The Lodge Family

The New Bathroom

2012-02-13T11:24:00.000-08:00

After almost four years in our house, we finally built a second bathroom! Joe started it in October and completed the last few finishing touches on New Years Eve. It was a combined effort between Joe, contractors and friends helping us out, but it's finally done!

It is done just in time to move the boys to the downstairs bedroom to make room for this baby! Now, if we could just get that bedroom cleared out and painted...Joe's got his work cut out for him!

Happy Birthday Joe!

2012-02-12T15:04:00.001-08:00

Last night we celebrated Joe's birthday with some friends. Originally, we'd been planning to have a few people over to play games to celebrate Joe's birthday. But, when I got put on bedrest we decided that we'd have to cancel the plans. When I called to let people know the situation, the Cotton's offered to host the party at their house for us! It was so generous of them! So, the "party" happened afterall. It was pretty low-key...good friends, food and fun. When we were getting ready to leave (the kids stayed home with a babysitter) Andrew was very concerned to see me up off the couch and going somewhere. He reminded me that I was supposed to be laying down...several times! I assured him that I was just going to a friend's house and that I would lay down when I got there. Good thing he's here to look out for me! So, I got to hang out on someone's else's couch for a change and Joe got to play his new game (Munchkin). Luckily, someone found my camera and snapped a few pictures because I never remember to do that. Here are a few shots...

Getting ready to sing to the birthday boy...

A very unflattering picture of me :-(

More of the crowd singing Happy Birthday...

Thursday was Joe's actual birthday. We got clearance from the doctor for me to go out to eat with the family, a special treat! We went to Texas Roadhouse with Danny and Jessi and my parents and had a yummy dinner. We even got to see Joe sit on the birthday saddle while they all sang to him! After that, we had to hurry back because Sam had his school program. Joe went to the program with G&G and the boys while Danny brought the two pregnant ladies and the two "babies" home. After everyone was back from the program we had birthday cake (an ice cream cake from Cold Stone...YUM!) and Joe got to open his presents.

This is a puzzle that Joe got on his mission and wanted to preserve. He got a giftcard for the frame from his parents for Christmas. I did the "labor" which means I picked out the frame, mod podged the puzzle and found someone to help me cut a mat to fit. Luckily, I got most of that done before bedrest. It turned out pretty great!

Joe claims that he is now in his mid-thirties and is well on his way to middle aged. But is 32 really mid-thirties? I don't think so, we'll give it another year or two for that label. Either way, it was a fun week. Thanks to all who made it possible for us to celebrate and enjoy the occasion while I'm on so many restrictions. We have the best family and friends!

I got Mommy's seat!

2012-02-08T15:02:00.000-08:00

Since I've been on bedrest I've made a little nest for myself in the living room. It is fully stocked with books, remotes, laptop, crosswords, and various other things to keep me somewhat occupied. The other day I got up from my home on the couch to make a quick trip to the commode. When I got back, Abby had taken over my spot and was pretty happy about it!

She thought she was pretty funny! And of course, when Sam heard the camera turn on, he had to get in on the picture action too!

So, there you have it. There's a little glimpse of where I spend my entire day. Looks like fun, huh?

The dreaded "B" word

2012-02-02T11:13:00.000-08:00

The last week and half have been interesting ones at our house. Last week, we found out that there were some problems developing with my pregnancy. Not with the baby, she's healthy and growing just fine. The problems are with me and my ability to carry the pregnancy full term. The doc put lots of restrictions on me and said to be careful and he'd check me again in a week. I was VERY careful for the next week and went to see the doc again on Tuesday. Well, things had gotten worse. Not drastically worse but enough that I am now on bedrest. Ugh. That means I have to be laying down all day except for short periods of time like meals and other essential activities. No going anywhere except the doctor. For the next 10 weeks. Sound like fun? Oh, and did I mention that Joe is out of town? Like I said, it's been an interesting week! Luckily, I have amazing family and friends who have rallied round to help me out. Thanks everyone!

This isn't unfamiliar territory for me, but that last time I had to do bedrest I only one child and we were living in my parents basement. This will be a little different.

So, I imagine I'll be posting on here more in the next few months...using the laptop is one of the things that I can do safely from the couch!

Can't argue with his logic!!

2012-01-23T10:06:00.000-08:00

Last night we were driving home from dinner at my parents house. We had a half-eaten pan of brownies that we had brought for dessert. From the backseat, Sam started out by saying, "Dad, you know how sometimes we get those chocolate muffins from Costco and we have those for breakfast? Well, those are chocolate just like brownies, so we could probably have brownies for breakfast tomorrow, right?"

Joe and I were having a good laugh in the frontseat.

But, Sam was not ready to let it go. "And what about Cocoa Puffs? Those are chocolate and we have those for breakfast, so that means we can have brownies!"

He had really thought this argument through! But, to no avail. He didn't get brownies for breakfast this morning :-)

My Hired Help

2012-01-19T20:49:00.000-08:00

This week was the kick off to Joe's "busy season" at work, which means he is out of town...and will be a lot over the next couple of months. And, wouldn't you know it, the first week that he is gone is when Winter decides to show up in Spokane! We got our first real snowfall of the year, accumulating somewhere around 8-10 inches over the last two days. Since Joe wasn't here to clear all that snow and I certainly can't do it under doctor's orders to "take it easy", well the boys had to step up to fill their daddy's shoes! And they were so excited about it...

...too bad the enthusiasm and the effort only lasted about as long as it took for me to take these pictures :-).

Luckily, we have a good friend who came to the rescue and has been looking out for us until Joe gets back. He's a lifesaver!

The Results are in!

2012-01-10T14:41:00.000-08:00

With this pregnancy (as with all the others) I've had lots of ultrasounds from the very beginning to check up on different things. They've all been a little too early to give a definitive answer as to the gender of the baby. Well, this morning I had "The Ultrasound" and we found out that we are having a...

...girl!!!

Yay, we're excited!

After I picked up Andrew from the friend's house who was watching him, I told him the news on the way home. He said, "What? This was supposed to be a boy!!" I pointed out that this way, we'll have 3 boys and 3 girls in our family. He thought about that for a few minutes then said, "Well, it's a good thing that we have Baby Benjamin, that way the boys team is still winning!"

That made me smile :-) I'm glad that he knows that he has another brother who is part of our Eternal family.

Comfortable....?

2012-01-06T17:21:00.000-08:00

The kids were watching a movie this afternoon and I went downstairs to check on them (too long with no fighting still makes me nervous, even if there's a movie on!) They really were just watching the movie, quietly. But this is how Andrew was hanging out...

He looked at me like I was crazy when I pulled out the camera. He is one bendy kid...maybe we need to put him in gymnastics!

Oh, and yes he's in PJ's at 5:00 PM. Let me explain, today was pajama day at preschool so he got up and put on fresh jammies (that he'd picked out days ago, just for the occasion). It was my day to volunteer to so I got to wear PJ's too! After school, we had to run some errands so I stopped at home to change. I gave him the option to change or not. He gave me his devious little smile (if you know Andrew, you know what I'm talking about!) and said he wanted to wear his jammies to the store...and all day! So he did. He's four, so he can get away with that!

This is for you, Dan!!!

2011-12-30T10:40:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago Joe was talking to his brother, Dan on the phone. Since they live far away, we rarely get to see them and apparently he likes to check the blog to see what's been going on. Dan mentioned that I'd been slacking on the blog (teasing of course) ...but he is so right! There are lots of reasons/excuses that I can use (tired, sick, PREGNANT, busy, etc) But, I still want to fix it! So, I've been working on getting caught up. I just figured out how to back date the posts that I'm working on so that they actually show up in the order the pictures were taken. So, there are "new" posts showing up as far back as August :-) Why, you may ask, would I bother to post pictures with the dates that far back when no one will take the time or even know to go back and look at them??? Well, that's because the main reason for this blog is our Family Yearbooks. I compile all of the pictures and posts from the past year and then have them printed in book format. (A link to the 2010 book is at the bottom of the blog)We have three years so far, 2011 will be number four. I love the books that we've made so far and have a lot of catch up for this book to be complete...so here it goes!

Thanks, Dan, for the reminder!

Oh, and yes, for anyone who may still read this blog and didn't already know, we are expecting a baby at the end of May. So far, no major problems, just lots of reminders of how difficult pregnancies are for me. But, the baby is healthy and growing. We go in for the "official" ultrasound in a couple weeks to confirm the gender. We've had several ultrasounds so far...but they have been a little too soon so give a definitive answer...but we think that we know what it is. Stay tuned for an update!

The Big Day!

2011-12-25T14:25:00.000-08:00

Here are a few pictures from Christmas at our house. We never end up with as many pictures as we should, but at least we have a few...and lots of video! Here's a quick look...

Christmas Eve PJ's

This a tradition that we do with the kids, but Joe surprised me this year and had some for me as well!

The rest of the pictures are Christmas morning...

This kitchen set was from G&G Lodge and she LOVES it!

We gave her this princess doll and dress-up set. She had to put the dress on immediately, right on top of her PJ's!

Sam is checking out the new Hero Factory set, probably making sure it was the one that he'd requested :-)

Andrew opening a new game...not quite sure what to think about it!

Since we have 9:00 church, we had to take a break from the presents to get ready for church. Luckily, we only had a one hour service and then we came right home to dig in some more!

Sam had been wanting an Etch-a-sketch for a long time, he was really excited!

Andrew with his new Rocky from G&G Lodge...that's his excited face :-)

Sam was showing Abby the Finn McMissile car that he got from G&G Lodge

Abby and her new doll. She has a ton of baby dolls, but she still gets just as excited about a new one. She even rotates through her babies to make sure they all get enough love and attention. What a good little mommy!

Grandma and Grandpa Olson came to church with us and sat with the kids since Joe and I were in the choir. After we came home and finished opening presents, we ate brunch with them then they hurried off to their ward. Later, we went to their house and had dinner and opened the rest of the family presents. It was a great day. A good mixture of family, presents, and naps! But, we did really miss Rob and his family who just moved to Arkansas. :-( Family gatherings just aren't the same without all the cousins to play with!

Getting in the Holiday spirit!

2011-12-01T15:57:00.000-08:00

We have been getting VERY excited for Christmas around our house! Here's some pictures to show a few things we've been up to...

