The Ellen DeGeneres Show

Sorry about the blog slump. As I know all of you can relate, its been busy. I have missed it though. So time to update you on the most fun thing that's happened to me in quite a while. Rachel (my sis) & I each won 2 tickets to day 4 of Ellen DeGeneres' 12 Days of Giveaways, which was taped on December 10th. Rach brought her hubby, Rusty. And since Charlie was busy with finals, Pati, my wonderful mom-in-law came with me. We drove out to LA @ 10 a.m. (about 1-1/2 hrs.) found NBC studios and figured out where we needed to go. We had time, so we ate a quick lunch, met up w/ Rach & Rus and got in the line to go to the show @ 1:00 p.m. Check-in and waiting was about 3 hrs. Taping started at 4:00. Ellen's guests were Blake Lewis (singer from American Idol), and Padma Lakshmi (host of Top Chef). Blake sang a song from his new album, and Padma made "flautas" and shared some with the audience. To our suprise we were there on her day of all things "kitchen." So we were each gifted a KitchenAid 5 qt. mixer, a $300 gift certificate to Allen Brothers (a meat company), $200 Amex giftcard, $100 giftcard to Chefs Catalog, a juicer, a 6-bottle wine refrigerator, and 4 wine glasses! We were laughing at the wine stuff. But overall, such a FUN DAY! It was all so exciting! Talk about a great Christmas holiday this has been. A BIG Thanks to Rachel, that was so fun- Love you!

Ward Halloween Party-Oct. 30, 2007

So we had a fun ward halloween party this year. Instead of the usual trunk-or-treat, they did a carnival. It started with dinner, including a chili contest, and a pie contest. We made both. My chili was good but not great, I've actually never made chili before, so just picked a recipe and kinda sorta followed it! For the pie I made a pumpkin cheesecake and ended up getting the award for "most creative pie." That was because I decorated the top with spiders, bugs and skeletons. I've never made one of those either but had one a few weeks ago at Olive Garden and if you haven't tried it there, I HIGHLY recommend it-probably the best dessert ever made. My version was not as good as O.G.'s but was pretty tasty too. Charlie grew pumpkins in our garden this year, I think we got 5 of them, all oddly shaped and not beautiful, but we were still proud! He brought them all to the party to try to get rid of them. The one in the picture is the smallest one we got. Charlie and I both dressed up as nurses this year, unfortunately we forgot to get a picture of the two of us together. I always forget to take pictures of myself...anyone else ever do that?! For Halloween Night we dressed the kids up and met friends (Grant, Brandy & Sage) over in Spring Valley Lake and let the kids do some trick-or-treating. Drex's favorite part was ringing the door bells. He and Sage kept racing eachother to get the bell first. Quin was a great sport to actually say "trick-or-treat" and "thankyou" at all the doors, while Drex wouldn't make a peep...just hold his bag out until they dropped some candy in! I just pushed Liberty around in the stroller. She didn't really have any interest, and was actually not feeling very well. It was a beautiful night out and the weather was perfect, another fun Halloween!

Charlie won the award for "most distinct shape pumpkin." He grew this one in our back yard...but didn't have time to carve it :(

Our little monkey won the award for funniest costume

Zebra Quin being silly

Libby bunny and Momo (yes it's a wig)

Mom & Dad Blackburn

Day at the Beach-October 27, 2007

Here are some pics of the fun we had at Laguna Beach a few weeks ago. We met Rachel and the kids at the beach and played for awhile, then Rusty & Chloe met up with us for dinner at BJ's pizzeria (one of our favorite restaurants) which is just across the street. We always get the same thing there: barbecue chicken salad and "BJ's favorite pizza" & top it off with a pazooki (big, warm cookie with ice cream on top). Talk about indulgence!....It was a little overcast, but its always a fun day when you go to the beach!

Random Pics.

Drex & Libby eating carrots together on the couch










Beautiful Liberty Belle














The boys trying out their new sleeping bags

Costume Pictures

Here are the kids in their Halloween costumes for this year. In case you can't tell-Drex is a monkey, Quin a zebra, and Liberty a pink bunny--aren't they adorable!!!

