Taking a step forward... Progress not perfection!

Pine Wood Derby...Vroom...Vroom...

2011-03-09T15:08:00.001-08:00

Nick picked a race car design. Greg went to work with the coping saw. It was a little more difficult that we originally thought, but we made it work. Lot's of sanding...
Then Nick picked a paint design that he wanted. I think it turned out great!
The derby was Friday, March 4th. The pack served pizza, salad, and drinks.
William spent the whole night driving around with his car... He had a good time!
Line up for one of the races. Nick raced two times for placing. He received second, and a fourth.
Watching the race closely to see if he was going to win. It's a little disappointing to see your kids upset when they don't win.
Nick and his participation ribbon. He's all smiles now...
Our den's Cars... I think everyone did a great job!
Den 1 Boys and their cars...

Nick Playing Basketball

2011-01-08T21:17:00.000-08:00

This was Nicholas' first year playing basketball. He played through Bethel Recreation.

His coach had prior experience in coaching witch is always a plus... He helped the kids learn and progress a lot in the short season. It was a whole month... We had two practices and 6 games.
The team making silly faces on picture day!
I was surprised how well he dribbled considering we've never actually played except in the driveway. Through out the season he made 3 baskets. The team in action...

Caught a decent picture as he was coming off the court for half-time...

Playing defense... It took him a few games to catch on, but he eventually got it.
And offense... He was good at getting open and wanting others to pass. However, when he had the ball there was no way he was going to pass. He was going for the shot. It made it a little easier because first graders weren't allowed to steal the ball except when passing.

It's Starting to Feel Like Christmas!

2010-12-11T19:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas Crafts Are on Their Way...

We went to the Twiddy's house on Tuesday to make GINGER BREAD HOUSES. It was a lot of fun. I think William had the most yard decorations....Oh, no a Christmas Hoarder! I'm in trouble now!!
I was amazed at how much fun Hailey had... I didn't think that she would really be that interested, but boy was I wrong! She wanted to put every piece of candy that was in her bowl on her house or in the yard.
I didn't have my camera with me, so I had to result to my camera phone which takes horrible pictures. Any movement....And you will end up with a Blurry Picture. Hmmm....I did manage to get a few that weren't too blurry. Nicholas Did his after school a few days later...I wasn't going to get away with the little kids doing something fun with out him getting to do it too... Thanks Ladies! I had a great time too getting to spend time with my friends! The kids seemed to get a long pretty well and stayed out of trouble until they decided to jump on the bed...

Its off to the pumpkin patch we go...

2010-11-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

How Could We Not Do The Wallup in Puyallup?

2010-11-02T21:43:00.001-07:00

In one of the exhibit halls this year they had leather working that the kids could try. They each made a leather patch. Nick picked a wolf and William picked a monster truck of coarse. It's fun to see all of the collections and talent that people have. One of my favorite exhibit halls is where the photography is, but we didn't go through this year.
There was a really cool Astronomy collection. If we didn't have three kids I think I would have taken a little more time to look. They had a large telescope that the kids looked in; when they looked inside they saw themselves. The owner of the collection said something like who is that monster? Making a joke of sorts when the kids looked in.
We didn't eat lunch as we had planned on eating all the yummy fair food. This year we had corn on the cob..........smothered in butter. Mmmm.... Ice cream and candy apples among other things.
We bought tickets for the kids. The boys each picked two rides and Hailey wasn't really big enough to ride, but they let me(I didn't even have to pay for it). That made me smile... I didn't want to have to deal with a toddler who wanted to ride, but couldn't. Nick choose to do the Big Slide and a Roller coaser...That's my boy! I love roller coasters and I can't wait until he is big enough to ride with me.
William chose the cars and an air-plain ride that went up and down.
All in all we had a pretty good day.
Nick was being a good brother and made sure that Hailey stayed out of trouble when she wasn't in the stroller. I thought this was just too cute not to post. She wanted to walk most of the way. William on the other hand, we practically had to force him to walk. I think we kept him in the double stroller a little too long and it made him lazy.
Hailey was all smiles...
We also saw giant pumpkin carvings...Amazing art! I'm curious what they carved these 2 ton pumpkins with...

Back to School...1st Grade!

2010-11-02T21:23:00.000-07:00

On the first day of school Nick was anxious to get out the door to the bus...He was super excited about going to first grade. At the end of kindergarden he said"three months until first grade, I can handle that." He handled it alright. Now he talks about second grade and he isn't even a quarter of the way through 1st grade.

Nicholas with some of his friends Dylan and Kden on the first day waiting for the bus to come.
Nick rode the bus to school, but I followed to walk him to his classroom. After all it was the first day of real school... I know he didn't need me to. It is more apparent everyday how independent he really is. I just wanted to share that day with him. I'm having a hard time letting go. So is William...But it is so cute how both Hailey and William want to go to the bus stop to get Nick. Sometimes they are reminding me before it is even time to head out the door.

Eat those greens...

2010-11-02T20:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the goodies that came out of our garden this year. We also had strawberries although not too many this year. We also had pea snaps...But they disappeared as fast as they were ready! Those are my favorite!! I was kind of disappointed that we didn't have more because it looked like we were going to have way too many. I think we had six full squares full... We attempted cauliflower, green beans, bell peppers, pumpkins, watermelon, corn and a few others. Early on we had a frost that wiped out some of the plants. We had to replant... Then we had a bad case of slugs. We didn't know that we had them for quite some time. We just thought the new plants weren't growing. One night after dark we headed out with a flash light and a container of salt... We took them by surprise! I thought we had a few here or there, but when the light hit they were everywhere. It was kind of fun... I felt like I was defending our garden against evil forces. Ha, ha. Kind of corney I know... We hit them with the salt and the top layer of skin seemed to melt off and you could see a slimy substance left behind. Part of me felt sad that we were killing these things, but they were sabotaging our veggies...

Visitors...A picnic @ KOA in Kent

2010-06-29T23:32:00.001-07:00

Wednesday night we were getting ready to go camping... There was an unheard message on Greg's phone. We listened to it, and it said that Grandpa Smith was going to be in town the next day @ the KOA in Kent and that they were going to eat a dinner. Some of the cousins and a few of his nieces would be there. So, we postponed our camping trip until after the 4th... Which was a good thing because we were able to scope out our campsite instead of booking online blindly.

It was really great to get to see everyone... The dinner was great! Hamburgers grilled to perfection! Unfortunately the hot dogs were too frozen to even begin to grill... They tried to break them apart, but they were just to solid. We had pasta salad, chips and dip, salad, brownies, and few others. I think the funniest part of the whole night was when the picnic table almost tipped over on us...
There were three of us sitting on one side and one person on the other... The ground must have been somewhat uneven because when the one person got up, the whole table started to flip... I think I screamed louder than anyone (which was kind of embarrassing). We all grabbed on to the table and someone sat on the other side again... Disaster averted!
The kids had a great time playing at the park. They had a giant checkers and chess board. The boys made up their own version of the game. Of coarse Nicholas always seemed to be the winner...Occasionally he would let William knock out one of his pieces. Hailey's favorite part was swinging and playing in the dirt.
It was really great to get to know some of the cousins a little better. We plan on getting together soon. Especially, since they live a lot closer than we thought. They live right across the street from one of our favorite summer spots... Gene Coulon Beach.
William seemed to take to abby quite well...

Boogaboo!!

2010-06-29T23:20:00.001-07:00

Kindergarden Graduation

2010-06-26T20:39:00.001-07:00

A surprise treat to ride in for graduation... Our neighbor Logan drove 10 kids to and from the graduation. All the kids looking great in their little suits and dresses.

We were all standing around waiting for the kindergardner graduates to finish getting ready... One of the dad's said, "I'm just worried about Nick! He's already asking the girls how he looks in his clothes." I had to laugh at that... It was exciting watching the kids get ready for graduation. They were so excited to get to ride in a limo! Some of the parents were talking about how this was an early picture of what prom was going to be like. I didn't want to think about that... That is still so far away!
Inside the limo... They had a blast with all their friends laughing and making lots of noise. Nick said the best part of riding in the limo was... getting to listen to music.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture during the graduation. It was in the gym and the lighting wasn't that great. It was a great program. They sang a few songs. My favorite was the kindergarden song... I tried to have Nick recite it for me later, but he said he didn't remember all of it.
Here is a few of his friends... Dylan, Tera, and Riley. This was his classroom and his assigned seat through out the year.
This was his wonderful teacher Mrs.Udstuen. She did a great job with all the kids this year. She also did a great job with the graduation program. Congratulations Nicholas!! You will soon be a first grader... His words "Only three months until first grade...I can handle that!"

Tulip Festival

2010-04-25T21:28:00.001-07:00

Easter Eggs

2010-04-04T03:54:00.000-07:00

We dyed Easter Eggs with the Mackenroth's this year. It was a last minute get together, but it turned out pretty well. It also turned into a game night. Which I won one of the games... That doesn't happen very often due to the fact that we have a regular winner at just about every game we play... Adam seems to have mastered every game we play. The kids had a great time dying eggs and having snacks.

Look Who's 1!

2009-12-30T05:28:00.001-08:00

Today my baby girl turns one... I can't believe that it has already been a year since she joined our family. I don't really remember life with out her. Hailey brings so much joy to our lives... and now she is starting to be a little bit of trouble like her older brother. Not naming any names...William! She really is a piece of heaven and I don't know what I would do with out her.

The Tree Is Up

2009-12-03T10:17:00.000-08:00

Since Nick has morning kindergarden his whole stop is kidergardeners. It was really cute to watch the heard of little reindeer come off the bus. They were all wearing their hats they made in Mrs.Udsteun's class. His first question off the bus was do we get to decorate the tree yet? Unfortunately he had to wait until daddy and Hailey were up from their nap, but then it was finally time. He wore it most of the time while decorating.

It's probably no surprise to anyone that we put a tree every year... But I thought I would blog about it more for the family memories than for our readers. Nicholas has been so excited about getting the decorations up this year. We usually put them up the day after Thanksgiving, which I've decided isn't really the best day to do it since I am one of those SHOPPERS... I love to hit the sales. This year I was able to get a few things for the house like a fireplace, and breakfast bar. Which by the way I am really excited about. We will have a warm cozy (electric) fireplace we can curl up in front of on those cold winter days. Which the past few days we have woke up to a thick layer of frost on everything you can see with the naked eye. BRRR!

I have set a new date for decorating the tree... December 1st. It's a good day to get things started for the holidays. We did manage to get some of the other decorating done in the house previously, but that was the BIG day for decorating. The kids all enjoyed themselves. We decorated two tress. A miniture version for the loft and the one in the livingroom, where santa will most likely visit. Although SANTA still can't come down the chimney... or crawl out of the fireplace. But we will definately leave some cookies for the good man. SANTA do you have any requests?

I only had to move a few, since I am some what of a perfectionist... I am working on that. No, I am not perfect by anymeans, but I have a hard time when things don't look quite right. Although it was perfect with out me moving anything since the kids decorated it! I didn't move any on the one in the loft though... It was all the kids.

They worked together and not too much bickering occured. Now we have only a few finishing touches which we will post about later.

Hailey tried her hardest to hang those ordaments, but they just wouldn't stay...

Request for Blog Updates Has Been Received and Answered!!