Sam found this Santa hat and decided "dress up" as Jolly 'ol Saint Nick. The beard is made out of paper and taped to his cheeks :-)

The Sunday after Thanksgiving we pulled out the tree and ornaments. They love to decorate and look at each ornament as they come out of the boxes. It's always a little more stressful for me with so many little hands grabbing for the potentially breakable ornaments. But, this year I was the official ornament-hander-outer and it proved to be a much happier experience all around!

These are the Christmas jammies that Grandma Olson made for them. They got to decorate the T-shirts at Grandma's house on Thanksgiving. So fun!!!

We also had a new Christmas guest show up this year as we got our own Elf on the Shelf who the kids named Jingle. We're excited to see what sort of mischief Jingle will get into!

Merry Christmas!

Cousin Pictures

2011-11-25T17:21:00.000-08:00

Last year, my mom started a new tradition with the grandkids. She makes them all Christmas PJ's and gives them out on Thanksgiving. This year, she let each of them design their own snowman for the shirts and then appliqued them on. The kids LOVED them and we got these cute pictures of them all together.

The Whole Crew

The "Big Kids"

A.K.A

The kids who can stand on their own :-)

Best Buds!

These guys have been the best of friends since they were babies.

Happy Birthday Abby!

2011-11-19T10:25:00.000-08:00

Abby turned 2 years old, finally! She has been talking about her birthday for weeks! Ever since her cousin Ollie's birthday at the end of September, she has been waking up everyday and asking, "Almost Abby's Birthday?" When the big day finally came, she woke up to balloons, streamers, and some presents to start the day off. For breakfast I got doughnuts, which I thought would be a fun treat, but it turns out that none of the kids would eat them! Strange kids!

This year, the boys helped me decorate the cake. They were so excited to help! They each got to decorate a butterfly (after I frosted it). It thought they turned out pretty cute!

Later, we had the family over for dinner and cake. It was lots of fun. We had "breakfast for dinner" since that is her favorite meal. I made waffles and scrambled eggs...probably the easiest birthday dinner EVER! After dinner she opened presents, with lots of help from her brothers!

This is the princess towel the Grandma Olson made for her.

She also got a baby that crys when you take out the binky and LOTS of stuff to care for her babies such as bottles, bibs, a highchair, etc. She is such a little mother!

Here's the birthday girl with Grandpa Olson and her cousin Ollie. She is such a Grandpa's girl!

What's going on with ANDREW?!?

2011-11-13T17:14:00.000-08:00

Andrew has not quite been himself lately...

He got these plastic teeth at Halloween and is obsessed with them! He makes a pretty cute little vampire!

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T17:59:00.000-07:00

With Halloween on a Monday this year, it managed to stretch out into an entire weekend of activities. The result: WAY TOO MUCH CANDY!! But, it was lots of fun and the kids all looked cute in their costumes!
Friday night we had a dinner followed by a Trunk or Treat at church. It was so packed! Plus, since the weather was cold, rainy and windy, the candy gathering was reassigned from the parking lot to the hallways. It was craziness! Our church building is U-shaped instead of a complete circle, so as kids got to the end of the hall, they had no choice but to turn around and get smashed with the rest of crowd of candy gatherers (young and not so young!) I was glad that I was standing in one place handing out candy and Joe took the kids around!

Here's some picture of the kids in costume just as we were leaving for the church party...

Here's a shot of the boys in the "costume parade"

Saturday was of course taken up by soccer games and pumpkin carving (see previous page).

Monday was the actual holiday and was jam-packed with activities. I was in charge of the party in Sam's classroom so I was very busy leading up to that getting all of the last-minute details figured out. As always with his parties, I brought the camera but was too busy to remember to pull it out and take pictures! Right after that, we hurried home and go the other two in their costumes and headed to Joe's work. They invited the families to come and go trick-or-treating from office to office and then they had treats in the breakroom. It was fun and Joe got to show off the kids in their cute costumes.

After that, we headed straight to my brother's house. We had dinner with my family and then headed out in a group to hit our favorite neighborhood on the South Hill. The cousins love going together! Here's a shot of them together before we left. We're missing one cousin from the shot, but Ollie and his parents caught up with us later :-)

I think this was the first door that we went to, Sam is probably being picky and making sure that he gets something that he likes!

We were off to a good start and then....the battery on the camera died! Oh well, it was a fun night. They lasted way longer than last year and got way too much candy. We were all exhausted by the time we called it quits and headed home. It was a great Halloween!

Pumpkin Time!

2011-10-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

Today we carved our pumpkins for Halloween. The kids are always excited about this, except when it comes to actually getting their hands dirty! They can't stand cleaning "the slime" out of the pumpkins. So, it usually turns into a mommy/daddy job with the kids looking on and occasionally picking up a stray seed or two.

Andrew, our little artist, was very careful to draw out his design ahead of time so that we knew exactly what he had in mind.

Here's how it turned out...

Sam, with his huge pumpkin. He always like to pick out the biggest one he can find!

Abby, showing us the face that her pumpkin is making!

The finished product...

Sadly, this is the last we saw of Abby's little pumpkin. Sometime between lighting them before the kids went to bed and going out an hour or two later to put out the candles before we went to bed, her little pumpkin was kidnapped! The kids were pretty sad about it when they found out in the morning. We never found any "remains" in the street, we even drove around some looking for it, but no luck. So sad!

At the Farm

2011-10-11T17:11:00.000-07:00

Andrew and Joe went on a fun preschool fieldtrip to Carver's Farm. Fieldtrips are always fun, but it was especially exciting that Daddy got to go on this one! Here's Andrew in the cornmaze and holding his "colorful" corn on the cob.

Here's the group as the got instructions at the pumpkin patch. Notice there are three little boys (Andrew is one of them) in yellow shirts with no coats? Well, those were the three that were in Joe's car :-) Apparently, he was a little distracted when loading them up at school and forgot one little detail...coats! It was a very cold day, too! The kids survived and all the mom's got a chuckle out of it, not all that surprised based on their husband's behavior. One of my friend's (who was not there but heard about it from the teacher at her child's fieldtrip the following day) commented that at least he didn't forget any of the kids!

On the hayride...notice he now has a sweatshirt! Joe went back to the van and found some sweatshirts that were stashed away, but the other two boys didn't want to wear them. In all fairness, one of them was for Abby and it was bright pink, so I can't really blame the kid!

Here's Andrew selecting a pumpkin...not quite sure what that face was all about :-)

Just playing around with some friends!

Andrew came home with several pumpkins and gourds and made sure to share them with his brother and sister. They were very excited that he brought things home for them and he was obviously pleased that they appreciated his gifts. It was very cute!

Her own sense of STYLE

2011-10-09T16:53:00.000-07:00

Abby always wants to pick out her own clothes, she definately has her own ideas on what she wants to wear! She always prefers skirts/dresses and wants to wear these boots with EVERYTHING...even when it was still 90+ degrees outside!

You can't see it very well in this picture, but she was also wearing my chunky silver necklace and a flower in the back of her hair. She is such a girlie girl, I love it!

Lessons from Primary

2011-09-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

Last night, while Sam was doing his homework, Andrew was helping me do some chores. I sent him to put something away in his bedroom. He ran off to do it and on the way back I heard him say, "Oh no, the hall is dark and I walked down it!"

I reminded him that it's okay because he's not afraid of the dark. But he was quick to explain, "But MOM! In primary I learned that I should ALWAYS walk in the light! Remember?!?"

At least he's paying attention, even if he hasn't grasped the full meaning yet!

My big helper!

2011-09-27T16:42:00.000-07:00

I've been doing LOTS of canning this year. It takes a long time and had to be timed just right so that I would have enough processing time before having to go and pickup up the boys from school at their respective times. On this particular day, Andrew decided that he wanted in on the action. And to my surprise, he was actually a huge help!

He had fun skinning the tomatoes and playing with the "slime" that was left in the sink...

Then, he got to squish them into the jars for me. At first he was a little timid about the squishing part, not sure if that's what I really wanted. But then I showed him again and he got into it! Notice how soaked is shirt is, even with the apron!

We had a fun afternoon working together and he was so proud of the jars of tomatoes that he helped me produce!

Everyday Angels

2011-09-21T20:13:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to take a minute and record some tidbits about my day. It was not the best...not the worst by any stretch of the imagination....but things certainly didn't turn out the way I'd pictured. Joe's gone this week, that always makes everything harder. Plus, I've been sick for a couple of days, like most moms (that I know) I was putting off calling the doctor because I thought I could fight it without medicine...no time to take myself in and make all necessary childcare arrangements...you know the drill. Well, I woke up this morning feeling MUCH worse. I got a call from my parents at about 6:45 A.M. saying that Dad was on his way over the fix Andrew's bike before going to work. (that's another whole saga that I won't get into but suffice to say we've been riding bikes to school everyday and Andrew's bike has been having major issues!) When he arrived, he fiddled with it for a few minutes, diagnosed the problem, and said he would take it with him and bring it back in the evening once he could get the needed part and get it fixed. I felt hugely greatful for that, it's been such a huge headache!

As the day went on, I finally decided to call the doctor (with some coaxing from my mom). Long story short, I couldn't get in until after I'd picked up Sam from school. My angel of a neighbor (we consider her our adopted Grandma) came over at a minutes notice to watch the kids for me. Two hours later at 5:30, as I was driving home from the pharmacy, antibiotic in hand, I was thinking about the fact that Andrew had soccer practice in half an hour, nobody had eaten dinner yet, and the meeting at the school that I was supposed to be at was starting RIGHT NOW. (That's not even counting the fact that I was already skipping out on the YW's board meeting and activity that night because of everything else going on!) Amidst all that, my Mom called and "gave me permission" to miss the school meeting and offered to take Andrew to practice for me. ("Chari, you're SICK, you are allowed take it easy!!!") When she showed up, she had Andrew's bike all fixed and ready to go.

Now that all the kids are in bed and I have a second to reflect, I'm just so greatful for people who love me and are willing to help. Nothing truely profound happened, there was no big crisis, but when I needed help, there were people to turn to. I seriously don't know what I'd do without my amazing support system of friends and family. I like to record "real life" days on here sometimes, just to remember that those days happen too...and we survive! But, tonight especially, I'm thankful for my real life angels.

All grown up!

2011-09-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

Today was an important day at our house...

Abby's first pigtails!

I was so excited about it and so was she (although you can't tell from the picture!) She walked around all morning patting her head and saying, "Oh, so pretty!" I actually took her to Joe's office just to show him, it was that exciting to me! I think he thought we were pretty silly :-)

Her favorite place to cry...

