Grandparents: round 2

Thank you Nana, Papaw and Grandma Harp!
Did they really need anymore? Here are yet more pictures of the kids opening presents. They loved all the gifts. At this moment Ernest and Colton are playing Atari and Carly is playing with her Barbie. I have used the camera all day...thank you so much for giving that to us. We still need to really learn how to use it.

Here is a message from the kids...


No more pictures today...I am tired.

Grandparents: round 1

Grandma & Grandpa Guerrero we love you!

Thank you so much for these gifts. We love them.

Santa was here!

The kids woke-up with screams this morning...He came...He came!!

To all our family...

We miss you and wish we could be with you. Enjoy our pictures. It is our way of bringing you here with us. Hug each other a few extra times for us. Know that you are loved and thought of on this special day.

Here is what Santa left the kids...

Christmas Eve

It has been a great day! Christmas Eve, the night before the Savior's birth. What things we have to ponder. What was Mary thinking on this night so long ago? What about Joseph and all that he had to endure. Did he have a clue about babies or the knowledge of how to assist in a birth. What strength and peace our God gave them that precious night.

I will never forget the night before my babies were born. In both instances I was having contractions and knew full well what was to come...my baby. The thoughts that consumed my mind were great, small, fearful, and amazing. I had no real idea just how much my life was going to change. I just cannot seem to get Mary out of my mind. It is just something about being a mom that makes you connect with another. Her tender heart who must have loved much. She was chosen among so many. What an amazing woman, the mother of my Savior, Mary.


Tonight the kids opened their presents from us. I posted a slide show with some of the pictures we took. It was a lot of fun. They enjoyed every gift that was given. The best part of the night was listening to them read us the "Christmas Story" out of their own bibles. Oh how I love those two crazy kids.

//debra//

The Holidays

My beautiful wife never thought I would post on here so this is for her. I actually have posted a few times on Myspace but not here. These will just be some general thoughts, nothing too profound. I am just sitting here with my family, 2 nights away from Christmas, enjoying every bit of it. It's cold outside, warm inside...there's a fire in the fireplace, Mary Poppins on the TV, and cookies in the oven. My son and I went shopping for my wife yesterday and today. We had a lot of fun. The stores were busting at the seams, we had to park a mile away from the doors, but it was all worth it. We made a game of keeping mom from finding out what we got her. I even had him convinced that she hid a spy microphone in the truck in order to find out what we got her.

Then today while we were driving he saw a beggar on the side of the road and asked if I had any money to give him. I told him I didn't have anything to which he replied, "Yes you do dad, you have a coat on, a hat, a truck...you actually have a lot so don't say that..." What truth is spoken from the mouths of children sometimes. Most of us have so much without even allowing ourselves to realize it. We focus on what we don't have instead of the things we do.

We're having Christmas here by ourselves instead of going to Houston like every year before. We will miss our family but it will be nice to just spend some quality time with each other for a few days.

Anyways, I am just rambling so I will bring it to a close. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Rocking around the Christmas Party

We have partied hard this last week. Wednesday was spent doing parties for the kids classes at school. I was there from 9-3 p.m. We also had our youth Christmas party wed. night at the SMB while the kids were celebrating with their awana group.

The kids are now out of school. We are looking forward to resting for a few days. Christmas is coming. The birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We will spend our time sharing in the gifts that he has given to us.

Giving is great...do some more.

We still have time to spread some vicious glee.

Santa and the top readers

This week Colton was honored to be one of the 4 top readers in second grade. He brought home this letter addressed to "the parents of Colton Parker" with great anticipation. We opened it and informed him of the great news. It was a contest he had been working toward and now he was declared a winner. This honor meant a lot to him and we were happy that he met his goal. Here are some pictures from his reward,Breakfast with Santa.

a time for rest

Sunday a day of rest?

For us Sunday is the busiest day of the week. We both teach Sunday morning core group and then love to participate in our church's worship service. After services we went to lunch at Abuelo's for our youth staff Christmas lunch. It was a great time and amazing food. My kiddos however were acting nutty the entire time. We went home for a brief hour and tried to rest and relax. Soon enough we were off to church for a sno-lift meeting which Ernest was in charge of. The kids also performed in the kid's Christmas show tonight. I will post a few pics from that. We are now home and trying to wind down from such an active day. Sometimes winding down is the hardest thing to do.

All the rambling to say this...

The kids did a great job. Carly was the part of Mary. She took one of her cabbage patch dolls and swaddled him up and he became baby Jesus. After practice last night she even took him to Long John Silver's and introduced people to Jesus. You should have seen the looks that she got. Colton did wonderful singing and dancing. It was evident that he was having a good time. I really enjoyed watching them tonight. God ministered to my heart but that will be for another blog when my mind is more centered.

