Checking in with the Orr family

The First Day of School 2011

2011-08-29T10:36:00.001-07:00

My Girls

2011-04-28T11:13:00.001-07:00

Pumpkin Farm

2010-10-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

Last week, Abbie's preschool class headed to the Fairbanks Pumpkin Farm. It turned out to be so fun! I didn't realize that there would be all kinds of animals there. Abbie enjoyed getting to pet a baby goat. Here is the baby goat again
A slightly bigger goat

I have no idea what was said, but Abbie has a funny look on her face! :)

Charlotte's Web

Sugar snap peas growing above our heads

Listening to the farmer explain about a corn stalk

Abbie is surrounded by her good friends Avery, Molly, and Allison

The whole class listening intently

Choosing her pumpkin

Good choice, Abbie!

Finally, we saw some three day old piglets with their mama - so cute

It was a fun day!

Family wedding/reunion in Texas

2010-08-08T22:27:00.001-07:00

In the middle of July, the girls, my parents, and I traveled to San Antonio, Texas for the wedding of my cousin's daughter Karli to Micah. It was a chance to reunite with many of my cousins and their families and see my sister and Joshua too. Here some of us are at the wedding. It was a beautiful venue, but seriously hot! My cousin Elise's son Dylan, my nephew Joshua, and Abbie had a great time running the grounds during the reception.
We went on a little outing to find a train we could ride and here's a cute picture of my girls with their cousin.

Abbie at the wedding

We had a family breakfast the morning we headed home. Here Abbie is teaching her Granddaddy how to use his iPhone. Smile...

My family!

Second cousins Jack, Dylan, Joshua, Gracie, Abbie, and Ava

Cousins Matt, Elise, Amy, Valerie, me, and Jodi

Sisters-in-law Martha Nell, E'Von, Marilyn, and Clema

Brothers Ted, Chuck, and Mark

It was a great trip although too short! We were only there for the weekend but it was great to see so many great family members and I hope we'll all see each other again soon!

Summer Road Trip

2010-08-08T21:43:00.001-07:00

At the end of June and beginning of July, we took our big summer road trip. We traveled through 5 states on our way to see Heath's family. Our first stop was in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho where we camped on Lake Coeur d'Alene. It was beautiful there and we took the girls on a peddle boat ride. Aren't they cute?
We saw this amazing bald eagle and took a ton of pictures of it. It just sat perched on this tree the whole time we were out on the boat. Beautiful and majestic!

Sweet Abbie girl!

The view

Our home away from home

Next we traveled to Helena, Montana to visit great friends that we had not seen in two years. The Martinie's were gracious hosts and we enjoyed every moment we got to spend with them.

Here is Abbie with Ella and Ryan (also known as Ry-Guy or Joe)

Gracie with Maddi

After staying there for a night, we drove on towards the North Entrance to Yellowstone National Park. It has the old stone archway and it was just beautiful entering the park here.

We saw a bunch of wildlife this trip, including many elk, a momma bear and her cub, and these grizzly bears right next to the road. They were so close! - we stayed in our car

Bull elk out in the field

The family as we headed on to our next stop

After camping one night in Yellowstone, we drove on to Heath's grandma's house and visited with her for a couple of hours before making it to our final destination - Heath's parents' house in Pinedale, Wyoming. The girls always love visiting their Grandma and Papa and this time was no different. They really love the dogs too! Chewy is on the left and Cooter is in the middle. They are sweet dogs.

After a few days there, we drove to Heath's sister's house in Thayne, Wyoming. We stayed here for the 4th of July. Here we are bundled up to watch the fireworks. It gets pretty cold here at night because they are at such a high altitude. The days were beautiful and warm though.

See? Beautiful and warm - definitely trampoline jumping weather

Abbie got to feed the baby calf that lives there

After the 4th, we headed for home. Our last day took us through Oregon and one final camping stop until we made it home. Our vacation was incredible! We love summer!

Spring Softball

2010-05-20T12:58:00.001-07:00

Our springtime is always pretty busy with softball. This year has been no different. Gracie is playing for the third year in a row and the girls are doing a great job. They have moved up in the league to a new division, called the Minors, and they have won some and lost some. This past weekend was a mid-season tournament and the girls placed 4th. They played three games in one day on Saturday and were pretty tired but we were so proud of them! Here are some of the pictures from the season so far.

Her daddy is the pitcher again this year.

Best buds!

The whole family loves going to the games and I love that Heath and Gracie have this to share with each other. They always look forward to playing together and having a good time.

Abbie's 4th birthday

2010-04-17T10:36:00.001-07:00

We celebrated Abbie's 4th birthday on April 4 - her golden birthday! Amber and Brian were visiting from Wyoming so we headed down to my parents for lunch and the party Abbie got some pretty cool gifts
Of course, sister had to help open

She's definitely telling us something about this particular gift

Aunt Shirley reading her the card

New jammies

Gazing out at the view

Birthday cupcakes! Gluten free, egg free, dairy free - but so, so yummy (trust me, they really are good)

Making a wish

Blowing out the candles

How can she be 4 already??

Digging in!

Granddaddy helping with the hair on the barbie - so funny!

Heath and me - aren't we cute?

Uncle Brian got to wear the crown - I love the look he is giving her

Checking out Granddaddy's new iPad

It was a fun day celebrating my little sweetheart! I can't believe she is four years old. The time has just flown by and she is so much more grown-up than she was at three. I'm so proud to call her my daughter! Love you, Abbie cakes!

Easter 2010

2010-04-17T10:29:00.001-07:00

Easter this year was very fun since Abbie's 4th birthday was also the same day. We went to church on Saturday night since we were going to celebrate her birthday in Seattle on Sunday and this is a picture of the girls all dressed up for church. Aren't they cute??!! Sunday morning they opened their Easter baskets. Abbie also opened one present for her birthday.

We went to my parents for Easter lunch and a birthday party

They were chatting on the window bench

And now pretending to fight...

They are our precious girls!

Hi!

2010-02-22T20:12:00.000-08:00

Wow, can't believe I've been away for so long! Things have been good...busy, but good. I definitely have some pictures to post but I can't do it from my new laptop so I'll have to do another post soon with pictures. For now, just wanted to check back in and say that I am still alive! I'll post more soon.

K.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T09:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I pray you have a wonderful holiday filled with giving thanks to our Lord and Savior, filled with family and friends, and filled with good food. I am praying for those that are away from their families because of service to our country or due to simply being too far away geographically. I am so thankful for my whole family - immediate and extended - and hope that you feel the love of God surrounding you this special day. Have a wonderful day and may God bless each of you richly.

Another busy week

2009-09-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

I'm really happy it's Friday. Friday's are great once you get back into the school year. It means you actually get a weekend instead of all the days running together like they sometimes do during the summer. It's been a very busy week for us. This week marked the beginning of my leadership role at the Moms' Group at my church. Of course, I've been thinking and planning and praying all summer for the group, but we kicked-off this week. It was so great! It's wonderful to be back with the women that are some of my best friends. It's awesome to study the Word with these women and to listen to them laugh and cry. We had 5 brand new faces there this week and a total of 29. Such a great turnout and I'm still hearing from others that want to come too. I shared about God's Faithfulness in my life. God is so faithful! He loves us so much and only wants good for us. I am so thankful that I can lean on Him and trust Him to hold me up when I'm scared or burdened. I shared about my nervousness to lead this group, how sometimes I feel inadequate and weak. But even as I was sharing my talk, I wasn't even nervous like I thought I would be. God had given me the words so I knew they were from Him and not from me. I love it when God shows up! I love it when He blesses my socks off by sending people into my life that show me love and encouragement. It was such a great day, although a very busy one with a few minor hiccups. All was resolved and I'm excited for the year ahead. If you are reading this, keep our group in your prayers. We definitely want to follow God's will for us and move in the direction of drawing closer to Him and closer to each other. It was a great day in an otherwise very busy week!

Blessings

2009-09-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

They are the most precious gifts from God I can even imagine!

"'For I know the plans I have for you', declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"

Jeremiah 29:11

The first day of school '09

2009-09-02T08:16:00.001-07:00

Monday was the first day of school for Gracie. She's my 3rd grader now! I can't believe she's been with us on this earth long enough to be in the 3rd grade. She's such a little beauty and I am so proud of her. She picked out her outfit. I personally love the scarf!

Comfort is always good for the first day

Of course, sister had to get in on a picture too

Finally at school, reuniting with friends. This is Bianca next to her.

So happy to be back!

Gracie with her teacher, Mrs.Wall

Abbie's first day was on Tuesday. She's attending a 3 year old preschool class and has been talking about it for weeks. She was very excited!

Striking a pose...

Instantly found the playdough when we arrived

She likes playdough

She switched over to work on a little project - this week's theme is "circus" so she glued on a train and used stamps to put circus animals in the train.

She liked the "sand" box which is actually rice.

Listening to her teacher

Story time

Both girls are enjoying school a lot. In fact, Abbie wants to go back today but she only goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm so happy that she is happy! Here's to a great year for them both!

Major birthday present and Wild Waves!

2009-08-28T11:27:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for it? Gracie's biggest birthday present ever?? She got her ears pierced!!! She's been wanting it for so long and it seems like so many of her friends already have their's done. We took her last week before her party and she is so happy! They look really nice on her and she's been doing a good job of taking care of them like you are supposed to do. She was brave too! A little nervous but when it was all over, said it wasn't as bad as she thought it would be. She's excited to have pierced ears!

On Thursday, which was her actual birthday, we wanted to take Gracie to Wild Waves. Since her cousin Joshua is visiting from NYC, and we go every year with Jodi and Joshua, it worked out perfectly for us all to go. So Heath and I and the girls, plus Hans, Jodi, and Joshua, all headed out for a day of fun in the sun. The weather was absolutely perfect! Gorgeous clear skies and a temp around 86 (although I think it might have gotten to 90).

Gracie a little unsure as we made our way to the big roller coaster. She liked it though when it was all done!

Abbie is happy to have her Aunt JoJo here.

This was Abbie's first time to Wild Waves and she liked all the rides that she was able to go on. By next year, she'll be doing a lot of the rides by herself.

It was fun for the cousins to ride together!

