What Sunday Afternoon Brought to My House...

Yesterday the kids kept trying to make bets with each other and none of them could NOT do what they others bet them not to do, so they all kept losing the bets, and arguing, etc.  Finally, I said no more bets!  So, they all decided they would all do the consequence of losing the bets.  They didn't have time yesterday, so that's what they kept themselves busy doing this afternoon after church.  If you ask me, Jessie got the easy end, but the boys haven't seemed to care.  I'm glad my children can be silly and creative and play well together.  Sunday is the one day of the week that the kids can plan on everyone playing together and I think they really look forward to it (even if they won't admit it!).

Little Miss Joshie

Little Miss Benjaline

Little Miss Benjaline and (I'm really not sure what Jessie is suppose to be...she's wearing one of Ben's skate shirts, but she has lots of ponytails...you can decide)

                                    

Railroad Tracks

Jessie got her 'railroad tracks' put on today.  She still looks cute as ever.  She says, "I look like the next time a train passes our neighborhood, it's going to go off the tracks and over my mouth going 'whoo whoo!!'".  She's funny!

Abby wanted a picture with her big sis.  Jessie woke Abby from her nap today and Abby came down the stairs saying, "Mommy, come see.  Jessie painted her teeth pretty!"  It was very cute.

Holidays

I am so grateful that we could celebrate the birth of our Savior once again.  Through all the excitement of lights, decorations, goodies, and presents, Mike and I try our best to make sure our children understand the real reason we celebrate Christmas.  I am so grateful for Jesus Christ and for all He has done for me. 

We were very blessed to have had such a wonderful holiday week!  Christmas Eve we spent the afternoon and evening at Mike's parents' house, ate yummy snacks and a delicious dinner, opened presents, and then went home to wait for Santa to come.  Christmas day we opened all our presents and then Mike's parents and his brother, Jeff, came over for brunch and then we hung out all day.  It was two relaxing days.  We are all so grateful for the generosity of all who gave/sent gifts (and money)!  The day after Christmas, Jessie and I spent the day together shopping at the mall (which we never get to do, so was very fun and nice spending some one-on-one time with Jessie!).  Monday, Mike and I celebrated our 15th Wedding Anniversary!  We went to the Maltby Cafe for brunch and stuffed ourselves.  They are very well-known for breakfast and serve it all day long over the holidays.  Wednesday, Mike and I, and the three oldest kids took the tour of the Boeing plant in Everett.  It was exciting to see the 747, 777, and 787 on the production line.  It's amazing how big those planes really are and so interesting to learn about how they are actually put together.  I can't wait to someday ride in the 787 Dreamliner!  Thursday was New Years Eve and Jessie had a youth fireside and Scottish Hogmanay Party to attend at her Young Woman's President's home.  After the fireside, Ben and I joined her to ring in the New Year.  Jessie and I tried the traditional Scottish Haggas as well as some other traditional Scottish food.  It was a lot of fun!  Friday night, the kids got to have a sleep over at Nana and Gramp's house and Mike and I went out for a nice dinner for our Anniversary and spent a VERY quiet evening at home. We really enjoyed being able to carry on a conversation without being interupted and going to bed without any trouble from little ones, but by the time 10 a.m. rolled around and we were headed to pick up the kids, we were ready to have them home.  Our lives are just not complete without our four wonderful children! 

Christmas Eve at Mike's parents' house

ALL the boys playing Legos

Abby and Nana playing bears

Jessie being cute as ever (I love her new shorter hair cut!)

Christmas Day

Abby and her new doll

Tony Hawk Ride, which Ben was MOST hoping for (thanks Grandma and Grampy for helping him get it...)!

Josh and his Ben10 Lego - Humongosaurus

I think this one is self explainatory...

Helping MIke gear up for his fairly new hobby of shooting guns with his dad and brothers (a 12-gauge pump action shot gun).

Our new family 6-in-1 game table (thanks Grandma Betty!)