2011-09-12T14:33:00.000-07:00

The last few months Abby has found a favorite place to go when she's upset. If she just needs a good cry, she heads to....

Andrew's bed!

It's kind of random, but very cute! She'll just burst into tears, for whatever reason (she is a GIRL afterall), take off running, and dive into his blankets. Then she buries her head and just cries it out. I figure that it's the most accessible bed in the house (she is still in a crib) and so that makes it her favorite refuge. We all need some place like that, right?

Our morning bike ride adventure...oh, and Andrew's first day of Preschool!

2011-09-09T10:15:00.001-07:00

After two days of waiting in the impossibly long line "parent pick up" line at Sam's school, I decided that we were going to try something different. So, this morning we rode bikes to school! Now, just some background on the bike situation. Sam has only had his training wheels off for a couple of weeks and is still a little shaky and building confidence. He's a very cautious kid by nature, so learning to ride with no training wheels has been a process. But, this morning we gave it a try. I loaded Abby in the bike trailer and the boys each rode their bikes. It's about .85 miles from our house to the school, kinda far and I had NO idea how long it would take. We were, no surprise, late getting out the door so we didn't have time to dawdle. We make it in about 15 minutes, not bad for our first day. But, when we got there, I realized that I'd forgotten the key to the bike lock I couldn't lock up his bike. Ugh! But we didn't have many choices so I left the bike there with the lock wrapped around it so it LOOKED like it was locked and headed off to our next stop...

Andrew's first day at Preschool!

It's only about two blocks from the Elementary school to the Preschool so we were there quickly. Andrew was so excited about the day, bike riding and all, that he hardly even looked back once we got him to his classroom. I did get him to look up once for a quick picture!

After dropping him off I headed home, got the key for the bike lock and went back to Sam's school and locked up his bike. Whew, I was a bit tired by the time I got home. (Side note: that was AFTER running 4.2 miles this morning) Better yet, I get to make that round trip bike ride two more times today! I'm thinking that Andrew will be in the trailer with Abby when we go get Sam, he might be too tired to make it again...I'll let you know how it goes!

First Day of School!

2011-09-07T15:54:00.001-07:00

Today was a big day...

Sam started first grade!

He was so excited and has been counting down the days! He was especially excited about bringing a lunch in his new Star Wars lunch box. Since Daddy is out of town, I promised to post pictures of the exciting day! Here are the boys when we were taking Sam to school. They were so excited that they could wear matching outfits. I doubt they'll like to do that much longer (Sam will probably get tired his little bro always copying him, you know how that goes...), but it sure is cute that they like to dress alike for now!

Abby was just chillin' with her baby and gee in the stroller!

Sam went in, walked right to his classroom (he'd been there the day before to meet his teacher), found his coat closet to hang up his backpack, then got right to work! He is sitting at the same table as two of his buddies from Kindergarten, so he felt right at home! He seemed to wonder why I was hanging around...Mom, you can go now!!

After dropping Sam off, we headed straight to Andrew's Preschool for his Open House. He got to meet his teachers and check out the classroom, building, and more importantly...

The PLAYGROUND!!! I'd never seen him do monkey bars by himself, but apparently he can! He's going to have blisters from doing it over and over! I was pretty impressed!

Andrew will actually start school on Friday, so I'll probably have more pictures to post then!

Abby, of course, thought that she was one of the big kids. We've been talking for days (weeks!) about Sam's school and Andrew's school. Well, she didn't want to be left out, so she kept on telling me all morning as we walked around the two schools, "Abby's school!" I guess that we need to play school while she's home alone with mommy so she doesn't get bored without her brothers around!

I can't believe how big these kids are getting! It's weird to have Sam at school all day now. In some ways it's a relief, don't get me wrong, but it's also weird!

Family Pictures

2011-09-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

My sister in law took some great family pictures for us. She's got a great eye and I thought the pictures turned out pretty good. I used my favorites on the sidebar on the blog, but here's a look at some of the others...

Thanks for taking the awesome pictures Bre!

Silly Face!

2011-09-02T11:23:00.001-07:00

Abby is quite the little ham. She loves to have her picture taken and look pretty. But......she's got this crazy cheesy grin that she loves to do ALL THE TIME! It's usually not when the camera is out though, so I've had a hard time capturing it.

Here's a glimpse...

That gives you a pretty good idea. She is such a silly girl!

My big 4 year old!

2011-09-02T08:11:00.000-07:00

Life is so busy and moving so fast, I just wanted to take a minute to write down what Andrew was like at 4 years old!

Andrew is...

...fiesty!

...very opinionated, he knows what he wants and usually how to get it!

...great buddies with Sam and Abby adores him. He's really learning to show his love by doing nice things, especially to his little sister, it's very cute!

...an Artist. He loves to color and draw pictures and is very good at it. I have had several people at church comment on his ability and focus whenever he is drawing. He's been known to make his sunbeams class late to primary because he's not done with the picture he was drawing in class!

...very excited to play soccer for the first time this fall. Grandma got him the gear that he'll need for his birthday and he has been practicing!

...often found wearing a costume around the house (and other places if he can get away with it.) More often then not, he's wearing a combination of SEVERAL costumes! For example, he might wear his Robin costume with several various capes, a pirate hat, spiderman mask and carrying a light saber, you get the idea!

...very sweet and sensitive.

Andrew is a wonderful kid who keeps me on my toes. I'm so glad to have him as part of our family...Love you Andrew!

Arrrrgghh....Happy Birthday Matey!

2011-08-21T20:53:00.000-07:00

Andrew turned four last week and we celebrated...pirate style!

He's been talking about having a pirate birthday party for months and was so excited when the day finally arrived! In true over-acheiving Grandpa style, my dad converted his old fishing boat into a pirate ship! It was so awesome, thanks dad! My mom made the pirate pants/skirt and also helped with the sails on the boat. I'm pretty sure they deserve the Grandparents of the year award for all their help! Once all of the friends arrived and were transformed into pirates (bandanas, eye patches, swords, and tattoos) we headed outside to search for their hidden treasure. The first stop was the swamp. They had to search under all of the "swamp creatures" for treasure...

I think Abby looks a little more like a gypsie than a pirate, but either way she was darn cute! Next, they went to a deserted island that was booby trapped with water balloons. They had to pop the water balloons to find the pirate coins inside!

Then they got to dig at the "beach" for buried treasure in the sand. (Whoever buried that treasure did a very thorough job, they've still been digging it up all week!) Finally, they ended up at the sunken pirate ship where they each found their own treasure chest full of goodies!

The pirate brothers...they were so cute!

They also played pin the treasure on the map...I'm pretty sure Sam was cheating :-)

Here's the very simple but oh-so-cute cake!

"Don't bother me, I'm eating!"

Andrew was very clear that he wanted chocolate cake and green (mint) ice cream for his birthday and he would not be distracted from his dessert to smile for a picture!A good pirate never puts down his sword...even when eating birthday cake! And here is the best daddy/pirate in the whole world! He took the day off just to help with the party and celebrate Andrew's birthday.

Just like all birthdays at our house, the celebration lasted all day and into the next. We started off the morning by letting him open presents from G&G Lodge that had come in the mail. He loved everything and got especially excited about the pirate painting projects they'd sent. For breakfast he requested Cocoa Puffs and bacon :) We spent the morning getting ready for the party and Andrew worked on his new projects (some of which we ended up using for decorations). For lunch, Joe took the kids to McDonalds...mostly to get them out of my hair so that I could get all of the last minute stuff ready! The party was a blast and all of the kids really got into the pirate theme...except Ela! She wasn't so excited about it at first, but eventually she loosened up and bit and ended up having a good time. For dinner, we had pepperoni pizza and root beer. The following day we had all of my family over (except Mike and Madison who live in Utah) for dinner. Since it was Andrew's "fake party" as the boys called it, they got all dressed up again in their pirate costumes! It was such a fun birthday and Andrew really enjoyed everything about it. A few days later, as I was finally getting around to taking down the streamers around the living/dining rooms Andrew came out and stared at me with a shocked look. I explained that his birthday was over and it was time to clean up. He said, "But Mom, it's still August!"

Happy Birthday to my little Pirate!

Swim Lessons

2011-08-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

We decided to put the boys in swim lessons this year. After Sam's bad experience, two summers ago, I couldn't bring myself to have them do it last year, but this year we decided it was time to try again! They were both very excited about it and it went...fairly well. We signed up with some friends in the ward so both boys had a friend in their class with them. It was fun to hang out with the Osborns everyday.

Here's the gang (minus Abby, she didn't want to be in the picture with all the BOYS!!)...

On the first day they were both willing to jump right in and do what they were told, including jumping off the diving board. I was shocked and relieved that it could really be that easy!

Unfortunately, it went slightly downhill from there. Andrew had and AWESOME teacher, Brandon, who was super patient with him. He really earned Andrew's trust. At the end of the first week Brandon was gone for a day and the substitute had a very different style. She took more of a you-are-going-to-do-it-my-way-like-it-or-not approach and that does not fly well with my Andrew! He came away from that 20 minute lesson with a completely different feeling about swimming, and it wasn't good! Brandon was back the next week, but the damage had been done and Andrew ended the week more afraid of the water than when he'd started! Sam, on the other hand, tried really hard and made some progress. Because of his the tubes in his ears a couple of years ago, he's still really sensitive to getting water in his ears. But he toughed it and learned to overcome that fear. He was still afraid to jump (after the first day when he did it without hesitating) but he did everything else his teacher asked and tried to learn the skills. I was really proud of how hard he tried and his good attitude!

Abby and Grant were both too little for lessons so they hung out together. They were pretty cute, we even caught Grant sneaking a kiss on her cheek once or twice!

Neither of the boys passed their levels so they'll be in the same classes next year. But, I do have some glimmer of hope after watching Sam's progress that eventually they will learn to swim...someday!!

What's for breakfast?

2011-07-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

This morning I came out and found that Abby had gotten tired of waiting for me so she had helped herself to some breakfast...

Mmmmmm, looks yummy!

Take me out to the ball game!

2011-07-23T08:48:00.000-07:00

Since we had so much fun last year, we decided to go back to an Indians baseball game, on fireworks night, of course. We were right next to the field and had lots of friends there to hang out with. Abby had a bag of goldfish crackers that she was walking around and sharing with people...one at a time! As we came into the stadium at the beginning of the game, Joe was selected to participate in a trivia game on the field between innings. He got the question right and got an Indians t-shirt. Here are some shots of him on the field!

