Our 1 yr Birthday Princess

Laurie had her first birthday yesterday and we had a good time! Daddy started work so we met him downtown. We went to the Downtown Grand Illumination in Richmond and then we came home for cake and ice cream! Laurie didn't have any ice cream because she is allergic to milk as far as we know right now. We hope she grows out of it! (they aren't all in order, but here are the pics/videos!) Sarah, Evoly, the Abbotts, Catie-Lynn, and Grandma were all in attendance besides our family.


Outside listening to Bill Bevins count down to the lighting!
Skywalk family photo!

After eating a bite of Whopper Jr.

Everybody cake.

Making the smash cake! (pan borrowed from Misty! Thanks!)

Birthday cuteness!

Birthday breakfast!

Recent happenings **

I haven't been very good lately of updating everyone on our situation here in the Chacon house! Sorry.
About 4 weeks ago Carlos got notice that he would be layed off after his contract was up instead of being hired on at LandAmerica. Anyone who has been paying attention to the news knows what has happened to LandAm. Anyway, he has been on the job search for 2 weeks now and finally got a new job at CXI which is actually the company that bought Indigitech, who was Carlos' first employeer after college! So that is neat. He will be working at Capitol One as a CXI contractor. It is a permanent postion which means we will be in Richmond for a few more years at least! :) After that we are planning, on some level, to go to graduate school for Carlos. Anyway, Miriam lost her first front tooth and it is so cute to look at her. I am pretty sure I put her video on her blog so you will have to look!
We had a lovely Thanksgiving and it wasn't overwhelming at all because all of us made something and it was great! We had it at Rose-Marie's (carlos's sister) house. All of Carlos's siblings and families were there as well as his mom. It was nice to have everyone together. We did miss Grandpa but we understand he had to stay in Costa Rica for now!
Grandma and Catie-Lynn left this morning and we are all sad and miss them! We are going to have a busy day of Christmas fun and get ready for the big day! :)
** By the way, I had my 30th Birthday the day after Thanksgiving and it was fun. At 2am Ana, Abinadi, and I went shopping. Starting at Walmart where we got portable DVD players for $49, $9 vacuums, and Ana got a $4 mixer! :) Then we went to a few more stores but didn't buy anything else! It was a LOT of fun! We all went to see Twilight and then came home for angel food cake! YUMMMM! It was a great day! Thanks everyone!

Evoly's cutieness

Attmepts

Fun for us! Oh and you can see one of my new glasses!

Family Trip

This was on our trip to Shenandoah Crossings last month! Our friends Deborah and Bryson Dunham came the second night we were there, we had a good time! :)

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Laurie, and you can see all her teeth! She LOVED the swing!

Deborah and the girls on the hay ride.

She got into the marshmallows! YUM! (I didn't let her finish it!)

We were mini golfing and she really wanted to do it so we let her hold the putter!

They were going really high, it is the first time I have seen a nervous look on Elaine's face while doing something fast!

First morning watching cartoons!

Halloween Happenings

So I promised that I would post all the the Halloween happenings on my blog and I decided to wait until after to do it, so here it is. I will put pictures up and then add captions. For pictures of a party we went to go here.
Play time at the Abbotts! Mason smiled right after the picture was taken!
Three funny girls!

I made this for our neighbor party we had on Sat 25th

Here is our party table! We had chili, cornbread, beef dip with chips(from the neighbor), and cider! YUM

Ok here it is. My costume for a Halloween party!

Our Jack pumpkin

Two years ago I made these eyeballs and they were so yummy and last year I was so pregnant we didn't do anything very festive so THIS year, I decided I HAD to make them again! They were sooo yummy!

The girls helped a lot!

Here they are!

This was at the ward trunk-or-treat. Laurie was so upset that I had left her with a different person that when I got her back, she was mad when I wasn't holding her. Carlos was sick so he couldn't help me! She cries a lot when I am not with her! :( Rose-Marie and I thought it would be a great picture by the pumpkin! :)

HALLOWEEN! The Ehrismans came up and we had a lot of fun! Here are the trick-or-treaters right before they went out! We are sad we didn't get a picture of everyone but this is all we got!! We have a spider, Cinderella, and a Fairy. Carlos is a football fan!

Yummy mummies! I should have made 3 packs!!

Our Halloween family photo! Daddy was sick and I wasn't prepared for a photo but it is cute. It looks oddly familiar...maybe it is because it almost identical to our Easter picture, with different clothes! :) hehehe

Thanks Nana for the cute jammies! We are missing Evoly in hers! So cute!

