Nonna Tringali

This weekend we went to Monterey for the funeral of Steve's Italian Grandma (Nonna). She was a neat lady and lived 92 years! She didn't speak English so I never really talked with her and one of my first thoughts when I found out she had passed away was that when I see her again I will be able to converse with her! I am thankful for the knowledge that families are forever. Here we are with Nonna at her 91st birthday party:The funeral was neat (well, the small parts I was able to attend). I was basically outside with the rowdy kids the majority of the time. Here's what we were up to:
Here are the girls with Grandma Tringali:
They had a luncheon after all the funeral things were over and here are the girls there:There was a piano, so Steve played a few songs....they were beautiful:After all that we went to Aunt Maria's house to change and say goodbye...the girls were so hyper! Here they are teasing Steve's Uncle Sal:After all that, we decided to really wear the kids out so we headed to 'Denise the Menace Park' The kids don't know who he is, but the park was a blast! It is so HUGE! Here's some of what we did...explored the train:
Went down the rolling-pin slide...this one was too much fun! The kids loved it!
Here's Ella's turn:
Robbie's turn:
He couldn't get enough of it, here he is climbing back up the hill to do it again:
Here a fun maze and tower:
This is the slide Ella and I went down (she was too scared to do it herself, so I agreed to go with her....after that she loved it and went down multiple times by herself). Here's us:
The slide:
And here are each of the kids with Denise:
After all this fun, we made the trek home. Ella was asleep before we even reached the freeway, Robbie slept most of the way home and Mia watched a movie. When we got home, the kids had cereal for dinner and went to bed...the slept in this morning, too bad I had to wake them up to take Mia to school!

Sunday Do's

I miss having Mia go to school in the afternoon because it always gave me time to fix her her real cute. Having to be out of the door with all the kiddos by 7:40 am does not allow such fun to go on in the mornings..... Sunday is another story though, we don't have church until 11 so we decided to have some fun with the hair, here's how it all turned out:Cheesers:
And he is just yummy....trouble, but yummy:

Give Away!

Here's another great give away I REALLY wouldn't mind winning!

"This Giveaway is in honor of
Thanksgiving- the holiday that often gets
lost between Halloween & Christmas.
Hopefully, it be a time for Reflection &
Gratitude of Families & Country.."

Go to http://santasgiftshoppe.blogspot.com/
And check out the fun!

Weight Loss Challenge

So after we moved from Henderson Nevada to here, I heard that the ward I attended in Henderson had a fun weight loss competition. After hearing about it and how fun it was, I really wanted to start on up here.....MONTHS later I finally got it going and it ended last week.

Basically there were 8 teams of 6 women and you would meet each week with your team to weigh in and measure yourself and see how you were progressing. You had a chart you'd fill out and total your numbers for how much sleep you got, if you didn't eat after 8 pm, how much you exercised, how many fruits and vegies you ate, daily prayer and scripture study, cups of water drank, etc. The team with the most points at the end of 2 months wins. We also had prizes (thanks to so many great donations) for 1st and 2nd place winners of weight loss and inches lost and for the top 4 people with the most points.

The amazing part is that as a whole, we lost a total of 273 pounds and 211 inches! That is 2 people worth of weight! It was such an awesome experience and I am really glad I finally got around to doing it and having it motivate me to lose some weight.

Halloween Fun

This year the girls were witches:
And Robbie was a puppy:This week has been full of Halloween fun. We started off with having a fun playgroup activity where the kids were able to decorate cupcakes, a goodie bag, and make sucker ghosts. It was a lot of fun and the weather was perfect for it!This is what Jack thought of the party....jk, I believe he bit his tongue while chowing down on his cupcake:Then next day we went to Mia's kindergarten class and 'helped' with the party. I don't know how helpful we were seeing it was me and Ella and Robbie.....but it was a fun party. Here's Mia and her classmates:The kiddos were good for a few minutes:Then Ella and Jack had to be distracted with this activity, which held their attention the rest of the time!Here's Mia at the food table...loving life:Then Saturday we went to our ward party and had a blast there:
There were lots of fun activity booths for the kids to do like the bean bag toss:Robbie loved tossing the bean bag:And the fishing station:We were graced with the presence of our President and wife and their dog:Here are the kids trick-or-treating:
And all 3 of them looking and smiling....lucky shot!
After the fun at the church we went to a few houses around our home and then I went home and put Robbie to bed while Steve took the girls to Grandma and Grandpa Tringali's house to trick-or-treat with them. It was a fun busy day!

Cute kids

We have been keeping busy, but none of our busy-ness seems to have included photo sessions. So here are so some cute pics I have found of the kids.....

Here's Ella, she had fallen asleep on the couch:
Robbie loves to look out the front window, it he happened to be watching the rain this day:
Robbie is very talented and can walk on our ceiling:
Being such an active boy makes one so tired:
Mia had a silly hat and sock day for school a couple of weeks ago, here's what she ended up wearing:
Here's Steve fixing Robbie's hair for church (please note that Robbie is using MY toothbrush to work in the hair product....lucky me):
Maybe we should be pulling the camera out more often!

It's a boy thing

Boys are SOOOOOO different than girls....many of you have told me this and I believe you (then and now)! Robbie (along with most other boys) has this innate desire to climb and conquer. If I turn my back on him for a minute he is usually busy getting ONto something. Here's my first example...I opened the back door for him to go out and play with his sisters while I cleaned the kitchen and as I looked out my window this is what I saw:
Followed by this:Of course, there is the play kitchen set that needs to be stood upon:
And probably his favorite spot is on the play table. If you scoot the chairs away from the table while he is on it, he can't get down and just whines. I admit I have done that a couple of times just so I can load some dishes without him unloading them at the same time.
He loves to sit on the table and be fed:
And of course, the handiest place to climb and conquer for any child....the dishwasher:And boys never grow out of this phase..........