Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

December is Here

Where has the year gone? The past few months have flown by. Well we have been fairly busy and you can assume that has been part of the reason for the poor updates to our family blog.
Here are bullet points regarding all of the things I should have blogged about if I had the time to sit and write and post photos:

1. We spent Halloween in Austin with the Baltera's. For the first time we dressed up the whole family as a famous family. I did post a photo of us dressed up as the Simpson's family. We had alot of fun with this. It has been requested by Addie that we go as the Adam's family next year. I have already begun working on this.
2. In November, on the 15th, I completed my first half marathon. The experience was so much more than just the accomplishment of finishing the 13.1 miles. I will definitely be signing up to run the rock 'n' roll SA half marathon next year. I may even run another between now and then. My life is changed for the better for being a part of this. I am definitely a runner now. It is a part of me that I am proud to have added.
3. We spent Thanksgiving in Corpus Christi with all of the Forces. Grandpa fried a turkey and us ladies were responsible for the trimmings and the pies. I baked a Jack Daniels pecan pie. Like the half marathon, this is a repeat. But I wouldn't say it changed my life.
4. ADDIE IS READING!!! She started putting letters and sounds together before she staerted school but the formal education of her kindergarten class was just the stimulus she needed, she reads everything and now she loves it almost as much as coloring. Also she has become shy in her 5 yrs. She'd rather read and color all day long than meet anyone new. She will have to get over this fear as her parents are social and getting more so.
5. Emaleigh is talking. Her words/phrases include: Morning, sit down, love, Addie, Mommy, bottle, bar, ball, cookie, eye, teeth, dog, up, bath, shoe, sock...and so much more. We are going to have a new chatterbox really soon
6. Currently Kevin is in the lead in the chatterbox area. I guess after 5 years of going to the PD Christmas party he has grown enough relationships. Maybe he got tired of listening to me chatter. This time it was I who was waiting for him to shut his trap so we could move on to dinner or even go home. But this I am thankful for. I am glad that he likes all of the people I work with. I pretty much do mean ALL OF THEM.
7. And Lucas James is 4! December 9th. He keeps talking about his other birthday, he's sure he has two. I will let you know when birthday 4 number 2 rolls around when I can figure that out.

Sorry no photos, sorry it has been so long.
Love

Simpsons Family

Skippy Jon Jones

Now that Addie is in Kindergarten, Kevin and I have homework all over again. We are asked to read with Addie every night. I think we used to read to her fairly regularly, but not as much as every night. Last week I sent Addie to her school bookfair with a little money and an order to buy two books. One of the books was a Fancy Nancy flip book. We have yet to crack that one because the kids all love the other book, Skippy Jon Jones and the Big Bones. I just ordered that one because there was a dinosaur on the front. I thought it could be for Lucas. The kids love this book and ask me to read it everyday now as soon as we get back to the house after work. It is a really silly book about a Siamese kitten who thinks he is a Chihuahua paleontologist. When he creeps though the imaginary jungle that is really his closet full of the neighbor’s dog’s bones, he speaks to the little Chihuahua (imaginary) friends with a Spanish accent. The book is totally cute and I recommend it to everyone.

Photo Blog

Amy sent these images yesterday. I know I am slacking again on keeping the blog current so I thought I would post some photos of my kiddos and their cousins to hold you over until I actually write again.

this is Ms. Olivia Baltera

Here is Dominic, too cool to take off his hat at the table but I think he is just coloring. Don't call the courtesy police on him yet.

these three play very well together

Emaleigh doesn't like to stop what she's doing to smile on my time.

Andrew and Lisa's Wedding

They got married in May. I wanted to blog about it. I don’t know why I have not yet, but here is what I remember.

Emaleigh wore the dress that Addie wore when Kevin and I got married 4 years prior. It fit her perfectly, she was a pretty princess. Emaleigh started walking a couple of weeks before the wedding so she wanted to be held not so much. Addie Belle wore the dress that she wore when she went to the daddy and daughter dance in February. She loves weddings. She called Lisa a princess. She was awfully curious about the princess’s tattoo. Andrew and all of his groomsmen were princes. Addie told us she will not cry when she gets married and she also let us know that when she gets married she will dance with all of the princes.