Trunk-or-treat costume :)

Distracted **and an update**

I am sorry, for those of you who like looking at my blog, that I haven't been updating. I have been distracted by many things lately, but mostly re-reading (with Carlos this time) the Twilight books! I thought I would take this opportunity to blog since the two girls at home are still asleep and Carlos took the book to work with him. :)


We have all been doing well. Nothing MAJOR has happened. Miriam loves school and there is a girl that lives a block and a half away, so we have started having her over 2 times a week to play and they love it! They wish they could do it every day, but...she has homework to do and I have decided that friends don't stay past 4. That is when I usually start many of my dinner preparations etc. My wind down time before Daddy gets home! :)


Elaine does her Kiddie Kollege and loves it! She did her math homework in about 1 minute the other day, I was impressed! She is getting so big!!! She loves playing on the computer and outside and with Miriam and her friend.


Laurie is also getting big and gets in to EVERYTHING. She can tear apart the girls room in no time! It is quite funny! She is also still very attached to Mommy. Still won't take a bottle or paci. Even though I was gone for almost 10 hours and Sarah tried to give her a bottle, she wouldn't take it!!! Little stinker! She eats almost everything we do and won't eat baby food. Even when we give her things that are chunks (which she likes), she wants to eat what we are eating and she knows it isn't the same!! hehehe


Carlos is really enjoying the Young Men program and is always busy thinking about them and their activities! He is a good leader to them, I think. He is also busy with work and we are grateful that he does it for us!



**Oct 30-Well I wrote this a while ago and not much has changed. :) We finished all the Twilight books and I liked them even for the second time! I did have my first cake order for someone outside of the family. Carlos had me make some cakes for work and someone ordered one. Of course it isn't my first paid cake ever because I made one for Rose-Marie! :) (I made it in Sept)

Laurie is now standing on her own for several seconds and walking across furniture.

Ok well here is a pic of my cake and maybe some others. I will put up the Halloween pics after tomorrow sometime! :)
Megan (if you don't know, Megan has been one of my best friends since 3rd grade!) was in Chantilly, VA for work and I drove up with Laurie and we visited for the night! It was fun! :) Megan was married on the 24th! Congratulations, wish I could have been there!! (yes I am laughing in the pic)
The cake. Not the prettiest but still fun that I got paid!

Oh dear!

Laurie has finally learned how to climb the stairs! She had done it a few months ago up to the second step and then fell and decided to never try that again. Three days ago I helped her climb all 13 steps and now she is a pro! But you have to watch her, because she will climb them and then sit at the top yelling for you to come get her!! Hehehe. What a silly! She is very smart and demanding and you have to make sure you are really paying attention or you will have a big mess to clean up, or she will have eaten something you don't want her to! Ugh, I am sure all babies this age are the same, it has just been 3 1/2 years since I did this, so I forgot! Oh and she also started giving kisses voluntarily! It is sooo cute! I will give Daddy a kiss goodbye and then she will lean in to give him one as well! So fun! I love my girls!!

All about us!

These might not all be in order but I had a TON of pictures that I hadn't uploaded and so I thought I would just fill everyone in on what has been going on. Life here is pretty centered around Miss Laurie! She is just so darn cute! :)
What a pretty girl am I! (Oct)

9 Mo! September
Looking up-side-down at mommy
Elaine's Kiddie Kollege class. (don't know the other girl)
All us VA girls went to see Papa by the Dulles Airport. They had a LOT of fun in the back while we drove! :)
Papa relating to his grand kids. Oh and see the buttermilk? :)

10 Mo!!!

Republican Roundup! Yummy BBQ!

Evoly really liked the pony! Kept trying to touch it. General Conference glasses! hehehe

Fun

I found this on my friend Deborah's blog.

