Picture this...

Lincoln is 2!

2015-04-09T14:56:00.002-07:00

I couldn't decide which pictures were my favorite, so I added them all. All 65 photos!! I love life with Lincoln. He is joyful, busy, smart, and a little mischievous. He always keeps me on my toes, and is a fantastic hugger. He loves to wrestle with the big boys and he holds his weight.

2 years is just the beginning of a fun life together.

We love you Lincoln! Happy Second Birthday!

Lincoln for a year!

2014-05-07T11:20:00.002-07:00

My littlest man turned one.

He is marvelous and fun and a perfect addition to our family.

So we gave him his very own birthday cake!

Lincoln likes to touch everything!

He loves to make lots of sounds.

He loves to eat and is not picky at all.

He is standing and loves to walk around holding our fingers.

He loves hugs.
He is great at giving High 5's.

He loves watching his older brothers and tries to catch them.

Lucky us..

2014-03-19T23:17:00.003-07:00

I am so fortunate! I have 3 leprechauns that greeted me on St. Patrick's Day.

And this smiley guy the rest of the day to hang out with.

Snowpocalypse

2014-02-11T20:26:00.003-08:00

Snowpocalypse hit our street and it is beautiful!

When we weren't sledding or playing in the snow, Trenton worked on his Science project. More to follow on that one later.

And it just kept snowing!

Simon turns 6

2014-02-10T14:55:00.003-08:00

He's sly, smart, and six!

He makes me the most happy when he tries to outsmart me. He will bring years of laughter and quick wits to this crazy house of ours.

Happy Birthday Simon.

2013-12-31T19:30:00.000-08:00

Just Christmas

2013-12-27T14:42:00.002-08:00

I am motivated to blog again. After a reminder that this blog has value I am ready to keep it going, for myself at the very least.

Although, I can't catch up. I can't even pretend to go backwards. So, I'll start with Christmas morning, add our recent happenings in a following post, and just go forward from here.

Christmas started with this smiley guy. All his rolls greeted us at some very unholy hours on this Holy Holiday.

We prepared a few too many cookies for Santa, but had such fun decorating each one as a family.

We watched a knockout session with the boys....

Ate our favorite Christmas tradition of "Skiers French Toast". I'm not sure the light syrup was going to save us from our caloric overload.

They almost jumped out of their skins for these presents sent from Uncle Lee & Aunt Sarah!!! Wow.. they are spoiled rotten!

They each stacked up and played with their morning loot...

Christmas was very "'Merican" for him... with Golf and Guns!

And not too bad of a shot either!

The best part for me was getting to try out the gun, with my pink shells!

We are blessed in more ways than just the things that we receive. We are loving the time of year, the fun things we have, our time we spend together, the memories we make and most of all the reason for the season. Merry Christmas!

Growing and doing Hard things

2013-07-31T13:53:00.003-07:00

Life has changed in the last few months and we learn that we are capable of doing new and hard things. Raina has started working for our company learning new programs and accounting responsibilities. Emile has seen the magazine grow to it's largest size in 6 years.

We have learned more about plumbing and dimensions of our house than we cared to know about as we have been adding on to our house to make room for our growing family.

Here is a glimpse of what our life looks like ....

A few of our helpers...

Trenton has been learning all about Track and Field. He took 2 weeks of camps and really loved doing the high jump and relays.

Here comes Trenton over the hurdles...

Simon and the cousins got to join in on the learning at the All-Comers Track Meet.

This boy keeps getting chubbier by the minute! He is giggling, alert, sleeping 5-6 hours a night, and loves to watch his big brothers. He has been learning that his hands provide endless entertainment.

Simon learned new skills in Soccer this summer! He has also learned how to trash-talk from somewhere!?!?!

Simon has almost learned to swim where he can't touch.

Growth spurt...

2013-06-24T20:15:00.002-07:00

Our little man is growing and we have proof!

