Christmas

our traditional Christmas morning picutres at the top of the stairs

The kids in shirts from Duddi

Ava and her beloved tent

the Christmas runner Duddi made for us....Thank you!

After a long day :)

We have had a wonderful, peaceful (well, as peaceful as our house can get) Christmas day. We hope you had an enjoyable day as well. The kids did better this year at understanding the true meaning of the day...a mark that they are truly growing up. Andrew liked the kids new toys almost as much as they did :)...(and I have to admit...I had a bit of fun playing with Ava's multilingual doll). James's highlight of the day was playing star wars with his brothers. Joshua's highlight was the bow and arrow he recieved (yes we are regretting it...no one is safe from the suction cup!). Jory's highlight was the bakugan ball in his stocking...you have to be nine or four to understand :). Ava's highlight by far was her pop up castle..."Come in my castle please" was requested about a million times today. Thank you to everyone for the lovely gifts. We miss seeing you all this year, although it is nice not to have to travel...or pack! Merry Christmas!

Peace

The kids got out all the instruments and were playing along to music.

It's so nice when the kids get along.

Thanksgiving

Grandma and Grandpa Hill came up for Thanksgiving. We went to Leavenworth, WA for a night. We stayed at the Enzian Inn, the same place we went to with Duddi when she came for Thanksgiving.

Snow Masterpieces

Andrew is experiencing delusions of grandeur and has created a luge that goes from our playstructure in our backyard down to the cul-de-sac. Supposedly it is great fun to go down. All I know is that I hit the fence post and decided to be done. The "Igloo" he created next is pretty neat I have to admit.

Snow

The Snow The Snow The Snow! This has to be the most we have seen in the 7 winters we have spent here. We moved here so we wouldn't have to shovel ever again! Oh well, the kids are loving it!

The Update

Ava is doing well. She is an opinionated and quite obstinate two year old. She can be as sweet as honey one moment, and in the next moment, wack you over the head with a stick (as Jory can attest to). She is speaking much more, her favorite phrases being "don't touch me" and "no, its MINE", and oh, lest we forget..."I pretty" (uh oh). Delightful, we know.

Jory is still our sweet red-head most of the time. He wants to say and do everything his older brothers say and do and we are trying desperately to keep him from saying and doing most of theses things. We'll see who wins... He is on the brink of starting piano lessons. He loves to play legos and has discovered the joy of playdates when his brothers are at school. He tolerates Ava fairly well and when they aren't fighting in the car over everything and anything (yesterday it was over whether it was snowing or not -"is too - is not - is too - is not" - AHHHH) they are quite happy together, singing and dancing and chasing each other around the house with swords (I tried and failed to keep them from this - so much for my girly girl aspirations for Ava)

Joshua is still as determined as ever. He has amazed us this year with his school work. He will literally go through his homework packet, choose the assignment least desirable to him and say "let's do this now and get it over with". He had to get glasses last month and picked them out himself. We think he looks pretty cosmopolitan. He is pretty proud of them and was even more so when James tried to convince us that his vision was failing and he needed glasses like Joshua - then admited he was just jealous. You could see Joshua mentally jumping for joy.

James...he's nine....sheesh, we have been parents for almost a decade. Hopefully we have not made too many terrible mistakes in our parenting. James is pretty entertaining to be around. He is doing wonderfully with his piano study and is doing well in school. He and Joshua get along splendidly most of the time. They have a lot of fun together.

Hair and Halloween

Halloween was fun for the kids. Following tradition, we went to Rose and Steve's. Ava was excited about the whole thing and kept wanting to go to "one more house".

Ava's braids...cute

Close Encounters

Andrew had gone on a business trip to Vancouver and was returning a car he had rented to Weyerhauser. At around 11 PM, he was walking from the rental car lot to the lot where he had parked our 4Runner when he heard rustling in the bushes. It was pitch black and immediately thoughts of large, aggressive animals with sharp teeth or deranged, psychotic humans with weapons, ran through his head. At this point he started to panic and ran. He had been running for a minute when he felt claws dig into the top of his head. This came without any forewarning...no whooshing of wings, no scream of attack... he kept waiting for his attacker to grab his neck or do something...anything else. It turned out to be an owl attacking him. He, of course, started to scream and ran even faster, waving his arms furiously. The bird circled and was about to dive for another attack when Andrew finally came to an area that was lit. The owl flew off, but left him with some nasty, bleeding marks in his skull. Needless to say, this was all really very very funny (at least to me :))

Our Money Pit

So we finally committed to finishing our yard and as Andrew predicted we did indeed have scope creep (more than we would like to admit to). So now I am obsessed with keeping our money alive (that's how I view all these plants...now...our retirement). Oh well, maybe now our yard looks good enough to sell...hahaha.

Olympic Dreams

Much to our chagrin, the boys started BMX racing. James and Joshua are doing fairly well. Joshua just moved up to the intermediate division and James is not far behind. As for Jory, well, we are just happy he doesn't fall. After the kids have their first race, the track gives them special "first race" trophies that just happen to be their old tournament trophies. They are absolutely (to use a favorite term of James') ginormous. When Jory was awarded his, he was so happy he wanted to sleep with it. Needless to say he has been a bit disappointed that his subsequent racing efforts have not been so generously rewarded. The kids are having fun and getting some great exercise and now since it is an Olympic sport, Andrew is a bit happier about the whole thing.