Pool Time

Over the next few days I will be posting pictures of activities from the last few weeks. Here are some of the kids at the pool from February, 9 (not that the date is significant...). Pool pictures are always fun in the middle of winter, I think. (-:

Cannonball!!!!

Kraemer's 'I was there' picture.

Frogman Joshua!

Ummm...don't have a catchy title for this one, they were battling back and forth with this float and I thought it was pretty funny. At one point one of the boys just jumped on it and dunked the other underwater instead of just slapping it back. The dunkee recovered quickly and the battle moved on to another location...

Miriam loves diving for rings!

(I know this picture is out of focus but I still like it, so I decided to share it anyway.)

Back to the present...our poor Miriam is still sick today, with a good fever going on. She has been pretty miserable but has been somewhat comforted by watching a lot of TV and having many Popsicles. (-:

Josh and I have recovered from our colds and the boys seem to be healthy. My hope is that Miriam will recover quickly and no one else will get sick for a while. Still, even though we have had a few illnesses in our family this last month we are doing much better than we did last year and for that I am so very thankful!

February 4, Beach Trip

Hello everyone! I can't believe it has been so long since I have posted here, the days have just been flying by...which is a good thing for us right now since we are all eagerly awaiting Josh's orders to find out where we will be moving to in 3-4 months - we mostly likely have at least 3 weeks left to wait!

So, here is a quick rundown of what we have been up to these last 3 weeks. We finished Miriam's two weeks of swim lessons. She really learned alot and has become quite the little fish in the pool! (-: The next week we started a new school shedule, which has been a success. Our schedule was a blessing last week when I was sick for most of the week. From the couch I was able to tell the kids, 'Ok, just look at the schedule and do what comes next.' and we were able to stay on track with school for the most part. Along the way we have had friends over for lunch a few times, attended a birthday party, gone to the beach twice, had lunch at a friends house, attended a concert at church (Miriam, Isaiah and I with Isaiah's friend, also named Isaiah (-:), gone to the pool 5 times (aside from swim lessons), had friends sleepover 3-4 times, and Joshua and I earned our yellow belts in Karate!

In this post I am including pictures from one of our beach trips. We went to Bastendorff Beach with two of our neighbors.

Checking out a dead jellyfish. This was a first for us.

Miriam checks out the itty-bitty fish Korah, Payton and Joshua caught with a net, for closer observation, then released.



Kraemer and I, he enjoyed the beach, too!



Henessy and the boys playing in the waves.

Joshua catching fish.

Isaiah climbed pretty high up there and then got stuck! But he figured out how to get down before I had to go up there after him. (-:


We have continued to be blessed with many sunny days, so unusual for a winter here. I have been so thankful for them! We have had a few stormy days as well but then the sun has come back again...just when I was bracing myself for weeks of rainy, gray days!

God is so good!

I pray that you are seeing His great blessings in your life rght now, too!

A week in pictures

We have had a very full week.

Here are some pictures of our everyday adventures.

Miriam and I sleeping in together on Saturday (the 24th). Josh snuck this picture of us and I figured I'd include it since I always get everyone else in the family. (-:

Josh and Miriam during Bible reading. Our family Bible reading continues to go well. We all end up laughing at some point either because of funny names, repetitive content or some such thing but it is all good. This picture makes me laugh because Miriam was driving Josh nuts by absently caressing the back of his neck, he would tell her to stop and she would but then a minute later she would start doing it again without really thinking about it. A little Daddy torture is needed from time to time...lol!

Last Saturday Miriam, Isaiah and I had dinner at our neighbor's house with four other ladies, and many kids. We all stayed up until 1am visiting! In this picture some of the kids are kicking back watching a movie together.

Isaiah playing with my friends baby that same evening.

Baby says, "Are you sure this is safe?"

Isaiah wiped out after being chased all around the house by a bunch of little kids.

Miriam heading in to her first day of swimming lessons on Monday. This looks like a lovely, summery picture but it is probably less than 5o degrees out!

Miriam showing off her back float.

I just had to include this picture because it is so adorable! (and I am not prejudiced or anything...)

On Tuesday we had some friends over for lunch. After my friends baby kept trying to get a hold of my laptop we gave him Miriam's Barbie laptop to play with and he thought it was the greatest toy!

Pet torture. That is our cat...in our dog's food bag. Don't ask me why...

Really, our cat is quite tolerant.

The dog gets her share of torture as well.

Isaiah helps his sister put on make-up, at her request. What a sweet big brother!

So there you have a few snapshots of our week. We have continued to be blessed with a lot of sunshine, so unusual for this time of year and greatly enjoyed by all! We have also been blessed with many visits with friends this week which is always wonderful!

I hope that your days have been blessed as well!

Until next time...

A Funny

There is not much new with us these last few days.