Happy Sunday...enjoy!

i love this woman...mary harness!

80's night...yeah baby!!!

This year for the companion Christmas party we all decided to go 80's. It was great fun! We had to search our closets with utmost creativity. What can we turn into 80's cool? I didn't just want to be 80's but I wanted to be cool. We also played the dirty Santa game and I won a Rubik's cube. Has anyone ever figured one of those things out? It was great to hang out with the young marrieds at our church. I don't think we really qualify to be in that class. We are 30 and we have been married for 10 years...good grief.

Here are some pictures of us "back in the 80's"...

I am going to miss her...my friend marcie.

home improvement skills

Project 1: The kitchen

I can see in the kitchen cabinets. It is hard to handle. The project is far from being done yet we have high hopes that we will finish tomorrow. Great hope. Our cabinets were in need of a new finish. Ernest put in wainscoting from the cabinet to the top of the wall. That looks really good. He is now painting them black. We are hoping that is comes out good. I am a little nervous about the black. I would love to have stainless appliances now. They would look great against the black cabinets.


Project 2: The loft

I painted the walls upstairs last Saturday. It is the same coffee color that the rest of our house is painted in. We are in the process of redoing upstairs into a bonus family room. A futon will go up there for when we have company in town. They will appreciate the upgrade from the good ole air mattress. Tomorrow we need to finish changing out the plugs from the classic tan to white.


***Interruption***Ernest just came in from getting something out of his truck and to our amazement...we were hit! The life and times of a youth pastor. This is the fifteenth hundredth time our house has been wrapped. Usually we are sleeping while it happens. Can you believe it...we were just sitting here in the living room. When Ernest went out they must have thought they were getting caught because they speedily drove away and might I add honking all the way. I guess we have one more thing to do tomorrow. Ernest's truck was wrapped in foil, kite string strung along the yard, and of course toilet paper in our lonely trees. I hope you enjoy the pic of this memorable event. It is pretty dark so you can't see the full damage.






Too funny.

The growing girl and christmas gifts

We have been going back and forth about what our (almost) 9 year old daughter wants for Christmas. She says one thing and then it changes. This is so not like her. She is really in that in between stage of babyish things and more sophisticated toys. She started out "really" wanting baby alive. She thought that it would really feel like she was a mom if she had to change dirty diapers. Although after last night talking it over she decided that she would rather have amazing allysen. I did some research on that doll today and she is for ages 4-8. Her cost is about 70.00. My dilemma is that I do not want to purchase this doll and her end up not enjoying it.

She is also in love with Limited too. She has a few gifts under the tree from there and she is already talking about what they could be. I just don't know if we are ready to make the plunge into mp3 players and 'are you kidding me' phones and text messaging tools. She is too young for this... right! I am sensing that feeling of not letting her grow older without a fight.

Last night we rode home with Kerrie and her mom from cheer leading practice. I heard Carly telling Kerrie that she didn't like dolls anymore. WHAT??? She loves dolls. Just last week I found her with about 10 of them on our couch. She said that they were all on a plane ride to Antarctica and they were watching the in flight movie. I later asked her about what she told Kerrie and she said that Kerrie would laugh at her if she knew that she still liked dolls.

Okay I know I am rambling about this but really...

What should I do? Should I spend the money on amazing allysen and not worry if she grows out of it too quickly. We don't usually spend a lot of money at Christmas. Our son is already receiving a PS2. This is going in our family room and really for the whole fam. We have pushed games away for so long but now he is really interested. His Leapster is just not getting played anymore. What can I say our kids hang out with our teens.

date night

Saturday night was so much fun. It seems like it has been a while since our last date. We went to eat at Fugi. It is no Nakato but it is good food and fun entertainment. The chef even popped shrimp into some of the guests mouths. He asked me if I wanted this done...NO thank you...! That is just not for me. Seriously, I am surprised that Ernest didn't go for it. We left there completely stuffed.

We decided that we would drop by the mall to do some Christmas shopping. We ended up staying there until 10pm. We didn't purchase much just some stocking stuffers and presents from my mom to my kids. She gave me the money to buy them gifts from her since we are not going to make it home for Christmas. The kids will love what we picked out. Carly got 2 things from limited too (her fav. store). She was so thrilled to see the boxes under the tree. Colton got some great finds at game stop. Santa is bringing him a PS2. I still cannot believe that Santa is doing that!

We didn't make our usual stop at Starbucks on the way home. We were still too full from dinner. After we got home we wrapped presents for what seemed like an eternity. (Ernest's mom and grandma sent their gifts home with us after thanksgiving.) We still have yet to buy anything and under our tree is full. There really is no need for more.

Lots of rambling to say this...I am so thankful for my sweet husband. He romances me to this day. To be with him brings joy to my heart. I am love with that man.