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Out of the mouths of babes

This morning Steve is working on plumbing under the house. Nicole looks at me and says "How come Daddy is in Oregon? I miss him." They had been doing some work in our homeschool about maps and geography, and talking about where Washington is and that Oregon is under Washington. So I ask her how come Daddy is in Oregon? She says "Well he is under Washington!" I guess our house is Washington, and underneath is Oregon. Too cute how she processed that one!!!

Some fun things

Here are a few pictures of some fun things we have been doing. Andrew went to a railroad club with Steve and they are realy getting into this! Andrew wants a "long, long, long, long, long, long, long train at home!" Steve used to really be a big train buff for years, and modeled and had a small layout in our spare bedroom before. I am afraid we might be starting up another long term train lover, and someday my future daughter in law might be wishing we never opened this door, but it is a great way for Dad and son to spend some time together. There are definately worse things!!! So here is a picture of Andrew at the club:

We had our neighbor friend come over and we made some ginger bread cookies and decorated them too. They ate most of the frosting on one cookie!! It was fun.


Today Steve is working on our remodel of our laundry room, and we are without water all day, so me and the kids are headed out to the mall to do a little Christmas shopping for grandparents. Here is a pic and a little video of us getting ready this morning. Nicole is all dressed up to go to the mall. What a little cutie!

Train Show

Here are a few pics of the kids at a train show last weekend. Steve took them while I was sleeping on Saturday. Andrew has started to take an interest in trains, and this is something that Steve used to really enjoy. It is fun watching them build an interest in these together.

Okie Dokie Artichokie!

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The last few weeks

The last few weeks of October have been busy. I had knee surgery and will be returning back to work this Friday night. I am doing well, and am even starting to do a little bicycle riding at the YMCA to strengthen the knee and get back into working out some. I am starting slow as per the docs instructions, trying to be a good patient is hard for this nurse!!! Steve had an epiphiny on how we could better utilize the space in our home, with the intention of putting on an addition in the coming year (hopefully!!!) we decided to give up our large master bedroom suite to the kids so we could make this into their bedroom/playroom/a second tv room. This has been a very good choice on our part as it has allowed us to take back our living room from the kids!! We now have a more adult space, and they have the large bedroom as their play ground, and this separates them from me as I am trying to sleep after my night shift. We are planning on adding another bedroom out the front of the house that will ultimately be Andrew's bedroom, what was our master bathroom will become Nicole's bedroom and a shared bathroom for the kids, and what was our large master bedroom will be the family room/playroom in between the kids rooms. So currently we have both kids in our large bedroom, but it is plenty big for them both and at this age I am comfortable with the arrangements especially with the long term plan. We even have their desk in there and this allows for a designated space for our homeschooling, rather than being on the dining room table!!! Here is a little video of what the new space looks like. The kids love it, and so does Mom and Dad!!! And the plan for our bedroom will be to make what was Nicole's bedroom into our master bathroom/closet and even take a little square footage out of that to make a 1/2 bath for guests! I love it that my hubby is my contractor too! It will be a very nice floor plan when it is all said and done!



For Halloween we went to an alternative event at our church on Friday night, and then on Halloween night we went out trick or treating with a few friends on the military base close by. Andrew was Batman and Nicole was Super Girl. They were too cute.








We had also gone to the pumpkin patch last week before Halloween. It had a way cool corn maze that we tromped though and we got some great pumpkins. We never did get the jack-o-lanterns cut out, but last night I and my two helpers made a pumpkin pie out of one of them. I have enough of the pumpkin in the freezer to make a pie for both sets of grandparents as they visit for Thanksgiving and then for Christmas!!! It was a lot of fun.

More Hamster Drama

We have had some issues with the hamsters. Very long story short little Kyra in the previous post was our third hamster. Nicole wanted her to be a pretend girl, but per the pet store they were all three supposed to be boys. So all three were in the cage and I and the kids noticed that Jake and Buddy were fighting quite a bit, and the next thing I knew there was this "survival of the fittest" thing happening and then Buddy was no longer with us! Pretty tramatic for a bout 24 hours, and then the next night we opened up the cage to play with Kyra and Buddy and there were TWO BABIES in there!!!! So apparently the whole Buddy incident was about the girl and he just was not the fittest! Now you are thinking that is it, but no, it goes on! So about two days after the babies showed up we found little Jake out of the cage in our bathroom sink! We then cobbled together another cage just for him, thinking this would be best as we do not want more babies and not sure exactly what he might do with the babies anyway. Then the next morning his cage was EMPTY!!! Apparently my glue gun job did not do the trick, and the little houdini got out again!!! This time Jake has not come back. I do not see any interest in the dogs in trying to find the little critter this time, and am thinking the little guy ended up being a doggy snack. Sigh. So we are having fun watching the little babies as we can see them. Most of the time they are in the little nest Kyra has built up of the bedding, but today we got to get a very brief video of the little white one. I am hoping this will be the end of the hamster drama, but it is just POSSIBLE that we could have another round of babies on the way as hamsters can have a litter just about every month and there were those few days that Jakey babe was with little Kyra and apparently from what a google search showed is that the act of child birth can be rather stimulating for the little hamster pair and well, you know what makes babies... I will keep you posted!!! =+0

