Rose Parade Floats

Here we are at the Rosemont Pavilion in Pasadena. We were invited up so Mom could place 2 roses on the Donate Life float that will be in the Rose Parade. After she placed the flowers they gave us a tour of some of the floats they were decorating. It was awesome! The kids loved being up close and personal to this. In the picture of the fish you will see his eyebrows are made of kumquats and kidney beans. Grant's favorite was the City of Anaheim's float because of the Angels hats. They also have Cinderella's castle on it. There was also a dinosaur and my personal favorite the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz. I don't think the pictures even do the floats justice. The floats are breathtaking and it smelled great in there as they started putting alot of the fresh flowers on the floats. Kayley's favorite part was getting to meet Manny on the Street from KIIS FM. He was nice enough to let us snap a bunch of pictures and he gave her a hat which he signed. Kayley thought it was pretty cool and immediately began sending out text messages to all her friends with the picture. And as you can see the news was there so Jacob took a picture so he could say he was part of the "news" that night. We had a great time.

Cheer

Here are the girls from Kayley's cheer squad. The team picture is missing 2 of the girls. In the one picture you will see the stunt the girls did that got them disqualified from the competition back in November. The good news is the team went to a competition in December at Cal State Dominguez Hills and took 1st place in 2 divisions so they are going to Nationals in Las Vegas February 4-9. So even though they were very disappointed in their disqualification in the end it turned out bitter sweet.

Christmas

Christmas came early as usual. We made the boys wait til 8am before we started down to open presents. In the pictures you'll see the kids in front of our tree and the other tree is Mom and Dad's. This year we had our usual 9 trees up and in the next week I will purchase # 10. I plan on taking us into double digits next year. Christmas was great. Lots of smiles and excitement and a few tears were shed. It was Mom and Dad's fault. For Christmas they got me a Mother's pendant that was made journey pendant style with the kids birth stones in it. It's exactly what I was goint to have made in the New Year. It's beautiful as it has an aquamarine (Kayley), Diamond (Grant) and Sapphire (Jacob) in it. I wear it all the time!! Though the best gift of all was just having them home and healthy for the holidays. That evening we enjoyed a nice Prime Rib (mom's request) dinner with Uncle Burt, Krista and Paige. It ended a truly wonderful day.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent at Grandma Ginger and Grandpa Tim's. In the pictures you'll see Kayley and Maci sitting in the chair and Grant, Madison and Jacob on the ground. The tree was absolutely beautiful like always. Ginger made Grandma Hutt's fried chicken which was delicious as always. Eddie was a bit disappointed there were no Tom and Jerry's this year. Though I don't think anyone could make them the way Grandpa Hutt did. His always had quite the "kick" to them. We had a wonderful time opening presents and spending time together. It was a great night.

Facebook

I've discovered Facebook. I've known it was there but after talking with a friend about it I joined. I've discovered people from high school, friends I see everyday and I just found a friend of mine that I went to school 5th-10th grade. It's pretty cool. I was warned that it can be very addicting. I'm still learning all there is to do on it, the different groups, etc. I finally convinced Eddie to join. He was somewhat reluctant saying oh you are on there it's enough. Well guess what now he's hooked to. He has found friends from his high school and is now finding out about his upcoming reunion. If you aren't on it I highly recommend joining. It's a ton better than my space, imo. You never know who you may find on there!!!!!

Halloween

This year we spent Halloween at our friends the Rodriguez's house. They came our way last year and asked us to go trick or treating with them at their house. George and Lisa have become some of our dearest friends. We met them at the kids school. George was Kayley's 5th grade teacher. His son Alex is in Jacob's class and his older son George played on Jacob's baseball team this past spring. George Sr. cooked us a fantastic dinner of chicken enchiladas (probably the best i've ever had), beans and rice. He also made his famous salsa. It's my favorite right next to his guacamole. After dinner Lisa, the boys, Sandy (their dog) and I took the boys trick or treating while Eddie and George handed out candy and enjoyed the kegerator and the fire pit. The boys raked in a bunch of candy and had a great time. Grant was a clone trooper this year and Jacob Obe wan kanobe (I know I spelled it wrong) Kayley didn't join us. She was at her friend's Dad's house working his haunted house. I think she really loved scaring people. We had a great time!