Pirate tales

2013-06-24T20:10:00.001-07:00

In search of Pirate ships, we wandered up the magnificent Columbia River Gorge. We stopped up at Vista House and decided it is indeed, the most beautiful place on earth!

Every beautiful place needs to be topped off with Ice Cream... so we indulged!

A different view. Emile made me hike out to this point on the rocks, and after grumbling, I was in love with the 360 view.

These Pirates didn't really need any more views, ice cream, or time wasted on adult mumbo-jumbo. Show them the TREASURE!

... FOUND... Pirate's booty.

A rare new family shot.

These amazing people made it all happen!

Thanks Mom & Dad/Gma & Papa for the great idea and fun filled get-away!

There she is... Lady Washington. If YOU would like to see her, just go watch Pirates of the Caribbean. Maybe Jack Sparrow can give you a tour.

After the Pirate adventure we spent the evening at one of our favorite places, Skamania Lodge. Emile's favorite time is the serenity of the golf course and sharing it with his minions.

Our home-made pirate ship was a little less impressive, but none-the-less a viable means of transportation on the great Columbia.

Just a few happenings within a month

2013-06-07T23:24:00.007-07:00

I can't keep up with all the things that are happenings in our life, but I don't want to forget it before it slips past me. I will show you a few things that are happening in our house...
BOYS... boys are happening in our house... like a whirlwind!

Lincoln turned 1 month old...

Mother's Day. I could't be a more blessed and happy mom.

I have happy, healthy, smart and growing children.

Birthday's. He is the joy of my life...he is worth celebrating.

Concerts...

up close and personal, while sold out!

Triathlons that we could join in on. He did AWESOME!

Sunny days in the yard...

Graduation from preschool...

More of what is going on in our life soon. Stay tuned.

April Addition

2013-04-11T20:09:00.001-07:00

On April 9th, 2013 Lincoln joined our family. Here are some images that my sister captured of the day. Her talent and skills never cease to amaze me. She was able to capture this precious moment and the details that can sometimes be so easily forgotten.

Catching up

2013-04-06T19:54:00.001-07:00

Here I am with 10 weeks left. I believe this was taken right after Valentines Day in February.

This little green machine has worked hard for us for 11 years!!! We have brought both of our babies home in it, and unfortunately it was time to say goodbye. We did make some money on it though, which helped with the purchase of our new "swagger wagon". I am a little embarrassed to say the Mini-van kinda rocks!

So, for Spring Break we took it out for a spin to the beach. We stopped at Camp 18 and ate Cinnamon Rolls and saw the logging artifacts throughout the property.

We made it out to Seaside, with a race to get to the Bumper Cars!!! What fun those are!

Once on the beach, Trenton decided to dig a hole until he fell in upsidedown!

I... didn't move much. I am a little slower now...

But, Simon is anything but slow when it came to showing his Flipper a real live seal!

We did as much a s possible during Spring Break! I ended up getting sick, but still wanted to have fun with the kids, so we had sleep overs with cousins, went golfing, had lunch dates, did Easter crafts and prepared for our big hunt on Sunday.

Look at these guys?

They are the best of friends and we are lucky enough to know we will be a family forever!

Happy Easter!

Feasting Yeast

2013-02-10T21:09:00.001-08:00

He won a medal at the school Science Fair, and almost spontaneously combusted!

One of Trenton's greatest joys in life is Science. He loves to see experiments unfold, so when the school science fair was an option, we couldn't miss the chance to submit a project.

We worked hard to find a project that he would understand and have fun with, and we decided to use yeast. We tried several ideas before we finalized and perfected our project. We started by testing how yeast grows with different amounts of water.... and honestly... we failed as parents. The pictures look fun though. Take a look...

Once we discovered that the yeast would overflow into the balloons, and our ratios weren't working so well with the beakers we had, we had to change our hypothesis.

