Bass Lake Trip

The Favelo Family - I find it quite amazing that we were all looking at the camera!!! Yeah!











These were with my Dad also - that was the view from the top deck balcony.
























This was the view from our cabin at sunset.


















Abigail looking pretty in her skirt and bow. (Noah was taking a nap)











The guys about to enjoy an "adventure" in the canoe.











Abigail hanging out with Mommy in the sling. (Thanks Paula!)



























This was the little fountain that was in the front yard of the property. When we weren't at the beach, Noah enjoyed playing in it, and giving his trucks "car washes" . :-)










Grandma Vivienne and Abigail down by the beach. Abigail was tired so she was being fussy, but she would calm right down when Grandma was holding her.


















The sand sure feels good in your toes.














Lot's of kisses for Abigail.














It was so nice to be up in God's creation and to relax. I have a few more pictures to come - when I get them off of my Dad's camera. Thanks for looking!

Back from Bass Lake

We just got back from being up at Bass Lake with family. We had such a nice, relaxing time. Our cabin was super close to the beach, so that was our main form entertainment, it was of course right up Noah's ally. We also played games, had great discussions, bbq'd and went out to eat at the best ever rib place! Noah could have seriously set at the beach all day digging! All these pictures of Noah playing were so cute, I couldn't decide which ones to put, so I put a bunch of them. I will upload some more pictures of our trip soon.

Chloe's 2nd Birthday (Part 2)

Noah was having a great time in the pool with is cousin Nicholas!


Fun on the swings!


Swinging with Daddy

Chloe's Birthday Part 1

We all had a lot of fun at Chloe's 2nd birthday party - but I think Noah had the most fun!!! Here are some of the pictures from the day - and Melissa made that awesome ELMO cake! :-)

Singing Bible Verses

I wanted to make a quick product recommendation to ya'll. We have a CD that we have been listening to a lot lately called Hide 'Em In Your Heart with Steve Green. Basically it is just singing Bible verses with different catchy tunes and melodies. It is geared towards kids, but we have all learned a lot of scripture. It is great to have those songs/scriptures going through your head through out the day. It is also the CD that we use when we do our victory "potty dance" - mostly just because it is the one in the player, and Noah primarily likes the running and jumping around that we do. So after he goes Pee-Pee, he will say "I get a potty dance - Let's turn the music on!!" :-) I would highly suggest this CD!

Smiles and a mohawk :-)

It was kind of cute when Noah developed a mohawk as a baby, because he is a boy... and you could kind of pretend it was supposed to look like that. Well, Abigail is a girl, and there is no pretending that she is supposed to have a mohawk... but she does!!!! :-) Oh well, what can you do? She is still adorable!

Potty Training

This Monday morning I decided that it was time to start potty training Noah, so... :-) What an interesting week! By Tuesday he was at about 50% success rate, but I felt like we were spending about 1/2 of our life in the bathroom - was he really getting it?? I was wondering if I was crazy, and if I should just wait until he started jr. high to start the potty training. Just kidding! But seriously, he has done really well. This blanket here, or in the kitchen, or outside, is where we spent most of our time this week in case he did have any accidents.

Today was a big day as far as potty training accomplishemnts go. I needed to go to the grocery store, and was wondering what I should do with the potty situation - well, I decided to just go for it. We went to the store and Noah had on his big boy underwear and jeans, and I just brought a change of clothes, figuring I would probably need to change him. Well, he made it the through the whole trip. And it turns out I had to go to the grocery store again later because I though we had ground ginger and I needed it for dinner - anyways, he made it through that whole trip as well. Noah actually didn't have any accidents the whole day, and he went pee on the toilet probably 4 or 5 times, and are you ready for this???......


