Year in Review

Bronze starts the year off working 60+ hour weeks.

Also start the year off with an announcement, expecting baby #3!

Take a trip to Santa Fe, NM, have a wonderful time visiting family.

Had to give up a loved family pet of almost 7 years :' -(

Decided not to move so we bought a different vehicle to accommodate our growing family.

God says he has other plans for us. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Go out on a limb of faith and list our house for sale, TONS of showings!

Feeling very pregnant, wonder what in the world we're doing trying to sell our house.

New Sysco driver hired! Bronze resumes a more normal work schedule.

Sold our house with no where to go.

Had baby #3, Eliad!

New Sysco driver didn't work out, Bronze back to crazy work schedule.

Homeless - move into tiny 2 bedroom condo with our family of 5.

Bought another house. Blessed that it met not only our requirements but our desires as well.

Had wisdom teeth taken out (worse than having a baby) felt like it would have been wiser to just leave them in ; - ). Ha,ha.

Turned the big 30! Yes, it does feel older.

We were in our first earthquake, unfortunately we didn't get to 'experience' it due to the good construction of our house and had to find out about it after the fact.

Celebrate family Thanksgiving in our new home.

Look at my baby and wonder how he got so big, so fast.

Celebrate multiple times for the Christmas season with a lot of family.

Prayed with husband, thanking God for the many blessings we have been given, for the trials he's brought us through this year and for his guidance in the next.

Wondering where this year went but looking forward to next year and what God has in store for us!

Stages

There are different stages in life. A lot of times they are new and exciting and sometimes they are monotonous and tiresome.

Right now we are in one of the monotonous ones. Don't get me wrong, it's not necessarily bad, we've had our share of exciting and it's kind of nice to just be settled into a routine.

Unfortunately our routine lately hasn't allowed for much me and Bronze time.

Every day is the "same-ole same-ole", Bronze going into work super early, me taking care of the kids and home life all day, Bronze getting off work in time to eat dinner, get everyone ready for and off to bed then starting all over again the next day. The weekends are filled with getting things caught up on that didn't get done during the week and any other obligations that we must fulfill. Life's over all good and God has been good to us, we are blessed.

The other night after getting the kids to sleep we did something out of the ordinary, instead of Bronze heading off to his early bed time while I finish getting things put back together from the day we snuck off to our room very quietly. You see, Bronze had found some hidden camera shows that were entertaining so we thought we'd watch some to lighten up our serious schedule. We got all set up and let the videos roll. It was so much fun to laugh together. We laughed until there were tears coming out of our eyes, we laughed until our sides hurt and we had to muffle our screams in our pillows so that we wouldn't wake our sleeping children. I don't know if the fact that we were so tired and in autopilot had anything to do with it or if it was really that funny, but I do know that laughter is good for the soul and our souls were in pretty good shape the other night.

Today

Today is Bronze's big out of town day.

Today, Eliad woke up with a red, stuffy nose.

Today, I dumped uncooked rice all over the place.

Today, Ardon cut his foot and was only traumatized by it after we put a band aid on it, since then he has been lame.

Today, I have been trying to finish up homemade Christmas items that didn't get done before.

Today, Elee took off her pants and ran around the house hiding them faster than I could find new ones to put on her.

Today, Elee took our DVD collection and spread it out all over the floor in the 2 seconds that I stepped out of the room.

Today, Elee emptied out the cooking utensil drawer, I'm still finding them strewn all over the place.

Today, Elee gave her baby brother a box or macaroni to eat because he was hungry.

Today, Elee got her head stuck in a toilet seat, not just in it but STUCK. Forgive me for not taking a picture but in my panic all I could think of was getting this germ infested thing removed from my daughter.

Today, and everyday, Elee is an incredibly sweet, loving and nurturing girl. She is also incredibly ornery, mischievous and a bundle of energy. She keeps everyday exciting and I wouldn't change a thing about her!

