Fall Professional Pics

Thank you Freckled Photography!
I highly suggested if you live in WA State that you call Freckled Photography.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Thanks Jerrah for a fun mini session. We enjoyed meeting you & the pics are great.

Pumpkin Time!

A few pics at a park with grandma & grandpa and our muddy afternoon at a pumpkin patch.

new pics of the kids

Makeover(ish)

I am bored with my hair but not willing to go too risky. I always miss my long hair when it's gone but occasionally find myself willing to part with it to enjoy some change and bring some life back to my hair.
I would love some opinions, if you are into this kind of thing...if not then revisit in a few days and I will post some kid pics or recipes or something of more interest to you than my silly hair makeover. ;)

I did an image search on line for hairstyles, here are some ideas I have for cut.


Here are some ideas I have for color.

I'm thinking I want to go darker. As for the picture of the gals w/ asymmetric hair I don't want to do the large chunk of red she has but some fun dark red or eggplant color peeking out here and there from the dark color is fun to me. I like to other color ideas too and the hints of caramels or reds.

What are your thoughts?

Life as a tourist...

It's fun to live around so many things to do.
This past weekend we went to Ballard Locks to watch boats transport between fresh water and salt water and each body of water is a different "height" (not sure how to phrase that), so basically the locks are a man made way to help the boats cross from one to the other without problem. I haven't quite taken the time to understand this but it was cool to watch in action.
They have also made a Salmon Ladder which helps the salmon swim upstream and cross from one body of water to the other, although I cannot remember if they are going from fresh to salt or vice versa. I'm no expert (obviously) and I'm too busy chasing a 3 year old & asking if she needs to go potty to spend my time reading signs. Adam reads them & then tries to explain them to me and these are my muddled & confused explanations. haha
Here are some pictures.


We spent Wednesday in Seattle. We road the train, along the coast from Edmonds (which is a town very near our home) to Seattle and then back. It was cheap and fun. We enjoyed the water and the outline of mountains on the horizon. I wish we had taken more pictures, but we were busy having fun & making KJ hold our hand against her will.


All you moms out there can rejoice with me that we are on day 3 of no diapers with KJ, not even at bedtime! I decided to just go for it in the city & prayed we would find bathrooms when we needed them. I was very aware to ask her when I saw clean bathrooms(Thanks Bob A. for the "Always Try" FOCUS advice, it has forever heightened my awareness of bathrooms when away from home. LOL.)

Dance Twirl Sing

This is our house, if KJ is awake. Dancing, twirling, and singing - and the singing is LOUD! If you are not projecting you are not singing, I think this is KJ's philosophy anyway. She LOVES to dance. Next week she is starting a ballet and tap class so we used her birthday money from Grandma,PopPop and GG to purchase her dance shoes and leotards. I'm telling you this girl is on cloud 9! She keeps asking when dance class is and why she can't wear her tap shoes all day. Here are some pictures of KJ modeling her new clothes. Thank you for the birthday money wonderful Grandparents, you have a very happy granddaughter!

K Turns 3!

Labor Day we took a Ferry Ride to Kingston and ate yummy crepes, we walked around a bit but there really wasn't much to see on foot near the ferry. Then we rode back. The ferry ride was fun and the kids enjoyed it. Daddy took KJ to the top of the ferry to check out the view. When asked what she thought of it she said, "It's kinda like a pirate ship!" (Thanks to Jake & the Neverland Pirates on Disney she is forever in love with pirates & she hasn't seen the show in months!)

KJ helped we make the batter for her birthday cake and I let her play with the little batter leftover & make cupcakes, which we did bake but did not share because she licked her fingers WAY too many times. LOL

Here are some pics from our week.

Living it up in the Pacific Northwest.

Headed West...

Ok, finally, decent internet service.
Here are some slide shows with captions of a few highlights on our road trip from the Plains to the Pacific Northwest.

Kiddo Update

I'm totally just throwing slide shows at you to play blog/life catch-up.
I'm sure you won't mind after these cute pictures.

House Update #1

Here is a quick slide show of the house we are building (well, we are having it built).
We currently live a 1/2 mile from where we are building so it has been fun to drive by almost every day and see the house come to life little by little.


I need to upload more pictures soon, the house now has siding on and brick. We should have stone on soon and the exterior painted. Once there is sheet rock and cabinets go in I will happily share interior pictures but all of the framing is great to look at in person but framed bones of rooms don't really translate in a snap shot.

