Thursday, November 4, 2010

Catching Up

Bear with me there is a lot of information and pictures.
October was a bit crazy and a lot of fun. Mom and Aurie arrived here on the 7th and stayed until the 24th. I am so glad mom remembered her camera. The day they got here my camera broke. All the pictures you will see in the next posts were taken with her camera. Thanks again mom!
One morning on the way to preschool mom saw a sign that said free grapes. We had to pick them but they were free. Yeah!!!!
Yes Jack is in a pink stroller. We ran over the gender neutral one with the car... by accident.


Riska was a lot of help. She couldn't get the grapes herself so she went from me to mom and then to Aurie asking us to give her grapes to put in the boxes.
I think Aurie was a bit disgusted. :)
Riska had her first Primary program. At our church, once a year, the children (3-12) put on a program during the first hour of church. All the kids are assigned a small speaking part. The program is a summation of what they learned over the year. I was so proud of Mariska! She ran right up to the stand and said her little speaking part. My favorite part was when she was walking back to her seat. She looked at me and I gave her a thumbs up. She gave me one right back. I was glad mom was there for that.
Jack has become a great mimicker. He copies everything we do. This is good for us because we have been teaching him sign language and he is really getting good at the words we have taught him. The funniest thing he has imitated so far is covering his ears. Thank you Aurie. I swear she is the best teacher. ;) Not sure what the spinning around is about

Speaking of Aurie, My kids love her!


I was so glad she came with mom. Riska was too. Dad would talk to her and ask if he could come see her. she would tell him that Aurie was. Sorry Dad. I wish you could have been here too.

We had a fun time at Lowe's building a fun house mirror. Mom helped me sew on the patches Riska has received hopefully I will remember how to do it with the new ones. We went again this saturday and saw two kids with at least 100 patches on their aprons. We are building a shelf in Riska's room to display all her projects.
Jack isn't much of a cuddler unless he is sleepy then he gives all the cuddles a mom could want!
John is really enjoying his job. The people he works for are awesome! His boss came to him last week and asked if we were interested in having some meat. Keith (John's boss) brought home a good sized moose this year and they have more meat than they can handle themselves. They gave us two coolers filled with all kids of meat from his moose. He even gave us some gear meat. I am a little nervous but excited to try it all. He wants us to find what we like so he can give us more. Tonight I am trying some ground moose in my moms chili recipe.
I love being at home with the kids. I taught Riska's preschool group for two weeks and had a blast. They are a good group of kids.
I have asked Santa for a new camera and I am hoping to get it soon. I miss having one that works. Feels like I might miss something important.
I was glad to have mom and Aurie here. I miss my family a lot right now. I miss living close to John's family and I miss our friends. I know this were we are supposed to be and I have seen the Lords hand in everything we have done. I am grateful to all of you for your love and support. I hope you know how much you mean to me and my family! Hope everyone has a happy Thanksgiving!!!

Pumpkins 2010

I love carving pumpkins! I have no idea why. Everything about it is so fun. This year John thought it would be fun to do something different. I am glad we did. Love how the pumpkin turned out.


Just in case... We are big baseball fans our team being the Seattle Mariners.

Success At Last!!

The last two years we have tried to do a ginger bread house. I say try because we failed miserably! Both times we ended up with something that looked more like an homage to Hurricane Katrina.
This year we finally figured it out. (Thank you mom!)


I did the frosting and Riska did parts of the candy. She was more interested in eating the candy!
Can't wait to do it again for Christmas!

Pumpkin Patch 2010

This was the first year Riska has been to a pumpkin patch. We went with her preschool class and had a blast! Riska was so excited to pick her very own pumpkin. We kept it in the kitchen on the counter when we frist brought it home but I ended up moving it because it would disappear. i would always find on the top bunk of Riska's bunk bed. Hmmmm. I am still wondering whether she actually climbed up the ladder with the pumpkin in her arms, or threw it up there. Would have been a site to see either way.
It was nice having some one on one time away from the house with her. She is such a little character.
The Pumkin Patch had a pyramid built out of straw bales. It was big! I was very impressed with all our kids. they were so excited to climb it and even more excited when they got to the top.
I couldn't beleive we got all the kids to line up and stay at the top so we could get pictures.
I will be honest I wanted to do the corn maze. I was a bit disappointed when we arrived at the straw maze instead. I get it. They are little but I would have gone with her. She did have fun trying to find her way back out.
Mariska's school class plus 3. She loves the kids in her class. I do too. They are a fun little group.
I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the past two weeks.

Jack man turns 1!

I have no idea where this year went but Jack turned one on the 23rd of October.I can't take credit for the cake but it was really tasty!When we gave Jack his cake we expected him to dive right in but he didn't he picked at it at first.It didn't take him long to figure it out. :)This is about where I pulled the plug on the cake eating festivities. He was a mess and there was cake everywhere. He got more cake on the floor and down his shorts than he did in his mouth.Mom and Aurie were here for the party. John's mom and dad were able to come for the day. It was so fun to have all of them here to celebrate!
I love watching a baby figure out the whole present thing. Jack was of course more interested in the packaging than they toys and I don't think I have ever seen a kid get so excited about clothes.
Jack is already learning to share. Most of the time it is by force, but he really loves to play with his big sister.
Love you Mom!
I have to say that I am so proud of Mariska! She had a couple of moments on Jacks birthday but for the most part handled it very well. She is a really great big sister and we are lucky to have her.Happy Birthday Jack!!!!!!! We love you!

We are MOBILE!!!!


Jack started doing something that resembled an army crawl. He would literally pull hiself across the floor with his hands. Then about three days after mom and Aurie got here he figured it out and nothing has been safe since!