The game got over so quickly that we had to wait around for it to be dark enough for the fireworks. The mascots and Recycle Man entertained us by dancing on the field. One of the other things the kids remembered well from last year was Recycle Man (RM)! The whole night Sam was holding an empty water bottle to give to RM, I guess he'd seen other kids give him things to recycle and he really wanted to give him that bottle! Well, RM never came close enough to give it to him and Sam was very disappointed. When it finally was dark enough for the fireworks and the Mascots were exhausted from dancing, they happened to exit on our side of the field. Sam ran to the front and yelled out to RM to get his attention (a big surprise from our shy and usually timid boy) and held out the bottle. RM (looking so tired but still in character) gave him a big smile then ran over to the bleachers, took the bottle and thanked Sam for recycling. It seriously made Sam's entire night, he was so happy!

It was a fun night and of course the kids loved the fireworks! I'm sure we'll do it again next year!

Slippin' and Slidin' in the backyard

2011-07-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

The boys have been asking for weeks for a slip n slide, so I finally went and got one. Andrew caught on pretty fast...Sam took a little longer to get the hang of it, (he tends to be more worried about getting hurt) but once he got it, he had a great time!Abby wanted in on the action too, oops we forgot her swimsuit :) Joe set up a tarp next to it so that he could show the boys how it was done (he didn't want to tear their slide). The tarp was not nearly as smooth, though and he ended up with a very sore tummy!

They had a great time for a few hours...then it ripped and was no longer usuable! I guess that's what happens you only spend $5 on a toy! Oh well, they got their fill and haven't asked about it since!

Favorite Accessory!

2011-07-15T21:15:00.000-07:00

This hat is one of my favorites, it's been a quick fix for many trips to the park and lots of lazy hair days!

...and the kids love it too!

Our little comedian!

2011-07-10T16:44:00.000-07:00

Andrew has figured out lately that he LOVES to make people laugh. He'll do all sorts of silly things just to get a reaction. And he loves to tell jokes. The only problem is, he doesn't really know any! He'll make up nonsense knock knock jokes and then just wait for a laugh, which he always gets from his parents (no matter how forced it may be!)

Lately, though he skips the joke and just jumps right to the punchline. Anytime he wants a laugh he'll just look around and say, "Exploding House!!!" and then just wait. It's so funny, I have no idea why that is the funniest line, but in his mind it's a sure bet to make us laugh.

And it always works!!!

Oh yah, and I had a birthday :-)

2011-06-25T21:34:00.000-07:00

That's right I turned the big 3-0 last month :-). As always, Joe made it a great day. We started off the day by opening presents (what better way to start a birthday?). The kids are always sooo excited about birthdays, they helped decorate the living room with balloons and streamers (although you can't see them in the these shots...) They also get very excited about things they have not clue what they are...like the cake decorating tools that I got.

One thing that Joe did this year that I thought was very fun, was talk to the boys and have them each pick out something specific that they wanted to give me. He didn't prompt them or give them ideas. Sam wanted to get me lipstick and Andrew choose and shiny necklace. I thought it was very special and I really appreciated it.

After the presents, we dropped the kids off at my parents and went out for breakfast and shopping. Joe really dislikes shopping, so spending three hours shopping was a HUGE deal.

Later on that night, Danny and Jessi came and babysat for us while we out to dinner with some friends. It was a fun evening, we don't go out with friends often enough so that made it especially fun! We came home and watched a movie (some sort of chick flick, I think, can't remember now). It was a fun day and I felt spoiled, thanks honey!

One other funny thing that I thought I'd mention. For several weeks leading up to and after my birthday the kids made it a point to tell EVERYONE that we talked to that I was turning/just turned 30. We're talking about random people at the park, grocery store employees, people at church...basically anyone they talked to. Yep, that was fun, I got a kick out of it and they were so excited to tell people!

We Love Carrots!

2011-06-09T21:21:00.000-07:00

This was just a random day on the way home from the grocery store. The kids saw this big bag of carrots that I'd just bought and got really excited about them! They all wanted carrots to nibble on for the drive home. Silly kids! Abby was actually the one who ate the most of hers, she's like a little bunny rabbit, loves her veggies!

Favorite time of day

2011-06-04T21:27:00.000-07:00

At our house, this is the favorite time of day for the kids. (My favorite time is about 20 minutes after this when they're actually in bed and the house is quiet....) They all gather to ready stories with daddy before bed. On nights when he's not around and I take his place, it's just never the same. They LOVE story time with Daddy! Every night, when I watch this ritual I'm reminded yet again of what a good husband I have. He is such a good daddy and I appreciate him so much!

A bit chilly, but FUN!!

2011-06-04T21:07:00.000-07:00

As many of you know, we have not had much of a summer so far this year in Spokane. The weather has been warm at best with a few hot days mixed in here and there. Well, warmish is all my kids need to go and jump into the icy cold wading pools! That water is seriously freezing, but they love it!

Abby is by far that bravest of the three when it comes to the icy water. She'll go and plop down like its no big deal. Then, when the boys see her, they can't let their LITTLE SISTER show them up! So they jump in too and jump back out a second later screaming from the cold...it's pretty funny!

A Historic First....I'm Sure!

2011-06-03T20:54:00.000-07:00

Joe took Sam to a real (par 3) golf course to have his first experience with golf. He had tried to show him the basics in our backyard after he got the clubs for his birthday, but Sam was never very interested. But, when came down to actually GOING to a golf course, just him and Daddy, that sounded like fun! Apparently, he got a pretty frustrated at the beginning and only made it through the first one and a half holes. Then he decided that he was done....or maybe just taking a break. At about the fourth hole Joe remembered that he hadn't taken any pictures, so he talked him into trying again so that he could get a couple of shots. On that hole he had a great shot and that got him really excited and finished off the nine holes! He ended up having a great time and came home SOOOO excited about it. Here's a couple shots, Joe happened to get his "best hit" on video...we'll see if I can get it to load here...but don't hold your breath. Here are the pictures...

As Joe says, it was a historic day because he is, of COURSE, going to be the next golf prodigy. Even if 6 is a little late to be getting started :-)

The Gee

2011-05-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

I just thought this was cute. Abby decided to plop herself on the kitchen floor for her snack this day. Notice her blankie it closeby...it is ALWAYS close by. She is so attached to that blankie, she calls it her "gee". I wish I would have known that was going to be her favorite so that I could have gotten a backup before they changed out the patterns at Target! She drags it everywhere, and of course it is white (or it used to be) so it looks dirty almost instantly! Laundry day is always so traumatic, she acts like I've taken away a piece of her and will sit and bawl for several minutes next to the washer. Then, if I'm not sneaky enough, the whole scene is repeated when I put it in the dryer!

Today was her second day of nursery and she, of course, wanted to take it with her. Joe said that he tried to take the gee, but quickly learned that was NOT going to happen! She kept it with her, and from what I hear, did pretty well at nursery.

Good Practice

2011-05-29T16:12:00.000-07:00

The other day we were all out in the backyard. I was doing yardwork and the kids were playing. After a little while, I noticed Sam was going down the slide with Abby in his lap. She normally just goes down by herself on her tummy, but was having a blast going down with her big brother. Sam noticed me watching and came over and said, "Mom, did you see that? Daddy just used to go on the slide with me when I was little, now I can do it with Abby. I'm just practicing for when I'm a daddy!" Then he gave a little matter-of-fact nod and ran off to play some more.

He really is great with his baby sister, it's very cute to watch how much they adore eachother. A few minutes later. I saw them sitting together watching Andrew play in "the wilderness" (a huge overgrown grove of lilac trees at the back of our yard). I tried to sneek up and get a picture from behind without them noticing, but I failed...still a cute picture, though!

And here's Andrew as he emerged from the wilderness...

This and that...

2011-05-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

These are just some cute and random pictures that I thought I'd throw in. Of course I'm still playing catch up, so these were taken back in May, but for the purposes of my family blog books, I thought that I would include them. Here's a look of what the kids have been up to:

The boys LOVE playing with legos. Sam got some sets of the regular legos for his birthday, but they still love these. We haven't "graduated" them from the duplos yet, I suppose its time...Abby is a bit obsessed with winter wear. She can get into the box where is it stored and is always wandering around the house in various hats and gloves. This reminds me of some cartoon character, although I can't remember who....anyone else know?

Sam has not had much interest in learning to use his new golf clubs, but Andrew was willing to give it a try...for about five minutes. Poor Joe, he just wants to share his love of the sport with his boys!

Andrew Funnies

2011-05-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

Andrew is at such a funny age, he's always saying to funniest and most random things! Sometimes, I have no idea where he picks things...and other times I know exactly where they came from (unfortunately....) Well, here are a couple of my recent favorites:

During church, we were in sitting in front of a woman who I'd never met (later, came to find out she is an investigator and it was one of her first weeks at church...). She told us this story after the meeting, I didn't actually hear it, but I can totally imagine it! She had a cane with a sculpted, marble-looking top that was leaning against our bench. Andrew was examining it very curiously, so she leaned forward and told him what it was. She said, "It's my cane, it helps me walk." He thought really hard about that for a minute and then seemed to figure things out, he said, "Oh, is that because you are old and weak?" She laughed very hard, thought it was the cutest thing. We've sat behind/in front of her every week since then and she always makes a point to say hi to Andrew.

The other day Andrew was helping me sort laundry. We got into a discussion about super heroes and who are the good guys, who work together (Batman does NOT work with Spiderman!) and what EVERY characters name is. I am NOT an expert on super heroes, I answered what I could be I had to defer to "ask your daddy when he gets home" several times when I didn't know the answers.

After a while, he seemed to give up on me. "Mommy, you just don't know as much as Daddy."

I gladly agreed.

He thought about for a minute and then came to a conclusion. "That's because your head is not very big. Daddy has a REALLY BIG HEAD (holding his hands out as far as he could reach them) so he knows lots of stuff. I have a kind of big head, so I know kind of a lot of stuff, but your head is just little tiny (said in a little squeaky voice) so you don't know as much." He put his head right next to mine and compared our head sizes with his hands, as if to prove his point. It was really funny!

Okay, just a few quick favorite sayings...

"I wuv Woo Woo!" (translated as I love Lou Lou, that's Abby's nickname!)

(With his hand on his head and shaking his head at me) "Honestly, Mom!"