Pumpkin Patch

After visiting Mom at the Hospital I took the kids over to Irvine Park to check out their pumpkin patch and to let them ride the train. (not that Kayley was dying to ride the train) They had a lot of fun and I got a couple of really cute pictures. And yes Jacob is sporting a mohawk in the picture. His Uncle Todd did it for him for football. It was shaved off a couple weeks ago.

I'm back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's been awhile. I swore I'd never go this long without blogging. It's funny how life throws you a curve ball and that all goes out the window. I'm contemplating all kinds of things now. I may go back to school and hopefully if it goes well hit the workforce in a couple years. More on this later. Watch the blog because i'll be post updates on the kids, Halloween, etc.

Grant's Game

What a great game this was. During this game we got a legit triple play. (Eddie's 1st as a coach) This is Grant's 1st time playing Single A baseball. It's basically kid pitch but instead of taking a walk on ball 4 the coach comes in and throws 3 pitches. Grant had 2 great hits. 1 off the kid pitcher and 1 off the coach (his Daddy) He played Catcher, 2nd base and pitched. Eddie says Grant has awesome potential as a pitcher. Apparently his size helps and for his age he has very good control. (all according to Dad) What was funny is Grant went in for the last inning. When Eddie told him he was going to pitch the next game he was thrilled but he is right now refusing to start. He keeps telling us he is a closer like K-Rod. (the Angels closer) We are working very hard on convincing him that he needs to pitch more than 1 inning and that his Dad does need him to start sometimes. We'll see how that goes. He does have a very stubborn streak to him. Enjoy the pictures. I've posted my favorites.......

Weekend Games

We had quite a busy weekend. Jacob played his game at 10am on Saturday, Grant had his 1st game at 330 and Kayley cheered at 4pm. To top it all off it was Jacob's 10th birthday so we went out to eat that evening. We started our morning early at 630am and we finally got to bed at 10pm. I was never so happy to get off my feet!

Jacob's team got their first win. They beat Riverside 7-0. Grant had a great game and Kayley's team lost 28-20. Here's a great picture of Jacob (white arm pads, middle of picture) making a nice block for his quarterback (he's running with the ball behind him) Thanks to Eddie we are getting lots of pictures during the games.

Picture Day

Picture Day for football and cheer was Sunday. It was very HOT!!! We managed to snap a few pictures of Kayley and Jacob. Also is a picture of Jacob with 2 of his friends Caleb and Chase. Chase (#73) is the center, Caleb (#63) is the right guard and Jacob plays left guard. I do like that we were able to sneak out a bit of a smile from them. It cracked me up in all the pictures we took of Jacob that day he wouldn't smile. Football players don't do that. When they were taking their team picture a couple of the kids were yelling at the team not to smile. It was pretty funny!!

Jacob Football Game 1

Sorry I'm late with the post. It's been a bit of a crazy week around here. Our first game went well even though we lost. The final score was 0-6. Not bad for a first game. Jacob (#65) played very well and had a blast. He was very excited to look up from the playing field into the stands to see that Cousin John had stopped by on his way back up the mountain to watch him play. Here are a few pictures. We travel to Riverside this week and hopefully we"ll come back with a big win!!!

Kayley Cheers

Here is Kayley cheering at her 1st game. She did a fantastic job. All our cheerleader friends and family would be proud. (Angie, Nikki) You can hear her out there and they had her lead a couple cheers. She made myself and her Dad proud when they hollared at her to start a cheer she looked up at the scoreboard to see who had the ball. Good thing because they had told her to do a defensive cheer and our offense had the ball. That's our girl. Her Dad told her if anything please look and see who has the ball before you start a cheer, you don't want to look foolish out there. She avoided that big time!!! She really enjoys cheering and is looking forward to this weeks game. The team she cheers for had a HUGE win over their opponent!

