Would you like a nurse-maids elbow for Christmas?!

Well, as soon as I find the charger to my camera, I'll be able to post some pictures we took at Christmas... In the meantime, I'll post a bit. We had a really nice Christmas despite moving just a few weeks ago. We always spend the Sunday before Christmas at my Dad's house with family, which was a great time for all the cousins to play together tearing his house up :) We ate delicious foods and talked about our experiences with gift giving. We decided a few years ago to stop exchanging gifts as adults, and to donate the money we would have spent on each other, to various charitable causes. Seriously, what could we possibly need?! Then, when we get together at my Dad's house, we talk about what we did, and how we felt. The best part about it, is that now that my Kids are getting older, they can participate with us and feel what it feels like to give to those that are in need. Anyhow, it's my favorite part of the Holidays.

Christmas Eve, my sister April and her husband Peter stopped by, which was perfect timing. Lukas (our 3 yr old) was throwing a tantrum and when I went to take him upstairs for bed I pulled his arm one way, he pulled another and I gave him a nurse-maids elbow... Seriously. I didn't realize it at first until he wouldn't lift his arm to put his jammies on. So, we went downstairs where Doctor Hull (Uncle Pete) twisted and turned it, until it was all better. Certainly was good timing don't you think, and saved us a trip to Pete's E.R. YAHOO, after a bit of ice on the elbow, the incident was forgotten (not by me, of course) It's always a party when you have little ones.

Christmas morning our kids actually slept in a bit, which was nice!! So at 8 AM we had a feast of a breakfast, then opened up gifts. Plenty of toys for everyone thanks to SANTA.

For Christmas, my Mom and Cal came to spend a couple days, and my brother Mark and his friend came for dinner. We had a good time playing games and eating (of course). I am sad to see Christmas go, but will be happy to get back into our normal (but crazy) routine of life. The season gave us much time to reflect on what's truly most important to us as a family; good health, a warm bed, family, friends, memories, the Savior and each other. What a blessing. Wishing you all a wonderful, prosperous and growth-filled new year.

Christmas thoughts

I am so glad that Christmas is in the air and I'll be sad when it's over. The other day I was chatting with a gal at the store (yes, you know me, I always talk to people I don't know) and she was talking about the Holidays. She said "you know, there is so much to do this time of year, presents to buy, food to bake, etc, etc, so much build-up, so much hype and then you get to the big day and it's such a let-down" I was so sad to hear her comments. I think I just sat there stunned at first, but after I left her, it gave me something to really ponder.
How do we get to that place where we completely forget the entire purpose of celebrating the birth of the Savior? when she said it was a let-down I thought "really, the fact that the Christ came to earth was a let-down?" Who cares about presents, although they are fun to give and receive, and who cares about baking, although it's tasty, and who cares about the lights and the shopping and, and, and... if we forget the very purpose for which we do all these "things" then what's the point? So I just hope that if anything, listening to her comments made me really think about the gift this time of year gives us, the gift of time to think about what we have, because of what he gave us. The gift to look on others who are less fortunate with compassion as he would, the gift to help and serve those all around us, the gift to express our love more freely, the gift to slow down and listen to beautiful music that fills our hearts with joy and memories of our own childhood, the gift of thinking about what our lives would be like without Christ and being grateful for what they are and can be because of him.
I am so grateful for the gal in the grocery store, because she really got me thinking about how I can better enjoy this time of year for what it really is, and pass that on to my children.

We are here!!

Okay, we finally made it! Well we've been moved for 3 weeks now but just FINALLY got Internet today... Wow, it was interesting not being connected for so long. The good news is that our new service is much faster, and wireless. So we are still unpacking (who knew it could take this long...) between starting the kids in a new school right in the middle of Christmas programs and parties, meeting new friends daily etc, it's been an adventure. We are loving our new place, the neighborhood, the school is AMAZING and we love our new ward. There are things we miss of course, but we feel so blessed with our new surroundings :)

We do have new numbers etc so if you need them, email me at our new email ramber2@att.net
and we can catch up. Hope everyone has a wonderful time these last days before Christmas. What a wonderful time it is.

Goodbye Clear Water Ct.

Holy Cow, I can't believe we are almost done moving... Well you know, except for all that little stuff that seems to collect at the end of the move, the stuff you randomly just start putting into any box just to get it "moved" That's it. WE ARE TIRED! I forgot how much work it is to move. We'll be off-line for a bit while we decide which Internet provider we'll be using at our new place.