Okay, that's all that comes to mind right now, I'll have to add more as I remember them!

Easter Morning

2011-05-26T14:30:00.001-07:00

With church at 9:00, we are always running late...but I wanted at least a quick picture before we got out the door! Notice that my hair is still wet? Yah, it was one of those mornings! Not the best picture, but at least we got one!

I loved Abby's Easter dress, so I had to get some extra pictures of her! These were taken at my parent's house after church. This girl LOVES accessories, it's so cute!

The Real Deal!

2011-05-24T16:42:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from Sam's actual birthday. It was a very long and busy day, jam-packed with fun things for the birthday boy. We started off the morning by letting him open two presents from Mom and Dad.

These, of course, were selected especially by daddy...his first real golf clubs! It just so happened that the Kindergarteners were having lunch at school that day to "practice" for first grade. We went and joined them for lunch and brought balloons and brownies. Sam wanted to bring his lunch from home, but Andrew ended up eating school lunch when he saw that it was chicken nuggets! That afternoon we had 10 of Sam's friends (plus a few younger siblings and moms) from school and church over for a party. It was a LOT of kids! The weather was threatening rain, but with that many kids running around, we headed outside anyway! We played red rover, red light green light and then just let them run and play on the trampoline. Once they had gotten some energy out, we headed inside for cake and presents. Here's a shot of some of the kids. I forgot in all the craziness to get a shot of everyone at the party, these photos are as close as we got!The cake was an "Ice cream oreo cake." The middle layer is vanilla ice cream, with oreos crumbled on top. Very simple...and very yummy!

Then it was time for presents! This picture is with one his best buddies from school, Tess.

After that fun party, we had about an hour to recover before the evening events. We had an early dinner (grilled cheese sandwiches with "spaghetti soup" AKA tomato soup) then Sam and Daddy headed off to play laser tag. Sam got to invite one friend and he choose Jared. So, Sam, Jared and the dads went to LaserQuest. They had a blast (once they got over the dark maze, black lights and loud music) and came home with lots of exciting things to tell about the evening. Sam was EXHAUSTED...and so were Mom and Dad! It was a great birthday.

Happy Birthday to my big six year old. I can't believe how fast he's grown!

Sam's Pre-Birthday party

2011-05-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

On the Sunday before Sam's birthday we got the family together for a pizza night at Grandma's house. It's our favorite way to celebrate any event! After dinner we played Bingo, it's a new favorite game for the cousins to play together!Then, it was time for cake...er, I mean...cookies! Sam asked for cookie/ice cream sandwiches for his birthday dessert. They were delicious!

And then it was present time! Andrew and Abby were more than happy to help and were waiting patiently to get started!

Some of his favorites were the Transformers, waterguns, and Lego HeroFactory. It was a fun kick-off for his birthday festivities.

Parade Time!!

2011-05-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

Still playing catch up...this was back in May!

Once again, we braved the crowds (and this year, the weather!) to go to the Lilac parade this year. We had such a great time last year, we decided to go again. We actually ended up sitting in the exact same spot and meeting up with the same crowd...it was lots of fun!

Andrew was ready to go! Only about two hours until showtime...

Me and Sam!

Just hangin' out...killin' time!

It was a little colder than we expected, we were already bundled up with everything we brought to keep warm...before the sun had even gone down!

Me and Breanna, she's the one who got us hooked on the parades!

Megan was cute with Abby all night, eventually Abby warmed up to her!My boys!

Abby was a good sport, but she was so tired! This was towards the end, she just gave up, laid down and tried to get some rest!

"Excuse me, I'm trying to sleep!"

It was another fun (and late!) night. Just like last year, the boys LOVED the marching bands. Sam was especially smitten with all of the princesses who were waiving...just at him! It was fun to visit and just enjoy the festivities. We stayed until the very end...and the weather held out for us. We felt the first raindrops as we got to our van, perfect timing!

Accessories

2011-05-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

Abby loves her accessories. Hair pretties, sunglasses, necklaces, hats, you name it...she loves it! She will find about anything around the house to be pretty, this day she wore this around all afternoon. It was very cute!

Pretty girl!!!

(It's a Wii nunchuck, in case you can't tell!)

The Hunt

2011-05-16T13:20:00.000-07:00

This year we had BEAUTIFUL weather for the Easter Egg Hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's house. It's a big tradition and always a great time. Mike and Madison came up from Salt Lake, so three of my four brothers were there with their families. We had hundreds of eggs, some filled with candy, others had prize coupons, and then there were the confetti eggs. It's a fun family tradition that my parents picked up when we lived in Texas years ago. It's always fun to introduce this tradition to our friends! We invited a few families from our ward, but somehow they are not in any of the pictures! Next time, I'll have to take a turn on the camera...but then, more than likely, I'd forget to take any pictures at all! Thanks to Joe and Bre for all the pics!

Once all the eggs are found, then the smashing begins!

Oliver wasn't quite ready to join in the action this year, but he (and his mom) were as cute as ever!

The Eggs!

2011-05-15T21:35:00.000-07:00

I know that I'm a little behind, but at least the pictures are starting to show up! Here's the beginning of the Easter Pics...

Every year we have a big Easter Egg hunt at my parents house. We invite a few friends (and so do each of my brothers) and it usually ends up being a pretty good crowd. To get ready for that we make lots of "confetti eggs". This year we colored around 12 Dozen! (That's not counting what my two sister in laws colored for the event!) It took a while, but the boys had a great time!

Stay tuned for the pictures of the actual event, then you'll see all of these eggs put to good use!

Our New Toy

2011-05-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

We got the kids a trampoline! These pictures were taken the day that Joe and my dad were setting it up, they hadn't gotten the enclosure up yet. I had the kids at my mom's house for the morning so that it could be a surprise. It happened to be Easter weekend (we ordered it online and that's when it arrived) so the kids thought that the Easter Bunny had brought it :-) It didn't help that we used a trail of Easter candy to lead them to the backyard when we got home so that they'd discover it...but we did explain later that it is actually from Mom and Dad and G&G Lodge as part of their birthday presents this year. They don't care where it came from, who are we kidding!

They have loved it, but unfortunately we've had SOOOO much rain they haven't been able to be out there as much as they'd like. If Spring could just stick around for more than a day or two, that would be great!!

Oh yah, and almost as cool as the trampoline....

...were the boxes!!!

Tea Party!!!

2011-05-15T16:22:00.000-07:00

This was just a Sunday afternoon. While I was making dinner, I could hear Joe playing with the kids in Abby's room. This is what I found...

...a Tea Party!!!

I would love to say that it was all for Abby's benefit, you know since tea parties aren't exactly a "manly" passtime, but the boys were having just as much fun as her! Of course, they were sure to tell me that they were having hot cocoa at their tea party. Funny kids!

The best Mother's Day Ever!

2011-05-08T15:37:00.000-07:00

I had a great Mother's Day this year! It was fun that the boys really got into it and found ways to make the day special. Joe made me my favorite breakfast and got me two beautiful Fuschias to hang in the front of our house. The boys picked out a windchime and wrote in a card for me. It was all very cute!

After church, Sam made me a PB sandwich for lunch and Andrew helped by getting me some chips and water to round out the meal.

This was as we were getting ready for bed. I was trying to get a picture with the kids and the cards/gifts they'd made...but it didn't work out so well! Abby didn't want to stay put!

She let me know that she was NOT happy about getting her picture taken!But, nothing cheers her up like some ice cream!

Here's the coconut cream pie that I made for "the big people" dessert. It was a new recipe and was soooo good!

We wrapped the day up by playing cards (and eating pie!) with my parents. It was a great day. I felt very loved, appreciated and so lucky to have such a great family!

School Carnival

2011-05-06T16:31:00.000-07:00

I am playing catch up with all of the pictures and events for the past few months, in case you couldn't tell! This was back in the beginning of May, Sam's school had a carnival complete with lots of bouncy toys and games. The weather was very questionable, threatening rain, so Abby and I opted to have a girls night and Joe took the boys to the carnival. I sprinkled a little, but turned out to be okay and they had a great time!

Sam decorated this cake to enter into the contest (and to get free carnival tickets!) He was pretty proud of it! Here are few random shots of the bouncy toys, Andrew may be a little small, but it certainly didn't hold him back!

Joe said that the jousting was the funniest part of the whole night. As you can see, Andrew had a hard time just holding on to the big stick, let alone swinging it to knock Sam off. I guess that he learned pretty fast that falling off was the fun part and just started diving off the platform whenever Sam swung at him. Sam looks a little bored with the whole thing! Funny boys!

She's Contagious!

2011-04-20T10:05:00.001-07:00

One of Abby's most endearing characteristics is her laugh. She has this deep chuckle that just makes me smile whenever I hear it!

A couple of weeks ago we were at the grocery store and I was playing with her and tickling her as I walked down the aisle. She was laughing so hard, it was really cute. A few minutes later a lady walked around the corner and said, "Excuse me, was she just laughing a minute ago?" I said that she was. "Oh, well, I was on the next aisle over and I found myself smiling for no real reason. Then I realized it was because I heard her laughing!" Then she leaned towards Abby and said, "Thank you for brightening my day!"

I'm so grateful for my happy baby girl!

A beautiful thing!

2011-04-19T21:09:00.000-07:00

This picture was from a few weeks ago, but I thought it was cute so I wanted to post it. This is how I found the kids that morning after I was done cleaning up breakfast. Sam has taken off with reading and was putting his new skills to work! Very cute!

Perfect for a rainy day!

2011-04-19T20:56:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we got a package in the mail from Grandma Lodge. It was full of Easter goodies and fun activities. It was a great pick-me-up on another cold rainy day. We are so tired of the cold! Last night we went to my brothers house for a family dinner and drove there in a blizzard! Where is SPRING???

Anyway, here are some pictures of the boys doing the craft project that they got...

Sam's Miracles

2011-04-19T15:04:00.000-07:00

I'm going to apologize upfront, because this may be kind of a long story. I really wanted to record it for the sake of family records/journal and this is the best place for that. So, with that said, here goes!

A few weeks ago, Sam came to me and said, "Mom, I'm a little sad about something. Why don't I ever have any miracles in my life?" He's really been thinking a lot lately about things he learns at primary, church, FHE, etc. It's very cool to watch him learn the gospel. On this particular day he was thinking about the miracles that Jesus performed. I didn't want to let this moment pass without teaching him something. I sat him down and showed him his scrapbook from the NICU. He's looked at it lots of times, but this time I explained that he was very small and very sick when he was born. I told him how Daddy and I (and lot of other people) said LOTS of prayers and asked Heavenly Father to help him get better. I told him that Heavenly Father answered our prayers and that's why he is so strong and healthy. I told him that is a miracle, that he is a miracle. He really took that to heart and we both felt the Spirit testify that it was true. It was a very sweet experience.

