TV stars:)

Here is the cameraman taping Peyton and I. He was standing there so long I didn't know how to act. Should I smile or be serious....

The kids waiting patiently for the parade to start

Brayden and Peyton

Here is the cameraman taping Peyton and I. He was standing there so long I didn't know how to act. Should I smile or be serious....

Metcalfe Family

Here's our cool coffee stand

Peyton enjoying the parade

This year the Metcalfe's made their first appearance at the Daffodil Parade. We were talking and wondering why we hadn't been before because we all thought it was great. We decided to go with our Bible Study group and hand out coffee, donuts and cookies for no other reason then to be nice. We got a huge carafe of Forza coffee and set up shop early downtown. We thought at first we weren't going to get many takers on the coffee, but by the end of the parade the coffee was gone and we had met some interesting people. We had a great time and look forward to next year! Brayden loved it all except for the pirate ship (which shoots a cannon and is REALLY loud). Peyton enjoyed it too and actually slept most of the time on mommy. We also all made a TV debut on the TV Tacoma channel!!! The guy was there taping all the kids lined up having fun and they even got mommy holding Peyton sleeping. We DVR it and that is now Brayden's favorite "show" to watch. Fun times with the Metcalfe family:)

Random Pictures

We have proof that Peyton has very curly hair. It's getting curlier the older she gets, but it's most curly after her bath. Poor girl, she is cursed:)

Brayden's favorite thing to do is puzzles. This is 100 piece puzzle he did all by himself!!

When Brayden was gone at Disney Land his sister would hang out in his room because she missed him.

And, here is Peyton showing me her tongue. Love those blue eyes.

Almost 30 but not quite...

Travis and I and the yummy cheesecake!

Peyton and mommy

Best friends!

Travis standing in front of the fish market

On March 31st I turned 29. I still have one more year until the big 3-0 and I'll take it:) This last year was a great year and I'm hoping this next one will be even better. Travis took me to Seattle for an overnight getaway last weekend. It was so nice. We stayed at a really fancy hotel, Hotel 1000 and felt pampered staying there. Travis' mom came to our house to watch the kids which was great. We left Friday afternoon and drove up to Southcenter and had dinner at BJ's. The main reason we went is because they give free Pzookie's (an awesome cookie doughish dessert served in a pizza pan with ice cream. My favorite!) if you are celebrating your birthday. It was so nice to enjoy dinner without talking with a 3 and 1 year old:) We drove up to Seattle and checked into our hotel. We worked out at the nice workout room and then sat in the hot sauna. I felt so relaxed, it was awesome. We started Saturday morning getting breakfast from Pike Place Market (which was just a few blocks from our hotel). I love walking around the market. So fun and so much culture. We finished off the day shopping at some of the malls and eating dinner at the Cheesecake factory. Nice weekend. We finished celebrating my birthday with family and friends on Tuesday. Travis made the best Dulce de Leche cheesecake that is to die for. I was spoiled as always and felt loved. Happy Birthday to Me!:)

Cabin fun again...

Mr. Jeremy reading to Peyton and Cooper

Doing the army boot camp workout

We trained the guys right!:)

Singing Happy Birthday. Look at that Chocolate Cake!

A few weekends ago we had a little HFG retreat at our cabin on Anderson Island. The majority of us left kids at home (except for the babies), which was a nice change of pace for sure! We left Brayden at grandma and grandpa's house and Peyton came with us. We started out the weekend going out to eat at the one island restaurant (no one had to cook!). We went back to the cabin and relaxed. The guys played Wii all night and the ladies just talked. We also celebrated Tiffany's 30th birthday with an awesome chocolate cake:) The next day we started out the morning with all the guys (except John but in his defense he was holding a baby), making breakfast. We had blueberry pancakes, bacon and eggs. Travis and I got sucked in somehow to Jeremy's army boot camp workout. We went on a little jog and then Jeremy made us do a small army workout:) We had a good time and can't wait to go to the cabin again!