The big slide is so fun!

Abbie liked it too!

Daddy and Abbie on the Frog Hopper

Riding the kiddie boats

Joshua and Gracie trying to pull the sword out of the stone - isn't King Arthur the only one who can do that??

After the rollercoasters and rides, we hit the water park. It was a great day for the water rides. We all love the wave pool!

Gracie being a goofball!

Abbie is becoming braver and braver in the water. She put her face under over and over. She had a good time!

The girls screaming as the sirens went off letting us know the waves were about to start! (I love the look on Abbie's face!)

It was a really fun day! Everyone had a great time and left thoroughly exhausted which is I think how you are supposed to leave, right?? Can't wait until next year when we get to go back. Once again, Happy Birthday, Grace Isabella! I think all your celebrations are now over. Back to school on Monday - watch for pictures next week!

Gracie turns 8!

2009-08-28T10:58:00.001-07:00

Our sweet Gracie celebrated her 8th birthday this week. I can't believe she is 8 years old! The fun started last Sunday when she had her "friend" birthday party. She wanted to go bowling, so that's what we did! The whole crew - friends Lauren, Carly, Isabel, Andi, Bianca, and Moshope joined in the fun at the bowling alley.

The birthday girl!

Hitting the lanes

Hoping for a spare

Of course little sister wants to play too!

The ball moves awfully slowly down the lane when you're small

She loved getting to wear bowling shoes!

Isabel's turn

Andi has quite a finesse about her

Moshope going for it

Carly has it down

Andi's having a great time

Time for cherry chip birthday cupcakes

Hope she made a wish...

Yummmmmm

Abbie enjoyed her cupcake too

Present time!

Awww, she loves it!

A gathering of her friends

I love it

I'm not sure what she's doing here, but she's happy!

Admiring this gift

Saying goodbye until school starts!

It was a really fun party and we are so happy to celebrate our little sweetie. Gracie, you're growing up so fast and you are such a kind, gentle, girl. You always treat others with respect and you want to do what is right. We are very proud of you and can't wait to see you grow throughout the years ahead. We are so thankful to God for you, the gift that you are to us and to others! Happy Birthday, sweetheart!

Summer Vacation

2009-08-21T14:18:00.001-07:00

We had an amazing summer vacation during the middle part of August this year. We left on Aug. 6 packed to the gills in our minivan and headed east towards Idaho. We were on our way to a 12 day road trip and very excited to be getting away. Our first stop was to Heath's family reunion near Idaho Falls. Two years ago we went to the same campground, an area called Heise Hot Springs, and had a great time. This trip was also a lot of fun. It's always great to reconnect with so many of the cousins and aunts and uncles. A lot of the cousins have babies now so Abbie and Gracie had fun playing with the little ones. Unfortunately, most of the other family members took the pictures this time, so we'll have to post some once we get them. Heath played golf a few times and we took the girls swimming at the hot springs pool. They liked warmth of it, but the sulfer smell, not so much! It was a fun weekend!

After the camping weekend, we left there and headed further east to Heath's sister's house to stay one night. Abbie had never been there and Gracie was pretty little the last time, so it was fun for them to stay one night at their Aunt Amber's. Amber and her husband have several animals, both at their house, and in the surrounding area that just come on over whenever they feel like it. The girls had plenty of dogs to play with and Abbie did surprisingly well with all the dogs. She liked them a lot! Right after we arrived, Amber's father-in-law came home with his horse saddled up and the girls wanted to go see the horse. When we got out there, they were able to pet him and Johnny took them for a ride too! That was pretty special for them. They both told me they want to be "professional horse riders" when they grow up. Gracie with the horse.

Abbie getting her turn to pet him.

Gracie on her ride - see all the dogs on the right side? This is an absolutely beautiful place, by the way!

Abbie getting her turn for a ride.

The view from Amber's place.

More view...

After spending the night there, we drove the next morning to Heath's parents house near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It is also very beautiful and very relaxing. We always have fun just hanging out at their house and playing golf and swimming. We did just that for the few days we were there. We had a chance to all play golf one morning and I just had to take a picture of one of Heath's shots. He hit it off the tee box and it landed right in this tree! It literally sat right on one of the branches! Too bad the hole wasn't right there, because with luck like that, he could have made a hole-in-one!

The view off the 18th green. It is such a beautiful part of the country.

Another view from the golf course.

Another day at his parent's house, we were sitting in the living room and I saw these really skinny legs walk by the window. At first it didn't compute -- what did I just see? I hopped up and looked out the window, and this is what I saw! Three deer making their way through the front yard and snacking on some bushes along the way. The girls and I watched them for a long time.

When they made their way around the back of the house, I stuck my head out the door to get more pictures. This one saw me and stared at me for a long time.

Then they jumped the fence and went on their way.

He kept looking back to see what I was gonna do...

Then they were gone...

A favorite thing of the girls to do when we visit their grandma and papa is to go swimming at the aquatic center. It's such a well designed place and the girls have a great time swimming there.

This is the indoor waterslide. Both girls loved it! Abbie actually let me take her down it and then didn't want to stop. We did it over and over and over until I finally told her I had to quit. She was such a big girl this year at the pool! In fact, it appears that going down the slide made her braver, because after that she started dunking herself and holding her breath under water. I was so excited when I caught her doing this...

She had a great time swimming!

Here's a little video of her going under water. Heath didn't know I was videotaping so the quality isn't super, but you get the idea. I'm proud of our little one!

After a fun-filled week at the grandparents house, we continued our drive, this time heading north through Jackson Hole and past the Teton Mountains. Wouldn't you know it, no pictures!! I don't know what was wrong with us, but we missed so much beauty on film because we never had our camera at the right time. Look up the Teton Mountains and Jackson Hole if you want to get a feel for how beautiful these two places are. We finally reached another destination, Yellowstone National Park. We had wanted to take the girls there for a long time and this time it worked out. We had fun driving through and stopping whenever we saw something worthy of a photograph. The girls were great and willing to look at the beautiful scenery too.

The three of us near a beautiful lake.

We saw this beautiful waterfall and decided it was a great place for a shot of the girls looking ever so cute!

The waterfall...

We then drove on and made our way to Old Faithful. We happened to be in Yellowstone the same day as President Obama but we were about 4 hours behind him. We never saw even a sign that he was there and thankfully we weren't in any traffic jams either! The girls thought Old Faithful was pretty cool.

Abbie and I waiting for the show...

And so it begins...

It's such an amazing show put on by nature! Awesome!

Finally on our way out, we spotted some wildlife off in a field. The whole day through the park and these elk are all we saw. The girls were really hoping to see a moose or a bear or some buffalo, but apparently they weren't out that day. At least we saw something. Abbie cheered when she saw these guys. It was a fun day!

After our trek throught the park, we headed into Montana and ended up at Big Sky for a night's stay. Neither one of us had ever been there but we found a great deal on a hotel. It was an absolutely beautiful place! But guess what...No pictures!! We didn't take our camera out the whole time. Isn't that sad! I'm truly mad at us for going there and forgetting to take pictures. If you want to, look for Big Sky, MT on the internet. You'll be glad you did!

Once we finally slept in Big Sky (Abbie was not well this night - had an accident in her pajamas and it was NOT a urine accident - YIKES!), we headed out the next morning for Spokane, WA. Our plan was to take the girls to Silverwood Theme Park near Coeur D'Alene, ID but we had to drive to Spokane for our hotel. We had a nice day driving through Montana and Idaho and then a great time at the theme park. I do actually have a couple of pictures but only on my phone and I can't seem to get them downloaded onto here. I will try again but I really wanted to get this post done! The girls enjoyed both the rides and the water park. We decided that we needed two days to really enjoy the park. It was busy and we spent a lot of time waiting in lines. But overall, we had a great time and loved our 12 day road trip!

Busy Week

2009-07-25T07:28:00.001-07:00

We had a really fun week this last week. It was VBS at our church and both of the girls got to participate. Technically, the kids are supposed to be 4 years old, but Abbie was able to be in a class because I volunteered to oversee the preschool. It was a super busy week, but lots of fun. The theme was Crocodile Dock and they studied out of Exodus. Abbie did amazingly well. She went to class easily and I saw her throughout the whole day and she would smile and wave but just go on with what she was doing. The only part she didn't like was the person dressed up as Chatter the Chipmunk. She really did not like him! In fact, one morning, when they were in having their snack, I walked into the room to check on everything and I couldn't see Abbie with her group. In fact, her teacher was looking towards me and I was by the door and I could see a bit of a worried look on her face. I walked to her table and that's when I noticed that Abbie was under the table. She had seen Chatter come in and had immediately hidden but her teacher didn't see her go under. She thought Abbie might have run out when she saw Chatter and then when she saw me, she thought, "Uh oh, here comes mom and I've lost her child!" It was pretty funny. Thankfully, Abbie wasn't lost but just hiding. Other than that, the girls had a great week. They were pretty exhausted after, as was I. But I'm always so thankful that our church puts on such a great VBS!

I will post some pictures that a friend of mine took once I receive them. Last Wednesday night we had a BBQ and reptile show to celebrate the week. Both girls thought the reptiles were so cool. I was proud of them that they didn't think they were gross! After the reptile show, each age group got to go up on stage and sing some of the songs they had been learning throughout the week. Abbie was so cute up on stage and I think my friend took some pictures of her and Gracie will they were on the stage. I'll post them soon.

Bye for now!

The girls first camping trip

2009-07-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, we decided to make an impromptu trip to a campground. It was the first time we were going to be going as a family and the girls were very excited to get to go. We packed up as quickly as we could and prayed we would find a spot. We didn't have a reservation so we were going on faith. As we were headed out of town, I was able to reach the park ranger at the place where we were hoping to get in and he told us they were full but he was kind enough to call another ranger at a different location and then call me back to let me know that the other location had space for us! Yay, we were on our way! The place we went is called Squire Creek in Darrington. It took us about an hour to get there. We found a nice spot tucked back in the woods and began setting up camp. Heath had some great helpers to get the tent set up.
"Hmmm, now how does this work exactly?"

Working together is always the best way to do something...

Abbie was excited to be there!

Finally, our home away from home.

