Ghosts for Christmas?

So the other day we drove by this house that had just been toilet papered and so I said to Lainey, "Look at that house" and she says to me, "They have ghosts in their trees!" Later that day when we drove back by the house she says to me, "Where did the ghosts go? They took them down."

Malia's haircut...

So I realized that the writing on Malia's haircut page isn't the easiest to read...so here is what it says:
Dear SANTA,
Please bring me a new haircut to fix the one that my big sister gave me! love, malia
p.s. the sooner the better anddon’t bring my sister any presents!

Dear Malia,
Go see teacher Kris from church and she will help you out! Be a good girl and keep the scissors away from your sister! love, SANTA

Malia's haircut on Wednesday was not a planned one, it came courtesy of her sister who decided to try and cut it while I was wrestling down my 1 year old nephew who was putting toilet paper and toys down the toilet. And by the time I discovered Malia, Lainey had fled the scene and left the scissors in Malia's hands...I stayed so calm (thank you Love and Logic) took Malia to her room and then when I began to talk with her she says to me, "Lainey did it first".

We are so thankful to have our good hairstylist friend Kris who is the girls nursery teacher who came to our rescue!

Even though I wasn't too happy with Lainey, I love Malia's new haircut and I think it looks so cute on her!

Hope you are all well...this week has definitely been a lot slower than the last! Thank goodness.

To see pictures bigger...

Some of you may not be aware but if you click on the pictures they will come up bigger, just thought I would share that piece of info, in case you want to see any of my pictures better, or read what is written on the page.

A Very BUSY Week

So here is a quick update of our past week via photos....we were all so exhuasted by the time Sunday came around that everyone took NAPS at the same time, including the parents! That has never happened before!

MONDAY - went to see lights with friends for FHE

TUESDAY - made gingerbread houses

WEDNESDAY - Malia got a haircut

Friday - Helped at our old ward's Christmas party that my parents and sisters were in charge of

SATURDAY - Our ward's Christmas Party that I was in charge of...A Night in Zarahemla, lots of work, fun, and I must say it was an AWESOME night but boy am I glad it is over!

It's here!

I just heard the rain and had to let the dog into the garage. We have been hearing all week now that a huge storm is coming, I wonder if it will really live up to everything they say it's going to be. They were certainly right about the waves on Wednesday.

A huge swell came in on Wednesday and we went to the beach with about half the town, to watch the waves. We even got to see a lifeguard jump off the pier to save some "brave" or should we say "stupid" soul who thought it would be fun to try and surf in it. It was pretty cool to see the waves come one right after another and to see them so big. Apparently my brother in law even tried to brave them in an area where the surf is generally milder and "saw his life flash before him" or at least that is what I was told. Most of the pier was closed off and the waves literally were hitting the top of the pier. I have never seen them that high that I can remember. Here is a photo from that day, I need to get my mom's pictures as her's are much better. Along with all the people at the beach there were also several news stations and helicopters hoovering over the beach that morning.

She did it!

Today Lyndie took 4 steps all on her own! And I even have a witness. We were at school today and she was standing by me and I just had this feeling that she was going to do it, and very quietly I whispered to my sister, "Chels watch" and she took 4 steps before her wobbly little legs gave out on her! I am not sure I am ready for three runners, he already crawls fast enough!

I survived!

Today I watched my friend's two kids who are 3 and 1 along with my own 3! Talk about busy! I even took all 5 of them to our parent/child preschool class we go to, there was a substitute today and when I walked in she looked at me with this crazy, perplexed look on her face and said, "Are they all yours?" It was a great moment. I should have just humored the poor lady and said, "Why of course!" She was a very cool sub and brought her guitar to play while we sang. It inspired me to get mine out and call up my old neighbor and see if she could teach me to play it, I almost made the call tonight even but thought it might be too late. I don't need to know how to do anything fancy, just strum a few chords so we can sing Ensey Weensy Spider, Wheels on the Bus, BINGO, etc...together! My kids would love it! Besides it would help me sound better when I sang! Back to the 5 children they were all so good that I can't complain. They came at 6:30am and I had them until 2pm. Their mom got to go to a taping of the Ellen Show and it was one of the 12 days of Christmas Giveaway Days....lucky her, she got $1200 worth of new clothes! We played on the trampoline, went to the park after school and did no housework! Which is why I am still up! But Lainey only had one very "little" meltdown today so I am happy!