While Jessie and I were at the mall the day after Christmas, Jessie decided to get her ears pierced with her Claires gift card (thanks Grandma and Grampy).  They look great.  She is so excited at all the earring possibilities once she can take her studs out!

Hard to believe it's been 15 years!

We Wish You A Merry Christmas...

 and a Happy New Year!

Visit with Santa at our Christmas brunch at church...

Our visit to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens' light display.  It was amazing!

Happy Halloween!

Tonight was another fun Halloween.  The kids enjoyed going to see Nana and Gramps to show off their costumes and then we picked up one of Jessie's friends and one of Ben's friends to go trick-or-treating with us.  It rained a bit off and on, but nothing an umbrella couldn't handle.  I'm glad the heavy rain waited until we were finished.  We didn't have much traffic here at the house, so we have a TON of candy left over (note to self for next year - only buy 1 mega bag of candy at Costco!).  Anyone have any great ideas of what to do with the candy so we don't all gain 10 pounds before Christmas???

Here are the four kids before we headed to Nana and Gramp's house.

Ben - Zombie Skater

Abby - 'Puppy Mation' as she said all night.  She was a dalmation puppy.

Josh - Bobba Fet

Jessie- Spa Day

FALL

Not only have I been bad at blogging, I've been really bad at taking photos and video of my kids.  Mike and I realized today that we haven't taken any videos since we were on vacation at Owasco Lake this summer.  Shame on us!  The problem is, now, both our still and video cameras are having some problems, which is making it hard to do either. 

Apparently, the kids got ahold of the camera when I didn't know it...

Spirit Week

Spirit Week at school was a lot of fun.  Jessie dressed up just about every day.  She had school color day, sports team day, 80's workout day, and spirit day on Friday where they wear the colors of the High School which is Orange and Black.  She couldn't wait for Friday.  The Saturday before, we had a tu-tu making party at our house making tu-tu's with 2 of Jessie's friends.  They were silly and goofy, but finished their tu-tu's and had a lot of fun!  Here is Jessie all decked out on Friday morning before heading for school...go Bearcats!

TechDecks

In case you didn't know, Ben LOVES riding his skateboard and scooter, and LOVES TechDecks (finger skateboards).  This is one of the ramps he recently made out of cardboard for doing tricks on his TechDecks.  He did this completely on his own!  I was so impressed with the great job he did.

Here he is testing it out...

Pumpkins

Our pumpkin carving this year was sporadic.  Jessie carved hers last Tuesday night at her Young Women activity.  Abby and Josh carved theirs last Friday night and Ben carved his last Saturday morning (he was at a friend's house Friday night).  So...now I'm realizing that I never got a photo of Jessie and Ben with their pumpkins (see, I told you I've been a bad photographer lately!).

Here's Abby with her pumpkin, although Mommy did most of it.  She did help hold the carving saw a couple times.  She didn't want anything to do with cleaning out the pumpkin, but she thinks the roasted pumpkin seeds taste pretty good!

Back side (BOO)

Front side

Josh got a lot of help with his pumpkin from Jessie.

Back side (EEK)

Front side

CubScouts...stay tuned

Tuesday night, Ben was awarded his Wolf rank in CubScouts and one gold arrow and 3 silver arrows.  If you don't know anything about CubScouts, each year they have to complete a whole bunch of activities for that year's rank (like the Wolf when they are 8).  Ben worked on things like cooking, wood working, doing service, keeping track of chores, learning how to keep his home safe, etc.  Once he completes his rank, he can earn arrows for extra activities.  For every 10 activities, he earns 1 arrow, so he's completed 40 different activities.  Some of these include fishing, art, wood working, codes, acting, etc.  I'm really proud of his hard work and am happy that he wants to continue to learn new things and help in the community.  It's a great program that helps the boys to become good citizens and family members.  If you have a son, I would HIGHLY recommend signing him up for CubScouts or Boy Scouts.  You'll never be sorry you did!  Anyway, because our camera wasn't working right, I wasn't able to get photos, so I need to get them from my mother-in-law who did take photos.  I'll have to post them later...

