Happy 2009!

2008 was a year of great blessings, opportunities and new challenges for us. We are so thankful to have had the chance to travel, visit friends afar (well, so cal anyway), attend weddings, camp, go to Disneyland, see DMG Engineering continue to provide for us, watch our children discover new things each day (literally), adapt to living with and caring for our grandma, and celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary!

We are excited to see what the new year will bring and trust that "...He who has begun a good work in [us] will complete it..." (Phil 1:6)

We hope you have a happy, blessed 2009!

Why we don't buy artificial Christmas trees......

Can your artificial tree do this?


Yes, our neighbors did come out and check that this was a "controlled" burn. And yes, Dylan assured them that everything was under control because started the burn 1 foot up the tree to keep the flames from getting too big and he was holding a garden hose. Hmmm......

You should come................

The Greats!

I think it is so cool that our children are able to grow up with 5 great-grandparents around- one of them even lives with us! What a blessing!

Great Grandma Marian & Great Grandpa Will

PawPaw

Great Grandpa Vern

and our roomie, Great Grandma Phyllis

Henry got a wife!

Well, I thought I should let you all know that Emma got a new fish today. Her name is 2HenryPink and she is married to Henry.

Daddy's Girl

What Emma told Dylan when he got home tonight: "I love you my daddy Dyl. You're my favorite boy and I love being married with you."

Start 'em young!

A friend of ours is a children's librarian and she recommended that we read Mother Goose nursery rhymes to Emma. We didn't have any so I promptly went down to Half Price Books and bought two volumes of classic nursery rhymes. Emma LOVES hearing them and singing them and it is fun for us to remember some of the rhymes from our childhood: Humpty Dumpty, Little Boy Blue, Jack Be Nimble and Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater to name a few.

Well, of course none of the classic ones have stuck in her head. For the past few days she has been walking around the house singing:

"I am a Girl Guide dressed in blue
These are the actions I must do
Salute to the King
Curtsey to the Queen
And turn my back to the washing machine!"

So much for teaching her to do chores around the house!

A sad, sad day.....

2Henrys died. I know, your hearts are probably broken with the sadness of this news. You're probably devastated. You're wondering how your life will go on. Or maybe you're asking yourself, "Who the heck is 2Henrys, and what kind of name is that anyway?"

2Henrys was Emmas goldfish- well actually he was reddish. On her 3rd birthday she was given 2 fish. One of them died before we had a chance to name it and we replaced it with the fish who was to become 2Henrys. 1Henry is the name of the other one that is still swimming happily around in it's tank. We don't know why Emma chose those names for her fish. We can't come up with anything or anyone that we know with the name Henry- which is probably a good thing since the name is quickly becoming overused.

Tonight as I was putting her down for bed and singing the song that names everyone who lives in this house, I tried to leave out the name 2Henrys because I didn't want to upset her. But she caught on and insisted that I include 2Henrys anyway. And then proceeded to ask the question,

"Mommy, do fish go to Heaven when they die, or do they go down the toilet and into the river and into the ocean to Nicaragua where Aunt Joy is?"

I dunno Emma, I've never been to Heaven so I'm not sure if fishies go there when they die.....

Well, that appeased her for the time being. And yes, she is planning on getting a new fish. Guess what it's name will be...... 3Henrys!

Hey, where's Grady?

Grady and Emma are polar opposites. Emma is ALWAYS talking and very concerned about what is going on. Grady on the other hand is very quiet and into exploring everything. He doesn't care if we're around or not- he just wants to do his own thing. I hear that his father was a lot like that as a child :)

Because he's so quiet, we often lose track of him. Here are some recent pictures of places we have found Grady:

In the hall closet behind the vaccuum cleaner

Taking out Emma's clothes and trying them on

In the towel drawer in the kithchen

In the costume box

In the paper shredder box

$80 Mashed Potatoes

This past weekend was Dylan's 10 year high school reunion. Since a 5 hour party with his classmates wasn't enough for Dylan and his friends, they turned it into a whole weekend extravaganza. There was the pre-party the night before, the pre-party the night of, the official reunion, the post-reunion sleepover (yes, sleepover), and the minigolf tournament.