This is a picture of Maggie, the one year old, feeding Lyndie, it was so cute to watch her sharing cheerios with her. Lyndie was in heaven, although she did have a bit of a confused look on her face when she saw someone else in her chair!

Doesn't Santa come to your house on the first too?

Conversation between Justin and I the other night regarding the girls and Christmas:

Me: Well here are the things we have for the girls, that we've picked up over the year as well as the stuff you got from Shelley (a woman he was working for that gave us bags full of things that her 3 girls had outgrown)

Justin: Okay, but I really want to get the girls a trampoline.

Me: A trampoline? (with a shocked look on my face since I know there is no money for a trampoline) Uh...we don't have money for a trampoline.

Justin: Well, let's just look on craigs list, I have seen them for free.

Me: Free? Are you sure? I don't believe you, but I'll look.

At which point I get on the computer and look, and did actually see some that were free, somewhat shocked. I email about 8 people not really expecting any responses, since all the posts were over a week old and I got no responses.

But a few days later I decide to look again and a post has just been added, call after 3:30pm it says. And guess what? I was the lucky first caller!!!!

So Santa made an early stop at our house since it was just way too heavy for his sleigh, i.e. Daddy's work truck and Daddy even saw his sleigh fly over our house or at least that's what he told the girls when we were out on Saturday afternoon.

Santa left a Santa stuffed toy of himself as well as a note right inside our front door and the girls were so excited to find it. They ran all over the house looking for the "thing" he had left him and finally Lainey spotted it in the backyard. We have had so much fun on it already. Lyndie even loves to go on it with us. We've had another warm streak which makes it nice to be outside on it but they say the rain is coming this weekend which I don't mind as it come so infrequently here and the girls are at that perfect age to go for walks in the rain.

Last time it rained Lainey decided to ride her bike in the rain, I think she was a little surprised when I told her to go ahead and play in it...

Doesn't she look so grown up in this picture? Somedays I can't believe that I have an almost 4 year old...where do my days and weeks and months go? And she is such a determined child!!!We are having really serious clothes issues these days....definitely another post!

My luck doesn't stop with the trampoline, on Sunday I got an email saying that I had won the free certificate to a Love and Logic parenting seminar that I really wanted to attend that was being given away. I was so excited! And then last night I talked to the man that is presenting the seminar and he said we don't even have to pay the difference so that Justin can come too!

Lyndie has just about got the whole walking thing down! She stands on her own now and holds onto furniture and gets wherever she wants to be.

Malia has been honing in on her mothering skills lately, oh how she loves her baby dolls. I love to watch her play with them. The other night she got out one of Lyndie's bottles for them and some of Lyndie's food, at least she said it was for her babies...I think she ate it instead. My poor daughter thinks that every store is a thrift store....does that tell you where we spend our time and buy things at....the other day when we were there she found a baby and a stroller and proceed to push it around the whole store trying to convince me that that she needed them. When I told her we already had a stroller and baby at home she said to me, "But not this color stroller and not this baby."

I have stayed up much later than I planned...I need to get to sleep before my sleeping baby wakes me up!

Good old summer days...

oh wait, it's November isn't it? Today at 8am I heard that it was already 77 degrees outside so we decided a trip to the pool was definitely in order. My sister has a membership to this pool and we feel like it is "our" pool as there is never anyone else there, it's great! We had so much fun, it sure is nice to have everyone feeling better! The 2 big girls are finally over their colds, Lyndie's bladder infection cleared right up with the right medicine however just as she was finishing her medicine another fever came on, we thought it was back but after a few days and a nice little rash and a few more trips to the doctor we discovered she now had roseola. She is back to her normal little self, which means she is finally sleeping again, and is trying desperately to stand without holding onto things! Hope you are all enjoying your fall and that you are not freezing!!! We sure aren't.