Heath did all the cooking for us. Here he is grilling our hamburgers for dinner.

The girls found the chips pretty quickly.

I had to capture these sweeties while they slept. This was early the next morning. Both girls slept great even during a major thunderstorm. The wind blew and it rained and there was thunder and lightning. I was amazed they slept through the whole thing. Heath and I were awake for a while, but overall, we slept pretty well. Thankfully the other people that were there were quiet so we didn't have to deal with loud crowds.

It was a lot colder when we woke up on Sunday morning. The rain had cooled everything off and we could tell from the skies that the rain wasn't done. We decided to pack up earlier than we had hoped to, but it turned out that we did it just in time. Just as we finished, the rains came again, and they came hard! We were so glad to have been able to take the girls camping and we are looking forward to more of it this summer. Hopefully next time, it won't rain!

A day with the girls...

2009-07-12T21:13:00.001-07:00

The girls and I had a really fun day last week when I took them to Remlinger Farms about 30 minutes from our house. It's a really fun place for families where they have a few small rides, a market with fresh EVERYTHING, a petting zoo, and yummy food. I realized it had been a while since the three of us went somewhere and did something just for fun. We had a great time. I took this picture while we were waiting for the girls to ride the ponies. We had just arrived and they were very excited. I had left it a surprise until we pulled in so they had not known where we were going until we got there. Fun!
Abbie riding her pony. Her pony's name was Sugarbeets.

She really liked it!

Gracie's pony was Plum.

After the ponies, we went to the petting zoo area. They have these set up all over the place as photo ops.

The rides are pretty fun for little kids. Gracie might be getting a little too old for some of them, but they are perfect for Abbie. This ride is pumpkins that go up and down and around.

I cut off Gracie, but I love the expression on Abbie's face. Pure joy!

There is a small rollercoaster there called the Mind Twister. The girls rode it probably 15 times. There weren't very many people there so they were able to just go back to the front of the line almost immediately. It makes for a really fun day when you don't have to wait in line!

I love this shot of them on the rollercoaster!

The farm also has a real steam train that takes you all around the farm.

Before beginning our train ride.

Here's the train from a different time just so we could remember what it looked like.

Abbie was too small for this ride but Gracie sure liked it. She rode it about 4 times.

It was such a fun day. After tiring out of the rides, we bought a couple of amazing pies, some freezer jam, and some fresh cherries. Then we saw an area where we could go pick our own raspberries so we did that before we went home. Unfortunately, I forgot to take any pictures of that but the girls had a great time searching for just the right berries. I'm not sure exactly how many Abbie accidentally dropped on the ground, but we ended up coming home with at least enough to satisfy our craving for fresh fruit. I'm so thankful for my daughters and I hope that our day created some great memories for them. I know it did for me.

Gracie's Gymnastics Extravaganza - June '09

2009-07-10T16:48:00.000-07:00

Gracie had her annual gymnastics extravaganza in the middle of June. She did a great job showing all of the routines that she had worked so hard on during the school year. Here's a really cute one of the sisters.

A very pretty handstand

Abbie enjoying the show

Stretching before the performances

Her class on the vault

With her coach - Coach Mia

She received a medal at the end - Great Job, Gracie!

Softball Pictures

2009-07-10T16:32:00.001-07:00

FINALLY, here are some of my favorite softball pictures from the season. These were all taken by the father of another girl on one of the other teams and then we purchased the rights to these photos. I am so pleased with how they turned out. Gracie had a fantastic year!

Softball Champions!

2009-05-29T23:15:00.000-07:00

We are so excited to announce that Gracie's softball team, the Cedar Park Eagles, won their championship game tonight with a score of 20-16! Yippee!!! They played great and it was awesome that they finished the year with such a big win. We are so proud of their great sportsmanship and how much fun they had this season. Gracie was also selected by her coach to play on the All-Stars team. She will have two more weeks of practice and then play the all-star game on June 12. We are excited about that as well. Heath will be the pitcher for the game and he feels honored to have been chosen for that. I'm sure it'll be fun to get to play one more game. I think Gracie might be sad that the season is coming to an end. It's been so fun and she has worked so hard. Congratulations to Gracie and all the Eagles on a fantastic season!!!

(I'll post some pictures tomorrow)

Beautiful Butterflies

2009-05-27T22:20:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Gracie had a field trip to the Pacific Science Center in downtown Seattle. All of us went with her. Heath took the day off and Abbie wanted to go too, of course. We had a great day checking out the exhibits. There are some really neat things there. All the boys in my extended family would probably love Grossology. I didn't really get to see much of it because the little girl from Gracie's class that was assigned to me to watch cried when we started to go in. I was so surprised but she really didn't want to see the gross-ness. I felt bad so I stayed out with her while Heath, Gracie, and Abbie checked it out a bit. We also saw a little movie called Animalopolis on the IMAX screen that was pretty cute. It was narrated in a rhyming fashion and showed lots of different animals in their natural environments. There was also a laser show that everyone liked. Abbie kind of started feeling dizzy during it so she came and sat on my lap and rested her head. It was hard to watch it sometimes. It takes place in a big dark room and the kids laid on the floor looking at the ceiling to watch it. Gracie liked it though. My favorite part of the day was the butterfly room. They have so many different types of butterflies and they just fly all over the place. It's like a warm little oasis for butterflies. Almost the only pictures I took of the whole day were from the butterfly room. For some reason I felt so emotional in there. It sort of made me feel like crying to be surrounded by these peaceful insects. It was amazing!

Eating lunch outside in the beautiful sunshine.

The butterflies like oranges apparently.

This blue one was one of my absolute favorites. They were all over the place and had such an amazing color.

Gracie and her classmate Maddi - with Abbie of course

They tell you when you go in that the butterflies might come to rest on you. A couple of them landed on Heath's hat. Here is the one I was able to catch on camera.

Here is the one that rested on Gracie. She was so excited. She waited and waited for one to rest on her so she was happy when it happened. I think it makes people feel special to be landed on by the butterflies.

Here's Abbie sitting on a caterpillar. Never thought I'd use that sentence...

It was a great day!

2009-05-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

We had such a great weekend. The weather was absolutely perfect all weekend long, a first for Seattle in many, many years. Saturday Heath had to work in the morning, so the girls and I hung around home and then Gracie had a gymnastics class. She was the only one that showed up so she got some one-on-one time with the coach. She's doing really well in her class.

After Heath got off work, he was asked by a friend to come over and help him cut a huge piece of granite for their outdoor pond. He went over there while the girls and I were at gymnastics, so we went to join him at our friends house for a BBQ dinner and game night. Gracie got to throw the ball around with our friends' son so she was happy. Abbie is happy doing whatever, so she found stuff to occupy her time. It was a fun time for us all and we ended the night with a game of Cranium. I left earlier than Heath and Gracie because we were in two different cars, and Abbie was asleep before we even left their neighborhood. She was a tired girl!

Sunday afternoon we headed out in the jeep convertible and found a new park we had just driven by a few days before. It was a really nice park and we took a blanket and some books and ate lunch and read while the girls played on the playground. Gracie also took her basketball and shot some baskets. While she was shooting, a guy came up and wanted to play and said he was a coach for 1st and 2nd grade boys and girls, and that most of the girls couldn't even hit the basket. Gracie made about 8 or 10 shots throughout the day. It's amazing to see that, so far, she is excelling at just about everything she tries.

We grilled out at our house in the evening. I forgot to mention, we had also grilled out breakfast. Heath was determined to grill as many meals as possible this weekend and figured out a way to make pancakes on the grill. They were good! For dinner he made yummy chicken sandwiches and we enjoyed an evening at home playing outside and just hanging out together.

Monday was another great day. We didn't do much except that we worked in the yard some. I pulled so many weeds and I'm still not done. My hands and back are killing me so I'm done for now. We rested some in the afternoon and Gracie was invited to the beach with her neighbor friend. Abbie wanted to go, but wasn't invited, so I took her to get ice cream. It's been an awesome weekend and I didn't want it to be over.

I'm attaching a couple of videos of Abbie. She wanted me to get her saying her ABC's so here it is. I personally think she is a little cutie!!

Here is another one of a song she made up outside one day.

I actually wrote most of this on Monday but I'm just now getting it posted. I have another one too about our field trip today. I'll try to get that one out tomorrow. Later!

A really long post with lots of pictures

2009-05-04T09:40:00.000-07:00

This might be the most random post I have ever done. I am so far behind in posting pictures that I decided just to one big update and then try to keep on top of things in the future. I'm posting the pictures chronologically so that's how I'll talk about things.

These first two pictures are from Grandparents' Day at school. Every year the Friday before Easter, the school invites the grandparents to a little program and then to visit the classroom. It's always fun and this year was the first year that Dad got to go since he has so much time on his hands now. :)

Next we celebrated Easter. The girls had received their Easter dresses from Mom and Dad for Abbie's birthday and I thought they looked adorable. We had a great day attending Easter services and then going over to Mom and Dad's for lunch. It was a cold day here, but it was still fun.

The next week Joshua and Jodi came for spring break. These next pictures are from their visit. We had lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory the first day and this was shortly after the kids saw each other for the first time in awhile. Joshua apparently had to make a silly face for the picture.

We went to one of our new favorite parks. It's called Carkeek Park and it's in Seattle. They have a salmon slide that the kids like a lot. Here is Abbie at the top, ready to go into the fish's mouth.

Abbie and Joshua (although you can only see his feet) coming out the bottom. (And I guess I mean literally "coming out the bottom" of the fish.) Ha!

The park is so nice because it has the playground area and green grass to picnic on as well as beach access to the water. Here is the view from the park looking out at the water. It's such a beautiful park.

The three sweeties enjoying the water front.

Jodi and mom

Mom and daughters

A nice one of mom and dad

The day after the park, we went on a water taxi from downtown Seattle to West Seattle. It's about a 15 minute ride or so and it was another beautiful day so we enjoyed the ride and the scenery. Sweet Abbie on the boat.

The kids enjoying the view.

Looking back at the city from the boat.

My beautiful mother

It was a great visit with Jodi and Joshua. It's funny that as I type this, mom and dad are in New York visiting them again. Hope you all are having a great time!