We made it through the inspection just fine. It wasn't really much of an inspection, actually. They came in and asked if we had any proplems (so we showed them the same things we've shown them before), they looked at the shower stall they had to replace not that long ago and that was that. Of course, they hadn't coordinated well with the contracters so they had to come back again a little while later with them, but the contracters just needed to look at the breaker box and some things in the living room and kitchen and they were done. So no-one actually had to look at every room...but they could have! Lol!

While I was writing Isaiah came out and read this joke to me. Since I don't have much to say today anyway I thought I would write it here, it made me smile:

A father was teaching his son to admire the beauties of nature.

"Look, son," he exclaimed, "isn't that sunset a beautiful picture God has painted?"

"It sure is, Dad," responded the youngster enthusiastically, "especially since God had to paint it with his left hand."

The father was baffled. "What do you mean, son? His left hand?"

"Well," answered the boy, "my Sunday school teacher said that Jesus was sitting on God's right hand."

Blessings on your day!

More Sunshine

The Lord has continued to bless us with sunshine this week, it has been so wonderful! Here are some of the things we've been doing while we enjoy the sun.

Miriam walking Henessy to get the mail.

I took Kraemer with us to get some nice, fresh air.

Kraemer and I stayed outside after we got the mail while I did my Bible reading in the sunshine, it was just too beautiful to go back inside!

On Saturday we went to a friends house for dinner and the kids had a great time playing in the yard and jumping on the trampoline. In this picture Joshua is bouncing Miriam and Benjamin (you can just see his foot and hand) up in the air.

After burning energy at our friend's house the kids wound down in the evening by watching 'Shark Boy and Lava Girl'. Gotta love the 3D glasses!


On Sunday I took Isaiah, Miriam and Henessy to the beach. (The two Josh's opted to stay home) It was much warmer than I expected and we all had a great time until Miriam got 'clotheslined' by Henessy's leash! She still has a nasty looking burn on her neck and chin but she recovered nicely.

Isaiah and Miriam enjoy watching the waves crashing on the far side of the jette.

Chasing, and being chased by, the waves.

Boy, did their feet get cold! The temperature outside was pretty warm, the water temperature was not!

One happy dog!

Isaiah's 11th Birthday

Isaiah had a great birthday on Friday!

I can't believe he's 11 years old!

Daddy and Grandma met us at a nearby coffee shop for lunch and Isaiah opened his presents there.

What a handsome birthday boy!

Our crazy family!
I believe Josh is in the middle of telling Isaiah not to ruin the picture. Lol!

Isaiah decorated me with the bows from Grandma's presents!
I could start a trend with this look...



Isaiah reading jokes from his new joke book (these are extremely popular with my kids right now) to his brother and sister.

Isaiah's Birthday cake.

Yes, it says 'Bob'. This is a joke with him and his friends (he is Bob, another friend is Billy Bob and another friend is something else I can't remember...) and he really wanted his cake to say 'Happy 11th Birthday Bob' so that is what it said.

The best part of birthday's is unlimited video games!
(Actually it may be a toss-up between that and no school, as they always get their birthday off from school.) Here is Isaiah playing video games with his buddies the morning after his birthday sleepover.

All in all I'd say Isaiah had a great 11th birthday!

Sunny Days

We have been enjoying some lovely sunny days here in the rainy northwest this week. Even if I can't get out in it much, just having the sun shining in the windows lifts my spirit. To have this brief respite in the midst of the rain and cold of winter is such a blessing!

On Tuesday we took advantage of the sunshine by having lunch and doing some of our schooling on the back patio. We even brought Kraemer (the baby I watch during the day) out to enjoy the sunshine!

The birds also enjoy the sun. I took this picture today. These birds crack me up because the whole, huge flock travels around from yard to yard throughout the neighborhood 'grazing'.
I enjoy watching them pull big ole' grubs out of our yard from my scrapbook room window...I am amazed at how many they get!

I finally remembered to ask Kraemer's parents for permission to put his picture on here. So now I can show you how cute my kids are with him!

Here Joshua is throwing the ball for Henessy while holding Kraemer, who absolutely loves the dog!

This was the perfect way to keep Kraemer happy while I made his bottle!


Kraemer also loves to play with Isaiah's hair!
When Kraemers around Joshua refers to Isaiah as 'the scruffy guy'.


You can see he was very happy playing with Isaiah.
What a cutie!


And just because I think it is so very cute, I had to add this picture of Isaiah carrying the baby in my sling taken last week. Too adorable!

No pictures of Miriam and the baby today but I am sure I will add some soon.
All three munchkins just love having a baby around, it is so sweet!

In other news, Isaiah will turn 11 tomorrow!!
(which would actually be in 45 minutes as I write, yikes!)
He will be having 3 friends over for a sleepover party, which will include pizza, video games and glow-in-the-dark bowling from 9:30 - 11pm!
Sounds like a good 11th birthday party to me!

Oh, that reminds me I still have presents to wrap!
I better get going...

Until next time... blessings on your day!