Our four year old.

Here she is in her new birthday dress. Weston gave her that gold purse full of gifts.

There are all the treats on the morning of her birthday...

Hot chocolate tea party and our traditional homemade donuts.

Four candles for the birthday girl on her breakfast bday party!

Two of the cutest kids ever!

Christmas time fun

Update on our CA house

We had to evict our tenants, they stopped paying the rent a couple of months ago. So the legal part is done and we are all done cleaning the inside and it is ready to rent out again.

We are working on prepping the outside of the house for painting.

If you ever think to yourself, "We should paint our house. It's a big job, but it's not a huge job..." don't listen to yourself.

Say to yourself- "I love the color and condition of my home," as many times as it takes talk yourself out of the idea to paint. While you're talking yourself out of it, open a bank account and start saving up for a painter to paint your house.

Until then DO NOT pressure wash your home, scrape off the remaining paint and sand down the bare wood. Your arms were not designed to be above your head scrubbing for seven hours a day.

If you decide to ingore this sage advice and paint your home, you'll be standing on a ladder working on the wooden eaves of your home, and your arms will fall off and your head will too and it will roll down the driveway...

Whew, I didn't know I had so much pent up emotion! :)

It is A HUGE, DIFFICULT, SLOW job and probably at the end rewarding! :) Our pinkish/purple home is not going to be nail polish color any longer! I am so looking forward to that. But for now I'm typing with a pencil in my mouth because my arms fell off and they are at our rental home! :) Just Kidding!

Because my arms could not endure any more scraping or sanding, I organized all the stuff the tenants left behind and sold it at an impromptu garage sale. So far we made $72. Not bad for throwing a mess of junk on the driveway on Thursday from 9 am-5pm. :) I organized it in the empty garage so well open shop again tomorrow and hopefully pull in a little more.

Guess what else?, since I am mindlessly typing, I will tell you! These folks left behind a really nice set of Kitchen Aid knives. I took them gladly and I just stopped chopping to type this because they are THE NICEST knives I've ever used and they are making my cooking a real joy. I am so used to using dull knives I just might chop my finger off though, so I better be careful! :)

Ok so ends this violent post. :)

Sierra's starting to talk...

I had a chat with Sierra the other day. I told her she needed to slow down and say less words so that I can understand her.

Then today she said several individual words to me today. Variations of, "book, out..." and others I can't remember because my mind is mush.

My mind is mush because I spent 7 hours high pressure washing, scraping and sanding our house. i can't wait to see the finished product- our house NOT pink! ;)

Advice

We are seeking advice from the speech therapists that Sierra's been seeing. The University of Redlands has been so helpful. I have really enjoyed branching out and finding out more about speech.

I had a nice conversation with the professor that works with Sierra today. She is going to do a full assessment on Sierra not only in speech, but in language, and phonological awareness. She said that if Sierra is at a normal spot in all the other areas, she could be a candidate for "out of the box" type of therapies.

One of the "out of the box" methods is this: Click here: TinyEye. It is an online speech therapy option for children that live far from therapy options. We're not sure if it is an option for Sierra, or our family but I am excited that this professor want to make time to both assess Sierra, counsel with us and look into "out of the box" options for us if she thinks that Sierra is a good match for that.

I really appreciate this woman, Diane's, perspective. She has been in the speech field longer than all the other therapists we've seen. She has been observing Sierra's sessions for this whole semester, she's worked in public and private practices and now she is a professor at U of R.

So far we have received some counsel from Lucid, our private speech therapist, but I think that Diane has a broader perspective of the field in general. We are interested in getting councel from this woman.

Will you continue praying with us for God's leading in this situation?
Thanks

Sierra's Christmas Show and Snow at school

This is a bit blurry, but you get the idea!
They had snow delivered on Friday night and the kids got to go sledding.
Merry Christmas!

I love my hubby

He has been gone 11 days, it feels like much longer. What a trip for him. I can't wait to see him tomorrow and hear all about it.

What a wonderful man to share my life with. I am so blessed.

Sierra keeps pointing at his picture and asking where he is with her hands. I notice she does this especially when mean mommy rears her ugly head!

Peter is a wonderful help around the house. My dear sister, Shauna, has helped me so much. Peter helps me make sure that the laundry gets from the couch to the drawers. I had 10 loads on the couch today when my sister arrived and she helped me get it off the couch! Yay. She helped me vacuum, she brought hotdogs to serve to our kids. YAY for sisters, friendships and HELP.

I admit I am very spoiled having so much help at home and God knew my sanity was at stake when He planned our life and the help He has given to me is such a gift.

I've been so busy, I promise you I think my new job is taxi driver. Driving and driving and driving. Today that included the eye doctor. Wes got a new prescription and I ordered him new glasses today. Lets just say, they are the finest glasses in the world- bendy frames, thin lenses that turn to sunglasses outside. He is worth it and I am so so so excited for him to get new glasses. He has done a really good job keeping his previous pair intact so I felt confident to get the best. I bought them at the optometrist so that I could get the best. They come with a one year guarantee that they will not scratch and I'm sure Weston will put that to the test! They will come in two weeks. I've been wanting to do that for months, so I guess I can check it off the list! :)