Birthday Wishes

Some families celebrate birthdays with huge parties full of action packed chaos and children running wildly. We prefer small family only parties. Then one year one of our daughters said for her wish she wanted two dates, one with her mom and one with her dad. And from that a new tradition was born.

I get the birthday girl for the day. We do lunch, go shopping, hang out and giggle until it hurts. Then as sad as I am to end my part in their big day we head home. Now it is daddy's turn.

I help get our princess dolled up for her date with dad. And off they go for an evening out. This way we both get to show and tell them, one on one, just how much we love them and what they mean to us.

I hope this tradition continues forever as I cherish these memories. I don't want to ever forget the fun of seeing them getting haircuts at salons, nails done, and picking out the most beautiful dress they have ever seen. The sweet conversations over lunch and giggles while eating ice cream. And I especially don't want to forget the excitement and anticipation they have for their date with their dad, just as he equally anticipates being their Prince Charming for the evening. Nothing can compare to the love a girl has for her dad...he really can hang the moon in their eyes.

Love...Stolen

Okay, so maybe it isn't love stolen. Truth is, it is given freely. These two love each other like best friends, like siblings inseparable. Three years ago we thought how this love, rather suffocating at the time, wouldn't last. Surely it was a new love, similar to when anything we've really wanted becomes a part of our lives. We smother it with love, attention, and affection. We can't get enough.

How surprised were we to discover he shared that same love for her. Now it wouldn't be honest to create the impression there are not moments they bicker. They are siblings. But far more often they are that sweet inseparable pair. They just "get" each other. And I love that.

A Double Digit Birthday

The big One Zero

Olivia turned 10 this week. She informed us that becoming a double digit was HUGE. After being informed of that we thought we should try to make it extra special for her. So we equipped her with a gift card and made reservations at a salon for her. She got her hair cut and styled along with a manicure. Then she headed to the mall to spend the gift card. She is at that picky clothing stage so this was the easiest way to ensure she liked what she got. She was rather thrifty with the card and did quite well.

It is hard to imagine my oldest is 10! She is an amazing girl and we are blessed to have her.

Christmas 2008

What a wonderful Christmas we had! We spent Christmas Eve baking cookies and making these cute chocolate dipped, candy coated spoons to give to our dinner guests. They were a big hit. We made the candy coated ones for the children and different variations of mints for the adults, thinking they would use theirs as stirrers for coffee.

Christmas wouldn't be complete without a Santa Baby. Santa suit was care of a generous friend (Thank you Michelle!)

Although he didn't care about gifts we enjoyed them for him. After shopping for girls for 10 years it was a nice change of pace to have a little guy to shop for. These vintage inspired cowboy toys were my favorite.

We've jumped into the technology age with this one. I do believe we were one of the last families to have a game system and Santa thought it was time for us to have one. My husband, brother, and dad use it more than anyone but it was for the kids, honest. (note: picture was taken at 6am. Can you tell which child woke out of excitement and which two where drug from their beds so the fun could begin?)

Stocking fun. Seeing what's inside is some of the fun but the best part for us are the pins on the outside. We have a tradition of pinning a new pin on our children's stockings each year. It's similar to the excitement of hanging handmade ornaments on the tree; reminiscing over them as you see them each year is the fun part.

Baby Alive. If you have had the torture, I mean pleasure, of having one of these given as a gift to your child then you will understand this. These dolls were supposed to be all the rage. They have soft faces that are mechanical and many expressions with plenty of vocals. They also perform several bodily functions including eating real food, sucking, burping, projectile puking, and passing gas. Yes, you read that correctly. This doll moves her nose to sniff and then says, "Oh, I feel better now". The puke is a green slime that stains everything and she does this often. Not only did one daughter receive this baby but all three did. Thank you grandma!

Grace opening her Baby Alive. Every year I say we will simplify gifts. We follow through along with one set of grandparents, the others refuse. By the end of Christmas they had more toys than they know what to do with. If you asked them what they received they couldn't name them all, I would bet money on it.

