Daniel turns 4!

Wow! my middle child, Daniel, is 4 today.We had some friends come over for lunch to celebrate with him. It's amazing how fast time flies! Here are some photos to remember how he started out:
Daniel's 1st birthday:
Daniel's 2nd birthday
Daniel's 3rd birthday:

I ♥ Faces

This week it is hilarious outtakes, and we can share up to 5 photos for this week. Here are a few I picked out.

I remembered a photo I took of Gram at the lake on the 4th of July 2008. Gram is no longer with us - she passed away right after Thanksgiving this year. So this is a very special photo to me now - she used to so enjoy all the holidays, and went all out decorating and planning for all of them. 4th of July she used to buy us all matching shirts and fun plastic necklaces and toys for the kids. We miss you, Gram!


This next picture was taken in February 2009. Daniel got a hold of one of Gretchen's hair pretties and decided to model it in his own crazy fashion!


This was also taken in February 2009 - I laughed and laughed at the way Gretchen fell asleep at nap time that day!


This one was taken in April 2009 while trying to get a good Easter photo of my kids. Of course, no one was cooperating!


And this last one was taken by Daniel - he loves to hijack my camera and take pictures. He's not too bad sometimes! This is my Dad at Easter.


Feel free to check out more photo entries at
I ♥ Faces.

Christmas Stockings

I am behind on posting a bunch of Christmas pictures, but here is one to get started. This is one of my kids on Christmas morning with stockings in hand - the craziness was about to begin! What followed was a long day of presents, family, food and fun!


And a few bittersweet moments, too, as it was our first Christmas without Gram. So here is also a photo of our last Christmas, 2008, with Gram.


If you would like to see other holiday photos from other bloggers, please visit
Sunday Shutterbugs.

HP TouchSmart Computer

I am amazed! I just saw the new HP TouchSmart computer, and I really, really would love to have one. So very cool! You need to check out this blogMy Charming Kids - MckMama for a chance to win one for yourself. I have entered, and am now crossing my fingers and praying that I get chosen. Wouldn't that be a cool Christmas present? Yeppers!

Popcorn Tree?

Who knew there really was a "Popcorn Tree"? I certainly didn't. But when I picked up the boys from preschool today, each holding tightly to three popcorn kernels, they were adamant that we go home right away and plant them so we could grow a popcorn tree. And so we did! I got out the shovel, we found a little spot in the front of the house, and we planted the kernels. And five minutes later, the boys were out front, looking to see if it had grown yet! It took some talking before they understood that it would take a whole lot longer than five minutes for anything to grow. But soon, our pizza lunch was out of the oven, and the popcorn kernels were forgotten!

This is what a popcorn tree looks like. Not too bad, I guess, but I highly doubt that the boys' little kernels will produce a tree like this!

Another scrapbook page!

Boy, now that I've cleaned up my scrapbook room and moved things around to create more space, I've been working like crazy on my scrapbooks! I am so far behind on the kids' books, I could probably scrapbook all day and still not get caught up! Once the kids go to bed at night, I hide out in my craft room and start creating - well, that is, unless I'm trying to catch up on DVR'd shows! Anyway.....

....here is a page I did last night of Gretchen. It was for a flower challenge on scrapbook.com - the photos were taken by my sister Melissa this past June.

Scrapbook page

I worked on a scrapbook page today. I had entered a challenge online where you had to use a sketch they provided to do your page. This is my finished result. I used pictures that my good friend Susan Potter took of the kids. The page turned out really fun! Here it is:

Click on the picture to see it larger.
Here's a picture of the sketch I had to work with:

This sketch is courtesy of
Page Maps by Becky Fleck

Oh, the joys of little boys.....

This is what happens when you ask a 4 year old boy to wash his hands after playing outside, and he insists on doing it all by himself:
They're clean Mommy - really!

Uff dah!

A new gift!

