Life in the Fast Lane....

Well, It's my parents 4th Anniversary on January 8th! Here is a quick, fun recap of their full life together as a married couple thus far:

*Sept. 10th 2005 John proposes to Anna on top of Half Dome, Yosemite

*4 months later they get married at the little red chapel in Yosemite Valley (1/8/06)

*6 months later they get pregnant with Li'l John (me;) (7/06)

*6 months later John changes careers from being an animal trainer to a land surveyor, Anna quits teaching in the classroom, they pack up and move to Santa Cruz from San Diego. (1/07)

*4 months later they have their first child, John Dickenson Puffer V. (5/07)

*less than 3 months later they get pregnant again
AND Anna starts a new career at a new school as an Education Specialist, while still learning to be a new mom and training for her new job. (7/07)

*3 months later they move from Felton (750 sq. ft. house in Santa Cruz mountains) to an apple farm in Watsonville to be closer to Johns work and to have bigger house for quickly growing family. (4/07)

*6 months later they celebrate Li'l John's 1st Birthday! (5/8/08)

*12 Days later they have their second child, Faylen Tovah Puffer. (5/20/08)

*2 months later John passes his LSIT test to become a highly qualified land surveyor. (7/08)

*8 months later (after a long search) they buy their first home, a dream come true by the Grace of God. (wow, can't believe they went a whole 8 months with no major changes in their life! must have been relaxing.....) They pack up and move to Prunedale. (that's 3 moves in 2.5 yrs) (4/09)

*1 month later they celebrate their beautiful daughter, Faylen's, Birthday, and Li'l john's 2nd Bday (5/09)

*4 months later they get pregnant again! (10/09)

*4 months later celebrate their 4th Anniversary! (1/8/10)

Seems like they've been married for 10 years. They are happily in love and wouldn't trade one moment of their crazy life for anything else. God has blessed us all in so many ways in such a short period of time. We have more to be grateful for than we ever imagined God could bless us with. Thank you Lord!

A Special Christmas Present from the Lord

Well, we have some special Christmas news! God is adding another little blessing to our family. Yes, WE'RE PREGNANT! We found out just before Thanksgiving and told our family and some friends. We sure had a lot to be thankful for at Thanksgiving. Mom is about 3.5 months along now. The baby is healthy so far and we are so excited for it to come around July 13th. (the due date is the day after mom's bday!!!) Mom wanted to apologize for not calling some of you or getting this news on the Puffer Post sooner. Things have been really busy for her for work and she has been VERY VERY sick. In fact, so far, she says this has been the most difficult pregnancy yet. She got so sick and dehydrated that she had to take a little trip to the hospital. Thankfully lots of family came to the rescue and helped with us kids. (Thanks Jason, Rachel, Grandma and Shoshi!) Everything is fine now. Mom's midwife prescribed some anti-nausea meds that have been working really well. With her throwing up 5 or 6 times a day, for a while there my sister and I were getting quite worried about her. I did such a great job taking care of mom always checking in on her and saying, "Mommy, your tummy hurts??? You Ok? You need Medicine??? Want a cracker???" (She lived off saltines for about a month) I often copy mom and mope around saying "My tummy hurts", "I need medicine". I think mom, not quite being herself for a while, has been affecting me a bit. I even point to my tummy and say, "my baby hurts". (like I'm pregnant too). Isn't it suppose to be daddy who experiences the sympathy pains????? :) Speaking of Dad, he's been like super dad lately. Since mom's been pretty unable, he's been doing all the cooking and cleaning and laundry and taking care of us kids when he's home. Mom would just fall apart if she didn't have such a loving, caring, and hard working husband.

Here is a pic of Baby number 3:

We have decided not to find out the sex with this one. That is, if mom can be patient enough to wait to make is a surprise. Give us some name ideas if you have any. Please keep our family and new growing baby in your prayers. We love you all and hope you have a very blessed Christmas!

Love,

Li'l John

Random recent pics of Faylen

Faylen's first pony tail. Her hair is getting so long!

A monkey and her banana

Sunset photo shoot


A family walk on westcliff

I got a little bored...

Our favorite pastime is to run in the bubbles in the backyard. We do it everyday and Magnus LOVES it. He tries to jump and eat everyone. Mom got us a really cool bubble machine.

Faylen is quite the artist, taking after her cousin Thea. She is very into drawing and painting. She started holding a pen correctly in her little hand a few months ago and no one even taught her. I still can't even do that!

Thanks cousin Michelle for our nifty painting Easle. We love to use it!

