Snow Days!!!

To say that we have had several snow days in the last few weeks would be the understatement of the year. Spokane has had , I believe, 59 inches of snow this month and there is more on the way. Dan has spent a good portion of his Christmas vacation shoveling snow. There is so much snow in our front yard we let the kids sled on the man made hills while Dan was shoveling our driveway...again. As you can see they had a blast. After they had played outside for awhile, we all came in and had some yummy hot chocolate-with marshmallow's of course:)

Thanksgiving At Steve and Candy's House

My Boys Reading

I thought these pictures were too precious!

Jude's First Cereal-6 months old

Jude had his first rice cereal a few days ago. He was really excited until he had his first bite. I'm pretty sure he was thinking "That is what I've been waiting for this whole time". As you can see from the pictures he wasn't that impressed.

That's My Girl!

The other day I was putting James' clothes away when Kayla walked in the room. She had a huge pile of clean clothes in her arms. After she had put them away, I noticed that she had something stuffed inside her shirt. I quickly grabbed my camera when I realized what she was doing. She then took the next few minutes to "unload" her shirt...she had stuffed all her socks, tights, and undergarments in her shirt so she wouldn't have to make another trip downstairs to get them. I thought you might enjoy these pictures, though it was definitely more funny in person:)

Hidden Acres

I've been tagged...

I believe I am supposed to post 7 random things about myself. So, here it goes.

I was born in Portland, Oregon.

I went to Hawaii on my honeymoon.

I had a pet snake that I caught...it was only a foot long.

I hiked down the Grand Canyon (30+ miles in 3 days).

I couldn't do Pilates if my life depended on it...ok, maybe my kids lives.

I love waterfalls.

I hate roller coasters.

Well, hopefully that wasn't too painful for you. I had a new slide show to post, but my computer froze and I didn't feel like making another one. I'll try to post some new pics soon.

Jude Stephen (3 1/2 months)

Here are some new pictures of my handsome "little man". Can you tell I'm in love?

My "Baby" Lost His First Tooth

I can't believe it's already time for Josh to loose his baby teeth. It seems like just the other day I was writing in his baby book when he got his first tooth.

Joshua's First Day of School

Joshua started first grade today. I am doing Abeka DVDs with him. Our first day went pretty smoothly, besides the fact that I was exhausted from staying up previous nights in preparation. This quarter the theme is the zoo, so I made some animals to hang on the wall. I even found a desk tag online with a lion on it(I think I was more excited about that than he was). Next year I think I will start him a week after our academy, that way Dan and I won't be stressing on the same weekend to get things done:)

Our Family Vacation

We had a great family vacation. My uncle let us stay at his cabin in Priest River. You know how sometimes at the end of your vacation you're just ready to go home...well this was not that kind of vacation! It was so relaxing and beautiful there. It reminded me of the verse- Be still and know that I am God.
We roasted marshmallows one night and made smores for the kids. Kayla was totally disgusted with getting the marshmallow on her hands, so she finally got a wet wipe and would clean the marshmallow off before her next bite. She even cleaned the marshmallow off her graham cracker with the wet wipe. Occasionally, the girl in her shines through!

Here are some pictures of Dan chopping down an 80 foot tree with an ax. My uncle told him if he was bored he could cut down one of his dead trees. Unfortunately, this was one of his neighbors dead trees...details:)

We tried to do something fun with the kids every day on our vacation. We took walks, went huckleberry picking, Dan took them fishing, we went to a place called "The mud hole" to go swimming, drove around on the 4-wheelers etc. Anyway, we did have lots of fun. Of course, if it was just Dan and me, we would have been content sitting on the porch swing half the day-but you know kids, they get "bored".

The Many Faces of Jude

Men and Boys Campout

We have had a busy last couple of weeks, but I am going to try to get caught up on all of my pictures. Dan took Joshua to the men and boys camp out with our church. They had a great time. Dan said Josh's favorite part was probably throwing rocks in the river. When I asked Josh if that was true he said, "Ya, but my other best thing was eating pop tarts for breakfast." I didn't make the menu and I didn't ask:)

The Not So "Quick Set" Pool!

The kids were given birthday money to get a pool this summer. So we bought one of those pools where you just blow up the top ring and add water:) Well, after tilling an area in the yard, leveling it out, leveling it out again, blowing up the ring, filling it with water, realizing it really wasn't level, emptying the pool, going to the hardware store to buy sand and a level, spreading out sand and really leveling it again, filling it up again, putting together the ladder, and figuring out the pool filter and chemicals... we FINALLY have a pool! (Yes, I do know that was a run on sentence.) Thankfully, the kids are really enjoying swimming, even if they weren't I think Dan would make them go swimming every day just to get our moneys worth. Well, hope you enjoy the pics.