On Friday I was gifted with a brand new Keurig coffee maker. I've heard so many great things about these and I'm eager to give it a try. The gift did not come with any coffees, though, so I went online to take a look at ordering some. Wow! So many choices! Coffees, teas, hot chocolates! And so many cool flavors and varieties. So now, I need some help. If you are a fan of Keurig, can you let me know what your favorites are to buy? And if you know of a good place to get a great deal on the K-cups? Or any tips or suggestions about the Keurig machine? I'd love your advice! Thanks so much!

My Singing Children

I love listening to my kids sing songs. Here are some fun clips of them.

Gretchen - Jesus Loves the Little Children


Daniel - Jesus Loves the Little Children


Austin - I Celebrate my Family

Yummy pastries!

I made homemade pop tarts with friends from MOMS Club today. They turned out yummy - we used raspberry for the insides. The recipe is here if you want to give it a try yourself. And here is a picture of the final product.

I ♥ Faces Balloons photo challenge

This week it is balloons, and I remembered a photo I took of Austin on his 3rd birthday.

Feel free to check out more balloon photo entries at
I ♥ Faces.

The Family that Plays Together. . .

I love a website called 100 Days to Christmas. I'm always getting some great tips and ideas to make my holidays easier and more fun. Recently they posted a reminder to play games with your kids, with a new game to try called Spider, and all it takes is pens, paper and dice. Great for all ages - you should check out the site below to read all about it. And, they have a special giveaway for Reusable gift bags - very clever! I might have to use this idea for Christmas - goodness knows I have tons of Christmas fabric I could use up! Go check them out!

The Family that Plays Together. . .

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Pillsbury Bake-off - darn!

Some of you may remember, back in April I entered the Pillsbury Bake-off Contest (see post here). I used my Thai Chicken Pizza Recipe. Unfortunately, I didn't get picked as a finalist. Oh darn! It would have been fun to travel to Florida to cook my pizza, but I guess I'll just have to try again in two years. There are, however, 5 ladies from WA State that did make it into the contest, and one is even from Colbert. Go check out the list here to see a list of all the finalists. And now, I have two years to think of another recipe to enter. Hmmmm, what shall it be.......?

I ♥ Faces - Pink Week Photo Challenge

I love this photo of Gretchen - so happy all over! Photo was taken 6-28-08.
To see more entries into the Pink Week challenge, head over to
I ♥ Faces.

Come have coffee with me....

It's Company Girl Coffee Day, when we can sit and have a virtual cup of coffee together and chat. I made a fresh pot today, and have flavored creamers for you to choose from - Vanilla Caramel, Creme Brule or Irish Creme - and today's breakfast is scrambled eggs and sausage - a favorite of my kids. Make yourself at home....

Today is my first day to venture out driving by myself in almost two weeks. I've had to let my husband be my chauffeur due to the meds I've been on since my surgery. But I'm ok to drive now, so my plans are to take the kids to Finch Arboretum today to have some outdoor playtime and take some fun photos at the Big Climbing Tree. Maybe we'll run into our friend Sally, who is the arborist at the park. We usually see her somewhere there every time we go. Sally's husband, Tim, has worked with my husband at Honeywell since James started there in 1997. It's a good friendship, and James and Tim bowl together each week and play daily games of cribbage together on their lunch breaks.

It's been such an interesting two weeks - since I got home from surgery, especially. Very relaxing, laid back, worry free - very, very nice! I sense some revelations coming about, but can't quite put my finger on them yet. We'll see what the Lord reveals in my heart about all this.

Ok - on for the day. I hope you have enjoyed your coffee with me, and I hope you have a blessed and fruitful Friday!

Oh, and stop by to visit at Rachel Anne's - you'll see some other great Company Girls to check out!

Just another day....

Today was a good day. James is still home from work this week for my surgery recovery, so I still get to sleep in a wee bit each morning while he gets the kids up for the day -what a blessing that is! We dropped the boys off at preschool after breakfast, and then James dropped Gretchen and I off at my MOPS meeting for a couple of hours, which was awesome! My new friend, Jenny, whom I met through blogging, brought me a fantastic smelling baggie of homemade pumpkin play-doh for my kids - a fun treat! We had a great little craft using paint stir sticks and scrapbook papers, and the message of the day was just what I needed to hear - all about creating a strong marriage for your children to thrive in. The rest of the day was filled with the kids playing really well together - the boys even worked together as a team to build a floor puzzle - three times over with no fighting!! Wow! And James in the kitchen making dinner for the night. I tell you, I am a blessed woman! Oh, and I actually made two batches of homemade cookies, while the kids were napping, and they turned out heavenly. We followed up dinner with church time, and a great end to the day. I love these days of relaxing and enjoying family time! Feel free to click on the picture to see larger images of our fun and blessed day!