2009-12-02T13:06:00.000-08:00

THANKSGIVING... Another first for Hailey! It was a busy day... As I rushed to get cooking and table decorations finished by 2:00p.m. I started to panic! Are Holidays always this stressful? As it grew closer and closer to 2:00p.m. I could feel my adrenaline kick in... My saving Grace was my wonderful husband, who stepped in to help me with the last minute things that needed to be taken over to the neighbors. He didn't get much sleep as he worked the night before and eating at 2:00p.m. didn't allow him much time to sleep. Thanks Hun, for your help. We traveled far this year... Two doors down to our friends the Mackenroth's. It was a Great time, once I realized that the rest of the day would be relatively stress free.

Birthday Trick or Treat!

2009-10-31T18:33:00.000-07:00

My mom decided to spend her Birthday with us this year... Which also happens to be Halloween! It was a pretty packed day of getting costumes ready, shopping, trick or treating, and rollerskating. We were attempting to get as much in a weekend as one possibly can. But I wanted to make sure to include something special for her Birthday, after all she chose to spend it with us. So we headed to the spa... It wasn't actually on her birthday since the 31st was especially busy, but on her last day here before flying out we went to breakfast and had facials.

I had a great time, but realized that getting a facial was over rated... especially for the price! For those of you who know me well know that I am fairly money concious and don't like to spend money on things that I can't re-use, re-sell, or are of poor quality. I like getting a great deal, which we did... but would I do it again? Not so sure... My face felt a little on the oily side and I felt like my face wasn't really clean. Weird since they spent a whole hour getting it cleaner. It was nice and somewhat relaxing. My favorite part was the foot soak and parafin wax dip on the hands, so I would say that I will most likely stick with manicures and pedicures for now. It was a fun experience with one of my favorite people... Yes, mom I am admitting that you are infact one of my favorites. I love you and hope that you had a great time with us. Next time we'll have to go for the massages...

Thank-you for being such a great mom and friend! I know that I haven't always shown it, but I appreciate you always being there for me. I'm glad that you are my mom.

2009-09-06T21:39:00.000-07:00

1St year of T-ball...

Getting Ready For School

2009-08-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

We went school shopping and bought the supplies on the list Nicholas needed for kindergarden. He was so excited that he wanted to sharpen all the pencils. It was so cute how excited he was. However, I don't feel ready to have a kindergardener.

4th of July

2009-08-13T22:55:00.000-07:00

This was our 2nd year celebrating the 4th of July in Auburn. We started by decorating Nicholas' bike and stroller for William. Hailey rode in the snuggly. I'm sure it was a sight to see... It's a lot of fun watching the kids getting so excited.
The kids wanted to go on the rides of coarse! They did the $5 bracelets again this year. I think that is a great price for the rides all day. They had mostly blowup slides and bounce house type rides. They had a petting zoo, but the kids didn't want to take part in that this year.

They did ride the barrel train... Which Hailey just enjoyed the sun and relaxed while the boys played. We were fortunate enough to see the Jantzen family and the Twiddy's. It's always great to see friends unexpectedly or planned.

This year the Macenroth's went with us... Shannon did a disappearing act and we couldn't find her. She had went to play Bingo, and then we were separated. It was fun trying to find eachother, at least until the kids started fussing. We decided to part ways and catch up later for dinner and fireworks.

We invited the Twiddy's and Macenroth's over for dinner. We had BBQ Ribs and chicken. The kids played outside. Adam and Shannon brought over their bounce house which was a great hit with the kids. Then we waited for it to get dark... It was great fun to be able to light fireworks off with out having to go anywhere. Our neighbors down the street had a great show too, we didn't even have to do our own they had so many.

Thanks for coming, we had a great time!

4 Month Milestones

2009-05-14T16:27:00.001-07:00

Hailey is growing fast... She weighs 14lbs 12 oz, and is 25 in long. She is still in the 75%. Dr. Grubb gave the okay for her to start eating babyfood/cereal. This was good news... We tried some just a few days later. She had winter squash for her first food. She did really well. She ate a little less than a quarter of the jar. Unfortunately she did get a little bit of a tummy ache, but it didn't stay around long. She started rolling from back to tummy in the middle of April. And her little wheels just keep turning. She is very aware and curios about everything around her.

Tulip Festival And...

2009-05-01T23:21:00.000-07:00

This past Tuesday we headed to Skagit County for the Tulip Festival. I heard the weather was supposed to be nasty and I almost cancelled the trip, but I had put so much effort in to packing everything and deciding where we would go on our day hike/picnic after we saw the Tulips, I just couldn't do it. I was also looking forward to getting some bulbs for the yard...

Just as before the Tulips were beautiful! All day I struggled to get a few good pictures. The boys were more interested in eating popcorn, and playing with the rocks than they were with the flowers. Boys will be boys, I guess. At the end they started to cooperate a little...

William would go stand by the flower and bend down like he was getting ready for us to take his picture. Of coarse we didn't take his picture everytime he did this. He also liked to touch the flowers. Although we were supposed to stay on the paths, no one was.

Hailey even seemed to enjoy herself, at least as much as a baby can. A few times, I thought we were going to have to pack it in early, but we made it through. We browsed the gift shops, hunted for the bulbs we wanted, but in the end came out empty handed. At least in the sense of bulbs.

Nicholas' favorite part was the Purple Tulips. Don't ask why? Cuz I don't know. He fought me with the pictures, but at the end of the day he said, "That was so much fun!" We visited the same place we did last year with the Highfields. "Tulip Town" has over 66 varieties of tulips and even more other bulbs as well. It was fun, but not as fun as it was with the Highfields. We rode the tractor this year which both the boys enjoyed. It was pretty bumpy! Next time we go, we will hopefully have some friends to go along with us. I think we may skip a few years before we go again, after all they are just Tulips... But if you have never gone, it is a fun day trip and a beautiful view.

As I said a little bit ago the boys started to cooperate, and I got some great pictures only... We had a corrupted card from china and it deleted them. This was after we were already in the car and ready to go I realized this. I made the kids get back out and we did a shortened version of the photos. The pictures didn't turn out as cute, but at least we were able to get a few. I'm glad the kids were such great sports.

Then we headed off to a picnic. I had originally planned to hike down on the deception pass, but decided we were to hungry to wait. So we found a small state park thanks to GARMIN, and we had ourselves a little picnic.

The birds kept flying above the table. They were starting to get a little close for comfort. I didn't want them to dive for our food or poo on us, so I threw some crackers away from the table...

They all swooped down at the same time and all I could here was Flapping. And then a few fights, you know where nature says who eats and who doesn't. Then I knew our food was safe, at least for a few minutes.

Whenever I felt like they were starting to fly too close I would toss a couple more crackers...Then the boys started throwing their crackers. Oops! I didn't even think about how I was setting a bad example. I just wanted our food to be safe. We then decided that we shouldn't feed the birds anymore. And Nicholas kept sneeking crackers to throw to them.

It was quite exciting to watch, but a little scary too. Here are some of the birds flying down for the crackers.

After our picnic, we met up with my cousin Katie. She is stationed at Whidbey Island. It was her birthday and we wanted to take her out. Unfortunately, she is on a diet because she has weigh in's this next Monday for her Physical Fitness test. So we just went for Desert. We had Ice Cream and she had a fruit and yogart parfait.

Then we headed home. A long day full of fun and the boys fell asleep on the way...

Really Late, but Posted... Easter

2009-05-01T22:29:00.000-07:00

We visited the Easter Bunny at the Old Canery Furniture store. They had a straw easter egg hunt, a petting zoo, and a train ride. The store itself was pretty fun too. It had trains running on tracks across the ceiling, a big train set in the kids area, a fudge shope, and other fun little displays. My favorite the free pin ball machine... Not bad for a furniture store event.

Hailey and her first easter bunny.

Brothers showing their love for eachother. Notice the carrot egg in Nick's hand... He couldn't let go even for a minute.

Easter breakfast! Yumm!

Grandma and Grandpa Smith came to visit (Greg's parents). It was nice to have them here for Easter. We were glad to share this special time of year with them.

Easter was a great celebration! We celebrated with friends and family. We had our easter dinner on Saturday as well as a Glow in the dark easter egg hunt. With a combined effort of The Macenroths, and ourselves we had a yummy dinner with a easter pie, creme corn (thanks Julie-this is my most favorite holiday food), fancy potatoes, and home made rolls. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you don't really need to know everything we ate... It was also our first meal at our new dinning room table which was special to us. Those of you who know us know that our table for the past few years our table has been a card table (a nice wood one, but still). It was perfect for the apartment because I could fold it down to have room for the kids to play when we weren't eating... Thankfully those days are over!

Feels Like SuMmEr!

2009-04-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

Last week it reached a whopping 75 degrees. I set the sprinkler out to water the lawn and the boys decided it would be a good time to play in the water. At first I didn't want them playing in it.

William thought it would be a good idea to run around in his diaper. He watched his brother closely as he ran through the sprinkler. He was a little nervous at first, but became more confident and comfortable with the water each time he passed through.

It was fun to watch them enjoying the water and our backyard. Nick started it all. I moved the sprinkler and Nick thought it would be a good idea to run just around the boarder of where the spray was. Then he slowly got closer and closer until he was actually running straight into the water. What a kid!

They played in the water for about a half an hour... The funny thing is about ten minutes after they stopped playing the sun went behind the clouds and rain started to come down. They got their sunshine for the day.

Signs of Spring!

2009-04-15T20:07:00.000-07:00

To celebrate spring and the nice weather, we took a trip to Sumner to watch the Daffodile Parade.

This is the 76th year of the daffodile festival. It is a week long celebration. I was glad to get the kids out. I attempted this outing myself with the three kids. It actually went rather well.

We found a parking spot a half a block from the start of the parade. I thought it would be good to find a spot near the begining of the parade so that we could get out with out a large traffic jam. It turned out to be a great plan...

It was fun to see all the creative floats covered with daffodiles. I didn't get very many pictures of the floats because people kept walking in front of us right as I was getting ready to take a picture. I guess people just don't think that walking in front of little kids during a parade is rude... I am always concious of the people around me, it is strange to me that some people don't. Over all the outing was great. The kids enjoyed the parade and lasted about an hour before they were ready to go. So we slipped away quitely and with out a crowd or traffic jam.

Lucky Day...

2009-03-17T18:38:00.000-07:00

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

For St. Patricks day this year I thought I would do something fun... We had green pancakes for breakfast and kept with the green theme through out the day!

The boys had a scavenger hunt for a pot of gold! It was fun to watch the kids when they saw what we had done for them. We wanted to let them know how lucky we are to have them in our family... One of my memories from elementary school was that every St.Patricks day we would search the play fields for four leaf clovers made of paper. We would turn them in for a peppermint patty to one of the recess teachers.

We had some friends over for some board games and had some yummy green snacks! We hope you all had a great day.

Definately 2!

2009-03-15T16:19:00.000-07:00

On the day William turned 2, you would think he knew... The attitude began. My sweet William turned into a little wild child! Yes, I admit he has always been a little on the wild side, but ever since he turned two, he has been more demanding and has learned to tell me no! He listens a little less and knows what he wants... I tried to get him dressed the other day, and he didn't want the shirt I was trying to put on him. I thought to myself "you are too young to act like this! I could expect it from Nick but not my William... " Needless to say, I wasn't in the mood to fight and I let him pick out a shirt that he wanted. Although he has shown a little more attitude, we love him very much and enjoy watching him grow and how he makes us laugh. He is a funny boy!
William is facinated with Spongebob...So we had a Spongebob theme birthday. Greg had to work on William's birthday so we decided to have his party this past Friday instead of on his birthday.

