Happy Fall!

 

Sending you some happy fall days and rain from Washington!

Our Summer

Here is a collection of the pictures I have taken over the summer. Enjoy!

Uncle Pat was in town for a few days and stopped by to say Hi and catch up. While we were chatting on the patio the little dears were playing  so gleefully. When all the sudden Joyce comes streaking by in her undies.  They had decided it was time to go swimming.  They thought they were  hilarious.  

William has found his toes and is the happiest little man ever! So Yummy!

Robert Bobby and Joyce went to get haircuts.  While they were getting their hair cut Joyce got her toes painted. This is her showing them to me.  Her Daddy was the first to paint her toes.  How Cute!

Robert left his goatie trimmer out..  Bobby says"Look Mama I cut my hair like Daddy"  Just in time for school....

Again Joyce will not get off the horse.  Jessica just puts her up there and they go off for quite awhile and Joyce is as happy as can be

My Mom has 3 female mini Australian shepherds.  They are the best kids dogs and the smartest little dogs I have ever come across. When we go down to foothill and lay the babies on the grass one of them will come up and claim the baby as her puppy.  She will ferociously chase away any other dog that comes near the baby.   In this picture "Barbie" claimed William.  She licks his feet and lays right next to him all day.  If anyone picks him up she will follow them until they put him back down.

Appropriate sentiment on a neighbors Cadillac.

Joyce loves to help me garden and by help me garden I mean pick all the flowers and give to me or Blessed Mother or in her hair.  I have had wonderful luck with fuschia this year.  Here she is modeling a fuschia blossom

Our little fat flyer!

My Dad gave Bobby a fishing pole for his birthday.  He helped Robert like the best little side kick one Saturday and talked Robert into going fishing that evening.  So we went to lake Almaden where he tested his fishing pole.  He didn't catch anything but sure had a good time. Bobby is constantly making objects and string into 'fishing poles'  I love how his little imagination works.

Heidi and I made a monster truck cake for Bobby's birthday.  We had a little party for him at Emma Prusch park which is an amazing farm park.  the 4 H kids keep their animals here and the entire 60 acres or so is meticulously maintained with personal gardens and orchards.  The most amazing thing is this place is in the heart of San Jose's ghetto area off Story and King.

Philomena and Joyce at the party

William and Regina

BBQ ing for the big day

all the kiddos at the party.

This is in front of Happy Hollow in San Jose.  We had a wonderful day here picnicking

Bobby on the race car in front of Happy Hollow

Joyce in her Aunty Jessica's cloths.  She was helping her pack for Oklahoma where the big horse show is.

Bobby and Robert working on the truck

Hi Everyone, I am uploading photos and posting to craigslist to get rid of the clutter hanging around and I thought I had better update the family.  Our plumbing company 1 Hour Drain is growing by  leaps and bounds.  So much so that we need a few more vehicles.  Robert is an amazing deal finder and is working on one of his current finds in these pictures.  This truck will be painted bright orange like our plumbing van and will get logos.  Our little family has been plagued with a horrible cold this past 10 days that everyone, even William got (except me, someone has to take care of the sick babies) Joyce got it so bad it turned to pneumonia.   So in the video Robert and Bobby sound a little congested. Talk to you soon ~ Elise

More Max!

Say Cheezzzz Max!!!!

Since I've lived in North Carolina Max and I have grown very close! I get to see him all day on sunday and sometimes I drive up and take him out to dinner on the weekdays. His favorite thing to do is go to the park and play on the play ground! He loves the slide the most! We go up and down and back down every slide in park for about 3 hours... After that he usually passes out from playground exhaustion! You can ask all his uncles how Max just takes off like a cheetah as soon as he sees a playground!!

Max's serious face.....

Max and I at Barnes and Nobles reading about his favorite train, Thomas. His favorite toy is thomas the train in every different size and shape. One of our sunday funday activities is to hit the local barnes and noble where they have a built in starbucks (caffeine to keep up the little guy) and all the trains in the world! Its so crazy how he knows 10 different train's name! he can name them all and hes always right!

Chick fil la

Max and I are regulars at the Chick fil la down the street from "Mommy's house" as max would say.

Mary's Address and Phone #

Mary's Birthday is coming up on Thursday and if you want you can send her a little birthday love! We LOVE getting snail mail, and I'm sure the sisters love it even MORE because of their limited contact with their family.

Anyways, if you would like to write or call her on her birthday here is the info:

Hermana Mary Rose Gallaher
Bario San Julian 30
39479 Zurita De Pielagos
Cantabria (Espana)

We are allowed to call her on her birthday and that number is:

(+34) 942-571-536

The postage for a first class international stamp is 94 cents so we just put three stamps on ours. She may not be able to write us all back - but at least we can let her know we love her and she is in our prayers!

St. Rose of Lime, Pray for Us!

If you can't send a letter make sure say a short prayer to her patron saint instead! I just read a little bit about St. Rose of Lima's life. Incredible!

Here are some of her words. They are encouraging for me because life hasn't been the easiest lately!



"Our Lord and Savior lifted up his voice and said with incomparable majesty: “Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation. Let them know that without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. Let them know that the gifts of grace increase as the struggles increase. Let men take care not to stray and be deceived. This is the only true stairway to paradise, and without the cross they can find no road to climb to heaven”.

