Winter Quarters

Take 2

2011-03-10T15:42:00.000-08:00

Let’s review . . .

Take 1 Take 2

Take 1

Take 2

Take 1

Take 2

Our little Addi Bear is 2!

Our little girl has grown and grown and we are so excited to see what this she will share with us this year.

V is for Vacation

2011-03-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

This is for all you parents that watch PBS with your children. Duck, in Word World, taught us that there comes a time that everyone needs to follow the V and go on Vacation. Granted he set out with his feathered friends on migration; still, his example was well learned. We also headed south for our family vacation!

This vacation was scheduled around Scott and Sidney’s wedding. Thank you to the both of you for having your wedding in such a beautiful place on such a beautiful day! The San Diego Temple was absolutely breathtaking.

The house that Landon’s parents rented was just north of San Diego in Carlsbad, just across the street from the beach. We all loved the surf and sand time.

Ella LOVED being with her cousins. They all played so well together. Ella and Lucas even captured the moment and taught themselves to surf.

It looked like so much fun, Addi wanted to join the fun. She convinced Daddy to help her a bit with catching a wave.

They both learned from the best. Here’s Daddy riding one in in style.

My little mermaids.

A highlight of our trip was a day at Sea World. It was amazing! We arrived shortly after the park opened and we carried sleeping girls out of the park after it had closed. We were all very satisfied customers and can’t wait to go back!

The wonderment began in the Wild Artic. First we walked underground to view the Beluga Whales. Isn’t it amazing that such large and apparently cumbersome animals can be so graceful?

While in the Wild Artic, we visited the Polar Bears. The expression on Addi’s face (Oooooo) says it all.

The first show that we saw was the Sea Lion and Otter performance. I suppose all animals have the potential to be trained, but this is unreal!

And finally, what’s a trip to Sea World without Shamu?!

We decided to be brave and sit in The Soak Zone. Landon and Ella decided to put on their jackets in an effort to stay dry (actually, Ella wore my jacket, she didn’t want hers to get wet). Addi and I decided that we would brave the elements. What’s a trip to Sea World without getting a little wet, right?

Like I mentioned before, these animals are incredible!

Now, when Shamu made his first pass, we only got a few drops of water on us and Ella was so disappointed. So, we encouraged her to go down the steps and stand right at the front, which she did eagerly. As a result, she caught a large amount of water on the next pass, she was very pleased.

This was a well needed vacation, and we all came home revitalized. We are so thankful for such a great family, both immediate and extended, who we love to be with. We can’t wait for the next vacation!

She Had a Little Lamb

2011-02-21T16:27:00.000-08:00

It’s a tradition for me and my girls to head up a local lambing barn in the spring. It’s fun to watch them get excited about things and they always get excited around animals. This particular barn is open to the public in the spring because that is when the lambs are born. And even though we have visited it for four years now, this was the first year that we actually saw a lamb born! Ella was able to understand what happened, and on the ride back home we talked about it. It went something like this:

Mom – “Ella, did you see that baby lamb come out of his mommy?”

Ella – “Ya.”

Mom – “What part of the baby lamb came out first?”

Ella – “The leg.”

Mom – “Do you know what part of you was born first?”

Ella – “My head.”

Mom – “How do you know that?”

Ella – “Because I felt it.”

Yes, Ella, I’m sure you did.

Now That's a Rap

2011-02-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

My girls love everything musical. Addi loves things with a definite beat, and it shows.

Watch out Eminem, there's a new prodigy in town.

While You Were Out

2011-02-09T10:34:00.001-08:00

Nearly every day when Ella gets home from school, Ella asks, “What did you and Addi do today?” I believe she is convinced that we travel to far off places and have exotic adventures.

Well, Ella, this is for you. Here is an example of the kinds of activities Addi and I do in the morning.

Here’s to many more wonderful adventures! Cheers!

The Party

2011-01-28T10:28:00.000-08:00

Ella’s birthday party was a success. Here are just a few of the highlights.

The dance-off/musical squares

The candy toss

And what would a birthday party be without heavy heavy hang over and the 5 year-old’s rendition of Happy Happy Birthday? : )

Despite Ella’s expression, she had “The best birthday ever!”

5 Years Ago Today

2011-01-26T12:49:00.000-08:00

Five years ago today, this miracle happened.

Ella has grown into a happy and beautiful girl. She is very loving and kind to everyone, especially her younger sister. She loves to learn and does so very quickly, keeping her challenged is my biggest task. I’m so grateful for her.

Happy Birthday Ella!