Trenton understands that yeast likes to eat things and that it produces gas the more it eats. So, he wanted to see if yeast likes to Tabasco Sauce, since he likes it too.

We had 4 bottles with 104 degree water. One was our "control" with just yeast. One had Tabasco Sauce, one had sugar, and one had a cookie.

After 20 minutes... this is what it was looking like

We measured, graphed, and waited some more

After it was all done, we had to make it look pretty.

Then... the judging. With over 100 booths, Trenton was one of the 12 children selected. If you zoom in to this image, you can see him levitating off the ground and near explosion. I think I got emotional seeing him so proud of his accomplishment.

I guess the extra time spent on his booth was worth it.

Congratulations Trenton on your big accomplishment! I can't wait to see what you explore next!

Simon's 5th Birthday @ Home Depot

2013-01-23T22:14:00.002-08:00

So our little man, soon to be the middle man, Simon turned 5 today and we celebrated with a Home Depot themed party. We began by having a scavenger hunt inside of HD. The kids used the chart below to go around the store and find all the items pictured and they needed to write down the items prices. Normally I don't think HD likes kids running around the store screaming, but they seemed more than happy watching our little band of workers comb the aisles looking for each item.

It was a blast!

After the hunt, we came back home and began the building part of the party. We decided that making catapults seemed like a safe and responsible project for 5 moderately supervised kids to take on. The kids each got their own tools, aprons, and wood.....25 minutes later, we had projectiles flying everywhere (and nobody was hurt in the process, safety first right?).

We had lots of family here to sing Happy Birthday and enjoy the gift giving. Thank you everyone for coming and sharing Simon with us! I wish I could post all of his gifts, but he was smiling all night long!

Even our cupcakes were built by The Home Depot

Happy Birthday Simon!

The magic of Christamas

2012-12-19T19:23:00.002-08:00

The magic of Christmas is more exciting through my amazing children.

The boys are asking this year for a few things from Santa. I guess Santa has the ultimate choice, so we will see what he decides on.

Trenton would like the Speed Stacking Cups game. He has been playing this in P.E. and wants to compete and practice at home.

He would also like Ninjago Lego sets. Preferrably the Storm Fighter Jets.

Simon would like Shrinky Dinks with super cool boy things. Like Superman or space things.

We have also had a special visitor in the house this holiday season. Gizmo is our new Elf and he usually just finds a new place to hide everyday, but one night there was a Wookie Attack and the Lego people didn't like their new visitor.

Kona

2012-11-17T17:24:00.002-08:00

11 years ago, almost to the day, we brought home the cutest little Lhasa Apso/Shitzu puppy, his name was Kona. The people that we bought him from had a very dirty house and we felt so good that we were able to bring him home with us. When looking at the litter of puppies he crawled right up to us as if to say "take me" and we did. We named him after the Hawaiian Island that we had our honeymoon on. As a puppy Kona looked a lot like an Ewok from Star Wars and had a very similar feisty attitude. Kona taught us what the best carpet cleaning product was (Folex) as he went through his housebreaking period. The period ultimately also taught us how to install new flooring as we had to eventually replace the carpet we had cleaned so many times.

Kona entered the workforce early, going with Raina daily to work. He was often known to just sit at the edge of their office and stare down the hallway watching the people go by. At home he always played the role of guard dog even though it took only a push with your foot to move him out of your way. One of Kona's favorite domestic hobbies was eating shoes, especially expensive, fine leather shoes. For some reason he always seemed to know which ones were Raina's favorites and go after them. Occasionally he would switch over to furniture to mix things up, power cords were his favorite, he liked to walk on the wild side I guess.

When we moved to Big Rock Ranch, he was living in a dog's dream. He had over an acre of trees, grass and plants to explore along with squirrels, birds and cats to chase. One time he found a skunk, that ended poorly for all of us. When Trenton was born, Kona knew he was no longer the "child" and most of the attention he had received was shifted to the baby. In response Kona made sure to eat every binky he could the second it fell on the ground, he had lighting quick speed. Kona loved to chew bones, he was picky and liked fresh ones so our yard was often full of half eaten day old chews. By the time Simon came Kona was starting to warm up to children, but he never liked it when they could crawl and be at his same height. The boys always thought he was really funny to watch.

