SAUCER SCHNANIGANS

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme TodaysMama and GameStop are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme with you. 1. What is your holiday wish for your family? for safe travels for all the family members traveling to our house this year :) 2. What is your Christmas morning / Hanukkah Nightly tradition? Trying to capture the moment the kids see the tree with all the presents on video then a late morning nap. 3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be? Family Christmas at Disney World 4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money? Advent Calendar and Advent candles. 5. What games did you play with your family growing up? Rummy and Sequence 6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood? having the children sing Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer on video 7. Where would you go for a Christmas/Hanukkah-away-from-home trip? Disney World

Happy Thanksgiving!! There are soooo many things to be thankful for this year. We are thankful the most for our family and friends. We wish you all the best Thanksgiving. Alan, Eddie, and Joey are very excited about Thanksgiving this year. We are celebrating just the 5 of us while we get some projects done around the house in preparation for all the visitors we are expecting for Christmas. Hope you enjoy these 2 video clips of Eddie getting ready for the big day.

Here are a couple fun clips of the boys playing Dominoes with Gramps. These are clips from Joey's 3rd Birthday Party at Aunt Kristine's.

Now that I have you up to speed with our Children's Choir. Alan was selected to sing the solo verse of the Alleluia part for this past weekend's mass!! He was sooo excited to get to sing into the microphone :) Here are the video clips from this past weekend.

The boys have been part of our church's Children's Choir since June. I meant to post these video clips from this summer a long time ago. They are really improving each week.

I just posted the pictures from Halloween in the October_2010 folder on Picasa. You can click here to see them. Here are a couple video clips from Trick or Treating.

We all know the 4 seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall.  Well Albuquerque has a 5th season, Balloon Season.  The Balloon Fiesta is the first week and a half of October and a very exciting time!!  There are hundreds of Hot Air Balloons in the sky every morning for 10 days.  The weeks leading into and following the Balloon Fiesta have LOTS of balloons in the sky as well. This year Kristine and her friend, Talya, came to visit us and go to the Balloon Fiesta with us.  We got up at 4am to fight the traffic near the Balloon Fiesta Park and got to the Park around 6:30am in time for the 6:30am Morning Glo and the 7am Mass Ascension. Here is one of the Morning Glo balloons.  The boys really enjoy the FIRE!! Some of the first balloons off the ground the day we went were twin pink balloons to honor survivors and victims of breast cancer.  The balloons each had an American flag and the Star Spangled Banner was sung to start the ascension. I was pretty trigger happy with the camera an

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Alan pulled out his front tooth after school on Friday and insisted I take his picture with my phone so I could send it to Grandma.  I couldn't resist sharing it with you all.  It looks like he lost it in a hockey game :)

It's finally here, Joey's first day of school!!  He has been trying to go to school since Alan's first day on Wednesday.  He even tried to get on the school bus with him!!  He kept telling me "I go school, I go school too. Hmm."    By the time I made a second trip to the classroom with his tricycle (they get to ride bikes every Monday) he was so into play he wouldn't even say good bye. Joey and Lead Teacher Miss Isabella After school today Joey was very excited to tell me he got to ride his bike, ate all his lunch, took a nap, sang songs, and had a snack!!  He was also very happy to see me :)

Eddie started kindergarten on Friday!!  He was so excited and they got a teacher hired for his class.  She wasn't there first thing in the morning because she had new hire paperwork at the district office downtown.  They had a "Kiss and Cry" breakfast for parents in the library.  I wasn't so excited about this until I found out it was for parents only and the kids were to stay in class.  Thankfully we let Eddie eat breakfast at home.  The principal spoke briefly about the school, the nurse reminded us of the health center rules, and the PTA president filled us in on the fun we could have in PTA.  Joey was happy to get some mini muffins and juice and was then promptly ready to leave!!  I am very happy to report that both Alan and Eddie were on the bus when it pulled up to the stop on the afternoon. Eddie on the playground before class started Eddie's comment as he got off the bus was "Today was the BEST day ever.  It was AWESOME!!"  He is very

