So how many people do you know what think to themselves . . . instead of living in this big fancy house w/ 3000 plus square feet and all beautiful curb appeal. . . lets not. How much is a fancy house worth? To many Americans it is something they work really hard to achieve. Jeff and I decided to build our big fancy house three and a half years ago. Neither of us were Christians and we thought that this was just something that everyone did. You know the "American dream" Get married have kids, build the largest house you can possibly afford, buy a couple of new cars, a pool, a dog, a big mortgage. . . We were just going along with the "spend all the money you can so that you are happy" mantra.
Well two years ago something happen to Jeff and me. We became Christians. All of a sudden things seemed different. The things we had valued so much before seemed kinda silly. We really started to notice that the most important things were our faith and our family. The shell they were in was something that really was not all that special.
We started thinking about "Down sizing" about a year ago. We thought about our house mostly. We love it it is our "baby" we built it and picked out everything in ever room. I started thinking how we could be just as happy in something smaller, more modest, with less square feet and less of a payment. I started talking to Jeff about it in March. We started praying about it, and started to feel like this was really something God wanted us to do. SO in June we listed our house. We really had no idea if we could even sell in this horrible market, and in a new subdivision where you can just build your own house down the street for less then what you could buy ours. We told God that if this was really his will that it was all up to him to find the people for our house and a new house for us. Well he found them. Pretty quickly too, we had our house for sale for 4oish days or so. Now we will see if this house we have picked out will be it for us probably for a LONG time. (We HATE moving.) And guess what we get a pool! Please pray that God will keep working out the details for us, and that we will be patent with his timing. We will miss our home, but home is where your family lives I know that is really cheesy but it's true.

Get back into the blog of things. . .

Hey everyone who still comes here to check this, I am so sorry for the crazy long time of no posting. I thought I would at least post some pictures of the kids so you can know what they look like now. Life is so crazy lately. We are moving on September 6th. I will follow with more up dates and some pictures of the new house. Hope all of you are well!

My baby is 6!! man time flys!
Ethan is 3! What a big boy!

Sophia is 11months!

March was a very fun month some her are some Highlights:

Ethan and the great "Poop-fest"!. . . I need not explain.

Sophia continued to get huge she weighed in at 18 pounds 9 ounces at her 6 month appointment. She is so sweet and chubby! She LOVES Hali. If Hali is in the room she will not even eat, she just turns and giggles at Hali.

I feel like it has been WAY too long since I last posted something so here is what has been going on at the Iliff house. . .
In February after valentines day. . .
Hali had a piece of art work at "The Box Factory" for a week. This was a real big deal to me because I think that she is such a great little artist and there were only 5 pieces from the kindergarten classes at Roosevelt that were displayed there.

The picture called "Cave Painting" was suppose to be like those old pictures on the wall of caves. Yeah! HALI!!!

Sophia got a taste of something over then milk, these are some of the first pix she has gotten MUCH better now doesn't really even need a bib. . .

Ethan kept up with his boy thing of being naughty and getting time outs. . .

Here he has done his "Makeup" like "Moms" With Markers!! Very cute little naughty boy.
Stay tuned for updates from March and April!

Well last year I got really ambitious. It was because of a friend of mine who loves to stamp. I recently read on her blog that she stamped all of her kids cards this year too. Well I was a little lazy this year and I didn't have all of her "Valentine" stamps to borrow because she moved away. So here are my kids doing theirs.

Hali, bless her heart, took about 2 hours to hand write ever name, her name and a heart, and picking the "perfect" sticker for each card. She would screw up a letter and have to start ALL over. She is very hard on herself. Luckily there was 36 cards and she only needed 21. When we picked out her Hello kitty cards Ethan was there and he HAD to have some of his own. Even though he is not in school he has to do everything that Hali does. He got some Cars cards and adorably scribbled on each of them the whole time Hali was writing hers. I swear the only time he has any attention span is when he is trying to be just like his big sister. Anyway they were very cute here are some pictures. Happy Valentines Day to all of you!

Well I bet you may wonder why it has been so long since I have updated this thing. Well it is simple really and to sum it up with two words: RSV and Roto-Virus. Notice I colored the last word brown. I did this to illustrate what the word really represents. Here is a quick update if you are unclear of what both of these illnesses are.

RSV: This is a virus that presents itself as a very runny nose & cough. The mucus is much more sticky then most other common colds and most people will get this and never know it. I just takes a little longer to get over so it may turn into other things. The only people who seem to get very sick with this are baby's under one year old, or kids who have had it before (when they were baby's). They cough almost uncontrollably, to the point that their hands and feet or lips may even turn blue. They have a "wheeze" when they breath out. Their breath seems to be very labored and quick. You can also see their ribs raise and their tummy's suck in with every breath. It is a pretty scary thing. For more info on this check out this link: http://www.healthline.com/search?q1=rsv&utm_source=serp2&utm_medium=google&utm_campaign=serp&utm_term=rsv

Roto-Virus: This is another fun one. Lets just call it a very stinky long lasting version of the stomach flu. Again adults and older kids may get it and though up once, then with some smelly diarrhea for a day or so, then be fine. Younger (over one and under three) or smaller kids seem to get this one pretty bad. I have read that it can last 1-10 days "on the average". This not as scary as RSV but DEFINITELY more messy. For more info on this check out this link: http://babyparenting.about.com:80/cs/healthissues/f/rotovirus.htm
Also I though I would mention how I clean up the ""messys"", because most people I know do not know about this product and it works REALLY GREAT. It is called Simple Solution. You can find it at Pet food stores. There are no other Carpet cleaning products that I think work as well. Here is a link about it: http://www.bramton.com/products_us/stain&odor.htm

Well now Sophia had RSV and Ethan has Roto-virus. Sophia was in the hospital for 3 days last week. They had her hanging out in an oxygen tent. I stayed with her the whole time, it was very boring, but I got to take a lot of naps.
We got home from the hospital last week Friday and that was when Ethan first vomited. He was really bad until Monday, when he woke up and "wanted waffles!" Well He had a huge breakfast and a smallish lunch but by dinner he was cranky tired and didn't want to eat. He went to bed and an hour later we had to change the sheets and the covers and the pillows and even the stuffed animals. It has been almost exactly that way all week. Except last night when he tried to make it to the bathroom. I joked with Jeff "At least we don't have to change his bed!" Jeff didn't think it was that funny. Neither did I.
So we will be calling the carpet cleaner with our income tax refund, and paying Hospital and Doctor bills.
Oh Yeah you might have heard on the news about "The Blizzard of 2007". It is all true two feet of snow sit on the ground everywhere that it hasn't drifted into four feet.
Well happy winter Everyone!

Ethan's "big boy pants". "Look at my muscles!"

Ethan and Sophia. Ethan loves to play with her "bug mat".

OK so we got our new camera FINALLY. We love it, and now we can

put recent pictures of the kids up again. So here are some of the latest.

So sweet, So cute, SOPHIA ... Hali is so smart she writes really well.