"Twas the accident before Christmas...

'Twas the night before Christmas and at aunt Lilian's house were two steps that my son fell on.

This was the fvery first ER visit JP has had in his four years of life and he made it very memorable because it happened on Christmas Eve! Despite the inital screaming, JP did very well and stopped crying in the car on the way to the hospital. The Doctor gave us the option of stitches or glue. We chose to have him glued back together. When we got there it only took about 15 minutes before they saw us and our stay from start to finish was only an hour. We were praying for a quick trip to the ER and God was faithful to answer that prayer!

Before

After

Advent Conspiracy

Here's a cool little video about the reason of the CHRISTmas season. Hopefully this will motivate us all to keep the right perspective and act.

12 Days of Cookies

This year I wanted to do something fun and start a new tradition with my little ones. So I thought I would borrow my good friend's idea and make cookies leading up to Christmas. Sandra, does this every Christmas with her little ones and I thought it was a great idea. Since she is such a great cook, I should really ask her for her recipes, but I just found some online to make. Today, we made Candy Cane cookies. As you can see, Gracie didn't have an apron, so I tied a kitchen towel around her neck so she wouldn't feel left out. It got the job done!

Here's the finished product! JP liked the batter better than the cookies. My other little chef was so tired from all the baking she did that she laid down on the kitchen floor and fell asleep.

Monday Night Football

We have been having Zach and his Bible College friends over every Monday night for football. They do not have tv's in their dorms so they come over, eat, hang out, and best of all watch football! We enjoyed having them over and we pray these guys would have an awesome next semester wherever they may go.

Trimming the tree!

Last weekend we helped set up Val and Joe's Christmas tree. They went to a tree farm and picked out the tree they wanted and was able to cut it down too! They picked out a 9 foot tree! We weren't sure if Joe had more fun decorating than the kids. He had to put the ornaments up in a "specific, but random" order. In other words, the ornaments could not be level with each other or too close. Val and I thought it was so funny! It was hilarious to watch him decorate his tree!

Thanksgiving Blessings!

Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving at my father-in-law's sports bar. We were so blessed to have my sister, Anj, come down from northern Cali to spend time with us as well as the rest of the family that are here.

We ate to our hearts content and were so stuffed by the time dinner came around. Aunty Rose even made some Filipino food (Penakbet) to accompany the turkey and stuffing! Yummy!

Learning about Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We pray that you would have many things to be thankful for this year!

We are learning about Thanksgiving this week and I decided to have them do crafts. JP is Squanto, the Native American who helped the Pilgrims and taught them how to survive in the new world. And Gracie is his beautiful sidekick! You should read more on Squanto and how God worked in his life prior to the Pilgrims coming.

Creativity for the Harvest Carnival

We took JP and Grace C. to our church's harvest festival a few days ago. I didn't intend on dressing them up, but Vanessa and Gen found a few things laying around the house and made these costumes. We did buy posterboard, but we didn't really need it. Gen did all the artistic work except for the red lines on the straw. My beautiful wife is responsible for the beautiful red lines. Pretty creative costumes, eh?!

JP's B-day and Daddy's Surprises

Two weeks ago we celebrated JP's fourth b-day. To our dismay we found out that we didn't have enough b-day candles. We just had two singles and two number two candles, so we got a little creative. It worked out pretty well. It turned out we had enough candles after all, and with JP being older, he also got a little math lesson.

2 + 2 = 4

That same day, JP wasn't the only one who got a surprise, but daddy got two surprises; a J-O-B and a little car trouble. Niel got the job just in time too, because after he accepted the job, he jumped into his car and it didn't start! He ended up staying in the parking lot for the AAA guys. A little embarassing, but it's times like these you know God is there... God provided us a great family, a car [that can be fixed], and a job [to get the car fixed]. Thank all for your prayers and support!

God is good.

Day at the Pumpkin Patch

We went to the Pumpkin patch in Temecula today. The kids got to pet some farm animals at the petting zoo. Grace and JP did not like feeding the animals out of their hands. We thought it would be a nice autumn day, but it felt more like summer with 96 degree weather. Overall, we had a great time finding pumpkins.

oki blessings

last week some of our oki friends blessed us with a visit. they are missionaries in okinawa for those who don't know. ms. joanna came out for a pastor's wives' conference and it was at the calvary chapel bible college that her son, zach, goes to. the rest of the familia didn't make it out, but maybe we'll see them this winter...

they not only blessed us with a visit, but with "goma" salad dressing. goma means "liquid gold" in japanese or least that what it means in my house because it's that precious. we discovered this dressing in japan and always asked our friends to mail or bring some when they come back to the states.

the ruiz family family has always been a blessing to us and not because they bring the liquid gold. here's a link to their blog, so you can see what God is doing in oki through them:

http://calvarychapele3missions.blogspot.com/

so this is the pic of the "liquid gold". the one on the left, which came from oki, was actually cheaper than the one on the right, which came from hawaii courtesy of my brother. we love the dressing so much that we have been searching high and low for it and asking everybody. the only places we found it was hawaii and okinawa. so if anybody in so cal knows where to get the "goma" please drop us a line.

17th week ultrasound

here's op3's arm and foot.the next two are sample "4-d" ultrasounds. it was pretty cool, but kind of scary looking.
now remember we don't want to know the gender until birth...

umbilical cord or ???

first picture of op3...

First of all, WE ARE NOT GOING TO FIND OUT THE GENDER OF OP3 UNTIL BIRTH. So, if you see what we don't, please don't tell us. Sorry to leave you all guessing or having to keep a secret. Sometimes, we just like to keep things exciting...

Please keep our family in your prayers.

God bless you all,

the O peeps

Can you hide anything from GOD?!

Last week, JP got some candy for dessert after lunch. He wanted to keep the rest for the next day and he asked me, "Where can I hide this where God can't see it?" I was shocked at first, and told him that he could not hide anything from God because God can see everything. I then asked him why he wanted to hide the candy. JP's response, "Because He might eat it all!"

What is the moral to the story?
A. Eat all your candy quickly.
B. Kids say the darndest things.
C. You can't hide ANYTHING from GOD!
D. All of the above.

Here's another thing that we can't hide from GOD:

Gracie's cuteness and Gen's new/old hair color.

test, test

this is our first blog. more to come. peace.