Amy and Dan tie the knot

Amy Westcott and Dan Dry tied the knot last night. The wedding was beautiful, at a ranch in Garner Valley (near Idyllwild). I love weddings! Probably because I still love my groom so much ....and I love to dance. Now that I'm a parent I think about the weddings of my own kids and I hope that they will be much like this one, with two Christian people, deeply in love, looking to honor Christ with their lives.

Congratulations Beth!!! She shared her news that she and Justin are expecting their first baby May 11th!!

Amy's Dad is our pastor.....he said it's definitely a job "perk" of being a pastor to be able to officiate your own child's wedding.

auntie Dawn and Auntie Justine were in town for the wedding! So we had lots of fun with them, and thanks to "Auntie Beth" for babysitting during the wedding!!

The Fightin' Irish vs The Killer Bees

So this Friday Joel had his second soccer game. Here he is.....getting ready.

Abbey is The Fightin' Irish's biggest fan!!

Joel played goalie again for awhile but the Irish did a great job of keeping the ball at the other end of the field so our goalie's didn't do too much this game. The Irish played well, again Maggie and Lucas were our aggressive players taking the ball down the field! Breanna did a great job running up and down the field and was "player of the game." Joel should run cross country because he runs up and down the field following the ball wherever it goes.

Here is Joel throwing the ball in (the ref. is our friend Josh from church). The Killer bee's just couldn't keep up with the Irish this week and we were victorious with a final score of 3 to 1 (once again Maggie scored once and Lucas twice). Next week's battle should be good I hear the Bobcats are the team to beat.

A Day at the Wild Animal Park

We have an annual membership to the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park and so today we used our two guest passes and took Grampa and Sweet Gramma with us. (Josh's Gramma doesn't want to be called great Gramma so they boys call her "Sweet Gramma"). So we picked them up in Hemet at 8:00 and off we went.
Now I know they are not endangered but it's still weird to watch a lion eat a WHOLE rabbit!
Joel and Seth in the Petting Zoo.....they were especially fond of the one eyed antelope.
Aren't baby elephants cute! Well.....we had an awesome day, it was a little hot for us mountain folk but oh well. Thanks for coming Grampa and Sweet Gramma!

The Fightin' Irish

Joel's soccer team is The Fightin' Irish and though they have no concept of the origin of their great name they still think its funny. And all of their uniforms are way too big so it is as if they are little leprecan's in human uniforms. We were interested to see how Joel would do in his first organized sporting game ever! Being a parent is full of interesting anxieties.



So here is most of our team. Coach Tim, who is touching Lucas Schippers shoulders in the pic., Maggie with the dark hair, Breanna with the light hair, Joel in the foreground and Alia is playing goalie so she's not in this picture. We have two other players but Joseph is on vacation and Zack has a broken arm he'll start in a few weeks I think.
Now, the Jaguars had a good run on us in the first half but the fightin' irish weren't going to go down easy. I like this pic because it looks like Joel is getting pummelled by #8's ponytail. Alia and Maggie are the only two kids on our team that have played before but Lucas has the advantage of an older brother and he was great and scored 2 goals!
Now "soccer" is what we call it but you could call it "bunch ball" if you want. Really they all just chase the ball around the field. There was a classic moment in the first half, The ball was kicked out of bounds and the Irish were to throw it in. So coach Tim said "Breanna go ahead and throw it in" so she proceeded to pick up the ball run all the way to the goal and "threw it in" the goal (Ignoring all the adults yelling "stop breanna"). It was awesome!
In this league of angelic 4-6 year olds there is no official score but lets not kid ourselves all the parents are really keeping score.....so.....after a tough first half the Fightin' Irish came back and tied the score 3-3 (Maggie scored once and Lucas scored twice)! And we were a man down all game, and two down at one point because someone had to go "potty." Joel played goalie for awhile and had 3 saves! Nice work Joel. Coach Jeremy picked Lucas as "player of the game" and everyone got capri sun's and fruit snacks afterward........what a great day! Look (because I know you are all intersted) for the recap of next week's game against the Killer Bees.

In My Opinion

Ok, so if there is anything as a mom that I am neurotic about it's taking family pictures. People sometimes joke that we are constantly going to take new family pictures, well it is mostly true. Of course in the world of digital cameras we all take pictures all the time and can save them forever and print them out at the touch of a button but......I still like taking the time, going to JC Penney (my favorite, due to the amazing prices) and having them take our picture.
Granted I used to actually think it was "fun", as they caught the perfect smile on camera. Now with three kids its more like an endurance race, but worth it. We went down to Palm Desert yesterday to have Abbey's first portraits done, they were so cute. And of course we took some family pictures as well, though Abbey didn't really want to smile for the photographer (since we were in the picture too we couldn't really try to get her to smile ourselves) I think they turned out great. So to all of you who say you wish you took family pictures more.....I think you should too. And Chelsea at the Palm Desert Mall is great (though not as good as Juanita at the mall in Orange).