Christmas Morning Frenzy

2010-12-25T10:02:00.000-08:00

Christmas morning was such a frenzy that I didn't even get a chance to pull my camera out to get some pictures. Thankfully, Landon had his camera ready to go and was able to get a few shots off before he was pulled into the sea of shredded paper as well.

Did you notice how Ella headed straight for her loot and Addi headed straight for the cookies? Landon and I have laughed over that little phenomenon again and again.

In Hopes That St. Nicholas Soon Would Be There

2010-12-24T19:10:00.000-08:00

Preparations for the arrival of Santa begins!

On the evening of the 23rd, we broke out the Kitchen Aid and mixed up a batch of cookie dough.

There was probably more tasting being done than mixing, but we got the job done.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, the cooking making extravaganza continued.

We rolled it . . .

. . . and pat it . . .

. . . and marked it with all kinds of Christmas goodness.

Pretty Girls in Pretty Dresses

2010-12-20T11:51:00.001-08:00

I was up burning the midnight oil for several nights last week. It’s important to me to give my girls something special to wear on the Sunday prior to Christmas. Even though I thought that I had completed the hard part of my task when I had finally finished the last stitch, I was mistaken. The challenge was yet to come. After getting everyone dressed and ready for church Sunday morning, I decided to take some pictures of the girls. Getting those two to stand next to each other, look in the same direction, and smile at the same time was near impossible.

Despite the challenges, I love the pictures we got . . . they are of our beautiful girls.

Holiday Happenings

2010-12-15T13:15:00.001-08:00

The holidays are in full swing and we have been enjoying all kinds of festivities. Here Ella is singing with the primary at our ward’s Christmas party.

Addi loved the production so much, she joined in the singing too. Only she is singing patty-cake – here you see her “roll it and roll it . . . “

What kind of Christmas party would it be without a visit from the big man himself?

Impressively enough, Addi sat on his lap too!

Another enjoyable evening we share together is a night in Corvallis at a Nativity exhibit. It is held at the LDS Stake Center there and is truly visually stunning and musically uplifting. In recent years, they have added a children’s room where the little ones can make Christmas ornaments, color Christmas scenes, dress up in nativity costumes and watch a nativity puppet show. All of us absolutely love this evening out.

We hope your Christmas season is filled with wonderful memories too.

Merry Christmas!

Another First

2010-11-18T16:00:00.001-08:00

I have been keeping Addi’s hair short, to a length just below her ears. But time has gotten away from me and her hair has grown out a bit.

I smile with a sigh now as a tear rolls down my cheek.

Tra la la la la

2010-11-11T08:16:00.001-08:00

Has anyone else noticed how quickly retailers push Christmas on us? It’s seems to come earlier and earlier every year. I used to get silently frustrated with this marketing scheme . . . until now. I’ve decided that if there is a holiday worth coming early, it’s Christmas. Now I know that the retailers motivation is $$$, but we can simply enjoy the spirit of the holiday. I pulled my Christmas music out a few days ago with this thought in mind. How better to internalize Christmas spirit than to begin with showing thankfulness?

May you all have a joyous holiday season.

Halloween Weekend

2010-11-10T15:30:00.001-08:00

Because Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, the festivities lasted for days. We kicked off the festivities on Thursday with the preschool parade. But before we get to the activities, let’s see the all important process of dressing up.

For some reason, my girls choose to be characters that require most of our attention to be on the hair. Honestly, I can’t complain. I love doing their hair.

Ella became the story-book character Ella the Rose Fairy. An illustration of the character is here for you to see. Addi became a Boise State cheerleader. Her hair was less of a project than Ella’s. My time was consumed here in making the coordinating hair pom poms.

(Before)

Love those silky waves!

Ella’s inspiration

(After)

Now for the preschool parade. Things move very quickly here, as evidence in the quality of my snapshots. I guess it makes you feel like you were there.

There she goes.

Ooops, there she goes again.

Aaahhhh, I almost caught her that time.

There she is!

Now for the activities and snacks!

The weekend continued with our ward’s Harvest Festival on Saturday. It didn’t take Addi long to learn what she needed to be doing.

Ella always loves to go to the face painting booth. It’s to bad that this activity was in the evening, because it was heartbreaking to her to have to have her beautiful rainbow washed off.

Add is demonstrating the proper way to do the candy walk – you have to have a piece of candy in your mouth as you walk. : )

My beautiful girls . . .

. . .and their beautiful smiles.

On Sunday, the girls loved handing out treats to all the visitors that knocked on our door. What a fun weekend.