We went to Chucky Cheese... Arriving around 10:00a.m. just after opening. It was the perfect time to go. We were the only ones there for quite a while. I thought this would be a good time to go since the older kids are still in school.

The Twiddy's, and the Macenroth's joined us for the celebration.

William enjoyed himself mostly on the rides rather than the games, but he did find one he really liked...

William's favorite game was CHUCKY'S DUCKIES. He kept asking for 1 more about 20 times. It was fun to watch him concentrate on the game. He actually became pretty good at timing the ducks and when to hit them down.

My little birthday boy. Eating Pizza... One of his favorite activities. If there is food he will come running... Luckily his big brother keeps him busy running around.

Even the grown ups had fun!

William asking for just one more token...

The joy of a Chucky's token...Enough said!

Children's Museum Tacoma

2009-03-09T13:25:00.000-07:00

Once a month, the Children's Museum in Tacoma has a free day. This is a great program. On the first Friday of the month it is free all day long. They have different companies sponsor the free Friday each month. I didn't realize at the time, but it happen to fall on William's Birthday. Although we haven't officially celebrated his birthday, we still did something fun...And it was free.

Some of our new friends from our neighborhood joined us. It was great to have some friends along with us.

Best Deal Ever...Free, Free, Free!

2009-03-05T21:09:00.000-08:00

So unfortunately not all of you will benefit from this, but I thought I would share. We have been playing the grocery game. I thought about the concepts that are shared on this websight and started to look at things outside of just the grocery coupons. I found a coupon for a free $30 gift card just for transfering my medication. So, if you have medications many stores are willing to give you gift cards to transfer it to them. I wouldn't have taken advantage of this if it wasn't somewhere where we don't shop, however since we shop at Safeway quite often I thought I would try it. This is what I purchased...

She's slowed down a little...

2009-03-02T17:04:00.000-08:00

2 Months Old!

My guess was 12lbs, so I wasn't much off. She wieghed 11 lbs 12 oz. She was 23 in long. This was slightly good news to me that she wasn't growing so fast. Please don't judge me... I think we are done so she will probably be my last and I want the smallnes to last as long as possible. Only two shots this time and no big brother to watch her pain. I think I will try to find a sitter for her apointments if she has to get shots again. That was really something Nicholas didn't enjoy watching.

She is now in the 75%. That is 25% less than last month. But she is very healthy and Dr.Grub said that she has very strong muscles and her neurological developement is great!

What to Do?

2009-02-27T09:33:00.001-08:00

As many of you know I was an apartment manager for some time... Well today, my litte man William provided me with a flash back. Occasionally we allow the boys to play in the tub. The rules are no splashing or dumping water (outside the tub). When mommy says to turn off the water, it stays off! Unfortunately the rules were not followed today... I check in on them every few minutes to make sure that the water isn't on, that they are not dumping water or making a huge mess. I usually take this time to do a load of laundry fold and put away. This time, I happened to be doing a few things up and down the stairs. So there was my first mistake... I will never again be conducting things that need to be down stairs while they are in the tub. I kept checking to see if I could here water (I can usually hear it if they try to turn it back on) and voices to make sure they were okay.

So in less than 10 minutes there was enough water on the floor do do this damage to the kitchen light. As Nicholas came running down stairs saying "Mom, William has way to much, much water." I was thinking okay, he turned the water on and I didn't hear it. No big deal. So I happened to be in the office at this time. I walked around the corner in the kitchen and water came streaming down.... I took off running up the stairs to see what had happened. My first thought was the water was on and it was overflowing the tub. Not what happened. I have this pouring jug I use to wash their hair (it has one soft side to prevent water from getting in their eyes if pressed against their forehead). He had been pouring the water over, and it must have been slowly because I was checking every few minutes to see if I heard water or splashing and voices. I didn't hear it, not one time. Lesson learned on my part. I thought I was done dealing with water damage at least for a few years... LOL. We grabbed almost every towel we own to get all the water cleaned up both upstairs and down. I put a fan out to dry it up, and Greg removed the light fixture so it could air out. We got the water up fast enough there wasn't a whole lot of damage, but frusterating none the less.

To the Zoo We Go

2009-02-22T11:13:00.000-08:00

This past friday we ventured to the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma. We went with some of our friends form our old neighborhood. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to handle three kids, but I had lots of help. We borrowed a two seat stroller from Danielle which we used to put William and Logan in. And that freed me up to put Hailey in her stroller. We also brought the monkey teather so we were set... Sunny had the three little boys on a tight leash.

Nick swinging like a monkey. Which he kept calling me the whole way through the zoo...

Hailey fast a sleep, which she was pretty much to whole time except at lunch time. She couldn't miss that now could she. We ate on the patch of grass outside the aquarium. We packed sandwiches, carrots, and rice crispie squares. Katie spoiled us and had chocolate chip cookies. Yum! It was fun to eat a picnic lunch with our friends and to enjoy the nice weather.

Here are all of the little monkeys watching the fish in the aquarium.

William at one of the monkey exhibits. It was fun to watch William and his excitment for the animals.

Nick and Cooper right before it was time to go home. Thanks for inviting us. It was great fun!

6 of 6: Tagged by Sunny

2009-02-22T09:41:00.000-08:00

Rules:1. go to the document/ my pictures site on your computer2. go to your sixth file3. go to your sixth picture4. blog about it5. tag 6 peopleOkay, so since we have two computers and I was tagged twice I thought it would be fun to see what was on the other one. So I completed both tags. This picture is from Nicholas' 4th Birthday. We were getting ready to paint drums made from ice cream tubs. The kids look like they were enjoying themselves. I can't believe it has been another year since this. Thanks again Julie for letting me borrow your house.

I tag Gina, Annikan, Tammy, Bree, Jennie M., and Allison.

6 of 6:Tagged by Emily

2009-02-22T00:16:00.000-08:00

Rules:
1. go to the document/ my pictures site on your computer
2. go to your sixth file
3. go to your sixth picture
4. blog about it
5. tag 6 people

I don't know if this counts since I'm not on my computer for this post...Shhh don't tell Greg. I was tagged.

This happen to be an ebay file. We have been selling unwanted or un-needed items that have been laying around our house. I think this one is of a video game or something (not quite sure since this is one of Greg's items). Well, I was going to save this for another post, but the great thing about our e-bay sales is we were able to pay for our new camera by all of our sales. Which so far is about $400. So in actuality we still have $200 to go, but I still have a large stack of stuff to be listed. Not to mention the craigslist items. Whoo!

I tag Lisa, Trinity, Dacia, Adrianne, Jennifer, and Melanie.

Camp Sick-Bay

2009-02-16T00:09:00.001-08:00

A case of the thought so's occurred in our house this weekend. On Wednesday Night, William woke up at 2:30a.m. I thought it was because he has been teething (with at least four teeth coming in that I know of). I let him get up with me and we watched a Spongebob and then I went and laid him back in bed. He went right to sleep. At around the same time the next night... William woke up again. Only it wasn't because he was teething. Nicholas was yelling that "Mom, William threw up all over my bed!" He was concerned about his brother, and was telling him to stay there until mommy comes. So needless to say, I started the washer and started the many loads of sick laundry we would have. This is the first time William has been sick. It's never fun to have sick kids little loan be sick yourself. Well, unfortunately Nick was next to get sick, then me, and then Greg. Hailey is the only one so far who hasn't been sick. Cross your fingers she won't get sick. We set up a sickbay upstairs in the loft, close to the bathroom and we watched VHS movies on the kids little TV. The kids handled being sick pretty well. There wasn't to much crying or fussing. This made it a little easier to take care of them and ourselves. Thank-goodness for small blessings.

HOPPY VALENTINES DAY!

2009-02-14T00:01:00.000-08:00

We love you, hope you all have a Happy Valentines Day!

Hailey, Hailey, Hailey

2009-02-13T10:51:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to organize and declutter the house and while doing so, I had an idea... I had been given a frame as a shower gift. It didn't quite go with Hailey's room, so I got creative. I did a photo shoot with Hailey. Then I used some paper that I had laying around, that goes with Hailey's room. Here is the result.

A FEW FACTS ABOUT HAILEY

1. She's fussy about a dirty diaper, so far using over 200.

2. She likes the swing if she's fed and diapered.

3. Loves to cuddle!

4. Her brothers adore her,

5. And Mommy & Daddy can't get enough of her.

1 Month Old!

2009-01-30T16:01:00.000-08:00

Today Hailey had her 1 month check up with Dr. Grubb. Unfortunately, she had to get a shot. She had to get her second Hep B shot. As you can tell from above, she let out a loud cry. Nicholas covered his ears as she cried. I wish I could have done the same. It is so sad to have to listen to your children cry and not be able to do anything about it. I felt so helpless at that moment. I'm glad that we don't have to experience that very often. Hailey handled it pretty well and only cried a short time. She even got a pink army bandaid she was so tough!

Over all Hailey is healthy. The only small issue is she has a clogged eye duct which causes a yellow secretion in the corner of her right eye. Dr. Grubb messaged the corner of her eye and said that if we message the corner of her eye with a warm wet finger it should unclog shortly. While Dr.Grubb was doing this, Nicholas took it upon himself to tell him that Hailey doesn't like that. He kept saying "no, no she doesn't like that." I had to explain to him that Dr.Grubb knew what he was doing because he was a doctor. He still didn't like the fact that Dr.Grubb was making her cry. Like her big brothers Hailey is going to be a BIG GIRL! She is in the 95% like both the boys were. Any guesses for her weight?

1 Month Stats: she weighs a wopping 9 lbs 12 oz. and is 22 1/4 in long.

I can't believe it! She is growing so fast...

Turning 5 With WALL-E

2009-01-28T21:26:00.000-08:00

This year Nicholas choose to have a Wall-e Birthday. Boy was this a hard one... We couldn't find Wall-e decorations anywhere. I usually have the decorations months in advance, and I did but for a different theme. Nicholas about a month ago told me that he no longer wanted to have a pirate party... I was frustrated, but will be able to use the decorations that we bought for our halloween party, since we have one every year. He couldn't tell me what he wanted his party to be only that he didn't want a pirate party. So about a week before his birthday, he finally decided. Only, I had a slight problem... I wasn't quite walking around much at that point. So in a panic my mom came to the rescue. We went to several stores looking for Wall-e decorations and such. I rode on the handicap carts and was pushed around in a wheel chair depending on which store we were at. The best we came up with was a Wall-e sheet set and a gift bag. We got creative and came up with some solutions. We used some of the pirate decorations and changed out the pictures with ones that were on the gift bag. Then we used the Big Wall-e picture as a pin the eyes on Wall-e. I used the internet to print off the eyes.

My mom ran all of the games. This was a relief to me. No matter how much planning and preparing I do, I usually stress out about how things are going to go. My cousin Katie also helped out alot. It was pretty stress free for me as I didn't do much other than invite people. This we did only a few days before the party. This only occured because I was planning to have it next month when things settled down a bit. Since my mom was here she said that we should go ahead and have a party and that she would help me.