1.Did you date someone from your school? Yes I did.
2. What kind of car did you drive? I drove a red Hyundi Excel hatchback. I think. It was great! Except that I was so short I had to practially stand up to hit the clutch!
3. What was the most embarrassing moment of high school? During the beginning of the season pep rally, the gymnastics team was tumbling and I did a front tuck and over rotated and landed sprawled out on the mat…got up and continued but I was pretty embarrassed!!
4. Were you a party animal? Um…No.
5. Were you considered a flirt? I don’t know. No one ever told me that.
6. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? I was in the band and choir. They were awesome!!
7. Were you a nerd? Don’t think so….
8. Were you on any varsity teams? Yes I was a varsity gymnast.
9. Did you get suspended/expelled? No.
10. Can you still sing the fight song? If someone started it for me maybe…we usually didn’t sing but we did play it in the band and I could probably sing it to you and do the cheerleading dance !:)
11. Who were your favorite teachers? Mr ??, Anat/Phys, genetics and other sciences. Sorry I can’t remember his name!
12. Where did you sit during lunch? Usually at a table until my Senior year and then I got to eat on the ‘Senior carpet’ LOL.
13. What was your school's full name? Priarie High School
14. School mascot? Falcons
15. Did you go to Homecoming and who with? I went to Homecoming 3 times with three different people only one of which I was actually ‘dating’ exlusivly. Not sure I should name them ;)
16. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Yes I believe I would.
17. What do you remember most about graduation? I remember being at the ceremony but I also remember the party after! It was a lot of fun to hang out with friends to celebrate!.
18. Where did you go senior skip day? School I think.…but I did skip on other days ;) with my mom’s permission of course. Never did I do it without her knowledge!
19. Were you in any clubs? Hum. I guess gymnastics is a club.
20. Have you gained some weight since then? Um yeah, I guess having 3 kids does that to ya!
21. Who was your prom date? Jared Cooke
22. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? Obviously this survey doesn’t know how old I am… I was planning on it and I did….anyone know how long ago?
23. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself? Not sure but I know I do this now and I am sure it started then… Don’t be so afraid of what other people think. Have more confidence in yourself. Don’t worry so much!!!!! Work hard!

9 mo!!

Laurie is 9 months! She loves to eat stuff that she can grab and feed herself, not so much the stuff that has to be fed TO her. Hehehe. She stands up on ANYTHING that is taller than her in a crawl. and she is getting braver and starting to do one handed and taking a few steps. She is so very cute and smiles a lot and does cute things for us to laugh about!

Today she started saying...Momma!! She seems to be making the connection! Hurray! I love it, it is so cute to hear!

Brain?

So I am trying to save more when shopping for groceries and other necessities by using coupons and going places where they have incentive deals etc. This knowledge and desire is courtesy of Ana and her actions! :) I am getting excited about it since last weekend I got a box of 92 diapers for $10. I thought that was pretty good. :)
Anyway, in order to fully take advantage of these deals you need to get the Sunday paper with the coupons in it, which I don't. SOOOO, I am supposed to go out Sunday and buy it from a stand somewhere.... I forgot AGAIN for the second week in a row. I am NEVER going to remember that!! So I am looking at people's blogs, ready for this weeks steals and remember that...I can't do anything AGAIN because I don't have the coupons!!!!!!!! UGH!
What is wrong with my brain, I swear on Sunday all of a sudden I think about all the things that are going on and they pile up in my brain and I get overwhelmed and can't think of anything! No wonder I can't organize my house, I can't even organize my thoughts in my brain!!! Sheesh!

Favorite

I have seen people do this before where they have a Friday favorite. Well I am not starting that or anything but today I saw something that I had to dub as today's favorite! :)

It is at http://www.sesamestreet.org/videos . Elaine was watching these videos and one came on, called.....wait for it.......Preschool Musical! HAHAHAHA! Carlos and I laughed. Anyway it is cute and funny. One of those classic Sesame Street spoofs with Muppet's! :)

Patriotic?

I guess we were today. Miriam woke up this morning and while eating breakfast, started singing the National Anthem. So I decided it would be a good time to better learn the song. So we sang a few times before I made her hurry and eat!
Then later during the day, Elaine started humming and singing some words she knew. She hadn't been awake when we were singing earlier so it was funny.
Then after Miriam came home, we all sang it over and over loudly! I like to exaggerate my voice and pretend I can sing like I can't, and it is funny for the girls! :)
Anyway, I am always grateful for this country and Love the anthem! It always makes me feel patriotic:)

School

Well I was going to put more pictures of our FL trip, however, Carlos unplugged our external hard drive and I don't know how to hook it all back up and that is where my pictures are so......

Miriam started school on Tuesday. She really likes it. She didn't get the teacher she thought she wanted but her teacher is really nice. Her name is Mrs. Moore. She has a few of the same friends in her class that she had last year. There is a new music teacher, and gym teacher this year. Maybe she will enjoy gym more this year! She was sad about her music teacher, but I think she will like who ever is there, since she loves to sing!

She was being a bit of a cheese ball!
Isn't she cute!!!!!! (going to the bus)
She gets her very own desk this year!! Hurray! She also sits by two boys, they alternate in this class!




Elaine will start her Kiddie Kollege with the county next week. It is two days a week for 3 hours each day. She is sooo excited! I am interested to see what a few hours at home with just Laurie will be like. It isn't long but.... ;)


This is us waiting for the bus on the first day! We waited for almost 45 min! We weren't sure what time we should be there so we went at 205 and then the bus was about 10 min late(got there at 245)!!!! So we were really early and it was hot!