The Perfect Pumpkin

2010-10-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Ella's preschool adventures continue. On this beautiful Autumn morning, her class took a field trip to a local farm. There, they were all able to play on the haystack jungle gym, navigate the hay bail maze, take a hay ride, and enjoy a scrumptious snack. It was a fun filled morning enjoyed by all!

My very happy preschooler.

I was able to come on this adventure with my sweet girl.

Are there any pumpkins left for us?

Ready . . . Set . . . GO!

Several minutes and several pumpkins later, Ella had chosen the perfect ones for her and me.

Home Is Where the Heart Is

2010-10-01T12:27:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, our family began a journey. We sold our house, searched long and hard for a new one and here we are!

This is just a quick little tour of some of the vital rooms/spaces of our new home:

First, our living room and dinning room. I'm very happy to get my piano out of the dinning area again (that is where it has been in the two previous places we stayed).

Our lovely kitchen - plenty of room for 2 cooks. : )

The well used family room. My favorite part is the view that is seen while sitting on the couch (see the final picture).

The play room . . . hooray! I don't know who loves this room more, the children or the parents.

The back yard. And yes, the view - aaaahhhhhh.

We are so happy to be somewhere where we all enjoy being home together.

Ella Goes to Preschool

2010-09-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

The day has finally arrived for Ella to go to school. She has been anticipating this day for months. On Thursday, September 9, we had our orientation. Ella was able to go see her classroom, meet her teachers, and meet other children in her class. As a bonus, she made play dough and colored her first of many alphabet posters.

Monday, September 13, was the first day of class. She was expressing some nervous feelings, but as you can see by the smile on her face, she was not about to let a few butterflies keep her from going to school.

Her very own cubby!

Ella with one of her teachers, Mrs. Burton.

Ella was the first child from her class to arrive on Monday, so she was able to take her time in choosing what kind of activity she wanted to do while she waited. Again, you can see she was having no issues with separation (that's more than I can say for Mom).

After the day was done, Ella waited with others from her class and her other teacher, Mrs. Nye, for all the parents to arrive to pick them up.

I'm so excited for Ella and all the wonderful adventures she is going to experience in school. Here's to a great school year!

The Summer of Ella

2010-09-11T15:55:00.001-07:00

As our Summer comes to a close, it is amazing to reflect on all the things our girls have done and accomplished. Here are a few snapshots of the things Ella has done.

Ella has been able to sing her ABC's since she was 18 months old. She has been able to recognize letters since she was 3 and now can independently write several of them. Most importantly, she can write her name.

Ella has mastered several physical activities as well. The Summer began with a new two-wheel scooter and instant mastery.

The balance she mastered on the scooter gave her the courage to allow her dad to remove the training wheels from her bicycle. And within moments, she was riding independently.

One of Ella's closest friends learned to do the monkey bars last year at school. From the time she first watched Lauren scale those bars, it has been her goal to do the same. By the time Summer began, she had mastered the activity.

Our Ella has always loved to swing. We have spent many hours at the park swinging. Up until this Summer, either Landon or I had to stand there to push her. Now that she is an independent swinger, she earned a new play structure - one complete with monkey bars.

This is Ella's 4th summer of swimming lessons, and all of her hard work (and love for physical activity) in the water paid off. She can now swim independently! She does, however, need to grow a few more inches because she still can't touch the bottom of the pool; even in the shallow 3 feet end of the pool.

We are so proud of all the things Ella has learned to do. It is obvious that she has high expectations for herself, but she also is courageous and persistent. I love watching her grow.

We Are A Happy Family

2010-09-10T12:22:00.000-07:00

I have been having fun with some new photoshop software, and I thought I would share a few of my favorite photos from this summer.

The Peanut Gallery

2010-08-31T18:18:00.001-07:00

These are some of the most important people in the world to me. They are the people I share many wonderful memories with. They are my family. My father began calling us The Peanut Gallery because of the commentary we, my siblings and I, gave life. Whether it was while we were traveling in the family van, sitting at the dinner table, or gathered to read scriptures; we heckled our way through childhood.

We're Doing it Again

2010-08-17T11:04:00.001-07:00

This is a sign that my family is becoming all together too familiar with.

A year ago, Landon and I decided that it was time to sell our first house. It was our home for 5 1/2 years. Many wonderful memories were made in this house. But the time was right, and we took the plunge. It sold relatively quickly and were unsuccessful in finding another house to buy, so . . .

. . . we moved into an apartment style townhouse. For all of you that have lived in an apartment with small children, you know how difficult that can be. We never planned on this place being a long-term place of residence, so when we found . . .

