Sunday, December 28, 2008

Merry Christmas Everyone


So, I know it's after Christmas, but here is a picture of the kids with the tree. Every year I take a picture of them in front of the tree and I love looking back to see how much they have changed. It's hard to believe Jim and I have been together for over 9 years, the time has flown by. We have amazing kids and each year brings something new. I love each of our children individually for what they bring to the family and I wouldn't change a thing. I am one lucky mother. Happy Holidays and best wishes for the New Year.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Tiffany's 40th birthday blowout

















































This weekend my dear friend Tiffany and her mom Susie hosted a girls getaway to celebrate Tiffany's 40th birthday. The weekend was filled with laughter and scrapbooking, including 3 fun projects that Tiffany and Susie gifted us. Tiffany did a Christmas book, Susie did a cookbook and acrylic frame complete with a group photo from the weekend. We took a field trip to Snoqualmie to a fun scrapbook store, "Hip 2 b square" to restock on supplies the second day. We also stopped at Snoqualmie Falls to take a few quick picture- it was so cold we literally only stayed long enough to take the pictures. The weather was a bit sketchy, we got a bit of snow on Saturday night. Susie also made all of us fun aprons and shirts to commemorate the "Big 40", she is so generous and talented!! You can see them in the group photos. I made some great new friends, there were 8 women there and other than Tiffany, Susie and Debbie all were strangers to me. By the end of the weekend though, Tammi, Sandy, Tonya and Chris were women I was happy to have met, spent the weekend with and am glad to call my friends. We ate tons of great food and snacks, we joked we could get snowed in for a week and "might " run out of food. Thanks to everyone for a creative, relaxing and enjoyable weekend. Tiffany and Susie- you are awesome!!

For those of you that want the cheesecake recipe, leave me a comment and I'll "hook you up".






Sunday, November 30, 2008

Little miss Rachel turns 18











Rachel's actual birthday isn't until Tuesday but we celebrated on the day after Thanksgiving. It seems like just yesterday Rachel was a little smiling girl playing with her Little Tike's beauty Salon or singing me her ABC's while taking bath. She has grown into a strong, brave, beautiful young woman and I am so proud of her. She is a wonderful sister and daughter and I cant wait to see what life brings her next. Love you Rachel!!

Thanksgiving 2008

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year and had lots of family and friends over for the day. We started cooking the turkey at about 8 am and had dinner at about 1:00pm. Nancy's mom Jean brought her famous rolls, Melissa brought a fabulous broccoli salad, Mom brought Yams and Ashleigh brought the pumpkin pies. We had plenty of food and lots of leftovers for the next few days snacking. Both Mike and Cameron wanted a whole leg but only Cameron was able to polish the whole thing off. Morgan had such huge plate of food I had to take a picture, she only ate half of it though and put it in the microwave for later!It was a nice, leisurely day and we ended it by watching "Fred Claus", it was super cute. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

































































Sunday, November 9, 2008

Happy 18th Kim!!




Last weekend was Kim's 18th birthday and we all got together in Yelm to celebrate. It's hard to believe Kim has grown from the onry little girls she was to the beautiful young woman she has become. I made her a scrapbook that starts at birth and goes until this year, ending with her Senior picture. She seemed really happy to get it and said she plans on showing all her friends. Of course no get together is complete without Jim and Deja hanging out together, there is a bond between those two that started when she was tiny. Morgans friend Danielle came along and every time I took a picture she made some kind of face so I figured I'd go ahead and post one. Happy birthday Kim!!




































Sunday, November 2, 2008

Some days there are rainbows







We were all amazed by this beautiful rainbow that occurred on Saturday afternoon. Morgans friend Danielle pointed out that it looked really cool outside, it was kind of "goldy" looking. So we all went out to look and the beauty of the colors and the rainbow inspired us to take a few pictures. I thought it was cool take pictures of the girls taking pictures of the rainbow with their phones, it ended up being Morgans favorite picture. The pictures don't really do justice to how cool the colors looked, nor do they show how bright the rainbow really was.



Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Lattins Cider Mill






















Last weekend, after our attempt at family pictures, we took the kids to Lattins Cider Mill to hang out for the morning and get pumpkins. I had never been there before so I didn't know what to expect. We had a great time, there were goats and sheep to feed, fresh, hot apple fritters to eat and of course fresh made apple cider. The funnest part of the morning was the apple bungee shoot. You could have three tries to shoot an apple across a pasture with a bungee cord and try to hit a sign to win $25. We came close a few times but never actually hit the sign, it was much harder than it looked. I'm so glad the kids were up for making the trip there, as they get older we seem to less and less of this kind of thing. I guess they have to grow up sometime, I just don't have to like it.





Sunday, October 19, 2008

October kid pictures






The morning started out good, I told Jim and the kids that I wanted to take some family pictures. I have been itching to try some portraits with my new camera and having all of the kids together doesn't happen too much anymore. Sounds good, right? Then we decided we would go to the cider mill up the road after the pictures to get pumpkins. Still sounds good.... It's almost like they couldn't wait to get to the cider mill, they were impatient at every pose, complained, made faces, wouldn't smile.... you name it. I finally gave up after the railroad tracks and the constant complaining about their pants getting dirty (I have to admit, I was just a bit worried about a train coming) I did end up getting a few shots that I liked and I was able to use the new camera a bit, so all in all the "shoot" wasn't a total loss. I think the next time I wont tell them anything except we're going to take some pictures and warn them they better behave or they'll be grounded. Who knows if that will work even, the older they get the harder it gets to get them to all cooperate. Then of course there's the other kid in our family, Jim, who's goofing around distracting them. Check out his picture if you need any proof of that!