And finally... the update.

Here it is. The long-awaited update to our lives.
December...

It was a busy month, as Decembers usually are, but with my business really taking off and the kids highly involved in their activities, it was unusually busy.

Aside from softball three times a week and drill team twice a week, Violet was cast as Mrs. Claus in the school production of "The Elves' Impersonator," a story of a little elf who thinks he's Elvis. Mama Lali made her amazing costume. Everyone loved it and we decided to donate it to the school so that it can be used for years to come.


Then of course there were the class parties... our favorite was the gingerbread house making in Violet's class...

Riley had his friend party... his request was a sledding day in the mountains. It was a huge hit!

And then, it was Christmas. Christmas morning at our house is awesome. Everyone comes over for breakfast and brings all their gifts. Our entire living room floor was covered in presents!

Nothing gets opened until after breakfast and the reading of the Bible...

Breakfast was yummy waffles and champagne and fresh fruit and OJ and homemade whipped cream... mmmmm! We covered the ping pong table with tablecloths and it worked out great. Easily seats up to 16 people comfortably around one big table. Awesome :)

This was the Lego Star Wars Christmas for Riley. Funny thing was, by the end of the morning, Papa was assembling a ship by himself and Rick was assembling another ship by himself while Riley was playing Lego Star Wars for the Wii. It was very cute that all the boys were doing their own biy things.

The favorite gifts were, of course, the ones from Tinty and Luke. They always find the most interesting things for us from Korea. Liane and I got cool bracelets and little turtle jewelry boxes, mom and dad got this incredible detailed wood carving, the kids got a rad Wii game, and Rick... Rick got a samurai sword letter opener.

It's not Christmas without Party #2 at Tish's house... Tish gathered all the little ones around her for a Happy Birthday Jesus party, complete with singing and cake :)
Then, on the 28th, we celebrated Riley's actual birthday! He requested a waffle breakfast with "Kids' Wine" (sparkling cider), which we all enjoyed. After breakfast, Violet left with Papa & Mama Lali on her very first ski trip - they went to Pagosa, Colorado to go skiing with some family friends. She had a wonderful time, but Riley and Violet definitely missed each other while she was gone. I love that they have such a special bond.

And, since I didn't share before, the reaction to Riley's Star Wars room...

New Year's Eve was a rockin awesome non-party. We planned on just chilling alone, and then Liane & Carl had no plans so we invited them over for games, and then Kris & Mel had no plans so they came over too... everyone had to bring their own snacks and alcohol and there was a LOT of it. :) Mo & Jo even stopped by for awhile and we had a great time playing games (I will never EVER forget Mo playing Taboo!)... so much, in fact, that we almost missed the countdown! We turned on the TV with about 20 seconds to spare. I barely got the champagne opened in time. I made all our friends take part in the annual "throw water across the street" tradition where everyone takes a pan of water, representing last year, and dumps it across the street because it's a new year and the pan needs to be empty for all our new adventures! They were good sports, especially considering it was seriously cold out there.

So a few weeks ago I had realized that I had accumulated 15 of the 16 Southwest credits I needed to get a free flight. The only problem? I had to get my 16th credit before January 13, 2008. So I contacted Val and scheduled a trip up to Portland for the 10-12th. It was a short but sweet trip and of course Val kept the days packed with adventure! We went to cool breweries, a play (we even volunteered at the theater!), visited my cousin and her new baby, and stopped by the beach, even!

Since getting back from Portland, it's been busy. Still. At least all our decorations are finally down (don't you hate when you think you've put everything away and then you find something you missed???) and we have done a little rearranging of furniture. Big plans for 2008 in our house... wood floors (hopefully) on the ground floor, new front door (or at least doorknob and locks... ours keeps sticking), new front landscaping, and a totally cleaned out and rearranged garage with workshop for Rick. Well, that's the plan anyway. This weekend we were supposed to start the garage organization, and both the kids are sick. I took them to the doc (my friend Costa from kindergarten... talk about weird to have your friend since age 5 be your doctor!)... Violet and Riley have strep throat. I have a sinus infection. We are all on antibiotics now. And Rick just called... his throat is scratchy. haha!

Matilda

I know a few of you have been patiently waiting for these photos, so here they are! My cousin's daughter, Baby Matilda, is such a cutie pie! I am so glad i got to spend a little time with her when I was in Portland! :)

And of course, big sister Simone. I seriously wanted to put her in my pocket and take her home with me. I just loved her little voice and her creative spirit :)

Lots more photos of lots more things still to share... but I wanted to be sure these went up first :)

Stay tuned!

Okay.

I realize I haven't been posting much. And I also realize that the "busy" excuse is played out, even if it's true.

The sad thing is that I have so many photos to share...
Christmas,
Riley's sledding party,
New Years (well, thankfully there are no photos of *that* night, Melissa),
Portland,

and just so many updates and... things.
Really. I want to get to it all.

This long weekend is my weekend to get caught up. On everything. Laundry, the perpetual January house organization, garage reorg, misc photo editing, scrapbook projects (believe it or not, I actually have a few scrapbook assignments I am working on! And here I thought I was a has-been in the industry!!), the yard, the kids' rooms... all of it.

Too much to take on? Probably.
But it's me. And I am insane.

Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars...

Riley's room was never painted when we moved into the house, and we thought it was about time we did something fun for him. He spent two nights with his cousin Michael and we took that time to design his dream painted room.