Now, fast forward a few weeks.

Saturday night, after the boys' showers the bathtub would not drain. I fiddled with the drain and did all I could fix it. Joe came in and did what he could. Nothing changed. More than an hour later, Joe had talked to my dad and was heading over to get some tools and drain cleaner from him. Before he left, we said family prayer and Joe asked that he'd be able to fix the drain. During Sam's personal prayers he also asked that Daddy would be able to fix the bathtub. While Joe was gone and the kids were all in bed, I was downstair doing something. All of the sudden, I could hear the tub draining. It was strange, it had been clogged for about 2 hours by that time with absolutely no change, then all of the sudden it drained. I went in and told Sam that it was fixed. He looked at me, in awe, and said, "Wow Mom, Heavenly Father answered my prayers. It's a real miracle!"

The next day, we were talking about it again and he said, "Now I know of two miracles in my life, Heavenly Father helped me be healthy when I was a baby and he fixed the bathtub!" It seemed like such an odd comparison to me, like they shouldn't quite be in the same category. As I thought about it further though, I realized that it didn't matter. Prayers were answered and, no matter the outcome, my little boy is learning that Heavenly Father loves us and will help us when we need help.

It was all a very good learning experience for all of us.

Nightmares

2011-03-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

Joe was out of town last week. It doesn't seem to change much about our daily routines until dinner/bedtime. Still, the kids miss him but don't seem TOO broken up about it. They are kids, what can I say? I am the one who is totally exhausted and drained by his absence, mentally, emotionally and phyiscally.

But, there is one way that I know that the kids are more deeply affected by his absence then they let on: Nightmares. Normally they are all great sleepers. We are rarely ever awake during the night, since Abby was about 6 weeks old. Once they are out, we don't hear from them again until the morning.

Except...when Joe is gone. Then, it' not unusual for all three of them to wake up at some point during the night with a nightmare for the first two or three nights that he is gone. Not all at the same time, each one takes a turn. When I say "wake up" I mean suddenly screaming hysterically and sobbing uncontrollably. It scares me to death and then I can't get back to sleep. It's one of the hardest parts about him being gone.

Now, to the point of this story....

Last week, one of the nights Andrew woke up screaming and sobbing about 2 AM. I dashed in to comfort him (and try and keep him from waking up the other two). Once he calmed down enough that I could understand what he was saying, I had to smile even though I was exhausted. This is how it went:

Andrew, sobbing: "Are we having Family Home Evening?" (Thinking he was missing out on something)

me: "No, honey we're not."

Andrew: "But WWHHYYYY????"

me: "It's the middle of the night and everyone is sleeping."

Andrew: "But why can't we have Family Home Evening??"

me: "Because it's Wednesday."

Andrew, suddenly calm: "Oh, okay."

Then he simply climbed back in bed and was asleep.

Appreciating Beauty

2011-03-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, it has been a gray, dark, wet and otherwise unpleasant couple of days (or weeks) in Spokane. February and March are hard months for me because Joe travels more than usual, the weather is usually a mess, and it's too cold/wet to send the kids outside to play. This week has been exactly that. We are all a little grumpy and stir-crazy!

This afternoon, I was driving to Walmart thinking about that. I was looking at the gray sky that was threatening to rain again and noticing all of the gray piles of snow that have not yet melted. Not that I was grumpy or depressed, I was just noticing how yucky everything looked. It was at that moment, Sam decided to teach me a lesson. He and Andrew had been riding quietly in the back of the van when I hear his sweet voice say, in awe, "Wow Mom, Heavenly Father and Jesus sure made a beautiful world for us to live in!"

I was totally taken aback, as if he'd been reading my mind and was disagreeing with it. He went on to talk about the mountains in the distance that were white with snow, the clouds that made cool designs and moved in the wind, the plants that were going to grow so big with all of the rain, etc.

I was truly humbled and grateful for the insights of a child.

And very grateful for our beautiful earth. Rain and all.

Just doing his job!

2011-02-18T08:43:00.001-08:00

Joe pulled out the camera the other night to take some pictures/video of Abby because she was being silly. She, of course, stopped as soon as she saw the camera. But, Sam saw the camera out and came to get in on some of the action. He kept jumping into the picture at the last moment and posing with Abby.

Finally, Joe said, "Sam, what are you doing, I'm trying to get a picture of Abby?"

Sam answered, very matter-of-factly, "Dad, I'm just making the picture cuter!"

Apparently, he knows his job and he's very good at it!

She's well trained...or maybe it's the other way around!

2011-02-17T14:32:00.000-08:00

Everytime we sit down to eat a meal, we always say a prayer first, with very few exceptions. Abby caught on to that very quickly. We noticed around the beginning of the year that anytime she wanted something to eat she would do this...

She doesn't even have to be in her high chair, she could just be walking around, playing, or my personal favorite - standing in front of the pantry. She'll just fold her arms and know that she's communicating with me!

It's very cute!

Her new love

2011-02-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

Abby LOVES books!!! She is always wandering around with a book in her hand. Whenever she catches me sitting down, she grabs a book and runs to plop herself down in my lap and we read together. It's very cute!

The biggest snowman EVER!!!

2011-02-03T14:16:00.001-08:00

We had quite a bit of snow the week after Christmas. Joe had the week off so he was able to be home and play with the boys in the snow. Here's the snowman they built...

Christmas 2010

2011-02-03T13:40:00.000-08:00

I did not take many pictures on Christmas this year, I'm not sure how we forgot that! Here's a quick look at Christmas at our house...

Opening their pajamas on Christmas Eve...
Here's Abby checking out her new PJ's. That's such a classic Abby expression!
Sam got "reindeer food" from his teacher that he had sprinkle outside so that the reindeer would remember to stop at our house. For those who are not familiar with reindeer food, it looks an awful lot like oatmeal and glitter :-)

Hanging the stockings...
New PJ's!! I actually made the boys pants this year, they love them!

The note and picture that Sam left with the treats for Santa.

The living room after Santa came but before the kids were awake...

Sleepy boys at 6:00 AM! It's not just their fault, though, that we were up so early! I woke up at 5:00 and laid there waiting for any sounds from their room so that I'd have an excuse to get up! It drives Joe nuts, but every year I'm worse than the kids on Christmas morning!

That's where the pictures stopped! We had a very long, drawnout process of opening presents. Some we brought downstairs to open on the webcam with Joe's family in Virginia. Then we went back upstairs and finished off the rest. My family came over for a brunch a little later on. After plenty of playing and then some naps (for me especially) we went to my parents house to talk to my missionary brother and eat a yummy Christmas dinner of Mexican food. It was a great day!

A new tradition

2011-01-22T20:30:00.000-08:00

This year we decided to try a new Christmas activity with the boys...decorating gingerbread houses. Grandma and Grandpa came over to do it with us. Here are a few pictures from the fun evening...

The boys LOVED it and each of their houses turned out to be a work of art! I think that it will definitely be a new tradition!

His Favorite Chore

2011-01-22T20:23:00.001-08:00

Andrew LOVES to help me with anything around the house. Cooking, washing windows, vaccuming, dusting, making beds, you name it...if we can do it together he loves it. He's a natural worker, it's amazing. But, this is by far his FAVORITE chore...

He actually gets mad if he catches me washing the pans without him. I sure love my big helper!

An attempt at family pictures...

2011-01-21T09:29:00.000-08:00

Over Thanksgiving weekend my brother Danny blessed their new baby so the whole family (except Elder Jon O) was together for the occasion. That doesn't happen often, so we of course had to try for a family picture. Here's the best attempt...

While we were at it, I thought we'd try for one of just our family, you know for Christmas cards maybe? Well, the kids were not cooperative and it was way too cold to try for very long, so this is what we got. Oh, and the Christmas cards never happened :-)

And, just because she's cute, I thought I'd throw these in!

Sledding with the cousins

2011-01-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

Over Thanksgiving break Joe took the boys sledding with my brother Rob and his kids. They had so much fun! They went up in the mountains to some friends' property, so they were the only ones there. I heard all the exciting stories when they got home!

Here is Sam with his cousin (and best buddy) Ela...

This is my favorite series of pictures, I love their faces as they get going faster down the hill...

Abby's Birthday...only two months late!

2011-01-17T16:37:00.000-08:00

I know these pictures are way overdue, but for the sake of keeping up on our "family journal" I'm going to do my best to catch up!

We celebrated Abby's 1st birthday a couple of days late after Joe got back from a business trip (shh, don't tell her!) We had family over for dinner and then presents/cake/ice cream. Abby didn't actually get a chance to open many of her own presents because her brothers were both so eager to "help" her. She got lots of cute and fun stuff.

This is the new coat and walker that she got from Grandma Olson...Here's the cake. It was pretty simple, but I thought it turned out pretty cute! I made a separate smash cake that was just for her!
Of course, every first birthday has to have messy cake pictures, right? Well, no one told Abby that she was supposed make a mess... ...she didn't want to have anything to do with that cake! I even pulled out a spoon to try and get her taste it......but she was so not interested! I was determined, though, that I would have messy cake pictures!!! So, I kept trying to get her to try it......until it made her cry. :-(
"Give up Mom, I'm not eating that stuff!"Meanwhile, the "big kids" are testing out her new toys.Once we got her down, she went straight to what she really wanted to be doing on her birthday...playing with boxes!
I was pretty disappointed that she wouldn't touch her cake. So, I did what every dedicated mom would do, I gave it to her for breakfast! :-) No really, I did...

...and this time she gave it a chance!

Yay!!! for messy face pictures!

Mission Accomplished :-)

For Daddy

2010-11-17T12:43:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Abby's birthday and she decided to show how grown up she is by taking her first steps this afternoon. She's been doing a lot of feet shuffling lately, but these are her actual first steps! Since Joe is out of town this week, I had to post this so that he can see. Not a great video, but I do only have two hands! She really is walking, I promise!

Oh, and just a note for future bragging rights...both of her brothers took their first steps around 14 months :-)

Sam's exciting (and a bit scary) news!

