finally ---- another one bites the dust!!!

and i say finally because this has been in the making for at least a month and half. gabe finally lost another tooth. this time we didn't have to go to the dentist, gabe took care of it himself!! the little tooth has been wiggling forever and in the last week, each time gabe would talk it would wiggle around. finally on saturday night, we were getting ready to head to some friends' house, and gabe looked up at me while i was combing his hair and the little tooth was crooked. i said, "gabe, you are going to have to pull that tooth out, it is just hanging there!" now i am one to talk, i don't think i ever pulled a tooth out on my own!! either the dentist, my grandma, my mom, or my grandpa (who never actually pulled a tooth, but threatened to tie me to a door knob, that was his little way of getting me to let grandma do it!) always took care of the dirty job of pulling out my teeth. i was and still am squeemish about teeth and the fact that they fall out! so i had told gabe that he was going to have to be a man and pull it himself!! a couple of wiggles later and out it came. thank goodness, now i don't have to worry about him swallowing it and wanting to find it?! you know what i mean! yuck!!!! by the way, the picture makes him look a little scared, but it was the only way i could get him to hold his mouth open so we could get a glimpse of the empty space!!

are the majors calling yet?!

shawn has decided to join our church's softball team! their first game was this afternoon, and despite yesterday's wonderful spring weather, our usual was back. so we cheered on the silver creek team in the rain. our team was a little short handed, a third of our team had a birthday today and a couple others had a high school game! they ended up having a practice game, so they didn't keep score, thank goodness. shawn did very well, he had 2 hits and got on base with them. unfortunately, both times he got out with a force play on second! bummer! in silver creek's defense, the other team had high school pinch hitters who went to bat for the older teammates, so they had a lot of near home runs! they should have some sort of age limit!! i think shawn was the youngest one on our team today, but next week hopefully our high schoolers won't have a game and they can come pinch hit for us!! they keep trying to draft me, so you know they are getting deperate!! i'm just trying to lay low for now!

hiking the day away!!

well, the northwest was blessed with yet another beautiful day!! saturday was wonderful, glorious, spectacular, i could go on and on. the sun was shining and the temperature was around 80 degrees!! we headed up to snoqualmie falls for some sightseeing and hiking. the falls were wonderful, what a sight! they have 2 observation decks to view the falls from. one of the decks is right off the road and the second is about a half a mile down a steep trail. when you get to the lower deck you can feel the mist and there is a very inviting rock bed just below the deck!! so despite the signs that encourage you to stay on the marked trails and deck, most people venture closer to the river and falls. well not to be outdone, the foxes left the confines of the deck and ventured for a closer look. it was a rocky climb, but well worth it!! we spent about an hour at the falls and then decided to venture on to do some more hiking. on the way to the falls, we had spotted another hiking spot, so i checked in my kid friendly hiking book and it said the trails at high point were a moderate level for kids, so off we went. we had a picnic lunch and set off for hiking. there were a ton of trails to choose from, we started off hiking around the lake, then ventured off around the "wetlands", then finished off on the bus trail (named for a rusty, abandoned bus, left on the trail). the smaller fox hikers were getting pretty sweaty and tired, so we called it a day around 3:00. we headed home for a nap and then went to some friends' house for a game night. we had a lot of fun, but all of us were so happy to see our beds!!

checking out the zoo!

on friday, we had the perfect day for a visit to the zoo. it was sunny and in the mid 50's!! we haven't see a whole lot of those kind of days, so we were determined to get out in it! the boys and i headed out early and arrived just as they were opening the gates! we saw the entire zoo. we were there for about 5.5 hours and we all left in good spirits, which was somewhat amazing considering we were infringing on someone's usual naptime!! we saw bears, giraffes, zebras, the backside of hippos, a baby gorilla, you name it, we saw it!! the penguins are getting a new habitat, so they were not on exhibit, and the zoo is getting a new flamingo exhibit next month so we will have to check it out again this summer!! we enjoyed lunch outside in the sunshine and of course we couldn't pass up the icecream stand!! part of gabe's icecream ended up on the ground, but gabe said, "that's ok, i know when to say when!" of course grady polished off his entire cone, not a drip was wasted! we ended our adventure to the zoo with a carousel ride. what a wonderful day!!

can you say yum-o ???!!!

today we were famous -- okay so we were not famous, but we devoured something famous!!! for those of you who do not watch martha stewart - yeah i know i am probably the only one who does! - last week was cupcake week on her show. she featured different cupcakes each day and on thursday, she featured trophy's cupcakes in seattle. well, to google i went, and what do you know trophy's cupcakes is only 25 minutes from our house!! jackpot!! so with this week being spring break, i told gabe we would check out those cupcakes!! they had 12 different featured cupcakes today! so once we stopped drooling, gabe chose mint chocolate chip, grady chose vanilla vanilla, and i chose chocolate vanilla!!! oh we were in cupcake heaven!! we could hardly wait to sink our teeth into those delicious little beauties!! we agreed on the way home that we would let each other sample the other cupcakes, that way everyone would actually know what 3 of those famous cupcakes tasted like!! we all agreed mommy's was the best. i told the boys i had years of experience on them and not to get discouraged!! but, all of the cupcakes were yum-ooooooooo!!!! we will definitely be visiting that little jewel again!!!!

