Buck Teeth

Just had to post this...

Mt. Olive Christmas Show, 2008 - "Ring the Bells, It's X-mas Time"

This lovely song is to the tune of "London Bridge is Falling Down", and if you listen reeeeeeally closely, you can kind of hear it. What a ham, that Lucas! It was a pretty cute show!

Putting up the Christmas Tree

We put our Christmas tree on Sunday, after resting from our travels and a nice hot bowl of chili. Derek taught Mikey a little trick. He has fun with the tree. He likes to crawl under it and turn the lights on and off.

J3's 32nd Birthday

From Left to Right - Corinne, Nives, Sara, Me, Christie.

All the girls had a nice time out last night. Corinne, Nives and Christie enjoyed a great kid free evening and Sara and I enjoyed not talking about the markets for a change.

The next girls night will have to be with all of the SEESTERS for someones big 4-0.

Thank you to everyone for the wonderful flowers and calls and gifts. I had a really great birthday.

Miss you guys. See you in a month!!!

Jackie

This one's for Jackie...

This was in the car after we went to the Cider Mill. We were trying to keep Mikey up. He was falling asleep on the way home.

After Playing in the Snow

Here's Mikey's Hat Hair after a 1/2 hour in his winter hat.

Snow

This is from yesterday. Mikey woke up from his nap and saw all the " 'now"... that's Snow in Mikey language. (He can't quite say "S's" yet.) Mikey LOVES the snow. He was not happy today when I didn't let him play in it. He laid down on the doormat in the kitchen and wouldn't move. Today he kept saying " 'Now" "Ball" "Dada".

The dog barking in the background is Riley, our neighbor's dog. It's supposed to snow throughout the week. I hope it does. He has so much fun playing in it.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Lucas!

Happy Birthday, Lucas! We all had a relaxing, fun time at Joslyn Park. The potato sack race was a major hit, to our surprise. Lucas (and everyone else) loved the cookie cake -- love that tollhouse ready made dough! The two boys sitting on wither side of Lucas are Minh and Spencer, both a few months younger than Lucas. Triple trouble!

Malificent, the Catcher, and Election Day Cubbie Fan

Hey, All! Just thought I'd post a few pics today. How I'm procrastinating, as usual. Happy Election Day, from Obama-Land, AKA: the Land of Fruits and Nuts!

Tidy up the nursery?

Strange Kid.

Michigan Weather.

This was our weather last Sunday, October 26. This week it's supposed to be near 70 degrees. Yes, that's thunder you hear in the background.

A tribute to one of my favorite 70's bands -- by Lucas!

Don't ask me where he learned it! I apologize for the flashing in the tub. Enjoy!

Autumn is in the air

Hello Seesters! We're having fun out here in Santa Monica! Daddy has a new/old bus, but of course, it's just as fun as his old/old one. Lucas tries on his fancy-schmancy dragon costume. Robert's birthday pie was a smash.

Happy Fall!

Mikey found a pumpkin just his size.

All the time running around the pumpkin stand tired him out. He needed a ride back to the car.

Last Baby for Sure!!!

I just got a call from my OB. I have gestational diabetes again :( BOO HOO!!! What makes it worse is that I have to go through the 3 hour class with the dietitian again.

Think about me when you're eating your burgers and fries, thick crust pizza, rice, pasta, and dessert. :(

I'm not going through GD a third time, so this baby is the last!

It's a GIRL!!!

Hello Aunties! Can you believe this baby's a girl! Yikes! What are we going to do with a girl??? I think she's going to be in a lot of blue onesies :)

We're trying to teach Mikey to say sister and he say's NaNa... Sister - Banana... what's the difference?

Let us know if you have any good baby names :)

Free Skates

Hello Sisters.

Today we had an okay day at work. I even had a few minutes to skate in the warehouse hooked onto our offices. I now have jello legs. I am also keeping the skates. They will be great to use on the bike path in Chicago. Speaking of... I will be going back to Chicago on October 25th.

J2... call me soon. I'm thinking of booking my Mexico trip for November 5th or 6th for 1 week. Let's talk tanning. You probably can tell from the picture that I need a bit of sun.

Miss you guys.

J3

Up North

Hey Seesters,

Here are some pictures from our trip up north.

Bellaire had a great park. We played there a couple times. Mikey loved driving the bus.

Mikey didn't let vacation get in the way of his chores.

This was a rainy Saturday on Grand Traverse Bay.

Sun! We finally had a sunny day on our last day of vacation. This was at the little beach on Lake Bellaire.

This video is one of many on Sleeping Bear Dunes. Mikey actually walked 1/2 the way up by himself!

Jessie and Scott's Big Adventure!