Still trying to figure out the "Big Boy" bed

As you can see Seth has not mastered sleeping in a regular bed. This picture was taken last night at about 10:15pm when we went in to check on the boys before going to sleep ourselves. I'm not exactly sure how he got in this position but he was sound asleep and barely woke up when I put him back under the covers.

The Cowells

The kids, L to R. Eszter, Sophia, Josiah (the twins are already 21 months!), Joel and Seth

So, Josh and I have these friends.....Brian and Ashlee. We've been friends for 10 years I think (Josh and Brian....a little longer). We both started dating at about the same time, all Biolans (of course) and have done lots of stuff together. (Remember when we ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere on the way to Chip and Tara's wedding???) Anyway, they came to Idyllwild for a little visit and it was soooo good to see them. Thanks for coming guys! And to all those people who always say to me "where'd you get your diaper bag"......I usually say my friend made it for me.....well Ashlee is my very talented friend =) You should see the tu-tu she made for Abbey, it's adorable.
Now I know this post is going to show how I am still blogging stupid. I wrote my little paragraph about the Cowells and then tried to add the pictures but that pushed my words to the bottom, I really meant for them to be first. I'm still working on it!

Playing

Playing trains in the living room always starts out sweet and nice with lots of choo-choo sounds and frequently ends with Seth "king kong" destroying the track and Joel "the controller" having a breakdown because king kong just destroyed his track. But usually no matter what happens in about 10 minutes they want to play together again.
Abbey on the other hand definately plays well with others......even if the "others" are strange looking lions and giraffes that hang from the little baby gym.

I am soooo cute.....don't you think so too!!

Game Night

How do 6 adults with a total of 8 kids get together and play games??

Put the kids in front of the TV so they can watch talking vegetables.

We had a fun game night with our friends the Tates and the Towlers. Woo Hoo!
There's actually two more kids, but both baby girls can't sit up yet so.....they missed out on the picture.

Soccer 101

Today was Joel's first day of soccer practice. Watching 4, 5, and 6 year olds practice soccer is a pretty fun pastime! He did great and coach Jeremy is patient and amazing with little kids. His daughter Alia is on the team too.
Joel said he really enjoyed it and Seth was really sad that he couldn't play.
Abbey went to Soccer practice too! She's 7 weeks old now.

Ahoy Matey

Sooooo.....Joel said he wanted to play pirates with Seth. He gets out the swords and asks me to tie the bandanas on their heads.....what a fun time with brothers playing together, right? Actually two year olds and four year olds don't sword fight well, Seth ends up hitting Joel instead of Joel's sword, Joel Yells, Joel gets in trouble for yelling, pretty soon dad is a referee and everyone is crying and voila......early naptime!

I'm A Big Boy Now

Well Joel had been asking to sleep on his "Top" bed for awhile, but since the beds are really two "stackable" twin beds there was no railing on the top bunk. Well we have a few extra days off this week so Josh made a beautiful rail for the top bunk on Wednesday and Joel got to sleep on the top bunk! Also for the last several days when we mention "pajamas, or bedtime" Seth has been running into their room and jumping into the bottom bunk and pretending to go to sleep so we decided he was old enough to be free from the Pack-n-play that he's been sleeping in since we kicked him out of the crib because Abbey was coming. So Seth is officially in a big boy bed. After two nights we're doing great. No one has fallen out of bed. Everyone is still excited to go to bed in their "new bed" and as far as we know Seth is not wandering around when he wakes up, he's been staying in bed until Josh comes to their room in the morning. Joel has also stopped saying that he is scared at night since he's been sharing a room with Seth. It's great. And Josh's "Honey-Do" list is a little bit shorter!

Aunties Come Visit

Auntie Dawn, Auntie Steen (Justine), and Auntie Beth (who isn't technically an aunt at all but we love her anyway) came to visit this weekend just for fun (and because we are so cool) Thanks for coming y'all brightened our weekend! (unfortunately you never actually see Beth...she just takes all the pictures)
Isn't Auntie Dawn's new haircut sooo cute!
Yum, shaved ice! Thanks Justine and Beth, take them for a treat at nap time them bring them back to mom and dad.......awesome! (On the left is cousin Lily, Justine's neice)

Ok....two posts, with pictures in one day, I'm a blog master!!!

Bath Time

So....In the kids bathroom we have this really cute picture frame that holds three photos. And until yesterday there were three really cute pictures of Joel in the bath when he's about 2. Well we decided we should probably update the pictures now that we have 3 kids and Joel is now almost 5. So let the bath time pictures commence.....



Look at Abbey....isn't she so cute! She's already 6 weeks old! Time flies when you don't get much sleep.

I would like all of you to know that if somehow this post actually publishes....the pictures are in fact on it.....and it all looks fairly normal.....it's a miracle and my friend Sarah Tate (and my husband of course) will be very proud of me. Uploading, downloading, all that is pretty much foreign to me, but I guess I shouldn't let the world pass me by!