Just So You Know

I haven't been trying to ignore any one. I just currently have no phone. My phone started acting up Christmas eve, eve (last Friday) so I had to get it swapped out for a different one (same old model) but we had an incident today that left me phone less again. I'm kind of irritated about the whole ordeal and don't really want to talk about it but figured I better let you know just in case you needed to reach me. I do check email often so you can get in touch with me there. Oh, and I'll probably need everyone's phone numbers all over again :-P don't you just love technology?!

Working On It

I have a lot of pictures on my camera, and I would love to share them with you. Unfortunately Bronze's computer wants nothing to do with me and my pictures right now. Sure, Bronze can get things to work just fine but if I make an attempt to try anything the screen just goes black. It's almost as if the computer is trying to tell me something :-P

I'm trying to get it figured out and when I do there will be a picture post to get us caught up!

Did You Know...

that if you look up my blog, "The Leyba Life" on google's search engine, one of the options it gives you is "Two Life Terms For Leyba"? Well, it's a totally different Leyba, one of no relation. I hope!

(Just wanted there to be some clarification about that.)

Stereotypical

It's so easy to set stereotypes. For instance, there are many different types at the grocery store. Like the mothers who's children seem wild through the whole store. You know the kinds, they're the ones who's kids are still in their PJ's and opening everything in the shopping cart while snot comes out of their noses.

Well today we fit in to that stereotype. We fit it well.

I had to go to the store, so against my better judgement we took off.

Normally things go fine, it's a nice opportunity for us to get out of the house for a little bit and the most tiresome part is just the getting everyone loaded and unloaded everywhere. Today however, things did not go normally.

We haven't been out much lately so the kids have a lot of built up energy, energy they decided to take out by bouncing all around in the store. Every time I turned around I had to pull someone out of the way of oncoming shoppers. I had a terrible time getting store associates to help me, and poor Eliad was so tired he cried until he fell asleep in the checkout line. As we were loading up to leave I was trying to load up Eliad's carrier while holding open the back hatch for the guy loading my groceries. In this short couple of seconds Elee, the child who never leaves my side, ran out in the parking lot to jump into a puddle. Sigh. Eliad's seat banged along the car as I dropped the hatch on the sacker who was loading my car (sorry) so I could run to grab my wayward child.

At that moment I felt all eyes on me and immediately felt sorry for those 'stereotypical' moms that struggle through a shopping trip.

I'm not stressed out or frustrated by the experience, just tired and thankful that nap time is just around the corner!

Cake and Bacon

Yes that's right, not 'cake and baking' but 'cake and bacon'.

With some of the changes they've made at his work lately there hasn't been much in the way of speciality food items for Bronze to bring home.

Until today.

You see, yesterday they had a dessert and bacon tasting day for all of the sales reps. What a combo huh! Since Bronze has become buddies with Lan, the one in charge of getting rid of all the extra food, and I occasionally send him goodies we get a lot of left overs that normally would get thrown away. I am amazed at what they throw away, they only want the best and freshest food to serve potential clients and freezer space in town is limited so anything that doesn't get use immediately gets thrown out.

This is one of the things that Lan set aside for me today-

There are 2 different kinds and I don't even know what is in them but it's heavenly. This is one of those things that you'd pay $6 or more for at a restaurant.

In addition to cake Lan sent home a tray of cookies for the kiddos, a brand new/unopened box of frozen sweet potato fries (and remember this is industrial size), frozen cookie dough and of course a couple packages of frozen, uncooked bacon!

Thank you Lan!

Since we were unaware Bronze would be coming home with goodies today we actually did a little baking of our own.

The last time I mixed up a batch of cookie dough I put some aside for the kids to shape and bake when time allowed.

Here is my smashing, squishing, drop it on the floor a couple times Einstein taste tester. Any time I would try to grab her cookie shapes to put on the baking sheet she would get upset and say I broke her dough. Sooo she basically had the same small chunk the entire time.

This, on the other hand, is my serious baker. To him, getting everything cut out just right and transferred to the baking sheet was an important job he had to get accomplished.

The finished product, besides taking them in and out of the oven he did them all by himself. He was pretty proud of them.

