Moses Lake Christmas Eve

 
Christmas Eve in Moses Lake. Playing in the snow, Christmas Eve candle light service, cookies and hot chocolate left out for Santa, and Aunt Debbie reading "The Night Before Christmas" to the kids.

Moses Lake Christmas

 
Pop-Pop (Jerry's Dad) reading the Christmas story.

Moses Lake Christmas

 
The wait.

Moses Lake Christmas

 
The unwrapping frenzy!

Moses Lake Christmas

 

Let the fun begin!

Zachary's Christmas Program

 
Zac's pre-school Christmas program was incredibly cute! They sang a few songs and then told the story of Christmas. Zac was a Shepard, his line was, "Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass." Zac delivered his line perfectly! He also add libbed and said, "come on guys lets go!" at the end.

Thomas

 
The "big kids" singing at church. Thomas is in the middle in the argyle sweater vest.

Kelsey is three!

 
How did it happen that this 8 pound 2 ounce baby is now three years old? Time is flying by...

Kelsey

 
Even if she wasn't my kid, I would still say that Kelsey was a beautiful child. A stinker for never smiling for the camera, but still a beautiful child. Thanks Leanna for taking such a great picture :)

Tis the season

 
The mud season has begun.

Seriously Mom...

 
Well Grandma and I thought her hair looked cute. Kelsey seems to be practicing her look of disdain for when she is 12 years old.

Just Because

 
Just thought the kiddo's looked cute in this photo, not that I'm biased...so I thought I'd share.

Thanksgiving

 
We have so much to be thankful for, here is a picture of eight of them.

From L-R starting in the back row Xander(7), Zachary(5)
Kelsey(almost 3), Caden(4), Hailey(almost 3)
Riley(2) Thomas(7 1/2)and Levi(1).

SNOW !

 
It hardly ever snows in Centralia, and snow before Thanksgiving is pretty much unheard of. BUT, here we are Nov. 21st with a nice dust of snow on the ground! We love it! :)

Halloween

 
With Thanksgiving fast approaching, I figured I'd better get some of the Halloween pic's up, because I know if I fall behind I'll never get caught up! We had a fun Halloween at Great Wolf Lodge (a hotel/indoor waterpark) with my parents, sisters and their families.

Zachary is FIVE!

 
Happy birthday Zac! My baby is boy is now five years old, how did this happen? Zac was blessed with three birthday parties, one of course being pirate themed, a visit from Auntie Em and cousin Riley, and of course lots of cake and presents. Zachary was NOT at all blessed when his little sister blew out his birthday candle, there were tears, and we almost had a pirate brawl on our hands. But the day was saved by relighting the candle and another round of "happy birthday".

Resemblance?

 
So, a family friend who has known me my whole life would remark every time that she saw Kelsey how very much Kelsey looked like me when I was little. I didn't think that much of it until I came across theses pictures of me taken the summer before my third birthday, and compared them to pictures of Kelsey taken this summer. You were right Shannon!

Oh Zachy!

Just in time for his five year old birthday pictures (Oct. 27th) Zac does THIS! At least it didn't involve a trip to the ER.

Goats?

At first when my parents told me that 40 plus goats were coming to their house I thought they had gone crazy! But then they explained that the goats were rented and were there to work. My parents live on 5 acres of formerly logged land outside of town. In our area of western Washington this means one thing, BLACKBERRIES. Blackberries are wonderful in pies and jam, BUT they are a highly invasive plant and they will completely take over your land if left unchecked. The goats were there to take care of this. The goats were there for three days and made a decent dent in the blackberries, but there is still more to be done. Perhaps a large blow torch would be more effective in getting rid of blackberries?

Trip to Idaho

A couple weeks ago we loaded up the kiddos in the minivan and made the 10 hour drive to Meridian, ID. The drive was made bearable by the kids watching movies (blessings upon whoever invented portable DVD players) and knowing that we were going to visit our good friends the Kelley's.
While we were there we went to a kids' fall festival. The kids had a grand time playing the carnival games. Kelsey got a hole-in-one at the mini-golf, so what if she picked up the ball and dropped it in the hole...it still counts, right? The highlight of the festival was the ginormous "hamster ball." The boys loved it, Reagan tried it reluctantly, she decided she liked it, but only with her Daddy holding her hand.
Notice the picture of the guys playing football with the kids, Jerry is throwing the football while sitting on a deck chair, seriously, can you get more "old guy" than that?! We had a wonderful time and wish we could of stayed longer and that the distance wasn't so great between Meridian and Centralia.

Tis' The Season

Time to put on my mini-van driving soccer mom hat! Both Thomas and Zac are playing soccer this year, they love it. Which is good, because Jerry and I wouldn't be getting our selves and three kids up and out the door by 8:30AM on a Saturday for something that they didn't like to do. Kelsey is a reluctant Soccer fan. Since I was ginormously prego with Kelsey during Thomas' 1st soccer season, she has literally been going to soccer practices and games her entire life. The picture of Kelsey in the collage is typical, she will place her chair so her back faces the game. Time will tell if Kelsey will play when she is old enough.
Here is my soap box about soccer. WHY DON'T THEY KEEP SCORE?! Shouldn't the kids be learning how to be both gracious winners and losers??? Besides, it is hard for me to keep score in my head since I only pay attention to the game when one of my kids is playing.....Oh, was that last part out loud? :)

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday Mom, we love you!

Summer

Just a few random fun pictures from summer.

Too Fast

Yesterday, just yesterday Thomas was 2 1/2 years old, holding newborn baby Zachy. Then in the blink of an eye, Thomas is in second grade and Zac is in pre-school.

At The Beach Part III Featuring Kelsey