on the side of the road the next morning. He was young had about 2inches of antlers starting to grow. We were thankful he was not a full grown deer and that we were not in my dad's mustang.


The story doesn't end here.

Yesterday (2 days before Thanksgiving, our one day with no kids) we stop by an auto body shop to get a rough estimate. Basically will it be more than $500.00 because if it is we will turn it into insurance. Well duh, it is going to cost more that $500.

As the man was looking at the car, he turns to me and says "And the car is driving fine?"

To which I hesitate and say "Yes it has been."

Why would he ask that, what does he see?!?

My mom and me drive off home (in my car) to call the insurance company and get the ball rolling. We are about 3 miles from home when all the electrical in my car shuts off. Ok weird. But we can make it home. About 2 miles from home at the corner of Corbett Canyon and 227 (for those of you who live around here) The engine cuts off and seconds later as I am trying to coast us to a safe spot, the steering locks. Yes locks. Poor mom we were headed straight for a small ditch and she had no clue I still had breaks (Thank the Lord) So she was freaking and I was freaking for other reasons. But we managed to stop the car in a somewhat safe spot.

Then we had to call AAA for a tow.

Called Betsy and Karlee for a ride home.

Come to find out my alternator was shot.

The repair my said it could have been the deer, but they cant say exactly.

I am blaming the deer.

That has been our Thanksgiving week excitement. Oh and the best part of AAA was when the guy ask for landmarks around me or weather I was in a residential area or business. I had to laugh and answer him, "I am staring at hills, cows and horse!!" Yeah for living in a small rural town right!

Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving

90% Sure

It's a BOY!!!!


Can you believe it. I can.

Try as hard as I might I was trying to hide the fact that I was breaking out like a mad women (which I did with Matteo and didn't with Serafina), peeing every five minutes weather I drank any liquid or not (which I did with Matteo and didn't with Serafina), and the fact that every time I insisted it was a girl something inside of me said no its a boy.

My OB would only give a 90% answer because I am still on the early side for determining gender (16wk) and the baby is in a breech position which can make it a little difficult. However with Serafina he gave us a 75% girl call at 16wks and well he was right. He does check one more time to make sure there are not surprises. But his accuracy right is pretty high.

So there you have it, intelligender was wrong. That is now 2 people (myself and a friend) who have had false results (her said boy and it was a girl). So sad.

I am very excited. I think Matteo will be an awesome big brother to a boy. And well it gives us a good excuse to try for one more!!

Oh and the baby is doing great also. Everything looks great. After the appointment I went and did the huge 2nd trimester blood draw (filling 5 vials of blood) to check all mine and babies levels and stuff. Everything is just moving right along.

As for names we are now saying anything right now because we really haven't talked much about boys name. Wehave one in mind but not officially decided, so you might find out before he is born or you might not just depends on if we keep thinking or not. Once we make a decision we are normally not good at keeping it a secret.

(Oh and for those who are wondering my mother-in-law is still invited to Thanksgiving)

Bathing Beauty

Serafina has been loving bubble baths lately. We fill the tub to the brim and she floats around. The other night I walked into and all I could see was her face. It cracked me up so I had to take a picture and share.

Four

Has it sunk into to anyone else out there that I am going to have four children. Three seemed normal, it seems like the average family at our church has three, no one looks at you funny for having three. I thought four was still pretty normal also, you know like on a bell curve you are approaching abnormal but are still with in range. Once you got up to five or more that's when people start looking at you asking if you are done but the more I think about and tell people this is number four it seems to be a pretty big leap. I mean lets really think about this:

1. We will no longer fit in a four door sedan car or smaller. We are destine to drive an SUV, minivan, full size van or bus. And don't think about leaving that 3rd row of seats at home because you actually have to use it, no huge trunk space for you.

2. Can someone explain school drop off to me? How do you, in a timely manner (under 30min) get your 2nd grader to class and picked up when you have to unbuckle (from car seats) your 4yr and 2yr old and now infant and then walk on to campus? Do you stop carrying the 2yr now so he will walk when the baby comes. If so that will be a long walk?!? I am starting to see why many large families home school.

