Project 365.

One of the things I got for my birthday (besides TicTacs - doesn't everyone get these????, Frontierville gift cards - again, doesn't everyone????, some clothes, money, food)... was my Project 365 Kit. Now I have a place to put all the pictures that I've been sticking here and on Facebook all year long. Love it!!!

Thanks everyone for a great 40th!!!

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

Breakfast in bed - nice!!!

Reed helping me blow out those candles!

Today it's my birthday! (Yesterday actually - the 28th - but I didn't have any pictures then, so let's just pretend.) I'm 40!!! Crazy, I know, but you know something??? Not so bad. Great actually!!! I have a wonderful husband, wonderful kids, great friends and family. Yeah, everything isn't totally going our way right now, but I'm still SO THANKFUL for all that we have!!! We are all healthy, happy and able! What else can you ask for???? House situation will get taken care of, and as long as we have each other, the rest will work itself out! So, happy birthday to me! I don't look a day over 29, if I do say so myself!!! :)

Urban Fondue.

All the meats, seafoods and dipping sauces. Pork, beef, chicken, sausage, shrimp, scallops, salmon and lobster! Crazy!!!

For a very long time I've wanted to go to The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant, but just can't get past the cost (come on, they were doing a Valentine's special. Dinner for two was like $185!!! Crazy!!! If I'm spending that much, it better be REALLY GOOD, and there better be like 20 people there!) Anyways, so off topic. So, as a special treat for my birthday (which is tomorrow), D took me to Urban Fondue, a fun restaurant in Portland that is all fondue and the cost is so much better! It was so yummy! We had bread with a cheese fondue (really, that was all I needed!), all sorts of meat and seafood that you then dipped in oil and cooked and then ate (YUMMY!!!), and finally chocolate with fruit and treats!!! So yummy and oh, so filling! I would definitely go back there another time!

Walk the walk.

Macy, Luke, Cooper, D and I participated in a 5K walk for Prevention. For a healthy, drug free community. It was a bit cold and rainy, but a lot of fun none the less, and I really enjoy seeing so many friends, neighbors and teachers out there supporting the community. I love where we live!

Sick baby.

Poor little Reed was having a bit of the sniffles. Macy woke up one morning and told me that Reed wasn't feeling well and shouldn't go to school that day. I didn't really think anything of it until he started throwing up. Yeah, why don't you stay home???

So, he's just laying on the couch, asks me to put on Star Wars (he takes after D and Chad that way), and when I come in 20 minutes later he is sound asleep. Needless to say, when he woke up he was feeling much better! Sometimes that's all you need... a little extra napping! And he is welcome to do it ANYTIME!

Sing out Mary Jane.

Luke informs us that he has a performance on Thursday night. He thinks it's at the high school. He thinks it's in the gym. He thinks the other middle school is involved. But that's about it. (While talking to other parents, they got the same information, so apparently none of them were really told anything.) He said he had two songs to sing, but he was singing them, he thought, with the other school, so it would be no big deal. Well, he was wrong.

Apparently it was his middle school (with two choir groups), the other middle school (with two choir groups), and the high school (with four choir groups). What we thought would only be about 20 minutes, really turned into almost 2 hours. Not bad... except that a) they sing really boring songs. Come on. Who picks these songs anyway??? and b) Luke's group sang second. Then we had to wait for EVERYONE else to sing. I didn't want to be rude and leave... but I was seriously thinking about it.

Why do they have to combine all of them into one night anyway? I would've much preferred just hearing Luke's two songs and then going home, thank you very much. Just saying.

Spring is here!

I think I take this same, or very similar, picture EVERY year! I love it! Daffodils just randomly springing up everywhere, no thought, no concern, no one planted them (I think), they just seem to grow wild in the Great Northwest. And they make me happy. And that's good! Their cheery yellow faces are just so bright and sunshiney.

Something I found out though???? When I tried to plant some, on purpose, in our front yard... apparently deer really like them. And we have lots of those here too that just wander, and just as my daffodils were getting all ready to poke out their little heads, I would come back the next day and the heads had been chomped off. Oh well. I still see them everywhere else, so all is good!

More hide and seek.

And Reed wanted to get in the act too. So we "found" him in a toy bin one time, and then again using the toy bin to "hide". Doesn't matter that we can see his body... he can't see us so it's all good!

Lots of Hide and Seek.

D under the sofa. Can you see him??? He was totally balancing the sofa on his body and it was pretty funny.

And hiding behind Grandma Dean's mirror. Kind of hard to miss in this one, huh?

Our children like to play games... a lot. Luke is known for making up games. Changing the rules. Being the boss. He likes to run things, and we like to mess with him. Makes the whole thing a bit more fun.