Here are some of my impressions:
Highlights
Emma playing with her friend Macy at the pre-pre-party
Meeting Jeff's girlfriend
Matt Warner putting product in Dylan's hair
Reading the comments in Dylan's old yearbooks- "I will never, never forget you," "you have been my crying shoulder," etc.
The really comfy couch at the Stordahl's house- a perfect bed at 3:30 am

Lowlights
$80 for a mashed potato bar and flatbread sandwich
6 hours of sleep Friday night
Dylan losing the mingolf tournament
4 hours of sleep Saturday night

Had I actually been a member of the SRVHS class of 1998, the weekend would have been perfectly nostalgic. Dylan and his friends had a great time reuniting and catching up. We are so blessed by the friendships that were started in adolescence and have continued to grow over the years.

The weekend has given me hope that perhaps my 10 year reunion will be bearable..... probably not though!

Long lost friend Matt Warner and Dylan (see styled hair!)

The mini golf crew: Angelina and Jeff, Dan, Jackie and Beka, Tyler, Shannon and Lacey, Us

"Welcome to the 90's Gonsalves Fam!"

After many years of being told how uncool I was for not having a facebook page, I took the plunge and joined in. Here are some of my first impressions:

1. it's pretty creepy how fast people track you down
2. it's pretty creepy how you can see what everyone is saying to everyone.
3. it's pretty creepy how they update your page every time anyone that you know does anything.

Maybe it will be come less creepy over time, but I'm not convinced....

Happy last day of October when kids dress up

Here are some pictures from our trick-or-treating endeavors. I'd say that we did pretty well. Emma's candy basket was more that full both times out, so Dylan should be pretty well taken care of for a while now!

First we went to downtown PHill to trick-or-treat at the shops with some of our cousins. Emma was a homeless looking princess. Grady was his dad- er.... a skeleton. Then we came back home and went out again in our 'hood with our cousins and the Dowds. Emma was a cowgirl riding a horse this time around.

Watch out world, here he comes!

Last night after Grady's bath I put him down on the floor and he walked across the room. That's right, he walked. No, he had never really taken a step before. No, he had shown no interest in walking or even standing without support before. I guess he just decided it was time. And the best part is, he doesn't totally look like he's a zombie out of the Thriller video (ie Callie and Beka), he actually looks kinda normal! Here's a video we took about five minutes after his first trek.....

Chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate!

I love to cook. I enjoy searching through magazines and cookbooks and watching the Food Network and finding new recipes to try. I love to experiment with ingredients and invent new food combinations. Unfortunately, these days I seldom have time or energy to put forth much effort into what I feed my family. Thus the huge pile of recipes to try that never diminishes.

So, I started having Gourmet Girls Night In. It is a themed pot luck dinner where we all get to try out a new recipe or two and have fun eating, hanging out, and playing games. The only rule: we're not supposed to talk about our children. That's right, we attempt to have adult conversation that does not revolve around what our little tykes are up to these days. It's a lot harder than it may seem, but at least we're trying!

This past weekend was our second GGNI. The first time was an Italian themed potluck. This time we took on chocolate. That's right, we had a whole dinner centered around chocolate. We had chocolate crostini, chocolate pasta salad, sweet fettuccini with chocolate shavings, 3 different chocolate cakes, dark chocolate fondue, brownies, potato fudge (yum), and salad with fried chocolate goat cheese balls. It was an awesome time to hang out with the girls and have an excuse to eat chocolate for dinner!

What should our next theme be?

A glimpse of the goodness!

Jamie and Bethany

Amanda and Kirstie

Keri and Bryana

Enough with the bumper stickers already!

Here are some pics from our recent trip to the Clayton Valley Pumpkin Patch with our cousins Elijah and Arielle.