Moving on to softball...Gracie is in her second year playing softball with a group of girls from school. She loves it and the team is doing great this year! Their record is 7-1 and we are really proud of how much they have improved since last year, and last year they made it to the championship game! So, we'll see how this year turns out. We are hoping for great things though. As I type this, they have two regular season games left and then they start the playoffs. It's been really fun so far!

Up to bat...

Made it on base...

Playing defense...

Gracie participated in her spring concert at school last week. Each year they perform a few songs on stage. She did a great job. They are all so cute!

Abbie decided to do a little dancing during the concert. It was cute too!

The day after the concert, Gracie's class celebrated Mother's Day. I was invited to come to the school and enjoy some treats and some time with Gracie. She made me several things and it was fun to be there with her for this special day.

Of course Abbie came too and as you can imagine, I am such a proud mama to these two precious girls. They are my loves and I am so thankful that God has entrusted them to me for my time here on earth.

I hope you enjoyed my random post. We've had a lot of fun times lately and I'm looking forward to a summer full of great memories.

Abbie's 3rd birthday

2009-04-13T10:15:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Abbie's 3rd birthday last weekend. I can't believe my baby is 3!! It was a gorgeous day so we were able to have the party outside in our backyard. We were thrilled to have so many good friends come over to celebrate our little girl! Here's the birthday girl...

Abbie's good friend Jacob - the son of our friends' Dan and Kerri. My great friend Kara was able to come for the party. She and I hadn't seen each other for a long time so it was wonderful to have her here. She took most of these pictures for us which was really nice!

Abbie's big present (well, really a present for both girls) was this big swingset. Let me tell you, it was stressful putting it together. We didn't get it until Saturday afternoon. We started putting it together at 2:30 and quit around 7:00 that evening. Then the next day we began work at 8:30 in the morning and it took until 2:00 to finish. The party was at 3!! Talk about stressed out! I thought for sure it wouldn't be ready, but Heath did the last few hours without me. Way to go, Daddy!

Our sweet Gracie on the swing.

This is another of Abbie's friends, Tori - the daughter of our friends Isaiah and Stephanie.

Olivia - the daughter of Dan and Kerri.

Here are Corinne and Lily - two little cuties - the daughters of more friends of ours.

Andrew - the son of Isaiah and Stephanie.

Tiny Annalise - her parents are John and Stephanie and she is just a couple of months old. She's a sweetheart and her older brother Joshua was here too but we don't have a picture of him.

The birthday girl again.

Granddaddy is a good pusher-on-the-swing.

Opening presents - Abbie got so many nice gifts. She loved this little penquin.

Here she is opening some bubbles. Bubbles are always fun.

I'm not sure what she opened here, but she likes it!

Thanking sister for her present - a glove and baseball.

A really cute puppy from Nana and Granddaddy.

I love this picture of Gracie and her Nana.

Sisters - mom and Aunt Shirley.

The girls and me at the end of a very long day.

It's funny that even though Heath didn't have to take the pictures since our friend Kara was here, there is still no picture with him in it. I promise he was here and enjoying celebrating Abbie's birthday too. Thanks to everyone who was able to come!

Jodi and Joshua visit from NYC

2009-02-25T09:30:00.000-08:00

This post is going to have a ton of pictures, so bear with me. We had a wonderful visit with Jodi and Joshua last week. They flew out during Joshua's winter break from school and spent about 5 days here. It's always so fun to reunite the kids. They enjoy playing together very much.

Granddaddy is a favorite of the kids. Abbie likes having him read to her and the others seem to enjoy it too.

Aunt Shirley and Abbie enjoyed pretend fishing in my parents' condo. Notice the fishing bear that joined them as well.

On Friday, Jodi and I took the kids to the park. This was the location of the famed ankle sprain that Jodi received. She tripped over the curb near the parking lot and thought she had broken her ankle. Thankfully it was just a bad sprain. Heath took these pictures of the kids after coming to help with the injury. My dad took Jodi to urgent care, and we let the kids continue playing.

Abbie liked the swings a lot.

Joshua celebrated his birthday while they were here and he received some nerf-style swords that the kids liked playing with. Here they are in a battle at the park.

After the park, we had scheduled "playtime" at Jump Planet. This was sort of for Joshua's birthday but mostly just because he really enjoys it and doesn't have one in NYC. It was just a small group...the three cousins, and two friends from his old neighborhood.

They had a great time playing.

Don't you just love Gracie's hair?

Cousins enjoying being together.

After the "playtime", we came back to our house for Joshua's birthday dinner. Mom made yummy lasagna and we got the kids McDonald's, and followed up dinner with ice cream sundaes. Joshua was happy to have all his favorite things!

On Saturday we did another favorite thing to do when we are all together...we went to Salty's on Alki for brunch. They have an amazing assortment of such wonderful foods, including a chocolate fountain that the kids LOVE! I can't say the adults mind it either.

Heath enjoyed a little nuzzle time with Abbie.

And a snuggle with his little princesses.

After brunch, we went outside where they have a nice area for taking pictures. Here is a cute one of the three kids together.

Of course, climbing on rocks is always a fun thing to do!

I love this picture! Great smile, Joshua Mark!

And one of my oldest sweetheart.

After the picture taking after the brunch, we went back to my parents' condo. My mom was really wanting a picture of the three of them to replace one she has in a frame beside her bed. The one that is there is a picture from when Abbie was about 9 or 10 months old, so she definitely needed un update. This is the one that will soon be in a frame beside her bed.

Although the kids would probably prefer that this one fill the frame...ha, ha!

A random one of me and hubby

Joshua enjoying his birthday presents.

It's always so fun to be together. It's hard that they live so far away now, but we are fortunate enough to get to see each other pretty frequently. They will be back for Joshua's spring break, which will be fun. And I hope for another chance to go to NYC soon. I hope all 5 of you that read my blog enjoy the pictures!

One of my favorite things...

2009-02-24T15:55:00.000-08:00

I absolutely love watching children fall asleep. I don't get to do it that often because we worked so hard to help our children learn to sleep on their own when they were babies, that I'm almost never in the room when they are falling asleep at night. Today, however, Abbie fell asleep in the car while we were driving home from school. I had my rearview mirror angled just right so I was able to watch her as her eyes began to flutter. She would pop them open again and then they would droop closed again. Over and over I watched as she tried to keep her eyes open and they simply failed her. Finally, I noticed that her eyes weren't opening anymore. I love the peaceful look on my little ones' faces when they are sleeping.The best part?? She fell asleep with her hand in her snack bag. Talk about being tired...she couldn't even stay awake to eat her snack. Too funny!

We are also very proud of Abbie for another reason. She has successfully used the potty two days in a row now, which might be more information than you need, but I had to share. It seems like she is really getting it and we are really happy to be almost done with diapers. It's such an exciting time and I pray she keeps it up!

Vancouver with Friends

2009-02-20T10:28:00.001-08:00

This past weekend we went to Vancouver, BC with some good friends of ours, The Kincaids. We had such a great time just walking through the city and enjoying the beautiful weather. This is the whole group: Heath and Gracie, me and Abbie, Kerri and Jacob, and Dan and Olivia

This was our view from our hotel room on the 20th floor

The girlies - waiting for the boys to come back with the strollers

They are great friends!

Still waiting - looking at a fountain outside of the art museum

Kerri and me by the clock tower

The kids by the clock tower

We stopped at this cool park that had an amazing brick wall fountain. Heath had fun experimenting with his camera to take the best shot of the water.

Little Livi on her daddy's shoulders

Abbie enjoyed going up and down the stairs

That evening, we spent an hour waiting for our husbands to come back with dinner to the hotel rooms. Here is Gracie attempting to console a crying, hungry Livi.

Abbie looking down on the city - I love her reflection in the window

This was taken at the exact same time as the picture above it but with a different setting on my camera. Doesn't it look like it is much brighter outside than it actually is?

The next day we took the train to a mall. I have absolutely no idea where the mall was, but it was fun to ride the train.

Gracie and Jacob enjoying the ride

All the kids got along really well together

We stopped at Stanley Park on our way out of town and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine. It was a gorgeous day.

Heath managed to catch the rays on these two little rays of sunshine.

Shadows

Serious

Sunshine, snuggles, and silly faces

Our family - Abbie wasn't very happy by this point

Sweet girl

It was a wonderful weekend and I hope we get to go again soon. Love you, Kincaid Family!

Gracie receives an award

2009-01-29T12:20:00.001-08:00

Gracie received an award at school this morning. She was given a Compassionate Award for being one of the most compassionate people in her class. She was called up on stage and presented a certificate. Here are our two goofballs after Gracie received her award. They sure love each other!We are very proud of Gracie for having kindness and compassion towards her classmates and towards other people too. She's a very sweet girl and it shows!

Obama Momma

2009-01-21T18:46:00.000-08:00

I had to share this funny story about Abbie yesterday. I was watching the inauguration during the afternoon and she was playing in the room where we were. This is our conversation:

"We have a new president now. Do you remember his name?"

She kind of looks at me sideways and says "Yes." So I waited for her to tell me his name.

Instead she whispers "What is it?"

I tell her "His name is Barack Obama."

She says "Yeah" and repeats it.

Then she says "Like you are my momma and Gracie's momma..."

I just cracked up!! She thought his name was Barack Omomma! Adorable!! She's such a funny little girl and she makes us laugh all the time.