After opening gifts, eating a delicious meal, and playing numerous games everyone was exhausted and ready for bed. Here's to another Christmas come and gone!

The Christmas Jar

The Christmas Jar

We were blessed to learn of a Christmas legacy based on a best selling novel Christmas Jars this year. I can't help but to tell you our story.

How very rare is it to hear of kind acts these days. You can turn on the news or open the paper and be overwhelmed with stories of misfortune and grief, but it is rare to see or read of a kind act from anyone, let alone a stranger.

We received a visit from a messenger the other day. She came to our home to share a story and give us a gift, a beautiful red gift bag. She told us that another family had selected her to be the deliverer and us to be the receiving family. She said only the givers of the gift knew the reasons why they chose our family and that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to investigate who sent the gift.

We opened the gift bag to find a beautiful jar with a red ribbon on the top of it. It has "Christmas Jar" wrote on it. It isn't a new jar, but instead shows marks of years of use. Inside the jar is money. I won't say how much, that is for our family to know and part of the legacy behind the story. But it is enough for us to enjoy a family gift that we otherwise wouldn't be able to treat our children to. Along with the jar was the best part- a book. It is Christmas Jars, by Jason Wright.

I'm not sure our visitor had time to pull out of the driveway before we started to read the book. It isn't a long book, but then it doesn't have to be long to have a profound impact on people. I highly recommend reading this book and after you read it you just might want to consider starting your own Christmas Jar. Our family has already decided that come December 26th we will start our own jar and next year we will look forward to passing our jar on to a family we think might need to learn of it's meaning.

How amazing that what started as a simple story turned into a Christmas legacy for thousands of people to share in and how blessed are we to be a part of it. I hope you take the time to learn of the Christmas Jar and what it means to others. You can go to the link at the beginning of this post to read what impact the jars have had on other families and individuals. There are some truly spectacular stories of life changing moments, second chances, and dreams come true. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2008

We celebrated Thanksgiving with family by eating a delicious meal and playing a good old fashioned game of bingo. I missed being able to help cook this year so I filled my time by doing crafts with the kids.

We made the traditional paper plate turkey, a couple of handprint turkeys, and some drawings. These weren't my favorite this year though, my favorite were the place marker turkeys(I posted a pic above). I can't take any credit for the idea as they were a kit from Target I picked up earlier in the year. They were so fun to create and I think they turned out perfect. They came with a keepsake holder so we can store them to use again next year.

Thanksgiving is now over. I went to sleep Thursday night and woke up Friday morning to our neighbors having their home fully decorated with lights, blow up characters, outdoor music, and the whole works. They are always the first to bring the joy of the season to our neighborhood. Looking out the window and seeing their house reminds me that I should go remove the gourds and Indian corn from the front porch. What happened to a time period between holidays? We go from Halloween, to Thanksgiving, to Christmas without any breaks in between. Ready, set, here we go to the Christmas season!

OAMC Time!

It's that glorious time again, time to cook! I spent yesterday laying out the recipe plan and doing the shopping. Today was the cooking day. It took me 9 hours to complete 34 meals, 30 breakfasts, and numerous desserts. This was one of the largest cooking sessions I have done and took the longest. The good thing is that we will eat good for a while and it will take minimal effort on my part to throw together great family dinners. So below is my list of what I made.

Chicken Dishes:
Chicken Parmesean
Chicken Tetrazzini
Chicken Firecrackers
Chicken Enchiladas- my own recipe

Beef Dishes:
Shepherd's Pie
Lazy Lasagna- quick version of lasagna
Beef Stroganoff
Western Casserole
Bacon Cheddar Meatloaf
Taco Soup
Precooked 5lbs of taco meat and 5lbs. of hamburger to add to other dishes as we need them.