Things went pretty smoothly. We played games, busted open a piniata, ate, and watched WALL-E. The kids all had a great time. It was great to finally meet some of the kids that Nicholas goes to pre-school with. Nicholas was excited to have friends over and that it was a WALL-E party.

Left On The Door Step

2009-01-28T20:49:00.001-08:00

Today we received a package from Grandma & Grandpa Carr. It had a really cute blanket made especially for Hailey. Grandma Carr has made a blanket for each one of the boys when they were born too. What wonderful presents. Such talent! We are very greatful for the time, effort, and love put into making these great blankets.

There was a little something for the boys too. They each received a truck and a package of skittles. Nicholas has been asking for a new monster truck for a while now. The one he got was one that we saw at the monster trucks just last week. He was very excited... Thanks Grandma & Grandpa Carr!

Daddy's Girl!

2009-01-28T15:30:00.000-08:00

The Last Night and First Outing

2009-01-28T11:29:00.001-08:00

Back in early December I purchased tickets to go to the zoo lights. To my dismay, the nights we planned to go were too cold and actually they closed the zoo. It was the week or two that we had the snow... I was starting to think that we wouldn't get to use the tickets. After all I really wasn't upto walking around the zoo after a c-section. On the last night of zoo lights (the 11th, which made it 10 days since Hailey was born) we thought about going to the zoo lights. I was feeling pretty good, but not good enough to huff it through the zoo... So what did we do?? We went anyways. My wonderful husband pushed me in a wheel chair! My mom pushed William and Nicholas walked like a big boy since he is now 5.

It was a great experience to walk through the paths of lights. It was fun to see all the different animals made of lights. This was our first time to zoo lights.

My mom (a.k.a grandma) spoiled us with hot chocolate and kettle corn. They didn't have any lids or straws so it made it a little difficult to continue without taking a short break. We stopped to drink the hot chocolate and the kettle corn.

The boys kept us entertained on our break with their cries for more hot chocolate and pop corn. After fighting over the bag, my mom had a brillian idea. When the hot chocolate was gone we filled their cups. Of coarse mommy and daddy helped to drink all the hot chocolate, after all they were pretty big cups.

Here we are at the beach at the aquarium all bundled up. Hailey was the most bundled of us all. Luckily we had a snowsuit to fit Hailey and a little hat to keep her warm and cozy. It was quite cold outside. She was also bundled under layers of blankets. It was nice to be out of the house as a family. Grandma kept the boys under control as I sat back and enjoyed the ride. I had it easy... Greg and Grandma did all the work. I'm sure that is going to change once I am on my own again.

My favorite part of the zoo is always the aquarium with the sharks. They are so intriguing. Nicholas' favorite part was also the aquarium. The jelly fish are also quite interesting. There weren't many other animals out. William was entertained with the goats at the petting zoo for a short time.

It was a great first family outing. I'm glad that my mom was here to help or we probably wouldn't have attended.

Grandma with all the kids.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!

2009-01-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

Grandpa, we just wanted to let you know that we love you. We hope you have a great day!

One Week Check Up

2009-01-06T20:21:00.000-08:00

Hailey had grown 3/4 of an inch making her 20 1/2 in. She had lost 9oz, which according to Dr. Grubb was an acceptable weight loss. She was a little yellow, but other than that he said she was healthy.

We Would like to Introduce Hailey Noelle...

2009-01-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

Here she is... 7 1bs 10 oz and 19 1/2 in long
More to Follow soon!

Our New Arrival!

2009-01-02T00:46:00.000-08:00

On the 29th of December we had our last check before we were to be enduced on the 30th. Unfortunately, we were given some bad news... The baby was breached and we were left with making a decision. We could try to flip the baby, with a 50% chance of success or we could have the c-section. After much thought and prayer, we decided to go ahead with the c-section.

We arrived at the hospital at 7:15 am and we waited... Dr.shope came to the room to see what we had decided about the flipping. We told him that we had decided to go ahead with the c-section. We waited a little longer as they prepped the room for the c-section. Right as the anestesiologist was getting ready to put the needle in for the spinal block he had to stop becuase they had to do an emergency c-section on another patient... This was actually good, because I was pretty stressed out when I saw all of the equipment in the c-section room. I then had time to think about what was actually going to happen. I needed that extra hour.

It was finally time. The spinal block worked great and the surgery went on. A few minutes later we had our baby girl. The nurses and doctors were great. It was a good experience and I am thankful to all that helped us while we were at the hospital.

My big belly before...

Daddy getting ready for the surgery

Waiting in the recovery room to go to our room

The boys came to visit their new little sister...

William, Grandma, and Hailey

Nicholas with Hailey

It's a White Christmas After All!

2008-12-25T22:39:00.000-08:00

It has become one of our many family traditions to do chocolate covered pretzels.

Nicholas was able to do it himself with out much help, but William on the other hand still needs mommy's hands to guide him.

Working together to get the pretzels done.

Nicholas proud of his work.

This year we were supposed to go to Elko for Christmas, but seeing as I was as huge as a house and very close to my due date, we opted out of the 16 hour drive. So we spent our first Christmas in our new house.

The boys were spoiled as usual, getting way too many gifts.

There were lots of games for learning, and even some just for fun.

Santa even brought a few that mommy wasn't too sure of, like the Nerf machine gun...
Daddy likes that one though.

THE NEW VEHICLE

2008-12-12T13:06:00.001-08:00

DODGE DURANGO: HEMI 5.7L SLT

So we have known for a while that we needed to get a vehicle with more seating for quite some time. We have put it off thinking that we have plenty of time... Well, the date of need was rapidly approaching and we felt that needed to stop talking about it and get it done.

We took the first step on Tuesday. We went to the bank and applied for pre-approval. It was a rather painless event. I thought it was going to be a little harder considering what it took to get pre-approved for our house. For the rest of the day, we researched the vehicles that we wanted to look at in person. After we made our list, we were ready to look.

I had an appointment in the morning with Dr.Shope at 9:00a.m. so we were planning to go out after that. Greg looked online to see where we should go. We went to Tacoma and looked around at some of the vehicles on our list. At the top were Honda Odessy and Toyota sienna. Although I never wanted to be a van mom, no offense to anyone who reads this who is. It's just not me. I had my mind made up. I was getting a van. At the first dealership, I realized that the features that I liked about the vans really weren't as appealing as I thought. Outside of the sliding doors, I would have had some of the same issues I was concerned about with getting an SUV. So we kept looking at some of the other vehicles we had on our list... Jeep Commander, Dodge Durango, Acadia, ect. We decided to drive a Dodge durango. It was right in the price range that we were looking for. It was a nice color and had most of the features we were looking for other than the leather seats and movie player... Then when we drove it, we decided that we really like the Durango, but not the one we drove. It SMELLED like WET DOG! Not a pleasant smell for anyone little loan a pregnant woman. The interior was more worn than a vehicle should be at four years old. So we passed on that particular vehicle. We went to another dealership where two of our friends had purchased their latest vehicles.

We pulled in and Julie called me asking what dealership we were at and she said don't talk to anyone accept Dan! At the time, he was with another customer and another sales man named Alex came to talk to us. At this point we weren't even really out of the car. I was on the phone, and Greg started talking to Alex. Meanwhile Bryce called the sales floor to have Dan come find us. It was kind of funny. Dan came out and we talked for a minute and then we went to look at the Durango's they had. They had starting with the 2004's. Which was a little bit older than we were looking for. We asked if they had anything else that was newer. Alex showed us two more and we decided to go on a test drive... This time, we found what we wanted. It had everything we were looking for as far as the options except for the interior outlet switch. We went to visit one of our friends who lived close by. I called my mom to see if she could get me the book on it, and we went from there. As you can see, we got it for the price we wanted and we are happy.

It has leather seats, sun roof, Movie player, heated seats, ect...

It seats eight and has lots of space. No more stress about bringing the baby home. We will have lots of room, and we'll even have a few extra seats.

SPUR OF THE MOMENT

2008-12-12T10:38:00.001-08:00

Friday morning when Greg got off of work he asked me if I wanted to go somewhere? I was expecting him to say that he found a Jeep that he wanted to go look at that was a few hours a way... I was surprisingly wrong. He wanted to go on a mini vacation to the Great Wolf Lodge. One of my friends told me about it awhile ago, but I thought that the prices were a little steep, so my initial reaction was not really. However, we looked at the prices and discovered that it was significantly less expensive than it had been during the summer months. The weekends are still more expensive, but if you go on a week night you can get a pretty good deal. So we decided to go. It is only about an hour south. When we arrived and nicholas was so excited...

We didn't get too many pictures of the lodge or the outside, but it is a really cool place. They have lots of activities, the only down side is you should expect to spend money if you do more than just the water park.

We stayed in the kids camp room. It had a wilderness bunk bed theme. It was really neat. It was like they had their own room inside of our room. We took our bags up to the room and decided to go on a little tour of the lodge. The first thing Nicholas said was "this is soo awsome!". He continued to say that as we walked to the different parts of the lodge. After taking the tour we decided to go to the water park.

William said "wow" when he saw the park. I was glad to see that William was excited too. They had lots of activies in the water park. Some for every age group. They had the kids play area which had kids skidoos that sprayed water, a slide and little adventure place, a wave pool, hot tub and water slides. There was just too much to describe how cool it was. The pictures do not do it justice. The bucket below that says Great Wolf Lodge fills up and dumps about every five minutes. It is really cool to watch and to get hit by the water. Nicholas was scared of it at first, but then he braved it with daddy and was fine after that.

Nicholas spent most of his time on the water slides. He went with daddy and by himself. He was just tall enough to go down with out help on most of the slides. There were a few slides that he wasn't able to go on though because he wasn't quite tall enough only by a few inches. Greg was even a little disappointed when he wasn't able to go down the big one that circles like a toilet flush. It was a double ride and Nick wasn't tall enough and in my condition, I couldn't go down the slides. Yet another reason I hesitated when Greg asked me if I wanted to go. I love waterslides! I almost had as much fun watching Nick run up the stairs and come down the slides. He always had a smile on his face and wanted me to give him a high five. He bonked his head a few times coming down the slides, but that still didn't slow him down. Total he went down the slides over a 100 times. Yes, I said a 100. Crazy kid!

William's favorite part was riding in the wave pool. I took him out in a tube and he laughed the whole time. I've never seen him so happy. Most of the time he has a serious demeanor to him much like myself.

After we were finished at the water park, we went to eat dinner at one of the restaurants in the lodge. If we ever go back, we are planning to take our own food. It was good, but a little pricey. The kids meal was served with a hugebucket of fries. I was surprised as it was more than what the adult plates had. Good thing we have boys with big appetites. Nicholas was so worn out that he fell asleep on my lap at dinner. I thought that William would do the same, but he was so wired and didn't go to sleep until 11:00p.m. very, very unusual for him. He is ususally asleep by 7:30-8:00p.m. I thought for a short time that we had made a mistake by not bringing the pack and play, but once he fell asleep, he was fine on the bottom bunk. What a big boy!

EARLY CHRISTMAS!