In his older years he slowed down, moved a little less, panted a little more and became a bit more needy. It was tough at times to care for him but that is what you do when you love something. There were quite a few nights when Kona decided he wanted to wake us up at 3:30am just because he felt like it. He recovered from a difficult surgery and continued to bring us a few more years of joy. Recently his age caught up with him and he started to really show his age. At times is it was painful to watch him try and move around the house.

As a pet owner you face hard decisions about the welfare of your animal and balancing that with your own selfish desires not to loose a close friend and part of your family. Thursday we made that very hard choice, not being able to watch our Kona suffer. I can only assume that the immense sadness and grief we feel with this loss is because the of the years of joy and happiness he brought our home. We have so many good memories of a wonderful dog. We brought him back to our home and laid him to rest in a peaceful corner of the land he loved, where he will always be near us. We will miss him.

7 years

2012-09-30T19:12:00.001-07:00

Trenton is 7 years wise today! He is smart, funny, loving, thoughtful, and generous. He is always thinking out loud, and is a spewer of facts. His brain goes beyond what most children would care about, and he will fixate on unique interests.

He loves Star Wars, Nerf Guns, School, drawing, science, and church.

He will talk with anyone that will listen and therefore he knows many people, although isn't as great at learning others names and what their interests are.

Today, we celebrate him. We love to have as much fun with him as we can, and so this year we had a Nerf Birthday. We kept it small and invited only a few friends and of-course cousins.

The first thing they had to do was gear up. Ammo bags, safety goggles, guns,

and Fuel.

They rode the zip-line and dropped life-size "darts" into buckets.

Shot army men for target practice.

Line-up for the obstacle course

raced through the balloons to hit the target at the end.

Then... we played Nerf Wars.

After the heat of battle was over, they hydrated, ate pizza, cake and ice cream!

Happy Birthday Trenton!

Cubby Bears

2012-09-16T12:16:00.003-07:00

Even our little man went to back to school this week!

He is very proud to be in the oldest group in his Preschool. He is a big Cubby Bear!!

We are so proud of him! He loves his school and his teachers. He easily makes friends. He is funny and smart. He is ready for anything that his older brother does, and when we have time alone together he is sweet, cuddly, and still loves to kiss.

Three days a week, I am going to miss him following me around!

Watch out 1st Grade!

2012-09-04T20:56:00.001-07:00

Watch out 1st Grade, here comes T-Bone!

Being so close to the school, we had a few extra buddies as we walked to school today!

It sure helped the anxiety!

Trenton started looking a little confused right after the above picture and after asking him if he was alright, he replied, "I just don't know what I am supposed to be doing." I think the chaos, new room, new teacher fears started to set-in.

I know this was a big day for him, and I think his fears were the same as mine at the moment. The relief came when he bounced his way home and shared details of his day including (word-for-word) the stories that were read.

I think he will love what this year has ahead of him! Hopefully he won't grow out of a few things: like Star Wars, Legos, morning cartoons, and sitting on my lap for a hug.

The Lost Summer

2012-09-04T14:08:00.003-07:00

I lost track of all the fun things we did this glorious, sunny, warm, green summer. We never really stopped playing and I have a few pictures to prove that we laughed and played the entire time.

We played in the rivers...

we played in our yard...

we played at vacation bible school...

We hiked...

we played at Oaks Park...

At the coast...

We played on our boat...

We even caught some fish...

Enjoyed Enchanted Forest...

Swam...

Swam....

Even lost a tooth while swimming...

Visited new waterparks...

Ate our new favorite ice cream...

Hosted a Bocce Tournament...