So the other night, we're playing hide and seek, and D was getting pretty creative with his hiding spots.

Want a job???

So after Macy's performance, D took her to Dairy Queen to get an ice cream cone. While they were there, the girl asked her if she wanted to make her own cone. Fun! Now we know what her future calling is.

Let the show begin.

We had this really cute old-time movie theater in our old-time downtown and last summer it closed down. It really bummed us out! They ran first-run movies, but it only cost like $3 to get in and the popcorn was always fresh, so we spent a lot of time there.

Well anyways, someone took it over. New ownership. They opened this past weekend and as part of their grand opening, they had Macy's vocal choir perform there. It was pretty cool!

Burgers for everyone.

Derrick and I have recently discovered Top Burger, a cute little burger place in our town. Yes... we've been there before (once!)... when we first moved here. But then it closed down for a bit to do some remodeling (and you could only pay with cash, and who ever has cash on them???), and we finally went back and discovered that you know what? Their burgers are dang good! And so are their french fries!!! And so are their tots!!! (And you can now pay with your ATM card which is so much easier!!!) So... we headed there for a nice family dinner - minus Chad because he was at a friend's house - to show the kids how yummy their food was.

Top of the Morning to Ye!

Some of the leprechauns that live in our house!

Note he left behind.

The pot of gold that was inside a box, inside a box, inside a box... after following a trail of green beads. Pretty sneaky that little leprechaun.

My friend Joy thinks that I make up holidays. Ok... maybe I do make up a few... (you mean EVERYONE doesn't celebrate Christmakuh or Cinco de Octubre?) But really... St. Patrick's Day is a REAL holiday! Not one that I made up. She totally didn't understand why I didn't want to go to a Scentsy meeting on St. Patrick's Day. That I needed to eat super yummy corned beef and cabbage.

I did end up going (late), but it was totally after the yummy dinner and trying to catch the leprechaun. We missed him again... but he managed to make good use out of some of our boxes too by hiding his pot of gold in a few of them!

The trap is set.

When Macy was in 1st grade, one of the assignments was to make a leprechaun trap. We never ended up making it for school, but still managed to make one and it gets brought out every year. Every year the kids totally rig it to catch the little green guy and have yet to catch him, but he always causes a bit of mischief and leaves of pot of "gold", so they are happy.

Show the Love.

The past few days we have been inundated with love. We have had friends come to help us pack. Friends have brought dinner. Friends have brought treats. Friends have shown up at 8:45 in the morning with ice cream just to check on us. Sometimes crappy things happen, but it's oh, so nice to know that you are loved.

The deed is done.

Chad got his braces. He hated me a bit for it... but someday he will love me for it (and I know it... even if he doesn't!).

Thanks to Dr. Allen for doing a great job with the boys!!!

Making lemonade...

So, with this whole moving thing in our life right now, the kids decided to "make some lemonade with all the lemons". They've made box forts almost everywhere in our house. They've turned boxes into bases. They've hidden in them, around them, under them.

It's great to see the fun in all of this.

(Note to anyone asking... our move is temporarily on hold. With all my freaking out last week, a lawyer has been brought into the situation and as of now we don't know what's going on... so keep us in your prayers, and remember to make a box fort every now and then.)

Bring on the Green!!!

Last year on St. Patrick's Day as a special treat we took the kids out for Shamrock Shakes from McDonalds. We went to three McDonalds... and they were ALL SOLD OUT!!! Note to self... never actually look for a Shamrock Shake on St. Patrick's Day!

So this year, we were ahead of the game. We headed out and got our Shamrock Shakes and loved every minute of them! (And D even took the kids out AGAIN on St. Patty's Day to a different Mickey D's and still found some... so now we know which one to hit up next year! Apparently Mickey D's was more aware of the demand this year and provided more Shamrock Shake stuff to the stores. Good job Mickey D's!)

Again? Ok...

One of my favorite places... Costco. They opened one near us right before Thanksgiving, and I spend A LOT of my time there! People have yet to discover it, so it's never that crowded. Go on a Saturday? Yep! Go just to get $1.50 hot dog and soda? You bet! Not busy and easier to get in to than the Walmart across the street! And you can never beat all the samples! Last week they had cupcakes from a Portland Bakery. They had 5 different kinds that they cut into 1/4s and you could sample all of them! Needless to say, Reed and D sampled quite a few, and we ended up taking home 4 packs of them! Yummy!

Look out Iron Chef!