2008-12-06T21:17:00.000-08:00

We received a box of goodies from Greg's parents (aka Emitt Grandma & Grandpa). In the box were presents to go under the tree, and some pre-christmas goodies. We have enjoyed the yummy apple cider, reeces peanut butter cups (my favorite!), whoppers, cookies, and the blankets. The boys cuddled up in the blankets as soon as we pulled them out of the box. They both have used them daily since we received them. What a great gift! Thanks for the treats!

OUT OF TOWN COMPANY!

2008-12-06T20:31:00.000-08:00

Crystal and I have been friends since elementary school. She has always been a great friend, but it has been a few years since we have seen each other. I was delighted when she told me that she was going to be coming to town.

Thanksgiving weekend we had our first overnight guests. Crystal and her family visited from Calgary, Alberta. Her husband Jason is an AC/DC fan and they had tickets for the concert that was in Tacoma. We were able to spend two days with them. It was great fun! I am glad that they were able to come see us. We were especially excited to see Chloe who is only nine weeks old. We watched her while they went to the concert...

Nicholas was able to practice being a big brother again to Chloe. He loved holding her and liked looking at all of her tiny features. It also made him think about Hailey and how she was going to be soon. He is excited to be a big brother again really soon. William was really curious about her too. He wanted to lay on the play mat with her and liked to touch her little hands.

Thanks for coming to visit! We loved having you and hope to see you again soon... We're hoping some time in the spring!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULIE!

2008-11-02T18:39:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know, Julie is my best friend. We have been there for eachother through thick and thin literally... Today is her birthday and just wanted to let her know that even though she's a thousand miles away, she is still close to my heart. I wish I could have been there to take you out. Washington just isn't the same with out you. Love you and hope you had a great day!

Mysterious Gum Wrappers...

2008-11-01T13:51:00.000-07:00

So for the past week or so, I have found gum wrappers at the bottom of the sink. Dishes are a daily thing in our house most of the time more than once... I'm sure all of you other mom's know what I mean. Anyways, there has been at least one wrapper in the bottom of the sink each time I go to rinse the dishes before loading the dishwasher. I couldn't figure out who was putting them there. My first thought was William, but he isn't tall enough to reach the sink, so it couldn't be him. Nicholas is really good at putting his trash in the garbage so I didn't think it could be him. So my last thought was Greg, now I guess I shouldn't think that my grown husband would do something like this, but he's done some weird things in the past... He also really likes the stride gum. Well, today my mystery was solved. And of coarse it was my first instinct. William, is my mystery wrapper man. I guess he is taller than I thought. I gave him a piece of gum and he went straight for the sink... It was so funny!

!Trick OR Treat?

2008-10-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Looking good in their costumes right before we headed out. This year we went to trunk-or-treat and then we hit a few houses around our new neighborhood.

Halloween is one of my favorite times of year. I love to dress up. This year I wasn't really too creative, but I still dressed up. Nicholas picked out my wig. He was excited to see me all dressed up and really liked my eyelashes and sparkles.

We gave William a slight make-over... He had brown hair and eyebrows. Although you can't see it too well in the picture, it gave him a little more character... Some of the color still hasn't come out and he's had two bath's since then.

Nicholas in his BuZZ LiGHt YeAr Costume! He had a great time trick-or-treating... He even told me when we were done this year. He didn't say just one more house mom... It was great, we hit just the right number of houses not to be too worn out. William even enjoyed himself. This was his first official trick-or-treating.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

2008-10-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

For many years I have I have joked about my Witch, refering to my mom. Today of all days is her birthday. Although, she may be my witch, she is an amazing woman. She has taught me so much. Thanks mom. I love you hope you have a Happy Birthday!

Carving Pumpkins!

2008-10-21T22:01:00.000-07:00

Nick was excited to be able to try to carve his pumpkin this year by himself... With a little help! He choose to do a smiley face on his pumpkin. He carved out the nose all by himself. Mommy helped him with the eyes and mouth.
William helped both Greg and I to get the insides out of our pumpkins. He wasn't quite sure about sticking his hand in the pumpkin, but after we gave him the little scooper he was just fine. He had a good time flicking pumpkin all over...

We only had a small mess to clean up! Those are my favorite kinds of messes, the ones that don't take long... We will reveal our faced pumpkins on Halloween!

Halloween Party!

2008-10-19T16:57:00.001-07:00

For the past couple of years, we have had a halloween party for the kids. Although, we didn't have as many people as we had planned for we still had a great time!

Amy, Carl, & Tyler
Cooper playing the bean bag toss!

Addy with a pair of Vampire teeth she won from the Bean bag Toss!
Sunny, James, Cooper & Logan
Emily & Addy
William who gave up on not using his hands during the marshmallow game.
We played a few games, some which includes a trick or two...
And we decorated cookies.
Thank-you to all of our friends that came to have Fun with Us!

The Pumpkin Patch!

2008-10-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

Every year we go to the pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins. This year we tried a new farm we haven't been to yet since we started this tradition. We visited the Remlinger Farms in Carnation. We went with two sets of our new neighbors. It was a spur of the moment thing and it was fun to get out and get to know some of our new neighbors too.
Nick and his size of pumpkin. "It's my sizes pumpkin!"
Trying to carry the pumpkin to mom & dad!

I promised Nick we would ride on the hay ride, so here we are... He had a good time, but Hailey sure didn't!

October 12, 2008

Mineral Pools...

2008-10-05T19:23:00.000-07:00

While we were visiting Great Grandma & Grandpa Lyons, we took a trip to Thermopolis. This was always one of my favorite places to go when I was growing up myself. I couldn't go visit with out taking the boys. We stopped at a family restaurant which doubled as a bowling alley. It used to be an A&W. They still have the old phones you order from... Nice to see some character in some smaller towns still. It was quite interesting watching my aunt order from the phone trying to make sure that she had ordered enough food for everyone in our group. We had 9 people total (Grandma & Grandpa, my aunt Kathy, Denny (my aunts friend), Denny's little girl, my cousin Taylon (who is 4 like Nicholas), myself & my two boys). Quite a crew for a small restaurant like that. After lunch we headed to the Star Plunge!
William splashed grandma & grandpa. It was really fun to watch them interact. William is usually such a momma's boy, but he sure was attatched to Grandma & Grandpa.
The Crew, minus Nicholas who is back at the railing... If you look really close you can see him. The one with the little floaties on. Yes, still afraid of the water, at least that could potentially cover his head. I'm not quite sure where this fear developed? He used to jump off the side into the water before he could even touch the ground. Maybe, he swallowed a mouth or two full of water...
William did really well in the water. I was quite surprised as he had never been in such deep water. He had quite a good time...
There were a few times, when I wasn't sure he felt safe on the turtle. Luckily, he wasn't on it when it got flipped over by Denny.

Then you had Nicholas and Taylon who all they wanted to do was go down the slide.
They went really fast... They couldn't wait to go running back up the stairs to go again. It was a really fun slide. They just had a small tub of water at the bottom, so you didn't have to worry about falling into a deep pool. They had another slide outside, but you had to be 21 to go on it. I haven't even been on that one. It was under construction the last time I was there (about 12 years ago).
After we were done swimming we took a short walk to look at the mineral ponds star plunge. I think this is where we lost Nicholas' hoodie. This picture was the last time we saw it. Oh, well. Things happen.
It was really nice to get to visit an old childhood favorite and even better that I was able to spend it with family. Thanks for the great time Gma & Gpa.

The Circus!

2008-09-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

It's been a few weeks ago, but we traveled to Utah to visit the Highfield's our best friends. It should have only been a 3 hour drive from Elko, but there was construction and William had a blow out... Yeah, not a fun to deal with ever. We gave him a bath in a rest area sink and proceeded with our drive. So it took us a bit longer than we had planned on... We did make it there just in time.

We arrived in Salt Lake and were a bit turned around. We called Julie to see if she could help us a little with the directions. We drove up and down a few streets, but we finally arrived in the right place. The parking tendant didn't even charge me for parking since we were just coming in from out of town. This was a blessing in itself, because I would have had to go somewhere else to get cash. I didn't know that we were going to have to pay for parking. After getting settled for a brief moment.

We all made it to the same place and we finally saw Julie and Jessa at the pathway leading to the pre-show area. Nicholas ran and hugged them. He had been so excited, he kept asking if we were almost to Salt Lake yet so we could see Zach and Jessa.

Here are the kids at the pre-show.

Nicholas showed his excitement in a number of different faces throughout the night, but I caught this one and thought it would be a great memory of how he felt while watching the circus.

The Highfields cute as always.

Jessa and William. She does such a great job with kids. Both Nicholas and William adore her.

Here is a shot of a lot of the circus performers. They really put on a great show. It has been quite a few years since I've been to the circus. But it was great just like the one I remember going to. I still have the globe light that my Grandpa Lyons bought me. It has a tiger on it. Funny the things we keep from our childhood.

Nick and Jessa enjoying the show.

One of my favorite acts of the circus is the elephants. It's amazing the things they can do with their large bodies and how they interact with the humans.Another favorite from when I was a kid was the motorcycle cage. This time it almost made me nauseous. The thought of so many people in a cage on motorcycles made my heart race. I covered my eyes a few times thinking that they would crash into eachother. They didn't of coarse and everyone was safe.

Julie spoiled Nicholas and got him a light up sword. He carries it around with him often and has tried to take it more places than we will allow him to. Thanks for inviting us to a great show. We had a great time. We can't wait until the next time we can visit.

Great Grandma & Grandpa Lyons

2008-09-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

Corn Maze

2008-09-25T10:37:00.000-07:00

September 10, 2008

Another one of our family traditions in the fall is to visit a corn maze. For the past 5 years we have went to the Rutledge Corn Maze. Every year they change the theme. Last year it was a Pirate just like Nick and we let him take his pirate hook with us. This year, it wasn't anything too exciting... It was a bank, I'm sure the sponsor of this years corn maze. It is still fun to get lost in the corn...
Here is a picture of the boys at the entrance of the maze. This is before William became scared of the corn blowing in the wind. The only way we could get him to walk, or should I say run was to say go... He then would run to catch Nicholas. I think it made him concentrate less on what was happening around him.
We found the first checkpoint. Both of the boys were excited.
There were two bridges in the maze. It's kind of neat to be able to look out on all of the corn that seems to go forever.
The boys wondering... Toward the end of the corn maze, William wasn't quite as afraid of the corn. But my bladder was about to explode. I wondered if we would ever find our way out...Thankfully, we made it out just in time.

A trip to the Zoo...

2008-09-24T16:19:00.001-07:00

Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium

July 30th, 2008

I've always been amazed by the beauty of the peacock.

I was surprised at how close I was able to get.

Unfortunately, he didn't fan his feathers out for us though.

Every year we try to visit the zoo at least once. Nicholas was really excited to go to the Point Defiance Zoo because of the new spider exhibit... Needless to say he was disappointed because he couldn't see the spiders. However, he had fun playing on the big rope spider web they had in the kids zone. The boys at the entrance of the aquarium.
Nick searching for the artificial crabs through a viewing bucket. It was a neat little activity center they had set up for the kids.
The best part of visiting the zoo for us is the aquarium. It is our all time favorite. We love to watch the fish and sharks swim by the glass windows.

Some Tears and a Few Stitches...