Dizzililand!

The Gonsalves family just got back from a trip to the happiest place on earth. Thank you Grandpa David!

Before the trip we hyped it up as much as we could for Emma so that she would have something to look forward to. We told her that we were going for her dad's birthday (he turned 29 on our first day at the park). Emma doesn't watch movies so her only points of reference for Disneyland were the princesses on her bed-time diapers and her Winnie the Pooh coloring book. Even then, she doesn't know their names or what they do except for that they live in a castle at Disneyland. Her cousins and aunts and uncles were SUPER excited to go, so some of the excitement rubbed off and into the park we went.

When we arrived, Emma kept asking "where are the princesses?" and "can I go on the merry-go-round?" over and over again. We went through the castle and found King Arthur's Carousel which was the highlight of the trip as far as rides were concerned. Emma and Grady both would have been happy staying on that ride for two straight days if we had let them. After the carousel, we went on a hunt for the princesses. We looked in the castle and found no princesses. We went on rides, there were no princesses. We walked around for hours and hours, but couldn't find any princesses. Finally, someone told us that the princesses tell stories and pose for pictures in the princess fairy land or something like that. So off we went to find some princesses. By the time we arrived and waited in line f..o..r..e..v..e..r it was smack dab in the middle of what would normally be naptime. So when we finally got to go into the special area to meet the princesses, Emma was a bit tired- but loved it anyway.

After two exhausting days in the parks, we drove home and asked Emma what she liked the best. Her highlights were the merry-go-rounds in "Dizzililand" and California Adventure, the princess coloring pages that she got, and the doggy with the keys in it's mouth from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Grandpa David said that he'll take us again when Emma is 42 inches so that she can go on the big rides with him. Hopefully by then she'll be able to get excited all on her own!

Also, I'd like to give special shout outs to Jeremy, Cristina, Elijah and Arielle who moved in and watched Grandma Phyllis while we were gone and to Dan, Stephanie and Caleb who let us visit on the way down and made Dylan an awesome birthday cake.

He's Number 1!

It's Grady William's first birthday today. Although I'd like to celebrate it as the anniversary of the day I gave birth and give you a synopsis of how that happened, I think I'll spare you the details and just let you know a little bit about our little man. It is amazing to us to see the differences between Emma and Grady and we are so excited to see his personality come out even more as he gets older.

G-dub's favorite food is beans- pinto, black, lentil, you name it, he loves it. He also loves sharing peaches with his dad and burritos from Chipotle.

His favorite person in the whole world is his big sister Emma. If she's napping not around, he whines and goes looking for her. He says her name Ahhh-Maaa and is always laughing at the things that she does.

He says three words: dog, Emma, and da-da. He says something that sounds like ma-ma but he only says that when he's upset or whining so I don't think he's really saying my name!

He loves to crawl and climb and walk with help. He often disappears only to be found playing in the toilet bowl, practicing flushing, or dumping out all of the toys. He loves pushing around toy cars and then turning them over and checking out how they work. His favorite sound to make is a loud growl and he loves to cuddle and just watch what's going on around him.

Well, there's a whole lot more we could say but if you want more, you'll just have to come visit us and see him for yourself!

"Gracias, la cara, la boca"

For the past 9 months or so, 0n Thursday mornings, Emma and I attend a mommy and me Spanish art class. It is a preschool-ish class where we do art projects, sing songs and learn vocabulary- all in Spanish.

This week, on Wednesday night I told Grandma that we would be leaving for a couple of hours in the morning to go to Spanish class. She mentioned that she had always wanted to learn Spanish because she thought she would've liked to travel to Mexico some day. So, we invited her along to come to our class.