We took out all the furniture and painted two colors on the walls - one was a very light grey-green and another a beautiful deep blue-green. Then we primed the back wall and began our mural...

And the room, finally done! You can't see the blue-green walls (they are behind me)... but at least you can see the finished mural. Carl and Liane were awesome artists. I could not have done it without them. And the black on this wall is actually a deep blue-black (called "Galaxy Black" - it's one of the Behr Disney colors). It is so cool cause you can see the blue-ish-ness at certain angles. Rick hung a couple of his ships from the ceiling and still has two more to hang (the Milennium Falcon and Slave 1) but otherwise it's pretty much done.

When Riley came into the room for the first time, he was totally speechless. It was so awesome! The best part was that he insisted that Violet spend the night in the room with him that night, so the two of them can have Star Wars dreams :)

5 years ago today...

This dude was born. Can't believe it's been 5 years. Can't believe he's so tall now. Can't believe I am a mom to two big kids. The baby years are all gone now - it's strange and cool and different and crazy all at once. I don't miss the hard parts about having babies (diapers, mess, language issues)... but I do miss their little cuddles. I made Riley take a nap with me today... I loved snuggling next to his (not so little) warm body. I am glad he still likes taking naps with me. I'm not ready to give that one up just yet :)

Merry Christmas...

From Frosty the Snowman. He's jolly and happy and has a blinking red nose. :)

By the Numbers

I know. I need to update.

Here's what's happening since Disneyland:

Number of photo shoots I have had: 7
Number of Christmas cards I have ordered for clients: 725
Number of photos I have taken since buying my camera in May: 22,644
Number of dogs I own: 2
Number of dogs I hate: 1
Number of legs on one of my Christmas village sheep after a 3 year old got a hold of it: 3
Number of legs it should have: 4
Number of times my children have played the Wii since we got it: 36,287,211
Number of Christmas gifts I have bought for friends & family: 30
Number of people I still need to buy for: 12
Number of days I have stayed up past midnight editing photos: 14
Number of hours I got to spend with Jin & Val while they were in town visiting: 72
Number of stamps I have bought this week: 80
Number of empty boxes in my office: 17
Number of lights that are lit on my Christmas tree right now: 0
Number of lights that should be on my tree right now: 1000
Number of dogs that are responsible for chewing THROUGH the plug while the Christmas lights were lit: 1
Number of dogs that died while chewing through the tree plug: 0
Number of rear-view mirrors that I broke off the side of my car while backing out (again): 1
Number of curse words I said after breaking my rear view mirrior (again): 347
Number of miles I had to drive to Violet's drill team performance last night: 38
Number of minutes Violet performed: 6
Number of inches I cut off my hair: 5
Number of colors in my hair: 4
Number of compliments I have received since getting my haircut: 28
Number of boxes that were stolen from my front porch when we got back from Disneyland: 3
Number of client orders that were in those boxes: 8
Number of times I panicked in the 24 hours it took to re-order everything: 397
Number of days till Christmas: 10
Number of movies Rick and I are going to go see tonight, sans children: 2

Enough counting. I need to go check movie listings!

Disneyland 2007

We stayed at the Paradise Pier hotel... and the kids got room service for breakfast the first morning!

When we headed out to the park, we found a visitor in the hotel lobby!

The weather at the park was perfect, so we decided to take advantage of the awesome weather and do a little canoeing :)

And of course I had a chocolate covered Mickey head...

The kids visited Lightning McQueen...

And Riley had an awesome time doing the rope swing at the adventure area in California Adventure... last year he was *just* too short... but this year, watch out! He must have done this swing 50 times.

Then we rode the Ferris Wheel at sunset... awesome!

On Day 2 we had breakfast at Goofy's Kitchen! Goofy was so funny. He stole Riley's autograph book for awhile... haha

Then it was off to more rides... Violet loved the Orange Stinger (she and Riley called it the "Orange Peeler")

Then it was back to Disneyland where we waited for the Jedi Training Academy...

Riley panicked at the last second and decided since he already was a Jedi he didn't need to do the training academy again... so Violet went up there and HAD TO FIGHT DARTH MAUL!!!! She did it, and is now an official Jedi too...

We happened upon Mickey in the afternoon, and got to get a quick autograph without all the craziness and crowds around him...

And Riley convinced Rick to ride the Jellyfish with him!

Riley also loved riding the carousel...

While Violet and I rode California Screaming about six times!

Nothing like a churro after a hard day of playing...

And another chocolate covered Mickey head for good measure!

Meanwhile Matt showed us just.how.much cotton candy he can fit into his mouth at once.

and then we had Fun With Photography!

I love Disneyland at Christmastime!!!


We had a fantastic vacation... and these photos are just a tiny selection from the 300 or so I took! Such great memories... so much fun!

Our tree

We decorated our tree before we left for our Disneyland trip - it was so great to come home and have the tree totally done! Of course, nothing else really got done till just today. I finally unpacked the last of the Christmas decorations and even added some lights outside. I love it now! My house totally feels like Christmas. OH! And best of all... a package arrived today from UPS containing a beautiful wreath from my mom, made from fresh greenery. I couldn't bear to have all that wonderful Christmas smell sit outside my house... so instead I hung it up inside, right in the kitchen. It smells absolutely wonderful.... :)

Coming (very) soon... a whole lot of Disneyland pics!!