We Did It!

We finally found a place that we liked in our price range! We went and looked at it today then did some errands and met with our realtor to make an offer on the property.

It is a small house with 2 small out buildings but beautiful 4 3/4 acres with a creek, pasture, woods and mature garden and greenhouse.

Going over the papers and filling everything out took a long time so we missed church and dinner. We decided to go out to dinner on the way home and stopped in Ferndale at Chihuahua (I have no idea how to spell that) We forgot that it was old settlers day and a Saturday at that. The resturant was busy and loud but the food was delicious. Aaron especially loved it and cleaned up what others did not eat.

They were all happy with the complimentary dessert that we got!

Kudos

I will take the compliments when I get them. At Costco a woman came up to me when I was in line at the food court and asked the typical "Are they all yours?" I said yes. and instead of the usual "Wow you have your hands full" or whatever she said " I have been watching you through the whole store and your children are really well behaved. It was enjoyable to watch you with them"
Thanks for the compliment. It shows that the training and struggles are worth it.

Life's a Beach

Today we had to leave the house by 10:30 because the house was being shown. We cleaned up, dropped Mikaela off at work, went to Costco, ate lunch, got gas (it was only $3.99/gallon) Traded with my WONDERFUL friend Tami for the stuff she got me at Cash n Carry, Then I headed home, put stuff in the fridge, and freezer grabbed swimsuits and headed to the beach!! We met Jessica, Jake, Savannah, Sybell and her girls +2 and Tami came with Everett and Isobell.
Although it was not 80 degrees the children all played wonderfully. They kept eating and eating. I fed them lunch at Costco but they ate all the double batch of homemade granola bars, a whole loaf of PB&J sandwiches, some bananas, chips, water and crackers.

Jess is not officially due until August 21 but she is having twin boys and is really ready any time. they told her the current estimate on the baby's weight is 6lbs 11oz and 7lbs 1oz. That's a lot of baby.

We left the beach went home showered, changed, and ate another delicious meal a la Fix, Freeze and Feast. We had Mango Cranberry Chicken, Rice and watermelon. then we headed back to the beach for a surprise party for Jon Landis.

He was very surprised and had fun playing on the 'teetertotter' with the kids.

Naomi, Jon's daughter helped Ruby pick me some flowers.

Ian was bummed because everyone else went t0 play beach football and he couldn't find anyone to teetertotter with. Papa saved the day and played with him.

We got home late and were putting the children to bed and someone rang the doorbell 5 or 6 times and knocked on the door. When I answered thinking it was a neighbor with an emergency I discovered that it was a salesman!!!! It was after 10pm! He said it will only take 5 minutes. Let's just say that I was not hospitable at all.

Many hands make light work

Ok so this pregnancy the morning,afternoon, evening, and all other time sickness is far worse than it has ever been. Needless to say that cooking is really a struggle for me. I bought some hamburger for $1.66 per pound and needed something done with it. The sight and smell made me really want to get sick so I called in the boys and after some hand washing and instruction they mixed and molded meatballs.
I love the cookbook "Fix, Freeze, and Feast" and we enjoy the mozzarella meatball recipe. The boys rolled and I scooped and they were productive and I knew where they were and best of all I did not have to touch the meat!!

Boat building 101

Taylor found a board at the pond by our house and carried it home on her scooter. She then recruited several of her brothers to help her make a boat to sail to the middle of the pond. First they painted it, then they found more wood and attached the sides. She asked if we had any tar she could use to patch the holes.

Aaron did a lot of the glueing and assembling. I was thankful that they chose to do their project in the back yard (notice all the supplies all over the place).

Then came the day to try out the boat. Ian and Ruby loved playing in the water, they didn't care about the boat.
Taylor was very excited that the boat actually floated. However she was very dissappointed that I would not let them try it in the pond. They did try to get in it and it promptly sunk. It was very cool to see their engineering at work.

I was hoping that the boat would sail out to sea never to be seen again. Taylor said, "that would be a waste of a perfectly good boat" so alas, we loaded the boat back into the van to bring home and improve.

Camp Grandma

Where have we been? We spent a glorious week at my mother in law's house in Yakima. What? you might ask Really, I love my mother in law. She totally pampered me the whole time. I literally did none of the cooking!! The food was delicious and we had dessert every day!! Erik earned some money pulling weeds. Here he took a break in the tree in the back yard.

All of the children loved the dress up clothes that were in her closet. Many of them came from Sean's grandma and from the lady across the street. Ruby loved going swimming almost every day at Franklin pool and I loved the fact that all that was expected of me was to sit on the side of the pool and watch while Sean played with the good swimmers and Chris played with the not so much swimmers. AHHHHH, what luxery especially since it was in the 90's.

I am not sure what Aaron is but they had several javelin throwing contests with the ski poles. They also discovered a roll of duct tape and made many creations and contraptions from items found in the basement.

We made a day trip to Stevenson (2 1/2 hours away) to go to the family reunion. Sean and Erik and Taylor and Aaron swam out to the middle of the river to an island, they found an ax head and brought it home and got a new head, put it on and tried it out. Much satisfaction in your boys breaking a sweat doing some good hard work.

This is the initial pile they ended up with after several days of splitting wood we had a good pile of kindling. Ahhh that I actually felt bored at one point ( I honestly cannot remember the last time I had nothing to do). While we were gone 4 different families looked at our clean house and 3 were seriously interested, our Queen bee went on her nuptial flight and caused some neighbors to call 9-1-1. All is well and she is laying now. Our return trip took 9hours!!! We had to repair a tire, get cherries, get gas, stop and look for a peach stand (no luck), get ice cream and Dairy Queen, go potty, Stop at Sportsman Warehouse and look for a hat, Return a hat at REI, drop off cherries, get more gas, see if a house we wanted had sold, get milk and eggs, drop off more cherries and then arrive home to make pancakes and sausage at 9pm!!! My bed felt great now, back to reality

Berry Picking

Usually we go to Bjornstead's to pick our berries but this year we tried Barbies. This was our second attempt. The first time we picked 9 pounds including 4 that Ian picked(kinda small and green).

Everett and Aaron were very good helpers. Aaron went for the prize of the kid that picked the most berries-- He got 8 pounds of wonderful juicy red delicious berries, I wonder how many pounds he would have picked had he not eaten any???

Here are my pickers/eaters before we began. Taylor picked 6 pounds of berries but spent most of the time watching and entertaining the 3 little girls--what could possibly be more helpful than that?

Ruby really likes the strawberries and is not so discerning between the dirt and the berry.

Mikaela's Graduation Party

OK, so I know I am not exactly doing the blog in the order that it happens but well, that's life. The morning we were getting ready to come to Geaba's house for Mikaela's Seattle Grad Party I decided to iron everyone's clothes (for a 2 hour car ride --what was I thinking?) I was distracted and Ruby was Ruby and grabbed the iron and burnt 3 fingers and the palm of her hand. I felt horrible and as a result we were not early but right on time to the party. Luckly my momm and Kimberly had everything together and there was not a thing they needed done. This photo is of my momm with all of her grandchildren.

Chris, Jeanne, Uncle John, Mikaela, Uncle Mike, Me, 'Aunt' Alfreda

Baby Sarah, my brother's youngest wearing an outfit that used to be Mikaela's.

Ruby loving the trampoline. She has quite the little thigh muscles from all the jumping!

Erik is the adrenaline junkie!! Here he is jumping with Mikaela and Sean and yelling "Higher" with each bounce. Since he is only 47 pounds it is easy to get him higher than the roof of the house.