These days in class we're learning vocabulary for the different parts of our body. This week, we talked about "la cara" or the face. When we walked in with Grandma, the teacher handed her a sheet with the different vocabluary words and translations. Throughout the morning, Grandma was thoroughly enjoying her time watching the kids dance around, paint, sing and create masterpieces. When we stood up to leave, Grandma looked at the teacher and said, "Gracias, la cara, la boca." So, yes, she told the teacher "Thank you, the head, the mouth!" Besides the funny salutation, I was blown away. I mean, this is Grandma we're talking about here. She usually can't remember what day it is and she can't learn how to use a microwave, but after 50 minutes of Spanish class, she had already learned some vocabluary! After a few more weeks of class, maybe she'll be able to take that trip to Mexico after all!


(Emma's Masterpiece)

We love car camping

Car camping is great. Since we love it so much, we went for the weekend with our good friends Dan, Jackie and Rebekah Dowd. Dan, Dylan, Rebekah and Grady all have birthdays in September so we celebrated by having the 1st ever Dan-Dylan-Beka-Grady birthday camping trip. This way, we don't have to have formal birthday parties (because 29-year-olds and 1-year-olds really don't care if they have a party or not) and we were able to enjoy one more weekend of summer in the great outdoors.

On Friday, we left Grandma at home with Craig (thank you!) and loaded up the SUVs with 2 kayaks, 2 pack-n-plays, 1 toddler bed, 1 dog crate, 2 ice chests, 2 tents, 2 boxes of food, 2 crates of kitchen stuff, 2 air mattresses, bedding for 7 people and 2 dogs, a crate or two of camping gear (lanterns, matches, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, etc), a six-sided baby play pen and a bag full of games. Somehow, after all of the stuff was loaded, there was still room for two adults, one dog and a kid or two per car. Our destination was Lindsey Lake up near Tahoe. After traveling on a bumpy, dusty road for miles and miles we arrived to find that the lake and camp area were closed for the season. While we stopped to come up with plan B, Beka got stung by a yellowjacket on her lip and Emma cut her hand open and was bleeding. Ahh the joys of camping. So while us mothers took care of our ailing children, the boys went scouting for a new camp site and found another lake close by that worked. The only caveats- we had to park our cars and carry our gear in (see above list) and there were no camp fires allowed so no hobo pies or smores. Had we known this was the case, we may have attempted to pack a bit lighter, but what's the fun in that!

After about 40 hours of sleeping, kayaking in the "banana boats," playing Rumikub, eating- a lot, and Emma's eye being swollen shut from a yellow jacket bite we had to pack up, hike everything back to the cars and come home. Yup, 40 hours. We probably spent more time planning and packing than we did actually camping, but it was fun nonetheless. Hope you enjoyed the pictures............

Eat Meat

Or not. You see, Dylan has high cholesterol (See Milo Ross's comment on Dylan being like a grandpa). We found out when he was trying to buy life insurance. Apparently, if you have high cholesterol the insurers don't like you. So we've been eating a lot of granola, a lot of whole grains, and drastically reduced his intake of meat, baked goods, eggs and cheese. His cholesterol levels have greatly improved. I know, good for us.

Stick figures on the back of a car

Welcome to our much delayed family blog. Since so much of life can be summed up on bumper stickers, my goal is to find a different bumper sticker as inspiration for each blog entry. We'll see how far that goes. So, for our first entry, my inspiration came from the stick figures on the back of a minivan..... now picture the back of a minivan with a stick figure for a dad and a mom and a daughter and a son and a dog and two fish and a grandma. That's us.

That's right, no longer is it just Dylan, me, Emma, Lucy (the dog), and Grady. We now have two goldfish named Henry and 2Henrys and the newest member of our family, Grandma Phyllis. Dylan's grandma just moved in with us and we are loving her help with my least favorite chore- folding laundry. Dylan is probably loving even more that he is guaranteed a hot meal every night since I have to make sure Grandma eats a well balanced diet. Gone are the days of cereal or salad for dinner- I guess it couldn't last forever!

Well, I'm very handicapped when it comes to publishing cool things, but be patient with me. And apparently all of my pictures are still on my old computer so you'll have to wait for those, too.