Our "Iron Chef" team - Adam, Mikey, Brendan, Ben, Adam, Natalie, Brooke and Rachel

The activity for our youth group (12-18 year-olds) this week was an Iron Chef challenge. Each group was given a bag of ingredients, with the secret ingredient being pineapple. They had one hour to come up with something fabulous! We happened to be one of the "kitchen stadiums" and it was a lot of fun watching all the kids. Really funny to see the girls cooking while the boys just looked on, trying to come up with stupid Nacho Libre names for the food they were preparing (while their leaders, Derrick and our friend, Scott, played XBox in the background!).

They didn't end up winning anything, but I enjoyed eating all their leftover fresh pineapple!

Metal Mouth #2

The beginning of Chad's braces. He has to have his put on in two steps because the ortho didn't have time to do it all at once. So.... here he is with his pretty bands.

Where to start....

Lock box in front of our house

So, after much fighting on our behalfs, and some very dis-honest real estate people (thanks Jill and Lisa at Keller Williams), our house was sold yesterday. We now have 20 days in which to pack a 3000 square foot house and find someplace new to live. We tried to short sale the house, and we come to find out yesterday, during the house auction, that our "lovely" realtors NEVER submitted the offer that was put in on our house, and never even contacted our mortgage company... at least this is what the mortgage company is telling me every one of the six or seven times that I called them yesterday.

Who do I believe? The realtors who are getting offended because I don't believe them (with really no reason to believe them)... or the mortgage company who dragged us along for a year and a half, as we tried to modify our home loan, were finally put on a payment plan and then informed that they were foreclosing on our house because of the difference we didn't pay between our regular mortgage and the trial payment (note... we never stopped paying our mortgage, we were just paying the trial amount, which is exactly what they told us to do)? Who would you believe? Seems like both parties have been screwing with us, and now I don't really know who to believe.

As I'm writing this, I'm trying not to cry. Trying to be strong in front of the kids so they don't get upset also. Trying to leave the house, with the basement that we finished for our liking; a bedroom that we built "Star-Wars"-like specifically for Chad; and brought baby Reed into for the first time. No, I don't love the house. It needs LOTS of updates, but it's still our house. We've enjoyed it for the past four and a half years, and it really sucks that it's been brought to this.

And truly, I think that if the realtors we had been working with honestly did all that they could, and this was still the end result, I wouldn't feel so bad. I just feel so screwed over right now. That I was trusting all the people that were supposed to be working for us, only to find out, way too late, that nobody really was. It just shows me that I need to stop trusting people... and that really sucks!

The great state of Idaho.

For Macy's 5th Grade State Report, she chose to do the state of Idaho. She made a great poster and display, and then notice we added in a Scentsy Boise State Warmer???? Scentsy is based in Meridien, IDAHO, after all. See.... totally works! And, don't you like all the potatoes and potato heads. Give us a theme and we will totally run with it!

Can you say "couch potato"?

This is how D typically spends his Sunday afternoons. Church in the morning, and then find a good place to curl up for a little nap. Not a bad idea if I do say so myself!

Girls Night Out!

I got to enjoy some Girl Time with a bunch of friends, celebrating my friend, Liz's, 40th birthday! We headed to Beaches in the airport and had a great time! The food was wonderful, but the friendship was amazing! (And I especially enjoyed the almost midnight run to Jack in the Box to get more dessert because we didn't have enough. Cheesecake anyone????)

Big 1-3!!!

Happy Birthday to Luke!!! He turned 13! Can you believe it???? We now have 2 teenagers in our house! Crazy!!!

Luke is so much fun in our house! He's a great big brother! Loves to take care of his siblings (whether they want him to or not!). He loves to tell everyone (me and D included) what to do! He is a sweet boy, with a very helpful personality and we love having him in our family!

Happy Birthday Luke! We love you!!!

Really?????

Parents, myself included, line up for hours every year just to register for preschool. Is it the best preschool around???? Truly? No, I don't think so. Is it the cheapest, most convenient, anything??? No, not really. It's more that our kids have been there for four years and it's familiar.

But this is the returning parent registration. I was in line for two hours in the rain, and even some hail (mind you, we had had a snow day the day before!). Some parents had been there since 8:30 that morning! Now know that those parents got their kids in the class they wanted. I was #33 in line, and even though this will be our fifth year at the school, I did not get the class I wanted. Fair??? No, not necessarily... but what can you do? I could've been there at 8:30 too... but I had way too many other things I wanted to do with my day!

Do you like green eggs and ham????

Haley got to have a total Dr. Suess Day in honor of Dr. Suess's birthday! Backwards letters, lots of books and tons of fun!

National Pancake Day!

Um, hello, who doesn't celebrate National Pancake Day?????? Duh... free pancakes???? Yes, please! And not only that, but we happened to have a snow day that day, so it was pancakes for everyone.

We had a great time and even got to meet Ms. Oregon who was there representing Ms. America for the Children's Make-a-Wish Foundation. Very cool!