Christmas is coming...has come... and gone.

Looks like a parade to me.

Emma Helping Abby on the tricycle.

Abby likes my camera.

Joseph on his bike.

Ethan on his new Bike.

Here are the little girl Pics. Top is a profile, below is a face with one hand up near the mouth, and the other arm and legs extended toward you.

Midway through Christmas break and a lot has happened, not the least of which is Laura's youngest sister getting married. Yeah! It had been a long two year wait for Becky while Spencer served a mission in Japan, but, she resisted all other offers, and now they are happily on their way to a happily ever after.

They were married in Boise, Laura's family (us included) terrorized the hallways of Extended Stay America for about 3 days, without having to pay extra damage costs. Laura was bustin' her bellybutton with excitement at seeing her family after a year and a half drought.

Speaking of busting bellybuttons, Laura is performing another umbilical miracle. We have ultrasounds of number 5 and (drum roll please) ...its a girl! We have thought of Madeline, Molly, and Bethany as names. Our current pick is Bethany. We will see how long it lasts.

Christmas was fun. Ethan and Joseph got bicycles and Emma a doll house. The boys also got nerf darts for their dart guns (visitors beware). That Ethan is a good shot! We had a gunfight and I can't tell you how many times I was pinged in the forehead.

One week left of vacation. We will see what fun we think up.

The Nudesies

Okay, so you remember that musical made a few years back called the Newsies? Well, in our house we have the Nudesies! These little bare cuties were too much to resist, the camera had to come out.

Doesn't Joseph look the part for the musical? He is even doing some dance moves! too bad the camera takes such dark pictures. Emma got some birthday money from her Grandma K and chose to buy a barbie swimming pool with a lifeguard chair. I was going to take a picture of all the naked barbies chilling in their pool on our bathroom floor, but their must have been a tsunami before I got a chance because it was all a wet chaos when I got back. Next time she will play with it in the bathtub and save me some grief:) It was all so fun though.

Happy, Happy Birthday

Yesterday we celebrated Emma's birthday. The big 7 now. I know, I know, we were 3 days early, but we thought that if we did it on the weekend previous that it would be easier than during the week. We may have been mistaken. This is how it went.

6:00 Was that really the alarm? It's the weekend, turn it off.
6:02 Never mind, Joseph (on our floor woke up)
6:03 Never mind again, he is back in bed.
7:00 Kids bouncing on the bed. Time to get up. Breakfast? What's that? It's the weekend, find it yourself.
7:30 Time to go work on the roof. Work, work, work, (break for breakfast -thanks Sister Shea!)
work, work, work.
11:30 get kids read, make lunch, damage control.
1:30 we are late, get in the car. I SAID GET IN THE CAR! Fine we are leaving without you.
1:50 Everyone in the car? Check. Buckled? Check. Okay, let's go get to the primary activity.
2:00 Arrive at the primary activity (half hour late). Carve pumpkins. Eat ice cream. Get tackled by 15 5-year-olds (okay, it was probably only 6 or 7 kids, but it FELT like 15.
3:20 Go home. Clean up the lunch mess we didn't get put away. buy frosting, mix up and bake cake, send all the kids to time out so that we can get some things done and have some fun.
6:00 let the kids out of time out (just kidding, they were let out earlier). Eat hot dogs, fruit salad. Don't touch the cake sitting 6 inches in front of you. Don't touch that frosting. (they actually did do pretty good about it).
6:30 Happy birthday Emma! Presents. Smear lipstick on my nose and juggle.
OUCH! Ethan that HURT! Party is over. Stop the bleeding. Lay down to prevent shock. Do I go to the hospital? Are you crazy? Too cheap for that. It will heal. Eventually. Maybe.
7:00 Okay kids. I can tie balloon animals in bed for you. Frog. Lion. Sword. Muppet guy. Don't let Abby have them. She will choke if she gets them.
8:00 kids all in bed. Drinks of water all around. Drinks again. Again. That's enough. NO more. Again. Bathroom, bathroom, bathroom.
9:00 Done. Finally.

Okay, I did take a bit of poetic license. That is more how it felt.
I did get a pretty good gouge in my lip from Ethan's headbutt. It was unintentional, but it hurt like crazy. The kids really did have fun yesterday.

Pictures:

Emma posing with her new bike. Emma's cake It is a chicken man cake. Her design. The thing that looks like a frown is exactly that. Joseph was washing dishes and was Joseph Santa.

Illegal Aliens

To start at the ending...
Laura and I took a little jaunt up to northern Washington this past weekend and kept on goin'. We had decided that since we were only a few miles from the Canadian border it would be fun to go and see it. We drove up, got confused, and couldn't turn around until a trooper said "Welcome to Canada, Let's see your ID." We apologized profusely, and said that we just wanted to get back to the states, so he turned us through a barrier and sent us back up to the US border patrol. They were much more strict. The had us get out of the car, leave our cell phones, go into a building while they searched it (the car, not the phone), then they scanned our licenses and asked us questions about our birthplace and marriage place. We figure that by scanning our licenses it brought up other vital records and they questioned us about those. Anyway, an exciting ending to a trip.

We had originally gone up for a conference. It was at the Semiahmoo resort and spa. Boy was I glad the school footed that bill. It was nice. As any loving parent would do, we ditched the kids and Laura and I went alone (that is except for Abby who managed to hitch a ride with us). It was right on birch bay. We had fun looking at the herons, and the resident bald eagle. Laura saw a seal and of course there were gads of seashells. We even awkwardly ate at a very nice restaurant to the tunes of Abby screaming because we wouldn't let her pull the table cloth off the table. It was good food though.

We came home late Saturday night, picked up kids and fell into bed. That's it!

