Recap

It's been four months since we posted last! We had a great Christmas. Then in February we all got sick. It seems like we were sick all month long, especially the two younger ones. They both had RSV for about a week.

Here's Ira on the day that he was the sickest. He had high fevers all day long and slept almost all day long too. When Dad came home from church he gave Ira a blessing. We got Ira to finally eat a little bit of food (ramen) and drink some fluids. By the next day he was running around teasing his sisters so we knew he was going to be all right. :D

Julia was better for three days after the RSV and then she got really sick. We finally figured out after many phone calls to Doctor Grandpa that her adenoids were infected. She had fevers for a whole week, her nose was just running like crazy, and she kept coughing and gagging. The antibiotic that was prescribed for her gave her terrible diarrhea so we had to take her off of it as she was getting dehydrated. FINALLY after suffering for two weeks she was able to overcome it all.

Amidst all the sickness we still found time to do a few fun things.....

like sledding in the field with an old satellite dish!

and drinking Hot Chocolate on a Stick. YUM

Now the weather is getting warmer and we are spending our days outside.

Riding bikes,

climbing walls,

pretending to drive tractors (no pedals).

We ordered all our garden seeds a couple of weeks ago, and bought all the seed starting stuff today. We will start seeds later this week!

Julie Girl

Isn't she cute!!! She's rolls around a lot now, and she waves at my Dad when he comes home. She's starting to eat baby food, and she really likes chocolate milkshake. (Thanks to Dad.) She's also starting to get teeth now and it's making her and my Mom really cranky. Here are some of her nicknames. 

Fluffy (Dad)

Ju-Ju Bella

Julie

Fatest

Fat-fat

The Precious

Pretties

Flower

Chewbaca (Mom)

Young One (Dad)

T-K (Teeny Kid)

Druelia

And those are only a few.

We love her.

Sara and Marie

Happy Easter!

The past few days have been full of Easter celebrations.

The annual dyeing and decorating of the Easter eggs.

An Easter egg hunt with cousins.

And what the kids call a Jerusalem dinner. This is the first year we have done this but I think it will become an annual tradition. We ate foods that Jesus would have eaten: unleavened bread, nuts, goat cheese, dried fruit, lentils, etc.

We are enjoying General Conference. Today's messages were all wonderful. So many talked about the family! We have been focusing on The Family Proclamation this year in our own family because it is the 15th anniversary of when it was first read by Pres. Hinckley. We felt it was important for us to teach the kids all the truths contained in it.

We hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

Spring is here!

Yesterday the first flower bloomed!!! We played out side all day it was so nice. We even had a picnic. Eve and Marie went bowling for mutual so we played at the park for an hour.

Sara

Los Abuelitos

While we were visiting family in Utah we took the kids to visit Guelito and Guelita in their new house. I'm so glad we are able to take the kids to see their great-grandparents and have pictures taken with them.

Our Christmas Tree

This is what our Christmas Tree looks like. We decided to decorate it in Hanukkah colors. I don't even know why, because we're not Jewish.


We love it!

Marie

Happy Birthday Ira!!

Three is a magical age. You are big enough to be independent in some things but still small enough to crawl on mom or dad's lap for snuggling.

Ira is now three! I surprised him with this "road construction" cake. There's a loader in the gravel pit, a dump truck just dumping a load, and a grader leveling a road. It was all he could do to control his hands from driving the grader and dump truck around before we sang Happy Birthday to him. As soon as the singing was over he dug in.



Ira is such a joy to have around. He loves to sing "How Firm a Foundation" and "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" at the top of his lungs. He loves to tease his sisters, line up his tractors and trucks "just like dad does his!" and tries to go to work with Joseph as much as he can. He is ALL boy! And Joseph though having so many sisters would "sissify" him. ;)

Julia!

Here she is! Born October 15 at 12 pm. She weighed 8 lbs 9 oz and was 21 inches long. She didn't cry when she was born. The doctor made her cry just so he could hear if her lungs were clear. She stopped crying almost immediately and just stared at everyone and everything.

Julia is very alert and awake in the morning time. She takes big naps in the afternoon and sleeps almost all night long.

The older girls and Ira all enjoy holding her giving me a few minutes here and there to try and get some things done.

Marie loves snuggling with Julia.

Laura still needs help holding Julia's head up.

Ira likes to "pet" her and give her tons of kisses.


Deb's favorite thing is to hold Julia's tiny hands.


Abby wants to be able to stand and hold her.

After uploading these photos I realized we haven't taken any yet with Sara or Eve! Off to take some now....

