Eliza's Baptism Day!

We had a wonderful sunny day celebrating Eliza's Baptism. It was a very tender and spiritual experience. I kept it simple for us to be able to focus on what mattered and let Eliza shine for the day! We enjoyed having friends participating and sharing with us this special part of our lives, Thank you! Eliza was just so excited and so very happy, she glowed!!! Congratulations Eliza on becoming a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. You are following the Savior and we are all very proud of you. You are an amazing daughter of our Heavenly Father. He has a lot more in store for you! Can't wait to see what the future holds for you and what other righteous choices you get to make.

8th B-day celebration...

Happy 8th Birthday Eliza! We love you!

Our favorite shots of Eliza...

I have to say that these are my most favorite pictures of Eliza growing up. She is just a cutie!

More on Eliza's B-day...

Here are some more pictures of Eliza. I am kind of experimenting with the Picasa stuff, and also trying to make it convinient to see all the pictures at once. I guess I could create a slideshow, but I didn't know how long that would end up being. Just enjoy my little girl growing up

Happy 8th Birthday Eliza!!

We are so exciting to share with you 8 years of Eliza's life in pictures. I am so long over due for blogging, but life has been quite busy for us. I took the time to go thru a ton of my scrapbooks (ages ago, and I don't scrapbook anymore, no time!) and scanned a ton of Lizzy's baby pictures. I thought it would be fun to go back in time and show you how much she has grown. We celebrated her b-day as a family and had a wonderful time. She was more excited about her baptism (which I will blog later). We sure love her a ton. She has kept the family on our toes, but she has also shown the most love and selflessness than anyone lately. She is so willing to help you out without being asked to. She has picked up an interest in cooking by herself, so frying eggs is her latest task. She is also a goof-ball, she can be so very silly, too silly sometimes. She is doing great at school and she is loving to read more. As I looked back at all her baby pictures, I could already see how much of her personality began at birth. She has been a pistol from day one. I also got a chance to reminiscene on how she got her nickname "Lizzy Bird". She had the most biggest, beautifullest, fullest lips ever. She just would puckered them so, making her look like a birdie. It was so cute!!! Eliza we just love you. We are so blessed to have you in our family. Happy Birthday my child!

10 Guilty Pleasures...

Here are my 10 Guilty Pleasures in Life...in no particular order.

1. Bread: Any kind of bread is a delight to me, but my most favorite has to be Sour Dough Bread. I have yet to learn how to successfully make bread, so I just go to Haggen's and spend a fortune on delicious fresh baked bread. Yummy!

2. Chocolate: Let's not go there. I love anything that has chocolate in it, most especially home-made chocolate chip cookies and chocolate lava cake. Also, any Italian dessert made with chocolate. All time favorite ice cream (off the subject) is Rocky Road.

3. Baking: making up healthy cookies, I actually succeeded at making up my own nutritious whole wheat dark chocolate chip cookies. I love to bake more than I like to cook.

4. Rob: I am obssessed with the guy! I love being around him, and with him at all times possible. He just makes me feel so happy and so good about life. He is my Best Friend. He can also be my worst enemy at times, but overall he is my WORLD!! He just spoils me rotten, especially when it comes to clothes and running shoes.

5. Running: I have been running since I was 9 years old, and still am. My knees are feeling it, but I am doing my best to keep running. I am no triathlon, marathon runner yet, but an athlete who likes to try adding on mileage slowly. I have yet to get passed 13 miles, but never in my life did I think I could get passed 6 miles. Thank you Rob for your encouragement and support.

6. Breakfast: I could eat breakfast foods any time of the day. French toast, pancakes, waffles, yogurt with fruit, german pancakes, omelettes, hot cereals, muffins, bagels, toast, etc...I do have a weakness for eggs (fried, scrambled, boiled, etc...). YUMMY!!!

7. Selling junk on e-Bay: I sell just about anything that e-Bay allows me to sell. I sell stuff for friends, family and ourselves. I have had my successes and my failures selling stuff, but hope to make something big out of it some day. It brings a little extra income a month. Allowing me to work from home.

8. Italian food or any foreign foods: I love Pasta! I just love Italian food of any kind. Maybe it is because it goes so well with BREAD. I also enjoy trying foreign foods, but I can go for Thai any time too. Especially Pad-Thai from my neighbour Pum, she is from Thailand. She makes the best Thai food in town.

9. Clothes/shoes: I am not a shop-o-holic, but I have a weakness for bargains, I especially like shopping at our local "Goodwill" once in a while. Mondays are $1.29 days. I buy all of our clothes there. As a result, I have more skirts, shoes and tops than you can imagine. I also have a lot of running shoes. I go through 4 pairs a year. OUCH!! But, I am good at shopping online and paying half or less from the retail prices. I also have to admit that I have a sudden weakness to vintage jewelry, mainly necklaces. So, if you see me wearing a necklace that is not made by my sister or mom then it is a genuine 1930's-1970's necklace. Thank you e-Bay!