2010-11-12T13:09:00.001-08:00

Today Sam was eating some apple with his lunch and ...
...he lost his first tooth! As I expected, he was a bit traumatized by it! It's been loose for weeks and we've talking about it lots so that he knew that it would come out soon, but still the shock of it took him a bit off guard. He was fine until he saw the "hole" in his mouth, he thought it looked very funny. But, he felt much better about it once I explained that a new tooth would grow in!

Please, don't judge me too harshly...

2010-11-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

Joe is out of town this week, the kids were all in bed by 7:15 and this is how I now get to spend my evening...
...just me, an old chick flick, and a MOUNTAIN of laundry to fold. At least it's clean, right? Here goes!

Who needs toys?

2010-11-09T20:07:00.000-08:00

This is one of Abby's favorite things to do while I'm busy in the kitchen...

Notice, also, the pan lid and wooden spoon behind her. Luckily, she hasn't quite figure out how to make TOO much noise with them yet. When she does figure that out, which probably won't be long, I'll have to find a new way to entertain her while I cook! But look at that smile, who can say no to that?!

Fall Leaves

2010-11-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

We got outside this week to enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful fall days we've been having. We only have one little apple tree in our yard so there was just the right amount of leaves to play in! There's just something magical about a pile of fall leaves, I'm not quite sure what it is...but they sure had fun!

Future Chef

2010-10-23T17:11:00.000-07:00

The other night I told Andrew that we were having nachos for dinner. He thought for a minute (trying to remember if that was something he liked) then said, "Oh yah, I wike dat!" Then he went on to tell me how to make the nachos, in case I couldn't remember. Here are his instructions:

"You just take some cheese, cook it in da freezer, den you put some ketchup wit it and you have nachos!"

Mmmmm, sounds tasty! Who said you need chips for nachos? And ketchup goes with EVERYTHING, right?

While I'm thinking of it, Andrew has been on a roll lately, always making me laugh. Here's another funny Andrew story...

We were driving somewhere as a family and Sam started whining and complaining about something. Andrew looked and him and said sternly, "Sam you a big boy. Act wike a big boy!" It's always funny (and sometimes a little scary) to hear my own words that I repeat a thousand times a day, coming out of the mouth of a three year old.

He is quite a little character and keeps us on our toes!

Our Kindergartener

2010-10-23T16:49:00.000-07:00

Sam started kindergarten this year and I'm just getting around to posting the pictures! But, here is a glimpse of his first day!

This is a "self portrait." It was his first homework assignment that was due on the first day. He was so excited about it! He even designed it to look like his favorite shirt that is yellow with a soccer ball on the front...but the stars and pom poms were an added bonus!

Sam and mommy outside his school. I still can't believe my baby is so grown up!

Here he is at his table, checking out his new classmates...

Joe left work so that he could be there for Sam's first day also.
Sam loves school and is doing so well. He has a great teacher and is making friends. I'm so proud of him and all that he is learning!

She may never forgive me!

2010-10-23T16:33:00.001-07:00

...but there's nothing cuter than a baby in the bathtub! These pictures just had to be shared!

She loves her baths!

We're exhausted...but we're HOME!!!

2010-10-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

We just got back this afternoon from a trip to visit Joe's family in Virginia. It was a GREAT trip and we had tons of fun...but we are pooped! I'm going to work on getting pictures posted here soon (since I've taken off the last two months, thanks for the reminder Amanda :-) I figured this would be a good time to pick it up again!) but for now...I think this one sums up how we all feel tonight....
He couldn't even make it through his snack on the airplane without falling asleep! He was so tired!

Birthday Boy!!!

2010-08-15T21:22:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrated Andrew's birthday...

he's THREE YEARS OLD!!!

It was a day full of presents, family, his favorite foods, and relatively few tantrums (he IS three afterall, that's about the best we can expect!)

Since Joe's parents live in VA we got on the webcam with them so that they could watch Andrew open the presents that they sent him. It was very fun!

The hardest part was that because of the time change, we had to do it just a little while before church started (that's when they'd be available) so we had to take Andrew away from his fun new toys right after he'd opened them. Cruel, I know. We only had time to get the tracks put together, and then we drug him away, literally!

These next pictures were taken later that night at my parent's house at his "party". My mom made pizza and I provided the cake and ice cream.

As he opened this space shuttle from my mom he said, "It's just what I always wanted!" He was so excited, it was very cute.Here's this year's masterpiece (A.K.A the birthday cake), a special request from the birthday boy, of course!

Of course, Joe had take him to the backyard and try out the new toys! Ela gave it a shot, too!

It was a very fun day and he seemed to enjoy all of the attention. He cried and cried at bedtime because he just didn't want to stop playing! Life is hard when you are three!

Here are a few fun facts about Andrew:

his favorite color is red and he likes to point out red things everywhere we go (cars, signs, flowers, strangers clothes in the grocery store...you get the idea!)
he LOVES Little Einsteins and would watch the same DVD over and over again all day if I let him!
he is a whiz at puzzles
he is very fiesty, he may be small but watch out if you get on his bad side!
his favorite foods are hot dogs, grapes, turkey sandwiches and bacon
he loves to help me do just about anything (cooking, cleaning, yardwork, you name it) as long as we can be doing it together
he is our little athlete, very agile and quick on his feet...he loves to tackle Sam, but Sam doesn't always think that it is such a fun game!
he is very affectionate and loves to snuggle with me still, lately he's been coming to snuggle with me each morning before I get up, and I can't say that I mind!

The Great Outdoors

2010-08-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

We went camping last weekend with my family and had a blast! It was a campground that we hadn't been to before and it was great! I don't have much time to write about it, but here are a bunch of pictures!

Waiting out the rain...Joe took the kids to the tent to play Uno!

They did their best to canoe down the river...

...but there was a lot of this in the shallow parts...

...and then they'd be off again!

Joe wanted to play volleyball so bad, so we made it happen! (It wasn't as dark as these pictures make it look...)

The creation of "Andrew Rock". Joe started making this rock sculpture and since it was the same size as Andrew, they put a face on it and gave it a name!

Abby and Grandpa, she loves a good fistful of hair to yank on!

(Side note: that sweatshirt is one that all three kids have worn and we have almost identical pics of all three on Grandpa's shoulders wearing it. I have to do a double take everytime I see this picture to tell if it's Andrew or Abby!)

"Don't even think about touching my chips!"

Even though we woke up to rain both mornings, it was great trip! There's just something magical about taking the kids camping, I'm glad we got to do it and I was glad to come home!

My little protector...

2010-07-25T21:54:00.001-07:00

Tonight, just before bed, the boys were downstairs playing when all of the sudden Andrew came charging up the stairs wearing this...

He struck a ready-to-attack pose and said,

"Mommy, did you see a dragon?"

I of course sent him after his unsuspecting daddy in the next room...

I love my boys and their active imaginations!

Fireworks...oh yeah, and baseball too!

2010-07-25T21:11:00.001-07:00

Last night was Family Night at the Spokane Indian's game. We went with a group of friends and had a blast! I wasn't sure how it would go since it was hot and the boys have no clue about baseball (Sam kept on telling people at church today that he went to a football game last night) but, there were fireworks afterwards, so that made it all worth it! The first hour or so was miserable because we were in the direct sun, but once we were in the shade it was great. We were sitting down by the field right behind the away teams bench (dugout?) and right before the game one of the players called Sam out of the crowd and gave him one of their practice balls. He was sooooo excited!

Sam and Andrew had fun playing with their friends...

Danny and Jessi came too!The boys love anyone who resembles a superhero, so they were so excited to meet Recycle Man! Andrew was a little too shy for a picture, though.
Molly was showing Sam some cool trick with the straw, I never did figure out what she was trying to do!Here's the boys towards the end of the game, Sam was pouting about Andrew holding his baseball, he was a little possessive!Andrew, the crazy man...nice hair!
The girls! Abby was a trooper and didn't fuss too much, although all she really wanted was to get down and crawl on the bleachers.

The fireworks were fun and the boys loved them! Sam kept yelling, "Wow, they're so beautiful/exquisite/wonderful!" and various other exclamations of pure joy! It was very cute. We all got to bed way too late and were feeling the effects of that ALL DAY today, but it was worth it!

My PEEPS (notice the awesome shirts...)

2010-07-14T14:10:00.000-07:00

Over Father's Day weekend (I know, that was almost a month ago....better late than never!) we had a family reunion with my mom's side of the family. All eight "kids" in her family were there with LOTS of their kids and their kids' kids. Of the 99 people in our family (starting with my Grandma and Grandpa Clark) I think that I heard that about 75 were in attendance. Not bad! It was fun to see cousins who I haven't seen in many years and meet everyone's kids. It was an action-packed couple of days!

The funny face group shot

My little family! The ribbons around the boy's necks were their medals from the family fun run earlier that day. They LOVED them and still wear them all the time!One of the nights we had a mexican themed dinner complete with two pinatas. Each of the kids got a chance to take a few swings. I love how focused Andrew looks!Here's Ela's turn with her daddy standing by offering encouragement!And the mad rush once it finally broke. There were quite a few bigger kids so my boys were on the outskirts of the mob, but Danny (my brother, in the striped shirt) was in the thick of it throwing candy to my kids to make sure they got some. What a good uncle!Saturday morning we had the First Ever Clark Family Fun Run/Walk/Ride. I was in charge of this event and it went great! We went on the Centennial Trail (there were courses marked off for 1, 3, or 5 miles) and was followed by a breakfast at the park. It was lots of fun and most people participated in some way!

Here's Andrew all ready to go!Some of the runners on the course. My brother and cousin took over pushing the stroller for me after about the first mile. Abby was the first girl to finish the 3 mile race, but only because she was in the stroller and finished just ahead of my cousin's wife :-)At the breakfast.. We went to the river at lunchtime for a picnic. The rest of the group went to Couer d Alene, but these guys needed naps, so we stayed closer to home. They certainly didn't feel deprived, though. They loved the river!

Good times and good memories. I'm so glad that we were able to do this, hopefully it won't be another 10 years before we do it again!

Naptime at our house

2010-06-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

This afternoon, I was downstairs doing laundry during naptime. I went upstairs to check on the kiddos (they were quiet unusually quickly today and it made me suspicious) and this is what I found...

...an empty bunkbed(please ignore the mess under the bed!)...

...and two boys asleep in my bed, favorite blankies and all! They even brought their pillows with them!

They woke up when I took the picture. Sam got up but Andrew rolled over and went right back to sleep...

