Kimchi and Squid

Okay, so Dave and I went to a Korean restaurant last night. Dave served his mission in Korea and we love their food. Anyway, as we were sitting there munching down on some good kimchi and squid, the music came on. Now, I am sure that some of you can attest to the fact that some of these 'true' foreign restaurants play some interesting music, but this completely took Dave and I off guard! When I noticed the music it was the line "You never know dear, how much I love you" . . . I then asked Dave, are we really listening to "You are my sunshine?" We listened closer and HECK YES WE WERE! Not only were we listening to "You are my sunshine", but we were listening to it being sung by no less than a barber shop quartet!!! IT WAS AWESOME!!

After the first song, I figured the owner of the joint just had a mix in or whatever. Boy, was I wrong, we proceeded to hear "On Top of Old Smokey", "Oh my Darling, Clementine", "Oh Susanna", "Jingle, Jangle, Jingle", and of course, "Home on the Range"! Where else can you go and hear this stuff unless it was in your third grade music class with good ol' singed eyebrows, Dr. Brower! I couldn't stop giggling with each song that came on! Although, I can't help but wonder if the owner, after interacting with Isabella, put it on for her . . . who knows. It was a gay ol' time anyhow! LOL

The American Dream

This picture was taken 1/19/2009. Isabella is 8 weeks old and this is the beginning of the third week the builders have been working on our home (the house being built behind Dave and Bella). It is insane to me how quickly they have framed our home and now working on the roof! It is VERY exciting! We think they may even meet their completion date in mid-March! We are lucky in that we live across the way from it being built and we get to see the progress every day, it is really fun to watch. Isabella had her first road trip today as well as we had to drive up to Lake Oswego to pick out details for the house. She did WONDERFULLY!! We were so happy about that, we even were able to stop at the Woodburn outlets and get her a couple outfits for next year's winter.

It was a great way to celebrate MLK day in celebrating the American dream, we just had our first child, we are building a new home and Dave and I have secure jobs. Although, speaking of jobs, I am grateful I have one to go back to on February 9th, however I am not looking forward to leaving my baby girl. The plan is that I will not have to work long and that I will be able to be a stay at home mother, we hope and pray that our plans will work out. We have been extremely blessed to have family around, one of which, my dear sister-in-law Lisa, has graciously agreed to care for my baby - Thank goodness and God bless her!

All smiles

Baby Bella with Bono. Bono likes laying in the sunshine, he also likes to be where the people are, kind of like the Little Mermaid. He is careful not to get on Bella's blanket because he knows his mommy will not be happy with him :) After this shot Bella stared at Bono for a few minutes!

Nothing is more fun than hearing your baby coo or laugh. Bella began smiling in reaction to me or her daddy last week and we thought we were done for before, she really has us now!! SO FUN!








She really is the most beautiful baby girl I have ever seen . . . and such a good baby too! She has been fighting some stomach/intestine problems, she was in a great deal of pain whenever passing anything, but we have a great Doc who has been very helpful to us! She seems like she is doing much better now, so keep your fingers crossed!

We also went to the movies twice this weekend and brought Isabella with us. The first movie was "Yes Man" which was actually pretty funny, Isabella slept through the whole thing, no problem. The next night we ventured dinner and a movie with Mark and Lisa (double date!). Isabella didn't like the theater the second night, but Daddy was super great and took care of her the whole time because he wanted Mommy to enjoy the movie. What a sweetheart! Mark and Lisa "Welcomed" us to parenthood after that, lol.

Gosh we love this little angel!!

PS
Yes, we had sunshine!! It's amazing, I know!! :)

Isabella at 5 1/2 weeks

You know, I may be partial, but Isabella is seriously the most adorable infant ever!! :) I just want to squeeze her! I can't believe it has been 6 weeks today (as of this post) that she was born, so nutso to me!!

Holiday Festivities

Tatiana's birthday was the day before Greg and Julie had to leave, Julie was filming everyone, Dave thought it would be funny to take her picture too ;)

McKayla, Greg and Dave are looking at rocks. Yes it sounds boring, but to them it was a great time! That is Greg's fortay btw, geology. Dave encouraged him too, I don't know how I feel about that ;) lol

It is so funny to me how these kids love to chase and follow poor Bono around everywhere! Bono was trying to hide from Camille and Natasha, but guess what?! They found him! lol

This was my entire family watching "The Polar Express" which is actually kind of a creepy movie, they way that it is animated and all. Anyway, it was amazing that we could fit 27 bodies in that room! Thank you to Lisa and Mark for putting that together! Notice Kirk is not watching the movie, he is busy texting . . .

Ashley and Max hanging out with Baby Bella at Grandpa and Grandma's house :)

It always amazes me how quickly children get bored. This is when I was trying to entertain them by playing "Hide the Thimble" in our home . . . although we didn't have a thimble so we had to improvise. I think they had fun, except maybe the one in the front, which is Bobby, lol.


Greg and his ADORABLE first born, Chloe! Chloe is beautiful and looks SO MUCH like her mommy! She is an artist and has the BEST imagination, it reminds me of what kids were like when I was a kid!

This is the entire Family, 27 in all! All my siblings, sibling spouses and their children were present for the first time in an extremely long time.

Names by row, backrow from left to right: Teresa, Isabella, Julie, Chloe, Tatiana, Greg, Leora, Floyd, Kirk, Mark, Lisa, Stacia

Front row: Dave, Wayne, Xavier, Max, Rhona, Kylie, Bobby, Rob, Dalin, Debra, McKayla, Camille, Natasha, Ashley, Erika

DANG, THAT IS A LOT OF PEOPLE!! Can you believe that I have one neice in there that is 16 and another that will turn sixteen this month!! Incredible


As for the Holidays, they were great! It was absoultely a blessing to be around all of my siblings and spend time with them. Especially Greg and Julie and their family as we haven't seen them in four years - dang Canooks. It was also really neat to have Wayne and his new bride, Rhona, come down for a couple days with all of Wayne's kids! Kirk was here too, which is always a party! Of course Debra and her family came from the Portland area and then the rest of us are here in Eugene! But we had a great time playing bump at the church (Greg didn't get hurt this year, which is great!), going bowling, watching movies, eating lots, shopping (well, as much as we could stand) and just hanging out! WHAT FUN! I love my family and feel so blessed to have ALL of them in my life! I was super excited for them all to meet Isabella as well.