New Years 2011

We had so much fun this New Years. We went to our friends the Mason's (Thank you so much for having us Sara and David!!) Sara was really my first freind here in the Tri-Cities. Mariska loves their Daughter Sammy. They are really cute together!
How can you not love this face!!
I swear this boy is always eating
Happy New Year to you all!!!!! We love you and hope that 2011 is a great year!

We are Walking!!

Christmas 2010

This was the first Christmas that John and I have had without any family. It was very quiet. I missed being with family but it was really nice to be just us. We did something every night the week before Christmas as a family. It was fun to have a week full of family home evenings.
I was nuts this year and did the after Thanksgiving sale and basically got all of our Christmas done. It was nice to have it out of the way and the prices that I got everything made it worth the entire night without sleep. (That and John taking the kids to his brothers so I could catch up on the sleep that I missed.
We had our usual Christmas morning breakfast, Breakfast Pizza. I cannot imagine Christmas without the Breakfast Pizza. The kids slept until 9:00. I was awake at 8:00. I was way excited for Christmas morning this year. It was hard waiting that hour for the kids to get up. It reminded me of when I was growing up and having to wait for mom and dad to get up and say it was OK to go and open presents. We were never allowed to go into the living room until we had had family prayer. I really like that tradition and John and I will be using that with our kids. It is easy to do when you wake up before they do. :)
Mariska loved her Christmas PJ's, Jack was indifferent.
I was really surprised at Jack he tore into his presents. It probably was because of how excited Mariska was and he was feeding off of her. It was fun though.

I hope that you all had a grerat Christmas. Know we love and pray for you all!

Thanksgiving for Preschool

Mariska Loves Preschool!!! How could she not when they do such fun activities like this one. they are really fun kids to be around and Mariska has a great time.

Thanks for the pictures Karrie!!!

Happy Birthday Mariska!!

I am a bout a month behind but it has been a busy month. Riska turned 4 at the end of November. We were in E-burg for Thanksgiving and since her birthday was three days later we just celebrated with the family and a couple of her friends.

The big item this year was a bike. She loves it. I feel a little bad giving her something she can't use right away because of the snow. It will be fun to see her finally ride when the snow melts.

Grandma Gail gave her this Princess dress up kit but I think the way she gave it was the best. She had pictures of all the Disney princesses on clues that she hid throughout the house. Mariska had to find them. She couldn't read the clues so her cousin Jimmy helped her out. It was a lot of fun to see all the kids running from clue to clue excited to hear where the next one would be. The final clue led her to the gift. She wears it all the time. Especially the hair. She loves the hair.

John would probably shoot me if he saw that I posted this but I thought it was so funny! He would make a great punk rocker.
Happy Birthday Riska!!!! We love you so much!!

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!