Christmas in our neighborhood

Yesterday I wished I had a camera next to me as I sat eating lunch with my kids and looking out our window onto the street. Down the street came an obviously drunk man stumbling along, pushing his shopping cart with a santa hat on his head an holding a half-full bottle of wine. It wasn't even in a bag as usual, just out in the open. Anyway, I thought it would make a great "Merry Christmas from the Raughleys" picture. Too bad....

Thursday World Impact held what I like to call our Christmas Flandango. It's a huge Christmas party for the community with tons of craft and ethnic food booths. We try to make it a family-centered event for people to make memories together. Since we haven't done it in a few years due to many reasons, our numbers were down from 600 to about 250-300. But that's okay with us! In addition to food and crafts, we had a petting zoo, health fair, prayer tent, living nativity, and a paintball target-shooting trailer. Since I was on the planning committee, that's been occupying most of my time these days. Needless to say, my Christmas cards and presents are not ready or mailed yet. Hopefully by the beginning of the week....

THat's all for now. I still need to recover.

Christmastime!!

We are excited to be getting ready for Christmas! We enjoyed a quiet Thanksgiving at home and got to share some of our feast with a neighbor who has come asking for food previously. Then the day after Thanksgiving we made our now-traditional trip to Cobb's Ranch to cut down our California Redwood tree. I realized this was our 6th trip to Cobb's to cut down a tree...

Elizabeth was SOOOO excited to have our tree and help decorate it. Caleb keeps pointing at it and saying, "Tree, tree!" He's not a big talker yet, so when today he said, "My tree", that's a pretty big deal.

Our whole family - except Luke - have had the stomach flu over the last week. Thankfully it's only been a 24-hour thing for us, but I currently also have no voice! It's hard to keep the kids in line with no voice....

So, we are getting ready for Christmas, and it's fun with the kids. We're also excited about our trip to PA starting Dec. 27. Yay!!!

Roses in November

One of the benefits of living in California is having my roses blooming in November. These are just a few from my rose bushes. At this house there are probably 20 rose bushes. You may know that I LOVE roses, so this is a huge blessing for me!

Last week the kids and I went to Los Angeles for a few days and stayed with the Engel family. It was a great time to catch up, and I also made my first ever visit to Ikea. Very fun - Elizabeth loved the children's area where they have babysitters!!

All dressed up...

We went to two harvest parties on Halloween. Elizabeth was a pumpkin and Caleb was a doggie in a costume I put together very quickly. He was pretty cute when I painted a nose and whiskers on his face, but by then he was tired of pictures. They both had fun playing the games at the parties and winning candy.
Now that Halloween is over, Elizabeth is anxious for Thanksgiving, but I think it's because she knows Christmas is not far behind that. Tomorrow the kids and I are going to Los Angeles for a couple days while Luke is at the directors' conference. We'll get to see Elizabeth's "best friend" Chase and hopefully our friend "Shovel" too!!

Pumpkins!!

We did carve some pumpkins....not scary. Caleb now loves pumpkins wherever we go!

Elizabeth's dance

Yesterday Elizabeth's dance class had a special visiting day and did a special Halloween dance. It was open to family and friends. She did a great job, although she was visibly nervous. I think she felt very special, too, because she had lots of people come to watch her. Luke was away at the Oaks and thought he wouldn't make it back, so I invited our friends Maggie and Danette (WI staff) to come, and they were there and then Luke showed up part way through and Elizabeth was SOOO excited to see him. She chose her pumpkin costume, and not a princess, which was surprising....

Fall in CA

We took a day trip to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks this weekend, in hopes of finding some cooler temperatures and fall leaves. And yay, we did!!! The kids had a GREAT time, running and running and running. We are thankful to have mountains within an hour and a half drive of our house. At 7000 ft. the temps were in the 60's. We have more pictures, if you're interested, email me. Today and tomorrow Luke's gone to the Oaks, WI's camp, to help them with their strategic planning. So the kids and I are on our own. Thankfully it's only 2 days this time.....

