Vacations and what nots!

We just got home from the best vacation yet! We love our family!!! It is so nice to take time with just our family and remember how fun it is to just be together. We went to Southern Oregon and stayed in our Trendwest timeshares in Redmond and then a few days in Klamoth Falls. We hiked state parks, played lots of board games and Wii. Had "slumber parties" (which really just mean stay up way too late and every one gets to pick thier own candy) we also scavenged every thrift shop we could find, looking for cool treasures. (we love doing that) We found out the kids really like finding new spots to pose for pictures so I am really cutting down on the full spectrum of what we took, but here is a few.


Here are a few pictures of us hiking at Smith Rock State Park

 Isaiah loves to find cool spots to pose and then get Elijah to jump in with him.  Elijah got on the branch and then said he needed help getting down.  Isaiah wanted to show him how close he was to the ground so he gave him a small push and the next picture is what became of that.

 Every cranny in a rock had to be posed in, but it sure was cute.

 Elijah made money doing chores on vacation and purchase an adorable "Teddy Bear Hampster"  he loves snuggling with it and apparently it is very relaxing for the hampster as well.

 I think Isaiah got tired of posing with Elijah and just decided to discard him.

 Tadd and these three kids got to go to an old logging mill.  Unfortunatly Annecy was not quite done with her school, so she and mom stayed in the car to finish. I did not know I was the mother of so many strange posing kids.

 One of the reasons we go to Oregon for vacation is our favorite church is there.  They meet in thier amphitheatre in the summer and we happen to catch their last day outdoors.  It was very cool but so beautiful.

Well I think that may be all I can fit right now, but I will try to do a second vacation post soon with more pictures.  We should have some great ones of Isaiah and Annecy's soccer, as well as Elijah's football.  Kenya starts her new play soon called "Amahl and the night visitors" it is a Christmas play about the wisemen.  All of this should give us plenty to post about, not to mention our Harvest Party this week, the kids are still not sure what they are dressing up as, so it should be interesting.

I just got the last 2 years of our blog published into a book and was very convicted as to how thin the book was compared to the 2 years before that.  So I am so sorry I have been so bad at publishing lately.  We had a really busy May and all of the pictures were on my phone that did not transfer to my memory card but got stuck on my sim card.  So I have had to build up pictures and try to find some time to squeeze in blog time.  I am going to try to be better this month at posting.  Now I have to try to some up a lot of lost time, so here goes.

We have had a fun summer of visiting Tadd's family.  We spent a week with them in Levenworth to celebrate Tadd's Parents 50th wedding anniversary.  The kids had lots of fun playing in and outside the shops, as well as hanging out with cousins.

Annecy saved her money and bought a straightner hot enough to straighten her hair.  She loved it until she realized you have to get up and do it every morning.  It was really cute while it lasted though.

The kids have also been having fun serving with the chruch once a month at the local food bank in town. They do such a great job and we love having them help out.

 Kenya got made it for the play "Annie" this summer.  She had so much fun and did a great job as a homeless New Yorker and a Hooverite.  The only problem was the 2 weeks the play showed it was 104-107 degrees and the play was held in an old theatre with no air conditioning.  So for 7 performances she went on stage with make up melting and sweat pouring, but never missed a line or lost her smile...except here of course.  Great Job Kenya!

Our bunnies also had babies this summer and the kids have so much fun with them.  Their favorite thing to do is hold them cupped in their hands until they fall asleep (which takes all of about 20 seconds) then the take one hand off and say, " look, it's a dead bunny." Morbid I know, but they love it.

We got a chance to go to the Yakima Bears Baseball Game with Elijah's cubscout pack.  All of the girls got free Breast Cancer Bears T-shirts.  We had lots of fun even though thye lost!

We are getting geared up to start the school year and go on our family vacation in October.  So we will have lots of stuff to post and so stay tuned.

Fishing fun

Spring is on its way and the kids are enjoying seeing the sunshine more. They have been outside practicing their basketball and baseball, as well as a little bit of soccer. We took advantage of the great weather the other day and all went fishing. We didn't end up catching anything but we had fun none the less.

The girls have been taking a sewing class and they have really been getting busy making pillows, blankets and simple bags. I think they have sewn more in the last week than I have in my whole life, even though I had a wonderful mother who taught me to sew, play the piano and many other wonderful things I have left by the wayside, on the road of life. Sorry Mom!!

Never the less we are having fun and looking forward to many more projects to come.

January was a busy month with Isaiah and Annecy celebrating birthday's and a happy "whole family home" day. (that is our celebration of when we finally got Isaiah and Annecy home) it really has been 2 years.

To celebrate our family was blessed by a trip to Levenworth WA condos. The condos are built on a hill that slopes down to what is a baseball feild in the summer. In the winter it makes for some very steep, very fast sledding. Trying to not be the old foaggies, hit the slope as well, but mom proved she actually is an old foaggie, when she hit a jump and her back came down right on the back of the sled. She was not walking right for a week.