Let The Craziness Begin

It's that time of year again!

Time to put on our super hero capes and get busy! We hosted the Leyba family Thanksgiving at our new house this year, it was fun, busy and full of food!

We spent time practicing our thanks.

Ardon was given some hand-me-down toys from uncle Breeze so he wanted to write him a little note.

After the Thanksgiving holiday who can resist getting Christmas decorating started? Not Eliad!

He did have a little help though and he enjoyed being covered in Christmas cheer!

Tummy Time Shots

Hey mom, wach ya doin?

You're taking my picture again?!

Well, I guess I'm okay with that.

The Middle of My Floor

There's a little wiggly bump in the middle of my floor....

This little bump has been around for 4 whole months now,

it's awful cute,

I think I'll keep it!

OK,OK...

Here goes, short and sweet but at least something.

I still do not have my computer (I am using Bronze's dysfunctional one) and I'm having camera issues as well but this is at least something since I was harassed by a family member, who shall remain nameless, in lovely Santa Fe about my lack of blogging. This is for you A. N. you know who you are ;-)

I had a pirate at my house the other day.

There were actually 2 pirates after about 30 minutes of rummaging through my fabric/crafting supplies.

Did I mention there was a monkey too? He was awfully cute!

When this monkey's back to being a real boy he and brother think that since he's almost 4 months old it's time to break out the real toys!

This big boy stuff is pretty exciting!

MIA

I am still here, mostly. We are still settling in at the new house and things are still a little crazy. I have only used the computer 3 times in the last few weeks and then it was only to deal with email I knew was requiring attention.
I am missing blogging but taking care of my family (especially the 3 littlest), keeping up on housework, dealing with day to day issues and continually trying to unpack and organize the house have been taking up all of my time.
I'm sure things will settle down eventually but until then it will be hit and miss on updates here. I think I'll keep this short since my 45 minutes of sleep last night is not letting me think clearly or in complete sentences at the moment but I hope to be back sooner next time, hopefully with a picture post!

Condo Life

While at the condo the kids found numerous ways to entertain themselves in our tiny living space.

Playing in all the empty cupboards was one of them.

We didn't unpack anything while we were there since it was only going to be about a month so we just lived out of boxes and baskets.

I know the pictures are sideways again but Bronzes computer has a mind of its own and it's choosing not to cooperate today.

They also spent time using packages of diapers to slide and ski across the carpet.

This was the built in jungle gym, I mean staircase, that they spent a majority of their time on.

We didn't have any stairs at our other house so they thought this was great fun!

More cupboards of course. Ardon was always more than willing to give Elee a 'boost' to get into places.

Then of course who can resist mattresses at ground level. We took just the bare essentials with us so bulky items like bedroom furniture we left in storage.

You may have noticed when I talked about the condo it was in past tense. That's because we're finally in our house! It's been such a relief to finally get here even though we have to finish moving furniture from storage this weekend. I hope to be able to give you the grand tour soon but for now I'm going to kick my feet up and enjoy the fire in my fireplace a few more minutes before my busy Friday goes full swing!

Firsts

And now an intermission from blogging about housing to blog about firsts.
Eliad had his first trip to the zoo yesterday!

It was great weather for it and since Bronze managed to get off around noon (which still is an 8 hour day for him) we decided to take the kids out since our pass is going to expire soon.

Elee was big enough to really enjoy it this time, she liked it in the past but now she's big enough to run around and get into everything!

Ardon enjoyed it more than usual too. He had to make sure and point out all the animals in all the different exhibits to us.

Other than getting irritated when the sun was in his eyes, Eliad did well. (I know our picture quality isn't great but all we had with us was Bronze's 'fake phone'.)

We haven't been able to do many extra fun activities over the summer because of the busy schedule with the house on the market, new baby and the move.

It was nice to get the kids out for something fun.

Our last stop on the way out was the apes.

This ape was very social, if you put your lips up to the glass like you were trying to give it a kiss it would kiss back!

