Wordless Wednesday: 10 Years

For better or worse.  And these last 4 years have been mighty crazy!  I couldn't have imagined what my life would look like now and I can't imagine it any other way!

Wordless Wednesday: Beach Girls

The weather wasn't perfect while we were at the beach last week, but we got one good day of playing and a couple more days of quick visits!  This one was after dinner after sunset one night when we just had to go down and watch the waves in the dusk!

Wordless Wednesday: Movies with Daddy

So Brian was watching Despicable Me the other day... and the girls were loving having him stationary for so long!

A Little Vacation with Friends

This past weekend we reprized our visit to Couer d'Alene Lake with college friends.  We went in the middle of the summer hoping for hot weather this time... instead it was warm-ish and windy.  Not really conducive to swimming.  Bummer!

But of course we still had a good time! As you can see, it's quite the hike down to the lake...

perfect for when Daddy throws Kix off the deck and you try to catch them in your mouth!

This is the view from the beach back up to the cabin.

We sat on the dock for awhile and stuck our feet in and rode the waves from the passing boats.

Then the boys wanted to wade and really, did I expect that my 3 year old would stay dry even if it was cold???

Here's the little thinker, Eli.  He's the only boy to play with, but the boys were kinda wild and crazy and I think he didn't quite know what to do with them!

He's gonna have some adjusting to do soon though, cuz his Mama is pregnant with twin brothers for him!  Yes, we will now have 2 sets of twins in our group, crazy!

We all mostly look the same, but the kids are bigger... this couch is not going to hold us much longer!

And of course, when there are tons of toys to play with, the box is the favored toy!

Here's our triplet girls, Joy on the left, Amelia, and then Hope.  Amelia was ready to go for a nap in the car.

All these kids around wore her out, but it was super fun to have three little girls!

My girls showing how they are "so big"!

And then the boys found a giant moth on the deck.  Our biologist friend, Sami, moved it out to the front of the house where it wouldn't accidentally fly in the sliding glass door. 

It was pretty cool looking... until we heard it hit the screen door late that night while we were playing games!  And then it was on the name sign by the front door the next day.

The only acceptable form of drinking and driving... that door to the left of Hope opens to a set of really steep stairs to the basement with a cinderblock wall at the bottom.  We were super careful to keep it closed except for one time when I went to wash some things in the bathtub downstairs... I had been there maybe 3 minutes and heard a "Hiya!" from behind me and turned around to find that Joy had come down all by herself.  Heart attack!  Thankfully she is much better at going down feet first on her tummy than Hope.

We attempted swimming again the last day as it was slightly warmer... but the water was still pretty cold.  We all sat on the dock and watched the boats go by.  The girls liked to kick in the water, but their toes got cold.

And I think all the kids were in the box at some point, but I didn't get any pictures of the boys.

All in all we stayed up too late, compared pregnancy stories (the girls at least!) and had a good time relaxing with friends!

Wordless Wednesday: Tea Party

The girls love the tea set we brought home last month.  Daddy had a tea party with them!  

Some for you too Daddy!

Wordless Wednesday: Dandelion Control

While it might not seem like it we do actually try to control the dandelions in our yard... just not with chemicals!

And look we actually half have a fence now, not the crazy blue tarps of last year or the pink flamingos and toilet growing strawberries we could see the year before!

Wordless Wednesday: Nap Time!

Although not a whole lot of napping gets done with this crowd in the bed!

Wordless Wednesday: Science with Daddy

Brian boiled purple cabbage to make ink... then he used vinegar and baking soda to show Cory how the colors would change.  A little acid/base chemistry!  Why yes, we are science nerds...

How to Buy a Toilet

1. Buy a toilet.  Preferably at 7:30am after you have been out late playing games with your friends.

2. Bring it home for your wife to tell you that she doesn't like elongated toilets and so this one is not okay.

3. Take the toilet back to Lowe's (with a 4 year old in tow) and buy a round toilet.

4. Go home and take it out to find that it's actually smaller than the one you currently own.  This is a problem when you are 6'6".

5. Take a nap while your boys are napping so you can go back to the store as a family when they wake up.

6. Take your entire family (2 small boys) to Lowe's and spend at least 45 minutes and 3 different sales clerks in the toilet aisle.

7. Convince a sales clerk to allow you to use their "employees only" ladder to measure various toilets because they are all conveniently displayed 10 feet up.  In the meantime your older son will be crawling around amongst the toilet boxes playing peek-a-boo.

8. Go back and forth between toilets and lids trying various combinations.  Make sure you sit on them in the aisle.  Don't forget the display models out in the main aisle where everyone is walking by.  Your wife will tell you to turn around while she sits down just like she does at home. She is still fully clothed.