I ♥ Faces - Excited

This week's challenge for the I ♥ Faces contest is excited. I am choosing the photo below because of my middle child's face - he is super excited in it! This was taken on the day of our Adoption Party - finally celebrating the adoption of all three of our kids. It was a very exciting day, and Daniel, especially, was overjoyed with something someone was saying to him! I love this picture! I hope you enjoy it too!

Menu Plan Monday

Happy Fall Y'all! It certainly is cold here in the Pacific NW. Before I left for my surgery, it wasn't too bad - a few chilly days, but still nice enough to play outside with the kids and go for bike rides. But now it's downright cold, and bundling up is the way to go. That's ok for me, though - I love the fall weather! Yummy warm foods and drinks, great sweaters and jeans - that's the life! I didn't post a menu last week, because frankly, it wasn't up to me to cook! I put the cooking chores into the hands of the grandmas and aunt that were here to take care of the kids, and from what I can tell, no one came out of last week hungry in the least! I saw remnants of homemade bread, manicotti, desserts - all sorts of good things were eaten here last week!

This week, I have wonderful friends to thank for meals - as I'm still trying to regain energy, my lovely friends have volunteered to cook for the family. I'm looking forward to this week, for sure!


Monday - Lasagna from a friend
Tuesday - Mac-n-Cheese from a friend
Wednesday - Soup & Sandwiches at church before class
Thursday - Meal from a friend
Friday - Meal from a friend
Saturday - Meal from a friend
Sunday - leftover love from all my friends!

Doesn't this sound like a great way to cook for the week! Head over to
Organizing Junkie to see more great menu ideas and lots of home organization tips and ideas!

Surgery Scars - Friday

Once again, I have lovely scars & bruising left over from my surgery. At least the surgeon went in to my head via the same scar from the first time, so it's not too bad. The eye bruising looks ok in these pictures, but on Tuesday and Wednesday it was really hard to open my left eye. I can only use baby shampoo on my hair, so it's not the best, but at least I can wash it every day. I tell you, it's so much nicer to be home after 4 days instead of still in the hospital!

Surgery Day - Kids at Home

Auntie Brenda is here for Sunday-Tuesday to stay with the kids during surgery and recovery. After a relaxing morning of playing in jammies and eating pancakes, then lunch, naps and library time, they played with paints to make get well cards for me. Although I haven't seen them in person yet - Brenda sent them to the hospital but I came home too soon! - they certainly look cute! Hopefully they'll come back home to me here so I can see them and put them in my scrapbook.

Home from the hospital

Another aneurysm surgery done and gone! This time was a lot easier. I went in to surgery at 8:30 am Monday morning, and was actually awake around 4:30 pm that same day. The first time I had the surgery it took me 4 days to wake up! The surgeon got to the aneurysm, but found that it was close enough to my skull that they couldn't clip it, so they just put a layer of derma over it to keep it protected and sewed me back together. I got home from OHSU in Portland last night around 8:30 - only 4 days in the hospital instead of 11 days. I'm glad to be home, and even though I'm a bit tired, I'm doing really good. I still will have several days of rest, but I feel tons better than the last time. I don't have to go back to Portland for another 5 years to have an angiogram - I can have my first surgeon here in Spokane check out my stitches so I don't have to travel just for that. I thank God for keeping me protected and keeping me around! And I thank God for providing such awesome family & friends to take care of my kids while we were gone, and for all the love and prayers and cards. Thank you to all!

1 year Adoption Anniversary

Wow! It's been one year since we finalized the adoptions on our children - our Forever Family Day. It's been quite a year since that day - lots of excitement, fun, some scary times, too.

