Lulu

Our little Lulu is sick this week. She's got a nasty runny nose and cold.

PS-Yes, that's snot coming out of her nose. Gross!

Besides having a cold, Lauren (Lulu) is growing up! :-)

S-A-M and U-E-L

According to Sam any and all printed words spell SAM. He'll tell me a bill board we happen to be driving by spells SAM or a paper he's looking at spells his name. The thing is he can pick out the S, the A, and the M, no problem. However, try and tell him it spells something other than his name and you're in trouble. Recently, though I think we've made a little progress. He's learned to spell his whole name: S-A-M-U-E-L. However, and again this is according to Sam, S-A-M spells SAM and U-E-L spells LAUREN. I'm just happy he's willing to admit that it might be possible to spell a word other than Sam. :-)

Speaking of S-A-M and U-E-L (Lauren), we've had some fun afternoons the past few weeks. The weather has been mostly fabulous here in Seattle, so we've spent quite a bit of time outside. Anyway, these pics are mostly for Grandma Thacker who I know loves to see new pictures of the kids. We miss her and wish she lived closer!!

We've also had some rainy days inside. This is a cute picture of Sam trying to figure out how to use his new giraffe scissors. Here's a little side note about how Sam colors...He lines up his markers on one side of his picture and colors with them one by one. After he colors with a marker he lines it up on the other side of his picture. Once he's colored with all the markers, he's all done. Don't even think about trying to get him to use the pink marker in the middle of the pack again...NOT going to happen! :-) I love my orderly little boy!

Lauren LOVES the slide. She will go down the slide again, and again, and again. Last week Evan took a day off (Wahoo!!!) and we took the kids to the Children's Museum in Everett. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it so much we bought a year's membership there. The coolest thing about this Children's Museum is the HUGE playground they have on their roof. So much fun and so cool!

Sam and Lauren playing with the really GREAT train table at the Children's Museum.

This picture is for Uncle Kimball...;-) He'd be proud.

Lauren on the slide at Greenlake. Did I mention how much she LOVES the slide?

So cute! :-)

Progress, I think...

As many of you know my mom passed away in August of 2007 and that my dad was re-married in June of last year (2009). This transition and the major changes in my family over the past two and a half years has been difficult at times...to say the least. ;-) Thankfully, my dad married someone who is kind, easy going, understanding and patient with my sister (MaLeesa) and I as we figure out our place in this new family and at the same time try and hold on tight to the family we had before my mom died. I've discovered that one thing that helps ease the transition for me is to spend some face to face time with my dad, his wife (Alane) and her family and MaLeesa and her family. Every time I spend a weekend with my dad and my sister I'm reminded that even though my family is changing it hasn't gone anywhere. My dad is still my dad and he still loves me. My sister and I are still his "girls"...phew! I know this must sound silly, but it's very refreshing at a time when my "family" as I've always known it has sometimes felt threatened. The good news is that I'm beginning to feel open to and welcome the changes in my family and I'm truly grateful my dad has found someone he loves who loves him too. Wow! Did I actually just say that?!? Yes, that's definitely progress for me to be feeling this way. I am grateful for a heart that is softening...slowly, but surely.

Anyway, what prompted this thought process was we spent this past weekend in Spokane at my dad's house. MaLeesa and John live in Spokane so we were able to see them as well as Alane's daughters Amanda and Kristina (and her family). It was a very nice weekend and really great to spend time with everyone. On Saturday we celebrated Sam and Malachi's birthday. They're a year apart almost to the day. Anyway, here are the few pictures I took. I only have pics from the b-day party...

Saturday was Malachi's actual birthday, but Sam got to get in on the birthday fun too.

Lauren and Araceli...they're only three weeks apart.

My cute sister and her family. Love them!

Antonio, MaLeesa, Araceli, Ammon, John and Malachi

Happy Birthday, Sam! :-)

Wow! I can't believe my baby is THREE years old! This is Sam about an hour after he was born.

February 22, 2007

1st Birthday

February 22, 2008

I don't think he cared too much for everyone singing to him. :-)

2 years old!

February 22, 2009

And here's our birthday boy this year. In this picture he's telling us how old he is. ;-) Holding up ten fingers while announcing, "I'm three!"

February 22, 2010

This is Why I L-O-V-E Seattle!

The weather the past week was fantastic and we took advantage of the sunny afternoons and went to the park. We live in a beautiful part of the country and when the sun shines the mountains come out and it's simply magnificent. This is one of the many reasons why I love Seattle because even in February there is the possibility of a day like this...or in our case this year...a week like this! :-)

It has been a good week for our family. Evan has been busy with the written portion of his PhD general exam this month and he took the oral portion of the general exam on Friday (2/19). He found out he passed both the written and oral portions of the exam. Yipppeeee!!!! :-) This is a HUGE milestone and we're so so so so excited and happy for him! The past month has been a little stressful for our family, but especially for Evan. He has been busy beyond belief and gone from the early morning until sometimes late at night. We're so happy he's past this milestone and moved onto the next. Yesterday morning we had breakfast together as a family and Sam said the prayer. He told Heavenly Father, "thank you that Daddy's here and Mommy's here and I'm here and Lauren's here and that we're all here..." I had to laugh because I felt the same way! It was so GREAT to be there all together!

Anyway, here are some pics from our week in the sun! :-)

This is what Sam calls the "beach park". It's only a few minutes from our house and overlooks Puget Sound.

There are stairs that connect the park to an upper and lower parking lot. Lauren LOVES the stairs and I have a hard time keeping her away from them.

One of the great things about the "beach park" is the beach and an abundant supply of rocks to be played with and thrown in the water!

Fishin' for Cars

This is what my kitchen floor looks like for most of the day. I can't tell you how many times I step on a car on any given day and then scream something along these lines:  "Ow, ow, darn-it, dang-it, OWWW!"

As you can imagine a lot of these cars end up under the fridge and stove, so every night before Sam goes to bed we fish them out. It's now part of our bed time routine.

Lauren even gets in on the action too. This morning I caught her putting the cars under the fridge. Sigh.

Yesterday a wonderful thing happened. My friend gave us an ice cream bucket so Sam could put all his cars in the bucket and carry them around. I thought it was a GREAT IDEA! Thanks, Melinda!! Anyway, my floor isn't exactly what you'd call tidy during the day, but thanks to the ice cream bucket it's mostly cleared of the cars and I'm not tempted to curse nearly as often because I'm not stepping on a car every few minutes! :-)

Thoughts...

Okay, so I have a few thoughts to share...

My husband has been gone a lot lately (PhD General Exam, church responsibilities, other school responsibilities). I miss him. My kids have been sick which means we've been home a lot which also means I'm going a little stir CRAZY! I am SO ready for their noses to stop running, but I think we have a few more days of isolation. Sigh. I know....complain, complain, complain. Thankfully, a few things happened today that helped put things in perspective for me. My good friend had a baby today (yeah!) which is a very happy thing and I'm so excited to meet the little guy and hold him, but I'm so glad it's HER who had a baby and NOT ME . I also just read another article about all the sadness and destruction in Haiti and it just breaks my heart, which made me go here and donate some $ to the cause. I wish I could do more, but I don't know what else to do to help. Anyway, today I'm grateful it's not MY time to be having another baby AND I'm grateful I don't live in Haiti. I don't have anything at all to complain about. I am blessed. I am blessed. I am blessed!

One more thing...I've been reading this series of books. I've thoroughly enjoyed them and I have the first four books if anyone is interested in borrowing them. Let me know.