Okay so most of you know I'm not the emotional mom on the first day of school. Alan started First Grade today and today was DIFFERENT!! I don't know why it was so hard to hold back the tears as the school bus pulled away. I suspect it had something to do with the fact he was riding the bus and I wasn't leaving him in a classroom with a smiling teacher and lots of new friends. Another part of it was knowing he was going to a bare walled classroom with a SUBSTITUTE teacher until they hire a full time teacher for his class. It's a good thing we were early to get to the bus stop. The bus came a full 10 minutes early!! Waiting for the school bus Waiting on the correct side of the street The bus is here!! Joey ran right for the doors trying to get on the bus and was quite upset he didn't get to ride.  He kept saying "I go school, I go school" This is a picture of the school taken from our driveway! A picture of the school close up Our

Happy 3rd Birthday Joey!! You had the world's LONGEST children's birthday party ever!! Started at 10:30am and went on until the wee hours of the next morning :)

I am way behind in blogging about the summer, but wanted to get this video clip of my niece up so you'll have to read about our summer endeavors another time. James, Thomas, and Lilly Bug arrived late last night. We have been chillin' out around the house and the kids have been playing all day!! Here is a fun video of Lilly playing peek a boo with Alan and Joey. Sorry about the streak of light down the middle. I so need to find a good solution to the sliding glass patio doors!

The boys' new bedroom furniture arrived!!  While it was a nightmare waiting for it as it was supposed to be a morning delivery and we got word at 9:30pm the night before we were moved to the 5-8pm delivery slot.  They called at 8:40pm to see if we would wait 'til this morning to get it.  The boys were waiting up and we had to change our church plans once so I said nope they need to come last night.  They got here around 9pm and didn't finish assembly until 11:15pm!!  There were broken and missing pieces to Alan's bed so they will have to get new parts and come back to finish that. Eddie and Joey will be sharing a room so they got full size bunk beds that according to Eddie look like they are in the Jungle!!  He helped me paint the room sky blue for the jungle background last week. He keeps asking when are we going to paint the jungle and trees and stuff.  Not sure how soon that will happen.  Putting the sheets and blankets on these beds is one tough job!!  I think

We took the boys to see Toy Story 3 this weekend and we LOVED it!!! There is an article on Yahoo  HERE  that tells some really great tid bits about the movie as well as a sneak peek clip below.

I posted pictures of the new house on Picasa today.  You can click  HERE  to see them.  We unloaded 12,000lbs and returned the truck today.  Daniel reports to work at 6:30am and the boys and I will be cleaning, unpacking and sorting.  They are scheduled to deliver the appliances and install the security system as well.

I'm sooo glad today was the last driving day.  We hit the road around 6:45am and drove 610 miles from San Angelo, TX to Albuquerque, NM.  We stopped in Amarillo for lunch at Subway because that's what the boys wanted.  Alan was under the impression he would get to make his own sandwich so we had a mini melt down, but he snapped out of it thanks to Backugone (I know this is TOTALLY spelled wrong.  We just learned about these toys from our Houston friends and I haven't done my research on them yet)  I promised the boys if they were good for the WHOLE trip they could get one when we arrived. We got here around 4:30pm so it took us a bit longer than we expected.  When we got here we promptly hit TRAFFIC!!!  The boys were really frustrated telling me to just go as traffic was stopped at a stand still due to a crash on I 40.  This was a perfect opportunity to explain car crashes and how important it is to be very QUIET when Mommy is driving in the city.  They are in awe and ama

My youngest Sister in Law got married yesterday!! We welcome Doug Bible to the family and our Aunt Nikky Saucer has now become a Bible :) Click  here  to see pictures from her big day.

Last night we went to Jenn and Ryan's house. I could do a whole blog entry on how we met and how they introduced Daniel and I. Stay tuned for that entry soon. The boys had a great time playing with Jeffrey, Alyssa and Jacob. That is except maybe Joey. He came down stairs and we all thought he had to use the potty and then it happened. . . He threw up all over the living room carpet!! I was so embarrassed, but we got it cleaned up and he curled up on my lap. No fever so it was probably from eating Waffle House for dinner combined with all the time in the van. We left around 10pm (I sure hope Jeffrey and Alyssa did all right in school today being up so late) We had the continental breakfast this morning and headed back to their house around 8:30 this morning. Jenn and Jacob took us to play at the park and run around before a big day of 440miles in the van to make it to San Angelo. When I checked my Facebook I had a comment from my friend and Stampin' Up downline, Bre