Bought a new bike and learned to go over our first ramp...

We played with cousins...

Enjoyed fireworks in the street...

And learned to ride a bike for the first time!!!

I cannot believe it is over. Summer is the best time for anything. We lived in bathing suits and survived off of popsicles. Practically perfect.

Chicken coop

2012-09-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

The boys all pitched-in early this summer to build a coop for our new chickens.

The work started out with just a few boards and a lot of clean up work.

You cannot tell by this picture, but before the wood structure even began there were loads of obnoxious shurbs, trees, weeds and other plants growing over this area. After it got cleared away, the hammer and nails started working in our favor.

The boys played on their new zip line next to Emile while he labored dillegently.

We made progress fast!

We finally let the chicks into their new home with their light where their future nesting boxes will be. Emile also worked hard to install a pulley door for them to go out into their run. You can see it in some of the following pictures.

Here is a look at the finished product. The run is on the side of the coop and goes all the way around the back. The chickens have figured out how to fly up their top perches and look out the windows until morning. The boys are anxiously awaiting the first eggs and we will finish the nesting boxes soon as the chickens are getting closer to laying eggs.

eleven

2012-07-22T20:13:00.000-07:00

Emile and I have been married for eleven years. I could tell you about how every year is filled with excitement and how much I love him, but instead I will tell you about how much fun I have spending right NOW with him.

My future is going to be filled with more of these moments.

Moments that make me fall head over heals all over again.

It started with a special night at The Resort at the Mountain. Not too far, but a small get-away that we had never done together.

And we played croquet like Tiger Woods.

This is me and my victory "umph". It was supposed to look like this....

but instead it looked like this...

Losing hurts so bad!

But a little redemption at the putting course brought him back to form.

Then we went up to Timberline for views, food, and some great conversation. We actually had a very early date here about 14 years ago. We looked a little different then... and I will spare myself the humiliation of pulling up that photo!

The food was delicious, but the views were breathtaking. We literally sat in front of the window and compared our food to the mountain in view.

(this image taken from our dining table)

We came back and enjoyed reviewing wedding pictures while relaxing next to a fire.

The mountain is not complete with a visit to the "Huck". Which welcomed us with pancakes and eggs the next morning.

And finally... we burned off a few of those calories walking around just one of the many beautiful mountain lakes. Wow! Who wouldn't fall in love all over again?

Happy Anniversary Emile! Here we go into another year of excitement and adventure!

xoxo

Girl Power!

2012-06-15T22:13:00.001-07:00

I added some females to the house! Finally.. and it took no effort on my part to deliver them.

We have been thinking for awhile about getting some chickens, and we finally decided to make the plunge this week. We picked up 8 baby chicks from 2 different stores, so next time you are over feel free to say hello to Daisy, Peeps, Tweets, Sunny, Libby, Goldie, Roxy, and Pickles.

We drew them art work for their new diggs and wrote out some important rules.

Yes.. they are reading them Good Night stories.

Next time you'll see the new coop (being built), and the chicks growing... and someday laying eggs!

Chicks Man!

Crazy about Spring

2012-06-15T21:21:00.001-07:00

We love this man! And we especially love celebrating his birthday! So we started early in the morning, we played all day, and partied into the night and the weekend!!!

We went golfing as a family to make him smile.

Ate cake with family

And he would be nothing with out these amazing people!

After all the celebrations, Trenton started finishing up his first year at Kingergarten.

He had an amazing teacher who put on the most darling presentation together! Check it out below...

Kindergarten 2012 Program from Raina on Vimeo.

Simon's Preschool class finished up his year with a field trip to the most darling Alpaca farm! Trenton got to tag along.

The boys got summer haircuts. This is NOT what I expected Trenton's hair to look like... AT ALL. But he knows he is still handsome despite the new do.

And one fun night we got dressed up for a disco party. I think we rounded the rest of our time out with yard work and friends.

Now lets get to the Summer months!!