And the winner is......

Sunday, 4-12-09

ELISSA!
Grandma had both her and Zach do a coloring contest at Bartell Drug for Easter. We got a call about a week before Easter that Elissa had won for her age group. Grandma went and picked up her prize and then brought it on Easter day. She got a really cool prize of a Cranium Giggle Gear Mega Mask. She was so excited that she won!
It is a voice morph er with a mask.

Crusin' in the boat......

Monday, 4-20-09
It was such a beautiful evening that we decided to go out cruisin' in the boat. Actually Darin wanted to fish, but that is a bit hard to do with two restless kids in the boat. I think that this is the first time that Zach has been in the boat (on the water). He was a little apprehensive at first, but then he started enjoying it.

Look at that form! I mean Zach. hee, hee :0)

Look! Other boats.

Amazement as we went under the little bridge going onto the island.

Elissa is very comfortable in the boat. She even went potty in a bucket in the boat. Later she said, "Daddy, that is what fishermen do." Crack me up!

We are having fun now!

You can see Zach's cut on his head.

It was a fun WARM Spring family evening.

Happy Easter!

Sunday, 4-12-09

Elissa sang in the church kids choir this morning for both services. We are so proud of her! :0)

A Simple Message......

This means everything to me. My life would be without hope and without direction. It is comforting to know that the Bible is God’s word and it is filled with absolute truth. This world is void of absolute truths in this politically correct society. Instead they believe that your beliefs are your truth and my beliefs are my truth, but there is no ONE truth. How do we live in a society like this with no absolute moral code? For me, it is an absolute truth that Jesus is God and that He humbled Himself and came to earth as a man so that He could then die to take on all the sin of man - past, present and future. Then we could and can communicate and have a relationship directly with God. Jesus was then raised on the third day to the glory of God and appeared to people for 40 days before He was taken back to Heaven. This is the ultimate in selfless love, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 There is nothing that I can do to earn His love that is freely given. I only have to believe that Jesus is Lord and the ONLY way to God. This is the true message and meaning of Easter.

Thank you Lord for daily giving me unconditional Love, never ending Grace and Strength to do Your will. AMEN

Zach's First Major Accident

Thursday, 4-9-09
Well what an afternoon we had. We went over to Grandma and Papa's to see their new puppy Bear. While Zach was in the backyard playing he was racing down the concrete patio area with a big tonka truck and it fit a post in the middle of the area and he went flying forward and hit his head on the post. I watched him do this and ran over to him and was shocked to see a big gash on his forehead and blood running down his face. Obviously something you never want to see happen to your child. Papa and I brought him into the house and tried to stop the bleeding. Thankfully Papa "just happened" (thank you Lord!) to have a really big bandaid in the medicine cabinet. That was good enough to get the bleeding under control and we headed to the walk-in clinic in Covington.

Here is Zach in the waiting room. His hair looks a little pink because of the blood in it.

Here he is right after he fell asleep (the spots on his shirt is blood). The nurse came in and cleaned it a little and then put some numbing stuff on it that had to sit for 20minutes. I had to hold him with all my might to let her look at him. Then the doctor came in and looked at it and she thought that she would be able to glue it back together instead of having to put stitches in. I was SO happy to hear that. I was not looking forward to having to physically restrain him again. But she needed me to keep an ice pack on the wound for a little bit to get the swelling down. He did NOT want me to do this. I again had to try and hold him down and quiet him and get him just to lay back and eat his popsicle. When Papa came back in the room he started to settle down and he actually fell asleep (way past nap time). The doctor came in to glue him up and we were all VERY quiet in hopes that by some miracle he would stay asleep. HE DID! He slept through her putting glue on the wound and holding it shut and putting the bandage on. Praise God! I was just beside myself in thankfulness that I didn't have to go through hearing him calling me and crying and being scared.

He woke up when we got to the car and was ok. At Grandma and Papa's he had some pudding and was feeling fine. We got home around 4pm and I put him down for a nap and at 7:20pm he is still asleep. He had a rough day.

Here is Papa's new pup Bear. He is such a cutey!

FINALLY a Warm Spring Day!

Sunday, 4-5-09

There has been snow the last FOUR Sundays. It was such a crazy March, but it looks like Spring is finally here for a few days. It was about 70 degrees today and it looks like it is going to be that way tomorrow and Tuesday. It was also nice on Saturday, but more the mid 60s. Today the kids and I got our shorts on and basked in the sun. Then the kids wanted to run in the sprinkler and get in the pool, so we let them. It was definitely warm enough. I love, love, love summer! I was meant to be warm. :0) We had a wonderful day playing in the back yard and BBQing for dinner.

Sandy was excited to play in the water too!

A little side note.....when Darin and I were dating he told me that he had a bass boat. I told my dad and brother and they were very excited to see it and take it out fishing. I don't remember how they figured out that this (below) is Darin's "bass" boat, but needless to say they were under whelmed. I believe they called it a "john" boat.....one of the little stories that still crack us up. hee, hee :0)

Lissy posing as usual....

Zach jumping over and over......

We finished the day with a great BBQ steak and potato dinner.
It was wonderful to finally have our first really warm Spring day!

The Butterfly Attack!

Thursday, 3-26-09

Darin took the day off and we took the kids to the Seattle Children's Museum (awesome!) and the Pacific Science Center to see the butterfly house. This the first time that we had been to either of these places. The kids absolutely loved the children's museum, so we bought a yearly pass. We will definitely be going back and hopefully with the cousins.

After lunch we went over to the science center to go through the butterfly house that we were VERY excited to see after seeing Lisa's blog of their trip. We walked in and you were immediately struck by the warmth and the tropical smells. It took me back to Hawaii and I longed to be lounging on the beach....wishful thinking! The kids loved seeing all of the butterflies flying all around them. Half way through our journey we ran into a rogue butterfly that would not leave use alone. The kids were petrified of it, which was so funny.

Here is our first encounter with the butterfly. It was flying all around us and the kids were interested, but getting a little scared because it was getting too close.

Then it lands on Darin. You are not suppose to touch them, so he just let it climb all over him. The kids were very afraid that it was going to bite him. Even though we told them that butterflies are nice and don't bite, it did not stop them from being upset and scared.

Eeeek, it's climbing higher.....

and higher......

Now it stops and puts it's "straw" into Darin's mouth and then moves a little up and put it in his nose. The kids are freaking out about this. Darin blew air at it to get it to fly off.

It wouldn't actually leave us. You can see the scared face on Zach.

And here it followed us around the corner and landed next to Darin and Elissa. Elissa is actually crying in Darin's arms telling him that she wants to leave now.

I never would have thought that the butterfly house was going to be a traumatic experience. I think we will wait quite a while before we go there again. :0)

Sweet Siblings!

Wednesday, 3-8-09

I love this picture of them together eating Daddy's macaroni spaghetti.
What cute kids!! (ok, I may be biased) :0)