We got on the road around 6:45am this morning to start our 540 mile journey to Houston, TX. Joey REFUSED to wear the pull I wanted him to wear, but I decided not to fight it out with him since I need to stop for a bathroom as often or more so than he would need to go. Alan got excited when we crossed the Alabama state line wanting to go see our old house and his friend, Madison. He was a bit disappointed to find out she lived on the other side of the state so we wouldn't be visiting today. The boys LOVED the very, very, very, LONG bridge in Mobile!! Before we knew it we were crossing the Mississippi state line. I would spell it M-I-SS-I-SS-I-PP-I and Joey would echo I-P-I? and we would all laugh! We set the pit stop schedule to stop every 100 miles or so and it stuck most of the trip. The first stop Alan was gonna test my patience and I informed him it wasn't a good idea to start our trip that way. Then Joey piped up saying "me good, me good mom? Eddie good too.

I just updated the 2010_May folder on my Picasa pictures. Click on the picture to see the whole album or click on the Saucer Family Picture link to the left of the blog.

I'm sooo excited we got the disc with our family pictures from Starfish Photography today!! Our neighbor in Panama City is staring her own photography business, Starfish Photography. She was patient enough to make 2 trips to the beach because the first one was a cold day and the kids were not very cooperative. These are the pictures from the 2nd trip when they were a little more cooperative. The wind was a bit strong for my hair, but they still turned out GREAT!! Click on the picture to see the whole album on Picasa.

We woke up this morning to a running shower.  Daniel rolled over and said, "When are you gonna get in the shower?"  I replied, "I thought you were getting in the shower.  Who turned the shower on??"  I hollered turn to turn off the shower and come here and we discovered it was Joey.  He demanded that he needed a shower this morning.  I informed him he was WRONG and told him to go get dressed hoping for just 5 more minutes.  He actually went to his room and got himself completely dressed then came back.  So I pressed my luck and told him to wake up Alan and Eddie for school.  Oh how I wish I had a hidden camera in their room.  He went in and woke them up and told them to get up and get dressed right now!!  Oh the doors that open with potty training!!

Last weekend was our last free weekend before the big move.  It was time to say good bye to the sugar white sandy beaches of Panama City.  Our good friends, The Tuckers, came down from Alabama for one last visit.  The most difficult part of moving is knowing you won't get to see your friends on a regular basis.  When we moved from Alabama to Florida we still manages to see the Tuckers on an almost monthly basis for the first 2 years!!  This will be harder as we are moving from Florida to New Mexico on the other side of the country. The kids had a BLAST at the beach!!  The afternoon was spent with kids napping and the Daddy's got to go to the shooting range.  It was about time as they have been talking about it for nearly 7 years!!!  Then everyone met up at our house for smoked ribs and chicken. Eddie thought he was hot stuff "surfing" the waves.  I think he drank half the ocean. It wasn't until bedtime we realized how sunburned everyone got at the beach

I am so happy to report potty training is going well.  Joey has had only 3 accidents in the last 2 weeks and all were understandable due to playing with friends and not wanting to take the time.  We have had some funny stories along the way.  Joey has always preferred to wear his underwear backwards so he can see the big picture of whatever character is on them in the front, but on this particular day he decided his head would be a better place to wear them!! One afternoon he was playing outside and actually came inside to ask if he could go pee in the grass!!  My first reaction was no, but then I got to thinking about teaching him how to stand up and pee for our upcoming road trip so I told him he could.  About 15 min later Alan comes running in to tell me Joey pooped on the patio!!!  That led to quite a discussion.  We are working on a new way to teach him how to pee standing up as a result :P Our best friend, Emily, is also potty training so we took our potty to her house for

Sorry I haven't posted this sooner. Tim and April welcomed our newest nephew, Simon Christopher into their wonderful family on Monday!! Simon weighed 7lbs 11oz and was 20.5 inches long. Proud Daddy Family of Four Big Brother Ian holding Simon We can't wait to see Uncle Tim and Cousin Ian in just a few weeks!!!  This is a very busy time of year for Ian as he has a big birthday coming soon too.  Happy 3rd Birthday Ian!!