Christmas in Wyoming

2008-12-31T20:29:00.001-08:00

For Christmas this year we were fortunate enough to go to Pinedale, Wyoming to visit Heath's parents and his sister and brother-in-law. I was feeling pretty anxious about our trip because about two months ago we decided to drive there instead of fly, but who could have known we would have so much snow before we even left our town?? Thankfully, our trip went really well and we didn't have any major problems on the roads. The only thing that happened was after our first day of traveling we stopped in Boise, ID and spent the night. The next morning, about an hour into our 7 hour day, the traffic on the freeway came to a complete stop. We crept forward as far as we could in the left lane (everyone was stopped in the right lane) and came to a stop behind a semi. We couldn't see anything that was going on because of the semi right in front of us except that we could see several drivers of semi's out of the trucks and walking around on the freeway. About 15 minutes later, another driver came up to our window and told us that the there was an accident ahead of us and that the semi in front of us would move forward to get as close as it could to the wreck so we could see what was going on. We followed slowly behind and when we finally got to there, we were the first car up next to the accident. A semi driving the other direction on the freeway, hit some ice and the wind caught him and the truck was laying on it's side covering all the lanes of our direction of the freeway. It was pretty traumatic for me to see something like that up close. We were concerned that we were going to be there for hours. Finally, about a half an hour later, the driver from the semi in front of us came to tell us that the photos of the accident had all been taken and the police were going to let cars go around the wreck on the far right where the dirt and snow were. We were thankful to be so far up so within a few minutes we were on our way again. I felt bad for all the semi's that were stuck there. There was no room for them to go around because they all would have tipped over due to the angle of the shoulder. We were glad to get by it and made it the rest of the way without incident. There were a few times that the roads were bad, but our van handled very well, Praise God! Now on with the pictures...

This was our first morning at Gramma and Papa's. Abbie fell so in love with their two dogs, Chewy and Cooter. This is Chewy.

The girls enjoyed playing in the snow. Seattle actually had more snow than they did when we arrived, and Heath must have made a mistake by mentioning that. That day and pretty much everyday until the day after Christmas, it snowed non stop so that by the day after Christmas, the snow equaled or surpassed what we had received in Seattle.
Told you Abbie loved those dogs.

Here's our toothless Gracie

One morning we drove up not far from his parents house to a place called Fremont Lake. It was so beautiful up there and so quiet! There is no place around here that is as quiet as it is there.

A cute Abbie pose...

Our little family

Gramma Penny enjoying a good read - she borrowed "The Shack" and got almost all the way through it before we left. Unfortunately, we had borrowed it from the Kincaids (thanks, friends!) and couldn't leave it with her. We promised to buy her a copy and send it to her asap so she could finish it. It's an amazing book!

Christmas morning at last!! The girls were up early and really excited to open presents. They both got what they asked for from Santa - rollerblades for Gracie, and a swimming puppy for Abbie.

See the excitement on her face?!!

A good gift

Another good gift

The day after Christmas, once the snow stopped, there was a lot of the stuff. Papa's neighbor came over with the backhoe and created this wonderful sledding hill for the girls. It was really fun and we didn't have to go anywhere but out to the driveway to find it!

Papa helping the girls down the hill

Heath and his girls.

Daddy and Abbie going for a run

Heath bought a new camera shortly before we went on this trip and he enjoyed figuring out all the new features on it while we were there. Here is a close up of the Christmas tree - pretty cool picture, I thought!

On our last day there, we took the girls ice skating. Neither one had ever ice skated before, although if you remember from one of my earlier posts, Gracie had been rolling skating before. They both were really excited to go and had been waiting all week for the arena to be opened. Here are Heath and Gracie together. Unfortunately shortly after this picture was taken, Gracie fell and bloodied her lip and nose. She was not happy about that, but got right back up and skated again. Good job, girl!

Abbie and I were skating partners too. She did a great job for having such little feet and only recently gaining her balance.

Our vacation was so wonderful! We really enjoyed getting to go there for Christmas. It had been about 5 years since we were there for Christmas. The girls had a great time and did a good job being in the car for so long. We were thankful to God that he blessed our driving and gave us safe travels. We didn't know we would be coming home to still so much snow on the ground, but now it is finally melting. We hope all of you had as enjoyable a Christmas as we did!

Early Christmas and Lots of Snow

2008-12-31T20:16:00.001-08:00

The girls received their Christmas presents from their cousin Joshua several days before Christmas and couldn't wait to open them. Of course, I had to let them. They helped me with some chores, and for their reward, they got to open their presents. (I'm not sure why Abbie has that goofy grin on her face.)

Here is what they got...Gracie got a Hannah Montana guitar and Abbie got a cape and hat that suit her perfectly.

I'm sure most of you have heard about the record snowfall we got here in the Seattle area. The last three days before Christmas vacation were snow days from school so here are some pictures of the girls getting out in it. They had a great time!

Abbie looking cute as always.

Gracie playing with the neighborhood kids building a fort for snowball fights.

Stopping to pose for me.

Ready to go inside...they look tired, don't they? There was a long time in between Gracie posing and the ready to go inside picture. Imagine that they had played and played and THEN were ready to go inside.

Because we left town for Christmas, I don't actually have any pictures to show you how much snow we actually received at our house. You'll have to imagine but it was a lot!

More fun!

2008-12-15T16:23:00.000-08:00

We had another great day on Sunday. We met my parents for brunch at one of my favorite restaurants called Salty's on Alki and enjoyed a fabulous meal. Heath had also purchased my birthday present and gave it to me there. It was a beautiful butterfly necklace with my birthstone and Gracie's birthstone as the wings, and a diamond in the center which is Heath and Abbie's birthstone. It's so beautiful and I was truly surprised by their gift for me. Abbie being goofy...
Gracie took this picture of Granddaddy while at brunch

This is a half eaten piece of my absolutely favorite cake on the planet. It's Salty's white chocolate mousse cake and it is soooooo good! (Gracie also took this picture)

The restaurant also offers complimentary Santa pictures, so instead of having to take the girls to the mall, wait in line, and pay a bunch of money, we were able to walk right up and see him. They sat with him for several minutes just talking and telling him what they would like for Christmas. He was a nice Santa!

After brunch, we went over to my parents condo and celebrated Christmas with them. Since we are going to be out of town, we had to celebrate early. Here is a cute one of Heath and his princess.

Time to open presents!

Abbie enjoyed herself and the girls did a good job of taking turns. One would open a present while the other watched and then they would switch.

Abbie opening a puzzle

Each year my aunt Shirley buys the girls matching Hanna Andersson pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve. This year the pj's are covered by little bears wearing hats. So cute and Abbie put them on almost right away and wore them all evening. Unfortunately, I couldn't bear to make her change once it was bedtime, so they got to wear their jammies early this year.

Here are Gracie's matching pj's.

Gracie received an American Girl book and small doll named Molly.

The girls opening their last presents of the day. They got some great things from their Nana and Granddaddy and Great Aunt Shirley.

After celebrating Christmas, we played for the afternoon and then it was finally time to take Gracie to the Nutcracker Ballet. We had been eagerly anticipating this event and I think Heath and I were as excited as Gracie. They had this small stage set up in the lobby for picture taking so we took advantage of it.

Here is the only picture we got of the stage prior to the show starting. As soon as Heath took they picture, they announced over the sound system that photos and videos were prohibited.

Here are the three of us just before the show began.

Gracie after the show with a large Nutcracker. She really loved the show and couldn't stop dancing all night. We went back to my parents to pick up Abbie and Gracie put on a little show for us displaying what she learned that night. She's actually pretty good so ballet may be the next activity we choose to pursue. Maybe someday Gracie will be up on that stage as Clara, you never know!

It was such a great day. We were a bit tired this morning, but thankfully school was an hour delayed so we slept in a little longer than usual. Thank you, Nana and Granddaddy for taking care of Abbie for us and for all the gifts for the girls. We had such a wonderful time!

2008-12-14T09:21:00.000-08:00

We have had quite a busy weekend so far. Saturday was a busy, fun-filled day. Here are some pictures.

Gracie was invited to a birthday party on Saturday morning. It was at a roller skating rink called Skate King. She had not ever been roller skating before and we weren't quite sure how she was going to do. She ended up doing great and really had a fun time! It was all she could talk about for the rest of the weekend.

This is her first time around the rink. I stayed for a few minutes at the beginning and watched her and then left for awhile. When I got back, she had improved so much. It was fun to watch her master another skill.

While Gracie was at her party, Abbie and I braved the traffic to go to a nearby mall. It actually wasn't too bad and we had a great time at the play area. This mall has recently built a whole new play area for kids and we had never been to it before. Abbie had fun too!

After the party, we went home and did some work around the house, but then in the evening, we decided to go to a place called Bellevue Botanical Gardens. Each winter, they set up lights in the form of flowers and some animals and open it up to the public to walk through and look at all the designs. It just happened to start snowing as we were driving there and it ended up being such a fun time walking through the snow and looking at the lights. Beautiful!

I'm not sure if you can tell from the pictures, but there are some really neat designs. This area was set up to look like a garden and the middle piece that looks kind of like a tree, was actually flashing and it looked like falling water. So, we figured out it was supposed to be a fountain in the middle of the flowers. The bottom left of the picture is two peacocks, one with it's feathers showing. Very cool!

The girls are standing near a lighted tree that lots of people were taking pictures near. You can see some of the snowflakes in the picture too.

These are giant sunflowers surrounded by some other types of flowers.

More flowers with a beautiful butterfly suspended in the air

Heath let Gracie take a turn with the camera and she found some animals to take pictures of. The brown blob in the middle of this picture is actually a squirrel. It was so well done. It even had eyes.

They had an area set up for photo opportunities so Gracie took this picture of us. I thought she did a really good job using a pretty complicated camera.

Someone was nice enough to take a picture of the four of us too.

Each year they create a character named Willy the slug and the goal is to find him hidden within the gardens somewhere. He is always in a different place. We found him at almost the last area and thought he was cute. You can see him and his slime trail all made out of lights.

This was the last thing we saw, a spider on a web. It was all so amazing!

After our fun night last night, we woke up this morning to several inches of snow on the ground. Gracie was very excited to head out to play in it.

Two neighbor friends came over to play too. Here are Paige and Ryan, brother and sister across the street. Gracie loves playing with them.

This is Heath's work car with two inches or so on it.

We've had our Christmas tree decorated for a few weeks, but I've never posted a picture. I thought I would include it too.

Here is one of our favorite decorations of the season. Heath loves the old time houses so we have a small collection that lights up. It's hard to see some of the detail, but we have a church, a factory, a school, and several other really cool buildings. This is always a fun thing to put out each year.

I'm finishing this post up after returning home from another busy day celebrating my birthday and Christmas with my parents. We also took Gracie to the Nutcracker Ballet tonight. I'll have to post pictures from that tomorrow because I am so tired tonight. Come back and check it out. It was a great day!