Quick post

Everything is going well. We've been super busy this week. Lots of stuff going on at school and we are preparing for Jacob's first football game and Kayley's first game of cheer. They both have their uniforms and are all set to go. Jacob's game is at 10am in North San Bernardino. Kayley cheers at our home field at 4pm. In between we have a team bbq. It's going to be a fun exciting day. We can hardly wait.

I will post pictures and updates Saturday night!!!

Celebrating Brad's Birthday

Today we headed to Bolsa Chica State Beach to celebrate Brad's 13th birthday. (Brad is the son of Kayley's Godfather,Kevin and Jacob's Godmother, Terri) The kids had so much fun. As you can see from the pictures it was beautiful. A little windy but nonetheless a great day. When we left home it was 97 degrees when we arrived at the beach it was 74. It doesn't get any better than that! In the pictures you'll see the kids enjoying the beach. The little boy in the picture with Kayley is Garrett, Kevin and Terri's Grandson. He is so cute. Kayley had a lot of fun with him and took tons of pictures of him. Also is a picture of Kayley and Brad. It's really hard to believe they are both 13 now. I remember when they were both babies like it was yesterday.

Scrimmage

Jacob had his first scrimmage this weekend against a team from Hemet. (about 50 miles away and it's toward the desert so it was 98 degrees) It's actually his 3rd but I don't count the 1st two because they were against a team who knew all our plays and then when they'd ask us if we'd like to run the same play again they'd set us up to fail miserably. Isn't that great sportsmanship. (getting off my soapbox) Anyway in the one picture Jacob is the one blocking the other players. He did so good. He also managed to show a little of what Eddie and I affectionately refer to as "Goerlinger Attitude". Apparently some kid on the defensive line was trash talking Jacob and at the end of the play after Jacob laid a nice tackle down on him J looked at him and threw his hands up in the air as if to say so now what do you have to say. A bunch of the parents saw it and pointed it out to us. They all wanted to know what had happened. Of course when asked Jacob told them. The other picture Eddie really likes because it shows how big Jacob looks out there. The scrimmage went very well. According to Jacob we won 36-0. (we did) We had to remind him that this was just a scrimmage and for fun but just like anything else he knew exactly what the score was.

Well Rested Coach

Apparently this is what you do when you are not coaching baseball. This is a picture of a well rested coach at his son's football practice. This won't last long as baseball practice for Grant starts next week. So in the meantime he is going to get in as many zzz's as possible. By the way, he asked if this was how I felt when I sat at practices and games in the stands. I did have to remind him he had me keeping score, handing out papers or something else. So no I didn't know what this was like. LOL!

Weigh In Day

Just dropping in with a quick note! Jacob made weight. He lost a total of 9 lbs in a little over 2 weeks. By doing so it actually put him under the max weight for his division by 2lbs. He was thrilled to make weight today which means he stays with his team. I had to help work weight certification for a few hours so Jacob hung out with me at the high school where they did it. I gave him a few bucks to get something to eat and he celebrated with dippin dots. He's so excited to get to eat normally again. When we got home he ran and got a huge glass of milk. He usually drinks one big glass a day but hasn't been able to. He is one happy boy!

Grant lost his 1st tooth

Sunday Grant lost his 1st tooth. It's on the bottom. This is the best picture I could get. He did rake in some money because of it. Grandma Jane gave him $5, then he ended up with another $2, I believe from Grandpa Mike. Then the tooth fairy brought him another $2. He thought this was pretty awesome and is very excited that the tooth right next to the one he lost is also loose.

Kayley Cheer

Here are a few pictures from cheer. One of Kayley striking a pose. The other is of her and her "mini me" Kennedy. Kayley loves cheer, we may have found the sport! She however was our 1st injury of football season. Tonight she was kneed by one of the girls she was lifting in the nose. It is a little swollen. Luckily one of our coaches on Jacob's team is an EMT so he looked at it and said it's probably just swollen not broken. Poor thing. That had to hurt!