Caterpillar

Luke found this caterpillar eating my tomato plant and he loved it....He wanted to post these pictures on our blog. I think it's gross myself, but it is pretty big. Of course, he put it back on the tomato plant to feast away.....

King and Queen

"Look, Mommy, we're the king and the queen!" Elizabeth yelled as she and Caleb came into the kitchen dressed like you see in the picture while I was making dinner. She had put the crown on Caleb and he didn't really like it. She's been having fun with her princess things. Caleb has had his first solo timeout. He's been asserting his will lately, which includes hitting his sister. Usually we have to hold him still for a timeout, but this time he sat still by himself. He's been learning lots lately -- doing wooden puzzles with us, finding the ducky in his Usborne books, and "counting" things. He'll point at three things lined up and say, "two, two, two." They are great.....

Caleb

Caleb enjoyed the party too. He pretty much did his own thing....

Elizabeth's Fourth Birthday!!

Elizabeth celebrated her 4th birthday on Sunday with a party at our house - mostly staff and their kids and also her friends Amanda and Toby. (It's hard to get a good picture of her, she is silly...) We had cake and ice cream and she opened her presents. Almost all her presents were princess-type dress-up things. I'll post some dress-up pictures later. She had a good time, but had some sharing issues.....we had a talk about it and when the kids came to our house again today for staff fellowship she was SOOOO much better.

We have a busy week ahead of us....partly my own stuff and partly Luke's busy-ness. But the light at the end of the tunnel is our date Friday night. For those of you who don't know, we've had this awesome babysitting co-op for 3 years now. Currently there are 3 families involved, so every third week we babysit all the kids (9 altogether) and the weeks in between we get to go out on Friday night from 6-9. Sometimes I think I take it for granted, but this week it will be greatly appreciated. I highly recommend the arrangement for those of you with young kids. A frequent date night is wonderful for marriage!!

Elizabeth hates all the Halloween stuff at the stores. She had a major breakdown at Target this morning when I tried to walk through the Halloween display to get to the Garden Center. I needed to buy flowers to take to a meeting tomorrow. Instead we did our best to walk as far around it as we could and only cut through a tiny corner. She's gotten worse and worse about it and especially hates the "bones" (skeletons). I don't blame her. It's just hard when she causes a scene in a store...

Caleb is bothered by little and throws himself headlong into whatever he's doing. Literally. He often has bruises, bumps and cuts on his head. He can catch the chickens now and likes to carry them around with him. He's very sweet and says "Bye" to everyone he sees. He still loves hugs and cuddling.

Fall here means temperatures in the 80's and sometimes 70's. And eventually rain. But not yet. This week it's actually supposed to be 90 a couple of days. Yuck. The leaves fall off the trees in late November. But anything is better than 100 degrees!!! So I'm enjoying it as much as I can.

Let's Go State!!!

We are just super-excited that Penn State just beat #6 Ohio State! Let's go State!!! Woo-hoo!!! (We do our best to keep track of the Lions from way out here in CA....)

Swinging

The kids LOVE swinging on their ghetto swingset. ("Ghetto" is an adjective, not to describe where we live, because we do not currently live in the ghetto.) (Or maybe according to some people we do, but in comparison to other places we've lived, it's not.) Anyhow, the swings hang from the car port in our backyard. Hee hee. Elizabeth's is very purple, her favorite color.

We bought tickets to visit PA after Christmas, so we will be in PA from Dec. 27-Jan. 10. For much of the time we'll be at Luke's parents' house near Bedford. We're going to Erie at the end. We'd love to visit with anyone who can!!!

Here is an interesting link. We've always liked U2, so ....
http://www.christianitytoday.com/music/interviews/2005/bono-0805.html

Chicken woes...

