First Day of School! - NOT!

I finally got Sarah's first day of school pictures. She was supposed to start August 31. But she didn't get to go to her first day of Kindergarten!! :'( The poor girl was sick all week! She finally was well enough and felt up to going on Thursday morning. She had a lot of fun, and likes her class. She especially likes that her close friends are in class with her. Doesn't she just look so cute?


Mom has been in town the last week helping me through this chemo stuff and helping me get organized so I can continue the treatment. She's been an amazing help with the kids, the house, the yard... well, just about everything! Thanks mom! Here are a couple of pictures of what she's been doing to beautify the front of our home. Sarah enjoyed "helping" her plant some new flowers around our walkway. I don't know if she was quite as much actual help as she thought, but it was cute anyway.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day all day today. Joe (I think) caught this picture of a rainbow swooping across the mountains behind our front yard neighbors. It's so peaceful... a very nice way to sum up my day.

Chuck E. Cheese's

Since Sarah had a big party for her birthday, we went to Lagoon the day before and saw fireworks on the Alex's and Lucas's birthday, Sarah got a huge horse barn and the boys both got bikes, we decided we should do something special for Audrey since she wasn't having an actual party or getting anything real big. What else? On the Saturday before her birthday, We went to Chuck E. Cheese's! Now, we didn't actually reserve the place and have a "party" there, we just went as a family. The kids all had a ton of fun and Audrey was just in heaven. Here a bunch of my favorite pictures from that excursion.

This isn't the best picture, actually none of these pictures are that great, but I loved the expressions on Alex and Lucas's faces in this one, so I posted it anyway.

This was one really EXPENSIVE pizza! Of course, we got game tokens, drinks and a ton of fun with it. And the pizza was actually pretty good. And everyone is actually looking at the camera. That's a rarity.

This isn't just a bad picture; it's terrible! But here's Sarah and Lucas, my little TV stars! They were standing in front of a blue screen and their images were projected onto whatever was on TV at the time. At this time, it was a coke commercial.

Hugging Chuck. I couldn't get my camera to take the picture when I actually wanted to. It took 3 kids hugging Chuck E. before I got one of the actual hug instead of seconds after. This one was right after Lucas hugged him. Apparently, he thought that was pretty cool.

He was so excited about it that he went back for more later!

Sarah, doing her favorite thing. Riding a horsey!

She gave Audrey a ride with her the next time. They could steer the horse and make it jump on the screen by moving the reins and pulling the saddle hilt. It was actually pretty cool. And Sarah was in heaven, of course.

"Hellllp!"

And the prize at the end! If any of you have been to Chuck E Cheese's lately, you'll remember that the number of game tickets it takes to get anything from the prize rack is outrageous! This one took 500 tickets! A simple dum dum size sucker was 10! Anyway. Sadly, this ball lasted less than 24 hours. It was deflated and had a couple of holes in it by the next afternoon.

Audrey had just finished her sucker in the car. She was so tired that it didn't even register to her that I was telling her to smile.

And she's out. Probably 2 minutes after leaving the parking lot.

So were Alex and Lucas!

We had so much fun celebrating Audrey's 2nd birthday at Chuck E. Cheese's. Happy birthday cutie pie!

Summer Vacation - 2009

***WARNING: A blogging backlog causes a backup of pictures and information. Since I've been incredibly busy lately, this post, and the few that follow, cover all the way back to the boys' birthday. So there are a LOT of pictures, and a TON of information. Just be forewarned.***

Our summer vacation this year followed a three week stint of Jeff being gone out of town on business. It was a much needed respite for me. We went to Washington this year because, if you can believe it, my 10-year high school reunion was this year! We got up early on Friday, and drove a total of 14 hours up to Bonney Lake. We stayed with Keith and Janet for the first couple of nights because Janet was gracious enough to offer to watch our little rugrats while Jeff and I attended my reunion on Saturday night.

Washington, here we come! Audrey played peek-a-boo to pass part of the time.

Pretty soon, Lucas got in on the action. But Alex was too cool for that.

Here are Jeff and I all dolled up and ready to go to the reunion.


And I had to include this one. Audrey snacked on some Chips Ahoy cookies after church on Sunday. Then she just couldn't stay awake. She fell asleep with chocolate all over her mouth, still clinging tightly to the bag of cookies!

Keith and Janet apparently had some pretty cool toys! These Power Rangers action figures made great substitutes for Voltron ones. They were definitely a favorite of the trip.

Sunday night, we had a barbecue at Grandpa and Grandma Tracy's place. Here are a few of my favorites from that night.






Alex had been eyeing Audrey's watermelon for a while. He finally asked her for some, and she eagerly obliged. Although I think she inadvertently dropped it in his lap. He didn't seem to mind.