2008-09-22T12:02:00.000-07:00

Back in July we had to take a trip to Urgent Care. We were in the middle of packing and William tripped and hit his eye bone on the side of a milk crate (a toy container). We moved it to the kitchen because we packed the toys that were normally stored in it and were going to use the crate to pack the canned goods. It was a good idea until we heard him crying. I picked him up to see what was wrong and at first he seemed to be fine. It took a minute for it to start bleeding. It's never fun to have your little ones in pain. I managed to stay fairly calm, but that's because I have great friends that were right there to help me with what I needed. I didn't have to worry about having an extra child while waiting to be seen by the doctor. Another friend came with me to keep me company while we waited for the doctor. William on the other hand was a great trooper... He didn't cry other than the initial fall and when they did the stitches. While we waited for them to see us in the room, he played hide and seek in the curtain. What a kid! He's a tough little guy.

The damage... to the eye. He had some pretty bad buising,

but it looks great now. Daddy even took out the stiches a week later.

Where's William?
He had a total of three stitches. Not too bad, I thought it was worse than it acutally was.
When it was all over with, they gave him a sucker and bandaged it to keep it clean. Needless to say the bandage only stayed on about an hour.

A HOME OF OUR OWN!

2008-08-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

The Golden Key! It actually works...
The excitement just set in!

Play time!
Our first Dinner as a Family in the House. Panda Express (chineese for the whole family cost less than McDonalds). This will probably be one of our last times eating out for a while.
The boys had to test out the new soaking tub.
Nick was so worn out that he fell asleep in the hallway.

After lots of bumps in the road we are officially home owners! Whoo!!! We closed on Monday August 11th. It is such a relief to know that it is finally over... or should I say just beginning. For us, this is our first home and we are finally going to have our own space. We can put color on the walls and make it our own. It is an exciting time. We stayed the night on Tuesday and none of us wanted to leave. We didn't even want to bring the rest of our belongings. We ate chineese food and the boys took part in our first house warming present, popcorn... A few months ago, our microwave gave way and we haven't had any popcorn to go with our movies since. Thanks for the thoughtful gift, it was the perfect touch to a great first night in our house.

BOY or GIRL?

2008-07-29T17:48:00.001-07:00

Today we had our ultra-sound... I have been preparing to hear those words... It's a boy! As much as I have wanted a little girl, I prepared myself and expected to hear that we were having another little boy. Which would be fine, we would have our own sports team, well almost...

Tears immediately starting rolling down my cheeks when she told us... It's a GIRL and she was 100% sure of that. I am almost in disbelief... After two boys, I was expecting to hear once again that I was having another boy. What an amazing blessing this is. We are so excited to be going to be parents again, and that we are going to bring a precious little girl to this world.

A DAY OUT WITH THOMAS

2008-07-21T17:23:00.001-07:00

Family picture with Thomas...
The boys enjoying the train ride...
(Nicholas and his Thomas whistle, now not to be seen or heard with out it!)

This Saturday, we took a trip to Snoqualmie to visit the boys favorite train... Thomas, yes that's right Thomas the train. We purchased our tickets back in April with a little persuasion from the Twiddy's. Cooper celebrated his 4th Birthday and it was his celebration in sorts. We agreed that it would be a great outing for the boys. We were right! They all loved it. They had different stations for the kids to paricipate in. They had toys to play with, movies to watch, live entertainment, coloring pages, puppet shows, train rides, and a bouncy house (as nick calls it). Did we mention we even met Sir Topem Hat? I think the boys will remember it for quite some time.

MEMORIES ANYONE?

2008-07-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

My friend had this great activity as her boys call it. I thought it would be fun to try it out. So here it is... The directions are as follows:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

4th of July Clelebration

2008-07-12T10:18:00.000-07:00

ALMOST DONE!

2008-07-07T16:30:00.001-07:00

Here are a few pictures of our house. They are almost complete.

They just need to do the touch ups, and the landscaping. Nothing

fancy, but great none the less. We are excited to be moving very soon...

Our tiny kitchen...
Dinning and Living room
Partial of Master bath
The laundry room, mind you we still need to buy

a washer and dryer.

SNOQUALMIE FALLS

2008-06-21T16:33:00.000-07:00

On our way back from picking up our car in Sunnyside, WA; we stopped @ the big falls. It really is a spectacular view. The picture does not do it justice. We will be going back sometime this summer as we only had enough day light to see it from a far. We hiked down a 1/2 mile to the second viewing point, but we didn't get to venture to the side trails. Our little William was such a trooper. I can't believe that he walked up probably about 3/4 of the trail on the way back (it was a pretty steep hill). I would pick him up and try to hurry along as it was dusk and it was starting to get a little dark, but he insisted with kicking and whinning. I finally gave in. It was starting to get a little dark and half of our pictures didn't even turn out, but that's okay. It was a great little hike and the boys both had a great time.

AUBURN KIDS DAY

2008-06-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't live in Auburn, it is a festival especially for kids. They have free sample foods, crafts, games and other activities for the kids to do. It is a great little event Auburn puts on every year. This will probably be our last year attending as we will be moving very soon. It's always great to get out of the house and even better if the kids are having fun while we are out.

We have made alot of great friends in Auburn.

Above is Nicholas, William, and Zach and Jessa.

Two of Nicholas' favorite friends.

William wasn't quite big enough to go on some of the blow up toys, so I went along with him. I almost forgot how fun it is to be a kid!
Nick's favorite sovenier was from the recycle guy. He was given a frisbee, which he calls his leg bammer... What? Yeah, it's been quite a fight with that one.

Preschool is Out for the Summer

2008-06-15T13:46:00.001-07:00

These are Nicholas' wonderful preschool teachers... Miss Emily and Miss Kristy. They have done a wonderful job with the kids this year. They planned a wonderful preschool graduation and BBQ. I'm glad that we made it back just in time to attend.
Nicholas in his little Grad hat.

On The Side of The Road...

2008-06-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

On our way back from our Vacation, our reliable car croaked... Well at least we thought it was reliable. We have never had any serious problems with it. Really come to think of it in the six years I've owned the car, we have only had an oil leak and had to replace the timing belt other than the regular maintenance. It started to make a funny clicking noise, so we pulled out to the next gas station and checked all of the fluid levels. The oil was low, so we filled 'er up. The other fluids were fine. After filling the oil, we gassed up and started to head out again... With in twenty miles of the car first making the noise, it completely died. We had our two boys with us, luckily we had plenty of food and drinks in the car... We tried to get road side assistance with our insurance, but they said that it would take four hours or more for a tow truck to get there. We tried to drive a little further, to the next closest town. We made it about two exits before it died completely. These were not exits to a town with a hotel. We couldn't all fit in a tow truck, so what were we to do? We tried to find a rental car place, but the closest one was in SeaTac, WA which by the time they would have arrived it would have been morning. I wouldn't have been as stressed out at this point if we wouldn't have had the kids with us. I really didn't want to sit on the side of I-82 with my boys. Cars were just zooming by. It was kind of scary... So as a last resort, we called 911. How embarrassing! A state trooper picked us up (no car seats, there wasn't room). We held the boys on our laps in the back of the car. He took us to the nearest town and we stayed at the Comfort Inn in Zillah, WA. Meanwhile our car sits in Sunny side, WA waiting repairs... It was the engine block that cracked. The funny thing is the temp. gage never went up until after we completely stopped... Who would have thought? The next morning we were able to get a rent a car and have the car towed. We were on our way. We made it home safely... What to do next?

A Visit Back to Home Our Home Town

2008-06-14T10:52:00.000-07:00

The Drive To Elko

Our drive to Elko was William's second long trip. It is approximately 850 miles. He did pretty well up until about the seventh hour. Thankfully, we had planned to stop and sleep. We stayed at the Sleep Inn in Ontario, OR. Nicholas said "this is going to be so fun!" He wanted to watch cartoons as soon as we arrived. Unfortunately, the movie player we had no longer works. We'll have to get a new one. His favorite part about staying in a hotel was sit jumping on the bed.

SouthFork Lake

On our third day there, we went to the lake with my mom. It was nice to just sit back and relax. The sun was out and it was just perfect. Nicholas even got to drive the boat for a while. We stopped at one of the beaches played in the water for a while and ate some yummy snacks.

Me & Nick enjoying the sun

My mom Brenda with our boys

Daddy & William
Grandma & William Exploring
My mom & I soaking in the rays
The boys walking the dock.

After our great time out at the lake, we parted from my mom and we went to visit Grandpa Rob. It was the first time for William to meet him. The boys seemed to enjoy themselves. It was a short visit,but it was good to see him. After Our visit we headed back out to the Smith's (Greg's Parents). We had a great family dinner. His brother Curtis, his wife Trinity and their adorable little girl Rebecka were able to come visit from Salt Lake while we were there. It was nice to be able to see everone.

Nick & Emmit Grandma

(Nick calls his grandma's by their dogs names).

It makes it easier for him to remember.

Trinity & Becca

Going to the Park

We decided to take the kids to the park to play and to feed the ducks and geese. The kids played well together. It was fun to get the cousins together. After the kids played for a while, we headed over to the Marina to feed the ducks and Geese. It started out with just two and before we knew it we were surrounded. Fortunately, just about the time we ran out of bread, the wind started to blow pretty hard. We decided to pack it in and head back to the house.

William & Becca

Nick & Ella

William, Ella, and Gracin.
Nick throwing bread
Diana, Ella, Gracin, Trinity and Becca

Nick & Ella

Uncle Adam with Nick and William
Grandma & William
The Little Babes: Gracin, William, & Becca
Aunt Cyndi Playing with William

On Schedule...

2008-06-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

So, here is the latest picture of our house. There is still plenty to be done before we are able to move in, but everything is on schedule and still looks good for us to close on the July 15th, 2008.

We're Expecting!

2008-05-03T20:17:00.000-07:00

We are now pregnant with our third little babe. We are excited, yet nervous even though we have been through this before.

All AbOaRd PrE-ScHoOl FaMiLy FiElD tRiP!

2008-04-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

Kid's Qwest Children's Museum

Bellvue, WA

Miss Emily, One of Nicholas' wonderful Pre-school Teachers!

Getting To It!

I've known for quite sometime that Nicholas had a family field trip, but for some reason, I thought that I needed to print my own directions... Well, I did and was driving around for 45min trying to find the place. It is located on Factoria Blvd., actually it is inside the mall. After quite a few trips up and down the blvd, and two trips around the mall, I decided I needed help. I called a friend. You know who you are (thanks you are a life saver!). She gave me the number to the museum and we finally made it there in time to do the group activity. They made Dr.Suess hats, and had story time. Yeah, we didn't miss it. I was upset, because I thought he was going to. If I would have used the directions the pre-school provided us, we would have been there a lot sooner...

Every month Nicholas has a field trip to somewhere fun pertaining to what they are learning that particular month. This month, they had a family field trip which occurs twice a year. The first one was at a pumpkin patch... Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend. Greg took both of the boys and they seemed to enjoy the time with Dad. Due to Greg's work schedule, he wasn't able to come to the museum with us this time, but it was lots of fun... Nicholas really enjoyed the water music exploration. William's favorite part was the water table with floating balls. He also enjoyed painting large rocks with water. He kept trying to climb up on them. Yep, he's a climber... I was able to get short video's of both their favorite activities. Nothing fancy and it's un-edited but great footage of the boys.