Random December '08 Pictures

2008-12-12T14:29:00.001-08:00

Here are some pictures we have taken at different times during December. The first picture is at Gracie's Christmas concert at school. They sang three songs and did a really good job. Here is Gracie with her friend, Clara.

We decorated the our Christmas tree and during the decorating, the girls decided to pretend to sleep instead of helping us with the task. I think they look pretty convincing!

Abbie takes a gymnastics class with me one morning a week. Here she is swinging on the rings. She loves her class and her teacher, Miss Dena.

At class...

Heath and I went shopping one day when he was off work and of course we had Abbie with us. Because she was well behaved, she got to ride on a little firetruck. Plus, we bought her the hat she is wearing.

Here are my beautiful girls playing the piano in the Christmas dresses.

So cute!

Really precious girls, aren't they?

Thanks for checking in with us. I hope you enjoyed our random pictures from December. I can't wait to post more from our Christmas adventures. We are off to Wyoming to visit Grandma and Poppa. The girls are very excited and so are we!

Thanksgiving '08 and other events

2008-11-28T09:38:00.000-08:00

We had a really fun Thanksgiving day with our family. Mom, Dad, and my Aunt Shirley came over and brought all the sides. Heath was in charge of the turkey and I made pumpkin cupcakes. The food was wonderful and we had a great time just being together.

Here are Nana and Shirley reading to Abbie. Shirley always brings books and Abbie always wants to read. They read for a long time. Heath doing his thing with the turkey. He smoked it on our smoker grill that we got last year. It turned out really good but we also figured out that when you do it right, it takes a really long time! He ended up having to put it in the oven towards the end so we could eat it with all the other items we had cooking at the same time. Good job, Honey!

The girls playing the Wii. Dad brought a music game and here they are pretending to play trumpets. That was fun!

Our feast! Our centerpieces were courtesy of Gracie. She made a couple of turkeys at school and they adorned our table for the meal.

What nice looking parents I have!

Nana and Gracie

Mommy and Abbie

Before and after dinner we played a few rounds of this game...Apples To Apples. Gracie LOVES this game and we had enjoyed playing it with her. It's nice because you can sit on the couch and not really move to play this game. Since that what we all wanted to do, especially after dinner, we all got our wish!

Earlier in the week, Gracie had a Thanksgiving play and feast at school. Here are a few pictures from that. She was Pilgrim Woman and had one line in the play. Great job, Gracie!

We hope you all had a very blessed Thanksgiving too with your family and friends. We have so much to be thankful for and now it's time to move onto Christmas! Where has this year gone??

Happy Halloween 2008

2008-11-01T08:57:00.001-07:00

Here are our girls on Halloween. Gracie was Rosalina from Mario (although started out as a Hollywood Starlett) and Abbie was a pink butterfly. We had a great time trick or treating through the neighborhood with several friends. We were so thankful it didn't rain that night!

Two of our neighbor friends came to the door to check out each others costumes. Paige was Princess Peach also from Mario and Ayden was Luigi also from Mario. Apparently it was the year of Mario.

Abbie walking in the dark. She did great saying "Trick or Treat" and "Thank You" and each door.

Here is the whole gang...on the left Trent, a skeleton pirate, Ayden, Ryan (Paige's brother) dressed as Mario himself, then Paige, Gracie and Abbie. It was fun!

Our Leavenworth Weekend

2008-10-26T21:00:00.000-07:00

This weekend our family was able to get away for a one night stay in Leavenworth, a town about 2 hours or so from home. We had such a great time just being together and getting to do something different. The girls very much enjoyed getting to go stay in a hotel and swimming in the pool, of course, was a big hit. The town is such a beautiful place. It is very quaint and designed to look like a German village. Heath had some great German food and we took a ton of pictures. Here are some of the best ones.

Our two cuties on the way there.

Heading to the pool. Here's the story of the pool. It's an outdoor pool. It's heated but the air outside is not. It was 7:30 at night and probably 40 or so degrees outside. Mom decided there was no way she was getting in, even if it was heated. Dad and the girls braved the elements and had a great time. I shivered the entire time.
Having a blast. It really wasn't bad for them until they had to get out...

They don't look very cold, do they? You should have seen me...brrr. I probably would have been better off getting in the pool with them.

The view from outside our hotel. The town sits right in the mountains.

The Starbucks. Notice the German looking sign.

Enjoying a crisp morning and our coffee.

In the afternoon, we headed to the town square where there was a great park with bouncy houses, a bouncy slide, and a rock wall set up. For a small fee, the girls were able to have a great time. Prior to playing, Abbie just needed some Daddy time.

Gracie was stoked to climb the rock wall. She has never done anything like this before, and she showed no fear whatsoever. It was awesome!

She made it all the way to the top three times.

Ringing the bell at the top.

Here is one of the main streets. You can see the buildings are all very neat looking.

Another great view of the mountains and the colors of the trees.

On our way out of town, we found a little road side pull-out and ventured down a steep bank to the river. The girls thought that was pretty fun to hike a bit and we found a great place for a family photo. Aren't we a nice looking family??

Can you say "Cheese?" Abbie was all about saying "cheese" and her expression shows that she went a little overboard on this one.

We had such a great time. No one really wanted to come home, but all good things must come to an end. We hope for another adventure soon!

Sister Jodi and nephew Joshua visit from NYC

2008-10-26T19:17:00.001-07:00

My sister Jodi and my nephew Joshua came to visit from NYC in early October. We had such a great time with them. It felt a bit like a mini vacation with them here. On Friday of their visit, I took Gracie out of school and we went to my parents house. We decided to take the ferry to Bainbridge Island, to the town of Winslow, and really enjoyed the beautiful weather and our time together that day. Here are the three kiddos out on one of the piers near my parents house. A few from that same pier - notice Abbie looking at the view in the foreground.
All of us on our walk to the ferry terminal.

The view from the ferry.

A view back at the city from the ferry.

Mom, me, and Jodi

Mom and Dad - aren't they cute??

An absolutely beautiful sunset once we arrived back at my parents. This is the view off their main patio.

My camera has a cool setting for night shots. It is as dark outside as the picture above but this one of the ferry came out so cool, I thought.

Later in the weekend, we took the kids to Seattle Center to enjoy the rides. They had such a great time together and really played well too. The girls sure miss their cousin Joshua!

On the bumper cars - notice the fun Abbie is having crashing into Joshua!

Gracie and Joshua got to go on a bigger ride this year. They are finally tall enough! This one was a little rough. Gracie couldn't scoot over, she kept falling into him.

An indoor ride - Abbie loved this one.

The next three pictures Heath took with his bigger camera. The kids were watching a balloon artist (is that the name?) while he made them some balloon toys. They are so intently watching. We love these pictures.

The visits between us are never long enough. All of us had a great time and we can't wait to be back together again, either here or in New York. Miss you so much, J and JM! (Oh yeah, Hans too! I almost forgot because he wasn't able to come on this trip. We hope you are finally able to work a little less. Hope to see you soon!)

Two sweet girls!

2008-10-05T20:49:00.000-07:00

Here are our little cuties today at an outdoor mall. They found this fountain and wanted to throw pennies into it. Of course we let them, and then snapped this great picture! They are so sweet!

Gracie's first soccer game - 10/4/08

2008-10-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

Gracie had her very first soccer game EVER on Saturday. She is playing indoor soccer through the local YMCA. Here she is prior to the start of the game.She did such a great job. She had only had three practices before this game. She was a little nervous but we were actually quite amazed with how much she looked like a real soccer player.
She was really focused too. She always does her best when she plays sports.
Shaking hands with the other team. Gracie's team won with a score of 3-2. Awesome!
Here is a goofy picture of Abbie during the game. She looks like she's dancing a little jig.

We're very proud of Gracie! She is turning out to be a little athlete and seems to be good at everything she tries. We figure there will come a time where she might have to decide between certain sports, but for now she is enjoying soccer and gymnastics.

One summer day at the fair - if you can call it a summer day!

2008-09-06T10:30:00.001-07:00

In between our trips, we were home for a few days and Heath had won tickets to the Jars of Clay concert at the Evergreen State Fair on the radio. We were so excited and had been looking forward to taking the girls for months. The downfall...rain was in the forecast. We went pretty prepared with rain coats and boots. Little did we know what we were in store for...

It's not raining too hard yet. Abbie didn't want to ride in her stroller so Gracie pulled out a purple necklace that she had in her pocket and the two of them held onto it while they walked. You can barely see the necklace, but it was cute.
Abbie really liked the merry-go-round. She thought it was pretty fun.
Gracie, however, was actually quite bored with it. I guess my little girl is growing up!
This was much more her speed. She liked the big swings a lot!
After the merry-go-round, we found the real thing and the girls loved riding on the real ponies. What a treat for them.By about this time, it was pouring down rain. I have never been caught in such rain before without any cover. We were starving so we tried to get something to eat and then managed to find a covered area with picnic tables. But then we started shivering we were so wet. So, we had to make a judgment call. Stick it out for TWO MORE HOURS until the concert even started and then still sit in the rain to watch it, or bag it and go home. We decided there was no way the girls were going to make it through the concert. It was miserable! So, we left.
Here is the last picture of us right before loading in the car. You really can't tell from looking at us (especially since you can't even see us really) but we are SOAKED! The girls were troopers though and once we got them changed and into the car, their happiness came back. We went home and made ice cream sundaes to make up for missing the concert. Oh well, hope to win tickets again someday!

One really funny story I must share...all day Abbie had been asking me, "Why it have to rain?" (That's how she says it) I would explain that the plants and trees and grass and people all need water and that's why it rains. Then she started asking me "Where's Jesus?" So, we talked about Jesus being everywhere and in our hearts, etc. I felt so proud that she was curious about Jesus and I loved teaching her these valuable lessons in life. When we were in the car heading home, she again asked me both questions only this time I put the questions back on her and said, "You tell me, Abbie." As for why it rains, her answer was "Everywhere" (which was the answer I had given her about Jesus - I think she got confused for a minute). When she asked about Jesus, I again said, "You tell me, Abbie, where's Jesus?", she very loudly and proudly said, "In Texas!!"