DisneyLand Trip for Mr. B

Brayden and Titi Desi

Brayden, Pedro and Roman

Lita, Papi, Titi Desi and Bradyen (more pictures hopefully coming soon:)

Brayden had the privilege to go to Disneyland a few weeks ago with my parents and his cousin Pedro. My mom and dad decided to surprise them with a trip together. My younger sister Desi and her husband Jimmy live down in Cali so they were going to meet up with them too. From what I hear Brayden had a great time! He loved meeting all the characters, loved the plane rides, loved most of the rides (a few were a bit scary for him), and loved hanging out with the family. We were so happy that he had a chance to go, but sad that we couldn't go with him. My sister was so sad she couldn't go with Pedro that her husband and her decided at the last minute to drive down to Cali!! So, the Metcalfe's were the only ones missing out on the family reunion:) I'm so thankful that Brayden has cool grandparents. What a special trip he will always remember. He is still talking about it everyday and can't wait to go back!

My Bugg

Well it's been awhile since I've blogged and I really have no excuse. Sometimes I feel that I don't have anything to blog about, but then again we've been so busy. Travis just took his GMAT on Monday and got a great score. He is planning on going back to school in the fall to get his Masters in Business. Although I'm not excited to have him gone more, I am excited for him because this is a goal he's had since he graduated college. We're going to have to rearrange our lives so daddy will have time to go to class and do his homework. I've been busy planning a special day at my MOPS group which is coming up next Tuesday. I have also been learning a lot of new recipes and trying to cook healthy for the family more. It's been fun and so far we've been impressed with this "healthy" food:)
For Christmas Travis got me a Body Bugg. What's that you say? Have you ever seen the Biggest Loser? They wear these bugs on their arms on the show. It's a device that tells me how many calories I'm burning during the day. I have a goal of how much weight I would like to loose, and then it gives me a goal of how many calories I should burn a day and how many I should eat. You log in your food and it downloads your calories burned. I LOVE THIS THING! I've been working out a lot because I want to hit my goals everyday. So far I've lost 29 pounds and counting since January 1st!! It's a great way to teach you to get active and eat less calories too.
I loved it so much I bought one for Travis for Valentines Day (so romantic huh:). Now we have matching Buggs on all the time:) He is doing well on the program too and has so far lost 16 pounds. What we love most about the program is it's not a special diet or workout regime that is promising us weight loss. It's the simple fact that if you burn more calories than you eat, you will loose weight! I think this is a great life lesson we are learning on this program.
The kids are learning a lot too. Brayden almost did a whole Yoga session with Travis and I the other night. He was saying "I have to do my exercise today." Cute. Speaking of Brayden, he is on a plane right now on his way to Disneyland with my parents. I'm a little sad I can't be there with him, but I am so excited for him and can't wait to see the pictures.
Peyton is growing so fast as they all do at this age. She is talking more and more. Right now her favorite word is "hi." She walks around the house saying it to everyone and everything:) She loves to "help" mommy exercise too and thinks it's pretty funny. Well more to come soon about life with the Metcalfe's...

Saying "Yes" to God...

Yesterday I had the privilege of going to women's conference with some of my Renovo friends. It was held at my old church in Seattle, Northwest Church of Christ. Honestly, I wasn't that excited to go. I was excited to hang out with the girls and get to know them better, but I usually don't enjoy women's conferences that much. I'll tell you why... I have a very short attention span and it takes a REALLY good speaker to keep my attention for more than 10 minutes. I'm not sure why I'm that way, but I am. Not once on Saturday did I look at my watch while the speaker was talking. Actually, every time she was done with a session I was amazed at how much time had passed and was sad because I wanted to hear her speak more. Her name is Lysa TerKeust. Amazing woman of God. She is a nationally known speaker who I was meant to hear on Saturday. God put me in that place because He knew that's exactly where I needed to be.
Lysa just stood up there and shared her story. That was it, yet it was profound. I actually saw Lysa a few years ago on the Oprah show. They did a story about her community. Lysa had gone to see a Liberian boys choir sing at a nearby church with her 3 little girls. During the concert she heard God speaking to her "Two of those boys are yours." Her response was, "Yeah right, I don't think so." To make a beautiful long story short, she did adopt 2 of those boys and her friends adopted the rest of the choir and so far 45 children have been adopted from the same orphanage in Liberia. It's amazing because obviously these children are black and have been adopted into white families, it didn't matter. I encourage you to go watch the segment of the Oprah show on her website www.LysaTerKeurst.com
One of the things she said has me really thinking. She said that she could have told God "no" that day he talked to her about her boys. She could have told him no and no one but her and God would have ever known. However, she would have missed out on the tremendous blessings God had planned for her. Instead, she said "Yes!" Is there somewhere in your life where you need to say "Yes" to God?