House

We're settling into our house pretty well.  We've bought some furniture so some of the rooms are quite so bare now and we've replaced some of our furniture that we've had for a very looong time (like our computer desk that is 17 years old and is now in Ben's room).  There is still more furniture to buy to fill some of the rooms (like a formal dining room set) and lots of touch-up painting and decorating to do, but that will come a little more slowly.  We're still waiting to close...we were hoping by the end of October, but that's not going to happen.  We're not especially fond of the sellers or their agent, so when this is all over, we will be VERY HAPPY!  When we do close, the house will be ours and we won't have to worry about them any more and we can put all that behind us and move forward.  Overall, we are really happy to be here and really like the house.  SO....if you're ever in the area, come visit us; we have a little more room to be able to accommodate visitors now!

Back in School

It's been a couple months since I've blogged, but a quick synopsis of what we've been doing is: we kept ourselves busy during June by getting our house ready to sell and on the market July 3, went to Owasco Lake to visit my parents for three weeks (July 10 - Aug 3), packed up our sold home so we could be out by August 20th, stayed with Mike's parents in the interim, and partially moved into the home we're in the process of purchasing Sept. 2nd. We just got the remainder of our things out of storage yesterday, so now we have more unpacking to do. Maybe I'll have time one day to post some photos of our fun, RELAXING, vacation, but as of right now, I figure I better just post the most recent and important things first: back to school photos.

So, school for us started after Labor Day, so it was pretty late compared to a lot of other kids. Wednesday, September 9th, Ben headed off to 3rd grade at a new school, Chain Lake Elementary. He now rides the bus instead of walking to and from school. The same day, Josh and I attended a 1-hour Kindergarten orientation in his classroom so he would know what to expect the next day, when he officially started school. He gets on the bus in the morning with Ben (8:15 a.m) and comes home on the bus at noon. Jessie (7th grade) got lucky and didn't have to start school until the 10th, because the 6th graders get to have the middle school to themselves on the first day of school. She still attends the same middle school (which made her VERY happy) and still rides the bus. All three kids had a good first few days of school. They like their teachers and have adjusted very well. It's been a bit of an adjustment for Abby and I to have Josh gone everyday for so long, but I'm sure we'll get into the swing of things quickly and enjoy doing things by ourselves.

September 9th:

Abby was so excited while Ben was getting ready for school and Josh was doing a test run of getting ready that she insisted on wearing her backpack, too. Then, when the bus came, Abby walked off the curb and followed Ben to the bus, she was going, too, she thought. She wasn't too happy when she realized she didn't get to go...

September 10th:

Josh getting on the school bus for the first time.

Gramps followed the bus to school and took photos of the boys as they got off the bus. Thanks, Steve!

June

Sorry I haven't been blogging much. Mike and I have been working really hard on getting our house ready to sell so we can move into a bigger, more comfortable home for our family. SO, needless to say, I haven't had a lot of free time to blog. I decided to relax for a few minutes this morning and put up a new post.

School is out! The kids are happy to have a break, but they are already getting a little bored on some days...good thing we leave for our 3 week vacation on Owasco Lake at my parent's house in 2 weeks!

Josh and Abby
Abby snuggling with Ben while watching t.v.

Abby sharing her ice cream cone with Josh. For some reason Abby likes to go out to the back deck and lay down on the steps to eat her popsicles, ice cream, or other snacks.

Josh at his preschool graduation party. Our home preschool co-op was a lot of fun this year. The kids were great and I think they are all ready for kindergarden!

Receiving his diploma certificate.

Woohoo we're graduated!!

Matyas Family picnic last Saturday... All the Matyas grandkids with Nana and Gramps. Alaina, Jessie, Steve (Gramps), Ben, Abby, Beckie (Nana), Jayme, Josh, Emily, Audrey

My family.

Ben and Josh playing in the sand box pit with Jayme and Alaina's dog, Anacortes (Annie).

Ben and Jayme having fun together in the sand pit.