Grown up Friends

Before the holidays really got going, we invited some friends over had had a BLAST!!!

There was so much laughing and yelling I could only stop playing for a minute to get a picture.

I am pretty sure you have never played Yatzee like we play Yatzee!

Getting ready for Christmas

We are so excited for the holidays, that we got the house ready for Christmas this weekend.
Because we are going skiing for Christmas with my family we decided not to put up a tree. Instead, we went to Costco and bought a bundle of ceder garland and put it up around the house and made a wreath. Actually, it was a lot of fun to spend the morning together,
even if it was at Costco.

After we arrived home, Daniel and the kids washed the car,
and Olivia and I put up the lights out front.

I know I look good, but the other picture Daniel took was only good for him!


Then we officially put a stop to Chloë's fun!


After the house work was done, Daniel took the kids to the park and
I decorated the inside of the house.
I put up my nutcrackers and the beautiful nativity set Ann made me.

Getting ready for Thanksgiing

Here we are making our pumpkin pie, of course, the kids had to help.

As you can tell we had a great time, the kids are very happy.

Thanksgiving morning our ward had the first Turkey Bowl. There were about 10 people there. Not a bad turn out for a last minute game. We hope this will be the first of many great Thanksgiving mornings with our ward.

After many hours of cooking here is our menu.

Herb crusted Turkey Breast
Carrot Souffle by Daniel
Sweet Potatoes bajo de Nubes by Kaylene
Green beans with bacon by Kaylene
Rolled Mantiquilla Rolls by Lindsay
Cranberry Gel by Store Brand
Stuffing with Something Stuff by Michael
Mashers Yukon Style by Lindsay
Gravy by Kaylene

❧❧❧❧❧❧

Dessert
Traditional Pumpkin Pie by Lindsay
Autumn Apple Carmel Pie by Kaylene

It looked beautiful and tasted great.


After dinner we played a wild and crazy game of Yatzee with the Michael and Kaylene. We had a great time laughing, yelling and throwing the dice.

We had to take a group picture, poor Tom!

Every year Grandma Mimi send us chocolate turkeys from See's candy. They are a big hit. Sam is showing us his turkey with the head. . .

and here is his turkey with NO head!

Yum Yum

It is official

This little cutie you are looking at has broken EVERYTHING I own that is over $100. Last night, 10 minutes after Dori left Chlover (we call her clover) put my cell phone/PDA in the microwave. Don't worry the $30 microwave still works. But the phone, battery and sd card are fried! Syid, the Verizon repair man, said he has seen alot, but never a microwaved phone.
Don't worry, we figured out how to stop her. I put a fence at one end of the kitchen and a lock on the other door. Chloë, you are a little terror!

Loula in her blessing dress

While Sam and I stayed home from church (b/c Sam said "My stomach ache hurts"). I took some pictures of Loula, I mean, Lauren Bell in her baby blessing dress.
this is Daniel's favorite picture
She is such a doll.

and this is my favorite picture of her in the dress
. . . and I love her shoes, thanks mom.

crazy hats

Turn off the music at the bottom of the blog.
Thanks Michael for making us laugh! Nice dancing Livster!

Gilroy Gardens

Yesterday, a lady from our church and asked me if I would be interested in tickets to Gilroy Gardens. I was very grateful and excited to take the kids. Daniel had the option of watching the BYU vs. UofU game but he decided to come with us to the park. We all had a great time!
Before each ride this kids liked to "measure up" to make sure they were tall enough.



We invited our friends to come with us. Here is Orion and Olivia on the train.

Sam wanted to go on this train ride from the moment he saw the train. Can you tell from this picture how much satisfaction he gets such from being on the train.


The kids loved most of the rides, the cars that the children can drive was not exception.
Even though this was a favorite ride it does display one problem we have with having 4 kids. Only 1 child and 1 adult can go at a time. So Daniel had to sit out with the other 3 kids while I went on the ride 3 time. If this is the biggest problem with having 4 kids, I'll take it!



Here goes Dad, Olivia, Sam and Chloë. This was a fast ride. I could hear Chloë screaming as I sat with Loula outside the fence!

Chloë looks too comfortable in this car. She was stroking the chrome while she waited for the ride to start. I think we should be worried about her love for cars when she becomes a teenager.

