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!!!

2009 in a Nutshell

I didn't have it in me this year to send out Christmas cards so I figured a post to the blog would have to do and we could try again next year.
The last year was a busy one for us. We decided to start trying to get pregnant at the end of December 2008 thinking it would take a few months. To our surprise we got pregnant immediately. We were living on the bottom floor at Johns parents and decided it was time to move on. we moved into our current apartment in March and have enjoyed being in our own space.
John was busy with school all year long. He became the Secretary for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) student chapter at CWU. He was chosen by a professor to represent the construction management program on a traffic flow redesign committee also at CWU. He served with the boy scouts for awhile and now he is the Sunday teacher for the deacons. John turned the big 30 this year. He is in good company because most of our friends turned 30 this year also. He is very excited for graduation in June and is looking forward to finding a job in his field.
Mariska turned three this year. She has learned to count (almost) to twenty. We are working on letters and it is amazing how fast she picks these things up. She has stopped taking naps (boo hoo) and she is completely potty trained (yeah!) She is a great big sister and loves Jack, sometimes to much. She is always willing to help and loves to cook in her kitchen and also in mine.
Jack was born on October 23rd. He is even more mellow than his sister was as a baby. I feel very fortunate. He is a happy baby and loves to smile and giggle. He loves to watch Riska and really puts up with a lot of what she does to him when I have my back turned. He is a very chunky baby, He was 8 lbs and 7 oz when he was born. Two months later he weighed 15 lbs 8 oz. I think I am looking forward to him crawling and walking because then he might fit into some of his clothes. I cant help but fall in love with him again every time I look at him.
This year was a good year for me. I spent my pregnancy trying to finish projects that I knew I would never get to once I had Jack, one being the cross stitched dragon for my living room. I am the Mia Maid adviser in our ward and I love working with the young women. I am looking forward to John being done with school. I am also a little scared because I have no idea where we will be after he finishes. He is going to look everywhere but the one thing I am fairly sure of is we will not be here in Ellensburg.
My Aunt Toni visited us in June and my mom and sister Aurie visited the week Jack was born. Riska and I took a trip to Vegas in March for ten days. It is always so good to see my parents and the rest of my family. The only thing that would have made the trip better was if John had come with us. John did come with us when we went down to Vegas in August. We drove down and spent two weeks with my parents then drove to Salt Lake to see my extended family. This was a hard trip because I spent the whole first part of the trip sick then John got it, then Riska. I was 7 months pregnant and that was a lot of traveling for me. It was worth it though because of all the time we got to spend with my family.
We are grateful for our family and friends. We are looking forward to 2010 and what it will bring for our family. Hope you all had a very happy New Year! Know we love and pray for you.

Just One Of Those days

So Monday I went to the Doctor and found that the progress we had been making with the baby moving down into the birth canal had been reversed. I felt so depressed. My mom is coming today and I wanted so badly to have a baby by the time she got here. Well, I tried to be positive and I think what I ended up doing instead was suppressing feelings that should not have been suppressed. I slept lousy Monday night and woke very grouchy on Tuesday. Riska didn't get the amount of sleep that she needs to have a good day so we were at each others throats all day Tuesday. The best part of the day was when I got out of the shower. John was on the phone with the cell company and Mariska was quiet as can be. I hollered for her and she said "I'm in mommy's bedroom." I asked what she was doing in there and she replied, "Eating M and M's." I have acid reflux when I am pregnant and chocolate really sets it off so I had a regular bag of M and M's in my night stand that I was saving for after the baby. Mariska the little stinker ate the whole bag. I completely lost it. I sat on the edge of the tub and sobbed. John came in worried that something was really wrong and when he asked all I could say was "Mariska ate my M and M's!!!!" I wish I was lucid enough to actually see his reaction to my emotional outburst. It had to look pretty funny. A grown women crying over candy. I laugh now because it is funny. It just didn't seem funny at the time.Oh the things that will put us over the edge.

We have officially caught the bug here!!!! I love watching the Olympics. Our TV has never been on as much as it has in the last week. We are huge swim fans and have found that watching Michael Phelps and his journey through this Olympics very exciting. The other sports that we have thoroughly enjoyed watching is Beach Volleyball. I of course really enjoy watching the men play (for obvious reasons). I think that it is a prerequisite for beach volleyball players to be easy on the eyes. They all seem to be fairly good looking. Anyway moving on. I got a little irritated watching the men's gymnastics. The Chinese are really good and our boys really had their work cut out for them but I felt that we were really jipped when it came to our scores. Even the commentators said that they felt the US scores were lower than they should be. I was really excited when Nastia and Shawn took Gold and Silver in the women's all around. I have never seen anyone stick their landings the way Nastia did yesterday. I am really looking forward to seeing the track and field events. I think they started today. Mariska has even enjoyed watching with us. She loved the gymnastics and would laugh hysterically when they did flips and jumps. You can definitely tell how vocal we are when it comes to sports because when ever John and I really get into it we yell and holler at the TV. I was on the phone with my mom during one of Michael Phelps races and all of a sudden Mariska was not quite yelling, but saying loudly "GO, GO, GO!" It was rally cute. I just checked a little while ago China has more gold medals than any other country but the US has 48 medals over all and China has 41. I think when this Olympics ends I will be a little sad. It has been really fun to watch and get excited for the competitors who are representing this wonderful country. GO USA!!!!!!!!!

So I look at families with children who are going to school and they make it look so easy. Now I realize that they must have some kind of super power to keep it all together. I don't know if it feels this way because I am taking three ten week classes that have been condenced into 6 weeks or if this is how it is going to be the whole time we are both in school. If I didn't have to sleep I think this would be a whole lot easier.
School is going good so far. I can't believe that I am already at Mid-terms. I have a mid-term on the third and then one at the begining of next week. I have already had a couple tests. I scored the highest in my logic class on our last test. I was so excited because my teacher said that the first test is the hardest. I pulled a 93 out of 100. John was giving me a hard time about it. He said that I just messed it up for everyone else if the teacher grades on a curve. I told him that I honestly didn't care I was just happy for the A.
Not doing so bad in my Geography class. I am a little worried about the final on Thursday but I have been keeping up on the reading and I will start studying tonight. Hopefully this will help me get a good grade. Those two calsses are my favorites. I have a hard time with English because it is so boring. My teacher reminds me of Edna Mode of the "Incredibles." This is the only thing that makes the class worth staying awake for.
Our trip to see mom and dad was a lot of fun. We spent the first part traveling and then the second part taking it easy. We went to the beach while in California. It was so beautiful. I love playing out in the water. Aurie and I had a lot of fun until the last wave took us both down and dragged us across the ocean floor. I hit my face on the ground and scuffed up my elbows and knees from where I hit. I ended up with so much sand in my swimsuit you could fill a sandbox. Mariska wanted nothing to do with the water. I think it is because it was moving and loud. She does fine in the bathtub or pool, so I find that kind of funny. We also went to Utah and visited with family. on our way home we stopped and did a hike at the petrified sand dunes in St. George. Mariska sure got dirty.
Aurielle's gradutaion was the big reason for us going to Vegas this last time. It is weird to think that we are all out of high school. We had a lot of fun spending time with Grandma and Grandpa Wareham when they came down. The day before we left we had our family pictures taken. They turned out really good. I can't wait to get them. If you want to see them you can got to this link;

nffocus.com/frank

I am posting some pictures just for fun. Hope everything finds you all well.