. . . this house for rent, it seemed that everything was falling into place. This house is in the same neighborhood as our first home, so our children would be able to stay close to their friends and we would remain in our ward. Because it was a rental, it gave us flexibility in finding our next home to buy. However, the owners of the house, made other plans.

The owners of the house we are currently in have also decided that it is time to sell. So, here I am - again - showing a house. This time, it isn't even mine. Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending upon how you look at it - we only have 6 weeks to endure this, because at that point, our lease is being terminated. Wish us luck.

A Wise Friend

2010-08-04T17:08:00.000-07:00

Addi is a self-taught body artist.

Fortunately, I received some great words of wisdom from a childhood friend shortly after Ella was born. Her only words of advice in parenting were "buy washable crayons." I took that to mean not only crayons but markers as well. Even though Ella has never been one to stray far from her actual art project (i.e. she colors only where she should), we have continued to buy washable. Our little Addi-Bear marches to a different drummer, however. The first thing she does when she gets a hold of a pen, is to begin writing on herself - her legs, hands, arms, etc. We have washed several walls and floors after her creativity.

Thank you Nicki for the wise counsel.

Get Out There!

2010-08-04T16:24:00.000-07:00

Ella and Addi are loving the water this summer. Any time we can get them into a pool or lake is pure delight. Ella has found that she can swim without her life-jacket. These "kiddie pools" are perfect for her.

The second half of this weekend get-away was spent on Clear Lake. We rented a rowboat for a few hours and set out for adventure. Landon was very excited to share with his daughter the sport of fishing. Unfortunately the only thing that was caught and released was some lake grass.

Yes, we had a life-jacket for Addi, but she looked much like the Michelin Man when she was wearing it. She didn't like the fact that she couldn't move, so we took it off and were extremely cautious moving about the boat.

This picture is to illustrate to you why the lake is named Clear Lake. It is amazingly clear. If I were to learn to scuba dive, this would be one place on my list! The lake is up to 80 feet deep and crystal clear. The picture below is of a tree that existed on the valley floor prior to the lakes formation (3000 years ago - I always wonder how they come up with such dates . . . ). Now the tree is preserved in the cold water on the lake's floor. Notice how beautifully blue the water is; I highly recommend this vacation spot!

And finally, a shot of what surrounded the lake; this is why I love living in Oregon. We have everything from high mountain views to the ocean's coast-line just a short drive from our home.

Gone MIA

2010-07-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

I apologize for being MIA for so long. Spring was a very busy time for us this year, and my blogging time was cut to a minimum . . . actually, I suppose it was cut all together. I would really have liked to chronologically updated you all, but that will be a fantastic feat in it's self. So, I am going to start with what is going on right now, and periodically, I'll get to things of the past. So, be sure to check old posts too!

As you all know, we love being outdoors. This year, Landon decided that we needed to diversify our activities, however. So, he bought two kyaks! We have taken them out on their maiden voyage, and the girls love them! Yes, one of the girls sits on our laps, and we all hit the water together. For all you cautious parents, don't fret, we will not be taking the girls on any rapid waters (i.e. the Salmon River).

We recently hiked Mary's Peak. I carried Addi in the backpack - Landon wanted to, but we forgot the Excedrin, and I would rather carry Addi than have Landon battle a headache for an evening - and Ella hiked right next to her Daddy. The weather was perfect. It was an enjoyable 70 degrees at the peak and absolutely no wind. The views were spectacular. The hike down was even more spectacular, because Addi was determined to make it all on her own. Yes, Addi hiked down all by herself. All Daddy did, was hold her hand.

Books, BumbleBee, and Birthdays

2010-03-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

We are only a family of four, but two of the birthdays in our family are in March. Landon kicks off the month of festivities on March 3 and Addi soon follows with a birthday on March 10.

Months ago, Ella came to me with her idea of a birthday present for Daddy . . . a robot. Two days before Landon's birthday, I loaded the girls into the car to adventure to town to get Landon something for his birthday. En route, I told Ella what we were doing, and she quickly responded with, "I want to get him a robot!" She remembered, with no hesitation. So, we diligently searched for just the right robot. We came home with BumbleBee (for all you non-Transformer fans, he a good guy). Addi got him a Frisbee, per Ella's suggestion.

Next, Addi's birthday was a wonderful day. Addi had some close friends stop by to wish her a happy day and bring her a few surprises. Thank you Rose's!

Ella was so excited for Daddy to get home from work so that we
could open the rest of the presents. I think Addi may have caught a corner of one of her gifts. Mostly she caught flying paper.

Here is our vivacious 1 year-old. We love you Addi!