Happy Birthday, Amanda!

Happy Birthday, Amanda!!!

Yesterday was the big day!! I turned 31!!! I had a great day....getting spoiled all over the place! I received so many wonderful gifts, cards, emails and phone calls....I want to thank everyone---you really know how to make a girl feel special! I started the day off 3 different times, once at 4:30 a.m. when Shawn woke me up to tell me happy birthday, the next when Gabe came in at 6:45 a.m. singing Happy Birthday to me, and at 7:00 when Grady groggily stumbled into the kitchen to tell me "It's your big day Momma...Happy Birthday!!" All 3 were wonderful ways to start my day. After I dropped Grady off at school, I went and ran a couple of errands, stopped by a coffee shop - grabbed my vice..a mocha - and sat in the quiet of Grady's school parking lot for 45 minutes and read my book!!! It was quiet there and I knew noone would find me, plus my cell was off!! Strange, maybe...but completely blissful! After Gabe got out of school, we scurried through homework...and I dashed off to my hair appointment!! I can't think of many things that relax me like a good shampoo and blow dry...ahhhh! heaven! When I got home I was greeted with Shawn slaving over my birthday dinner...enchiladas! Yum-o! After dinner, we celebrated with my favorite..angel food cake!! And yes, I baked it, but because I wanted to--I had to try out this new maple glaze recipe!!! It was scrumptious! We then had the big unwrap! I received so many wonderful things....all of which were on my list, but my guys still find ways of spoiling me.....I can't just receive a normal teapot, oh no, a high dollar teapot...it is probably the most expensive thing in my kitchen---it doesn't even boil water itself---but I do love the color! Most everything I asked for was kitchen related...I have recently became even more of a Betty Crocker than I was....I have started baking my own bread...from scratch--who knows maybe someday I'll have my own bakery!! I ended my evening watching a great movie--Miss Potter-- Thanks Carla for the recommendation! I had an absolutely wonderful 31st birthday....I can't wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for me!

a new gadget!

good afternoon everyone! i just wanted to let you all know that i have added a new gadget to my sidebar...it is quote of the week! a few of you know how much i love quotes of any kind...so every week i will be adding a new quote....some will be funny, some thought-provoking, and some that are speaking to me at the time or helping me through a tough time i may be having! i have always found quotes to help me through....maybe you'll find one that helps you!

into the fog!

a better part of last week our house was immersed in a thick layer of fog. when i say fog i am not referring to fog which makes visibility difficult from a quarter mile or so, or the fog which is a nuisance but burns off around 9:00 in the morning....no i am referring to the fog which makes my whole neighborhood disappear leaving only my house and 2 of my nearest neighbors, the fog which never burns off....not even for 3 days, the fog that holds all of the yucky stuff in the air, so when you go outside it smells like a fog machine---that is the fog i am referring to! the fog came in on wednesday and continued to get worse, to the point that one morning i couldn't even see the road behind my house which is maybe 30 feet from my back porch...crazy....it lasted until 10:30 saturday morning!! as soon as i could see the top of the trees by our house, i threw shoes on the kids and we headed out to play!!! i felt we all could use a healthy dose of sunshine...we were starting to look a little pale! the boys had a great time playing at the playground and i was also able to convince them to let me take their winter pictures, which i will hopefully get developed before it is time to take the summer pics! ha! i am so happy we went out and enjoyed the sunshine while it was here because today the fog has again reared it's ugly head!

our little academic achiever!!!

a couple of weeks ago we received a letter from gabe's school...of course i ripped it open--the whole time praying that my little angel was still going to be an angel after i read the letter! well, no fear, gabe is still an angel--it was inviting his parents to an assembly where he was going to be recognized for something extra special that he had done...we were to keep this a secret from gabe--as he knew nothing of this award! a few of you may remember last year we received a note very similar and our little fella was awarded with a citizenship award....so i had just assumed that he would be getting the same thing---still a very big honor if that is what he was to be awarded! so, shawn cleared out the 10:00 time slot on his blackberry, grady and i cleared our datebook and we just waited for today!!! today...drumroll please....gabe was awarded with an ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AWARD!!!!!!!!!!!!! they handed out one per class, and mr. davis felt gabe was the one worthy of this honor in his class! in receiving the award the child who was the receipient was one who finishes work on time and correctly, who is excelling in all areas of study, who is an eager learner, who works well independently, who is a helper, and a model for other students. while we thought we could not have been prouder of gabe than we already were....i don't think i have smiled this big since he was awarded the citizenship award!!! you would think i was the one getting the award! we are so happy to have both of our children, we are so lucky that the Lord blessed and entrusted us with these 2 little fellas that we ooze with pride for....i am so happy gabe is such a great role model for not only his classmates, but also the best role model i can think of for grady....he is the best big brother in the whole world! enough gushing for now from this ultra proud momma----we are so proud of you gabe!

splish, splash!!!