7th Heaven

Debra turned 7 yesterday!!!

As is tradition she got to open her presents first thing in the morning. She received two new books from Grandma and Grandpa Ventura, two beautiful outfits for Felicity her American Girl doll (you can see them on the floor at the bottom of the picture), a new art kit complete with crayons, markers, paint, and colored pencils, and a poncho and jacket.

Another tradition we have is the birthday child gets to decorate their cake. Debbie decided she wanted to have a beehive cake. Easy for me as Pere gave me a beehive cake pan last year! Deb just wanted to drizzle yellow frosting all over to look like honey. I thought the beehive cake very fitting as Debra means bee. =)

Do you think she was excited to blow out her candles?

Debbie is always so happy. She seems to have a constant smile on her face. She is helpful and likes to do her chores first thing in the morning. She also has an uncanny ability to tell you the time without looking at a clock. She's the best at doing this as it gets closer to her bedtime. For example, the other night Joseph covered up the clock and asked her while we were all riding in the Suburban, "Deb, what time is it?"

She answered, "Um, I think it's 7:48."

Joseph uncovered the clock and it said 7:51. "You're off by three minutes!" he said.

I replied, "Actually, she's exactly right. That clock is three minutes fast. Look at the time on your phone." Sure enough it was 7:48!

We love our sunshine-y lil' Deb!

Laura turned 5!

Little Laura is not so little any more.


She turned five two Sundays ago on Sept. 29.


She was so good and patient and waited until daddy came home from church to open her presents and blow out the candles on her horse cake.


We love Laura "super tons" as she likes to say. She loves to sing songs, play with her American Girl Doll, Ruthie, and help cook in the kitchen. We love reading all the little notes and cards she makes for all of us.

Tie Dyed T-shirts

The bookmobile came on Monday. We had a great time tie-dyeing our t-shirts. Ginny made sure to bring vibrant colors for us to use.

The first picture is Ira's shirt. It will have lots of bull's-eyes. The next is an example of a swirl. Then there is Marie's big patriotic bull's eye.

It was hard waiting 24 hours before being able to take off the rubber bands. The kids were oohing and aahing over their shirts.

Mr. Ira used yellow and green to match his John Deere tractor pj bottoms.

Laura's swirly t-shirt.

Debbie's bright colors.

Abby has to have yellow in there somewhere!

Sara wanted patriotic colors.

Marie's bull's eye turned out great!

Eve used the turquoise blue to make sure her shirt turned out nice and bright.

Box Sliding

A couple of weeks ago Joseph brought home a huge appliance box. At first it was a little club house for the kids. When they got tired of that they tried rolling down the hill in it. Sometimes I wonder about these kids. Seriously. Rolling down a hill in a square box? Didn't work to well. When the box finally split open they realized they could make it into a slide.

Laura zooming down.

Abby being tricky. Notice the holes in the knees and one toe poking out of her sock.

Sara has to take her turn too!

Ira loved sliding as much as the girls. Notice his holey pants too. I can safely say that all pants have been patched now.

Just a side shot of the box sliding hill.

Movie Marathon

Saturday the girls had a Harry Potter marathon. It was their reward for helping to deep clean all week long during their Spring break. And they did it without complaint! So while I finished sewing Eve's and Marie's Easter dresses the girls camped out in the living room and watched all the Harry Potter movies...well all but #5 there just wasn't enough time. Joseph stayed around the house most of the day, I think so he could watch too. :D

Sara got tired of watching the movies and took the little portable tv down to Ira's movie to watch The Sound of Music. She fell asleep there around bedtime. Joseph and I were laughing about it because after all the kids went to bed we could hear singing coming from somewhere and realized The Sound of Music was still on.

Here's a fun video we found with 'Do, Re, Mi' from The Sound of Music. Enjoy!

Sound of Music Train Station @ Yahoo! Video

No heck way!

Has it really been over a month since we've posted something here? That's terrible considering a lot has happened. Marie turned the big 12! Ira is now going to nursery. Eve and Marie are participating in a singing class. Debra, Laura, and Abigail are memorizing the Articles of Faith. Joseph is surviving as bishop. I am busy sewing, planning a garden, and some more unit studies or the younger ones.

A lot more has happened so we promise to update at least three times this week. With pictures!

Ira's Haircut

Last week Ira got a haircut. Here are a few pictures of him getting his haircut.

He was so still, and quiet.
Looking at the light just like Mom told him to.
Isn't he so cute!!!
Marie