A day at the temple...

We went to the temple the last weekend that Jon and Paul were here...it was wonderful! We tried to take advantage of everyone being together and took some family pictures...but..(and i'm hoping it's the memory stick)...a couple of pictures on my camera came out REALLY wierd...like...my head is floating next to my body kinda wierd...we also took some pictures of the kids...so i'm sticking some of those in here too...

I showed this picture to my brothers and all of them said, "she looks so old!"...it really does seem like just the other day I was holding her little five and a half pound body...

So...here I am decapitated....go figure...

And here's everybody...

family history...

I was trying to find something cool to do for some of my family members for christmas...i had scanned in some OLD (like...my great great grandparents) photos....and framed them...and i thought i'd go see if we had any other cool family history related stuff...and i found my great-great grandmother's old sketchbook...it was pretty cool... :)

This is a picture of my....great great grandmother (whose sketchbook i found) and my grandmother

These are just some random pictures...

I knew my family was wierd....but...

So....my brother had his mac...and had a little too much fun taking pictures...yes...definitely too much fun...don't you agree?

odd. very very odd children. who's are they anyway?

Decorating the tree...

Forgot there was one other thing I wanted to post pictures of...tree decorating!!

Gage has this thing with being upside down...it's very rare that it won't make him extremely happy...(very odd if you ask me...but then...I'm odd...so I suppose it shouldn't suprise me!)

Keith sooo would not stop moving around...talk about wired. I don't think he even remotely slowed down at ALL the entire night. He asked me today if I still had the pictures of him dancing (so that's what he was doing!!?) And yes, those would be his pants falling down...when he made it out of diapers...everything was suddenly too big...and I didn't feel like pulling down all the other stuff from the attic...soo....most of it fits now...but there's still a few...

These next two...are my favorite Christmas pictures this year (at least so far!)

Just a few more pictures...

I didn't post anything for awhile because the Christmas newsletter my Mom sent out directed people to our blog for a bunch of pictures. So...I posted them...and then I was afraid of piling a bunch of stuff on top of it...and having all those poor people have to scroll through our day to day life to get to the Heinzen family highlights of the year. So...I put a link in the blog title description thing...and am now putting up all the pictures I had put off putting up.


Here's Gage...10 and a half months old :) He's getting sooo big!


Talk about nostalgic...I used to absolutely love setting up marble mazes!

I think she went through a growth spurt...or something? My brother Paul just came home from serving a 2-year chinese-speaking mission for our church in Canada (I'll post pictures of that as soon as I get them off my mom's camera)...anyway...I was looking at the pictures of Elli two years ago when he left...It is so crazy how fast they grow!

My tired baby...

Nuts...nuts...and more nuts...

The kids spent the afternoon picking macadamia nuts. Keith had to earn some money because he dumped a bunch of dishsoap into the sink when he knew he wasn't supposed to....so...he did hard labor. Anyway...they pick the nuts...Then the nuts get sold...and all you fine folks get to buy yummy chocolate covered macadamia nuts (and he gets to pay for all the dawn liquid soap that he dumped down the sink).

He looks like he's trying to think of his next great adventure...hopefully this one doesn't involve dishsoap.

Joy School...

We've been doing Joy School this year with another family that lives about 10 minutes away or so...it's been a lot of fun...and I finally got around to taking pictures this week. Just thought I'd stick them in!

This is Keith on our last day of 'school' before christmas break.



This is Cynthia and Elli....they get along really well...unfortunately Keith sometimes wants to join them and is still learning the proper way to get their attention...

We made christmas cookies the other day for our Christmas program...that was a lot of fun!

Merry Christmas!

This year the Heinzen Family Christmas newsletter included a note directing family and friends here to view some pictures of some of the wonderful things that have become part of our Heinzen family life this year!

So...here we present the Hawaii Heinzen's...a year in Review...

Lotsa Heinzen's in Hawaii!

Heinzen Brothers...making memories in Gilroy

Moving the Jeep and the Model A to Gilroy.

Tommy and Anna and the kids on their lot.

Elli (4), Keith (2), Gage (5 mo.)

The newest addition to the family...Gage Nemezio Griffith.

Jon hard at work in Provo!

Jon hard at play in the snow!