Hey Sisters! Scott and I had the most amazing time in Peru. We visited Lima, Cusco and Puno. We went on a city tour of Lima which has a Central Plaza with beautiful buildings. Next we flew to Cusco which is in the Andes Mountains. From Cusco, we had to take a 1 hour 45 minute drive to a train station, then take a 1 hour 25 minute train ride, then a 25 minute bus ride to get to Machu Picchu...and let me tell you, it was worth it. The Incan ruins are amazing - built in the mountains - they are just incredible. We also visited the Sacred Valley in Cusco where we drove through several small Andean villages...most of the houses are made of adobe bricks that the people make themselves! From Cusco we took a very cool train ride to Puno. It was a 10 hour train ride...but it was nice to "just sit" for a day. :) The scenery was gorgeous and we were served a great lunch and tea in the afternoon! In Puno, our hotel was right on Lake Titcaca. We toured the Uros Islands which are LITERALLY floating islands made of roots and reeds. There are around 45 floating islands and about 1000 people live on these islands. They live in these reed huts - one family per hut. Imagine the plumbing...or lack of plumbing! We also visited Taquile Island - one of the largest islands in Lake Titicaca. This island was amazing as they still have traditions and a way of life that has been passed on throughout generations. I've attaced only a couple pictures to give you an idea of some of the sites. I will eventually send a slideshow with the highlights of our trip. Love and Miss you all. Talk to you soon!

Sorry!!! :(

Ladies,
Hi, I am SO SORRY for not writing back to you yet!! This week was a nightmare. I seriously think I got 14 hours of sleep...TOTAL. Not fun.
Jen~~~the pictures are so cute and my friends were very jealous when they saw how cute your card was. (all of them are cute, though! my melody, Jon? that was adorable :)
Jess~~~I love the card!! Shelley is so sweet. love the colors. and I can understand the spanish! We'll have to practice for Thanksgiving so we can both talk in spanish and make everybody confused. ;) I have my first Spanish test on Wednesday, and I don't know how I'll do, but I'm gonna try my best. pronouns give me problems, but i think it'll be okay.
Joni~~~I LOVED THE CARE PACKAGE!!! It totally made my whole week. Except for the fact that my roommate ate most of my cookies, and that made me mad (i think mom told you that). But don't worry, I didn't rain fire and brimstone on her TOO much. ;) haha.

Hmm...other news from me? well, the biggest thing to note is that....
I JOINED A SORORITY! Yeah, didn't think THAT'D happen, huh? :) Well, It's not like chi-o or anything like that, it's Sigma Phi Lambda (Sisters For the Lord) and it's basically like a club for girls who love God and we get cool t-shirts and plan parties and eat food and have fun together. No hazing, no sorority house (SU used to be an all-boys college), not even a selection process (there's only so many of us). And all the girls in it are sooo sweet! the edification committee (i THINK that's what they're called) puts decorations on our doors and there are, like, five different things on there. This weekend I'm gonna try to get a whole lot of pictures onto my computer and I'll put that one on here. :)
Otherwise, still working, still busy, (still single... :P) but still happy :) The weather turned a little "chilly" down here and all the native texans are shaking in their boots (it's 70 degrees, for Heaven's sake) and I'm just strolling along, chuckling under my breath at their wimpy constitutions.... :D
Well, I gotta go eat dinner, but I'll write back to y'all (thought you'd enjoy that ;) soon!

Love,
Jasmine ; )

We got back yesterday from a very relaxing 5 days up north. The weather wasn't too great, but we kept busy. We went to an indoor waterpark, Sleeping Bear Dunes, and spent some time in Traverse City. Mikey is saying a couple new words - Apple and French Fries. He also liked playing in the sand, which he called dirt. Mikey was a big boy and slept in his own room in his pack and play and only cried the last night.

We're all happy to be home, and the fence is DONE!!!! It's been great to play in our backyard and not worry about Mikey running into the street. He likes to swing the doors open and close. Derek's going to stain it this weekend, so it'll stay nice and pretty. 12 days until I have my ultrasound and find out if your going to have a neice or nephew! Can you believe it?

I'll post pictures soon... and video from our vacation :) JONI

Birthday Cake

This was taken after Derek blew out the candle on his Birthday cake. Uh, I hope Mikey gets over his fear of Birthday Candles.

First Day of School

2 hands free! Ian and Lucas are BOTH in school -- all day! Ian and I dropped Lucas off with no drama or tears. Easy Peasy. I hope he doesn't pick a fight :) My job is done -- for now! I don't know what to do with myself -- it's so quiet at home! Hope all is well with everyone! Talk to you all this weekend -- we're around!

The Fruits and Nuts in California...