She and Lucas made fast friends with the flower girl who has a name but the pretty much just called her the flower girl. She was a mini celebrity to them. Lucas was handsome in khaki pants and a white polo shirt. They all had a great time and it was I who crashed the hopes and dreams of dancing into the night. It was a very sweet wedding in a little secret spot in the Texas Hill Country. Andrew and Lisa have since moved into their now home and Andrew has already begun faking illness to get out of attacking the honey do list.

Pictures Can Lie

These nearly angelic images give no real idea about the trouble these two can get into...and fast.

The day this photo was taken of Lucas, we were at my company picnic. There was a bouncy castle there and Lucas bounced four out of five hours. How Mary managed to snap a photo of him standing still is beyond me. He has grown out of his really strong desires to find trouble and get into it. Now he just has tons and tons of energy. So I take him running with me. Some people run with their dogs, I run with my three year old. Sometimes.

Emaleigh has an incredible love for climbing. Greater than the other two ever did at 1 yr old. Lucas was known to climb into his high chair if he was hungry before he was able to tell us. It wa his way of communicating. Emaleigh climbed onto our kitchen table last Tuesday when the kids were eating dinner and started stealing food. I keep saying, maybe she's hungry. Stuff like this happens alot, but she will never eat her own food. I mean I can prepare three of the same and she still prefers Addie's food.

She is going to keep Kevin and me on our toes for a very long time.

Photos From My Girls Weekend

Dancing at the Farmer's Market

Kevin and I took Mom and the kids down to the Pearl Brewery area one Saturday morning to have lunch at the Farm to Table Café.

There was a group there playing music. Have you ever seen an electric violin? That was a first for me. The kids wasted no time getting to the dancing. I love how the three of them are all so naturally inclined to boogie. I was surprised though to see Emaleigh doing ballerina arms. Where did that come from?

This only gets more and more fun. YES, they’re a handful…but I couldn’t even begin to count the ways I am blessed to have them in my life. My life is so full now.

Catching Up Blogging

Well I have sort of slipped out of my good habit of keeping the blog up to date. It was by accident, but certainly Ms. Emaleigh has had her hand in it as well. I can’t complain too much. I don’t mind spending most of my free time answering to her every need. But that doesn’t leave too much time for updating my blog or even my facebook status for that matter. I believe my facebook status right now says “I hate running…” I wrote that three weeks ago, or was it four, when my training for the San Antonio Rock and Roll Half Marathon began. Half Marathon, that’s 13.1 miles, not 6 as my friend thought last year when he signed up for it. The last thing I really blogged about was my trip to Florida to see precious Zoe. Well what you might not know is that since then I:

*went to Colorado to spend an extended weekend with my girlfriends Trish and Abby. The three of us, and Emaleigh (see above), flew into Denver and after a great dinner at The Black Pearl, we headed south and west to Del Norte, Colorado where my folks have a retirement log house. Del Norte was perfect for a getaway. With a population of 1,674 down-home folks according to the Chamber of Commerce, Del Norte was exactly what we needed to slow down and spend time with each other rather than running around each other without getting the opportunity to visit. We had some ideas about adventures we might take while we were there, but ultimately, slowing down and relaxing at home seemed to fit the bill. We did spend a day in the shops on Grande searching for deals and we also had lunch twice at The Organic Peddler / Peace of Art Café. Infact, if you are ever in the area it is a really sweet place to stop in. The building is really unique corkwood construction. My mom kept saying that and I was thinking, OK, OK…but it was worth talking about as much. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention something. Ivy was present as well. She so generously raced from spending time with me in Florida to get to Del Norte in time to de- winterize (i.e. kill flies, dust, move or hide mouse traps and turn on water and electricity) the house so it would be ready for us. I am certainly thankful for that as I know the last thing we wanted to do upon arrival at 1 a.m. was deal with those sorts of pests. Mom likes to take care of me still. I am pretty lucky for it. It’s very nice to have friends like these. I hope we get to do this kind of visit many more times.