Halloween

Ok, here's some Halloween pics. They are all out of order, cuz I didn't have time to organize them. We had a very eventful halloween. I was an elephant, my sis was a lion and cousin sophie was a ladybug. We were our own little circus. First, the night before we carved the pumpkins with Auntie Shosh and Grandma. Then on halloween we got all dressed up and went into Santa Cruz for trick or treating for the very first time. Both sets of grandparents were there and helped us walk for an hour and a half up to doors to get candy. Then we headed over the the Harvest Festival at church and played games. We had wayyyyyyy to much candy that night and were bouncing off the walls until 11:00pm! This year we got to where our costumes 3 times during halloween week: story time at the library, friday playgroup, and halloween night! Mom bought them like 2 months ago and they were already getting small on us as you can see my wedgie in the pic below:

Grandma had foot surgery and had a cast. She gave us lots of rides on her really fun scooter!

Dad's masterpieces: Bob and Larry (from Veggie Tales) all lit up

We got to sleep with them in our room as night lights for a few nights. A little Heyman family tradition.

At the Harvest Festival

I wasn't too happy in this pic for some reason. I think all that candy was getting to me.

The Puffers family picture. Hopefully this can be an annual event now! :)

This is James from church and his son, Dane. Both Dane and Faylen (the 2 lions) won the baby costume contest. (Little John also won the little kid costume contest!)


Grandpa and a Lion golfing. Where's Faylen???
Oh, there she is!

Carving the Pumpkins!
Faylen was very into getting slimy!


AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Working diligently

This year I just played with the innards instead of eating them, like I did last year. What was I thinking?!?!?!?

too much fun!

Look, daddy is holding Tina Turner's hand while trick or treating!

almost the whole gang trick or treating Pumpkin Fight!!!!!

Puffers' Progress

This is officially the first of many Puffers' Progress Posts to come. These posts will consist of quick updates on physical, social, emotional, and spiritual growth and achievements of my sister and I. These posts are most certainly not to brag, but instead so that you can keep up with us and mostly so that I can record our progress for our mom, so she doesn't have to keep a baby book. ;) She likes to keep record of when we learn to do what so she can go back in years to come and reminisce. She's so sentimental that way. So here's our latest stats:

JOHN

AGE: 2 1/2 years

FAVORITE COLOR: ORANGE!

PHYSICAL STATS: tall and strong. just over 3 feet tall!

FAVORITE FOOD/SNACK: baby carrots dipped in ketsup and anything chocolate

FAVORITE TOY: My new train table and trains

THINGS I SAY and DO: "I wanna go home" (I say this when I've been in the car all day) Pretty much anything I say I just repeat myself over and over and over again until someone acknowledges me. I love to take pictures with mommy's camera. I am very protective over my sister. I like to teach my sister how to do things. I like to make her laugh.

SONGS I CAN SING MOST THE WORDS TO: "Itsy Bitsy Spider", "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star", "Barney Theme Song", "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes", "ABC's", "The Ants go Marching", and lots more. My sis and I like singing to country music in the car.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: I now sleep in a big boy toddler bed. (as of a couple months a go) No more baby crib! I learned how to ride my tricycle.

Faylen

AGE: 1 1/2 yrs

PHYSICAL STATS: 95th percentile for height, lots of teeth--13! (2 molars)

FAVORITE FOOD/SNACK: Anything. she still eats twice as much as her brother. She usually polishes off his plate when he's done. :)

FAVORITE TOY: new baby doll and baby stroller. she pushes her baby in the stroller through the house for hours. She loves her baby and takes very good care of it and holds it perfectly like a natural mom. It's so fun to see her nurturing motherly instincts. She also loves to read books to herself.

THINGS I SAY: "mine", "I want this", "I love you", "apple juice", "I want my baby", "I don't know!". She can repeat almost anything you ask her to, she just has to be in the talking mood. She really has almost skipped the stage of saying single words and pointing out things to speaking in complete sentences. Almost everything she says is in a sentence. Her verbal skills are really amazing recently.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: No more binkie!!!!! Mom finally gave up looking for them a couple months ago. It drove her nuts climbing behind the crib in the middle of the night to find the missing binkie so she cut Faylen off cold turkey!

MY NEWEST TALENT: climbing and dancing. You tell me to shake my booty and I'll do exactly that!

THINGS I LEARNED: how to put puzzles together. Point to my eyes, nose, ears, and mouth when asked to.

FUNNY THINGS I DO: I ride my little tikes car in the back yard and say, "I go work".