Project

So this past week we've been busy painting Liberty's room purple with white trim and making it really girly! I know it seems kinda silly as this is not our own home, but if you know Charlie and I, you know we like to do makeover projects so we decided to do something with the room after my closet fell down in there. Yes, my clothes are all in Liberty's room. There is no closet in the master bedroom so Charlie made me a makeshift closet in her room, it collapsed one day, and needed to be resecured. So what started as fixing the closet turned into taking down the border wallpaper and repainting! The window seats in there needed to be recovered to match the new colors so I decided to do something I've never done before...I think its called piecing? I was so tempted to ask my mom if I could send the fabric to her and ask her to do it for me. But I decided to try and figure it out myself and see what happened. I suprised myself with how easy it was! Here's how they turned out:

Dresser for Libby

Isn't this such a cute dresser? While painting Libby's room I searched on Craigslist to see if I could find Liberty a dresser since she hasn't had one. I was so excited to find this dresser for only $50. Isn't that a good deal?!

I didn't like the knobs on it so I got some crystal pulls for it and I accidently dropped one and it broke! So we're waiting on a replacement...What do you think about the purple paint??

Family Pictures/Libby's 1 Year Picture!

Okay, So I think we're caught up with pictures...for now! We've been meaning to get a family photo done since Easter (notice the Easter colors in the family ones) after I got everyone something to wear to coordinate back in April, and we finally did it...today! We got some of Liberty for her 1 year picture as well. I love how Libby's turned out. Notice she's no longer wearing a bandage on her left hand. She is doing much better. Her wounds are scabbed over now and she doesn't seem bothered by the sight of it anymore, it is healing nicely, or as nicely as it can I guess. Well, I guess that's it for now, we're staying busy-Charlie with school & work, and me with kids & house. Love to you all.

Charlie Turns 30!

Hello everybody! Today we celebrated Charlie's big 3-0! He says he doesn't feel any older, and that turning 30 doesn't bother him. It must be a little strange to say goodbye to the 20's for good though...He had a good day, had to do some studying earlier for a test he took at school in the afternoon, so that wasn't very fun! But we (Charlie, me, mom and dad Blackburn, and the kids) went out for dinner at Applebees, and came home for a few presents and cake and ice cream. I got him a raspberry cheesecake ice cream cake from Cold Stone, (highly recommended) It really was good, half of it left...not good for temptation reasons! Anyways, Happy 30th honey, I Love You!

Emotional Day

Today was one of the most emotional days I've had in a long time. For my birthday Charlie got me the treadmill I've been wanting for awhile now. It just came yesterday so it's a novelty and the kids want to touch it and play on it as much as I'll let them. So...this afternoon Drex asks me AGAIN if I'll let him walk on it for a little bit (it's a folding one so they can't get it down without my help, or they probably wouldn't even bother asking!)...so I finally say yes and get it going for him, well just about the time he tells me he's done I hear a scream and look down at the end of the treadmill to find my little Liberty's hand stuck underneath and I pulled it out as quickly as I could to find that much of the skin on her left palm is worn off. She had found this tiny space just below the belt to stick her hand and it just sucked it right in. Needless to say when I saw the damage to her hand I panicked and histerically called Charlie at school to tell him to come home RIGHT NOW, Liberty's hand was hurt, he was there in less than 5 minutes and looked at her hand and calmly and confidently told me there's nothing at the ER they could do for the injury that he couldn't do at home. It turns out it looks worse than it actually is. She didn't bleed, it was just like a really bad scrape you might get on your knee when you fall off your bike, where you see alot of flesh--but its on the palm of her hand and fingers. It was the hardest thing ever to see her cry and I was in such panic I couldn't think of anything else to do but get the kids in the car and get to the ER as fast as possible.
Even though I wish this hadn't happened today, I believe our trials come to teach us something. I feel like this experience was maybe a reminder for me to be even more thankful everyday that we are safe and are SO blessed, and to not take my family for granted. This accident could have been SO much worse had I not been right there to grab her hand out when I did. I have so much to be grateful for today.
Here are a few pictures we took of Liberty this evening after Charlie re-bandaged her hand. Trust me, you don't want to see what's underneath. She was a trooper, look at her smiling after all that!

Liz's 28th Birthday

So, I celebrated my Birthday last Friday and I am officially 28 now! Crazy, how the time has gone. I remember thinking anything older than 25 was pretty old & here I am and don't feel old at all!!! I had a really fun day, woke up at 6:30 a.m. so we could get out on Lake Perris by 9:00. There we met up with both of Charlie's sisters and their husbands, baby Blake, and Charlie's best bud from school Grant and his wife. We set up tent shades and chairs and went out on the boat for a little while for wake-boarding and tubing. It was so fun to be outside in the beautiful weather. We stayed until 3:30 and headed home to get showered and ready for a dinner date with friends at Johnny Carino's (my favorite here). As usual it was Delicious and sooo fun to be there with my sweetie plus 5 other couples we love to hang out with. After dinner everyone was invited to come over to our house for cake & ice cream and we had fun chatting for a while longer. It was one of my all time favorite birthdays. Thankyou all of my dear family & friends for your love & friendships, and to my mom and dad for giving me life!