He went poop on the toilet today too!! I know, I know, you are as excited as I am! :-) Who would have thought you would get that excited about your childs poop. It actually happened when Doug was there with him and I was taking a much needed nap. Well, Doug "saved it" in the toilet for me, because he thought I might want to see it, and rrr... take a picture. Yep, I took a picture! I will spare you the details on that one though! (Actually Doug said I couldn't post it!!) I am so proud of Noah! I know we aren't quite through the forest yet, but he has been such a trooper so far. He really likes the "potty dance" we get to do afterwards as celebration. :-)

Meal Planning

I wanted to share this cool site that I found about meal planning - it's so fun! Click Here
to see it. The have a whole month of fun recipes laid out for you. I want to get better about planning out my menus a month at a time, so things aren't as crazy trying to figure out what is for dinner each week. There are some great ideas here to add to all of the favorites we already have. Tonight we made the homemade ice cream in a zip-lock bag and it was super yummy! Click on "quick dinners" for a lot of great ideas. Admittedly, I just found the site, so I have only tried the ice cream so far :-), but I have the crock pot mu-shu chicken wraps on my menu to try next week - yum! Enjoy, and if you try any of the recipes, let me know what you think!

Zip Line

I am sure Doug will just love me for sharing this!!! :-) In his defense though, the zip line is set up for 2 year olds, not grown adults. It gave us a good laugh. Noah has gone on it a few times with my help holding his hands on it, but he is really not much of a dare devil yet - he more likes to ride on the swings, climb the stairs on the fort and turn the steering wheel or be on look out pretending there are pirates. (Notice how the slide lands on to the trampoline, yes, of course that was my Dad's idea!)

Circus

We went to the circus this weekend with my parents and we had a great time. It was fun to watch Noah take everything in. He especially liked the elephants and tigers - and the popcorn! Doug and I thought the best thing was all of the motorcycles going around in the big metal cage - it was pretty crazy. Abigail seemed to be mesmerized by all of the lights and music. It was a bit different than I expected, I think I would have liked it better if the announcer wasn't singing everything - but that is just me. The part we really didn't like was all of the dancers trying to be sexy - hello - this is a family show!!! O.k., I will get off my soap box on that one, but it was disappointing. All in all we still had a great time!

Fireworks - Getting Started

Part 1 of 3. Here is our getting started with the fireworks - we had a lot of good laughs!!! Doug had a sinus infection and wasn't feeling up to going over to friends, so we just ended up hanging out at home, and we had a great time! I had to put this one on YouTube because it was too large for blogspot to host it. This is my first time doing it on YouTube, so hopefully it will work out. Enjoy!

Fireworks - Heather and Noah

Part 2 of 3. I think this was our first "flower blossom" firework. Notice how quickly Doug tells me "THROW IT!", as well as how the firework almost hits Mama Kitty - oops! Glad she was quick to get out of the way! :-)

Favelo Firework Finale!!!

Part 3 of 3. This is our "Grand Finale" at the Favelo's firework show. (The videos are taking so long to upload, and it keeps freezing, so I am going to upload 1 at a time so I don't lose them.) Enjoy!

Happy 4th!

Hope you all had a Happy 4th! We are SO blessed to live in such a wonderful country! We had a nice lunch at my Grandmothers, and then we just hung around home. Doug has a sinus infection, so didn't feel like doing much, but we ended up having a really nice time just the 4 of us. We barbecued and had dinner on the back patio, and then did our fireworks. It was so fun to see Noah's reaction! Here are a few pictures from yesterday, and I will upload some of the funny videos a little later. In this first picture Abigail is making her classic look of part concentration part scowl. :-)

Abigail talking to Daddy

Abigail was "talking" to Daddy - and hiccuping quite a bit too!

Buying beer

Noah and I rode our bike to the store yesterday to buy beer - for our beer bread. Now, I don't mind if other people drink, but we don't - and so since I have never bought beer before (well, except for the other times I have made beer bread) I felt really funny buying it... especially with my 2 year old there with me and with my bike helmet still on! I am sure we were quite a sight to behold, Noah and I buying beer at 9:30 in the morning. I was sure to tell the cashier that we were making beer bread - she probably thought that I was a nut case for making a big deal out of it. Oh well, the bread turned out fabulous! :-)

Butterflies, Babies, Bears and Bulldozers

Can you guess what letter we are studying this week?? ;-) We have made butterfly cookies, baked bread, went on a bug hunt, and had a Bible lesson and art project with baby Moses. Here is a little video that I took - Noah is such a joy and we are having so much fun.