Chloë thought the carousel was a good idea, until it started moving. It took a minute for her grip to loosen.

We also spent a lot of time climbing and hanging off the railings.

Sam's hot dog hat

We love you!

Let's go see the aMiNals

Chloë and I had such a great time at Hidden Villa on Tuesday with the walk and talk group, I had to bring Sam, my camera and some other friends to enjoy the beautiful and informative farm. See it for yourself:
www.hiddenvilla.org
I printed out a bingo sheet of different farm animals and brought stickers for the kids to put on their farm animal as they found them.
(Some of the kids enjoyed that more than others)

Chloë found one of the many "tunnels" and canopies the kids could sit under as they learned about the garden.

Sam just loved running in and out!

Then we went to the goats. They were a lot of fun to pet.

Sam went in for a good look.

Then we found the pigs!

. . . and the chickens.

We also saw cows and piglets. The piglets were born on Sept. 24th and the were already about Sam's size.
This was the best picture we could get.

I am so glad we went back. I can't wait to take Daniel. Everyone said it is much prettier in the spring, but I can't see how that is possible. The mountains and pastures were so green, and different colors of green. The trees were changing colors and leaves were everywhere. The weather was cool and krisp. It is hard to believe we were less than 20 minutes from home.

Sam is holding his bingo chart and Chloë is pointing to another fun animal.
Don't worry Hidden Villa, we will be back!

Daniel's dad Lou

When Loula was born my mom brought me some old pictures of my family. I posted them a month or so ago. In general, geneology sounds boring, but the thought of pictures to go along with personal history...now that sounds exciting. Old pictures from my mom was all I needed to get me more interested in family history. In the future I will post entries with some personal stories from our ancestors. Today I am focusing on Daniel's dad's birth.

Louis Frank Ledesma July 2, 1932 4:18 am

Lou started his personal history when he was 56 years old. I will refer to his
personal history as I blog about him.

Lou was born Louis Ledesma Junior at Lane Hospital in San Francisco. Lane Hospital was constructed during 1893 and 1894 at Clay and Webster Streets adjacent to the medical school. The major contributor was Dr. Lane. The hospital is no longer there. When I told Ann I had found a picture, she said Lou always wanted to see the place where he was born.

Lou said he did not like being called Junior by his aunts and uncles
so he changed his name on October 22, 1951 to Louis Frank.
Frank Martin was his favorite uncle (husband of his mother's sister, aunt Flora).

Lou lived on Cherry street in Menlo Park, CA until he was 9 or 10 years old.

(picture of house on Cherry street)

This was during the great depression. His father worked as a gardener at the Michael's Estate in Atherton. Lou said, "We were always blessed with food, clothing and shelter."

After the house on Cherry street, his family moved down to
Pine Street a half block away.

(picture of house on Pine street)

As a side note... when Daniel and I met, I was living in an apartment with

the same number as Lou's house, and few streets up from him.

see post dated July 10, 2002

alone after 5 years, 2 months, 1 week and 2 days

...but whose counting!

We took advantage of having Ann at our place to go out of town for a night. We left around noon on Friday and drove to Half Moon Bay, CA (actually to the northern outskirts of HMB in Princeton). We found a quaint restaurant by the docks and had some clam chowder.
It was good.


We walked on the beach and picked out some seashells for the kids.

Then we drove around to find a place to feed Loula (we did bring her, but she was very easy).
When she was feed and happy Daniel and I walked around, again.



Then we went and checked into our place we were staying and watched the news. I am out of touch more than I want to be with what is happening in politics and news in general, so I enjoyed watching cable news. (I am tempted to get cable at home, but it might be a good thing if we stay without it.)

When we had our t.v. fill, we went out for a late dinner to the HMB Brewing Co.
http://hmbbrewingco.com/photos/photos.php
I had an amazing hamburger with onions, mushrooms and cheese. Daniel had a sandwhich with shimp and crab. After dinner we went back to the place we
had soup at this afternoon and had a huge bowl of pumpkin ice cream.
In the morning we had breakfast and had a nice conversation with an older couple and their sister, whom is a HMB local. Then we came home.

At home

Well, here we are a few days away from being 3 months old. I think slowly we are growing into our eyes!

See the pretty flower Dad got mom.

Here are Sam and Liv being crazy.