Quite the fruits and nuts :) Just kidding. I had a great time in Cali with Jen and the 3 boys. I thought I'd share a couple pics with ya'lls. I will follow up (probably when I get back) with a costco slideshow - so you can see all the pictures. If you're wondering - what the H-E-double hockey sticks is on Lukii's head in the first shot - it's a cookie container! Yes, a plastic cookie container that Lukii kept taking out of the recycling bin and putting on his head. Ninang Jessie decided to make it into a cool looking hat by covering it with construction paper...complete with a fake feather :) Hey, at least he has his pants on in this picture. And Ian sporting his cool, new b-ball shirt and sweatband...his typical attire while I was in Cali. We also had a great day at the beach with the boys. More later! Love you! -J2

Tis the Season...

I didn't realize it it until Scott woke up Saturday morning, came downstairs with the BIGGEST smile on his face, singing the USC fight song, pulsing his 2 fingers in the air (signifying "fight on")...that it was FOOTBALL SEASON. You know what that means in the Reno house. Yes, football all weekend, Monday nights, and, occassionally, on Thursdays! I will not get a break...Needless to say, I'm looking forward to our vacation. This way I'll be able to converse with Scott without having to fight for his attention...especially during those SC games. (Whatever...)

Anyway, it turned out to be good timing for football to start. I was able to get away and volunteer at this orphanage and serve lunch to kiddies with my friend Tresa. It was a nice experience, and I'll definitely do it again.

Attached are a couple pics of this small riverboat tour we took a few weeks ago. It was sweltering hot that day! Anyway, the boat tour starts in this gigantic park in downtown Mty and takes you to the center of the city.

What's that on my head???

Mikey got this toy bin from the P's. Of course we thought it would be funny to put it on his head.

What mom doesn't know i'm doing ;)

Last week there was this thing called "Fall Mall Ball" (the big field in the middle of campus is called the "mall") and it's like a mini-fair, with the moonwalk and shaved ice and stuff.
And there was the rock wall.

Jas finally surfaces...! haha

Hey lovely ladies, sorry I haven't been doing this..naturally life is crazy for me right now. Also, I got the crappy free internet, so it doesn't work as well. I'll try to get pictures up of stuff, but that's kinda iffy. Well, here's the breakdown:
~dorm - LOVE IT my room is pretty and nice and way better the other dorms' (wahaha) and once I get more decorations up (and clean it....) I'll try to put a picture of it on here.
~roommate - she's great! her name is Karen (or "Ana", but she likes "Karen" better. long story). she's really nice and cute and doesn't barge into my stuff. :) She's Joni's height. or actually, maybe shorter. We get along pretty well, except she's ALWAYS on her phone texting or calling or what, and she also says "like" a lot. Like, A LOT. But nothing really bad.
~Dorm people - they're really cool too. I LOVE my RAs and the girls on my floor are awesome. It's not like in the co-ed dorms where there's drama going on every single day. Seriously.
~classes - they're pretty good. I moved my nightmarish three-hr lab from fri. afternoon to thurs. and it's actually not that bad. there's a guy in my lab that looks like a younger version of the guy from My Big Fat Greek Wedding. He looks at me. He's cute. ;) My bio lecture teacher creeps me out (longer story), and that class is the only one i really don't like, but I love my intro to music class and my spanish class is great too, except she goes REALLY FAST. Also, my teachers are actually more computer-savvy than i am, and a lot of our class stuff is online. Have to get used to that. My First Year Seminar (FYS) is great too, lots of fun.
~friends - Ian Drakeford is cool and he gives me music, but he lives in the dorm with all the drama, so he likes to tell me about it and i do not like it. Oh well. Brooke is awesome and we laugh a lot at each other. she's in my FYS. Becca is HILARIOUS. She reminds me of Dory from Finding Lukie *cough* i mean, Nemo. She's a musician too, and we want to take guitar lessons together if we can. She also is helping me get a music Myspace up and even though the vids aren't loading up, she got the background and it looks super cool: www.myspace.com/jasminesaygan. Speaking of music, I've been playing around campus every now and then, and everyone seems to love me! Like, i was hanging out with some of the girls on my floor last night and they made me play for them and they were clapping and getting all excited and talked about starting a fanclub. And then my RAs are EXTRA excited and tell all their friends about me. It's embarrassing and funny and also kind of nice. :) Oh, and then there's Marc. :) He's really sweet and cute and we're friends and he's in my FYS too and he makes faces at me in class. But I'm just having fun right now, no promises ;)

So that's most of what's been going on so far...if i told you about all of it, you'd have to take an intermission halfway through reading this post. Maybe you already do...haha ;) well, love you guys, and I'll check back in later!

<3 ,
Jas

Spit Bubbles

Just thought I'd post a short video.