We laughed so hard! I thought my family in Texas would get a kick out of that! All I can think of is that we had just gotten home from Texas and we had also been talking about her cousins and where they live and I had been repeating for a few days "Your cousins are in Texas." She took all the answers I had given her recently and put them with her questions in a mixed up way. But it was soooo funny! That's our little boo!

Our super busy month of August - Part 3

2008-09-06T09:38:00.000-07:00

Our last trip in August was to visit Heath's family outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We always have such a great time visiting there. It's so relaxing and we have no schedule to keep so we just hang out and 'be'. The first few pictures were taken the day we arrived and we always immediately go out and sit on their back deck. It is so inviting...I love it!

Heath's Dad - Vod
Heath and his dad - reading the paper
Heath's mom - Penny
Catching up with his mom
They have two really cute dogs - here is Abbie holding Chewy. She did really well with the dogs. We thought she might be afraid, but she really wasn't. It was great.

Here's Cooter - their other dog
This was Wednesday morning - our first morning there. Abbie and her Papa just hanging out

Wednesday was also Gracie's 7th birthday. Here's the birthday girl in a cape that Grandma gave her to wear.
Birthday cake time! Daddy holding the cake and the girls' Uncle Brian sitting in the background.

Gracie opening presents next to her Aunt Amber. She received a BEAUTIFUL princess blanket that her Grandma and Great-Grandma spent a week sewing and creating for her. She loves it!

We actually did many more fun things while we were there, but I realized that these were the only pictures I got. I think I left my camera at home a lot on accident. One of the best things we did was go to the new Pinedale Aquatic Center that they built this year. The girls had a great time at the multiple indoor pools. There are squirting toys and a huge water slide and a lazy river. We went there a few days in a row and Gracie even passed the swimming test that allowed her to dive off the diving board! I wish I had gotten some pictures of all this, but of course I never had the camera with me. Bummer.

Another fun thing was on Friday night, Heath, Amber, Brian, and myself played in a scramble out at the golf course. I had not played golf in about three years and I actually played pretty well considering. It was a lot of fun. The girls also went to the course with us and got to ride in a golf cart with Grandma and Papa while we played. They really enjoyed that of course! Oh, I wish I had more pictures. Oh well, I'll try to remember to take it with me next time we go. Anyway, we had a great time and I'm so glad we were able to make such good memories of being at Grandma and Papa's house.

Our super busy month of August - Part 2

2008-09-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

Our second trip in August came right on the heels of our NYC trip. The girls and I, my parents, my sister, and my nephew, all caught a plane on Friday, Aug. 15 to attend our cousin's wedding in Houston, Texas. We were excited to see a lot of family members that we hadn't seen in about 9 years, and who had never met our children. So, off we went!

We arrived just in time to head over to the rehearsal dinner. Here the kids are ready to go, looking very spiffy!

Here's a good one with their Nana...
At the dinner...My cousin Matt, the groom, and his bride-to-be, Adrienne - listening to a speech given by Matt's dad, my uncle, Ted. (Photo courtesy of Uncle Chuck)

The five of us were very hungry by the time we arrived. (Photo courtesy of Uncle Chuck)

Gracie made some great friends right away...she is sitting on the lap of my cousin Amy and to Amy's right is her daughter Karli. Later in the weekend, Karli would prove to be a favorite of my two girls! (Photo courtesy of Uncle Chuck)

By the end of the night, they were exhausted. Here they are, all tucked in for the night.

The next day was the wedding and reception later in the day, but first we went swimming in the morning and shopping in the afternoon. The area of Houston where we were staying has a huge mall that even has an ice skating rink inside it! The kids thought that was pretty cool although we didn't have time to skate. In fact, we didn't even bring the right clothes to Texas to go ice skating. Brrrrr inside, and hot outside!

Here's Abbie at the pool holding her 2nd cousin Ava, my cousin Elise's daughter. Abbie thought she was pretty great too and still asks from time to time, "Where's baby Ava?"

The wedding...beautiful!

At the reception

The first dance...

Here is Abbie with cousin Cade - the girls had a lot fun with her too and she was very sweet playing with them.

Gracie dancing with cousin Karli - like I said, she also became such a friend to my girls. They thought she was pretty great!

So many wonderful memories were made on this trip. I had not seen my cousins and aunt and uncles for close to 9 years. They had never met my girls. The girls did not even know they had other cousins besides Joshua. It was such a great reunion for us all. If only Heath could have been there! Maybe next time.

(Stay tuned for one more post from our last trip of the month - to Wyoming)

Our super busy month of August - Part 1

2008-09-02T13:10:00.000-07:00

What a month! We have been so busy this month with three trips. The girls and I left on Aug. 8 for New York City to visit my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. They moved there last September and this is our 2nd trip to see them. We had a much better time than the first trip when we all got the flu. This time there was no illness among us and we had a great time!

DAY ONE - SATURDAY

Our first day in the big city. This is in the middle of Park Ave. The city closed down the street for the weekend so people could walk, ride, skate, stroll, whatever they wanted in the road. It's amazing that we are snapping a picture here, because normally we would be standing in the middle of huge amounts of traffic. This picture is of my dad, sister Jodi, mom, Joshua, Abbie, and Gracie. I, of course, was taking the picture.

Next we went to Central Park. Here is Abbie swinging away. She liked the swings.

Trying to see into the Central Park Zoo. We are looking for the sea lions but the line was so long to go inside that we decided to look through the fence. Success! We saw a few sea lions swimming around.

After the park, we went to Rockefeller Center. The next couple of pictures are from "The Top of the Rock" - a tourist attraction to go to the top of the building and look out. I thought this was a pretty good picture of Central Park from above.

The Empire State Building

I thought this was a really pretty church

Abbie completely passed out after a big first day

Two cousins that are glad to see each other again!

Jodi and Hans, my sister and brother-in-law

Can you say "Pinkberry??"

(A very popular yogurt store that just went in across the street from Jodi's condo)

DAY TWO - SUNDAY

We woke up and went to their church called "The Journey" near the Empire State Building. After church, we went to Macy's New York for lunch. Here are a few pictures from that.

As we were walking from church to Macy's, this is the picture we got. It wasn't even posed! Granddaddy was holding Abbie's hand, then Gracie started walking next to her, so Abbie put her arm around Gracie. Gracie did it back to Abbie, and then Joshua walked up so Gracie put her arm around him. So cute!!! They walked like this for a little bit.

Here's all three cuties in front of the Statue of Liberty. I bet you didn't know the statue was in Macy's!??

Empire State Building from the ground...

...and looking up

In the afternoon, the kids wanted to go swimming in my parents' hotel pool. Abbie really took to the water while we were here. Here she is practicing her kicking.

Another fish enjoying the water.

And one more fish in the water. They had a great time swimming!

Dinner on day two was a place called "Blue Smoke." It was this yummy BBQ place with amazing food. The kids even got to decorate their own cookies for dessert. Fun times!

We ended our day with a 30 block walk back to Jodi and Hans' condo. Even Abbie walked because we hadn't taken her stroller. I was amazed how easily she walked with us. Even the older two didn't complain. There is so much to see and do as you walk along that it goes by pretty quickly. This is the Chrysler Building as the sun was setting. Pretty!

DAY THREE - MONDAY

I actually only got one picture on Monday. Here it is of the older kids eating frozen yogurt at the restaurant where we ate lunch, Forty Carrots, inside Bloomingdales. We had to separate our group in half because they were so busy, so the older two sat with my dad, and Abbie, Jodi, my mom, and I ate at a different table.

Jodi went back to work on Monday evening and worked every evening from 2 -10. We met up with her for dinner each night and when she came home, she and I went down to the gym in their building and watched the Olympics together. No pictures of this, but trust me, we did!

DAY FOUR - TUESDAY

We woke up Tuesday morning and took a taxi to Madison Square Park. Jodi has a moms group that she is a part of and this outing was to the park to see a band that plays children's music. The kids were pretty mellow this day. There were a ton of kids there and I think it was a bit overwhelming for them. See?...

Mellow! I couldn't get them to smile at all.

We tried to get them to enjoy the music a little bit, but they really just wanted to go to the playground. So, we didn't stay too long...
Jodi and me

Finally, the playground! Joshua did such a good job looking out for Abbie everywhere we went. He liked pushing her in the stroller and holding her hand too. Very cute!

After the park, we had lunch at an outdoor restaurant called the Shake Shack. The kids enjoyed their hot dogs/hamburgers and milkshakes. The weather was so beautiful during our visit. It felt a lot like Seattle this day, with a nice breeze. Perfect for eating in a park. This is the Flat Iron Building - you may recognize it - it's a very popular landmark

We took the subway home after our day at the park. The kids always enjoy riding the subway.

This was at dinner on Tuesday night - yummy Chinese food - and Abbie was into hugging Joshua this evening...

...and hugging sister too!

DAY FIVE - WEDNESDAY

Today we celebrated Gracie's 7th birthday. She didn't actually turn 7 while we were there, but Jodi and Joshua wanted to celebrate with her while we were there. In the morning, we went to Soho to do some shopping. I found her a cute outfit at Crew Cuts from mom and dad. Then we came home and had a little party before Jodi headed off to work.

The birthday girl

Reading the card from Joshua

And now for the best part...the gift...

...she's so excited...HEELYS! (The shoes with the wheels on the bottom - like skates)

And here they are! She was thrilled, she had been wanting these for so long. Thank you, Aunt Jodi, Uncle Hans, and Joshua!

After that, she didn't really want to do anything except go somewhere where she could practice. So, we headed down to a park by the East River and let her skate. She had a blast!

DAY SIX - THURSDAY - OUR LAST FULL DAY

Thursday was a really fun day. We had been wanting to go to the American Museum of Natural History all week and it finally worked out for us to go. The kids thought it was pretty fun so here are a bunch of pictures from that excursion. If you've ever seen the movie "The Night at the Museum", you will recognize many of the characters from that movie in these pictures.

After the museum, we walked through Central Park to get back home. Here are some beautiful pictures from the park.

One more funny story from NYC...as we were walking home through Central Park, we sat down on some benches right next to where the horse drawn carriages went past. Abbie was enthralled with the horses and here is a little video of what she did when she saw them...