Well, a couple weeks ago Peep and Marshmallow met with an early demise when we unwisely left them with all the other chickens to roam our yard looking for bugs while we were inside. I saw a cat grab Marshmallow and run, but by the time I got out there the cat was gone and so was Peep. I felt SOOOO bad! So we told Elizabeth she could get two new chicks. But our feed store keeps selling out of them. Last Thursday they got 100 in, and Luke took her about an hour later and they were gone! Since she was on the verge of tears, one of the farmers chased their own chickens around the yard and finally caught a smallish one for her and gave it to her for free. It is not as young and cute as the others, but "Her name is Chirpy and I love her", said Elizabeth. (Elizabeth is holding Chirpy in the above picture.)

That same afternoon Chirpy escaped from our yard. Luke searched the neighborhood and could not find her. But that evening she was back in our yard again. Strange..... She is big enough to live with the other chickens but they do not like her. She keeps finding new ways to escape the coop, but she does stay in the yard now. The chickens are getting on Luke's nerves.....

Luke is feeling relieved because he had a big meeting today with a bunch of contractors and other businessmen/supporters to try to get a building project off the ground in our Hidalgo neighborhood. He thinks it went well. The general contractor is definitely on board and one other contractor has agreed to donate all of their work as well. The others are still deciding, I think, but we are praying that one way or another this project will get going. This building has been just standing there for years waiting.... Eventually it will be a kind of drop-in place on the downstairs for maybe an after-school program and Bible clubs, etc. Upstairs will be one or two small apartments for staff or interns.

Elizabeth has had her third ballet class and still loves it. I get to watch the class and it is quite a hoot to watch several 2-4 year-olds try to learn to skip. Their general lack of grace and coordination is very apparent. I try to do some "school" with her everyday. She loves the reading things but hates the writing letters part. So we try to do a little bit of writing everyday. That part is slow....

Caleb is getting over a cold and is grumpy at times. He is such a boy and always can spot a "ball" wherever it might be. He also knows the difference - both by sight and sound - between planes and helicopters, since both fly over our house frequently. It's cute when he hears a helicopter, he gets very excited and says, "Heli, heli, heli".

This week the temps are supposed to be in the 80's and I am so excited! Yay fall!

Our little ballerina

Elizabeth had her first dance class on Tuesday and had a wonderful time. She was more excited than I can say....
There are only 4 or 5 girls in her class and she is the only new student, but she listened so well and tried so hard that it's not a problem. As soon as she came out of the studio she said, "Mommy, I can't wait to go back!" I feel so thankful that she can have this opportunity. She absolutely loves Angelina Ballerina, which, if you have girls, you probably know. She's a little mouse who wears a pink tutu and ballet slippers and loves ballet. Very cute. Anyway, that was the highlight of her week. She's also excited that her friens Abby and Aaron are back from a long trip to Canada.

Caleb....he's just Caleb. Sometimes he's so shy and clingy to Mommy. But today we went to the mall - one of our favorite summertime hangouts - to play in their kids' play area, and he climbed up on everything he could and he'd jump to whoever was standing there. He also walked around telling everyone "bye-bye". He has no fear. He climbs as high as he can, stands up, puts his hands up and yells "ta-daaa!"

Luke had a physical today. It was....interesting. He's in great health though, which is really no surprise. He's looking forward to the Steelers' pre-season game tomorrow night which is supposed to be on TV here. But we're also babysitting for our awesome babysitting co-op, so we'll see how much he can focus on TV....

Little pool

Here are Elizabeth, Caleb, and Luke in our little pool. Luke wants me to say that he's as strong as ever!!

Dance class

Elizabeth is going to take dance classes! I went and signed her up today. She'll be taking Creative Dance, which is a pre-ballet class, and this semester their theme is "Peter and the Wolf". So -- her class begins Tuesday. She was SOOOO excited when I got home that she immediately put on her tutu that her friend Amanda gave her. Of course, now we need to go to the approved store and buy the regulation powder blue leotard, pink tights and ballet shoes. Oh my goodness..... But we have told her that she could do this, so we'll see....