Here's a look back at that very special day one year ago:
Adoption Day

Menu Plan Monday

It's been a while since I've posted one of my menus. Now that the boys are back in preschool and James is back to bowling, we are on a more normal schedule. Here's this week's offering:

Monday - BBQ Jelly Chicken with noodles and broccoli
Tuesday - Chuck E Cheese to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of our adoptions!
Wednesday - Hamburgers and Hot Dogs at church
Thursday - Meatloaf & Pasta Dish & Broccoli
Friday - Tucson Chicken & Rice & Salad
Saturday - Roasted Chicken & Rice & Veggies
Sunday - Spaghetti & garlic bread & salad

For lots of menu ideads, head over to Organizing Junkie. Lots of great menus, and lots of great organization ideas!! Have fun!

Rock-n-Roll Hair!

We decided to have some fun today with hair. I gave the kids an early bath, before dinner and church, because they had been playing hard all day and I knew we wouldn't have time after church. After bath, we decided the boys needed rock-n-roll hair, and they loved it. And we flipped up Gretchen's hair, which turned out super cute.

1st day of preschool

Today was Daniel's first day of preschool, and the start of Austin's second year of preschool. A pretty big event in our home! This just leaves Gretchen and I to ourselves for 2-1/2 hours three days a week. It will be interesting. Last year our first day of school was very warm, so it was shorts and short-sleeves. But this year it was colder - you could definitely feel fall in the air. So we opted for long jeans and long sleeve shirts. The boys were very excited!

Feeling blessed!

I don't know why it hit me all of a sudden this afternoon, but I'm feeling extremely blessed today. Kids have still been a little crazy, and we were late once again for VBS today, and it's blazing hot outside, but I'm feeling very wrapped in love and grace. I have three beautiful, amazing children, sometimes with very independent mindframes, but so sweet and loving. I have an amazing husband, who works very hard so that I can stay home and raise our kids, and loves me even when I'm in the worst of moods. And I have a family who stands by me, especially in the worst of times when my health is at risk, and is ready to do whatever needs to be done to help take care of my family. And I have awesome friends, who are always there when I need to laugh, or vent, or cry, or just whatever.

It's just a blessed day today. I hope yours is a blessed day, too.

Surgery / Aneurysm update

One of the reasons for heading down to Portland for our family vacation was to have a consult with the surgeon for my next brain surgery. When I had my ruptured aneurysm last November, a second unruptured aneurysm was found. It was deeper in the brain, and the surgeons were not able to do anything about it last November, simply because they had to deal with the already ruptured aneurysm first. But now it is time to take care of this second one, and the surgeon I consulted with, Dr. Johnny Delashaw, is the best vascular surgeon in the northwest. In fact, he trained Dr. Jonathan Carlson, who performed my first surgery.

Dr. Delashaw had me do a CTA scan with dye to determine exactly where the aneurysm is, and it is located deeper in the brain, and near where it feeds into my pituitary gland. So, he definitely wants it taken care of, and sooner rather than later would be ideal. I could do an outpatient type of surgery, where they could go in through my groin area, and do what is called stenting and coiling, where they first put in a nylon stent, and then put a coil or two into the aneurysm, with the assumption that the blood would then clot around the coil and the aneurysm would stop growing. However, there is a drug regimen before and after to adhere to, and continued monitoring via MRI's of the aneurysm. Plus, if it happens to rupture while in surgery, they would have to do an artery replacement because they couldn't clip it at that point. This could all be done locally by another doctor that Dr. Delashaw trained as well. Or I could go back to Portland and have Dr. Delashaw and his team clip off this second aneurysm, spend one or two nights in ICU, 3-4 days in the hospital, and be done with it. They would go in the same way as before, so no new scars, and because it hasn't ruptured, recovery time would be significantly less than my last 11 day stay in the hospital.

I'm really, really leaning to the clipping again. Yes, we would have to leave the kids for a week, but I've got lots of friends and family to help me out in that aspect. And my aunt and cousin have volunteered their homes outside of Portland for James to crash in for the week. I would probably plan it for mid-October, to stay well away from holidays, and before the weather to travel down there started to get really nasty.