9. Watch your older son push your younger son down the aisle in the cart and run it into something so that your younger son gets whiplash.  You will be too far away to do anything about it.  Older son is now relegated to cart sitting as well.

10. Finally decide on a toilet and seat combination that you and your wife think will be acceptable... with some getting used to.  For the record, it's an elongated toilet, but not the one you first brought home this morning.

11. Buy the toilet.  Realize that it is almost 6pm.

12. Go out for dinner at your favorite Mexican restaurant (El Abuelo) to celebrate that you have successfully purchased a toilet without a marital meltdown.

13. Watch your 17 month old son dip his chips in the hot salsa and eat them because you are doing it.  He acts like he likes it!

14. Get home and put the toilet in the garage.  The project will now have to wait until Saturday and daylight (because this project is actually precipitated by having to get into the wall behind to the toilet to repair an outside faucet that is broken - hence the need for daylight).

15. Realize you have spent the entire day buying a toilet.  Happy Labor Day!

Anniversary Trip Back in Time

Friday was our anniversary. Six years ago (on a Friday) we got married at Ohme Gardens so this year my parents came to watch the boys and we went back.

We wandered around a bit and then found a rock bench in a shady spot to sit and talk.  Six years seems like such a short time, but so much has happened.

Yes, I'm addicted to taking pictures, especially when the light is this good!

Then we went downtown for some dinner at a wine bar.  A place we would never take the boys even though we could... Fondue and garlic chicken pizza.

Back to the gardens for a concert that we didn't listen to.  We wandered some more and it made good background music.

And then home at dusk (because we are parents and also because the gardens are all natural, including no lights!) to our own home, with little boys who were still awake and waiting for snuggles.

Ah, the changes in six years!

Wordless Wednesday: Blueberries

Why yes, Daddy, I do like blueberries!

As you can see, he's pretty much his normal self!

PSF: Happy Black Friday to Us

Christmas came a little early to our house... about a month to be exact!

Brian and his dad go shopping mostly just for the fun of it on Black Friday.  They don't go super early, I think he left here at a quarter to 7.

One of these things is not like the others

This year we'd hoped to buy a TV in the hopes of eventually getting a Wii... but some friends gave us their old one and so we had one less expense and Brian found a relatively good deal...  Yes, we now own a Wii, a limited edition red one no less.  So give me your game recs because we have no clue!

The boys and I picked up my mother-in-law a bit later and hit Target and a few small stores including Hallmark.  I was showing her the Willow Tree nativity I like and she said she was looking for things that I might like for my birthday (next week!) and Christmas.  Then later I happened to mention that there was a screaming good deal on the Cricut at JoAnn's and I'd really liked working with it at my last scrapbooking retreat.  These two things were the same price so I had to choose... but the nativity wasn't on sale so I went with the Cricut.  It hasn't made it out of the box yet, but I know it will be used heavily on scrapbooking weekends!  And if you have no idea what this is... well, I didn't either until I actually used it last month!

And finally...

Yes, I'm showing you the inside of my garage

The thing I'm actually most excited about!!!  Brian and his dad bought some shelving units at Lowe's and they put them together that afternoon.  I don't have a before picture, but just realize that we had zero shelves and all of that stuff was piled and stacked all over the floor.  I literally had to do the funky walk to get to anything I wanted.

It was snowing when I took these pics, hence the white streaks

I guess the moral of the story is... the way to this girl's heart is through an organized house!  And Merry Christmas to us!

PSF: Running at Awana

This year we signed Cory up for a Wednesday night Awana program (Wikipedia description). He's in the Cubbies group and so far... he LOVES it!  I was in Awana as a kid, starting with the Sparkies group (for kinders and up) and have such great memories of it I wanted him to like it too!

It helps that Brian is a games helper and the leader for the Cubbies game time...

He makes up games like "bucket head" which basically is run around the circle with a bucket on your head... perfect for 3 and 4 year olds!

The leader stepped right in front of me as Cory was running, sad, but the face is too cute!

The best picture of the night goes to one of my friends cute kiddos!  Really, you have to click on the picture and see it bigger!

Then there is the "team run" or better known as crack the whip!  No one crashed and burned tonight!

It is seriously amazing how easily Cory can remember verses with very simple prompts.  I'm so glad we're doing this, now for Mom to get on the wagon and start memorizing again too!

PSF: A New Table

I had a table when we got married.  I paid $50 for it plus 4 chairs when I was living in Seattle because I didn't know if I'd have to furnish my own place when I went to grad school.  Turns out I didn't, but I liked the table, it was from IKEA, and it was it pretty decent shape.