bike ridin'

grady acquired a new bike on saturday from his friend, josiah! their neighbors gave them 2 bikes with training wheels, and josiah can only ride one at a time, so.... they gave one to grady!!! he has been riding the heck out of that bike. our house was not made with bike riding in mind. first we live on a hill, secondly our drive way is a hill, so the boys do not really have a perfect bike riding area. so, being the crazy mom i am, i said, "hey boys why don't we go up to the school and ride all around there?" what a great idea!! oh wait, mom has to trek up 88 stairs with 2 bikes!! yeah, what a great idea?! who needs a stairmaster, when you are chocked full of good ideas like these!! so 2 trips up and down those steps, and we were bike riding!! we have now done this for 3 days straight! yes, you are asking, why don't you just load the bikes up in the armada and cruise up to the school? well the last few months i have been working very hard working out, so this is just a way to work out without leaving home!! and i need it after eating a trophy's cupcake (check the next blog!!!!)

how about some sushi ??!!

on sunday after church the fox family was feeling very brave!! as many of you know, shawn loves sushi, but the rest of the gang has been unimpressed with the idea of it!! gabe and i had tried it in the past - once - and it left a little to be desired, but as i had said, we were feeling brave! so we headed down to the alderwood mall to blue c sushi. at blue c, they have a conveyor belt that runs through the restaurant, past all of the tables and booths, with the sushi and entrees on it. they have sushi chefs in the middle of the restaurant making the sushi and they also monitor to ensure the sushi is only on the conveyor for a specified amount of time. they have a color coded system to the plates for pricing, and everything is clearly marked as to whether it is raw or cooked. 15 plates later, gabe and i had done it, we had sampled three different types of sushi!! shawn had some kind of scary stuff, we chose to not adventure down the octopus road!! grady decided sushi was not in the cards for him, he had a fruit bowl, sesame noodles, and katsu chicken!(mom and gabe sampled his dishes too, they received our stamp of approval!) we finished off with a chocolate cream puff - grady spotted that on the belt everytime it went past, so there was no leaving without one of those!! of course i am blaming it on grady!!!

exploring edmonds

saturday we went to explore edmonds. now some of you are wondering, don't they live in edmonds?! well, yes and no. our address is edmonds, wa. but, we live in the mukilteo school district and the city of mukilteo has tried in the past and are trying again to annex our neighborhood into mukilteo. we actually have to drive through the town of lynnwood to get to "our town" of edmonds, how confusing. if you actually looked at a map of our house, you would assume we lived in mukilteo, but one of edmonds little fingers jumps around lynnwood and encompasses our neighborhood. so we saw it fitting we should explore "our town" this weekend! edmonds is on the sound and has a charming small town feel. it would seem every house in the town is positioned perfectly to see the sound and overlook the town square. the town square is shop after shop, eatery after eatery. they have clothing shops, bakeries, flower shops, book stores, toy stores, diners, deli, fancy restaurants, a cheese monger, kitchen stores, art galleries, pottery shops, on and on. shawn sniffed out the cheesemonger first thing! when we first stepped into the store, i kid you not, it smelled like a cow! i tried to keep the boys quiet, but i was having a hard time not gagging myself, but then i looked over at shawn, he was in cheese bliss!! so the boys and i composed ourselves. i parked the boys by the front door by a mooing cow (one, the cow would entertain them and secondly, they could get some non-toxic air when the door opened!) shawn found some primo stinky cheese and some hot salami made by mario batali's(he is on the food network)brother!! after the cheesemonger we window shopped and went into a few of the art galleries. the art was mainly by artists from the area, so the art was mainly of water and mountains. just for any of you wondering what to get shawn for his birthday, he found a piece of art he would like!! just let me know, it was only $4,000.00. ha!! so we scooted out of that gallery before grady tapped into his college fund to purchase some art! then it was the boys' and my turn to sniff out the bakery. we found some donuts we could not live without!! yum-o! after some lunch at engel's deli, he headed for home with full bellies--- time for a nap!!

mowing our moss!!

yesterday evening, the time had finally arrived, it was time to do some yard work. we had been putting it off the last couple of weeks due to the rain, snow, shawn being out of town, you name it we had thought of it, but it was time to bite the bullet. well, yesterday was again not the picture perfect day for mowing, it had been raining all day, and was sprinkling when we were actually working, but we are figuring out (by observing our neighbors) that sometimes or most of the times yard work is done in the rain here. i would never, and can safely speak for shawn, so we would never have imagined a year ago, standing out in the rain mowing, trimming, or weeding, but we can now say we have, and our yard looks great!! answering your question, yes, it was a muddy, soppy mess, but actually when you get the grass mowed down to the level of the moss in the yard, it looks really full, and you don't even notice the huge ruts in the yard!! we were a little worried about all of the moss in the yard, but then we looked at two of the houses on the block, the prestine yards, and noticed a lot of their "prestiness" was also a result of that beautiful green moss!! so no worries, just mow it and embrace it!!

little picasso

grady had his art class this morning. today they ventured to oil pastels! the class made a spring chick or as grady put it, a scary bird! while i feel his artwork is wonderful and could tell right away that is was a chick in an egg, i could understand how he might feel that it was a little scary!! they take next week off for the mukilteo school district spring break, so it will be 2 weeks until the next masterpiece posting!