10. Taking pictures: Ask my family...I am constantly taking pictures, the camera is never far from me. The kids are such good sports about it and support my obssession with them. Thank goodness for Digital Cameras and memory cards that can hold over 400 pictures at a time.

Now you are tagged..

The Tobler's are at it again...

No, we are not expecting our 5th child. We actually were excpecting 13 baby chicks and they have arrived! On Friday, May 9th, 2008~13 baby chicks were delivered to our local post office. I had the privilege of picking them up before school. Rob has been dying to become a chicken farmer again, the whole "dog" for pets didn't quite work for our family, so we decided to try raising chickens again. We did this almost 4 years ago and loved it. We lost our chickens within a year to raccoons, neighbour dogs and hawks with the first batch. This time around we hope to be wiser and build a safer coop fence for them. Rob built his own coop with the first group of chickens, so he is relocating this one and repainting it. He has done such a good job! He is quite the builder! Anyhow, as of Friday we have already lost 2. We expected to lose some, but not this quick. We had another one on the edge of death, and after praying for her, I am honored to say that she is now our Miracle chick. Her name is SNAKE (belongs to Grammie Deb, our neighbour)and she is an Americauna, who will lay blue eggs for us. We lost a Blue Andalusian (GIPSY) and another Americauna (no name). Rob was saddest about the Andalusian. The kids were extremely sad, the ones that were the most heart broken were James and Juliette. Eliza and Sophia kept saying that it was alright, because Heavenly Father was going to take care of them better. It was a great life experience for all of us. Alright, Let's name them all: we have a Rhode Island Red named RUBY (she belongs to James), a New Hampshire Red named SAMIE (Sophia's). A Black Australourp named GIGI (Rob's), a White Delaware named CHICKERELLA (Eliza's). Then, we have a Speckled Sussex with no name yet (Rob's), a Gold Wyandotte named BUCKWHEAT (Wendy's), 2 Cuckoo Marans with no names (Rob's), a Buff Minorca named BIRDY (Juliette's), and a tiny Black Silkie Bantam named SEAWEED (she is mine). These chickens will grow to be a beautiful batch of international hens, that will lay a variety of colored eggs. We are so excited! It will take about 5 months for them to start laying eggs. We'll keep you posted on their growth. They are already getting feathers, wings and a tail. So very Cute!!!! We have already shared them with some of our friends, enjoy the pictures.

Whatcom Cup Champions...

James' soccer team won the Whatcom Cup this year (Sat. May 10th, 2008). We were very proud of him and his friends. They had a great season, they didn't lose one game. They played hard and their very best. They are an excellent group of honorable and talented players. Next season will be hard, most of his team is moving on to different leagues/teams. He no longer will have his coach, whom he's had for 4 years. He is really torn and sad about it. His friends tried out for the more challenging and competitive teams this next year and most all made it. James didn't try-out because it was on a Sunday and we chose to go to church instead. He felt good about his decision, but after seeing the excitement of his friends, I think he might feel a tiny bit of regret and dissappointment. We know he would have made it, too. But, he also knows he did the right thing. It is just hard for a ten year old to experience these kinds of choices and fully comprehend the blessings that await him for having to choose to keep the Sabbath Day Holy over trying out for soccer. I just love his heart! He is very talented as well, and plays very good soccer. I know and have faith that he will be blessed for his choice. It is just hard to see him go thru the emotions he is experiencing now. Eliza also had a great season of successful soccer games. Her team won a lot of the games and played their best this year. We have a group of talented little girls and great coaches. Eliza really likes the sport as well and is learning great things from James. We are looking forward to another season of cold and rainy soccer games...hahahahahahhahhaha!!!

What are the parents to do 24/7?

Being a parent 24/7 is quite the job. I hardly can turn around for a minute and there is chaos or trouble headed my way or already occurring. I am exagerating a bit, but seriously it seems like that to me. Here is an example of what I am referring to: We were listening to fun music last night and dancing with the kids, Sophia and Juliette decided to get some dress-up on. Julie chose to be the boy and Sophia the girly princess. They pranced around all cute and Sophia kept stopping to change outfits. GIRLS!!!? After the third time of them going into their room, I decided to go in there and tell them that this would be their last dance. and to choose their dress-up wisely. Well, I found sparkles everywhere, literally everywhere. They were pasting them unto their skin (arms, legs, face) and they had a ton on their hair. I literally shocked myself when instead of getting furious I went for the camera and grabbed Rob. Gotta have a sense of humor. Then, like 5 minutes later we took a break from cleaning and called the kids for family prayer, when Lo and Behold who shows up Butt-Naked and in high heels? Sophia just ran and kneeled like there was nothing wrong, and we just all busted out laughing, our prayer was filled with giggles and laughs. Thanks a lot Sophia! This all happened in less than 15 minutes. Amazing the trouble that can take place during that amount of time. Thank goodness of humor! They struggled to clean it all up then next day and complaint about it. But, Rob managed to get creative and get them to clean up after themselves. Most of it was vaccumed and the rest picked by hand. Amazing how busy life really gets...