Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Gifts of Love

Monday, 2.27.12

My Mom came out yesterday and brought me this beautiful quilt she made.
 Lots of love (time) go into planning and making these beautiful works of art.





Thank you so much Mom! I love you!

I also got a surprise bouquet of flowers that came to my door.


Thank you Dennis & Myrna! It was such a nice surprise!

Monday, February 27, 2012

Drawings

This morning Zach went upstairs and then came down proclaiming that he had a gift for me. 

He gave me this drawing.

It is him and I bowling together. :-)

Poor guy is so sad that he missed my bowling party. We told him that we will take him soon and he would really like soon to be today.

Then Elissa drew this on the card she gave me.
The "Mrs Heather" cracks me up.


I'm so glad she loves me more. :-)

She's a great little artist!

The Big Four-O!

I can't believe that is me.

I'm 40 today.

Is it just me or does that sound old? Like I'm supposed to be a real adult now. Eeek!

You know you are old when you now understand what your parents meant when they said "I don't feel that old." :-)

But really I have to say 40 is great! I'm more physically, mentally and spiritually healthy then I have ever been. I have an awesome husband and wonderful kids. And great friends. What more could a girl want?!

I certainly couldn't ask for a better 40th birthday party!

Friday morning I dropped the kids off at Nana's house for the day so I could go get pampered before my birthday party that evening. :-)

I met Kirstin at University Village where we had appointments at SWINK Style Bar. 

Before

After


Thank you Dennis & Myrna for the gift card to SWINK!
We had a fun time!

While we were there, I got a call from Elissa & Nana to tell me that Zach had thrown up. Poor guy! He said his tummy wasn't feeling good. I think it is the antibiotics we are on. Elissa was just worried that she wasn't going to be able to come to the party. She wanted to make sure that I would still pick her up. :-)

After our hair appointment we did a little shopping and then had lunch at Piatti Restaurant. Such yummy Italian food! When we came out of the restaurant it was drizzling, so we grabbed a UVillage umbrella to keep our new do's looking good.

I headed back to Auburn to see my little boy for a little bit while Nana ran a couple of errands. He was in good spirits, but was asleep when I left again. He definitely wasn't feeling so good.

Then I went and had an express mani/pedi - courtesy of Nana - Thank you!

I got home just before Darin to get changed and primped.

I'm all ready to go!






















We picked up Elissa and headed to ACME Bowl in Tukwila. A bowling party may sound a little cheesy, but it turned out to be the most amazing birthday party! Courtesy of my fabulous husband who planned it all himself. You did really great Honey! I loved every minute of it!

Thank you to my family and friends that came to help me celebrate! I had such a fun time with you!

And an extra special Thank You to Holly for being my photographer for the evening! I really appreciate you taking the time to capture my special evening.

Here are a few pictures that I took that night.

My fav....Costco white cake w/cream cheese filling and buttercream frosting.
A Mexican fiesta. It was SO yummy!

 
My sparkly girl!
























Do you see a theme??



























Here is a little snippet of Elissa & Symantha dancing. They were entertaining us all night. Elissa felt like such a cool big girl! :-)

I really suck at bowling, but I did get a strike on my last turn. :-)





















It really was such a fun, fun evening!

Sunday evening my kiddos gave me this for my birthday.
It is their birthstones....amethyst & emerald with a diamond in the middle for forever.

Darin made an observation that my two favorite colors are green & purple. Funny.

Thank you Honey for making me feel celebrated and loved and spoiled!

I love you!

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Zach Turns 5!

Wednesday, 2.22.12

A Batman Bouncy Party!

We were at the cabin on the day of Zach's birthday. His party was supposed to be that afternoon at 3pm when we got back. As you know we were delayed getting over the pass, so I had his party post poned until Wednesday. Thankfully all but one of his friends could still come.

Elissa, Chase & Cole
Brady, Ethan & Zach















































He had a great time at his party!

I have to mention that Grandma made cake pops for Zach's birthday. Zach asked for them because he likes to get them at Starbucks. :-) She made a trial run of them and they were really great. For Zach's party she didn't have vanilla pudding so she used banana pudding....not really the same. LOL! It wasn't the kid's favorite. Then Chase was very disappointed that there was no actual cake. I guess he woke up the next morning and said, "Who doesn't have cake at their birthday?!" Cracks me up!