Fun Side Note: I'm told the family that lives in the house behind ours has 4 boys, the 3 youngest are triplets and are about K's age! Hope they are nice little boys. :)

Adventure or Worrisome Journey

Our family is going on a journey - a new journey - an adventure with some worry in tow. :)

Soon we will be leaving the Central Plains of the USA and living for several months in the Northwest.

We of course will be taking our two small children and our dog. We will drive out there, the Mister will be working, the kids and I will be living it up Apartment life style - ;) I'm not really sure what that means, other than I am going to have to get creative and teach our kiddos to be respectfully quiet or our neighbors are going to hate us!

Good news is they only have to put up with our noise for a few months. Then it's back to the Plains.

Where we will be moving into a new house. We are getting pretty excited for our journey.

Life in the moutains and near the water and some of the best food (seafood) in the U.S. and then home to a new home with the kitchen of my dreams (well pretty dang close to my dreams).

Should be pretty exciting and trying at the same time.

Hope to get some pictures up soon of the house building process and I am WAAYYYY over due posting pictures of the kids!

Try to get you updated soon.

Baby E Update on Tubes

Sometimes kids get sick. Sometimes when they are sick they are still very happy and have no fever, so you don't know they are sick until they have green goop coming out their nose and their eyes look all watery like this & they have not been crying. Poor little guy! Sometimes you go to the Dr and find their ears are full of puss and it is the 4th month in a row for an ear infection. And your heart breaks.


So your pediatrician suggests you see an ENT doc and then you find your sweet little munchkin in a hospital gown, waiting in a play area to have tubes put in his ears. They will tell you, "It's no big deal." "He will feel so much better the same day" "It will only take 10min and then you can be with your child" and all of these things will be true.
They will also tell you, "He will be crying when he is coming out of anesthesia." This will be a half truth.
What they SHOULD have said is, "He will be screaming mad & cry like you have NEVER seen him cry before. He will still be out of it but look awake. His eyes will be blood shot and it will simply melt your heart like nothing has before and you will cry with your baby while you try to choke out a familiar song you often sing to him so he can be comforted (only it won't work b/c your crying is either also stressing him out or simply he has no idea what's going on because of the sedation meds). " and then you will pass him off to daddy and take a picture and try to pull yourself together. Because really he's fine & the meds are just making him not himself. And then before long, you will see this face!
And you will forget a little bit how sad it was to listen to your child cry so hard and be so confused for just a short time. You will feel blessed beyond measure. He will hear better and he will interact more and he will learn the hand motions to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" in just a few minutes and your heart will swell.
And you will feel blessed beyond measure.
Love ya Buddy!

The PARTY!

In the post previous to this one I posted pictures of what inspired the party theme for Baby E's 1st Birthday. Here is a slide show of what we put together. We sure love Baby E!

Birthday Inspiration

Here are pictures of what inspired the party theme for Baby E's 1st Birthday!

January - February Update Photos

Any time you hold up a camera to take pictures of Baby E, he makes this ornery look in his eye and opens his mouth WIDE OPEN - like "HAHA, see my tonsils?" :) He is such a sweet baby and certainly keeps us all laughing. He and KJ totally love each other and it makes our hearts happy to watch them play together.

For several weeks I never knew what I was going to find when going to get KJ after her nap. She would wake up and quietly, really quietly, play in her room. And she likes to play dress up most of all, oh the "outfits" this little lady can put together! LOL
We now remind her every nap time & every bedtime that she can't play in her closet and she can't open her dresser drawers. So far the reminders are working. Less wardrobe laughs but also less mess, and this mama is thankful for that.


And here are pictures from the last two snows we had. The temps were much to cold to let Baby E explore the snow, but maybe next year we will have a little for him to play in.

Lemonade Confusion...

I am cracking up at KJ!
A few months ago KJ had a hap*py meal a couple of times and so aquired two toys of the strawbe*rry shortc*ake family.

Strawberry herself and her friend Lemon Meringue.

She can never remember the lemon girl name, or really the strawberry girl name either - so she calls them both "Lemonade". Even after several reminders, she still calls them Lemonade.

KJ has some princess board books. Two of the books are about this princess:

Guess what I am often asked these days?

"Mommy, where is my lemonade book?" and "I want to read princess lemonade, please."

It is SO funny! I still correct her some but not every time, it's too cute.

And for those of you wondering if she still calls candy canes "lolli-canes" - yes she does.