We are still here...

in case anyone ever happens to look at this page, we are ALIVE, just been away and busy for the last few weeks. And I should be in bed but I am up...we had an eventful week in Utah for Justin's sister's wedding and enjoyed being with family although I think that we have sworn off traveling forever...or at least a few years or at least until we forget what it was like to be in the car with the kids for hours on end!
On the way to the wedding we spent a day in Zion, we had fun looking around and exploring, although Malia was quite certain that the ram we saw on the hillside was going to come after her...it didn't help that Daddy was making rustling noises with the bushes!

Wedding photos...it was so cold we didn't get any pictures outside with our camera and then I was so busy at the reception I forgot to get any pictures of the kids with the bride and groom...thay's how it goes sometimes!

A few halloween photos...we went for the family theme again this year!

More exciting photos to come!

You better not be...

NAUGHTY at our house!

Notice the nice shiner on Justin's eye...really he wasn't being naughty, he was actually being really good! He was helping the young men with a service project at the church. They were cutting off the bottoms of the doors that were draging on the carpet and were carrying the door back in and the arm on the door hit him in the eye when his "helper" shifted the door! We're just grateful that it didn't get any closer to his eye. It's been a week now and it looks much better, it sure did make for a good story whenever anyone saw it!

Pump It Up Fun!

For family night last night we got to go to our friends Jimmy and Maggie's B-day party. We all had lots of fun and Malia learned to climb the stairs of the Jolly Jump slide! Lainey enjoyed posing for the camera! And even Lyndie went down a few times.

Thrift Store Finds

Oh how we love our thrift stores! Last week when we went to the thrift store Lainey spotted these butterfly wings all on her own! She was so proud of herself and can't wait to wear them for halloween, she practices almost everyday! Take a look at the oh so cute pink boots, that I almost bought her at Target for $12.99 two days before when they were on sale, thrift store price, $2.99, and it's obvious they were never worn!

Recycled Halloween Costumes

This was Lainey's costume a few years ago and I loved it so much I convinced my girls that we ought to be bugs this year so that Malia could wear the costume. She is so excited to be a lady bug...we are still debating what bug the baby will be...there is this cool costume exchange here this weekend and I am hoping I can find her a bee or a spider costume. Malia has become quite the little mother these days, her baby accompanies her everywhere and she just made a bed for her on the floor with about 4 blankets and came to me and said, "shh, my baby sleeping."

Look at me now!

My baby is growing up way too fast! She pulled herself up to this chair all by herself!

Opening day...

of LOBSTER SEASON, so Justin ventured out into the chilly sea to search for Lobsters with the young men from church. We were grateful he didn't spend the outrageous amount to buy a fishing license since there were no LOBSTERS to be seen! He says it was fun even if he did get a big knot in his leg and it was COLD!

All grown up...

So my littlest one has had lots of changes this past month, she has completely mastered crawling, and now thinks she should be onto bigger and better things like pulling herself up and ejecting her sister's videos out of the vcr, she has acquired a little pig squeal that she uses whenever she wants to eat and the food is not getting to her quick enough...it is great when I am trying to feed her in public places, she finally moved into her own room in a crib, and is no longer able to eat at all hours of the night, speaking of eating she loves baby cereal, fruits, and vegetables, she has also discovered how to annoy her sisters by taking their toys from them, she can sit and gets herself from a sitting to crawling position in nothing flat, and she waves at everyone she sees! She is an absolute delight and I love to just watch her smile and listen to her laugh!

Out of the mouth of babes...

As we were driving home tonight, we were at a stoplight and we noticed the family next to us roll down their window, and the teenage daughters who were in the back looked over into our car at which point Lainey says, "They're looking at us cause we're so cute." And I have to admit they are cute kids! Even when my two year old pees on the floor at the store today....which is a whole other story!

I wish that I could get a picture of all three of them together but these days it is not happening!