In other news, I've been feeling weird lately, so I went to the doctor and it looks like I have asthma, courtesy of the horrid air in our valley. Anyhow, I'm trying an inhaler and I'll go back in a couple weeks to see if it's helped. Pray that my blood tests come back negative for anything else. Any relief would be welcome!!!!

It's bath time. The grubby children need to be cleaned.....

Is this beautiful?

So does anyone think this is beautiful? These are foothill type hills of the coastal range of mountains. You drive through these totally brown, dry hills for hundreds of miles. No trees. Very strange to this western PA native. I guess it has its attributes. Blue skies.... Today Fresno broke our record for consecutive days over 100 degrees. Today is the 21st day over 100. Today I also made my first call to Poison Control. Pretty good considering I've been a mom for almost 4 years. Caleb ate some Shout. I'm not sure how much. But it turns out it's non-toxic. In case you wondered..... And he is fine.

Hint

Oh, in case you didn't figure it out, the title of the last entry is a link to another site, so that's what I wanted you to see....

For you Penn Staters

Hey there! It's almost football season and for those of you who have spent time in Happy Valley, you know the nostalgia associated with it! Luke and I were playing around on the computer the other day and found this site and had a very fun time listening to the Blue Band tunes and feeling a little sentimental. So if you have a good connection, listen and enjoy!!! And go PSU!!!

I love the beach!

So Sunday we headed to Avila Beach, which is an awesome beach for kids. It's in a great, protected cove so the waves aren't huge and often it's sunny there when the coastal marine layer clouds the other beaches. It was a GORGEOUS day. Almost 80 degrees, which for a California beach is very warm. I told Luke I think it's the first time I've actually been WARM on a beach in California. The kids had a great time. Elizabeth made rock pudding and dribbled the wet sand all over her legs for a long time. Caleb loved dancing out into the shallow part of the extremely cold water and running back when a wave came. And of course he loved digging too. My favorite part was sitting in a chair on the beach drinking coffee - actually feeling cool when we got there and it was only in the 60's - and I've always loved the beach. Yay!

Camping....

Feeling like I needed a break from Fresno, I suggested camping - for one night - and going to the beach! It was the first time we've camped with Caleb, and it went fairly well. We stayed at a KOA - so far, that's as far as I'll go towards "roughing it" - in Santa Margarita, which is almost as hot as Fresno. But there's a great pool and it cools off to the 50's at night - very nice! So we packed up our handy-dandy Suburban (thanks, God!!) and took a huge tent and yummy camp food and had a fun time. The kids were filthy, of course, and loved it! Why wouldn't they? Caleb loves to make me nervous with his daredevil tricks. Elizabeth just enjoys any new experience, and she doesn't remember the last time we camped, so it was great for her. Then on Sunday we headed to the beach.....

PSU 4 U

Luke's 2 cents

All this blog stuff is new for me, but of course I wanted to put in my two cents. Hope you like them both. On the left; Me and the kids in front of a classic airplane from the first airshow in fresno that happened just a few short blocks from our house. On the right; A bible club that was run at Kings Estates with a missions trip group from LA.

More pictures....

Summer days....

August is finally here! For us that means that the busiest part has passed for the most part. Camps are almost over, so we can breathe a sigh of relief. In Fresno it is still HOT - over 100 degrees daily. So we try to keep cool however we can - like swimming! These pictures are from last Saturday's teen swim. Elizabeth has always loved swimming, but Caleb is not so sure about it. In fact, he pretty much fell asleep in his floaty thing this time. But the girls LOVE him, as you can also see. He's going to be a charmer....do you like the cowboy hat?

Last week Elizabeth used her own money - two whole dollars - to buy 2 new baby chicks. She named them Peep and Marshmallow - much better than her original suggestions of Dog and Submarine. We are surprised that the chicks have lived this long. Being handled by two not-so-gentle children is traumatic for them. Especially when Caleb picks up Peep by her wing!!

Enjoy the pictures! I will try to update this blog regularly!!