Okay, I have to share a funny story from yesterday. Our wonderful Bishop came over with some guys from the Ward to help Randy move the heavy stuff onto the truck. He brought a couple of his sons to help including his little one Daniel. So we were wrapping things up, everyone left, and suddenly we heard a noise coming from our boys bedroom. It was Daniel, playing quietly by himself with some toy trucks we hadn't put on the truck yet. The bishop had been gone for about 10 minutes and we wondered how long it would take him to realize that he forgot one :) So, our nice neighbor Earl, drove him home... I guess that's what happens when you have a pack of kids. I know, because not too long ago I was halfway to the kids School in the morning and didn't hear the baby and suddenly thought "oh, no what if I left him at home?" Lucky for me he was in the car but most days I live on auto pilot due to new baby sleep deprivation.

Anyhow, that's it, we'll update when we are settled in the next week so Goodbye to our house on Clear Water Ct. We'll miss you, our friends, neighbors and especially our ward, which we have grown to love. We've had so many wonderful times here and a part of us is sad to leave. As I've been surveying the empty house I am noticing some things which I'll say goodbye to now (and happy to do so:

*Goodbye to my striped dining room with that one last stripe I never painted because the wall wasn't straight and I couldn't figure out how to end it
*Goodbye to that one strip of sod we forgot to lay
*Goodbye to that little bit of sealant we ran out of when sealing the concrete in the back which gave us some shiny and some dull stamped/colored concrete
*Goodbye to the truck border that Jack peeled off the wall when he was 3 (right after I put it up)
*Goodbye to the white walls in our bedroom that we never painted
*Goodbye to all the unfinished projects that we never quite got to...

Be well good house, and we pray that the next family that graces your presence will find as much joy and happiness as we have :) Time to move on and keep making memories!

Grateful

Happy Thanksgiving! It's been an interesting one for us this year, a bit nontraditional but a grateful one for sure. We spent most of the day moving... Been waiting for keys and they came sooner than we thought so what the heck, we packed the truck last night (almost all night long) and took a load over at 8 AM this morning (we were on a schedule because my FABULOUS Mother was meeting up with us to take our kids until Tuesday :) Well everyone except the baby of course. YAHOOOO. So we unloaded, met up with Mom and Cal at Home Town Buffet. (Yes, we ate our Thanksgiving feast at Home Town Buffet) I must say that I haven't been to a buffet in at least 5 yrs or so, and the food was so good I was remembering why... CALORIES. Yummy and no mess to clean up. So, my Mom took the kids home with her and Randy and I went home with Nickolas to veg for the evening. So not the most ideal day to start moving but it worked out. We found out we'll have more great neighbors ( we LOVE our current neighbors which have become great friends) We are 8 houses away from a FANTASTIC park which backs up to the kids new school!! Yes, they can now walk to school. I am so grateful that we found such a great house in a great neighborhood next to a great School for the kids. Grateful.

I have been keeping a gratitude journal for a long time now, so I won't post my entry here but I am truly blessed and I know it, and am grateful for the awareness of it. I am grateful to have a wise, loving Heavenly Father. I am grateful for happy, healthy kids, grateful that Randy really is my dearest friend, grateful to be loved by so many, grateful for wonderful friends, grateful for devoted parents, grateful to be close to my siblings, grateful for growth, grateful for the kindness of others, grateful to have the strength to weather life's storms, grateful for the peace I feel amid the chaos that surrounds me. Just GRATEFUL... Far too many items to list.

Dry days up ahead!!

YAHOO, so it's been 4 days of potty-training and so far so GREAT! No accidents for 2 days now... Shoot if I had known it was going to go this well, I would have started sooner (or not) But happy day, I am so happy that I will only have one in diapers. I didn't think this day could come soon enough :)

Chocolate Privacy??

