More snow...

Have I mentioned how much I love the snow? (I should explain.... I love it when it isn't in my own front yard for 5 months--- in other words, I love to visit it.)
Here are some favorite pictures from our snowy weekend trip to Spokane....


I love this section of Snoqualmie Pass.... it is so pretty with a fresh dusting of snow.




Here's our happy girl in the snow.... she even managed her first snow angel!



Ian's gloves were on loan to Reagan so his time outside was fairly short lived. He did, however, manage a face first dive into the snow and also completed his first snow angel. It was an eventful few minutes for the little man.

Brotherly Love

We're in Spokane right now celebrating Christmas with Sean's family. Today we were blessed with a beautiful snowfall. A beautiful, peaceful snowfall that quickly turned into a brotherly snowball fight.

Daddy is hoping for a golfer....

Stuck!

Ian's new favorite word right now is "stuck". He says it for almost every situation possible. In the case of the photo above...... he REALLY meant it!

What you can't see is that he was walking in this position, pushing the bar stool in front of him. He almost made a full circle around the island before I decided to intervene. Thankfully, he was willing to stop for a brief moment in order to pose for me.

Silly, silly boy.

I love him so much...

Merry Christmas 2007

Precious memories....

This is the best spontaneous $3 we've spent in a long time!

Aren't they cute?!

When Mom's away....

.... the kids make a HUGE mess.

Okay, so I wasn't "away". Just in the kitchen-- which is only steps away from the play room.

The kids were playing so nicely in there... I heard the beautiful sounds of laughter and kindness.

So, I decided to peek in on them.

This is what I found. Niiiice.

Thoughts

Here we go.... Thursday's random thoughts, bullet style.

• What's with random vomiting? Ian decided to throw up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. Clearly there was a reason, but not one that I am privy to right now. He is totally fine now. Praise God for that!
• How about random money? Did you know that if you travelled overseas in the past 10 years, and used a credit card, that Visa/MasterCard charged you an "illegal" fee? I got a "class action court settlement" form yesterday (didn't know I took anyone to court!) and will be getting a refund of $25. Who knew?!
• How about completely random power outages? At about 1:00 today, our power went out! I know it's not weather related because it is sunny today. I'm thankful for my laptop that was not plugged in when it happened. :) Obviously if you're reading this, the power has been restored. Wonder if I'll ever know why?
• I do NOT recommend taking 4 children 3 years and under, all dressed up in their Christmas outfits, to a photo studio. Okay wait.... to a photo studio who decides to train a oh-so-very young man during our session. Seriously there were 3 employees in the studio and not one of them took charge. We all wanted to push them (gently) out of the way and take the pictures ourselves. Can you really expect 4 kids that young to sit still, hold a pose, look right in to the camera, and give their best smile? AT THE SAME TIME? I don't think so. The best part was when the new kid quietly said "okay kids, say fuzzy pickles!". No one even heard him (I happened to because I was standing behind him making a complete fool of myself trying to get them to look up). Okaaaaaay.... enough of that bullet.
• I love my daughter's developing imagination.... this morning, I walked into her room and she sat up and said "Once upon a time, there was a dinosaur at Grandma's house, Mom!" These days, most of her stories start with "Once upon a time...."
• We went to Z00 Lights the other night.... in the rain. It was actually really fun! And there were hardly any people there! It is, however, hard to explain to a 3 year old that we are going to the zoo, but we won't be seeing any animals. Reagan had a hard time with that.
• Is there any hope we'll have a white Christmas in Western Washington???? A girl can dream, right?

I can't make this stuff up!

Here she goes again.... my crazy little sleeper! Do you see her there at the end of the bed?

Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for. But not just on Thanksgiving.... every.single.day.

My life is so full.... everything I ever hoped it would be. I have a husband who loves me unconditionally, a daughter and son who are healthy, happy and can both light up a room , an extended family that I love to be with, a home to keep us warm and plenty of food in the fridge. Don't get me wrong, however.... there are tough times... bad attitudes, disobedient kids, exhaustion, frustration and more. But the good times far outweigh the bad times. I choose to not focus on those bad things. In fact, I keep a list of things I'm thankful for.... and I continually add to it and reference it during rough moments. It really helps keep my focus where it should be. At the end of the day when Sean and I collapse into our snuggle chair, we can relax with a collective sigh of contentment. Why, you ask? Because our hope is found in Jesus Christ alone. He provides the peace that surpasses understanding and the contentment we feel. Even on tough days, we press on because we know He is faithful. I am eternally thankful for that.

Most of all.... I am eternally thankful for Christ's sacrifice on the cross for me. Grace is an incredible gift---and one I certainly do not deserve.

My cup runs way over.

Party tricks by Ian...

The Jumpy Place

We took our families to the "jumpy place" (as Reagan calls it) last night. They have an "open play" hour on Wednesday nights--- it's a great way to insure a great night's sleep!


We all had a blast! Especially Sean, who is really a kid in a 30 year-old's body.


My sister wasn't too sure about the big slide (really people, it's big! And... it's straight down at the top, which didn't seem to bother our children one bit.)




Enjoy the photo/video account of our evening!

Grammer anyone?

I saw this quiz on Lisa's blog and HAD to do it. These two words: their/they're/there and it's/its are 2 of my biggest grammar pet-peeves. Also bothersome are: "your/you're", "irregardless", "lose/loose", "good/well", "a whole 'nother" etc.

(IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: I am by no means a grammar expert... just a girl who has a few grammar pet peeves...)