Crawling Machine

So Lyndie has just about mastered crawling, she has the army crawl down and is working on her other crawl. If there is paper in sight she goes, she is especially fond of The Children's Friend magazine, which Malia takes from her and then reads to her. It is really cute to watch them interact. I can't believe how big Lyndie has gotten.

Taco Dancing

The other day I turned on one of my favorite music groups, The Gipsy Kings, and Lainey said to me, "Mom it's taco dancing music" and then she started flamenco dancing...at least what she remembered of the flamenco dancer that she saw at my spanish class. Of course when I tried to recreate it she made up all sorts of other names for her dancing.

Beached Whale

So the other day a blue whale, estimated to be over 100,000 pounds and 78 feet long decided to make it's final resting place on the shores of the beach just north of our town. After seeing it in the paper this morning we decided to make the trek north along with the rest of our city's inhabitants. Even though it was a bit difficult to determine what was the head and what was the tail, it was quite impressive to see something so large! I learned from reading the paper this morning that the blue whale is the world's largest animal and to think I got to see one! Pretty cool! Unless you were standing south of the large creature and caught it's smell!

After our whale watching expedition we decided to do a little service and stopped to help with the coastal clean-up. Apparently it is a national event on the third Saturday of September. Our Bishop was manning the booth along the highway near the whale so we stopped and we all picked up trash...I got the fun job of recording all of the items that we picked up! We learned a few things from the things we found!

NOTE to SELF...and all other parents of little children.

Surely this sweet innocent face couldn't cause any trouble...stamps and stamp pads should be completely harmless, especially while I was trying to clean the garage and was only a few feet away....
unfotunately it was a few too many feet away as this is what she did, harmless you say...well if it had only ended up on this one paper.

But when she was out of space on that paper she walked through the house searching for more....and then she realized she had made footprints all over and that she better clean them up before mom found her and she headed to the bathroom to get a washcloth!

This is what the foot looks like after a long scrub and soak in the bath, so you can imagine what the new hardwood floors look like! Any ideas? It is good that PURPLE happens to be one of her favorite colors.

So my note to self is, never, ever leave children with pens, markers, stamp pads, etc. that are not washable, ironic thing is that I was in the garage putting nonwashable markers in a sack to give to one of my high school teacher friends as I didn't want my kids to use them!

Another note to self, don't leave two year olds who are wearing underware near a pile of books while you are blogging!

Does it get any better this?

They really do look like Mom!

I am happy to report that my children really do look like me...well according to this site! Everyone always says they look just like Justin!

Lainey

Malia

Lyndie

Put them to work!

We have children so we can put them to work, right? The other night I went to the grocery store and I called home before I left and asked Justin to get the corn ready to put on the stove when I got home and when I got home I found that he had recruited help! Little kids really are so much more capable of helping then we sometimes realize. The other day Lainey just started emptying the dishwasher all on her own...I was a bit shocked!

CINDERELLA comes in all shapes and sizes!

We just couldn't pass up this little Cindrella dress that we found at the thrift store yesterday.

When she saw herself in the mirror she just started smiling and giggling, it was so cute!

Getting all three of them to sit still and look at the camera was so hard!

All Better

After an exhausting night of sleep...isn't sleep suppose to be restful? Well ours wasn't last night, all three girls wet their beds, one had a fever, another was teething and had gas, and after two hours in the hospital today, Malia's cast is finally off I am feeling a bit worn down! But the doctor said her finger looks great and you wouldn't even know it had been broken if you looked at the new x-rays. We took this picture of Malia yesterday before the cast came off today with the stool in the background that is the "culprit" behind the purple cast. Justin was also able to talk to the owner yesterday who was very upset that his employees had not told him what had happened and he told us the stool is gone and will not be back. I've got laundry to fold so I am off!

On hold....

While the blog has been put on hold for the last month, life has not been on hold....we have traveled from one adventure to the next. It all began with a trip to the emergency room.