So, it's "that" time again... Time for potty-training. Lets get out all the bribery candy and the charts, the potty seat (this time is a Disney cars one) the cute little (boy) underwear and a VERY positive, optimistic attitude (and a few prayers won't hurt) I've had great luck in the past potty-training both Mackenzie and Jacksen in a day however, Lukas is my fun one. He's had this potty issue for some time now so I've been hesitant to start (and a newborn doesn't make it any more appealing) So, finally I got up the nerve to spend a day with him, pumping him full of fluids and "practicing" running back and forth to the potty to go. Well to my utter JOY he's excited and ready. We are on day 3 and so far so good. He's gone through plenty of candy (I'll do whatever it takes) and is having a blast marching his pirate around the map. I found this cute little download on supernanny.com. Every time he goes, he gets to move the pirate one space until the pirate finally reaches the ship. Once there, I give Luke a special treat and we start the pirate at the bottom again. Okay, now something funny. Yesterday I asked Luke if he'd like some privacy (thinking he knew what the word meant) he said: "yes, I'd like some privacy, some chocolate privacy" I think all the candy is getting to his head... Wish us luck!!

Happy Birthday Mark!!

Happy Birthday to my brother Mark!! Look at these cute baby pictures you :) We love you.

Spittles

Lauryn and her friend went as a hot dog and fries

Nickolas the bunny and Logan the monster

Emily and Logan

Luke the fireman

Jacksen the power ranger

Mackenzie the fairy

Had a great Halloween again! We all went to April's old neighborhood to spend the evening with her former neighbors (they have the best block parties all year long) We started off with a pot luck with about 15 families or so complete with "brain jello" mummy dogs, plenty of fabulicious chili and more. After dinner we all went out trick-or-treating as a big group. What fun! The kids loved spening time with their cousins and friends while collecting a ridiculous amount of sugary treats. Someone gave Lukas a full size bag of skittles and he came running down the sidewalk and said "look Daddy, I got spittles" He's never called them spittles before so it was great for a laugh. We got a bit of rain towards the end of the evening so it gave us a great excuse to head for home ( I was praying for it, since my feet were in pain after all the walking and I had to nurse the baby) Happy Halloween!

Back to the farm

I spent last Thursday back at Bishop's pumpkin farm for a field trip with Mac and Jack. I have really enjoyed being able to go on School field trips with them. They picked out some great pumpkins (which we never did carve...) The day after Halloween Mackenzie said " hey, we still need to carve our pumpkins Mom" Someday we'll get them carved BEFORE Halloween.

Happy 3rd Birthday Lukas!!

Wowee!! A new Trike

Uncle Chris visiting and of course Puzzling with Lukas

Making a wish

More Cars!!! Yahoo

Can you believe it?? I am 3!!

I am a bit behind on posting recent happenings at the Onstine house. We celebrated Lukas' 3rd Birthday last week and boy did we have fun! He wanted to share the day with a few of his good buddies: Jimmy, Gavin, R.J. and Noah. We had a "Cars" party since he is still not sick of Disney Cars (it's been over a year now that he's been married to all his cars) He got a new trike thanks to the Birthday Money from the Grandparents (Thanks everyone)

At 3 Lukas is:

Smart ( I think it's all those puzzles)

Funny ( we have Randy to thank for this one)

Witty (of course he is, he's 1/2 Witt)

Helpful ( he doesn't have a choice :)

Imaginative (he loves to play and make up funny dialogue)

Strong-willed (we have Amber to thank for this one)

Loves to sing (we sing songs all day and sometimes late in the night)

We love you Lukas Christopher, Happy Birthday Bugga!!

bikes+falling+asphalt=stitches

Checking out his new stitches in the mirror
SEE?!

Nice one Lukas!! Now you and Mommy will have matching scars

Seriously, no really, no seriously, what is the deal with little boys and accidents?! In the last 7 days Lukas has been hit in the head by a rock (lots of bleeding and a butterfly band aid), he then fell on the corner of Nonnie's coffee table and the glass cut and bruised under neath his eye, then today he comes in screaming again with blood dripping from his chin. He had the EXACT same accident I had as a child. He was riding his little bike down the driveway ( you know what's coming next...) he hit the junction where the driveway meets the street and BLAMMO, face first (or shall I say chin first) onto the asphalt. Shoot, I thought while trying to nurse the baby ( I really am an unsympathetic parent some times) While the baby lay screaming on the couch to be fed more, I got up to assess the damage. "It's not that bad" I kept telling myself out loud, but as I cleaned away the blood, dirt and gravel I realized "OHHHH, it IS that bad" No butterfly band aid is going to repair this amount of damage. Lucky for me Randy was almost home. I called our Doctor (who is absolutely wonderful) he said he'd wait at his office for Lukas since the office was closing. They had him in and out in no time and Lukas came home with 4 stitches and 4 lollipops. Randy is amazing and is getting used to taking the kids in for damage repair. Remember, he was the one that had to take Mackenzie in to the ER when she broke her arm (very badly, almost needed surgery) because I was in Atlanta... Thanks Daddy!! WHAT A DAY!!