Hamster Drama

We have had some hamster drama the last 24 hours. Last night Andrew Nicole and I came home from Sparks at church and Nicole had asked to play with her hamster. I said yes, for five minutes, as it was late and time to go to bed. Well, in just a few minutes the next thing I knew is that Nicole said little Jakey Babe was gone!!! After much weeping and gnashing of teeth and a little FREAK OUT from Mom, I heard from both kids that Shadow (our nearly 100 pound black lab Dalmatian mix beast of a dog) had eaten Jake!!!! Poor little Nicole went to bed absolutely distraught. Me and Andrew and Nicole all cuddled up after the "incident" on Nicole's bed and she fell asleep. Dad had not been home yet, he was out having a little much deserved guy time. I asked Andrew over and over, "So you saw Jake in Shadow's mouth?" Big eyes, nodding head up and down, even pantomimed a big swallow for emphasis! =0/ So little Nicole and I headed out to the pet store this morning to get a new hamster friend. She was excited and glad to have her own hamster again. Tonight after we got home from our day, I noticed that Shadow was much more interested than normal about sniffing around Nicole's bedroom. Steve came in and looked around, found some suspicious rodent droppings, looked under the bed and around the room, and found nothing. I set out a little food and water on a tray, just in case there was a wayward little critter, and then we found some more droppings, and Steve just "followed the hamster poop" and ended up finding the little stinker in Nicole's closet!!!! So now we have three hamsters. We luckily had more cage pieces from our friend, and so now we have put together a three level hamster cage, with a little jerry rigging as well! It is pretty cute. So, welcome Kyra to the family, along with the wayward prodigal son, Jake, and the befuddled Buddy.

New Critters! Jake and Buddy the Hamsters

We have adopted a few more critters. We got rid of the stick bugs a while back and the kids have been begging for something else to fill the cages. This weekend we went and saw a friend and her kids and they had hamsters, and also a old cage they gave to us. So yesturday we went to the pet store and found some cute little hamsters that we have added to the family!!! So please help us welcome Nicole's little guy Jake (aka Jakey Babe, Jake Jake etc ala Grandma Kennedy's doggy) and Andrew's little guy Buddy!







Shadow is absolutely fascinated with them! He hasn't tried to get them, but is very interested in watching them. I had to take a pic!

A visit With Andy

We had a birth dad visit last week. We had talked about it with the kids for a few days before the visit. On the day of the visit Nicole was running around the house saying "We get to see Andy!!!" It was insteresting, as this is the first visit we have had where the kids are really talking a lot and I get to hear a little bit more about what they think about things. We use the term "birth dad" and they understand this is what we call Andy, and that he is a special person in their lives, but I am sure they are not understanding the larger concept of adoption and what that really means, but we are building that foundation for them. Andy was visiting from out of town and he brought his mom with him to the visit. It was very nice to see them. I know it is a bitter sweet time, some really good things about the visit, and also some difficult emotions that come up too. I am very happy we have the opportunity to keep them in our lives. It is a gift that we can give the kids and will become more important thoughout the years. Thank you Andy for calling us. We appreciate the effort you make to keep contact with us. God's blessings to you!

Happy Birthday Grandma Loretta

Here is a birthday card we made for Grandma Loretta.



And here is a little video of the kids. I try and have them do something sweet for Grandma Loretta, and this is the best I could get. What little sillies they are. Anyway, it is the thought that counts I guess.




We wish we could have been with you on your special day! Hope you had a nice day and know that we love you!

September 2009

Here are some pics of our month so far. We started homeschooling this month. Both kiddos are kindergarteners, can you believe it? Steve is the teacher, and I am the teacher helper. We started our homeschool coop last Friday. They go to school from 0930-230p, Steve is even teaching a high school class on the Presidents! Nothing like jumping in with both feet! We got some rockets for some science fun, I have a plastic globe that we will be learning a little bit about the world and the continents and some about animals etc. We get to plant some grass seeds on it, the land masses are sponges and there is water inside the globe it should be interesting to see if it works. We have been out to a local river and seen the returning salmon and talked about the life span of the fish and how they make the journey back up the rivers to have their babies etc. We have a scheduled table time from 0900-1100 for math and reading and writing. Steve is having a hard time with Nicole, she is just not that interested in the table time. She told me yesturday "I quit school". A little young for that I am afraid, missy! Andrew is doing just great! It was pretty much the opposite of what we expected actually, pleasantly suprised with Andrew, puzzled about Nicole, but we are working on it. We start the YMCA coop next month.


















Daddy's Birthday was this month! We had a cake for him and a special day hat!





We went to Great Wolf Lodge for a Birthday celebration for all the summer birthdays! We had a lot of fun!



Andrew's Birthday party was this last Sunday. He turned 6 on the 17th. We had a bunch of kids from the neighborhood and a friend from our church come. I could not find our camera so took a few pics with Steve's phone:







And for the last day of summer the kids stayed in the "Bat Cave" left over from the birthday party. Steve and I slept inside, they were right off our deck with the windows wide open for us to hear if anything was needed, and Shadow slept in the tent with them! It was a lot of fun for them. They slept all the way through the night without any problems.










So that is our month! On a not so fun note, I found out I will be having knee surgery to treat a torn meniscus in my left knee. It is scheduled for next month, I will be out of work for about three weeks, but hopefully after that will be good as new. That's what I get for being almost 40. Sigh, guess it all goes down hill from here! =0(