Did I forget to mention the big news???

In case you hadn't heard, and maybe you counted the stockings below and were wondering why we had an extra?


























Yep, you guessed it. We ARE expecting again!!! After getting over the shock & horror of it (that is a bit dramatic) we became very excited - I mean how can you argue with another precious blessing from God. It says in His Word afterall, that children are a reward. Thank you Lord, for this blessing and thank you for promising to help. (Isaiah 42:10)

1st Birthday / Anniversary / Thanksgiving

Spencer turned 1 year old on Nov. 25th, which was also our 9 year anniversary. We celebrated his birthday the next day after our Thanksgiving feast. In 2010, you can expect we'll be celebrating BIG for our 10 year Anniversary / 2nd b-day / Thanksgiving all on the same day! Below are some pictures of our turkey and also of Spencer's interesting cake experience.





Beautiful cake made by Grandma....so far so good...


Until he put his fingers in it and got "messy"...he was hysterical!

Some Phelps Randomness

I misplaced my camera for a couple of months (between October & December). So we took various pictures with our camera phones, below.

On a rainy day while going to MOPS, I thought I had the stroller pretty well weather proofed. Until I discovered it was all in vain because he had been hanging his head out the side (getting soaked) the whole walk, wanting to see what was going on!


Spencer being cute in his Chargers shirt.


A double rainbow we caught in Orangevale.


The boys just completed their Lincoln Log creation. (ignore the laundry also pictured)


We went to Apple Hill in the beginning of November, which was really fun. Because we began to home school, I asked the kids to predict something they might find. Nathan said, "The BIGGEST apple!" Below, he found it!





Where we live, we see wild turkeys all the time, which we find so funny. This time, we counted a total of 33!




Some before and after hair cuts:





Spencer & Emerson, birth buddies in costumes.

Preston as Tigger at Pottery Barn Kids halloween party with best friend, Tommy!

Clark Kent & Superbaby

The whole crew, in costume. We had mad scientist, Justin with us, Nathan was Darth Maul, Hannah was Sleeping Beauty, Preston was a green monster, Spencer was Superman.


This is what happens when you walk away from a 1 year old and leave his food within reach...






You know it's cold in California when you wake up to snow on the car!


Maybe you can't see it, but we had snow on the ground too!


Preston with a baby bunny at "Bethlehem Village" at Sunrise Community Church.


Dad thought he'd be cute sharing his cocoa with Spencer, much to my dismay.


... and the results of giving Spencer cocoa.


Royce surrounded by kids!


Getting our tree - Costco always has the prettiest and best priced noble firs!


Stockings are multiplying!

M&M Family Picture from Six Flags

In going through some cell phone pictures, I came across this one. We took this at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom this summer, after my awesome MOPS group went in on some family passes for us in May. These are the best stairs I have ever seen!

So we decided to home school...

Taking the blog back a few months, I would like to catch up on some of the happenings in the Phelps household, especially since I haven't gotten around to any Christmas Pictures/Cards or Letter yet this year (and it's a month past already!)

Back in October, 2009, we thought and prayed a lot about what to do about our situation with the kiddos. School was going along fine, but I was feeling like a square peg in a round hole. Hannah was super excited to start Kindergarten, Nathan was plugging along fine. We struggled to get homework done on a daily basis. He spend 7 hours there at school, and then we spent at least 4 hours fighting to get homework accomplished. Needless to say, I didn't feel like I had a whole lot of time with him for quality time spent & the negativity levels were pretty high. Little Spencer had to be whisked from his bed, without a diaper change most days, and with just a cup of milk to satisfy his belly as we rushed out the door to make it to school 5 minutes late. Returning 3 hours later would repeat that cycle of whisking him out of his bed from a nap & Preston just went along for the ride every day. Again we'd repeat this process a 3rd time to get Nathan later in the afternoon. I felt like I lived out of our car & my little ones suffered from being in the car so much and my older ones suffered from lack of quality time with me at all in the day.

