Merry Christmas

This year for Christmas we took several photos of the girls and cousins, Triston & Carter and we gave our parents a few shots framed for Christmas this year. The grandparents all loved the photos of the kids and Josh & I had fun wrestling alligators....um, I mean kids, to try and get some decent pictures taken. It was very interesting putting 4 kids of all age groups together and trying to get them to all look at the camera, to smile, and to listen to directions. This was some of the outcome.

Brian takes the bus!

Brian is just getting ready to celebrate his 4th year as a city bus driver. He absolutely loves it! He has to change up his route every 3-6 months, but tries to keep a similar schedule and area that he drives. He loves to be personable with his regular bus riders and this year he has already received many Christmas cards and goodies from his patrons. They love his personality and tell him that he is the best bus driver they have ever had. He definitely is the cutest. :)

Halloween past memories

Kylie as Snow White

Alyssa as Captain Jack Sparrow

Alyssa and Kylie with their pumpkins

I was too busy to blog about our Halloween when it was actually Halloween.... Alyssa was a great pirate this year. She went as Captain Jack Sparrow and looked a little too good in eyeliner if you know what I mean. Watch out Dad I think you are in for it. And Kylie Jean went as none other than Snow White and looked like a princess with her beautiful dark hair and rosy cheeks. They had a great time trick-or-treating at Grandma's house and also enjoyed passing out the candy too. Earlier in the week they both designed and carved our pumpkins which came out great! We love Halloween!

To all the toys we've loved before....

I can now see the floor again!!!

This weekend we went through the playroom and made room for all the new toys that Santa is going to be bringing. We also went through the closet and all the drawers and organized everything so it is much easier to find stuff. The girls helped by letting me know which toys they no longer want to play with and which toys needed new batteries or didn't work at all. We separated them into piles and now have "fix it" "donate it" and "throw it" bags. We fixed the few things that needed fixing, we threw one whole bag away, and today we are taking two bags of toys, to a wonderful little thrift shop near our house that helps our small Glendale community. The girls are very excited to help out and see their old toys off. Alyssa is especially understanding of what we are doing. She now knows the meaning of giving and how it feels.

Stephanina

Stephanie Wallace was a happy, funny, smart, caring, and wonderfully excitable person. She lived her life with lots of zest. She had shared with me so many of her half joking hopes and ideas. Stephie was always searching for a handsome cowboy who would marry her and take her into the sunset on his horse. Or she would love to have lived in some bario deep in the heart of South Phoenix or in the slums of Las Vegas, as this was her idea of a interesting life. Or even better, she would have liked to have lived in the jungles of Ecuador, listening to the Ecuadorian flute music of the land and taking care of all the little poor Ecuadorian children at the base of a volcano. As you can tell, Stephie was an adventurer, a dreamer and a comedian. She was always making light of any situation and could make you laugh at most anything. She was liked by EVERYONE she met. She had a heart of gold! Today she passed away in her sleep and we are all truly sad. We will miss her conversations about how much fun we had on her last visit to Phoenix, where she came for a visit and stayed a YEAR. We will miss her memories of her childhood growing up with all her brothers & sisters, down the street from none other than, George Clooney in Ohio. We will miss her memories about Josh & I, as we were kids growing up in Las Vegas. We had many wonderful adventures together. Holidays shared together. Rainy days spent together. All the overnight stays with her at Grandma's house. Josh & I both remember her breakfast of cigarettes, Dr. Pepper, and a candy bar. Those were especially fun to see as a kid, kinda Willy Wonka'ish. She was nothing more than a big kid herself. She never seemed as old as she was. She never seemed to get older. She was always the fun & playful Stephie. She always played with us, she always laughed with us, and never yelled or put us in our places (she let our parents do that). She was always on our level. Even as I aged into an adult, Stephie was exactly the same with my own children. She had this undeniable bond with kids that made her really truly stand out from others. All kids flocked to her like no other. She extended the same to my Alyssa. Alyssa has a similar relationship to Stephie as I did. However, Alyssa was unable to know her as long. As for Kylie, she will only know the stories we tell her about Stephie and will know that she was the best person we knew. I will miss Stephanie very much......Stephie, wherever you are. I hope that your best adventure ever, has only just begun. Love ya, Jenners

Two missing teeth

OK, so you've heard the song, "All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth", well Alyssa is missing two of her teeth. Not only is she missing two teeth, but they both fell out on the same day. One at school after lunch, and the other when we got home before dinner time. She left one tooth for the tooth fairy and got a $1 and a pack of Juicy Fruit. However, being the young entrepreneur that she is, Alyssa is holding out and saving the other tooth for a few more days, as she didn't want the tooth fairy to not give her the right amount due. She wants to be sure and get another $1 and another pack of gum. Smart kid!