A bit of nastalgia

Hello Gorgeous!! I've been wanting to post some of these old photos of my Mom since I worked on her Scrapbook but it would have ruined her surprise party so, I'm posting them now. How cute are these??

Surprise!! Nonnie turns 60

Mom and the girls
FABULICIOUS Witt girls
A scrapbook of Nonnie's childhood
we even dressed up Nonnie's dog
Grandpa Wheeler chatting it up with Nickolas

Linda J's fabulous glasses
Some of Mom's life long friends
Logan and his fuzzy red hat
Mac, Jack and Luke
Mom and Mac

Isn't this an awesome cake
Before the party we all tried on Nonnie's many wigs, even Randy
Even Jack looks adorable in Nonnie's wigs
The Queen cutting her cake

On Friday we pulled off the best "Red Hat Lady" surprise party for Nonnie's 60th birthday. It was Awesome!! We'd been working really hard to keep this a serious secret which if any of you know us Witt girls, wasn't easy, especially since we talk to Mom at least once a day and sometimes many times a day. Now her birthday is really on September 26th but since she was in Hawaii for 10 days (snivel, snivel) we had to postpone our party plans.

We chose a red hat lady theme (Thanks to Mom's friend Judy) because Mom has spent her entire life serving everyone else and now it's time for her to have fun, which is what the Red Hat Society is all about. We got her a cake in the form of a big red hat, it was so great and everyone showed up wearing red hats too. We had the house decked out in big fluffy feather boas, flowers and Kazoos on strings adorned our necks.

We had one false alarm and ended up waiting in the dark for a couple minutes until we realized they were not home yet. We called Cal to see where they were and he let us know he was stuck shopping ( of course she would be shopping right?) So we let him know we were more than ready. With an extra 20 minutes on our hands we started pulling out all of Nonnie's many many wigs and reading glasses to try on. We played "dress up like Luana" It was hilarious to see some of Mom's friends trying on her wigs and glasses. We had an entire room full of Luana-look-a-likes until our party was interrupted by Mom walking through the door. Finally they arrived!!

With the lights turned off, Nonnie came walking in the door. She stopped a couple feet in the door, noticed Mackenzie and said "hey what are you doing here?" We flipped on the lights and yelled out "SURPRISE!!" Was she ever! What a memorable night for all of us. The food was tasty, the cake moist and fluffy, and the company fun. We had also put together a DVD/slide show of her life and I made a scrapbook including many of the same pictures. What a joy it was for me to work on. One thing I LOVE about scrapbooking is all the time I get to spend thinking about the people and events I am crafting, it fuels my creativity. Working on my Mom's photos was like using premium gasoline for my creative mind, what quality fuel!

So, Happy Happy Birthday Mom, I love you!!

A day at Bishops Pumpkin Farm

Who doesn't love a fabulicious ice cream cone??
where they farm the GIGANTIC pumpkins

Cheese boys!
Lukas having trouble with his ice cream cone
One tooth coming in on top, one to go...
where we ate, and how we felt (like piggies)
All in the family
Mommy and Lukas
Jumping in the hay
It was our cousin play date

Randy and Peter

Spent some time Saturday at Bishop's Pumpkin Farm in Wheatland, Ca. We love this place and go there every year with the kids. This year we decided to make it the spot for our October cousin play date. We met up with April, Peter and girls for the afternoon. There are no pictures of the kids in the actual pumpkin patch because we are going again in 2 weeks for their school field trip where we'll get pumpkins. Bishop's has hay rides out to the patch and back, a corn maze, train rides, a petting zoo (Mackenzie's favorite part of the day) gold panning for marbles, jumping in the hay (they have this big area of mattresses covered with hay) which the kids loved! (maybe it was all the dust they created, those piggy little kids) They have bakeries on site with every yummy fall creation you can think up including fresh apple cider and of course anything pumpkin. The kids and cousins really enjoyed themselves and so did we.
We'll be back the day before Halloween. Happy Pumpkin Carving everyone!