Friends from Iowa!!!

Nindi, Ava, Laine & Ezra reading a book!

Nindi, Ava, Ezra & Charissa eating pizza!

Jennifer holding and feeding Chavalah!

Jennifer, Chavalah & I

Jennifer & Kris

My friend, Jennifer Kunze, came to visit her cousins in the Phoenix area, and we lucked out to see them on their visit out here. She, her husband, Kris, and her cousin and her family all came out to Maricopa for the evening! We all ordered pizza, visited, hung out, reminisced and the time flew by WAY TOO QUICKLY! Isn't that how it always goes! Thanks for coming out our way guys! We had such a great time. I met Jennifer while in "CEF" (Child Evangelism Fellowship) training back in high school. We've been friends ever since!

Smart Kid!

Laine came home with this award from school! YAY, Laine! Mom and dad are proud! Keep up the good work, buddy!

Pumpkin Pie Making

Starting off with a whole pumpkin!

Scraping the seeds and guts out of the midddle!

Scooping the cooked pumpkin!

Pureeing the scooped cooked pumpkin!

Pureed pumpkin ready for pie filling!

Laine stirring all the yummy sugar and spices for the pumpkin pie filling!

For a few years now, Laine and I have been making homemade Pumpkin Pie. We literally make everything from scratch, including the pumpkin and we have SO MUCH FUN! There is, hands down, nothing better than a FRESH, WARM piece of homemade pumpkin pie with cool whip! Oh my! Trust me on this! So, here is the process by which we take each year in making our pies! Sorry for the incomplete timeline of things. I don't have a picture of a "whole" cooked pumpkin pie. Check back next year! :)

Playing "catch up."

I haven't had much time to post much lately, so tonight I'll be playing a little "catch up! Sorry for so many all at once! :) Sit back and enjoy! :)

Celine Dion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Melting Pot for dinner!

Cooking our food!

ME! Hyped BEFORE the concert!!!

Our view!
(Actually not as bad as it looks!)

Waiting for the concert to begin! Close quarters, shew!

Celine's stage!

The square in the middle was where Celine went up and down to change her clothes! Benjamin & I were trying to remember how many time she actually changed. We for sure remember 6 (SIX) different outfits, but we might be missing one or two! She looked AMAZING every single time she changed of course!
That square too would "raise her up" off her stage!

Sorry for this pictures, but it proves Mohammed was there.

Whole picture! To the left were her background singers!
To the right were two guatarists and her violinist! EXCELLENT!

CELINE DION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I thought this was a cool picture too because you can see her "live" looking down at the crowd in front of her, and the small TV for the ticket holders right in front of her.

WOW! I'm sitting here at almost 2:00 AM in the morning after having just arrived home about 45 minutes ago and I can't sleep!

I feel like this might be something I would've shared during one of those "ice breaker" games at a gathering where you're made to share something about yourself that most people may not know about you! Well, I'm going to share one with you tonight! If you haven't figured out from the subject line of my title, I am a HUGE FAN of Celine Dion, have been for at least 10 years, and one of my biggest dreams has been to see Celine Dion in concert! In my own head, it was a rather "in my dreams" dream and I truly thought I'd never get the chance to see her live IN PERSON, right before my very own eyes, and not through Oprah, or through a music awards show, etc.

My dear husband, knew this very desire of mine and purchased tickets to see Celine for me for my early CHRISTMAS GIFT!!!!!!! Couldn't have asked for anything better! UNREAL! I'm still speechless (although it doesn't look like it from here), but tonight was the concert and I thought I'd share a few photos from our night out!

First, Benjamin and I got to go ALONE! My dear mama and dad were gracious enough to watch all three of our kids for a LONG NIGHT so that we could go! It's rare enough to get out on our own without ALL THREE of our kids. It was wonderful! I love my kids dearly, and for those of you that know me know I absolutely ADORE my kids, but tonight away was a long time needed!

We had reservations first for dinner. Dinner at the Melting Pot. Oh my! Yes, again, another huge treat! The Melting Pot is a chain fondue restaraunt and you need several hours (at least 2 1/2 hours) in order to actually enjoy the "art" of fondue! To make it even better, they have these "curtain booths" where they are a tiny 3 seater booth with curtains to pull across so it is just you and your significant other or friend in the booth and NO OTHER DISTRACTIONS! So neat! We got there early enough so we could have one! Dinner was great, but now................on to the concert! :)

So, the "show" started at 8:00. We weren't super close, but the show was spectacular, nonetheless. Her stage was amazing! Several unique features, like, each side of the square had a moving walking belt, seriously, much like a treadmill and that was a cool feature. Her actual stage was in the middle contraption and her band and back up singers were on the four corners of the square and would at random times through the entirety of the show would raise up and down. So incredible. I could go on and on! So, Celine finally came out on stage for the first time at 9:00! FINALLY! KNEW we were in for a late night at that point! She gracefully sang her first song, and then took some time to visit with us in the crowd. Can I just say, "I LOVE CELINE DION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Okay, thank you! Anyway, once she visited for a bit, she announced a special "guest" that was there just to watch her show! Not to participate, just to see her show! And would they stand. Guess who was there!? Mohammed Ali (sp)!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it!? And what's funnier is that I've had the opportunity TWICE to see that man in person! Yes, the first time was for the OPRAH TAPING of the movie "Ali." And he, of course, was a part of that show along with Will Smith, Jada, etc. Anyway, so the next almost two hours without intermission was HISTORY! Oh my goodness! The time FLEW by! WOW!

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! :) Sorry for all the exclamation points and all caps words! I'm still on a Celine high! :) Good night!

"Hello"

Ezra has now learned how to say "hello" instead of "hi." Although that may not seem like much, it's the little things in life that are thrilling and need to be! :) He too has learned how to say "yellow," similiar to "hello" but he will actually "point it out" if he sees the actual color! YAY! Proud moment for Ezra! :)

FOUR MONTHS!!!!!

Chavalah Lyn

Our sweet Chavalah Lyn is four months old today! YAY Chavalah! She is such a doll! We love her SO MUCH! She weighs 10 pounds right now and is still growing! She smiles ALL THE TIME, talks, coos, giggles at her silly brothers, makes eye contact (and grins more), and sucks on her fingers like nothing else! She is a DUPLICATE COPY of her brother, both in looks and in "meth side effects." She is still sleeping TONS, but otherwise, she is doing GREAT! PRAISE THE LORD!!!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PRAYERS!!!!!