MERRY CHRISTMAS

We hope you all had a great Christmas! We had a day filled with gifts, goodies, and family time. We are very blessed to have such wonderful family who love us and spoiled my children rotten with gifts. I can only hope that through all the toys and candy, my children will still remember the real gift of Christmas, which is our Savior, Jesus Christ! We love and miss all our family and friends that we are not able to spend time with during this time of year!!!

This is Abby's Fisher-Price Grow-With-Me kitchen in 'toddler' mode. Perfect for her right now!

This is Abby's kitchen in the 'pre-schooler' mode. Perfect for Josh and very easy to switch between when Abby is napping (shhhh-don't tell her and she'll never know that Josh is using it while she is sleeping!).

Today, Jessie, Beckie (or Nana), and I went to the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company's (http://www.pnb.org) Nutcracker at the McCaw Hall in downtown Seattle. It was a Christmas present for all of us and we had a wonderful time!

Oh, Christmas Tree

Friday night we all decorated the tree. We turned on the Christmas music, Mike and Abby unwrapped the ornaments and handed them to Jessie, Ben, Josh and I to put on the tree. We've had the Christmas decorations up for a couple weeks, but now it really feels like Christmas!

Ben, didn't your Mom ever tell you not to do that or your eyes might stay that way?!

Abby and Josh in their fort early that day.

First Snow

It was just a dusting, but the kids were excited to wake up this morning, December 1st, to a bit of snow. It snowed a little more once we were awake, but now that the kids are outside trying to play in it and make a snowman, they are realizing there isn't as much as they thought...

Misc.

These are just some random photos from the last month... (I promise I do not love my daughter, Abby, any more than my other children. BUT as a baby, she is growing and developing much more quickly than the rest of the kids, thus I tend to take more photos of her...)

Abby, looking too cute in her little hat, though it took several photos to actually capture it on her head since she wanted to play with it instead of wear it.

Abby has been standing herself up on everything. She even crawled half-way up our stairs the other day. She is developing as she should, but sometimes it would be nice for her to slow down a bit. My baby is growing up too fast!!!

At the beginning of November, Josh, Abby, and I drove about 1 hr. 15 min. south to Bonney Lake to visit my cousin Amy, her son Ian, and her mom (Aunt Kathy) was visiting, too, because Amy was on bedrest. Here are Ian and Josh being silly cousins.

Ian was kind enough to let Josh drive his "Bunda" (battery powered tractor). He loved it and Abby even got in on the action. Thanks, Ian!

Thanksgiving
We spent Thanksgiving Day at Mike's parents' house. It was pretty quiet with just us, his parents, and his youngest brother Jeff. We ate at noon because Jeff had to be to work by 1:30 pm, so we ate again for dinner. Lucky us!

Mike's parents returned from a trip to D.C. two days before Thanksgiving and brought these cute t-shirts back for the kids. I don't know if you can see too well, but the boys' shirts are army-colored camo.

Josh actually took this photo and captured Abby's favorite face to make. She scrunches up her nose and breaths in and out of her nose quickly. It's pretty funny! She usually does it while she's in her high chair at dinner and makes everyone laugh.

Halloween

We had a fun time today. Jessie and Ben both wore orange in their hair to school in honor of the holiday and of course Josh had to have it, too. The kids were all very excited to wear their costumes tonight and go trick-or-treating. We went up to the church for a "trunk-or-treat" first, then headed over to Mike's parents house so they could see the kids, then back down to our neighborhood for a little more trick-or-treating. Here are some photos from today's fun.

Pumpkin Fun

This past Friday we went to Bob's Corn Maze and Pumpkin Patch. The kids had a lot of fun working their way through the corn maze, but the boys got tired so I took them out the "emergency exit" to the pumpkin patch after about 45 minutes while Mike, Abby, and Jessie tried to find the real exit. After about 25 more minutes, they finally came out of the maze, but still not without taking a shortcut. We all found pumpkins we liked and were then ready to head home.

Josh and Ben taking a rest in the wheelbarrow while we searched for our pumpkins.

First thing Saturday morning the kids were ready to carve their pumpkins; they didn't even want to change out of their pj's first.

And She's Off...

Abby started crawling on Tuesday. This video clip is for you, Mom and Dad!