Protect your Quarterback

Here are a few pictures of Jacob from practice. In the picture just above Jacob is on the right, silver and black cleats, long sleeve shirt. Notice no one is getting near his quarterback. The other is a picture of Jacob blocking one of the coaches at practice. He is loving this sport. He has a few bruises but overall is doing very well.

Friday Nights are not the same

That's what Eddie says every Friday night. It's been this way for almost 2 months. Why you ask? His buddy Brian left him. He packed his bags, packed up his family and left him.....and the team. Eddie plays softball on Friday nights. He plays with a great group of guys. They have a lot of fun together. The problem is Brian is gone. They knew it was coming but were hoping it would fall thru. Brian and his family moved back to their hometown near Kansas City Missouri. Brian played left center field, they could almost always count on him for a homerun, and a beer after the game. Eddie says it's not the same you don't hear Brian yelling from the outfield when an awesome play is made. You don't hear him yelling at "Dickie". Granted they picked up 2 very good players to fill his shoes but it's still not the same....it's not Brian. Eddie texts him every Friday to let him know what time the game is and on what field. He can't not do it.....his buddy is gone. Maybe just maybe they'll be lucky enough to get another game in with him....when he comes back to visit.....but until then Friday nights are just not the same.......

(this was written for Nikki....we miss you guys....ALOT!!!)

It's finally Saturday

We made it thru the week. I am so glad it's finally Saturday. I did have to get up early this morning to go to paper certification for football. Thank goodness all the late hours and long days I pulled the past 3 days paid off because all my boys are certified and can play football, providing they make weigh in next week.

Jacob is loving football more and more. He learning all kinds of stuff. I really think his favorite drills are the hitting drills. The humidity here has been yucky this week. Last night he gave me his helmet so he could help his coach put the pads away. It was so wet inside it was gross. He told me he thinks he needs one of those under armour skull caps to help with it. Who knows? He is very close to making weight. He's 1 pound away on our scale so if he can drop 3 this week we should be good!

Kayley is having a great time with cheer. She loves the stunts. She is one of the people who help hold the girls and throw them. She commented the other day she didn't realize she was that strong. She's most impressed with the muscles she's developing in her arms legs. One of the younger girls on the squad who is 4 or 5 has really taken a liking to Kayley. Her name is Kennedy and she happens to be Jacob's coaches youngest daughter. She is so cute. I watched her and Kayley doing cheers together the other day. They were adorable.

Grant is a couple weeks from baseball starting. He takes his glove and ball to practice everyday so he and his Dad can play catch. That is when the craziness is going to start. When he's playing and the other 2 as well. The good news is Grant should have practice at the same park we are at so it will make it easier for us. His games will only be on Saturdays and should be between Jacob and Kayley's.

That's it for now. I'm off to take a nap since i've averaged about 5 hours sleep a night for the past few days

1st day of school!

Here they are on their 1st day of school. Kayley started 8th grade, Jacob 4th grade and Grant 1st grade. They are all in school all day now. As I said to Eddie this morning after they were all gone....Do you hear that? He said hear what? My answer: Exactly! You hear nothing but peace and quiet! LOL! They all did very well. Jacob did his usual see ya Mom & Dad quick hug and kiss and ditched us. He was eager to see his teacher Mrs. Saedi and see who all was in his class. Grant did awesome. Eddie was sure we would have some tears. Not one was shed. We told him all his buddies were in his class but as soon as he saw his best buddy he was a happy camper. He told me this afternoon he really liked his teacher Mrs. Knight. He thought she was very nice...just like I told him. We left the boys school and went and dropped Kayley at Jr. High. Her last year there. Of course her Dad embarassed her and kept yelling out the window bye Kayley, bye! Isn't it a parents job to do that to your teenager? She came home not as happy. She was supposed to get her language arts teacher from last year and didn't, was supposed to be in Honors science and wasn't and was supposed to be able to get her elective as ASB or teacher's aide and it wasn't. So I have already contacted the student advisor to make some changes. I wasn't happy about the supply list they are requiring. I think it's a bit much but that's another rant for another day. All in all it was a great day!