Drive By...

2008-04-16T21:01:00.001-07:00

Today, Greg had the day off. We decided that we would take a drive by the new home site. We knew that it had been released, but they didn't tell us that the foundation was poured. How exciting. It feels a little more real seeing work started. We will have our official building start sometime next week, I mean this week.

Crazy NICK!

2008-04-15T21:16:00.001-07:00

THE ONE SOCK WONDER... TURNS INTO BANDAID BOY! Nicholas has such a fun personality. He is always doing things to make us laugh. The other day, he must have been in an exceptionally crazy mood. First he decided that he only had one foot... We were trying to get ready to go somewhere, and he was making it more difficult than usual, but we couldn't help but laugh.
Later that night, he had a crazy idea that he needed a bandaid on every little tiny spot on him, even if it wasn't really there. I think he had nine in all. He counted them each time he needed me to get him a new one. What a kid!

Count Down...

2008-04-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

Tenatively, we are set to close on the house on the 15th of July. That is about 3-4 months sooner than we were planning. Yikes!! We are going to have a meeting next week to go over the timeline and they will start building. Maybe it will feel a little more like it's really going to be our home.

Is it really comming to an end??? I am a little hesitant telling anyone what is happening. Since it is new construction, I'm sure that it is a little more secure than a short sale. It was a little embarrasing telling people that we were moving, and then the closing never actually came. As far as we knew we were supposed to close on the 4th of January, when that came and went we didn't think much of it. But when the date kept getting further and further away, it just didn't really feel like it was going to happen. We kept hoping though. I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason. Now, we get to have an even more amazing house.

LeConner, WA

2008-04-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

After a long day of chasing the kids around the fields of flowers, and shopping the outlet stores, we were ready to eat. Before we headed to LeConner, we decided to get something to eat. We ate at the Outback Steakhouse. We shared a blooming onion and a artichoke dip to start. From there we went our separate ways. Julie and Bryce ate in style with their Salmon and Steak, while Greg and I just had burgers. I wasn't really that hungry and should have shared with Nicholas, but the truth is you shouldn't go to a steak house to eat burgers. After our tummies were full we hit a few more stores to grab a few items to last us the night and for breakfast the next morning... LeConner here we come! While we planned to stay in a hotel, it worked out that we didn't have to. Bryce hooked us up! We stayed at a home up on the hill, around, and up another hill... The picture doesn't do it justice. Although it was a beautiful view, the yard and house weren't too kid friendly. The back yard dropped off like a cliff only slightly less of a straight drop off. Needless to say the kids didn't play outside. It was pretty dark by the time we arrived anyways. The view was great, and it was nice to relax in style. We had root beer floats, watched a few movies and hit the pillows. The next day we hit the streets of LeConner... It is a pretty small town with lots of cute little shops and sculptures. Nicholas found a shop that had a pirate section and wanted to buy everything in sight. I think my favorite shop was the antique shop. I think it is always fun to look back on history of furniture, advertisements, and toys, ect. Nicholas found a horse and carriage at the front of the store. He asked us, "do you have any quarters?" Of coarse it was toward the end of our tour of the town and we were all out of quarters. He used them up buying jawbreakers. Being that LeConner is right on the water, there were lots of boats and a C plane. The C plane took off right in front of us. Nicholas thought that was the greatest as he loves trains and planes. After walking the whole town, we headed back toward home. We stopped at some more outlet shops and in the process realized that we had a little more sun than we thought. We all were a little red, but had a great time away this weekend. Thanks Julie and Bryce!

Tulips, Tulips, and More Tulips

2008-04-13T11:26:00.000-07:00

TULIP FESTIVAL
Planning for months to attend the tulip festival this year, we finally made it happen. We took a trip to tulip town with our friends the Highfields. Julie picked the perfect day. No rain and the tempature was about seventy degrees. It was a litle bit over cast, but toward the end of the day the sun even started to show it's face. The tulips were beautiful... I don't think I have ever seen anything quite like it. Although not all of the tulips were bloomed yet, there were still enough to make the trip worth while. This best family picture we could get on this particular day. Nicholas was being a silly boy as usual and wouldn't smile because the sun was in his eyes, but he had the energy to make funny faces... Anything but a smile. Julie coming to the rescue gave him her glasses for a few pictures. At least we were able to get a smile or two out of him. It was challenging to get Nicholas to stand still long enough to even get pictures. With so much space to run and jump what boy would stand still? I watched some of the other parents trying to get pictures of their children and they all pretty much had the same attitude. I'm just glad we weren't the only ones with a photo challenged children. We did manage to get a few good shots though. William on the other hand was a little more photogenic.
I did say a little... He would look at the camera, but no matter what I did to try to make him smile, he just wouldn't. The only time he smiled was when I put him in a little basket hanging on a fence. Because it was across the mud, and I was the only one there, I wasn't able to catch him smiling with the camera, but I tried. One hand holding him so he didn't fall out and another hand trying to aim the camera just didn't work too well. I guess I can't expect much from boys, now can I? I mean how exciting can a field of flowers be to them. While William did explore the flowers a little bit, he was happier playing with the wood chips that were layed out on the edge of the flowers. Greg wasn't too with it either as he was still up from the night before. He got home at 8:30a.m. and we left at 10:00a.m. He had a short nap on the way, but not enough for him to really enjoy himself with out being like a zombie. Just kidding about the zombie part, but he was really tierd and I couldn't blame him. I was pretty tiered myself and I had plenty of sleep. It was fun to get out of the house and visit a place we had never been. The fields were amazing... Even so, Nicholas had more fun running across the dirt/mud road and jumping over all of the muddy dips on the tulip rows, and watching the tractor pull slosh through the mud. Boys will be boys... Nicholas wanted to have a snack and told me that he would smile for the camera if he could have some pop corn. That's a bribe if I ever heard one... It made me realize that maybe I use bribes a little too often and should try to find a different approach. I know I'm not the perfect parent, but who wants their children bribing them? As children don't come with an instruction manual what can we do but learn from eachother and decide what we are and aren't going to do. Obviously not everything works for all people as each child is a unique individual and reacts to things differently. I love my boys and am very thankful that they have such strong personalities, but sometimes it scares me. I want them to stay small forever... I know that won't happen, so we just have to do our best and hope that they turn out great. I'm sure they will, because I have some of the best kids in the world. Don't worry, those of you who have your own children know that we all think our children are the best... No competition right? Just kidding. Those of you who live close enough to go to the tulip festival who haven't already went, should go if you have a free day or two. It's always great to get out and explore and see new things. They are just flowers, but they are beautiful. Because we didn't want to only look at flowers, we planned to do a few other activities as well. We went to the outlet facories in Burlingon and headed for LeConner...

Moving Along...

2008-04-13T11:10:00.001-07:00

NEWS ON THE HOUSE

Our Permits are back!!! It will be released soon, and they will start building. Sooner, than we were expecting... We won't have a time line until they actually release it, but we will keep you all posted. So we know that all of you are wondering what our new house is going to look like... So here it is kind of. Ours will be light brown with Dark brown sutters and Door. So it won't be quite as plain... But still a lot more house than we ever imagined we would have for our first home. It will be just short of 2300 sq ft. Yeah! Lots of room for the boys to run and play. It is a 3 Bedroom, 2 1/2 bath with a loft and den. It is right around the corner from a golf coarse and not too far from a lake. Now, we will finally have room to entertain. We look forward to having some great fun with our friends and family in our new home...

SCARY BUNNY CAKE!

2008-04-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GREG

Greg's 27th Birthday was yesterday. We celebrated by having our final appointment on our house selections. Yeah! Scary though, we hope we made the right decisions. It looks good on a small scale, but what will it look like when it's all put together? We also went to one of our new favorite restaurants (The Ram). Unfortunately, Greg was a little frusterated with the boys... who were not sitting patiently for the food to come. It's getting harder as they both get older... Anyways, back to Greg's special day. I made him a bunny cake in trying to keep with family tradition. His mom used to make a bunny cake for him and Dianna (his sister). So I tried... Needless to say, it was probably the worst decorated cake I have ever done. It was partly due to lack of time. If I would have had about an hour or so more, I probably could have fixed the problem. Unfortunately a scary bunny it was... Sorry no pictures. I wouldn't want to embarras myself anymore than I already have...

WE WANT TO PLAY FETCH!

2008-04-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

Angle Lake Mystery Dog... A couple of weeks ago I had some repairs to do at Casabella Apartments (the second set of apartments I manage). Of coarse, I can't just do repairs and not allow the boys some time to play and enjoy themselves. I took them to the Angle Lake Park. It is just down a few blocks from the apartments. I don't normally let the kids play with dogs we don't know, but for a good ten minutes this dog kept dropping a stick at my feet. We kept walking and tried to ignore the poor thing. Afterall, I didn't know who's it was or where it came from, if it bites, ect, ect. But after his persistance of dropping the stick and just walking along with us, not a bark and his continued patients, I finally decided to pick up the stick and throw it. It amused the boys so much, I continued to throw it and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. Nicholas Wanted to throw the stick too. I was hesitant at first, but decided that since this dog was so well tempered from the time he attatched himself to us that it would be okay. William squeeled with joy and clapped his hands. I have never heard him so excited about anything... I wish we could have a dog of our own. Both of the boys really seemed to enjoy his company. We started to leave and the dog followed us. No collar or sign of ownership, I felt bad just leaving him there. As I opened the car door he thought he was one of the family and hopped right in. Unfortunately, we were unable to keep him. I hope that he has a good home or finds one. Nicholas was really sad that we couldn't take him home. Maybe someday we can have our own dog that plays fetch as well as our mystery dog.

SIMPLICITY @ IT'S BEST

2008-04-03T12:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to all of those of you who helped with the shower and those who brought food!
Tiffany enjoying herself. She is due April 17th and is having her second baby boy! Yeah, we are so excited for her and her family.

On the 29th of March, with the help of a few friends I threw a baby shower for our friend Tiffany. There was a great turn out and Tiffany really seemed to enjoy herself, so I am happy... I hope everyone else had a great time too. It was nice to get away for a short time from the boys. As much as I love them, it is always nice to have adult fun and conversation. I was asked by several people what the recipe was for the Cracker Candy I made, so here it is... Quite simple and tastes great. Those that know me well, know that I am not a cook by any means. So if I can make it, then anyone can. I am trying to become a better cook so if you have any great simple recipes, I'd love to get them from you.

CRACKER CANDY

Soda Crackers

1 Cup of Brown Sugar, packed

1 Cup of butter (two cubes)

1 bag of chocolate chips

Sliced almonds, finely chopped (I use the magic bullet)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. In a lightly greased jelly roll pan, arrange the soda crackers in a single layer covering the entire bottom of the pan (you may have to cut come crackers in half to fit odd spaces). Set aside.

3. Place brown sugar and butter in a small pan and bring to boil over medium heat. Let boil for 3 minutes.

4. Pour the mixture over the crackers and carefully spread with a spatula. Make sure that it is evenly spread over the crackers. Place the tray in the oven and bake for 5 minutes.

5. Remove from oven and gently push down the crackers that have come up and over the tops of others.

6. Sprinkle chocolate chips liberally over the surface. Place the pan back in the oven for 1 minute to melt the chips.

7. Remove the pan from the oven. Using the spatula spread chocolate chips over the crackers like icing until completely covered.