Olympic Hopefuls -- the 1st video

Hey, all,
Yeah, we all watched a lot of the Olympics, too. It was all pretty amazing. but finally -- hopefully -- our sleep schedules will get back to normal soon. School starts next week.

Jackie -- so good to finally talk to you over the weekend.

Jess -- so good to talk to you today.

Joni -- so good to talk to you and to hear Mikey's new words!

Jasmine -- hope your first week at school is going well!

Time to clean the bathrooms... nesecito Natali!

Home.

We're all home today. Derek stayed home too. He thought he was getting a sore throat, which we all know for men means the world is about to end. He's not sick, yet. Derek's also taking tomorrow off for his birthday. Tracy sent him a gift card for Cold Stone Creamery, so we're going to see if they sell ice cream cakes. YUMMY!!! Mikey and I are still congested, but we both took nice naps today.

Good News! My friend Jen Hill is engaged! She got engaged last week and the wedding is going to be next May. She met the Jim on EHarmony - Jess, I thought you'd be happy about that. And guess what? She asked me to be a bridesmaid! That means I have 3 months to lost my baby weight. That GD diet is looking pretty good now.

Yuck in Mexico too...

It's raining and gross here! It floods pretty badly when it rains. So, I don't think I'll be getting out of the house today. It looks like a lot of HGTV and scrapbooking for me today! Or maybe just scrapbooking if the satallite doesn't hold up!

Joni - I hope you and Mikey feel better...and Happy Birthday to Derek!
Jen - I'll post the pictures from my trip soon!
Jack - Good talking with you!
Jas - Thanks for your snail mail address.

Talk to you all soon!

Yuck.

Mikey got a cold on Friday and now I have it. We're both really stuffy :( I hope we get better for Derek's Birthday/Mikey's 1/2 Birthday.

Marathon Sunday

We're having a Marathon Sunday with Mikey... it's 4:50 and he finally fell asleep 20 minutes ago in the car. He didn't want to sleep at nap time. He would play, have a meltdown, play, have a tantrum, play, and so on... It's been a LONG Sunday.

Marathon Sleeping.

I have to say the best thing about being on this show is the black out blinds in the hotel. I have been taking some of the best weekend naps EVER. With working late and going out for B*(^^H sessions with coworkers, the weekends is when I marathon sleep.

After going out for tapas and very large bloody marys with Ryan and Nicole today, I just took a great 1.5 hour nap to get ready for dinner with the P's and Joni. Tomorrow will be another day to sleep in.

Call me anytime on Sunday... If I don't answer, I'll call after I wake up.

PS, There is yet another wedding in the courtyard of the Kensington Court. I think I'll go out there and crash the wedding. I think I'll sit on the brides side.

I miss you guys... Jasmine, I hope you are having a good time down there.

Jackie

Olympic Hopefuls...

I've been watching the Olympics EVERY NIGHT and am pretty into it. I'm sad it's almost over, but it will be nice to get to bed at a normal hour again. So, I've been thinking...the Say Gan's need an Olympian in the family. It's time to look to "the boys". There are plenty of sports to choose from...

Ian, "the shooter" Bonham - maybe he can be part of the Dream (or Redeem) Team of 2024?? If not, showing interest in beach volleyball and living in Cali, Ian could start down the path of being the next Phil Dalhausser!

Next Lucas with his LOVE of jumping on the bed - the Trampoline is a clear choice. HOWEVER, the kid also has lots of energy and agility, so maybe water polo would work? We already know he would look great in that helmet :)

And Mikey, that's easy. He has shown early promise in doing chores. So, there is only one sport for Mikey...Curling.

Ok - parents, start training! I look forward to cheering my nephews on in future Olympics!!!

One Shoe

Who knew having one shoe on and one shoe off would be so much fun! This video was taken after Mikey had his 3rd, and very traumatic, haircut. He looks pretty handsome.

"Girls just wanna have fun -- again"

Oops, wrong video...

Girls just wanna have fun...

Hola, all! Great idea, Jon'. Just wanted to say hey in Jess' adopted language :) and I wanted to try to attach a clip of the boys dancing to my music birthday card.

I'll post more later. Gotta take the Lukii to school for a visit!

So this is the beginning....

The Beginning of the SayGan Blog. This actually is something the Stoffers girls do, and it works. We keep in touch posting pics and videos. It's great b/c you can just post and not email EVERYONE... and I thought it'd be a good way for Jasmine to keep in touch with us and vice versa since she's going to be busy with school. I hope it works. If it doesn't, I tried. If someone has a good picture of the five of us, put it on or email me and I can put it on our page.

Just thought I'd add a picture of my bug in a rug.