Too cute. Hey, a nap is a nap, I'll take it anyway it comes!

Reason to Celebrate!!!

2010-06-23T15:35:00.000-07:00

Joe just got his scores for his fourth and final CPA exam and .... HE PASSED!!!

I can't even describe how relieved and happy I am! He has worked so hard and has given up a lot to get this done (we all have!), I'm so glad to have it done! Now, he just needs to come home from Texas (where he is at a conference this week) so that we can celebrate!

A Strange New Experience

2010-06-07T19:32:00.000-07:00

With the occassionally warm and sunny weather in between all of the rain we've been having, I try and have the kids spend as much time outside as possible! Abby loves the outdoors and is especially fascinated with her latest discovery... grass! She loves the texture and concentrates so hard to try and grasp a single blade. She is one happy baby when she is outside, especially now that she can sit up on her own!But, sometimes this happens....and she usually yells until we sit her back up.
Finally, though, she just figured out that grass is cool on your tummy, too.

Even though she's my third, I still love watching as she discovers her world. It's so fascinating and it never gets old!

Six Months!

2010-05-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

Abby is Six Months Old...how did that happen so fast?

Last week was Abby's six month birthday. I thought I'd record some info here so that I don't forget it!

At six months Abby is:

15 lbs 14 oz
toothless!
pretty bald still, her hair is starting to fill in a bit, it's just to light to see in pictures!
starting to sit on her own and is really close to crawling. Right now she just gets around by rolling everywhere!
a great sleeper (she's been sleeping through the night since six weeks)
a good eater, her favorite foods so far are green beans and pears
very smiley! She is by far my happiest baby
in love with her brothers, she gets so excited anytime they will slow down enough to talk to her or play with her, it's so cute!
a bit of a mama's girl, but she laughs the best for daddy!

Love you baby girl, we are so glad you are in our family!

He's A Whole Handful!!!

2010-05-27T18:14:00.000-07:00

Sam is now five year's old, I can't believe it! A few days before his birthday, he was talking to my mom and she pointed out (while counting the fingers on her hand) that once he's five, he'll be a whole hand. Apparently, that stuck in his mind. On his birthday, whenever someone asked how old he is now (and that happened a lot since he insisted on wearing his birthday crown from primary EVERYWHERE) he would reply while holding up his hand, " I'm a whole handful!" It was very cute!

Sunday night, the day before his actual b-day we had my family and some friends over for a BBQ. The sun peeked through a few times, but it was mostly pretty cold!

Here's some of the kids during dinner...Sam, Ela, Andrew and Molly
Funny story about the cake, he told me that he wanted a robot cake so I got online to find some ideas. I showed him the cute things that I'd found to see which one he like best. He just shook his head and said that he wanted Dance-A-Lot Robot. Who? I found out it is a character on Playhouse Disney. So, after some research I designed this cake...

Sam with his Dance-A-Lot Robot cake.

He got this "dragon castle" from G&G Lodge and it was an instant hit with all the kids!

For breakfast on his big day we made an 'S' shaped chocolate chip pancake. Notice he is still wearing his primary crown!

This is his main present from us!

For dinner, we let him choose where he wanted to eat and of course we ended up at McDonalds!

As always, birthdays at our house go on for several days! On Tuesday, day 3 of birthday celebrations, he brought treats to preschool...Brownies with chocolate chips!

Fun Facts about Sam:

favorite color- yellow

favorite foods- chicken nuggets, sausage pizza and ANYTHING CHOCOLATE!!

He loves reading books and is getting really good at his letters and sounding things out. He is a great big brother to Abby and Andrew. He is very sweet and likes to give people compliments. He LOVES to sing, especially primary songs, and is very good at it.

He is a very special boy and I'm so lucky to have him as a my son! Love you Sam!

Bittersweet

2010-05-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

Tonight we had my family over to celebrate Sam's 5th birthday. I'll post more about the celebration later, that's not what's on my mind. Every year, every event, every milestone that we celebrate with him still leaves me with a twinge of longing. As much as I try not to, I can't help but reflect on what life would have been like if Ben had survived. We'd have celebrated two birthdays tonight. Joe would have been assembling two bikes. I wonder, would we have done two cakes, or would they have shared one? You get the idea.

I miss him. I miss what our life could have (should have?) been with our twin boys. I wish that Sam could really understand that he has a twin brother. Someday he will. Someday we'll all be together again.

Memorial day is coming up and, like every year, I wish that I could visit his grave in Utah. He was buried on Memorial day. The cemetary opened early so that we could have a graveside service before the crowds came. I know that he won't be forgotten because he is buried with lots of relatives from my Dad's side of the family. There will be flowers on his grave. But I still wish that I could go.

Life is happy and good and I have so many things to be grateful for. But I miss my Benjamin. Sometimes I just have to allow myself to feel that. And then life continues on...

Benjamin Joseph Lodge

May 24-28, 2005

(Picture taken May 28, 2005)

Dancing in the Streets

2010-05-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

Last night we decided to brave the crowds and we took the family to the Lilac Parade. We made plans to meet up with a friend of mine, Breanna, and her kids. We got there around 5:00 and ended up with some pretty good seats and room for everyone. By parade time our group had grown to include two of my brothers and their wives as well as my niece (Ela) and nephew (Bernie) AND Breanna's three cousins and two of their friends plus a family from my parent's ward who just happened to be walking by. It was quite a crowd and lots of fun!

Here's a picture of our half of the crew, we never did get a picture of the whole group...

I thought that my boys would enjoy the parade, but I had no idea how much! It was definately worth the late hours!
Breanna brought pizza to share and we had dinner while we waited for the parade to start. We had a few hours to kill since we got there so early!

One of the other moms thought ahead and brought a box of sidewalk chalk. Such a good idea! Our kids decorated the whole street while waiting for the parade, it was lots of fun for them. They were COVERED in black dirt from the road!

This was when the four jets flew overhead in formation, they loved that!

Once the parade started, they were so excited about EVERYTHING that walked/drove/marched/danced by us. Their two favorite things were the princess floats and the marching bands (which there were LOTS of). Sam was a bit smitten by all the pretty girls in fancy dresses!
Another notable mention was the Spokane Indian tribe in their full traditional dress, the kids were mesmerized! Whenever a marching band came by they showed off their amazing dancing skills, I can't believe they could keep up this energy for the entire night, but they did! This video is a small sampling of the show they put on...

It was such a fun night. I will definately go again, I'm so glad that Breanna suggested it! We are paying a price today, though, for the lack of sleep...Andrew was a monster at church! Oh well, I guess that's the price we pay for good memories!

Quick Update

2010-05-13T20:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't been very good about posting very many pictures lately (or even taking them, if I'm really being honest) but here are a few cute ones!

This is how I found the boys one morning when they were supposed to be in their room getting dressed and making their beds. The funny thing is that once I'd discovered their hiding place, they discovered they couldn't get out. (I got video of that part, but I'm not patient enough to post video on here!) It was pretty cute!

Abby has started eating solid foods and is pretty happy about it. Her favorite so far is green beans...good girl! Sam has been playing soccer. (I'll post more pictures and details later...)
As for Andrew, well he's been busy too...

There you have it, a quick look at what's been going on at our house! We are really looking forward to May being over because that means that "busy season" is over for Joe at work and his hours go back to normal (40/week) AND he's also taking the last test for the CPA so (fingers crossed that he passes it...) he'll also be done studying! We'll have our daddy/husband back!

Mother's Day challenge....

2010-05-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

I was talking to some friends this week about Mother's day and was surprised to find out that for them it is one of the worst days of the year! I was shocked and confused. They went on to explain how by the end of the day, they are sick of hearing about how great other mom's are and are feeling lousy about how they are doing as a mom. I was really sad to hear that and it made me start to think.

I think that we should all give ourselves a gift this Mother's day...don't do that to yourself! Use this day to honor and show our love to the wonderful mom's in our lives, not to focus on our shortcomings or compare ourselves to others. It's about our mom's, it's not about us. We should enjoy the love from our kids and turn around and do the same for our moms/mother-in-laws/grandmas.

Hope that we can all have a good mother's day!

What is she DOING???

2010-04-11T18:49:00.000-07:00

My babies have all been devoted binky babies...which I have been very happy about! Lately though, Abby has been doing a lot of this....

And here she is with her first favorite doll, she loves to suck on the braids and hands. Very cute!

I know I say it every time I post, but I'll say it again...I can't believe how fast she's growing!!!

Apparently, that's okay at our house...

2010-04-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

How many times as a kid were you told to not play with your food? Well, apparently I haven't taught my kids that yet...

Andrew and his "pizza face"

Sam's lunchtime creation...he made it all by himself and was so proud of himself! (I'm not sure what he'd already eaten to make his face such a mess...)

Let's be honest, playing with your food makes meals much more fun!

Always checking my oatmeal...

2010-03-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

This morning Andrew climbed up into the computer chair and started clicking, pointing and typing on the email page that I'd left up. I asked him to get down and stop playing with the computer. He gave me a very annoyed-but-trying-to-be-patient look and said, " But Mom, I'm just checking my oatmeal!"

Funny boy, thought I'd share!

One of THOSE Days...

2010-03-25T09:53:00.000-07:00

It's not even 10:00 yet and I am so ready for the day to be over! Sam was well enough to go back to Preschool today (Thanks Goodness!!!) but that meant dragging a very grumpy (and sick) Andrew along to take him there. I put Andrew down a few minutes ago for a NAP (did I mention that it's not even 10:00 yet?) . Sam has his first soccer practice tonight. Joe is working at a client today that is more than an hour away so he won't be home in time to take him. So that means I'll be taking the crew with me, hopefully the weather holds out...

Favorite Family Hangout

2010-03-22T15:41:00.000-07:00

There is one room in the house that is by far the favorite place for the family to congregate. It also happens to be the smallest room in the house (besides the bathroom)...

It's Abby's room!

Anytime I am changing her diaper or clothes, feeding her or doing ANYTHING in Abby's room, the boys seem to have some sort of radar and they come running. I'm not sure what it is, but I like to think that they love the cute decorations. It is very bright and happy!

Here's a cute picture of Abby and her new flower clip that my SIL made for her. Isn't it cute!I've never been very girlie, but with the help of friends and family, I'm figuring it out! Thanks for the help!!!

Priceless

2010-03-17T15:07:00.000-07:00

To Mom ,

Love, Sam

It doesn't get much sweeter than this!