Brian has never liked the table.  I will give him that it's too short, he hits his knees.  But he's more afraid that it will break as it has a glass top.  And two of the chairs are missing slats out of the backs (see the picture below) because they are pretty flimsy and small and well, he isn't.  I wasn't a huge fan of blue chairs anyway, but hey, cheap is good!

So, we've been on the lookout for a new table for awhile, cruising second hand stores and garage sales and never finding anything worth replacing our table with.  There's a wood furniture store in town going out of business and we've bought things there before, they have quality furniture.  But whatever sleazy company they hired to do their "going out of business" sale is not marking anything down, but telling everyone who walks in "these are the retail prices, let us know what you're interested in and we'll tell you how much it is" and then quoting 30% off retail.  I don't know about you, but that's not a going out of business sale!  I think they're getting to keep a large portion of the profits.

Anyway, I didn't find anything in there I loved and that's a good thing as most of the tables were running over 2k, and that was at 30% off!  (we bought smaller things before!)

On Saturday I was out by myself for a couple hours and on the way home I stopped by a second hand store that's on our end of town.  I've been driving by for months intending to stop and instead have always had tired, hungry, or sleeping children in the car!

I walked through the store and saw this table and 6 chairs for $250.  I was NOT impressed with the chairs (they didn't match and were very sun bleached on the backs), but the guy working called his boss and said they could sell the table alone for $150.  I said I'd bring Brian back later, he loved it, and we are now the proud owners of a new table!

It came with 2 leaves too, although one of them is missing the side decorative pieces.  But I seriously doubt we will use even one leaf very often so it's not a big deal.  Plus, for that price, the table is awesome!

Now, I'm just counting every time Brian says "I love our table".  I think I'm up to at least a dozen! =)

And to find a set of chairs at the same type of price...




Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Wordless Wednesday: Guys Night

What happens when you have 5 guys over for 4 hours to play games... and Brian only drank 2 of them.  Ew!

Cory in the Pumpkin Patch

Auntie Kelly was driving the horse wagon at our local pumpkin patch on Saturday so Daddy and Cory went to ride and get pumpkins.

Daddy's turn to take pictures of Cory...

Happy 5th Anniversary!

This year for the first time we've really taken time away for our anniversary. And we actually got to go back to the same family cabin where we spent our honeymoon! Albeit this time with baby in tow!

Life is rough on the Oregon Coast...

This is the view from the master bedroom!

This is the Yaquina Bay lighthouse

Noah had his own room, thankfully

But it was actually kind of cool to just hang out with him for a couple of days.

Here he's really discovering his toes for the first time!  

(also notice the sleep lines on his face!)

Checking out the ocean view

Now Friday we had a bit of an adventure.  When Noah got me up at 7:30 I went out to check the tide level and there was an ambulance and some fire chief vehicles on the beach access right next to the cabin.  I wondered if someone was hurt although I couldn't see anything on the beach.  I went out on the deck and saw a paramedic come from behind the bluff just to my right (north), but figured someone must have gotten injured while out walking in the morning or had a medical emergency.

I went to get Brian up and he got some binoculars and was looking, but the only thing out of the ordinary was a big red cooler that had washed ashore.  I figured it was just some fisherman's who hadn't tied it down.  Brian recognized one of his college professors on the beach and hollered at him (the cabin next door is owned by people connected with our university).  We couldn't really understand him, but heard something about a sailboat.  

So we hurriedly got dressed and Noah warmer clothes and went to see what was going on.  Imagine our surprise to get out to the beach and see this!

A 38 foot sailboat that had run aground at high tide in the night just a few hours earlier!

Earlier I had seen a fire department truck come from the beach and a man get out of the cab and onto a stretcher.  They also had a wet dog - which added to my hypothesis of a man injured while running.  But no, the man was a retired doctor who lived on his boat.  He fell asleep and ran aground.  

Sadly his cat did not make it, but the man is okay from everything we've heard.

At various points there were firemen, paramedics, policemen, park rangers, and I'm sure others on the scene.  We talked to a policeman and he said they will most likely have to break the boat up to truck it off the shore.  It's quite an old wooden boat and may have unseen damage making it un-seaworthy.  

As well as, by the time we left the next day the 3 high tides had already swung it around 90 degrees closer to some rocks and pushed it higher up on the beach.

The cabin we stay at is on the right, the house in the center is where the prof was staying and the bluff is just sticking out far enough that from our deck we couldn't quite see the sailboat.

After that morning excitement we played tourist, watched some movies in the cabin, and of course had some clam chowder!

Peek-a-boo Mommy!

And then we came home to Great Grand parents in the house and a plugged up sink... 

(why yes, that is a plunger they were using!)

All in a day's life!