Grandma Shirley Gets the Prize

It has been five months since the Christmas Chaos came and went. Many of the gifts that Jack "loved" in the those early days have found their way to the bottom of the toy box, under the bed, or to the back of the closet. However one gift keeps on giving and getting a fantastic response every time. What gift is it? Who was the gift giving genius?......the winner is Grandma Shirley (Jon's grandma). She gave Jack a subscription to the magazine My Big Backyard. It is a magazine filled with pictures and activities about animals found in the backyard and around the world. Today we received a new magazine (Tigers were on the cover) and there was a shriek from the backseat when I announced that "it came". Shortly after we walked in the house Jack had settled in with his mag and his popcorn. So hat's off to you Grandma Shirley. You get the prize. Way to go on a stellar gift. We Love You!

90* What ?

So it is a mere four days since my last post and wow, what a shift the weather has made. The last two days have had temps between 85-90 degrees. That is crazy weather for here in the northwest. But have no fear, while we may not be use to it...we have certainly enjoyed it. Jack and I were able to spend the day on Friday with some of my childhood friends and their kids at a local lake. It was beautiful. My friends and I chatted and Jack spent his whole day in the water. Come Saturday the sprinkler was in full use in our back yard. There was much running, laughing and jumping. Jack loves water and running..so it was a perfect day.

Only in the Northwest

So it is the middle of May and spring has sprung here in the Northwest.
Yeah Right! The weather has done nothing but dumped buckets of rain and brought chilled temps. Have no fear though, the end of the year preschool field trip to the zoo happened anyways. Jack and I bundled up and put on the slickers for the day. We enjoyed the animals with all his friends and I enjoyed chatting it up with the other moms. Only in the Northwest do we do the zoo on a day that is dumping!


Jack and his "best goofy girl" Kiera

Jack and his "crew" : Zac, Jack, Abby & Brayden

Monday Messiness = Machines?

At our house Mondays tend to be "stay home days". The house is cleaned, laundry done and Jack can lounge about in his PJ's and do his thing far longer than other days. Eventually though on a Monday Jack and I head up stairs to clean his room. Call me a mean mommy but I don't let the kiddo just sit and watch. He has to choose a task and I do another. This Monday though when we walked into his room Jack had an idea.

"Mom, I have an idea. You can get stated cleaning my room. I am going to get dad's hammer, 7 screws and a piece of wood."

" No pal, we don't need any tools, please come and clean up"

" Mom, I just need those tools so that I can build a machine. I am going to build a clean up machine. Then it can clean my room and I can sit on my bed and read a book. Reading a better than cleaning, right?"

" You are right Jack, it is more fun to read than clean but today, we don't have the tools or materials needed to make a machine. We are just going to use our God given machine..."

" God gave us machines???? (shocked)"

" Yup, they are called HANDS."

" Awe mom..."

Forts, Frogs and Fishing

This Sunday we had a fantastic day a the Murky Pond Farm. A couple from church invited all the families to come to their farm for lunch and fun. They had goats, a llama, two large ponds, ducks and geese and lots of fun activities for the families. What a treat. Lots of families from church participated. It was a great way to spend a beautiful spring sunday. Jack loved trying his hand at pond fishing and was content to sit patiently and wait....but after much waiting all he caught was a large gnarly stick. Jack was not disappointed (thus posing for a photo) Next he wanted to paint rocks and play with goats. This kid loved the goats. As if that were not enough fun for one day the kids constructed a few forts. They had a great time working together. It was a great day.


Jack and his good friend Teya,


Jack and Dad patiently waiting for a bite


Proudly showing off his catch : a gnarly stick


Hard at work painting his "bullfrog" rock

Opening Day of T-Ball

The sun shone bright and the breeze was sweet for this our first day of T-Ball.Jack was so excited to put on his tangerine colored "splice communications" t-shirt and his stylish parks and rec hat for this big day. Jon and Jack have been hard at work honing the skills and today we would see Jack in action. Another fun and yet crazy aspect to this years season is that Jon and I are coaching the team (by default). We must admit that we were a little timid going into today's game but all and all we did a great job. Jon was so fantastic with each kid and other dads stepped into help. Our team did great. There were no tears and everyone had fun. We are off to a great start.

CONGRATULATIONS are in order

What do you get when you take a beautiful spring night, a bike fest in bellingham and our favorite residents travis and kendra?

A much anticipated engagement.Yeah!

Congrats and much love to Auntie Kendra and "Uncle" Travis, engaged in true bellingham style tonight, April 25. We are so excited for them to share their lives together.

Dinner : Jack Style

Jack enjoys watching Jon or I cook. And with his growing Independence he has been asking if he can make his meals. We have started slowly with things like cereal or toast. This week though Jack wanted to make a whole meal and so I succumbed to kitchen chaos and made his "dreams" come true. He did all of the tasks that did not include heat. First he decided what we would have : "Fried" Chicken, Corn and Peppers and Biscuits with Jam. I sent him around the kitchen to collect all ingredians. Watching him haul the costco bag of frozen corn in from the garage freezer was quiet amusing. Jack chopped the peepers with great delight and precision. He prepared the fried chicken with all the panache of Emeril himself.(our floor could attest to that) Finally since Jack tends to be unconventional we had square biscuits instead of round. He found great delight and much pride in his end result. For Jack it was a great night, for mom, I am thinking that this could be the start of a beautiful thing.

Weekend Recap

Since the next weekend is fast approaching I thought that I best post our sun soaked pictures from last weekend. The sun busted out in all of it's glory last Saturday and so this family hit the zoo. We packed a lunch, threw our very white legs into shorts and then joined every other family in Washington at the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma. The weather was beautiful, the animals were out in all their frisky"ness" and we very much enjoyed our family time. We really cannot give the PD Zoo enough good press. The have a beautiful facility, great animal habitats and fantastic zoologist that are very helpful and informative. All in all a great weekend.

Yippppeeeee....The wait is over!

If only the post title had something to do with our adoption. But alas it does not.. Finishing a very close second though (and in this whole stupid crazy waiting game known as adoption we have had to shift gears and hope for smaller more tangible goals then a child that we love being placed in our home before he is 10 | says the mommy sarcastically :)....our long, drawn out and painful wait for fantastic televising to return to Thursday nights is over.



Tonight THE OFFICE returns in all of it's glory to NBC at 9:00 tonight. At our home the half an hour leading up to The Office is a hustle and bustle with getting all of our chores, emails, and nightly tasks done. Come 9:00 a hush falls over our room. Jon and I sit in our respective places in complete silence. As soon as the show starts our room erupts with laughter and tears of hysteria fall from our eyes. During this half my lovely husband finds all the joy and laughter that will then carry him through the next week. Watching Jon watch The Office is like watching a little boy at a baseball game. He is full of awe and smiles. Oh..Thursday is a good night.