Hey everyone!

We promise to really give this blog thing a shot. And we promise to read your blog, too, as often as possible!

I guess we'll start by filling you in on life in general, starting with the kids.

Joey

Joey turned 10 in January and is in 4th grade - unbelievable to me, as I remember that being the year of the first boyfriend. Scary. We rented a limo and surprised him by picking him up from school, along with 4 of his friends, his little sister, and his aunt Sarah. The kids knew we were picking them up from school to have a party, but you should have seen their faces when they walked out and saw the limo!! It was great - we all had a very good time and the kids loved being delivered home by limousine after dinner.Joey in maroon giving thumbs up

Joey played the violin this year, but has decided to try band next year. He would like to play every instrument there is! Joey is really good at math and science, and is currently studying the Oregon Trail in school. He is a doctor and has 2 children and a wife, and a good day at school is when someone got hurt on the trail and he had to fix them. We did not play any sports this year; trying to concentrate on a really tough year of school, but Joey likes all sports, and is particularly good at basketball. Of course, he's getting really good at Guitar Hero - is that a sport? It can get pretty aerobic...


Rachel
Rachel just turned 7 last week and is in 1st grade, preparing to graduate high school next year. She's a total braniac... if we could only channel all of that brain power! Rach loves to read and does so fluently at a 5th grade level, though she can pick up anything and read it. She loves nature and bugs and climbing trees and putting holes in all of her pants, yet she wants to be a ballerina...

For Rachel's birthday, we hosted a luau for her and 9 of her friends. We played pass the pineapple and one guest was extremely delighted to actually win the real pineapple!

Noah

Noah just turned one and a half. He has 10 teeth and we're working on 14. He loves to play with his big brother and sister, and totally knows how to manipulate them.

Noah loves music and recognizes tempo - you should see him dance! He follows commands such as "Shake your booty!" and "Get jiggy with it!" Very cute. He likes to bang out a beat on anything that resonates, especially metal. He sings along (usually Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which is the only song he knows). Noah is definitely Daddy's Boy.

Baby

Baby #4 is due August 3rd, but our bet is she will be early. We have decided (after much, much thought) to name her Molly Grace. We finally decided on Molly but couldn't come up with a middle name. I was actually driving Jeff crazy trying to pick a middle name when he sent me to the store to get cheese. I had, after all, ignored 3 requests to stop spitting middle names at him until he had a chance to absorb the first 300! Wouldn't you know, the cashier at the store was Grace. I came home and suggested it and here we are. Molly Grace Calderon. How sweet is that?

Jeff

Jeff plays pool on a league on Thursday nights, which is a very much anticipated event for both of us each week. It is the only time we go out, and it's a lot of fun. I learned how to keep score and so I feel as though I have a purpose. Who knew they don't need cheerleaders for pool?! LOL. We have a lot of friends through the pool league, and even though it's competitive, all of the players on all of the teams are great and everyone gets along well. Jeff's team was in first place until the second place team swooped in and tied the 3rd place team for 1st! This week is the last match of the session, so his team has to really kick butt to have a chance of getting 1st or 2nd back. No worries - they finished 2nd last season. Sorry, I don't have an adorable picture of Jeff playing pool to post here!

Christina

I have a new hobby. It all started with one of the pool team members having a birthday. Well, I decided he needed a pool table cake, and there you go. I made a replica of a Valley pool table in cake. No, I had never picked up an icing bag and decorated anything before. It went nuts from there, making cake for everyone. Now I'm getting paid to make cakes for people I don't even know after offering to trade baby's first birthday cakes for baby gear on Craigslist.

This one was 6 monkeys sitting around a palm tree (also made of cake). It was for a birthday party for 6 kids, and the cake easily fed 80 people. Fun.

This one was for Joey's 4th grade classes. It depicts a student who has fallen asleep atop his books and study guide after studying relentlessly for the MAP test. He holds the completed MAP (Missouri Assessment something or other) in one hand, and a congratulations cake sits beside him.

Fun stuff. If you ever need a cake, just give me a call. The wilder the better - I'm having a lot of fun with this!!

Family Time

We have lots of fun together. Friday is always movie night - we either buy a pay-per-view movie, rent a redbox, or just watch something great on cable. Jeff makes pizza or sometimes he surprises us - like last week he went to Rosedale and brought home barbecue for everyone. We eat, watch a movie, make popcorn or dessert, and just generally try to instill a sense of togetherness that hopefully the kids will grow old with. We want them to know that no matter what, home is always the place where you're loved the most and that you can just be yourself.

We all love cooking. Rachel particularly enjoys picking up the recipe cards in the produce section of the grocery store and making main dishes. Like the tomatillo chicken enchiladas she chose a while back. Oh, that was so great! Joey prefers desserts. His favorite google search is "best chocolate cake ever." We try to let the kids cook or bake a lot. Noah even gets in on it. He really enjoys making bread with me. Especially when it's chocolate chip banana. We leave hard-core meat cooking to Jeff, though. He's the only one who doesn't screw it up. If you want to ruin a $10 steak, give it to me. I'll be glad to overcook it for you. He makes it taste like a 5 star restaurant.

Saturday mornings are the best. Jeff loves breakfast, and we love that he loves to make it. It's sausage and/or bacon, eggs, incredibly awesome potatoes, toast and/or tortillas... every weekend. How great is that? Sometimes I get to make breakfast, and when I do it is usually biscuits and gravy or pancakes - two things I despised growing up. I have perfected the made from scratch biscuit and rockin' sausage gravy. I have found the perfect recipe for pancakes and am now skilled at the technique of cooking them. I still don't put syrup on mine, though. Yuck.

I think you're caught up on us individually and as a whole!!! I'll try to post again next week...