Grandma & Grandpa's Christmas tree

Another cousin is on the way!!!

If you haven't heard, you are going to get another cousin!!
There is going to be 6 of you very soon.

Uncle Josh and Aunt Kristi are going to have a baby. Baby J will be here next summer when it gets hot again. Sometime around Serena and Natalie's birthdays. They think Baby J will be here around July 8th. Isn't that just sooooooo exciting.

Well just wanted to let you all know if you hadn't heard yet.

Love you all, Grandma and Grandpa

Are you getting excited for Santa Claus to come?

While you wait for Santa to come, Grandma and Grandpa are hoping all our nietos are being good to their mommies and daddies. We sure do miss all of you but we're hoping you are having lots of fun. Here are some fun things to do while you wait for Santa. Just 16 more days!!
Be good, Santa is watching.

Oh, by the way, did you make the reindeer food yet? You still have lots of time so don't worry.

We love all of you, Grandma and Grandpa

http://www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/Games/Concentration/Memory/

http://www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/Games/TrimTree/

http://www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/Games/ColoringBook/

Grandpa puts Santa up!

Here is Grandpa sitting Santa up on our terrace. Silly Grandpa!!!

Magic Reindeer Food

Hi Nietos!! Grandma and Grandpa have a favor to ask each of you.

You know, Grandma and Grandpa won't be there at Christmas this year so Grandma can't make the reindeer food for you to leave for Rudolph. So, we were wondering if you could please ask your Mommies and Daddies to make it for you or help you to make it. We know they are really busy this time of year but maybe if you ask them really nice they would do this for you. Here is how to make it.

1/4 cup oatmeal
1 teaspoon red and green glitter or whatever glitter you have.
Put the oatmeal and glitter in a small bag and shake it up.

Then, on Christmas Eve
sprinkle this Magic Reindeer Food
on your lawn,
The Magic glitter
sparkling in the moonlight
and the smell of the oats
will guide
Rudolph to your house.

Have fun making the reindeer food. Below you will find some fun Christmas games too. We hope you like them and have fun with them. We love you all and miss you soooooo much.
Love, Grandma and Grandpa

http://www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/Games/Snowman/

http://www.northpole.com/Clubhouse/DancingSanta/

Land of the Giants!

Have you ever seen a rocking chair this big? Grandpa had to lift Grandma up onto it. It's really not the land of the giants. It's a furniture store where they sell lots of rocking chairs but not quite this big.

Love you and miss you all. Grandma and Grandpa

A parade at Grandma and Grandpa's house

Hola Nietos!! (Spanish for "hello grandchildren") Nieto is boy and Nieta is girl. But, we learned when you're talking about all of our grandchildren, boys and girls, it's Nietos.

Hope you're all being good kids for your Mommies and Daddies. Remember it's almost Thanksgiving Day and what comes after that? That's right!! Santa will be watching you, so be really good kids.

Grandma and Grandpa thought you might like to see a parade that came right in front of our house yesterday. We see lots of different parades all the time. We think the parade below had something to do with one of the elementary schools here in Mazatlan because there were lots of little children in it.

So, we hope you like the video clip.

We hope you have a fun Thanksgiving Day too. Hope you like all the good turkey and other yummy food. Here are some games to keep you busy till Turkey Day. Turkey in Spanish is "pavo". Gobble Gobble!!

We love you all, Grandma and Grandpa

http://www.theholidayspot.com/thanksgiving/games/flash1.htm

http://funschool.kaboose.com/fun-blaster/games/game_thanksgiving_coloring_pages.html

This one might be a little advanced for some of our nietos but Mommies and Daddies might enjoy it. We did. :) Have fun.
http://funschool.kaboose.com/fun-blaster/thanksgiving/games/game_turkey_flibriks.html

Grandpa and Grandma go to the aquarium & zoo

This is the entry to the aquarium.
Isn't this a cool statue! Can you see what the kids are feeding the dolphin?
The seals (foca in spanish) perform. Billy rolls over and Bony stands up.
Bony dances for us.

Bony splashes the kids.

The trainer holds a fish in his mouth.
Billy jumps and takes it right out of his mouth.

Baby crocodile (cocodrilla in spanish).

Crocodiles come right out of the water.
.
Turtle (tortuga in spanish) with a fish (pescado) head in its mouth.