*started training for the half marathon. I DO NOT hate running anymore. Now I hate being injured from running and wish my knee would hurry up and get better so I could get back out there and run some more. I have turned a new leaf as far as running is concerned. But I think I will always need the support of a running group or at least for a while. I want to find softer ground to run on, like marshmallows. I have really enjoyed tracking my workouts on http://www.mapmyrun.com/. That also has been an encouragement for me. I love to go out for a run/walk and come home and map my route. Generally I have been running in the neighborhood, but on Saturdays I run with my running group. We start near the Pearl Brewery from the running store, Run Wild Sports. I started, without realizing it, with a defeatist mentality. I would start each run, first it was 1 mile then 2 and so on…thinking, “I am not a runner, I’m going to run a little bit but I am not a runner so before this is over I am going to stop and walk”. I continued like this thru the first two weeks. On the third Saturday, I ran with Catherine, the very young owner of the running store. She gently encouraged me along to rum the whole way, 3 miles, and I did it. And I think now that I may be a runner. My breathing has been fine, me knees not so much, but I have overcome my mind and I am moving on, I will run 13.1 miles come November 15.

*Found out that the Mathletes in Action event that I am on the committee for is on November 14^th. Oh No!!!! This event is awesome, it is held on the court at the AT&T Center where the Spurs play. We use the game clock and buzzer for our timed events. Wait until you hear the game buzzer at the end of complete focused silence. I wouldn’t be surprised to find several #2 pencils at the top of the AT&T Center. The Spurs Coyote always makes an appearance and entertains while we are feverishly grading tests to rank competitors and get ready for awards. The schedule of the day is identical to the official MathCounts competition. It serves as a practice test for all of the kids, grades 5-7, who will be competing in the official competition held in February. Exceptions are, we can’t begin until the visiting NBA team’s morning practice is over, and we have to be off of the floor ASAP, I mean now, not another minute by 2 p.m. It is always stressful and I am always completely drained and sore at the end of this day. It will be interesting to see how well I do on my aforementioned run the day following!!! This event has always been in October during pre-season. All mathletes and volunteers get a ticket to the game at night. This year there were no pre-season home games on a Saturday and so we are having it in regular season. Word on the street is that the NBA does not like this. Go Math!!!

*and registered Addie Belle for school, Kindergarten. Can you believe it? Addie, my big girl is starting school. She’s very excited. She already got to meet her principal at registration and on Friday August 21 we will meet her teacher. The Judson Independent School District has a very strict dress code. I have been spending some time this week buying clothes on eBay that fit the description. NOTHING that she already owns does fit into the guidelines. It is rather boring.

I have sort of been waiting to blog about anything because I wanted to accompany with photos. I think I will upload a photo only blog later.

Little Boys Will Be Little Boys

Lucas did it. He finally had the injury I expected based on his activity level. See the big gash he got in his head last night. The story as I understand it is that Lucas was out of his bed in the dark peaking in on Emaleigh who was crying in her crib, when he thought he heard us coming (or for whatever reason) and decided to run back and jump in his bed. Only his foot slipped on a book that was left on the floor and instead of landing safely in his bed, he dove right into the bed frame and hit his head pretty hard. Blood was gushing from the little, less than an inch gash on his head. Kevin and I had a full two seconds of complete panic, frozen and everything, before we jumped into action. I got Emaleigh. (When we heard Lucas start crying we both jumped up, but I ran to Lucas and he ran to get Emaleigh out of her crib, so we switched) He picked up Lucas and went to the kitchen with him to look at the wound and try to calm him down. Emaleigh and I got a washcloth (the first one I found was pure white) and wet it with a little cold water and brought it to the boys in the kitchen and then went back to search for Band-Aids and aquaphor. The bleeding stopped fairly quickly with pressure and we bandaged him up and calmed him down, he’s pretty tough. Then we all went back to the kid’s room to calm Addie down who was beside herself with worry. We kept Lucas out of his room to just monitor him for about 30 minutes before we let him go back in his own bed. Addie was still wide awake and needed to talk to Lucas to know he was ok and was so upset when he said for her to leave him alone because he was tired. She slept in the crack between their beds to be closer to him. This morning I told him we would probably need to go show the doctor his head today. He asked to please see the nurse and not the doctor. I think he said the doctor doesn’t know what she’s doing. Where did he get that?