Birthday's and Basketball

Basketball season is in full swing, the kids are all doing great and trying so hard. Tadd found a movie online about "Pistol Pete" the true story of Pete Marovich. A man who was an amazing basketball star in the 70's. He did drill after drill until he knew every dribble backwards and forwards. He was never without his basketball. The kids took that inspiration and have been practicing their little hearts out. They have been excited about their progress and love the game.

The girls are still in gymnastics and loving every minute. They are excited to move up to the next level, just a couple more sit ups and push ups to be able to do a backward turn over on the top bar.

We went on a cool fieldtrip to the movie theatre this week. We got to go behind the scenes and see how the whole thing works, then we hung out to watch "We bought a Zoo." (good movie) Isaiah just celebrated his 13th birthday. We are now officially parents of a teenager! Fortunatly, we are parents of one of the best teenagers on this plant. Happy Birthday Isaiah! We love you!

Happy Holidays!

Our Holiday's were definantly happy, so we wanted to share a little of or Joy through some pictures of the things that made it special. We had our chruch Christmas party the week before Christmas, between a delicious ham dinner, white elephant gifts and some hillarious fun playing games, (in which we could laugh at other peoples expense), we went home over fed, over tired, with some extra needless things to figure out where to put in our clutter of christmas cheer. But overall very very blessed by some sweet fellowship. Here are some pictures of our beautifully decorated dinner tables. We had some very gifted people in charge of decorations.

We also decided as an educational experience this year we would observe the Jewish holiday Hannakah. The kids made a beautiful Manorah out of clay, then painted it and we lit candles over the eight day festival. For those of you who are not up on your Jewish traditions, Hannakah is a celebration in rememberance of the day that the Jews went into the temple after it had been taken back from Roman rule. The oil (that takes eight day to make) was all gone out of their sacred Manorah. This manorah was never to be put out, so they prayed for God to make the tiny bit of oil they did have, last 8 days until the process was complete to aquire more oil. Thus the 9 candle manorah. The middle one is used to light the others and the 8 others are to remind them of the provision of oil for 8 days.

As part of this celebration the Jews eat fried foods for 8 days to remind them of the miricle of the oil. Needless to say Isaiah and Tadd loved this part. So here is a picture of our donuts we made one night for dinner. Other than working with the hot oil. The kids pretty much did all the work. They were delicious!

The day after Christmas we drove up to Lynden to celebrate with Tadd's family. The kids had so much fun hanging out with all of their cousins. Unfortunatly though my kids are not used to it raining 24/7 so they went outside to play everyday anyway. They came in multiple time soaking wet but had lots of fun. And thanks to Grandma, who let us wash and dry multiple sets of clothing while we were there. After a couple days at Grandma's we drove to Charity's brother's house to celebrate New Years Eve. The picture of Isaiah and Elijah below could have been taken at anytime, during any day we were there, as their stationary position was in front of the WII. The boys definantly got spoiled with lots of game time. Tadd and the girls got in more games of pool in Uncle Chris's basement than a hustler in vegas. Chris also spoiled us with his delicious cooking of his latest kill. Tadd would make the 3 hour drive again just to have those venison steaks, wrapped in bacon, cooked over the open fire. Thanks so much Aunt Brandi and Uncle Chris.

The kids also wanted to thank Grandma Johnson for the sweet chicken shrits that she sent, they not only fit great, but looked pretty stylin too. Here is a picture of the chruch Christmas program on Christmas morning. Even though most of the kids had to wait to open their presents until after chruch, they did a great job singing their little hearts out for Mom and Dad.

Hope you all had a blessed day celebrating the birthday of the most amazing gift ever possesed by man. Have a great year and may you get blessed more than you can ask, think or imagine.

Holiays are here!

We have been trying to make time to enjoy the busy holidays. We decorated the house last week and the girls found an old Santa suit, Tadd used for his family party years ago. They stuffed it with pillows (and anything else they could find) to make them as jolly as possible. It's amazing how long you can play with a Santa suit, they tried it on everyone else and finally retired it after 2 hours.

It was Kenya's date with Mom day on Tuesday and she wanted to take her friend Tori (who she aspires to be when she grows up.) We went to the local museum where they host "The festival of trees" They have 12-15 trees, all decorated with different themes. We got hot chocolate and toured the trees, then Kenya wanted to go next door to the furniture store and look at the large tree they had decorated in their window. Of course when we got there, we had to try out all of the recliners and beds, as well as pick our our favorite dining sets and bedroom sets. It was so much fun, we left exhaused and hair standing on end, from all the static electicity we made going from one cushy surface to the next. I hope I always remember to take time for the fun stuff, especially when it's busy.