We love you Zachary!!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

A Little Time Away

Fri-Tues, 2.17 - 2.21.12
Cle Elum, Bella Lodge

We usually rent a cabin with Kirstin and her family at least once a year. This is the first time that we have done it for President's Day Winter break. I think it will probably be the last too. :-)

We left Friday afternoon around 2pm, from our respective homes and cars. The guys were going to follow after they finished work. It was raining hard up until we got to the pass and then it was dry and clear with just a few flakes coming down. I made really good time. I was very surprised to get to the turn off for the cabin and there is like 3ft of snow everywhere. I can see why it is a snowmobile in/out cabin.


 Here is the side yard with a hot tub and it's own pool w/a water slide. I would love to come back in the Summer and take advantage of the pool and sun!


It was snowing as we got in on Friday and it did not stop until Sunday. It kept snowing and snowing and snowing. We watched the news and found out that a Winter storm had come in and we were going to get at least 7 inches. Saturday morning the pass was closed. Wow, we were not expecting this at all. Though it was beautiful as we were sitting in the warm cabin with the gas fireplace going, drinking hot coffee. :-)
That's Zach out there in the red & black.
And Newman running around with him. Newman loves the snow! Behind Newman is the snowmobile parking area & trails.
 Jaice, Zach & Newman
 Newman found something interesting in the snow. He kept digging and digging. Crazy dog.
 Cute dog.


Now some warming up inside.
 Zach & Payton play really well together. They are either playing some kind of imaginary game or swapping their DSI and iPad. Braxton got a little time to play with them too. :-)

And then zonking out with exhaustion at the end of the day.

Kirk left Sunday afternoon while the pass was open and the getting was good. The weather was warming up, so it should be no problem getting home on Tuesday. Darin left Monday morning and it was a little icy, but otherwise it was fine.

Tuesday morning I got up and checked the pass and it was closed due to high avalanche danger. They would give an update at 10:30am. Well, I never thought that would really happen. I had planned Zach's birthday party for 3pm that day at the bouncy house. This was not good. Kirstin got up and I told her and she just laughed. :-) I figured that we could stay in the cabin until it opened - no one would be coming in to rent it mid week. Well later I called the property management company and it ends up the owner is coming in today. Bummer! So Kirstin and I get it going. We don't know what we are going to do. We don't want two car full of kids sitting on I-90 waiting for the pass to open.

We got in a little birthday celebration for Zach. Monday I went into town and got some fresh cinnamon rolls from the Cle Elum bakery. Yum-O!


Happy 5th Birthday Zach!

At 10:30am the update on the pass is that they would continue to evaluate, but no time for it to open. Then we got a call from the property manager with good news. The owner was stuck too and he said that we could stay as long as we needed and if we had to stay the night then he would give us a discounted rate. We slowed down again. I figured if it wasn't open by 3pm, then we would just stay another night. I didn't want to drive in the rain and dark. Then Darin calls me at 11:30am and says the pass is going to open at 12pm. So we kicked it into high hear. It is raining so we are soaked by the time we have it all packed.

I did remember to get a picture of all the kids just before we got in the car to leave.



We left at 1pm. This was our drive over the pass.
Lots of trucks. We were going between 30-45 miles per hour.

We made it safely over the pass - though there were several crazy drivers that kept on cutting us off. We stopped in North Bend for lunch. Then we headed home. We were packed full. Newman decided he wanted to sleep on top of all the bags so he could see outside. He didn't like being on the floor between the kids. Then Zach had his swords (straws) to keep him busy. We were all ready to be home.

The fun didn't stop when we got home either. Zach had been getting an increasing cough and on Monday I noticed some little red bumps on his back. So I was telling Darin that when I got home and he was looking at Zach and Elissa. They both had little red bumps. Then he walked in our room and told me I had big red bumps on my back. What?! So I run to the walk-in clinic to find out that I have folliculitis from the hot tub. Nice..... Then I take the kids in Wednesday morning and they have the same thing along with their colds. We are all on antibiotics.

It was worth it.

We had a great time.

We just won't go in the Winter again. :-)