Family Portrait

Andrew drew us this family portrait a few days ago. In case you're having a hard time figuring out who's who, the order is: Andrew, Gabe, Cheri, Keira, and then Yellow Bear... because, of course, she's part of the family.

Saturday was haircut day. Here are the results:

I'm not sure who's the most difficult customer... the feisty 1-yr-0ld (only bangs), the squirmy 3-yr-old, or the 30-yr-old with enough hair to gag a camel.
They all actually did a good job on Saturday. I'm proud of them all. :)

Josh and Andrew's Q&A

Josh and Zach came over for Friday Fun Day yesterday and all 4 kids sat down for lunch. Out of the blue, Josh asked, “Aunt Cheri, where are your babies?” I told him they were in heaven. When he asked why, I told him because they died. He then asked, “Will you get another baby?” Andrew then jumped in and said, “Oh yes! We’ll have more babies.” Josh asked Andrew, “you will?” and Andrew said, “yeah, yeah, yeah. Don’t worry. We’ll have more babies.”

It sounds like Andrew knows something that the rest of us don’t.

New Andrew Sayings

Here’s a couple new Andrew-isms:

“I hope Keira goes to heaven ‘cuz that’s where I’m gonna be.”

"Jesus is God's nickname."

We were reading the 10 commandments and we were talking about loving your husband or wife. I asked him who my husband was. He said he didn’t know so I gave him some clues. “He’s tall with brown hair and eyes my color and he wears really big shoes.” Andrew paused and then said, “Papa?” *Ahem* I went on. “He takes his laptop and Bible to church to go to work every day.” Andrew’s guess this time was, “Gram-Gram?” Wow… Finally, after a few more descriptions, he guessed “Daddy?” and then laughed and said, “That was a pretty tricky question.”

Thanks Nonnie and Papa!

Andrew and Keira were very excited to receive a special package in the mail today with very familiar items. They were so excited to have their sunglasses back, they are wearing them right now as they watch Curious George!

Fire!

There was a fire at the park next to our house the other day. Bad news: Two kids set fire to a couple trash cans. Good news: We had firefighters on our street!

We all (Gabe, his parents, the kids, and I) walked over to watch the firemen. (There were no firewomen. Andrew told me the firewomen were back at the station.) After they were done putting out the fire, cleaning up, and changing out of their fire garb, they came over and gave Andrew and Keira each a "junior firefighter" badge. The kids were SO excited. It seemed that that was just what Keira was waiting for and she happily ran home as soon as she got her sticker. Andrew wanted to hang out a little longer so he and I sat and continued to watch the firemen clean up. He asked me tons of questions and then informed me that he wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up. He asked me what he needed to do to be a firefighter and I really didn't know the answer. Andrew said he should probably ask a fireman.

Andrew is never brave enough to talk to strangers like that so I wanted to encourage him to do it. We walked over and I ended up being the one to ask and this was their response: "Well, you have to go to school, go to college, not get in trouble with the police, and eat lots of vegetables." Ha! After that, they let Andrew climb up into the truck and take a look around, which was stinkin' awesome! Then, we went back to our front yard and watched them back up and then drive past us. As they did, Andrew waved, and they turned on their sirens- just for him!!!

I have to admit that I thought it was just as cool- if not cooler- than Andrew did.

Somersaults

Our little gymnasts

Christmas (in july) Card

Can't we all just get along?
May this Christmas season bring you peace.
The Barber Thugs

The Fruit of the Spirit

The kids and I have been doing a long-term project involving the fruit of the Spirit talked about in Galatians in the Bible. Allie got us started on it several weeks ago. It's been a great project so I'll explain how we did it for all of you moms out there who want to give it a shot. There are 9 fruit"s" so each day that we worked on it, we discussed one of them. Then, I drew and cut out a fruit with the spiritual fruit written on it. For example, here is our apple of gentleness. They either colored them with crayons or painted them with water color and then...

they taped them onto the tree.

The tree was cut out from a big piece of cardboard and then the kids used finger paint and their entire bodies (what a mess that was!) to paint it for us.

They are very proud of their finished work.

We also made up a little song to go with the Bible verse. Here is Andrew singing it and the words below (to the tune of twinkle twinkle):

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, and let's see...
faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.
Against such there is no law to hold.
Galatians 5:22 and 23.
If you want to see my fruit, just look at my tree.

Each day that we did a project, we'd try to note throughout the rest of the day when someone was doing a good job with that attribute. We still refer to kiwi-kindness fairly often. We've really had a good time with this. I'd love to hear if any of the rest of you try it out.

Jewlery by Andrew

Andrew spent some time this afternoon making us rings and bracelets.

This is a random pic from last nite. I just thought it was cute enuf to share. :)

Today we spent the entire morning at Little Corona. I've never been to that beach, but it's beatiful and has little waves for the kiddos. We had a great time with Allie and her boys. I'm ready to go again! Sorry for the lack of pics, but life was very sandy there.

First Words

Keira has been learning a few new words lately. I'm sure I'm leaving out a few, but here is her vocabulary list to date: mama, daddy, buh-buh (big brother), amen, trash, george, this, more, yes, yum, wow, bubble.

I'm editing this just a few hours later because Keira just started saying, "shoes"... so cute!

It's so funny to write the list. When she says each of these words, it's so much cuter than just reading them.

Fun Kids

There's nothing really special about this video, but after watching a bunch of old video clips on the blog last night, I want to start posting more. They're so fun to go back and enjoy. So, enjoy a little clip of nothing out of the ordinary!

Lions and Tigers

Andrew has been learning lately about wild animals and what they eat, where they sleep, etc.He and I were just playing a game. He gave me a lion so I was pretending to be a lion. He had a tiger in his hand. He stuck out his arm and told the lion, "Kill me, lion." I said, "Andrew, that's not a nice thing to say." So he responded with, "Will you please kill me, lion?"