Paul singing with other missionaries at a Mother's Day Program

Paul at a Baptism in Canada

Sam's Graduation...class of 2008!

Sam, Papa Bino, and Lauren

out of the mouths of babes...

Sooo....Keith fell down a couple steps outside the other day...got a good sized scrape on his cheek and on his knees...i was about...20 yards away or so. He's in nursery yesterday...and he told his nursery leader his mom pushed him down the stairs!?! What on earth possessed him to say that is so beyond me. Anyway...tthat's my random story of the day.

Another vow to be better at this...

5 months later...I know...it's atrocious...we have been busy...but that is no excuse. I really am going to try to be better about this!! I know I have said that before...but...I have also come to a new....realization I suppose you could say. Up till now, I have (still) not had a good working camera so I have not taken pictures...and I figure nobody's going to want to look at it if it has no pictures. I decided though that I'm going to post...even if I have no pictures (sorry folks....hello boring blog)...I have realized how fast time is flying by and how fast the kids are growing...and there's been so many times one of them has said something funny or done something cool (or not cool)...and I've wanted to write about it...but it just hasn't happened...and for their sakes...I want to have something...and it is sooo much easier for me to type than to write.

Anyway...with that said...these past five months have been insanely fun and crazy. It just amazes me how the day seems to fly be...it is never boring...never slow...there is always something to do from the moment I (or Gage) wake up...to the moment I finally close my eyes for the night. Gage is on the move (finally...lol...he's the last of all the kids to really move around...elli was cruising around 8 months...keith was crawling around 6). His favorite thing to do is lift up the kitchen rugs and help himself to a lovely buffet of tasty bugs, lint, day old cereal, etc. Keith has really been testing my patience lately...but when I really pay attention to him and have plenty for him to do...he is such a good kid!! Unfortunately...if he is left to his own imagination to come up with things to do...the list is endless...he is so much like his Uncle Paul it blows my mind sometimes. Yesterday I found my poor helpless bar of soap impaled by a bobby pin (??) Certainly in the great scheme of things...no big deal...but really...where does he come up with these things!? With Paul coming home in a week and a half...it has really made me realize how much the kids have grown. Elli's really gotten into puzzles...which has been fun for me...because I absolutely love puzzles...and it reminds me of my Grandmother...who literally had closets full of puzzles. The kids and I are sitting at the kitchen table right now with a bag of beans Elli just harvested from the garden. I don't know what it has been about this particular crop...it's only about...5 feet long...one row...but it has been extremely proliferic...hope I spelled that right. Elli and I are snapping the ends off and snapping them into smaller pieces. Keith's eating his little pile raw. Well, this week is my week for Joy School...so I'm going to pull that up and make sure I have everything I need...I'll post again soon :)

Trip to Bird Park

There's this place...'bout 20 - 25 miles or so away from our house called "Bird Park"...It's got a really nice little pavilion with a little fireplace and everything. It's almost always empty, so it's a lot of fun going up there and just relaxing. It's really quiet (except for the birds) and it's full of trees and flowers and grass and everything. We went up there this evening and cooked some simple foil dinners, did the s'more thing...and then just sat around and enjoyed being together as a family. It was a lot of fun. It's evenings like this that I just want to hold on to and savor for forever :)

It felt so good to be out in the fresh air! I'm glad the kids enjoyed it too (it got them nice and wore out for bedtime ;) - I won't deny my alterior motives!)

You know, it sure seems like this next one deserves some creative caption...but for the life of me, I can't think of one. I feel slightly braindead. I'll blame it on all the s'mores :)

Yay! we got a smile!

Elli really loves Gage (she loves Keith too...it's just harder to show it when he's trying to wrestle with her while she's reading a book or play with her doll). It's so nice to have such a big helper!

I love foil dinners. My favorite is brocolli, onion, potato, garlic, mushrooms, and a little bit of bacon :). Zucchini's not bad in them either. The kids actually ate most of theirs too...I was quite impressed :)

Y'know...it's been a while since I've had s'mores...and tonight I rediscovered the joy of crispy graham crackers, melting chocolate, and a golden brown marshmallow with creamy white oozing out the sides...all smooshed together. It was quite the taste esperience.

Anyway...it was a great night...gave me a great 'pick-me-up' for the week!