We let the kids climb around on the statue a bit before we left.

Eliad got to participate in this too!
We had a lot of fun and I'm so glad the weather was nice to make it an even more pleasant trip!

Life Like a Genie

"Phenomenal cosmic powers, itty, bitty living space."
Name that movie... That quote is one I can relate to at the moment.
When I was thinking about our current living arrangements this popped into my head, we're definitely in an itty, bitty living space. At least it seems that way for a family of 5 in a small condominium.
As the next move gets closer I keep thinking to myself, only 18 more days, in 4 days I'll be able to say 'only 2 more weeks' and 3 days after that i can say, only a week and a half'. I could go on and on, maybe I did just a little. As you could guess, things are a little cramped right now. At least there is a large stair case for the kids to climb around on, it's like a jungle gym to them. It drives Bronze crazy but I figure it's free entertainment for the time being. We will sure appreciate the new space even more once we get there!
We are looking forward to this weekend. The last several have been so busy that they got lost in the craziness of everything and we feel like we haven't had any down time. Bronze has been putting in very long hours at work lately so a couple days off is very welcome at this point.
I will have to give you a tour of where we're staying sometime. I'd do it tonight but I'm not sure if everyone is sleeping deep enough yet for me to be snapping pictures of them;-)

Sleeping Arrangements

Our house is virtually empty. At this point we have about a car load worth of stuff left. The only reason we even have this stuff left in the house is because, due to an electrical repair that had to be completed, there will be no power at the condo until later in the day, sooo we spent one last night in our house.

These were Elee's sleeping quarters.

(Sorry about the side ways picture, apparently my photo editing software is as dysfunctional in the wee hours as I am!)

Bronze and Ardon's on the air mattress.

Mine and Eliad's

(I think someone got the short end of the deal, must be why Eliad spent the night laughing in his sleep)

It is going to be a crazy day for us, which is the main reason we had to have so much of our stuff moved out of the house. I have my 6 week post op/post baby appointment to start the day off with, the final walk through on our house is at noon, the closing on our house is after that then we go straight to the home inspection appointment for the new house. To top it all off, Bronze still has to go in to work at 4am, like usual, and though we hope he'll be home sometime mid morning we never know what will happen for sure. (Note to self, take care of water and mail sometime today too.)

If someone would have come up to me a year ago and told me this is what I'd be doing right now, with a new baby in tow, I wouldn't have even laughed at them. I would have looked them straight in the eye and told them they were out of they're mind, that there was no way that would be happening. Well, who's out of they're mind now!?!? It's been a stretching and learning experience but it has been good. God has been amazing and has worked out so many details it's been mind blowing at times. It's funny, we shouldn't be surprised at how He works things out but in our short sightedness we tend to focus on what we perceive as the right way for things to work out and not necessarily on what God has planned that is best for us.

It's all ready been quite a journey and its not over yet! And as you can see aunt Netta, the camping out has all ready begun!

On The Move

By the way, did I mention that we've been moving this week?

I didn't get any action shots earlier because I was a little busy.

But the house is getting empty!

It's been a gradual process through the week but this weekend is the last of it.

Eliad has been a trooper, he's spent quite a bit of time in his swing, it's been a real lifesaver!
We are putting most of our stuff in storage right now because our new house wont be available for a few more weeks. We will be staying in a small 2 bedroom condo until then and we can't contain our excitement. OK, maybe we can. Anyhow, we will be anxiously waiting to make our final move which will hopefully take place the second week of September. Until then it will be interesting to say the least!

Missing It

I have really been missing blogging! We've had so much going on for me to blog about but I'm still having computer trouble. I'm not even sure if this post will go through but I'm giving it a shot.

The kids are doing great, Eliad has been a wonderful addition to our family and the kids are great with him. In some ways I can't believe he's a month old all ready and in others it seems like he's always been a part of our family!

2 weeks old

1 month old

Snuggling with big sister

Hanging out with big brother

The three of them

Story time with Ardon

Hopefully our computer will cooperate more often so I can do more regular updates.