EMERGENCY ROOM
While at a restaurant Malia decided to see how well the bar stool with the tractor seat attached to the top would stand up. She wasn't even trying to climb it, she was just pushing the seat that was on a swivel and down it came right onto her finger. I have never heard one of my little ones cry like that before. They confirmed at the emergency room that her finger was fractured along a growth plate and that we needed to go an orthopedic specialists. I wasted several hours the next day at our family doctor and in an orthopedic office only to find out because of our insurance I needed to see a doctor at the county hospital. The pediatric orthopedic doctor would not be in for another week so we waited and finally a week later she was donning a beautiful purple cast! Her best line in all of this was right after she got her cast on as we were getting ready to go into a store she said, "Mom can I take my cast in?" She is always asking if she can take her blanket or doll into the store with us, I guess she thought she better ask about her cast as well. The cast has not slowed her down one bit!

VENTURA COUNTY FAIR

The girls and I took a trip to the fair on the opening day with a friend and my sister Keely. Most of the time was spent at the rides or near the animals. They had this cool little kids art place under a tent with paper, markers and easels for little kids to draw. The girls loved it and came home with several masterpieces. There was even a man there giving drawing lessons. We made a quick trip into the commercial building so that we could buy some little doughnuts. Lainey loved the horses and would have loved to have sat and watched the people ride them, she kept asking, "Mom when I get big can I ride horses?"

STEAM ROLLER

Lyndie has become our little steam roller, she rolls all over the place these days and has even begun to pull herself forward. I frequently come into the room and find her in a completely different part of the room. She even rolled herself off the bed one night, good thing that Justin likes to sleep with lots of pillows and they were on the floor to brace her fall! She has become very animated these days and loves to make noise, smile, and laugh. It always gets me when her sister's are on top of her, nearly smashing her and she just laughs and smiles at them. She has recently begun to eat rice cereal and loves to try and grab the spoon when she is eating.

ANNUAL BASTOW FAMILY REUNION

We were lucky enough to be able to attend Justin's mom's family reunion two years in a row, last year in Twin Falls, ID and this year as it was held in Newport Beach/Costa Mesa, CA. It was great not having to travel so far. Most of Justin's siblings were his Grandparents a few aunts, uncles and cousins. His cousin who lives there has this great pool with a waterfall and a slide. With a bag over her arm even Malia got to go down the slide. We also spent a day at Crystal Cove, this neat little beach that has houses you can rent. I would love to be able to rent one someday. The cool thing is that the average person like me could afford one, if, you can get a reservation to stay there.

FULL HOUSE

Between the reunion and the visit from the Brown's we held our first indoor party at our new house. We had family over for Lyndie's blessing as well as Malia's birthday but this was the first time that everything was held indoors. With some friends from church I hosted a baby shower, it was fun to have so many people in our home and to see that they could all fit. I lost count after about 25 adults and 6 kids!

BROWNS TAKEOVER
We were lucky enough to have Justin's family come and visit for a few days after the reunion. Aleen, Darren, Quentin, Jeff, Shelley, Melissa, and her fiance, Joshua all stayed for a few days. The girls loved having so many adults to pay attention to them and with the help of aunts and uncles improved their gymnastic skills! Justin and Darren got to spend their birthdays together and we all enjoyed their birthday pies!

OVERCOME with ANTS
Has anyone else had this problem? I actually even dreamed about them one night. The ants have taken hold and are not letting up. Some days I just throw my hands up them and say, "you win"! Anyone have any good solutions for getting rid of them?

PARK DAYS, POOL PLAY AND THEN SOME...
I think that this summer has been one of the sunniest and warmest that I can remember...not that it isn't always paradise here, but it has seemed warmer and sunnier than other summers. We've enjoyed weekly trips to the pool Christal belongs to as well as our weekly park group. It's hard for me to believe that our park group has been in existence for over 3 years now, actually I think it is more like 4 but I started going right before Lainey was born. One of the funnest things we did this summer was go pick blueberries at a local farm. I discovered that I really do LIKE blueberries and I think it will have to be a yearly tradition. The next best thing to eating the yummy berries was watching my kids and nieces and nephew play in the mud while all the other parents steered their kids way far away from the mud pile!

ALL SUMMERED OUT
Lainey has recently been asking if it is time to go to school again...I guess she is ready for summer to end, I'm not!

Melissa's annoucements

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