---------------------------------

You Scored an A

You got 10/10 questions correct. It's pretty obvious that you don't make basic grammatical errors. If anything, you're annoyed when people make simple mistakes on their blogs. As far as people with bad grammar go, you know they're only human. And it's humanity and its current condition that truly disturb you sometimes.

The It's Its There Their They're Quiz

Is he really doing THAT???

I had the most interesting experience yesterday while sitting at a stoplight.

Here we are, (just me and the kids) minding our own business at the stoplight when I decide to look to my right at the car next to me. Big mistake. I will now, forever and ever, have this vision etched in my mind.

Picture it with me:

It is an older gentleman sitting peacefully in his car. Then, for some reason I will never understand, he decides to take out his teeth and start licking them. Yes, read that again, I said take OUT his teeth. Then he continues licking what would be his "gums" and the rest of the apparatus.

Sadly, I could not stop watching him. It was the strangest sight I've ever seen. I even contemplated taking a picture with my phone, but thought that might be a tad rude.

Reagan was so confused too.... she kept saying "Mommy, he's licking teeth?!"

Needless to say, I was awfully pleased to see the light turn green.

Halloween '07

First off.... I must confess that Halloween is not my favorite day of the year. However, my kids deserve to have fun even though I'd rather skip the "holiday" all together. :)

With that said.... we had a great time! We headed out when Daddy got home and made our first stop at GG's house. She loaded the kids bags with the good candy! Then we headed to our church's indoor (and much warmer) function. It was quite the set-up! Tons of bouncy things (which Reagan LOVES) and silly games. They even had some animals to pet (Even a Mallard Duck! How cool!)

Our last stop of the evening was at Grandma and Grandpa's small group party-- they were all outside handing out hot cider and hot chocolate to the cold Trick-or-Treaters.

All in all it was a fun evening.... even with my stinky attitude :)

Here are some pictures. Reagan was a Fairy Princess and Ian was a monkey.... Cute, cute!

Real Men Dance with Their Daughters

(Before you watch the video, please place your left ear on your left shoulder. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to rotate the video... sorry!)

This is one reason why I love Sean so much...

He should have been at work...

Instead of being at work on Friday morning, my dad was doing this....




That is him (in front) climbing a support cable on the Narrows Bridge. He was invited to do it and my dad is a guy who would NEVER pass something like this up!

Needless to say.... he DID NOT tell my mom what he was going to do before he did it. He told her all about it when he was done (and safe). (Telling Mom after the fact is a lesson he learned long ago in his Air Force days :) )

Nice work Dad! Next time, clue me in so I can go too!!!

Good service? Bad service?

I'm so confused.
Here's the story...

Today is recycle day around the neighborhood. So, we put out our huge recycle bin this morning and also stacked some extra cardboard we had from organizing the garage next to the bin. We didn't, however, take down the yard waste bin. (not sure why)

When the recycle truck came they picked up the regular bin and didn't take the extra cardboard (we did this when we moved and they took it.... why not this time?). I was a tad annoyed.

Then, I looked outside again to see our yard waste bin at the curb. The recycle dudes had walked up to the house and drug it down and dumped it for us! How nice! What great service!

Here's why I'm confused.... we have those automated cans, where the guys don't get out of their trucks-- a big arm comes down and snatches up the can and dumps it.... so, if they can get out of the truck to walk up to the house and drag down the huge yard waste bin, then why can't they take the extra cardboard?

I used to think there were 2 different trucks-- one for recycle and one for yard waste. But today this all happened while ONE truck was outside. I know this because I happened to be pulling into the driveway as he was headed down our street. Not 5 minutes later was when I looked outside and saw the yard waste bin on the curb.

So, we had superior service and stinky (no pun intended) service from the same guys on the same day!

Isn't that odd?

Pumpkin Patch '07

It was a gorgeous day yesterday so we went to the Pumpkin Patch! Mind you, it had rained recently, so there was still mud.....

Reagan is thinking..... "Should I????"

Here's the answer!

(Blogger FINALLY let me upload this! You should have seen the looks we were getting from the other parents at the Pumpkin Patch....)

The picture below is proof of just how much fun we had!!

My other crazy "sleeper"

I kept hearing movement through the monitor at nap time today... so I peeked in on Ian to see what on earth he was doing.

This is what I saw. You'll have to excuse the muffled laughing in the background... I was trying so hard not to laugh out loud.

Yoga: by Frog

We had a duo of Frogs at the window today. One was on the sill and this one was on a leaf. This guy decided to join the little one on the sill and paused in this pose for quite some time. That can't be comfortable, so I figured he was stretching.

By the way, I really do other things throughout the day other than stare out the window waiting for the frogs. Really.

Rain, rain..... please stay!!

It is raining today. Please don't be too shocked.

Today, it is the kind of rain I LOVE. The constant, heavy rain... the rain that you can hear through the skylights, that makes you pause the TiV0 and listen. The kind that makes great puddles to stomp in. It makes me want to stay home, pull out all the snuggle blankets and cozy up with my family.

But there will be no staying home tonight.... Why, you ask? Because THIS just opened in town and we're headed there tonight for the best food in town! Yippeeee!!!


*** update: The food was delicious, but we don't recommend going to a popular restaurant in its first week open. Let's just say that they have some kinks to work out! We will most definitely return, but we'll let them finish getting their ducks in a row first. :) ***

Another Crazy Sleeping Reagan...

I just peeked in on Reagan during her nap and this is what I found....




If you can't tell by the pictures, she has a cove behind her bed and she is sleeping in the cove under a large pile of pillows. I've seen her do this before with the pillows-- she calls it her "hole", but I never imagined she'd actually fall asleep in the "hole"!

She can be a very creative sleeper.... as documented here and here