Breakfast:
Waffles
French Toast
Breakfast Burritos
Coffee Cake

Sides:
Seasoned Red Potatoes
Dinner Rolls

Desserts:
Oatmeal Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Snickerdoodles
Peanutbutter Cookies
Apple Pies
Cherry Cobblers

Now I can sit back and enjoy dinner time without fretting over that infamous question, "what's for dinner?"

Halloween

Happy Halloween!

To celebrate the day we carved and painted some pumpkins. After all what Halloween is complete without pumpkins? We have two children that like to carve and one that doesn't like the feel of the inside of the pumpkin so she paints them each year. We end up with a variety of decorated pumpkins and gourds.

Quinn wasn't willing to give up his pumpkin to being carved or painted. He liked it just the way it was- in his mouth!
We found some spectacular costumes in the dress up box. This requires a short explanation because we were planning on them being a ladybug, butterfly, bumblebee, and a frog. Then at the last minute they decided against those (ahh the joys of three daughters with an indecisiveness like their mom).

We don't buy costumes so it was up to them to find something in the dress up box. After finding some great vintage outfits complete with some old jewelry, hats, and gloves we were ready to hit the town.
We have made it a tradition to visit a local assisted living facility each year for Halloween. The residents enjoy seeing the kids all decked out in their costumes and it teaches the kids not to focus on the candy but more about making someone else's day better.

Now to deal with all that candy! We typically let them go wild with it the first night. What they don't consume in the first night gets put into snack baggies and froze for future treats. They must be learning their lessons with belly aches because they paced themselves quite well on candy eating. There must be hope yet for them and their sweet teeth!

We had a great night and hope you had a spooktacular Halloween too!

Woodland Zoo

After Pike's Market and the bay we enjoyed a visit to Woodland Zoo. What a fantastic zoo this is! The animals are in natural environments and you get quite the hike walking miles of trails to see the different animals. They allow food and drinks inside so you can pack a lunch to enjoy among the animals, but don't feed the animals of course! I couldn't have possibly taken photos of everything but here are some of our favorites.

These giraffes were huge! They stopped us along the trail and shut some gates to allow the giraffes to cross to another area for some "tree top dining". It was spectacular how small they make you feel when you are somewhat close to them.

Below is Gentle Ben. Okay, so it isn't really Gentle Ben but he looked like he could have been. He had quite the personality showing off for us. In the second picture you can see he got bashful and covered his face. He kept it covered until we left.

Here is the king of the jungle. A lean and fit lion with a roar much beyond his size.

He had beautiful eyes if you can see through the glare on the glass between us.

Another big kitty.

The hippos were fun to watch. They had gigantic balls floating in a pond that they played with. They seemed to get a little aggressive for as large as they are. Can't say I would want to swim with one of these!
The girls couldn't resist hopping on top of this bronze statue. They had statues all through the zoo to offer you picture taking opportunities with your kids. We never knew what we would find around the next corner.
Here are my personal favorites. The apes. They are very human like in their mannerisms and it amazed me. We spent quite a bit of time watching them. The one closest in the photo liked to show off. He would put his hand up on the glass for the kids to place theirs with and match it. He rolled over on his back and placed his feet on the glass while rubbing his stomach. He even offered us part of a pumpkin (they had the park decorated for Halloween) by holding it against the glass in front of us. Sadly, this is the only photo that turned out of him. The lighting wasn't good and my camera leaves a lot to be desired, lol.
This snake had just finished a meal shortly before we arrived. Glad we weren't there to see that.
It wouldn't be a zoo without elephants. They weren't very active but were still fun to look at.
All the bird exhibits were open areas that you walked into. You entered one door and shut it before you opened the second door to prevent the birds from flying out. I have to admit I had a huge fear of a bird dive bombing me, landing on me, or pooping on me. Luckily none of that happened and we were able to enter many bird exhibit areas and see them flying all over the place. It was exciting to see them not in small cages but instead in huge areas where they were free to fly and build nests. And boy do eagles build HUGE nests!!!
After visiting the tropical rain forest exhibits where my glasses fogged up to the point I couldn't see what we were looking at and visiting the farm animal petting zoo, the girls enjoyed the spider exhibits. I stayed back and let grandpa take them through it. This was the proof I got back from them seeing it.
If you are ever in the Seattle area I would highly recommend visiting this zoo. There are a few zoos in the area but this one by far beats the others as being high interest, natural, and with a huge variety of animals to see. Definitely worth the time and money!