Monday. The day of exploration. First was the chicken coop. We went inside to say hello to the chickens. They were all very excited about it... at first.

Once they saw the chickens come out of their little lair (the box they go in to lay their eggs) squawking, they decided it wasn't so cool anymore. Notice the sheer fright on Lucas's face in this picture. They bolted out of there just as fast as they could saying, "Scary in there. Scary in there."


Next, we made our way to the barn. The grass was just so tall.


I actually climbed all the way up to the loft where the zip line still sits. It was a little scary. That barn is pretty old and the wood looks it in some places. I was afraid to venture out to the edge for fear of the wood giving way and me falling to the ground on top of Jeff and the kids.


Audrey got a little distracted on the way back.


Then it was on to the creek! I guess it's become quite the popular little hike since I was a kid. They keep the trail nice and mowed down nowadays.

We made it!

Posing for Mama.

It was really cold water, but Sarah insisted on playing in it anyway. She got pretty soaked.

Audrey was perfectly content playing in the sand on the bank.

After the creek, it was time to go back to Grandma's house for some playing with cousins (second cousins)...

...Lunch...

...and naps!

After a while, and before another barbecue, we decided to go pick some pie cherries from the tree by the chicken coop. The kids really got into that and practically filled all their little buckets.



We stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. Each morning, Grandma made us some kind of hot breakfast. Being that it's collectively my family's favorite meal of the day, we were all in heaven! She was so sweet to make sure everyone always had enough to eat.

And Alex will probably kill me for this one later, but I just HAD to include these! He knew I was taking pictures, and he was perfectly willing to show me his funniest faces while sitting on the potty. Hey, it's not my fault he left the door open!





After breakfast on Tuesday, it was off to the Seattle Aquarium. This picture was taken by some random guy who probably didn't realize I had three other kids running around there somewhere. But I guess it was nice to actually be IN a picture instead of taking it. And Audrey really was enthralled by what was swimming around behind that big piece of glass.

Lucas was, too.

We took so many pictures on this trip, and it's hard to whittle them down to just the good ones. There were so many good ones. But here are some of my favorites from the aquarium.




We met Jeff's cousins Pam and Susie (sorry if I spelled it wrong) there, along with Pam's three kids. One of the exhibit attendants was kind enough to take this picture of all of us.



After the aquarium, it was back to Pam's house for a pizza lunch, and more fun playing with second cousins. I'm really glad we got to do this part because it was a ton of fun talking with Pam and Suzie there. It was hard to really communicate much at the aquarium because we all had kids we were trying to keep an eye on. It was very crowded that day. So we got to chatting and got to know them a little better there. We can't wait to see Pam and the kids down here in another few weeks!


Pam's youngest, Sophie, must have been thirsty. She found a little plastic spoon on the ground and started shoveling in the pool water! That little one has the biggest, cutest personality I've ever seen in a child so young! She's really a hoot. Very cute. (Pam, I made her stop after I snapped the picture. That pool water was pretty dirty!)


All the kids had fun picking dandelions and distributing them to the adults all afternoon as a symbol of their undying love and affection. Here's Sarah's pick.

I don't know what it is with my boys and driving. But somehow, everywhere we go, they always find something to "drive." The tractor at my Grandpa's house, the motorcycle at Pam's house, the toy car... I hope this isn't a sign of their eagerness to drive when they're teenagers.


Wednesday was Mud Mountain Dam day. We woke up to yet another hot breakfast, then the kids took the table scraps out to feed the chickens with Grandpa.


Here they all are watching them eat from outside the gate.

Apparently, chickens aren't so scary when there's a fence in between!

Here's Grandpa showing the kids his cool "scarecrow" owl that hoots and turns its head.

After a relaxing morning on the farm, we were off to Mud Mountain Dam to meet Rae Lea, Ashley (my cousin Jake's wife) and my cousin Josh's girlfriend. It's not so much a dam as it is a park with a water feature and lots of playground equipment. Here are some of my favorites from that trip.






They had so much fun there, they all zonked within 5 minutes of being in the car!

After that, we headed back to Keith and Janet's house for our last night before we headed home. The girls were absolutely infatuated with Megan. They all really loved her.

Thursday. The drive home. Goodbye, beautiful Washington! Here's the sun rising on Mount Rainier.


Jeff thought it was funny to try and be halfway in this picture. He said he could see the camera screen in the rear view mirror. But hey. What else are we supposed to do to keep entertained on a 14 hour drive home?

Washington was beautiful and fun. Unfortunately, this is what most of the drive home looked like.
Pretty boring, huh? But we're back now! And it's so nice to be home.