Doesn't this peacock (pavo in spanish) have beautiful colors on his feathers?
Grandpa feeding the ducks (pato in spanish).


Eagle (aguila in spanish) or Hawk (pregonar)? What do you think?

Isn't this a huge tree (arbol in spanish)? It was in the park at the aquarium.
Wouldn't you just love to climb it with Grandpa?


Grandma thought this was a really interesting tree.


Stingray (raya in spanish)


Some kind of a colorful fish with spots.


Eel (anguila in spanish) with it's mouth open.


How many Seahorses (hipocampo in spanish) can you see?



Dee, dee, dee, dee, dee here comes a Shark!! (tiburon in spanish).



Corbina in spanish.


Grouper (mero in spanish) He's pretty mean looking huh?



Sea Turtle (tortuga in spanish)


Some beautiful fish (pescado in spanish).

There was a diver that put on a show with a shark. diver that performed with a shark.

Tree frogs (rana in spanish).

Silly Grandpa puts his head in the jaws of shark.

Down this path in a fun park really close to our house, is the way to the zoo.

Follow Grandpa down this path to the animals in the zoo.

Deer (venado in spanish)

There was a baby jaguar (tigre in spanish) but the battery on our camera went dead so we didn't get a picture. Sorry.



There was an Ocelot too (Onza in spanish) but we didn't get a picture. Sorry


THE END!
We hope you had fun looking at these pictures. We can't wait to take you to the aquarium and zoo here in Mexico. We love you and miss you all very much. Love, Grandpa and Grandma

For Mommies & Daddies - here are a couple links to some info on the aquarium and zoo. The website I found for the aquarium didn't translate into English but these sites did.

http://www.studyspanish.com/comps/aquarium2.htm
http://www.mexonline.com/acuario.htm

Halloween in Mexico where Grandma and Grandpa live.

Hola Natalie, Serena, Justin, Andrew & Jordyn - well, are you all eating your halloween candy today? Did you get alot of candy? What was your favorite candy?

Natalie, Andrew and Serena, your Mommies and Daddies sent us pictures of you in your halloween costumes. What great costumes!!! Soooooooo cute. Also, Natalie & Andrew and Serena, your pumpkins were very scary and creative too.

Justin & Jordyn, maybe you could please send us pictures of you in your costumes too. We are sure you were really cute.

Here in Mexico, some of the children celebrate Halloween. Here are a few of them in their costumes.

We love you all very much and wish we could have been with you on Halloween.

Love, Grandma and Grandpa

We know what you will be for Halloween!!

Thank you for letting us know what you are going to be for Halloween. We are looking forward to seeing pictures of you trick-or treating. Have a fun Hallooooooooooooween. We hope you are all able to see each other on Halloween. Love you, Grandma and Grandpa



Natalie - Witch

Serena - Glamour Girl

Justin - Ninja Turtle

Andrew - Obi Wan Kenobi

Jordyn - Belle

Fun Halloween coloring

Have fun with this kids.

http://www.thekidzpage.com/colouring_menus/virtualcrayons/halloweenpumpkincoloring.html

Halloween

We know you're all thinking about what you're going to be for Halloween this year. We think Jordyn wants to be Snow White. You will make such a beautiful Snow White Jordyn. We are having trouble remembering who the rest of you are going to be. Maybe you could comment on this posting and let us know. Please forgive us if you told us and we forgot.

The children here in Mexico are getting excited for Halloween too. Here are some pictures of costumes on display in one of the stores.


Also, Serena, remember Senor Frogs that you went to when you were here and danced on the stage? Well they are getting ready for Halloween too. See the picture below. Can you all find the pumpkins and skeletons? How many do you find of each?

Costumes you can buy at one of the stores.

A scary display at the mall.

Senor Frogs getting ready for Halloween.

Mariposa (Butterfly)

Hi kids - Grandma and Grandpa thought you might be interested in seeing this big butterfly we found in our bathroom. In Mexico, they call these kind of moths, butterflies or in spanish mariposa. You can see how big it is by the size of my hand. Really, really big but they don't hurt you. We put it outside and it flew away.

We love you and miss you all very much. Be good kids! :)

Natalie & Andrew - we heard you went to Disneyland. We are sure you had a fun time. You'll have to tell us what you liked the most about going there.