on monday evening both of the boys started swimming lessons! gabe had previously taken swimming lessons but this was grady's first real swimming lesson experience! they have swimming lessons twice a week for the next five weeks...and probably 5 more weeks after that...the ymca is having back to back lessons, and this is a really quiet time for us--so we are going to take full advantage of this--baseball starts in 3 months!!! grady was super excited about swimming lessons....he has been talking non-stop about going since we signed him up 3 weeks ago, so i was hoping he would keep his excitedness all the way into the water! well, no fear-he absolutely loves the water and the learning! he is totally fearless, he does whatever his instructor asks him to do, he is learning to float, safely jump into the water, kick and paddle, and most importantly to have fun in the water! not only does he have an awesome teacher, but one of his little buddies from soccer is in his class---they were so pumped when they saw each other! gabe also has a friend from school in his class...which is usually not great when it comes to gabe---unfortunately he acquired his love of gab from mom, but so far he and conner have been paying attention, so i guess we will see how this goes! gabe already knew how to swim, but we were wanting him to get a little more confident and learn some actual strokes..so we signed him up as well! he is doing great...the only problem is the poor boy can not float on his back...as they say "fat floats" and as any of you that know gabe...that child has absolutely no fat, so he just sinks! i'm not sure we have any future michael phelps....but we're trying!

a puzzling weekend!!

this weekend was a rainy and dreary weekend---plus, i had a ton of housework that had been neglected....we'll just blame it on the holidays.....so we had a lazy little weekend! my dad had bought for our family a 550 piece jigsaw puzzle that the boys had been dying to open up, but i had kept putting them off because i knew shawn and i would be the one's staying up late..using every spare moment to finish up this little booger. finally on saturday afternoon, dear ol' mom had run out of excuses---so we opened up the puzzle and started in!! grady's first comment was, "wow, these are tiny pieces....just like my thomas puzzle!" well, not exactly like the thomas puzzle, i added.....just like the thomas puzzle except about 450 extra pieces!!!! so the boys and i diligently plodded through all 550 pieces looking for the flat edged pieces....once we got through that, we had lost our littlest helper....."this is too hard!!" about the time we had 10 pieces together...making real headway...shawn came home from a quick jaunt by work and a funeral-excitement!- and started asking why would i have opened that up now...it is going to take forever!! me, being the glass half full kind of gal was like, "oh no, we've only been working on it for 30 minutes and look how good we're doing!" ha! so, much to shawn's dismay he joined the puzzle process.....a little insight to the last time shawn and i did a puzzle together....it was 10 years ago and our tv had broken down, we had sent it to be repaired and one of us - unsure who??- decided to go buy a couple of puzzles for us to do in the evening!! it seemed like a grand plan until we figured out that a left-handed person and right-handed person not only think in different directions they also put puzzles together differently! shawn likes to work on an area and piece together and place pieces where they will eventually go and i on the other hand work where the pieces take me over here, over there----needless to say we annoyed each other! after that we decided to keep the puzzles for other couples....we had plenty of other stuff in common!! so 10 years later, here we are again...we somehow lost our 2 little helpers pretty early on, so it was up to the two us!! the first night we stayed up until about 11:30 working on the puzzle, and we were nowhere close to being done, so right after church we got started again, and i am happy to report last night at 9:15 we placed the last piece in----after we found the elusive last piece under the couch!! we are numbering the back of this puzzle, as we will never be doing this one again, but want some sort of proof that we actually were crazy enough to finish it once!!! and it also seems that shawn and i have meshed even more over 10 years, while i still flit from one area to another and shawn still painstakingly works in one area....i no longer get annoyed by the little pieces laying about and he doesn't seem to mind me putting a piece or two together in his area...my how we've grown! we are so happy that one day,40 years from now, we will be able to sit on the front porch, yelling at people driving too fast, putting together a puzzle!

what a beautiful sight!!

okay, so some may not feel this is blog worthy...but i am the author, creator, and sole poster...and i feel it is! today, the most glorious sight happened up my street....the garbage truck! because of the super snowy weather we have been blessed with...ha!, i have not seen this lovely green truck for a month, yes, that is right 4 whole weeks! ewwww!!! and because it was christmas our trash was completely out of control!! not to mention at least 3 meals containing some sort of fish--double ewwww!!!! so needless to say, i have been hoping, wishing, and praying that every big truck that i hear come down picnic point road would be waste management...and today, i am happy to report....wishes do come true!!

still learning....even over christmas break!

still learning--even over christmas break!!

on friday, after days of lounging around the house, shawn and i felt we needed to get out and try to enjoy a somewhat warm and sunny day! we decided to take the kiddos down to the seattle children's museum--we had not expected too much, but were we surprised! we have visited other children's museums in various cities, and were always a little disappointed--but after spending 3+ hours in this museum we were anything but disappointed! the kids had a great time and even learned a little along the way. they have an area of the museum that rotates out different exhibits and right now the exhibit is mr. potato head and his adventures. it lets the kids journey through the depths of the oceans, go on a safari with tater, blast into outer space, dig in an archealogical site--to find tater parts!, and play with mr. potato heads in one of the best tater head set-ups i have ever seen--shawn and i even built our own tater heads! after spending an hour with mr. potato we ventured on to the rest of the museum---they have a "working" grocery store--where kids get to be checkers and can shop for groceries, they have a hardware store where kids get to build their own creations---i'm not sure who had more fun in this area -shawn or the boys--but together we made a mean little house! they also have an area where you learn about different countries--we were able to walk through a japanese styled home, a "sushi" restaurant, an african hair salon--after we felt we had culturally diversed ourselves we went to the story area....they had huge setups of goldilocks and the 3 bears, arthur, and an area where you could sit and read various books! probably the boys' favorite areas were the last 2 we visited--the art and creation station and the air factory! they both created a painting masterpiece--without getting any paint on themselves--i know a total miracle!--and they then chased ping pong balls through little tubes in the next area! i was super impressed with this museum--kudos to seattle! we would have probably been able to spend even longer in the museum but our pesky tummies started to rumble!!