PS The grass in our back yard is starting to fill in a bit YEAH!!! Hopefully if we can keep the dog from digging too many holes we will have a back yard with a real yard by the end of next spring.

Ty

stress reduction

Okay, so, I am the kind of person that, when I get stressed I find something to do. Since I am far from a perfectionist, I happily engage myself in a multitude of things at a mediocre level. The thing is, I think I must be getting far too stressed out at work because I have found myself at times thinking "hmm... should I juggle, crochet, tie ballon animals, draw, go outside and play with the chainsaw?" and many other frivolous pastimes. But, having seen a snapshot of the things I like, is there anything new I can try that would not be life threatening (I know, I know, those crochet hooks can be nasty, but a guy has got to live a little right?)

Ty

The Good The Bad And The Ugly

Ty tried out a unicycle for the first time. He said it was a humbling experience. Here is Joseph pushing his favorite friend Blue Guy on the swing. Looks like Blue Guy is having a good time!
Ethan Underwear Head!
On the 4th of July everyone took a refreshing illegal dip in a public fountian. Neil assured us that everyone does it. Here's to peer pressure.


Our cute kiddos


Hey Everyone, it is soooo nice to be back home again! This has been an eventful summer. We stayed at my sister Sarah's for 4 weeks while Ty finished his master's degree. She is one brave lady to take us all in. Together their were 10 children in the house. She also has our youngest sister living with her. When we were trying to find someone to care for our dog Tip she said "bring her along ,too". What a great person! We had lots of fun together. Unfortunately I can't get any of our good pictures off the other camera yet, so these will have to do for now. Here is my beautiful sister Sarah and her little baby Sammy. She would probibly hate it that I posted this picture of her, but I think she is always pretty. After four weeks in Idaho Falls we went to Utah to see some of Ty's brothers and spend 4th of July weekend. That was fun to see them again! The best news of the summer.....Ty now has his Master's Degree in the Education of the Deaf! Way to go Ty that took a lot of work! So far I have covered the good. Now on to the bad and ugly. On our drive home from Idaho Ethan said he wasn't feeling well. We got an hour into the trip and he threw up. We pulled over changed his clothes, got him and his car seat cleaned up and continued on our way. He threw up again, but we were ready this time. To make a long story short, our 10 hour drive was a 13 hour drive. A couple of days later Emma threw up in the Lowe's parking lot things went from there. Everyone in the family got it. Abby had it the worst.
After about a week of the stomach bug in our family we had a few healthy days and then a mysterious fever showed up. Everyone but Ty got the fever. This time I got it the worst I have been sick for a week and on top of that now I have an infection. The doctor put me on intibiotics for the infection and immediately I got this killer nonstop headache. I don't remeber ever having a headache that bad. If I moved my head at all, or even my eyes my head would just pound. It was a beast! We found out it was a side effect of the meds. I stopped taking them and the headache is much better. Anyway, enough about that. We really aren't trying to be hermits, in fact we can't wait to see everyone again and maybe go camping:)

What's new this Spring...

Hi! The title of this blog is "what's new this spring" First off, we now have a side yard garden. Sort of. As you can see it is a work in progress but we are excited. Ty is putting in an old fashioned brick path. We planted some perennials, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, peppers, and a grape. Hopefully when it fills in in a few years we will have a lush vegetable-filled, bird-friendly, flower-growing paradise.
The Ottomans are coming!

This is Ty's latest woodworking project. We wanted an ottoman for a while and so he used Mother's Day as an excuse to make one. It turned out better than we expected. The top lifts of for storage. To bad the picture quality is so poor or you could see the coloring better. In a couple of years we will probibly replace the cushion for a thicker one. Now we can kick up our feet and watch a movie. This is also another fun piece of furniture for kids to jump off of. Fortunately the lid is 3/4" plywood so it is practically bomb proof.


Here's our cutie!

She is so fun to photograph because she is a happy baby! Our flowers have been very prolific this spring (including clover and dandilions). Abby loves to pick and eat them out of the grass.

These pictures were turning out so well I just kept taking them. Abigail is ten months old now and so much fun! She scoots around the house on her stomache, picking up whatever is in her path. She just started pulling herself up against furniture. She is very cuddly and has lots of personality!

That's all for now. We will be sending more pictures this summer of our adventures in Idaho.

Well, time has flown by and Laura thought that we needed a new post with pictures for people to check, so...Here you go! (some of them are kind of fuzzy -we've been experimenting with a new kid-friendly camera)
Top to bottom: Pillow fight! Kind of. The boys were supposed to be changing their sheets. They decided jumping had to figure into that job somewhere.
You can't see it well, but Abby just polished off a bunch of sweet potatoes. (No they are not hiding in her cheeks, that is their normal size)
Daddy getting crowded off the bed by a little bed hogging angel.
This is Joseph's innocent look. He wears it all the time. Let me tell you he gets a lot of use out of that look just after all kinds of trouble. Really, he is very sincere about his apologies for any trouble, but being three it all just comes naturally.
Joseph and Abby in the bath. Gotta have something to black mail them with when they are older.
Emma looking pretty. She just lost her first tooth to a kindergarten baby carrot. She came home really excited. Reminded me of how I tried to think up plans for knocking my teeth out when I was young so that I could get a LOT of money from the tooth fairy.
Here's momma! Prettiest picture yet on the blog. (She told me not to type ___________) edited by the chief of staff
Ethan reading a book. I can't see what it is, but it is probably all about bugs, engines, or something else informational. You can't hardly get him to pick up a story book, but if it is informational, he loves it.

Family news.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh! Whew! Yippee!!!!

The end.

Ty