Thursday, March 5, 2009

National Anthem Performance

Michelle was honored to sing the national anthem at the Arizona Diamondbacks' Spring Training opener this year. Below is a video taken behind the scenes before her performance.




Click here to see Michelle's National Anthem performance.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Aviston is ONE YEAR OLD!

RECAP: The 2008 Holidays

Halloween

This year Matthew was Wayne from Wayne's World and Michelle was an 80's rock star--yes, both very homemade costumes. Genevive and Donevan were the yellow and blue Power Rangers and for Aviston's first Halloween, he was a monkey. Mommy was such a genius that she forgot to make sure his costume fit, so after weeks of letting it sit in the closet, she didn't find out until Halloween night that his costume was a bunting costume, meaning there are no legs.

Fortunately we live in Arizona where October nights are not yet chilly so Michelle improvised and cut out some legs for Aviston's monkey costume as you can see in the photo below.














Thanksgiving

This was our second year hosting Thanksgiving at our house. Michelle's mom, sister and her sister's boyfriend came to visit from Maryland. The kids loved every second of it. Matthew's mom and stepdad came to join in on the festivities.

The credits of this photo are due to Matthew's tripod (of which he is SO proud). The wall in the background says "Family a journey to forever." Truer words were never spoken...


Christmas
Thanks to Matthew, this year we had Christmas lights! There was a bit of a struggle with the lights but everything worked out in the end. This was the first year we picked out a live Christmas tree together. (It was also the first year we bought a fake tree together thanks to Sears' Heroes at Home program.)



Everyone was really happy with their presents. Matthew was pleasantly surprised with his Big Ben puzzle that was made from a photo he took himself while we were there in 2007. Genevive spent the holidays in Texas so when she came back, it was a very happy reunion.



Aviston Turns One!!
MOVING. Aviston is crawling around like a pro. He's not quite walking yet but he's all about the cruising around across the couch.

EATING. Now that he has two teeth, he enjoys feeding himself gourmet food like cheetos and shrimp chips, haha.

SLEEPING. His older brother and sister sing him to bed each night--"Good night, sweetheart, well it's time to go..." Maybe that's why he's been sleeping through the night for six months now.

Aviston has definitely come along way from his days spent in the NICU at St. Joseph's. Dubbed "Mr. Smiley" by Grandpa Chuck, this baby lives up to his name. Everyone who meets Aviston says "he's such a good baby," and he has yet to prove them wrong!
Happy Birthday, Shton Shton!

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Kindergarten & a new daycare



Genevive started Kindergarten on Monday, July 14th! And yes, the whole family went with her to her classroom. She loves doing homework! Now if we could just make that excitement last until she's through with college ;)
We were very sad to say goodbye to the kid's old daycare provider, Ms. Shannon, and her family. They moved to the east coast and will be missed by us! They did start with Ms. Jenny and they seem to love going there. I would too if I got to make pretzels and cookies each week.



Time for some NAKED BABY pics! Aviston hit the half-year mark this month, not too bad for a 7-week premie, eh? In just six months, he's already developed such a big fan base--among the parents for being such a "good baby" and among the Filipino grandmas with his "clep chin." Go ahead with your "good" self, Aviston!



Could it be? Matthew and Michelle out on the town without ANY of their kids?? Are these photos the work of a Photoshop artist? Nay. Many thanks to the grandparents for letting these two crazy newlyweds run around Tucson for a couple of hours with their friends. Unfortunately, their excursion was cut short due to an attack by a red spider with some long legs.

And lastly, Carmela and Michelle made some time to try out for season 8 of American Idol at the Jobing.com Arena in Phoenix with fellow "Idol Rangers" Sally & Jaclyn. This was Michelle's last year to make the age cut-off so she decided to give it one last go. When asked for a comment, the singing sensations both nodded off mid-sentence. They were mumbling about waking up at 1 in the morning and a man wearing a banana costume.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Meet the Family!

Since many of our loved ones are far from us, and life can tend to get in the way of phone calls and emails, here's a little bit about us.


Matthew
Fave movie: Braveheart
Fave food: longoniza
Loves to: cook
Recent accomplishment: Commanding an award-winning recruiting station

Michelle
Fave movie: Dumb & Dumber
Fave food: dessert
Loves to: act
Recent accomplishment: Lead role in a community play as Eliza Doolittle

Genevive
Fave movie: Garfield
Fave food: candy
Loves to: color
Recent accomplishment: Learning to read her ABC's and 123's

Donevan
Fave movie: The Incredibles
Fave food: rice & soup
Loves to: play with his sword
Recent accomplishment: Getting dressed all by himself

Aviston
New things: Sucking on his hands, smiling & cooing
Loves to: sit in his swing
Recent accomplishment: Drinking from the bottle!

Now that you know something about us, leave us a comment about you!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

And So It Begins...

Yes, we have finally done it. We've created a family blog. Goodbye mass email updates. We didn't know where to begin the blog so at the beginning, when we met, sounded like a good place.

~How They Met~

Michelle's Version:
I got this new job working at a Montessori school and I had to pick some paperwork up before I started working. Right when I walked in the door, across the hall there was a parent signing his child out at the computer. When he turned around, our eyes met. I was carrying a sleepy Donevan and he was holding Genevive's hand. I thought to myself, "WHO is that?" Then I realized he was probably married and shouldn't be staring at me so hard. I remember the first thing he ever said to me: "You look lost."

Matthew's Version:
Ok, he's too shy to give his side of the story so we'll give you Elicia's version. At the time, Elicia was an intern at the school and also Matthew's roommate.

Elicia's Version:
Since the very first day Michelle started working at the school, Matthew would not stop bugging me about who she was. "What's up with Miss Michelle?" I kept brushing him off but when I found out that she was a single parent, too, and as I got to her know her, I thought they'd make such a cute couple. One day, I asked if she was interested in dating anyone yet and told her "my roommate thinks you're hot." Haha. And she had me give him her phone number. But for the first few months, they didn't even tell me they were dating!

~The Wedding~

Matthew and Michelle got married on Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at Rock Bench on the cliffs of Laguna Beach in the presence of close friends and family...and random bystanders at the beach (after which, the ice cream man drove up playing his ice cream truck music.) They celebrated their wedding reception at the OC Pavillion in the Vault Lounge where the bridesmaids were pretty much the only ones who had the opportunity to take advantage of the open bar.