Florida Girl, Zoe!

My mom treated me and Emaleigh with a quick trip to the sunshine state to meet my new niece, Zoe Claire Garcia. It was awesome to get to see my sister in full mommy mode. Jenny's got that natural nurturing instinct. And she was pretty generous sharing Zoe snuggles. I got to hold her a bit. Jenny even skipped baby baths all week just so I could bath Zoe when I got there. Ms. Zoe was calm cool and collected for the most part. Emaleigh had a great time too but she was less interested in Zoe and much more interested in Ziggy, my dog nephew and Zoe's big brother. I wish I had a better picture of him but he did not like the red eye on my point and shoot camera. I will replace this photo when I get a better photo from Jenny, hint hint.And then she definitely soaked up some Aunt Jenny and Uncle N8 love too.

My plane left from the Orlando area on Sunday at 3:30 but we took off from Lakeland at 10:30 am so we could use the trip to fit in another visit with family. My childhood friend and cousin who lives in Winter Garden, Florida. We stopped by their home for a quick lunch and visit. She and her husband, Mr. RB, have two son's. The oldest will be 3 in October and played very nice with Emaleigh, sharing his toys and showing her how they all worked. Her baby was born only a couple of weeks before Zoe. I love this picture with the two of the in their infant carriers still snoozing. Both of these have plenty of hair that they could spare some to my one year old who is still as bald as the day she were born.

Ofcouse we managed to get one rare pictire of Jenny, Dawn and I all together. It has been so long since we were all together. I think it was at my wedding four years ago. I hope we will be able to update this photo sooner than four years from now. The trip was quick and the visits were both entirely too short, but I am glad that I got out there anyway. Sometimes you take a day for a trip you'd prefer to bee a week long just because that week never comes along. Maybe at the end of 2010 we can all reconvene in a mountian town to chase all of our toddlers plus one more from Texas in the snow.

Some PE News!

I passed the PE exam, I am now a licensed Professional Engineer. I like the sound of,

Laura Prewitt Force, Professional Engineer

Now let’s have some fun with LPF,PE…

Leprechauns probably find paleontology enticing

Lemons pummel friend’s poor étagère

Latent pungent foul poo eau

Last person found partying eats

Lazy professionals find plain entertainment.

Large prowling ferocious people eater

Livid piglet flings pooh everywhere!

Luke produces force powered ewoks

Leia probably finds precocious ewoks

Let’s plant flowers penetrating earth

Lacy policemen flaunt pink epaulettes

Lumberjacks practice felling pines everyday

Leaking porcine flu postnasal effluence

Lamenting persons fear prissy emos

Livid people fling poo everywhere

Let Peace Find Palestine Elders

Leia probably follows phantom egoats

Locating particles for physics experiments

Lemming promptly forgets parachutes exist

Thanks Jack, Kevin and Taran for playing!!!!

Birthday Girls

The Birthday Party images were delivered today. Thanks Jack, we owe you more beer!

Emaleigh!

Today is Emaleigh’s first birthday. Happy Birthday baby! We had a birthday party for the girls last Saturday. Addie Belle turned 5 on June 14th. Our party was a Ballerina themed party and we did go for the bouncy castle in the backyard despite the elevated temperatures. That didn't bother any of the kids. For most of the duration of the party the bouncy castle was full of energetic ballerrinas and one fireman and a few other male friends that DO NOT wear tutus. Our kids had a great time. I think everyone did. Once the sun went down, we had a little Force family time in the boujcy castle before Royal moonbounce came to pick it up. The birthday party energy is such a great feeling. I love these kids. I love my big huge family.