Flo Paris on Tour!

My friend, Flo, is on her first tour right now. She just played in Bellflower last night and Allie and I went to see her show. It was awesome! She is a gifted and talented singer and songwriter and I am blessed (to say the least) to be her friend. She has dedicated so much of her life to her music and it has paid off. She's an excellent artist and performer. If you're interested, check out her new album.

You rock, Flo!!!

Summer

It's been so fun having 2 active kiddos during the summer. We've been doing so many things that I hope are creating some warm, fuzzy memories for them. The dress Keira's wearing above is one of my favorites. I remember wearing this kind of dress when I was young. It's so fun dressing her up!

We started swim lessons this week and the kids are enjoying them, although Andrew still cries at the beginning of each lesson.

Gabe got to do one lesson with Keira. Keira really enjoys the one-on-one time and the water. She'll dip her face under water at the most random times and comes up smiling.

I love holding hands with my kids. (or see Gabe do it.) It's so precious.

Keira enjoys dress-up now. Most of the clothes are too big, but it's so sweet!

Joleen, Curtis, and their boys came to visit last weekend for the 4th. Here are the two big boys "asleep".
Peek-a-boo!

Sparkler time!

Smoke snakes. The little ones thought they were pretty cool.

The kids are spending tons of time outside. The weather has been beautiful and we got a fun little plastic pool... the makings of a fun summer outside!

Tyler (along with our small group) came over for a 3rd of July party.

I made this cake for the party- a three-layer strawberry filled cake. It was an experitment, but a tasty one!

Fresno in April

Colby and I. He's a very sweet and quiet little boy. I think I only heard him whimper once during the entire visit.

It's another Heard boy!

Like uncle, like nephew.

The kids were just a wee bit excited about Brad setting up the pool.

It's funny how quickly kids multiply. All 6 of these kids plus one more all joined the fam within 6 years of each other!

"Twin" cousins.

Andrew and Annalise watching a pretend movie on the window.

Back at home.

Busted!

La Primera Vez

Yesterday, Andrew spoke Spanish for the first time without me prompting him to. I only speak a few random words here and there to him so I never actually expected him to pick up on it.

I asked him if he wanted more food and he said, "no mas", which means, "no more". Then I asked him if he knew what "no mas" meant and he said, "'no mas' means 'no more', but if I want yes more then I say, 'yes mas'". Okay, so he doesn't totally get Spanish... or English. :)

Keira tried to speak her first Chinese this morning. She was giving me a cup of "tea" and each time she gave it to me, I said, "Thank you. Shieh shieh." The last time I handed it back to her, she said, "Shish". It was very cute.

As for English, I think one of Keira's first words was "trash". I told her we needed to go get the trash and she said, "tash". Not a very ladylike word, but still very sweet. :)

"Calculated"

Andrew is learning new words, but not necessarily new definitions. Here are a couple examples of the word, "calculated".

Andrew, talking about his stuffed animals in his room: "You see, the thing is, they just got all calculated."

Andrew sitting at the table with cupcake all over him: "My hands are all calculated."

Andrew's in Charge

Here's a conversation I had earlier today with Andrew:

Cheri: Andrew, tomorrow is Friday Fun Day! That means Josh and Zach are coming over to play.
Andrew: And Aunt Allie too?
C: No, she gets to go have some time to herself while we all get to play together.
A: Well, maybe you could go with Aunt Allie. It could just be all of us.
C: Who?
A: Me and Josh and Zach and Mei-Mei.
C: What would you do without Aunt Allie or myself around?
A: We would go potty and go outside and play.
C: What would you do if you got hungry?
A: We would make lunch for us.
C: What would you make?
A: Hot rice... and peas.
C: What if you couldn't get to the peas?
A: We would just get closer.
C: Okay. It sounds like you've got it under control.

So, Allie, where do you want to go tomorrow???

Andrew's Big Performance

Today was Andrew's first performance in front of the church. Pre-schoolers are always cute, but with one of them being ours, it was adorable! His whole class (made up of all boys) is a really sweet group of kiddos. Some of you may recognize Andrew's buddy, Noah, on his left-hand side.

They sang a song from Psalm 121.

The Move

The first weekend in April, Keira and I flew out to Wisconsin to visit my sister and her family. I hope to post some pictures from that visit soon. In the meantime, here are some pics from the boys' time back at home. Gabe took Andrew to Disney on Ice. This is the Dash costume that came with the cotton candy.

Gabe had their time booked up with fun activities, including go-to-work-with-daddy day, going out to dinner, Disney on Ice, church, a movie with some kids at church, going to see his first big-screen movie, and a sleepover... am I forgetting anything? Whew! I'm exhausted just thinking of all of that! What a dad!Michael and Leila came later that week to visit and help us finish packing and start the move. Here's a pic from the arboretum. I think Leila looks about my age here. Isn't the background amazing?!Nonnie and Andrew time.We moved to Anaheim the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. It went really smoothly. We had 11 people from church come spend their Saturday helping us move. This is our last pic from the old place.

... and here's our first pic at the new place! We have LOVED having a backyard. We eat outside fairly often and spend a good portion of the rest of the day out there as well.

Go Lakers!

This was one of those days when you say, "Is this real?" It was Gabe's first work from home day and we had a nice lunch outside using Gabe and Allie's nice patio furniture. (Thanks guys! Take your time picking it up!) It was about 75 degrees with a light breeze. Ahhhhhh...

When Keira wears this hat, she reminds me of Charlie from Top Gun. I always thought she was the most beautiful woman alive, growing up.