Our Little Picasso

grady, our little picasso, had his first art class this morning! their project was a dinosaur collage. now for the untrained eye, the dinosaur may be difficult to see. but with my special mommy eye, i could totally see the masterpiece!! next week the instructor said they would be using circles. grady is an absolute master at circles, so he should blow her away with his abilities next week!! we will have new artwork to post every wednesday for the next six weeks!! keep checking, you may just be looking at the work of the next van gogh!!

Happy Birthday to Amanda !!

well yesterday was a big day in the fox household....i turned the big 3-0 !! after the skiing extravaganza on sunday, when i woke up yesterday morning, popping, groaning, and moaning, i felt more like 80 than 30 !! the good news is today i woke up feeling 20 again, all back to normal, boy i can't wait to go skiing next weekend !!! ha !! the fox men did it again. somehow every year they manage to spoil me rotten. they prepared shrimp, parmesan crusted scallops, baked potatoes, creamy corn, and garlic bread !! it was super delicious!! in fact that is what grady kept calling the shrimp, he would say "can i have more delicious please?" how cute !!! greta, even from 1500 miles away, managed to be in charge of the birthday cake!! she ordered an angel food cake from a bakery up here and had it delivered. the delivery guy even serenaded me with an off key opera version of happy birthday!! i thought it was cool, i was just worried what the neighbors might think! ha! i had an absolutely wonderful day, and was just delighted beyond belief this morning when i was able to walk without oohing and aahing!! i tell ya, you think you're in good shape until you spend a few hours with jojo the ski instructor a few days before ya have a birthday!!

bigfoot has been spotted ?!

on our way back from stevens pass ski resort, there was a little espresso stand with a bigfoot carving right next to it. this is actually the spot where they filmed harry and the hendersons movie back in the '80's ! the little man you see gabe holding in the picture is flat stanley. he is a project one of my little cousins is doing for her school back in kansas. they were to send flat stanley to friends or family that live somewhere else and then we are supposed to take stan the man along with us to do and see our area we live in !! in the next couple of weeks you will see stanley in a few of our pics !! just didn't want any one to think we were losing it by carrying around a little cut out man !

skiing ?!

gabe and i tried our hands at skiing this weekend. we both signed up for private lessons seperately. i wouldn't want to bring him down !! my coach's name was JoJo, and she was perfect. she was very patient and knew exactly how to coach me !! after trekking up and down the bunny hill about 50 million times, she said okay i think you are ready for the lift. for those of you who didn't know, i am deathly afraid of heights. i always knew i could catch on to the skiing part, but the lift terrified me. well -- it wasn't as bad as i had imagined, it was actually a huge relief just getting to sit there and not have to do anything for a few minutes. but then the top of the lift came and the real fun began ?! well to make a long, painful story short, out of 4 runs, i fell 5 times, but 3 of the 5 came on the first run. the second run went so perfectly, jo jo was so proud of me and then came my moment of overconfidence. jojo said wedge left, which meant i should have gone right, but you guessed it i went left, yep warp speed down the rest of the mountain. all i could do was yell outta the way, thankfully i did hear the all knowing voice of jojo yelling from behind, "amanda on your butt". so down i went thud, thud,thud, ending in a heap at the bottom. the angel jojo was so worried until she saw i was laughing histerically, i then have never seen anyone laugh so hard at me. she said she was sure she was going to find a heap of bones. she then admitted she thought i was just being adventurous going down the fast slope, i then set her straight nope i was just out of control !! the next two runs went a lot better, just one little skid on the third and a perfect run on the fourth. i always feel you should stop when you are ahead, so the fourth was my last for the day. gabe had a much better day. his coach said he was learning very quickly, and he loved it. he thought it was so much fun. this morning he was like, "mom i feel great, why are you so sore?" oh someday he'll understand !! gabe and shawn are going out again next weekend to do the actual lift and mountain !! we'll keep you updated !

basketball cookie cooking !!

so the story begins -- the fox family was in charge of snacks for saturday's basketball game and i come up with this crazy idea - hey let's make basketball shaped cookies. gabe chimes in that would be so cool, everyone else has just brought store bought stuff. so to google i go and find a recipe for butterscotch basketball cookies. the idea behind the butterscotch was it would bake up orange, no need for frosting the cookies orange, just the black lines. wow how could i have stumbled upon something so easy. well you know the old saying if it seems to be to good to be true, it probably is. well needless to say i frosted all 48 cookies and decorated them, and for those of you who know my decorating skills in the past you know this was no small feat !! thankfully kids are easy to impress and they were a hit !! and the boys and i had a blast making them, hopefully they will remember the fun we had and not mom saying stop throwing the flour, you can't touch the dough, it will have fingerprints all over the basketball, etc......