Lucas!

What a happy little guy! Lucas is learning to annunciate his "L" as an L instead of a W sound. It is great and very exaggerated. He wears his gulasses and culothes and gets culean in the bathtub.

Env Day 2009, Letter from Dad in Papua

Today was the Environmental Day Expo in Tembagapura. We had 22 booths,
nearly that many food stalls, music by local bands, and speeches as well
as a visit by Miss Papua and Miss West Papua. Ivy may recognize Miss
Papua (on my left) as one of the servers from the lounge in the Rimba
Papua Hotel. She said to tell you hello. The environmental department
booth had four snakes, three of them green tree pythons. They were
pretty well behaved except for a couple of times trying to get away by
climbing along the top of the wall to the booth next door.

Zoe Claire Garcia

Zoe Claire Garcia was born on June 5, 2009 at 2:29 pm. Baby Zoe was 8 lbs and 6 ozs, 21" and a head full of hair. Jenny and Zoe went home from the hospital on Sunday and Jenny sent photos and a little message. Both of my new nieces are adorable just like their mommies! I am heading to Florida at the end of the month with Emaleigh to meet Zoe. Hopefully during that quick trip I get to meet my second cousins Terran and Xavi, too!

So we are home and pretty tired. I just wanted to send a few good pictures out of our first few moments at home. Ashley from church dropped off a full dinner just a few minutes ago and we are looking forward to our first night at home. Thank you all so much for all your prayers and well wishes. Hope to have some more pictures soon. Love to you all, Jenny, Nate, Zoe and new big brother, Ziggy

FW: The Big Day

So, no more additional news has come up over the day. I am still pregnant and if nothing happens overnight, we are scheduled to be induced tomorrow morning. After much deliberation and some anxiety about the decision. I am comfortable about it and ready. So, hope to be sending photos soon of our new baby girl. Zoe will be here so soon, I should probably go and make sure everything is ready one last time. Love to you all, Jenny

Jenny's 40 weeks!

Well, technically she's 40 weeks pregnant on Sunday, but she's basically there. How great is this picture? I wish there were more. I love the big ol' grin on her face. Jenny couldn't be happier, more comfortable perhaps, but she's pretty happy. Ofcourse a whole new kind of happiness is about to come into her life. Baby pictures to follow as soon as I get any, after Zoe arrives ofcourse.

Emaleigh's Walking!!!!

I knew it was only a matter of time. Mark it dad, May 26th, 2009, Emaleigh steps up to conquer the world.

The Force Army is officially in training now.

Olivia Llewelyn

Amy's baby girl is here!!Olivia Llewelyn Baltera was born on May 13, 2009 at 4:19 pm.
She was a healthy 7 lbs. 14 oz. and 20 1/2 inches. The following is from an email from Amy. So here's how the last couple of days have gone in Amy's words:
My water broke at 1:30 PM, and she made her presence well known very quickly with a drug-free birth. She's an incredible baby--good nurser, sleeper and pooper! We are scheduled to be released from the hospital today around 5PM, and will finally be able to settle in and enjoy both of our wonderful children.
Dominic came to meet her yesterday and just thought she was his cousin, Emaleigh, since that's the only baby he knows. Guess he'll figure it out soon enough when she's home and Emaleigh comes for a visit. He kept asking Matthew to take him for a walk around the hospital during his visit, and one time he heard another baby crying, and starting looking for her and asked what was wrong with Emaleigh.
So cute!
The name--Matthew and I fell in love with Olivia fairly early on in the pregnancy, but struggled with settling on it because we felt we should use a family name. However, after spending some time with her, we have come full circle and love her and her name. Llewelyn is a family name on my side--both my parents first child's middle name (I never knew her, but I've always thought that if I had a girl I wanted to use her name, which was Kathryn Llewelyn) and my Great Grandfather's middle name as well.