Time for a little cleaning

This week has been busy yet uneventful. We had friends over today, and are having more friends over tomorrow and Saturday. In anticipation of all our company Grace and I gave the house a through cleaning. In order to get the job done right we had to look the part.

I hope you are all having a great week!

Thankful for Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful day yesterday. There were all the makings of a great party: food, family, fun, faith and more food. :) My parents and my dear sister Maria came up around noon. My father-in-law, Dick, came in the afternoon, and my brother Daniel came in the evening after work. Grace was in heaven with all that food and people to pay attention to her.

Maria guards over the light lunch appetizers....they were delicious!!

Grace LOVES olives and cheese, so it was her kind of meal!

Grace loves Dulce (my sisters dog) and Guapo

The girls

Time for Dinner!!

We are blessed to have such a wonderful family!

Grace loves having Grandma "Ta" read to her

Daniel was able to get off a little earlier than he had originally thought, so even though we had finished eating already most of the food was still warm when he got there. It was so nice that he was able to hang out and have dessert afterwards with us.


Munching on the thanksgiving "decorations"

At the end of a happy holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. We are having my parents, Maria, and Gunnar's dad over. I love thanksgiving not only because of all the yummy food, but because I have soooo much to be thankful for.

I could go on and on about all I have to be thankful for, but for now I will leave you with some recent pictures from around here that I hope can make you smile. :)

Freshening up before bed

Auntie Ann gave her a magnetic doll house which she loves.

In the Gap with Tia

Gracie loves her Tia Maria

The day before she broke her arm....

She LOVES shoes

Have you hugged a veteran today?

Happy Veterans day!

As a Cemetery board member, Gunnar had the privilege of being part of the Valley Center Cemetery ceremony honoring the veterans this morning. His dad drove up from Alpine to join us at the ceremony.

After the ceremony Grace and I spent a long time walking around the cemetery looking at the tombstones. Something about cemeteries is fascinating to me. Valley Center actually has 6 civil war veterans burried here. There are so many stories, it makes you wonder who they were and how they lived their lives. I took a bunch of pictures, but here were two of my favorite tombstones.

It's all fun and games until someone breaks an arm

Yesterday turned into quite the eventful day. It started out with a trip down south and a visit with Grandma "Ta". When we got home Gunnar was out doing some work at the church and Grace was playing with her new baby doll that Grandma bought her. She was playing on the chair, I think she was trying to sit on the arm when next thing I knew, she was on the ground screaming. When I picked her up her arm had an obvious bend where there shouldn't have been one.

I called Gunnar and he called the direct line to the sheriffs office (it is nice to have friends in the right places). The fire department beat him home. When we walked in they all knew him from during the fires, so it was like a mini reunion.

They said her arm was broken, and although they would be more than happy to take us down, they said it was okay for us to transport her to children's hospital.

My parents, Daniel and Maria and Sonja came down to the waiting room. After we had been there for a while our friend Marcus and his son Diego stopped by. So we had a whole party. Grace was in really good spirits while we waited, laughing and going from person to person.

Kissing her owie

We read books and hung out for a LONG time. I think we got there around 6 and aside from the initial check and the x-rays we sat around until 9:30 when they took us back to show us the x-rays. In the waiting room she was reading books and turning the pages with her bad arm, and although she wasn't using it as much as normal, she didn't seem that upset. When we went back the nurse seemed shocked that she would let us touch her arm and that she wasn't screaming and when she showed us the x-rays we knew why. She cleanly broken both the arms in her forearm.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words....so I will let you see the rest of the story.

In the hospital with the new cast.

Notice the page she is looking at "ALL, Fall".....hum...wonder why that is a favorite?

She goes around kissing and having us kiss her arm

Finally, sleeping!

Double Trouble

Our friends the Tani's came over Saturday. In a moment of mothering weakness, we dressed our girls in matching outfits and took a gazillion pictures. So as not to be accused of causing cruel and unusual punishments, we did allow them food and Kacey put on a first rate entertainment presentation. The girls were not too cooperative but at least we got some good laughs.

They wanted more crackers.

This is not fun anymore