Bobby's 1st day of school and 5th birthday

1st Day of Kindergarten!

Bobby's 5th birthday breakfast.  He is Mr Birthday.  Whenever we go to other parties he acts as the MC.  Rounding up kids for cake and presents.  He helps open the presents and 'oh' and 'ahs' over the gifts. Robert had to work on his actually birthday so we will be having a get together at the park on Saturday.

Birthday brownies!  Love this picture of William.  Bobby carries him around like that.  William loves to be in the middle of everything.

Can't believe our little baby is 5.  He such a huge help to both of us. He is always happy and trying to make everyone around him happy.  He is the kid that brings the crying kid on the playground to his mom, genuinely concerned for his well-being.  He is always kissing booboos.

He is so creative.  He makes everything into fishing poles. Usually by pulling string out of  a woven blanket an tying it to some toy.  He loves to play cards and make up games as he goes.  We were so worried at one time that he would not be able to speak, well he sure proved us wrong. He follows me around chattering at me about his plans "maybe we can go outside and fly a kite and then it will land on the roof and you can lift me high to get on the roof and we will see the top of the tree........"  I love is imagination and kindness.  He is going to make an amazing priest :-)

'Ok everyone cheeeese'

CHEEEESE

Butchering Roosters and Ballet!

Boy, has this blog been QUIET around here. .. . and so LONELY!

Today I write to you about butchering roosters and dancing ballet. WE were not butchering roosters, (but hopefully someday!)  . . . you will find them in Virginia doing just that:

Gross eh? They are scrawny looking too! These are the roosters of the bunch. They started to get older and were picking fights so off went their heads! Im sure the boys loved it . . . it definitely reminds me when we butchered our roosters. It was fun!

Now for some sweeter pictures. There is a big homeschool co-op organized at our Church. It's wonderful - and Gianna got to join ballet class this year! She LOVES it, and I probably love it even more! Now I am starting to see why parents sign their kids up for everything, it's even more fun for us to watch them! (It was a proud momma moment for sure)

If I let her, that's all this little girl will wear. We wake up in the morning to find her putting on her slippers that she had to get on TOP of the dresser.

I really wanted to take a video but I was enjoying watching her SO much that I completely forgot. Maybe next time. :)

 She's my little independent child. She did not want me anywhere near her when they started - in fact she told me to sit against the wall to watch. Ok! She's definitely not shy and thrives with things like this. :)

We would love a picture update from everyone - it doesn't have to be big - just something!

I know Nana and Grandpa check this often hoping to see more pictures!

God bless your day!

This Moment

William Joseph 4 Months . Mr Crazy Hair!

Off to Canada, eh?

All Pete wants to do is wrestle these days!

Things are looking a little sad on the blog here so I thought I'd write a post! Must mean you all have a life or something. ;)

 Summer is slipping away pretty quickly over here, where did it go?!

We had a rather uneventful summer with the exception of last week. Grandma and Grandpa Doll celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary so we drove up to Calgary.
It takes about 14 hours to get there and the kids were GREAT on the way up. What makes traveling with toddler's easier? Plenty of stops, TONS of snacks and Mommy sitting in the back seat entertaining! Toys and books help a lot too - I was so impressed with how well they handled the drive. We were so lucky as to see two HUGE grizzly bears, a moose, two mountain goats and a handful of dear. The bears were incredible, I definitely would not want to get on their bad side!

Cyril loves going home and the kids bring SO much joy to their Grandparents. We tried to make it fun and went to Heritage Park (a little historic village) and a military museum with the kids. The visit was also filled with lots of barbeques, laughs and seeing old friends and distant relatives. And Tim Hortan's! You can't leave Canada without having their coffee at least everyday!

Cyril's parents attend the Ukranian Catholic so there was a Divine Liturgy followed by a blessing for his parents. It was beautiful. Marriage is certainly not easy. It takes a lot of hard work - so I would say 50 years is quite an accomplishment and witness! My children are blessed to have both sets of Grandparent's in it for the long haul. Not a lot of people can say that these days. Cyril and I are blessed to have our parents witness to us the beauty and goodness of marriage as well!

Cyril's oldest brother Ian is a paraplegic. He broke his neck when he was playing rugby in college. He is one of the most amazing men we know. He is in pain every day and offers it all up in union with Christ. Talk about another witness! I complain about my duties and hardships, being with Ian reminds me that I have nothing to complain about. Peter loved lounging on Ian while he showed Peter around the yard. They were looking for dragon flies and other such creatures. The kids love all their aunts, uncles and cousins!

 Peter found his true love just like his Daddy. Hockey! These were Cyril's hockey sticks when he was a boy. Peter LOVED them. He would walk around the house all day saying "shteeek." Gianna sure wasn't talking at 15 months and we are blown away by Peter's vocabulary. Maybe it's normal, but we love it. I love this little boy.

















We are coming up on celebrating our anniversary as well. Four years! It's incredible how fast time flies having babies. Before you know it you'll be getting an invite to our 50th. ;)

The kids love their grandparents!

We hope you all are having a wonderful summer! We can't wait to hear more about your adventures, big and small. God bless you!