Pike's Market

We recently took a trip to Seattle. While the main reason for the visit wasn't sight seeing we thought we would take advantage of the opportunity and see what the city had to offer. We spent some time on the bay and walking through Pike's Market. Below is a picture of the girls with Pike's Pig. It's a huge piggy bank. We took two photos, this one that they are looking at me and the second one, not posted, that my youngest was more interested in some features on the under side of the pig. Why everything has to be anatomically correct is beyond me..sheesh!
While walking through the market the kids wanted to see the tallest man's shoes. Isn't it amazing what you can find displays on. I think my feet are pretty big, considering I am 5'10", and they haven't found their way into a museum yet. I'll keep waiting for the call asking for my best pair. I have to admit the whimsy of old time amusements still gets me. So insert a quarter and enjoy looking at the shoes.

Next, we found ourselves intrigued by the Madame so-and-so that was "guaranteed" to tell us a fortune. Two of the girls thought this was funny and one cried and wanted to go home. She spit out a card letting us know our lucky numbers and that good fortune would come to us. We hope she is right and thought about buying a lottery ticket based on her numbers. In the end we decided to buy lunch instead.
I wanted to take photographs of the men throwing the fish around the market but they were too quick and I wasn't paying close enough attention to when they were doing it. Apparently the yelling didn't tip me off enough.

The girls decided we couldn't leave the market without getting a penny stamped with Pike's Pig on it.
After all that walking the girls were ready to find a shady spot to rest. Looks like they found it.

Deer Hunting 2008

We just returned from our week long excursion into the Eagle Caps for deer hunting. The weather, for the most part, was spectacular. It was short sleeved shirt weather all but one day. The boys hunt from the wee hours of the morning until lunch time. They return to camp for some hot food and then take off again for an afternoon hunt. I enjoy going for the evening hunts so we do those as a family. We seen a lot of does and fawns but no bucks. Oh except this one...
This four point buck was waltzing through the streets of the local town when we came for gas. He knew he was safe! I imagine the residents at the local assisted living facility get a kick out of seeing this peeping tom staring into their rooms. We talked of lassoing him and walking him to the outskirts of town so we could tag him. My husband thought it would be more funny if I could ride him out of town. That's the point when we decided to head back to the mountains. :o)

The girls were playing like they were wild Indians running through the hills. I figured no Indian should be without a teepee so below is our great build. Last camping trip we made a miniature log cabin, after doing a teepee I have to say I prefer the teepee. Much less work! So here we are introducing the princess teepee.

Here are my camp mugshots.

Olivia has been working her way up the ranks of the guns for the past couple of years. She has practiced on larger guns (her favorite) but typically shoots the .22 for fun. She got a lot of shooting practice in this weekend.
Here is her target. It was positioned quite a ways away so I thought she did rather well. Before long she will be hunting with dad, unless her mom corrupts her first and turns her into an animal lover, lol.

Here is our smores pictures. Our aunt was so kind as to bring us chocolate graham crackers and spreadable marshmellow cream incase the weather wouldn't allow us to make the real ones. Luckily for us we could make them over the fire, it just isn't the same without the fire!

And then the weather turned on us. We seen it coming in and before long it snowed and snowed. The girls were in their glory out playing in it.

They played so hard that they slept like rocks!

So although we didn't get a deer we still had a good time. It always reminds me how packing is fun but unpacking isn't.