Rest for the Weary....

You think with staying home over the holiday, I would have had time to post to my blog, but I guess I was just plain lazy needing rest! We are always on the go over Christmas, so it is nice to have a slowed-down pace for Thanksgiving, especially since I had three days of conferences preceding the break. We had a lot of family time, enjoyed some competitive games of Disney Charades, ate lots of food, and did a little shopping. I do feel guilty that I didn't snap any photos though, so you'll just have to take my word for it. The only other news to post is that Jaelyn lost another tooth, and had a visit from the parent fairy (her words, not ours)!

My Hero!

Josh had quite the scare today when he got called down to the office to see the dean. On the long walk down, he was trying to rack his brain as to what he had done wrong. It didn't help that when he walked in he was greeted by a man who introduced himself as "Detective (fill in the blank). "  When he mentioned the fire investigator in the other room, Josh sighed with relief, as he then knew what he was called down for.

The story starts back on Saturday night when Josh headed out to take the girls to see Puss n' Boots while Mike and I were at an auction. Turns out that Josh's timing was impeccable, as he saved a house from burning to the ground! As he was looking to the left, turning right off our street, he noticed smoke aglow under the street light. When he looked to see the source, he saw flames shooting out of his friends bedroom, so he pulled over, jumped out of the car, and dialed 911. The girls were a bit frightened (but later just more upset they missed the movie). The aide cars arrived very quickly, and were able to contain the fire to Keifer's room. Josh got a hold of him, but found he was off island for the weekend. I truly believe that Josh's timing was ultimately God's perfect timing!

Turns out the investigators still are unsure as to what happened that night, as no one was home, and it seemed to start in the center of a bedroom that was not being used. Josh had to give a statement today as to what happened, and they were asking questions such as "Did you see anyone else around?" or "Did you hear anyone in the bushes?"  So we will be watching the local paper for more information (for now it has only made the police blotter), and I will update if I hear more.

Way to go Josh, you are my hero! To quote Josh's friend, "Dude, Thanks! I'm going to say that a million times."

D-blog Day!

I know, I know, you are wondering what the heck D-blog Day is, right? Well in a nutshell, D-blog day was started on November 9th 2005 during Diabetes Awareness Month, to help unite diabetes bloggers and create awareness about diabetes. Why is that important you ask? Living with a lifelong invisible illness can be lonely at times, and the many diabetes blogs and interactive community sites that can now be found online, have helped unite those in that community.

I wasn't going to post about D-blog day today, as I don't find my life with diabetes very exciting or interesting to read. However, as I was awoken last night by an obnoxious "beeeeppp," I knew that today was not getting off to a good start (which equals something interesting to write about). You see my continuous glucose monitor receiver, whom I lovingly refer to as Louise (my insulin pump is Thelma), died last night.  The amazingly bright side to that story? I had three days left on my warranty, so they shipped me a new one today!

If you want to view other dblog posts for dblog day, you can find 186 other posts here (or maybe even more now. You may know someone who could benefit from knowing there is a supportive diabetes community out there!

Cheap Payoff

Are we terrible parents? We enticed Kellen to take his sisters Trunk or Treating for the mere payoff of this. Wish everything was this easy!

It wasn't like we were trying to get out of being in the cold though, as we wanted to watch Josh's final JV football game (he gets a lot of playing time at the JV level; not so much for varsity). I did get the girls ready though, and snapped some photos before my princess and cowgirl headed out. Note, one of my girls is still very much into horses!

They had fun bonding with their oldest brother, and yes, Josh's team won. From the candy, to the eggnong, to the win, I say it was a good night for us all!

Fall Festivities...

The entire family (well, those of us that live under the same roof) was home on Friday night, so we decided to make it a family night by carving pumpkins. Jaelyn chose a cat, while Kaia went with a dolphin. What says Halloween better than a marine mammal??? Oh well, I never liked scary growing up either.  I was never very creative when carving pumpkins as a kid either. That's why I love the convenience of printing pumpkin stencils off the computer! We googled what each girl wanted, printed them off, and taped the pictures onto the pumpkins so they could use a pushpin to poke holes as guidelines to cut along. Mike helped with the cutting part, and walaaa, wonderful jack-o-lanterns!