3. Laundry - lets not talk about that one....I think it has been 2wk or more since I washed the kids sheets and we are going to add a fourth bed?!?

4. What if it is a boy, that is 3 boys. Did you hear that 3 boys. My mother-in-law bless her heart believes it is a boy, if she is right, we might dis-invite her to thanksgiving. We only want positive girl vibes and she is messing up the feng shway(sp?) of it all. Three boys, heart be still.

5. Can you imagine flying somewhere? SIX plane tickets. You are talking a small loan to fly somewhere. Not to mention flying with 2 adults and 4 children, that is a 2:1 ratio, 3:1 if someone has to go to the bathroom. Sorry to any relatives that live further then a car drive, it might be awhile until we come and visit.

6. Do people still invite you over for dinner when they find out you have 4 children?

7. What do you pay your babysitter? A small house payment?

Just some food for thought. Four. To be honest I am really so excited. I can't wait to have a tiny baby around the house again. And all my thoughts will be for nothing as soon as little nut is here because I know God has a plan and it all works out.

By the way the countdown has started: t-minus 7 days until we find out what sex little nut is. And please don't get me wrong, we will love it boy or girl. But 3 boys?!?!

CHOO - CHOO Matteo is TWO!!

My little guy is turning 2!! Tomorrow is the official day but spent last week celebrating train style. For those who don't know Matteo is obsessed with trains. He will spend hours playing trains, reading about trains and watching train movies. But don't let it be a Thomas the Train movie, oh no he likes the movies with REAL trains in them. He is a crazy dude. We celebrated on saturday by taking La Condessa, a private rail car operated by the Santa Maria Valley Railroad on a little trip through the Santa Maria, Gaudalpe area. Matteo was in heaven and spent pretty much the entire time out on the deck wathing the rails and how everything worked. One of the best things about it was we had the opertunity to pick up frieght along the way so Matteo and all the kids got to watch the train couple up witht he frieght. What a day. For more picture of the day click here. My dad did a great job and finding the best pictures! I jsut uploaded a couple family shots.





So in order to truly ring in his birthday we start the week off with an Amtrak train ride to Santa Barbara. We went last Monday to avoid crowds and had the time of our lives. Matteo adored the train with his favorite part being the doors that went between the two cars. We spend most of our time walking between cars and he would belly laugh every time. Once in Santa Barbara we head off to the Zoo and of course rode the train there, the highlight of the zoo trip!! The following are pictures from that day:

Papa let Serafina have desert after breakfast on the train!


Waiting for the train.

Matteo made sure he read up on the Train and the Saftey info.

On a walk.

This bird was really cool, we got so close and it never flew away! The kids were not to sure.

Another train!

Serafina doing a happy dance at the end of the day (past her bed time!!)

Well I can't belive it my baby is two. And soon there will be a new baby in the family. They all grow up so fast. Happy Birthday Little Man, we love you so much!!

Halloween

Another great Halloween has come and gone! The kids had a blast and for the first year we actually went door to door!! Our good friends the Long's (the cousins, if you recall from the ear piercing) invited us down to their neighbor to trick-or-treat. The kids had a great time. There was about 8 kids in our group and they they loved running up and down to every house. Their neighbor was great fun as many of the house went all out on decorating and the adults passing out candy were even dressed up and acting their parts, it was great. Before that we did the traditional village trick-or-treating and of course New Life's Fall Festival.

The funnest thing was both big kids wanted to put on their costumes at 7:30am, I decided it was a battle not worth fighting and they wore the costumes from 7:30am until 9pm!! Starbucks loved it as did the gym!

Serafina waiting for her brothers to come so we can get pictures!




The clan: A dog, Batman, and a ladybug. I was told that lady bugs like to sit on plant so she had to sit on the pumpkin.



Matteo even got into trick-or-treating. He walked around with his bag open.

Daddy, Sam and Serafina and the start of the haunted house!