After much prayer & discussion, we decided to home school and bring our schedule back under our control. I was nervous to tell Nathan & Hannah of our decision, because they were enjoying school. In the manner that God works, which is far beyond what I could comprehend or ask for, He solved this problem by having Nathan & Hannah ask if we could do school at home and not return to school. It was quite an amazing morning that turned into a whole discussion about schooling at home that I hadn't planned on having just yet. The kids were so excited and not that sad about leaving school. Their last day was just before Halloween.

We decided to charter with South Sutter Charter School for many reasons. For one, they offer me great accountability, support, and also the funding necessary for anything we need school-related, within the confines of their massive lists. That includes books, curriculum, project materials, art supplies, paper, ink, music lessons, P.E. classes, pretty much anything we could have wanted to do with the kids both with school and extra-curricular-ly (yes I believe I made up that word) that we wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise!

Above is a picture of the desks we brought home from a killer sale in Lodi and how excited the kids were. They flocked to these desks right at first and were very eager to get started with school. They still use the desks quite a lot, for school and otherwise, and it is nearly 3 months later.

It took sometime to get my curriculum in and we will probably be in a learning process for the rest of this school year, but we are excited to be on this homeschooling journey. There you have it, in case you were wondering! : )

Fall-ing (skipping) Forward

Wow, it's been a LONG time since I've updated our blog! I'm ready to get back into the swing of blogging though. Here is our first family picture of the season. Come to think of it, I don't think we've had a recent picture of all 6 of us. This portrait taken at Dewey's Fall Festival last Friday night - but it is only a snapshot of the actual portrait as I don't have a scanner hooked up right now. It was our 3rd year and it was really fun - nice and warm this year - last year it was freezing.

Stay tuned as I begin to catch up a little bit with highlights from the year and move forward from here. We are on a very exciting path as a family and have many things to be thankful for. More soon!

Cool like that

Here is a fun picture of Spencer smiling! He is two months old now, getting very big and a happy baby to boot.

Twin Dino's

Spencer (8 weeks) with his buddy Emerson Brooks (4 weeks). We didn't even plan this and it's the 2nd time it has happened!
ROAR

MOPS

I snapped a picture of our last meeting.
& my favorite speaker ever: Dr. Lisalee Egbert!

Cold Day at the Park BRRRRR

Remember that Saturday after New Year's? Wow was it a cold one! But we braved the elements & took the new bike for a test drive.

Preston was saying: "Push me!" - the jeep is stationary


Here is where I was - far far away (standing in a little corner of sunlight)

This is how far I zoomed in!

Some Christmas Pictures

It seems that Santa enjoyed our cookies & milk!

YUM

Sleeping baby...

Crazy Christmas Morning

Preston got Darth Vader Legoman!
Nathan and specially made-by-grandma Light Saber

Aunt Gracie

Aunt Em

Great Grammy & Spencer

Hannah & her 1st bike

The boys on the couch
Stocking time!


Pastor read the Christmas Story to the children

The kids got a kick out of being up on stage.
This video is so cute, just the first 10 seconds or so. For the sake of your equillibrium, you might want to skip the rest...I didn't know it was still recording (new camera & all). But Nathan's Star Wars Legos have become quite an issue in the house with Preston always wanting them. He says, "MY DAR BADER!" So, mom got him some Star Wars legomen & here he is light saber fighting them & when Nathan asks, "Are those legos?" Preston is quick to reply, "Yes, they're mine!"

The "Christmas Letter"

Merry Christmas!
Now that you've gotten over the shock and awe of receiving our Christmas Card this year BEFORE Christmas (hopefully anyways) you may have mosied on over to your computer and checked out our blog (because the link was on the card - Thank you Lisa for the wonderful idea!)

I don't know how many years in a row now I have constructed the "Christmas Letter" (6 maybe?), but we have so much fun doing it and yet have so much trouble actually getting it out during the Christmas season. Well, you can imagine that with a new baby, postpartum blues and all the craziness of the year (for us - to elaborate: a move from 7 years in our condo, 2 dead computers, 2 months without internet, 2 dead digital cameras, finally a computer that works BUT intermittent DSL & isn't hooked up to a printer yet, etc. etc. bla - bla - bla -) and whatnot - your Christmas Letter probably wouldn't have arrived until June, at the earliest...perhaps not even until Christmas of 2009. So, in an effort to make things easier on me; to eliminate the guilt of seeing the stack sitting on the counter month after month, and to update family & friends in a timely and tree-saving manner, here is our 2008 Christmas Letter:

Dear Family & Friends,

What a year! In January, we had the privilege of attending a new church, a real life changing moment for us. During one of the services that month, we learned that the number "8" means New Beginnings. For some reason it resonated with us. It was going to be a year of New Beginnings - 2008. Looking back, boy did that turn out to be true! It was a year of hardship as well, but we keep our focus on a new beginning and look forward to what 2009 brings us.