Oh My, The Monster Truck Show

On Friday night we experienced a Washington style Monster Truck show. It was along the same lines as the ones we had been to in Wichita, but on a much larger scale. There were 10 monster trucks, all big names. For those of you that do not know the "big names" Maximum Destruction, Grave Digger, Batman, Blue Thunder, Bull Dozer, and they released a new one at the show -- drum roll please -- Donkey Kong !! Oh can you feel the excitement. Gabe needless to say was in monster truck heaven !! We didn't tell Gabe where we were going, so that even added to the excitement element. I had told Grady earlier in the day where we were going because I was getting out the tickets, ear protection, and flags and being the inquisitive 2 year old, he had to know. It was really humorous though, Grady kept saying "monster" when Gabe was guessing where we were going, and Gabe didn't pick up on the hint. It was an hour drive down to Tacoma where the show was (2.5 hours in Friday afternoon traffic) and Gabe finally guessed about an hour into the drive. He smiled so big. Then the questions started, Mom did you get the flags(he has two flags, Grave Digger and a checkered flag - a truck show must!), what about the head phones, wow Mom had everything, why don't we give her mom of the year award !! Everyone had a good time, and the hour drive home was really quiet. On Saturday Gabe had another game. They do not keep score, but even with my untrained eye, it was clear the Purple Dragons pulled out the win. Grady wanted me to add this in -- at Sunday School today he made a boat (they learned today about Jesus calming the waters), he is so very proud of it, we took pictures of it and everything !!

Gabe and The "Purple Dragons"

Well Gabe had his first basketball game on Sunday. He is really coming along since his first practice. Shawn and I are definitely not basketball experts by any means, so we are learning with him. I know more today than yesterday, and I will know more tomorrow than today. Who knows we may just become a basketball family!? What wrestling ?? HA! HA! You all know us better than that, but we can always make room for two winter sports. Gabe's coach let the boys pick the team name, thus the Purple Dragons !! They don't keep score, so noone knows who won, but they all had fun. The best part was after the game -- SNACKS!!

Day at Deception Pass

Hey Everybody !!!

We are going to give this blogspot a try !! We are finally all rested up from our holiday travels to Kansas. Gabe has been busy with basketball practice. He is definitely going to be the next Scotty Pippen !! Grady and I have been keeping our social calendar full. We are back at storytime in Lynnwood on Mondays, Tot Time on Tuesday and Thursday, and a mom at Tot Time told us we should meet them at the Library in Mukilteo on Wednesday. When did I ever have time to work before !! Shawn is busy, busy at work. A project/problem that he started working on back in October finally came to an end on Friday, the 11th of January. He was a hero for the day. The decision went in Spirit's favor, which is why he is here. Kudos for Foxy !!!! This weekend we went to Deception Pass on Whidbey Island. It is a huge bridge that connects the mainland with the island. There is also a state park there. We went for a hike to a couple of different beaches, dangled dangerously close to a couple of drop-offs (hey anything for a good picture opportunity), and had a picnic. We had a great time. We also scouted some spots for camping this summer !! Yes, I am actually going to rough it. (for a day!) After we left Deception Pass, we drove on to the east towards the North Cascades National Park. On the map it didn't look so far, but after we entered it into our GPS, it was quite a jaunt !! We headed in that direction anyway and decided to drive until we were tired of the scenery. It was beautiful, lots of mountains and so much moss, it looked like the trees had green shag carpet on them !! After about an hour of driving we headed for home stopping off for coffee at one of the many coffee huts up here and by the market for some tuna and shrimp. We are cooking that up right now as I am typing this, I better go before everything burns. I will keep this updated as often as we can. I will not bore you with too much, hope you enjoy !!! We love and miss you all !!