Temple Trip

What a beautiful experience this was, to take our family to a temple open house. We live about 3.5 hours from BC temple and it is a rare occasion to get to tour a temple and we wanted the kids to be able to go inside a temple so we took them out of school and crossed the border and went!
It is a beautiful Temple with so many intricate details. All the decorating and woodwork was done around the Dogwood tree. The Celestral room was breath taking.....we gathered our children around us and told them that we would be together forever and that the feeling they were feeling was the Holy Ghost confirming that this was true. It was an experience of a lifetime!

I think the best part for me was to share it with my kids. I remember as a kid going to the Portland, OR temple open house with my family. I was around Hannah's age.....I will never forget how I felt there and I knew that this is where I wanted to be married. It was an amazing experience. I feel so blessed that we were able to go and share this with our children.

Families are Forever!

Tulip Festival

My neighbor and I went to the Tulip Festival with the kids that were home today! We had a picinic lunch. It turned out to be a hot day.

Have you ever seen anything so gorgeous!! We decided that we needed to plant my yard like this!!
Joseph wasn't supposed to go between the rows, but before I told him to get out I snapped the shot!!

My blonde beauty was just as pretty as the tulips!

I loved that you could see the mountains surrounding the valley.

They had kites that were being flown by themselves. They were just stuck in the ground with a stake. It just added to the feeling!!

These were my favorite......the color just stood out. They were so striking.

This photo was my favorite with the old barns in the background. It looked like we were there all by ourselves. It was so pretty!!

I had Miriam in a backpack most of the time. When I got her out to look at them she was thrilled and loved to feel them!!

The size of the heads of these tulips were huge and gorgeous!! Of course, Yellow being my favorite color, I had to have a picture of these!!

Vampires??

Peter and Joseph came up to me today both wearing goggles and Joseph holding something behind his back while Peter read this story:


I found blood on the street and collected some and my brother and I are interesting how it is. We found out that it was vampires blood. If you look at it without protection for your eyes you will die.


At which point Joseph whipped out this bag of "blood"!


After probing how they colored the water I found out that Peter had a bloody nose and was just letting it drip into the sink. He called for Joseph to go get a bag. They collected the blood from his nose bleed into the bag and then added water.


I would have loved to see the thought process as Peter thought this up.

Bubble Discovery

Nothing quite so exciting as discovering bubbles for the first time!!

All my babies...

Just the girls....

3.14 ~ Pi(e) Day

Pi(e) Day 2010

Pi(e) Day has to be one of our favorite holidays and, as tradition goes, we once again had our home filled with yummy smells and fun people.

We thought that it was going to be a little tricky with Miriam's birthday celebrations, but we were able to do that in the morning and have pie at night.

We had lots of choices including: Apple, Cherry, Blueberry, Blackberry, Cheesecake, Banana Cream, Pumpkin, Lemon Meringue, Chocolate, and Dutch Apple. Delicious!!!

I'm ONE!!

Happy Birthday Mee-um!!! My baby is one....It's hard to believe. She still doesn't walk, but will stand up in the middle of the room and just hang out there. Mim continues to be the easiest baby. She doesn't say much, except in church. She doesn't really complain except when having something that she wanted taken away or moved by a sibling to where she doesn't want to go. She is selective when giving smiles, but when she does smile it lights up the room. Her laugh is what gets me....it is so fun and has everyone giggling when she is laughing.

She loves her brothers and sisters and can't wait for Dad to come home. But like most kids she adores her mom. ;)

We are so grateful to have such a sweet little girl in our family. What a joy she is in our lives. We love you Miriam!!

Our newset purchase....

2009 Toyota Sienna!!

We are having the interior redone in leather (that was a must for me......just to make clean up easier.) It has 8 seats so that when grandma's (or anyone else) we have room for them in the car and we don't have to drive 2 seperate cars!

We were getting worried that the time bomb we were driving wasn't going to go off at any moment. It needed new tires, it had an alignment problem, that was more than just getting an alignment, it had a slow leak that we thought we had fixed but it kept leaking so we needed to get that fixed, and if I remember correctly the timing belt also needed to be replaced. Everyday while driving it I would pray that we would make it home!! The last thing I wanted was to be stuck on the side of the road with 5 kids!! We do have AAA but I would still need someone to come get us because the vehicles that AAA tows with doesn't have room for 5 kids! Then on top of that the kids and I were planning a road trip to Utah for spring break. We were originally going to rent a car but once again that was just one more thing.

We are both really excited and the kids are thrilled!!

What an OLD man...

Alan turned 39 today!! When you have class on your birthday you get to bring a treat. I baked over 100 cookies just for his class. Of course I had to leave some for us!! Joseph, Eden, Miriam and I brought Alan's students cookies in the morning. We even pinned on that fun extra large button, that Joseph had for his birthday, on so everyone would know that it was his birthday!! (I of course forgot the camera!)

Later on that evening we showed up with gifts and pizza to celebrate before his night class. He got a mini fridge for his office and a 12 pack of caffeine free diet Dr. Pepper to fill it up. He also got a University of Washington tee shirt, the Indiana Jones DVD box set, as well as a box set of classic musicals.

Then for his night class the kids and I brought cookies!! (I again forgot the camera, darn!!)

On Sunday following his birthday we had his Birthday cake and Birthday Dinner so I was able to get a couple of shots of the birthday boy!! I tried to take 39 pictures of him.....he was done with me taken pictures as evedence in the last photo, but I was able to get all 39!

I am so happy that you have found a place that you love Alan!! I hope that we have many happy wonderful years here raising our children. We love you!! Happy Birthday!!