SPENCER - We welcomed Spencer into our lives in November - on our 8 year (there's that number 8 again) anniversary - Nov. 25th. He was almost 3 weeks early, but a really healthy 8 lbs, 2 oz! We are slowly adapting to having 4 children, while feeling very outnumbered and yet increasingly blessed by God to have these beautiful gifts in our lives.

PRESTON - Still a very active little boy who keeps us on our toes. He is super funny and quite the BIG boy lately at 2 1/2 years old. Our little monkey was two in June and talking up a storm all year long though we are continually amazed at his increasing vocabulary.

HANNAH - She is very much the princess of the family. Testing us in her 4 1/2 year old way and very independent and full of spunk. She also had a birthday in June. She is currently in her 2nd year of preschool and loving every minute of it. In 2009 she will embark on a new journey into Kindergarten and is so excited about that.

NATHAN - A big 1st grader already, wow! He is a special 7 year old, and while we have our moments with him, he is really proving to us how inquisitive and bright 7 year olds can be. He loves to figure things out and ask questions, though he doesn't love homework. He loves his teacher, though he doesn't love obeying all the school rules. (we're working on that!) He is very much into Legos and Star Wars - put those two things together and you'll show him heaven early.

ROYCE & COURTNEY - We are parents of 4 little kids, what more is there to say??? We are busy, busy, busy. Royce is still working for Artisan Tile and still enjoying it, though things have slowed down a little bit in the business. Somehow God finds a way to provide for our family so when we start to get stressed and wonder how ends are going to meet, we continually ask ourselves, "Why did I allow doubt to creep in?" God's timing might not be our own, but it works and is perfect. Courtney is still involved with her Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) group and even went to a MOPS Convention in Dallas in October that proved to be a very valuable experience.

As difficult a year as we had, we have somehow come out ahead and closer than ever and are very blessed and can only attribute our blessings to Jesus Christ's power in our lives. When we are weak, He is strong.

Enough about us, we want to hear from YOU. Please keep in touch and drop us a line anytime. Our email addresses will be listed below and did change this year, so make a note of it. We pray that you are all having a PEACEful and JOYful Christmas Season!






With Love,
The Phelps Family
Royce, Courtney, Nathan, Hannah, Preston & Spencer









courtneyaphelps@att.net
roycephelps@att.net

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but this cocoa is so delightful...

Our annual Christmas Light Night with a Live Nativity play at Christ the King Lutheran church on Walnut & stroll down Dovewood Court was Sat. Dec. 20th (Preston turned 2 1/2) and especially cold! Good thing we brought our hot cocoa along with us. Spencer didn't get to enjoy the hot cocoa but he was bundled up and nursed through half of the play anyways! After Dovewood, we drove by one more Court, our friend Kevin from Choir has his house all decorated along with everyone no his court. It's almost just a beautiful as Dovewood without all the traffic. Anyways, I took a picture of a tree on his street that was decorated like Rudolph.

Stinky Baby

After waiting 3 weeks (for belly button to get regular) without a real bath, it was finally time when we went to snuggle Spencer and he was a bit sour. Here are a few pics of his first bath! I love the 2nd one because he is looking up at my face while I wash him. Don't you wonder what he's thinking??

Bumper Sticker: "I'd Rather Be Here:"

Okay, WE didn't go to Disneyland, but Grandma & Aunt's Em & Gracie went last weekend. Since my mom is so willing to share her digital camera with us, I was able to upload HER pictures to our computer and can't help but share a few with those who haven't seen D-land all decked out for the holidays. Enjoy - even though we weren't there, we still enjoy the sights!