Grandpa and Grandma go to their first ballgame in Mexico!

The other night we went to our first baseball game here in Mazatlan. The baseball stadium is right behind our house. The game started at 8 o'clock in the evening so it was dark. During the game the lights went out and it was very, very dark for a couple of minutes and they stopped the game. The teams that were playing were the Mazatlan Venados (deer) and the Los Mochis Caneros (canes) Mazatlan won 5 - 4. Hurrah!! Here are a few pictures we took during the game. Be sure to click on the picture and it will get larger.

As you can see in the pictures, they came around with some interesting food for sale.

Serena - your mama told us the Shakers won their soccer game again last night and you made the last goal. Good for you Serena!! We are so proud of you. Wish we could have been there to watch you. Maybe your mama could send us a picture.

Visit to the Orphanage

Hi Natalie, Serena, Justin, Andrew & Jordyn - how are you? We hope you are all doing good. Sounds like you all had a fun day at Jordyn's birthday party. We hope you didn't get too many bruises from the roller skating. We are sure you all did very well on the skates. Aunt Jessica sent us a picture of all of you. It sure was nice to see you having so much fun together.

The other day we went to the Orphanage. This is the place here in Mazatlan that takes care of children that don't have any parents or their parents can't take care of them any more for some reason. This time of year they don't get very much fruit so Grandma and Grandpa took them some apples, oranges, watermelon, bananas and some popsicles. It is very hot here in Mazatlan right now and they don't have air conditioning at the orphanage so they will really enjoy the popsicles. Since Halloween is coming, we also took them some Happy Halloween suckers.

The day we visited the Orphanage one of the little girls, Paulina, was celebrating her 6th birthday. Here is a picture of Paulina's birthday cake and a little video of the other children singing Happy Birthday to her in Spanish.

Grandpa found a duckling!

Mom & Dad - This first post is a video. We'll get better at this as we go along. :) Enjoy!
Remember you can double-click the photos to make them larger.



This is the box that the duckling was put when it was found at the swimming pool. We carried Madeline to the Acuario in it.




Madeline was sooooo soft and furry and so tiny.


She was really jumping around in the box.


This is the man at the Acuario who took the duckling.
He was a very nice man and we are sure he will take good care of Madeline.


This is the receipt the man at the Acuario gave us when we gave him the duckling.






This is the link to a website that tells about Mallard ducks. Have fun reading all about them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallard

Also, we saw a book online about a family of Mallard ducks. It looks like it would be a fun book for the kids to have. It's entitled "Make Way For Ducklings" by Robert McCloskey.

Hi Natalie, Serena, Justin, Andrew and Jordyn.

This is a blog from your Grandma and Grandpa (Abuela and Abuelo in Spanish) in Mexico. We hope you will have fun looking at the pictures we have put on it just for you. If you aren't able to read this yet, please ask Mommy or Daddy to read it to you. Maybe they could put it on the desktop of your computer so you can look at it anytime.

Grandma and Grandpa will put more pictures and other stuff on your blog very soon. So keep checking it. We love all our grandchildren and miss you all very much. Be good kids for your Mommy and Daddy. Remember Santa is watching!!

Grandpa gives Andrew a ride on the swing.

Serena has fun playing games on the computer with Papa.

Andrew, Natalie and Justin have fun at the park together.

Jordyn, we were sorry we didn't get any pictures of you while we were at your Daddy's house. We sure did love seeing you and your Daddy and Mommy too. We hope you have a fun birthday party on October 12th. You have the same birthday as your Aunt Laura. How fun is that! We left a birthday present for you at your Daddy's house. Be sure to remind him it is in your bedroom closet. We hope you will like what we got for you. Happy Birthday Jordyn! We love you. You too Aunt Laura. :)

Aunt Laura shares the same birthday as Jordyn. Jordyn will be 4 years old on her birthday.

It was sure fun to spend time with all of you when we came to Washington last month. We are now back in Mexico and missing you alot. Maybe you will be able to come to Mexico to see us one of these days. We now have a condo just 2 hours from your house. It is in Yakima, Washington and we will be living there, instead of Mexico, June through October so we will be able to see you more often. It will be summertime when we live there and we will have a pool so you can come over and go swimming. Here is a picture of our swimming pool in Yakima.