Spider-Hannah

If you don't know who Hannah Montana is, you must not have any children between the ages of 6 - 14. She has her own Disney Channel show and is now going on tour around the country. Anyway, that's who Jessie is going to be for Halloween. But, before Hannah Montana gets here on Halloween night, Spider-Hannah3 and Spider-Hannah visited on Saturday night. I thought these were pretty cute so thought I'd share... (if you can't figure it out, Ben is in the first photo and Josh the second)

Leaves and Teeth...

It has definitely turned into fall here in the great Northwest. Rain is more frequent, the temperature is cooler, and the leaves are changing colors and falling. Falling leaves means lots and lots of raking for us at our house. It seems like we end up raking every few days to try to keep up with the leaves. Fortunately, the kids love to rake and then play in the leaves, so it gets done without any complaining. Even friends come over and help. Here are a few photos of the kids in the leaves, Abby (who just turned 8 months old last Thursday), and Ben's first lost tooth.

Jessie's friends Mallory, KC, and Sarah, came over to help rake leaves and play. All the kids were out playing for a couple hours that day after school.
Abby - 8 months old!
Josh enjoying raking and playing in the leaves by himself while Jessie and Ben were at school.
Ben's first lost tooth. He was so proud of himself because he pulled it out himself while trying to get up the courage to let Mike pull it out.

The Patch

You may or may not know, but Abby was born with a circular (5 cm diameter) hairy birthmark on the back of her head. It's medical term is a hairy nevus, I believe. Because it was a hairy birthmark, it had more hair there than the rest of her head. Then Abby's baby hair fell out and the hair on her birthmark did not. So, as you can see in the photo, the hair on Abby's birthmark is a lot longer and stands out a lot. We call it "the patch". It's Abby's trademark. Anyway, do you think I should be annoyed when perfect strangers come up to me at the grocery store, park, mall, even the airport, and ask me about the strange tuft of hair growing on my daughter's head? Sure, I've smiled at plenty of babies in my years of shopping, but I don't think I would ever ask a perfect stranger about something that looks a little unusual or odd about their child... So, I ask you, do I have the right to be annoyed of people asking about it and is it okay to be tired of having to tell the same explaination over and over???

Eastern Washington - Day Trip

Saturday, we took a day trip to eastern Washington. We decided we wanted to go to Lake Chelan because it was suppose to be sunny and 85 degrees and we'd never been there before. Researching on the internet, however, gave us some ideas of a few other things to do on the way there and back, so it turned out to be more that just a trip to Lake Chelan (if we drove straight there it would have taken about 3 hours). Our first stop was in Cashmere to visit their Pioneer Village and Museum. The kids enjoyed their little scavenger hunt where they had to find certain items within the museum or the village (such as: butter churn, stone bowl, hatchet, petrified wood, etc.). The pioneer village had original log buildings from the early 1800 pioneers in the area. They took them apart and rebuilt them exactly as before here in the village. They had people's homes, a post office, saloon, blacksmith, barber shop, church, etc. The kids really seemed to enjoying seeing what life was like so many years ago (and hopefully made them realize how easy we have it!). Afterwards, we went over to the Aplets and Cotlets factory (you probably only know what these are if you live in WA) and bought a few boxes. After lunch we made our way to Lake Chelan. There, we went to a city park on the lake. We enjoyed the warm weather, the beautiful scenery, and the water. On our trip back, we stopped in Orando at the Cider Works store to have their apple cider donuts (which they were out of because it was the end of the day), apple cider slushees, and homeade icecream. Next time we'll stop there on the way to the lake so the donuts won't be gone! Then, we stopped in Wenatchee for a quick fast food dinner and headed home. Our 13 hour trip was a lot of fun. It was nice to get out for one last hurrah to enjoy some nice weather before it turns cold and rainy.

Pioneer Village: gold panning and mine.
Lake Chelan

Lake Chelan

Cider Works: Abby was so good the entire day. How did we get so lucky to have such a happy girl! (Did you notice that her hair is filling in a little, bit, too?)

First Day of School

It's hard to believe that it was here again already. Summer break went by so quickly this year that it's ending almost seemed to sneak up on us. I'll miss having Jessie and Ben at home and knowing what they are up to at all times, but I'm excited that they'll be learning and having fun at school. I'm especially glad that Ben is now in 1st grade, which is all day, and I don't have to deal with the half day Kindergarten schedule any more. Our walk to school went very smoothly this morning except for Ben and Josh fighting over who would be the leader... Josh, Abby, and I walked them home again this afternoon so we could hear all about it. After today, Jessie and Ben will ride their bikes on most days so Josh, Abby, and I will be doing our hugging and waving from home.