Joshua has always been creative with his pumpkins, so he went with an original on his albino pumpkin. Unfortunately we didn't get his on camera, but he said it was a self-portrait, with pumpkin guts trailing out the mouth. Nice touch Josh!

To finish it all off, that's where I come in. I love baked pumpkin seeds! Although Kaia selected a gigantic pumpkin to carve, I didn't harvest as many seeds as I hoped. Jaelyn's pumpkin was completely rotten inside. Strange, because it looked great on the outside. The seeds I did bake turned out delicious though.

Photo courtesy of Kaia:)

On Saturday my volleyball season came to an end after a hard fight to the end. We had 3 matches for a total of 12 games, and lost the final one by just two points to stop us from moving on to tri-districts. As always, the silver lining is I now get two weeks with my family before wrestling begins! Our girls also had their final game on Saturday, and this week Josh's football team begins their playoffs. Now let's hope this miserable weather dies down for tomorrow's trunk or treat...

The Clock Struck Midnight...

The girls got to play Cinderella the past couple of days, as they were on the homecoming royalty court for Oak Harbor High School. They practiced their princess waves from the back of a convertible in Thursday's parade...

Takes after his dad...

escorted the king and queen at an assembly, where they had to speak in front of a packed gymnasium ("Kaia, what's your favorite TV Show?"...."iCarly."  "Jaelyn, what's your favorite Disney princess?"...."Cinderella.")...

and escorted the royalty again at halftime...

Josh's date was sophomore princess

Love this photo. Doesn't Jaelyn look like Shirley Temple?

I would've never thought that Kaia could sit still for nearly an hour to get her hair done, nor did I think my two Chinese girls could have such curly hair. But then the clock struck midnight, and it was back to regular ole' Cinderella. Actually it was the 9:00 am soccer game in the rain that washed the last remnants of curls away!

The events of the last two days over shadowed my birthday on Thursday. Actually, the whole experience was a delightful birthday to me, as their enthusiasm brought many smiles to my face. I took Friday, the day after my birthday, off, to go along with them to their hair appt., photo shoot, etc., as did Mike, so family time was a great gift. Kellen came to my game Thursday night (we won), and Josh's game Friday night (they won 69-0), so it truly was quality family time.

Josh is at homecoming as I am typing. Unfortunately his date had a volleyball tournament all day, so he didn't have extra time for me to get photos of the two of them together. Her mom was supposed to take some when he picked her up, so hopefully I will be able to post some at a later date. In the meantime, here's my handsome boy (we thought the orange and black was in honor of today's OSU game vs. WSU, but he says his date's wearing orange).

Sports, Smiles, and Selebrations...

Yeah, I know that I misspelled celebration, but I wanted the alliteration, and couldn't think of another "s" word that fit. Oh well.

This week was full of sports and celebrations. It began by an amazing volleyball game Thursday night against our rivals. After losing the first two games, my team fought their way back in to win the match 3-2. The crowd was over the top, and I was so proud of my team. To top it off my family was their to witness it all, including my parents. The photographer from the paper snapped a picture of us following the game and sent it to me. Thanks John!

Friday we did not travel to Josh's football game, and instead, played a family duel of Uno. Josh's team won again, and their team is now ranked 7th in state! This week is homecoming, and the following week pits them against the other undefeated team in the league, the playoffs, so football will be on our schedule for a few more weekends.

Saturday started with an early, chilly soccer game, but the Crebbin girls played hard regardless. Besides Grandma and Papa cheering them on, Kellen and his girlfriend rooted them on too.

The day turned into a beautiful afternoon, so we headed to the pumpkin patch. Of course, to the girls, the bigger the better, so we had to do a lot of searching to find just the right one (not quite as challenging as our Christmas Tree searches, but almost). We continued the celebratory feeling by Mike and I celebrating the weekend between our birthdays, which seems to have turned into a tradition! We don't have much time midweek, so the weekend between our birthdays is usually the perfect time.