So there it is - my life plan for the next few months! Surgery and recovery. But I'm leaning on God, and am confident that He's not done with me on this earth yet, so it will all go well. I'm fairly certain that my first aneurysm ruptured and was repaired without any side effects in order for the doctors to see this second, perhaps more dangerous aneurysm. God works in mysterious ways, and I'm not about to question the why's.

But I'm not tired, Mom!

Naptime - some days it is a real struggle in our home. The kids just want to play so much, they don't want to be bothered with rest time. I wish someone would make me lay down and sleep every afternoon! Npatime is my time to get things done around the house and check up on e-mails and update my blog and facebook.

Today, Austin just kept arguing with me - I'm not tired, I'm not going to sleep! So, I told him, ok, just lay on your bed and read. And wouldn't you know it, not five minutes later he was sound asleep - like this:



Half the time, I think he fights naptime because he knows that as soon as he stops talking for 2 minutes, he'll fall asleep!

A visit from cousin Aimee

Each summer, my sister's daughter Aimee comes to stay with us for a week and attend Vacation Bible School. She lives in Spirit Lake, and is an only child, so a week spent with my crew is pretty crazy for her! She's four years older than my oldest, and so play time can be a little tough - sharing is hard, and my kids can't always play the things she wants. But all in all, they all have a great time together. Since Aimee can read - she just started 3rd grade - she got the honors of reading at bedtime this whole week - and the kids really enjoyed it. One of these days she'll be old enough to babysit for us, like I used to do for my aunt in the summer's. Oh, won't that be heavenly!!!

Family Vacation to Portland area

We are back - tired and somewhat out of sorts - but back home. We had a wonderful family vacation - our first, actually! - to the Portland, OR area. I took a bazillion photos, and will share them in a later post. Ahhhh, home.......

Outdoor Learning Center

We went with Daddy to his Wildlife Council meeting tonight - they held the meeting at the Outdoor Learning Center so there were lots of fun things to explore with the kids.

Yardwork

The kids wanted to help me with weed pulling in the driveway today. Isn't it great when they are still young enough to think this is fun and a game? Wait until they are teens, and it's part of their chores, and then they'll whine and complain they whole time and take three times as long to complete the job, and then want to get paid extra for all their hard, back-breaking work! That's why I blog with photos - for long lasting proof of how it used to be!!

Faith, by the Grace of God

It is amazing to me what some parents must go through with their children. I cannot ever imagine being in this couple's place, and when I read their post, I was amazed by the complete faith they held. I am so, so thankful that all of my children are healthy.
Perfect by Jennifer Hawn

A little young for make-up...

I thought it was awfully quiet in the bathroom this morning. And I found out why. Gretchen decided she needed to help herself to my make-up bag, and after dumping all my blush compact onto the floor, she thought she would try a little mascara. Goodness, wait til she's a teenager - it's gonna be crazy at our house!!

Daddy & Gretchen

James and I volunteered in Gretchen's Sunday school class today, and I got a couple of cute photos of the two of them that I thought I would share.

Casual Friday

When I was working in an office, I always looked forward to Fridays. Not just because it was the end of a busy work week, but because we could dress down on Fridays, which always lead to a more fun and relaxed attitude at work. Now that I am a SAHM mom, I really don't "stay-at-home" much - the kids and I are on the go a lot during the day, with playdates and fun activities. But on Fridays, James now has the day off, since he works four-10's. And today, we spent a very casual Friday afternoon doing some family stuff at home. Homemade popsicles, bike riding in the neighborhood, basketball in the backyard, and dog-piling mommy while she tried to take pictures of it all! Hope you all had a fun Friday as well.

Wiggles Show

We were blessed with free tickets to the Wiggles show tonight, and we had a blast! The kids enjoyed it, and danced and sang to the songs, and James and I even knew some of the songs! It was a really fun show, and we got to take our friends the Hagans and the Gardners. We all went to The Onion for dinner afterward, and it made for a fantastic Saturday family night.