Drex's 4 Year Pictures

We took Drex to get his 4 year pictures this past Thursday, and we were so happy with how they turned out! It's nice when they get a little older & you can actually bribe them with something they want, and they understand the concept of, if they do something you ask them to, they will get something they want in return! In this case we told Drex we would take him to the toy store and he could pick out a toy, of course when we get there he wants one of the most expensive things there! So we pointed him to the cars/motorcycles isle and he picked out a set of 2 vehicles so Quin could have one too. He is a really sweet brother to Quin alot of the time. We are so glad they have eachother and that we have them and Libby!

Drex's 4th Birthday!

So our oldest turned 4 August 20th! We wanted to do a birthday party this year with friends since we are so blessed to have made some great friends since moving here. Drex was so excited! We went with the Backyardigans theme since they are his current favorite, (Nick Jr. cartoon for those unfamiliar). He helped me put together the goody bags and do the invitations, he was a good helper! First we ate Linner (lunch/dinner) @ 2:30, we tried to keep it outside but it was WAY to hot!!! Then played a game of pin the bowtie on Pablo (oops forgot to take pics. of this activity), followed with a game of musical chairs, a Pablo pinata, and birthday cake & ice cream. In the end I learned how fun & exhausting putting together a birthday party can be! It was alot of fun and I'm really glad we did it!

Here's Drex with his cake & presents-snapped it in-between smiles, oops!

The kids playing musical chairs to the Backyardigans music.


Drex trying to break the pinata!

Tried to get all the kids together for a photo...hard to get a really good one!

Seaworld in August

We had the opportunity to go to Sea World a few weeks ago and meet up with some friends we don't get to see very often. JR & Janet Gatlin and their family from Washington State were in San Diego for business & before they left for home we all wanted to get together. JR is one of Charlie's best friends since elementary school so they go WAY back. It was really nice to get to spend some time with them, they are such a fun family! Drex especially thought their oldest son Charlie was neat stuff!

In the tube with sharks swimming around us!










Libby & me, we were in the shark area-looks like she saw somethin'
scary!

Charlie, Drex and Jacob holding hands, how cute!

Charlie & JR

L to R: Kenny, Annie Beth, Drex, Charlie, Liberty, Jacob, Quinten

Alone @ Knotts!

If any of you are lucky enough to have a sister like Rachel, consider yourself Really lucky! My sister Rachel, (one of the 3 greatest sisters in the world) is truly a sweetheart. She's always been the sweetest girl in our family (I'm pretty sure that's unanimous, right?!) and it's been SO fun to live this close to her (1 hour + 30), the closest we've lived since before she got married. She took our kids for the whole day last Friday (Aug. 31st) while Charlie & I went to Knott's Berry Farm & Soak City (the waterpark across from Knott's) all alone!!! It was so Fun! I did think about the kids alot though and hoped they were being good! We went to the waterpark for half the day, and did Knott's the other half. Knott's was Way more fun because hardly anyone was there and we got to ride Everything with a tiny wait, or no wait at all. It was my first time there and it was Awesome! Thanks again Rach!

Liberty's 1st Birthday

So a little late getting these pics up on here-her birthday was in June! The morning of her birthday I was rushing around getting ready to go to a concert, plugged in the camera battery to charge it up and accidently bumped it somehow (one of those plugs on the side of the counter) and the battery dropped and disappeared into thin air! We haven't seen it since, but had to purchase a replacement. Anyway, Rachel and family were there to save the day and took some pictures for us and I finally downloaded them when we got together last weekend. Here's our little princess on her 1st birthday. She got her own cake (compliments of our local grocer that gives free 1st birthday cakes). Libby didn't quite know what to do at first! It was fun watching her poke & prod at it, and finally start to make a dent into it. By the time she was done there was pink frosting everywhere!

Suprise!!!

I just had to show you Chloe with her cake face. She was hovering over Liberty's cake after Libby'd had her fill, telling us she was going to put her face in it, so Charlie decided to help her out and dunked her! We all had a good laugh!

Quin's 2 Year Pictures

Here are Quin's 2 year pictures we had taken recently--he turned 2 on March 24, 2007--better late than never, right?! So I guess he's a bit camera shy because during the photo shoot he was So serious and would barely crack a smile, but just as soon as it was over he was smiling and giggling being happy--go figure!!! Well at least he's handsome with or without a smile on his face!