8. Sprinkle the almonds over the surface.

9. Let them COOL completely! (you can speed the cooling process by putting the tray in the refrigerator for a few minutes. Don't leave it in there indefinitely because the chocolate will separate from the candy.)

10. Cut the candy into squares.

11. Enjoy and try to share!

EASTER EGG HUNT

2008-03-22T17:55:00.000-07:00

Brotherly Love

Another Day of Hugs and Kisses... Nicholas just can't seem to leave William alone.

Is There an Eater Egg Hunt???

I decided at the last minute that I was going to take the boys to the Easter Egg Hunt at Les Grove Park. I wasn't going to because the last time I took Nicholas there, he ended up with so little, that it didn't seem worth all the effort. Not that I don't make an effort to give my kids lots of fun experiences, but I could have put just a little more effort in having our own egg hunt and he would have had just as much fun. Anyways, I got a little side tracked... Back to the current event, there was a miss print in the start time of the Easter Egg Hunt. Luckily it was later and not earlier, because I thought that we had missed it at first. I saw so many parents scrambling around trying to figure out what was going on. It was kind of humorous actually. Eventually, they announced that there was a miss print in the advertisment. Which gave us an hour until the festivities started. This was great for Nick because there were lots of kids for him to play with. Unfortunately, some of them weren't very nice... You'll hear about that a little later.

The boys played and waited patiently. I was surprised at how well they handled the wait considering all the candy and eggs scattered all over the ground.
The last 30 seconds seemed to be the hardest, and William started screaming and really missed out on his chance to crawl to the eggs. Nicholas was in the older group (right next to us), so I told him to run to get the eggs and candy. He did run and I lost sight of him as I grabbed an egg and piece of candy for William. I turned around and Nicholas was no where to be seen... I dressed them brightly so it would be easy to find in the crowd. I started to panic just a little as there were so many people and I couldn't see him anywhere. I screamed out for him, and he just happen to be doing the same thing. We slowly worked back to each other and I finally spotted him in his orange shirt. I'm glad that not many other people thought to do the same thing, so it really worked out to my advantage.
It's time to go back to the story about the not so nice kids... When Nicholas and I finally found each other, he was in tears. He said that the kids took all the eggs from him. He had one lone piece of candy in his basket and it was given to him earlier from the Easter Bunny. I tried to have him show me which ones, but that didn't go to well as there were a hundred or so. We ran into our next door neighbor and her grandson had his bag grabbed from his hand by older kids. So he ended up with nothing. We were a little frusterated that children these days just don't seem to have any respect or conscience about anything. Luckily there a was a little angel that came to Nick's rescue. She stood in line waiting for a prize (she had found a special egg). Her name was Nicole and she over heard what happened. She offered Nick some candy and to my dismay he was still unhappy with this offer... He wanted some eggs! I told her thank you for the offer, but he didn't seem to want the candy. This precious angel went to her mother and gathered some plastic eggs and filled them up with candy and returned to us where we stood. She again offered the candy filled eggs to Nick. Nicholas was so happy, he had mostly forgotten about the mean kids.
Since Nicholas was unhappy about the eggs and William missed out on his, I took the boys to a less crowded part of the park and dumped the eggs out so that both of the boys could embark on the Easter Egg Hunt. Phew, I'm glad that is over with. As much as I didn't want to do my own hunt, because it is always more fun with other kids. I think after the past few experiences we may just have to get some friends together and have our own. In the end both of the boys had fun and a smile on their faces.

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

2008-03-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

BABY BOWLING?

We choose an almost perfect time during the day to go bowling as the bowling alley was almost completely empty. We thought since no one was around, there would be no harm in letting William loose.
AWWW! What a Kodak moment... It might look that way, but the truth is Nicholas was just trying to get William out of the way. Nicholas was not happy that William was crawiling there. Nicholas knew William shouldn't really be out there. He let us know that right away.

A day out for a family in green. To top it off, we all bowled with green balls. What a nice touch! It was a nice family outing and has been awhile since we have done something fun as a family. With Greg's schedule it is hard at times for everyone to be in the right mood and have time to get an activity scheduled.

Skating With Grandma

2008-03-16T21:12:00.000-07:00

ROLLER SKATING FUN...

We went on a family fun night, which means that all members of the family even babies can join in. I usually take Nicholas to the toddler skate, that way I can also push the stroller. I was happy to learn that you can push a stroller during family skate too!

Grandma and Nick taking a spin around the rink!

Nicholas attempting to help mommy push William. It didn't work to well, so he had to go skate with grandma again. And Grandma showed off her fancy skating skills.
My mom used to take me skating a lot when I was younger... I was always impressed at all the things she can do on skates. I have never been able to match her skills, but I can skate backwards a bit.
Nick skating on his own for a brief moment. It is rare that Nick will skate on his own, but I keep hoping that the more he does it, the more comfortable he will become and realize he doesn't always need someone else's hand.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLIAM

2008-03-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

Birthday Cake and Dinosaurs oh my!

William, a little unsure about what was happening was thrilled when we lit the candles. Nicholas and I held his hands back so he didn't grab them by accident. We didn't want any burnt little fingers or a trip to the ER. We had grandma Brenda, cousin Amber (my cousin amber), Nicholas, Greg and the Birthday boy. With William being sick most of the week, we thought it better not to have anyone else over. It still turned out great, because William ended up eating most of the cake anyways. I'm not sure how, but he didn't even get a tummy ache.

The boys with clean faces still...

Covered in chocolate, and smiling none the less.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

2008-02-14T17:45:00.000-08:00

The Exchange

For his pre-school class we prepared for the exchange by allowing Nicholas to pick his valentines. I was printing pictures for a project I am working on and he just had to have the spiderman ones with a picture of himself in the middle. So we went the day before to get them printed. We put little candies in each envelope and called it good. He was so excited about all the valentines and you got it...candy! He wanted to eat it all, one piece after another. Of coarse there was a little bit of a fight from our end. We didn't want him to get a belly ache or to be bouncing off the walls.

Chocolate Anyone?

Just so happened that Nicholas had left my chocolates down where William coud get into them. Luckily, I was able to get them before too much of a mess was made.

We Love You All!

Nicholas' Birthday Party

2008-01-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

A Wild Time...

Nicholas picked out his theme and wanted to have a "DIEGO" rescue mission party. For those of you who don't know who diego is, it is a cartoon about Diego, who is Dora the explorers cousin. He rescues animals when the are in trouble, and he askes for help from the kids at home. It is kind of cute! We played lots of games, went on a rescue mission to find animals in need of our help, and painted our own drums. Nicholas loved having all of his friends to play with. It's always nice to see smiles on your childrens faces. Thanks everyone who came and for all the great gifts.

Thank-you to all that helped me with the party! Julie, my lifesaver offered her house up for us. I wasn't sure how I was going to fit so many people in our appartment, as we didn't close on the house that we thought we would already be living in at that time. That was my fault, I shouldn't have planned on having it somewhere that wasn't actually ours yet. Oh, well it all worked out in the end. Most of you know about that disaster, so no need for me to go on about it. Thanks to Camille, Sunny, and Danielle for helping me to keep the kids under control. I think I can do it all sometimes, and the truth is, I just don't like to ask for help. I need to work on that...

TURNING 4 YEARS OLD!

2008-01-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICHOLAS

Since daddy is working nights, and sleeps during the day, we decided to celebrate Nick's birthday next week. We did have cake and ice cream though, he wasn't forgotten and knew it was his day. We went to the park where he met some new friends. It was fun!

Trouble Sleeping

2008-01-13T11:43:00.000-08:00

Nick's Cake
I had trouble sleeping yesterday, and actually didn't go to bed. I stayed up all night decorating and preparing for Nicholas' birthday. I couldn't believe that he was going to be 4. My baby is going to be 4... It's hard to believe how fast they grow. I now understand why people are always telling me to enjoy it while they are young. It doesn't last long. As much as I have enjoyed being a mother and each stage that brings different joys and challenges, I was sad. I have to admit that I miss him being so dependant on me. I know he is only 4, but I already see that he is a very independant and strong willed person... Much like myself, which is kind of scary to think about.

Let's Hit The Ice...

2008-01-11T22:58:00.000-08:00

Lacing up the Skates!

The weekend before New Years we decided to venture out of our comfort zone. We found a place called Kent Valley Ice Center. It was a fun family outing.
William taking a nap on the sidelines... Of coarse, this is where he spent most of his time. Although, he did get a little ice time. When it was time for lunch, he chowed down and danced his little heart out. Nicholas has had a little practice skating...Roller skating that is. This was his first experience ice skating. He was having a great time, until uncle Blake decided to try to make him skate on his own. He was terrified!
With a death grip and a few ear piercing screams, we decided it wasn't worth trying to get him to skate on his own. Maybe next time? We continued to skate and as long as Nicholas had a hand to hold on to he was happy. It was nice to have Uncle Blake along to help us juggle the two little munchkins...

Christmas Packages

2007-12-26T22:38:00.000-08:00

Boxed Fun!

William and Nicholas enjoyed hiding from one another in the box which held precious christmas gifts. I think the boys had more fun with the box...

Packing Peanuts Anyone?

It was snow, with out the snow. We had a white christmas after all...

Seattle Center

2007-12-22T23:21:00.000-08:00

SPACE NEEDLE!My brother & the big needle! Not quite like the Calgary Tower, but great none the less!

A blurred view of Seattle, a night shot.

You would think that after living here for so long (5 years), that we would have made it to the Space Needle before now... We actually didn't even plan to go, but the winter fest, wasn't quite what we expected so... Up we went. It was a great view! Pretty windy, but very beautiful. We set out for seattle in efforts to go the Winter fest, go ice skating, see all of the beautiful lights, ride the classic carousel, and enjoy all the other activities in the seattle center. Unfortunately, the ice skating rink was a little on the small side and was completely packed. So we decided to pass on that. William and I rode on the classic carousel. We walked around, looked at the lights and decided to go up the space needle.

An attempt at a family picture! Nicholas... got to love that character.

An attempt to get a picture with our boys with unlce Blake. Needless to say, Nicholas didn't go for it. Nicholas is no where to be seen. He found a little table that was his size and didn't want to leave it just for a picture.
Trains, Trains, Trains!

Our Nicholas is a train lover, so I wasn't suprised when he loved the little village... It was quite a set up. You had to see it to really appreciate it.

Preparing For Christmas

2007-12-20T22:34:00.000-08:00

Visit to Santa!

Finally at 3 years old, Nicholas sat on Santa's lap with out any tears. He was actually excited to sit on his lap. He wrote a letter and dropped it in the box. Meanwhile, William lay asleep in my arms. He sat on Santa's lap but didn't make a peep. With his eyes still closed, he slept right through it. I have to admit it was kind of a nice change from the screaming attempts we made with Nicholas when he was younger.

Making Christmas Cards

Chocolate Covered Pretzels

A few years ago, we received some yummy pretzels from some friends of ours. They were so good, I thought we would attempt them. It was actually a lot easier than I thought it would be. Nicholas was so excited... He went a little over board. Note all the extra sprinkles on the cookie sheet! They turned out great. Good Job Nicholas! William, watching from the sidelines has a snack in hand. What a guy!