We ended our last night at California Pizza Kitchen for dinner. We just beat a huge rainstorm into the restaurant and we hung out there for a long time until it was over. We had such a great time in NY. I can't wait to go back!

(This is the end of part 1 of our August trip posts. Get ready for more from our 2nd trip to Houston, Texas.)

2008-07-07T09:13:00.000-07:00

Our family had a great 4th of July this year. We started off the day at the Bothell parade. Gracie got to walk in the parade with her gymnastics class and perform tricks all along the parade route. She had a great time. Here are Abbie and Daddy sitting along the route waiting for Gracie to come by. Abbie got to catch lots of candy since they were sitting right beside the road. She loved the candy! We think she liked the parade too, but not as much as the candy.
Still waiting for Gracie...she was really far back in the parade

Finally she arrives...she's the one waving at us

Here she is doing a handstand

While we were waiting for Gracie, our church also was in the parade. Here is the wife of our Senior Pastor, Betsey Hayford driving her convertible. We thought this was a good picture of her.

This is our Worship Pastor, Matt Simmons, on the back of the float, playing music.

After the parade, we came home and everyone rested before heading outside to our cul-de-sac for food and fireworks. It's sort of a tradition now that we all get together and line the sidewalks with our chairs and eat great food (Heath made his best BBQ pulled pork EVER!) and set off fireworks until late. It's really a fun time and we enjoyed hanging with our neighbors. Here are a few pictures from the party.

Running...Messy hands

Abbie with her friend and neighbor, Trent

Hope you all had a wonderful 4th!

Gymnastics Extravaganza

2008-06-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

This Sunday was Gracie's 1st gymnastics extravaganza. It is a chance for all the kids to show their families what they have learned throughout the year. She is really excelling at this sport as well. We seem to have a well-rounded athlete blooming in our family. We are very proud of her!

Here she is on the beam, her first event for the day
Tuck jump dismount...look how high she is!
Next was floor...here she is doing a cartwheel
Vault...look at that form
These are some of the other girls in her class. The blonde to the left of Gracie is her friend, Averie, from church.
Here she is on the bars...that's her coach, Lauren.

At the end, each girl was given a medal for their efforts for the year. She is continuing this summer and will hopefully stay with this sport for awhile. It's fun to see her following in my footsteps.

2nd Place!!!

2008-05-31T08:12:00.000-07:00

We are so proud of our Lil' Eagles!! They won their game on Thursday night and moved on to the championship game last night. The girls were a bit nervous but excited to take on one last team. The team we played was a great team. They had won every game this season except for one tie and they were all really tall 2nd graders. Our team is all first graders who aren't very tall at all. Our girls did great! The final score was 27-11. (I know the 27 is right, just not sure if we ended up with 11 or 12 runs.) Anyway, our girls were tough and held them in the last inning to 0 runs. In fact, one little girl threw a double play and then my Gracie threw the third out to first base! It was awesome!

Here is Heath's pregame hug for Gracie. He is the pitcher for the team.

Gracie up to bat waiting for the perfect pitch

Here comes the pitch...

And off she goes!

Waiting at third base for someone to hit her home

Here's a great throw

Here she is getting her 2nd place trophy and T-Shirt

The whole team!

After the game, Heath was given a softball signed by all the girls for all the hard work he put in to be their pitcher. I am very proud of him too! He did a great job and the girls probably wouldn't have gotten as far as they did without his excellent pitching ability.

Way to go, Eagles!!!

One funny story...Abbie became completely enthralled with another Grandma that was at the game last night. She walked over to her and just stared and stared for the longest time. The only thing I can figure out is that she looks a little bit like Abbie's Nana and that was very interesting to her. Here is a picture of her new friend. She played with her the whole night. Thanks to Savannah and Allieanne's grandmother for entertaining Abbie so much. You were great fun for her!

One down, two to go!

2008-05-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Gracie's softball team, the Lil' Eagles, as we affectionately call them, won their first playoff game this evening with a score of 13-6. It was a beautiful, sunny day and it was a great game! We are very proud of how far the girls have come this season. They will play another game on Thursday night, and when they win that one (notice my optimism), they'll play for the championship on Friday night. And these are first graders!!! They are really playing well as a team, and pitcher Heath has gotten into his own groove. He knows exactly how to pitch to each girl so she can hit the ball. What fun we've been having! Sorry I don't have any pictures from tonight, I forgot the camera, but I'll be remembering it on Thursday. Check back so you can hear the winning results of that game (again, notice my optimism!) Way to go, Lil' Eagles!!

Sweet pictures of my girls

2008-05-20T16:20:00.001-07:00

I just had to share some sweet pictures of the girls. My friend Kerri is an awesome photographer and she graciously took about 85 pictures of my girls last week. There are so many good ones that I had difficulty even narrowing it down to these. I hope you love them as much as I do!!! (The pictures and the girls!)

I've been tagged!

2008-05-18T18:50:00.000-07:00

My friend Kerri sent me a tag to complete the following statements for you all to read...hope it's not too boring.

I am: Karen Orr, a mother to Gracie and Abbie, a wife to Heath, and sick today with a bad cold

I think: I need some cold medicine

I know: I am loved by my family, my friends, and my God

I want: to be the best wife and mother I can be

I wish: that the sun would shine everyday for the rest of the summer

I have been blessed with: an amazing family, a beautiful home, a great life

I hate: when my daughters are sick or hurt

I miss: my sister, Jodi, and my best friend, Sarah

I fear: earthquakes and volcanos

I feel: stuffed up

I hear: Heath and Gracie watching cartoons in the other room and a lawn mower outside

I smell: soap - I just washed my face

I crave: ice cream

I search: for ways to understand why bad things happen

I wonder: when my cold will be gone

I regret: sometimes missing God's voice because I think I am too busy to listen

I love: when my girls laugh and when my husband kisses me

I ache: for people who have a lost a child

I care: about being a good friend

I am not: in the same room with Heath and Gracie and I should be - I'll go soon

I believe: in God, His love for me, that He knows the plans He has for me, and that He has blessed me in amazing ways

I dance: with my kids a lot, with my husband not enough

I sing: all the time - Gracie and I sing sentences to each other just to be goofy

I cry: at everything - especially when someone else begins to cry

I don't always: keep my house as clean as I would like

I fight: to keep my two year old from running away from me and to keep my almost seven year old from growing up so fast

I write: appointments and activities on my calendar and grocery lists

I win: (won) a beautiful ring during a raffle at an event the other night

I lose: my patience with my children sometimes

I never: watch horror movies

I confuse: my daughters names more often than I would like - it's often "Gra-Abbie and Ab-Gracie"

I listen: to mostly Christian music except for my new favorite band "The Classic Crime" - my friend Justin plays guitar

I can usually be found: on my computer or reading

I am scared of: something happening to someone I love

I need: to exercise more and eat less

I am happy about: the blessings of my life

Unfortunately, I don't know very many people that blog so I can't really pass this tag on to anyone else. Oh, well. People are probably happier about that anyway.

Abbie's 2nd Birthday

2008-04-04T20:27:00.001-07:00

Today was Abbie's 2nd birthday. She was born on this day at 6:40 PM. We can't believe it has been 2 years since our lives were blessed by her presence! We had a pretty relaxing day today. We wanted to take her to the zoo but it poured down rain almost all day. Instead I took Gracie to school and then picked up my Aunt Shirley. We drove into the city to my mom's house and spent the day together. Here is Abbie looking at books with her Great Aunt Shirley. Let me tell you, if Aunt "Eardy" (how Abbie says it) shows up without her bag of books, she might as well go home. Abbie loves looking a books with Aunt Shirley. A few minutes later she was ready to move on to another activity. Nana was attempting to put the blocks away, and Abbie thought it would be more fun to dump out the containers and throw them on the floor. It was pretty funny. Here she is throwing the container and pretty proud of herself too.
After playing, we headed out for lunch down the street. She had just watched her mom put on lipstick using this mirror and the next thing we know, she is applying her chapstick using the same mirror. So cute!!
After lunch, we came back for brownies and ice cream. Nana lit two candles in honor of the birthday girl and Abbie wasn't quite sure what she thought about them. She did recognize that they were "hot". That's one of her favorite words. Everytime I set food in front of her she says "hot, hot" even if it's something that just came out of the refrigerator. She didn't really want to have anything to do with these candles so Nana helped her blow them out while I snapped the pictures.
The funny thing was that Nana used the candles that relit themselves without realizing it. So Nana's blowing them out and they keep relighting. Abbie wanted those things gone! Too hot!

Finally, to end the afternoon, we put her to work cleaning the kitchen. Just kidding! This is one of her absolute favorite activites to do at Nana's house. She loves playing in the water at the kitchen sink standing on the big step ladder wearing her apron! It's funny, she never asks to do this at our house.

Here she's thinking, "why are they making me clean up my own birthday dishes??"

"Oh, these dishpan hands!"

"I think I'm satisfied with the job I've done. Yea me!"

Like I said, it was a pretty relaxing day. We actually will be celebrating again on Sunday afternoon with her Daddy and Granddaddy present. They both had to work today so it was just us girls. She seemed to really enjoy her birthday and loves going up to people to say "two"! She knows exactly how old she is. We think she is pretty special and thoroughly enjoy the little girl she is becoming. We love you, Abbie!

First Softball Game - March 29, 2008

2008-03-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

Today was Gracie's very first softball game. It was called the Jamboree and began with pictures bright and early at 8:00 AM. They then moved over to the field to play 4 innings in their first practice game. Here is Gracie just before the game began. She was the very first batter and got a hit on her 6th and final pitch! (That's how many pitches each girl gets)

Waiting for the right pitch - her daddy is the pitcher - so he really felt the pressure to throw her a good one!

She scored!! This was the first run scored in the whole game! Go, Gracie! We are so proud.

Next up, she played catcher for the first inning. She did really well.

Here she is in her ready position during the 3rd inning. What's funny is that she looks ready, but then if the ball was hit in her direction, she just stayed like this and watched the ball. It was so cute! The girls seemed to get the batting side of things, but need to work on their fielding. By the end of the game, they were starting to understand that they needed to go after the ball.

Even though they lost, it seemed like all the girls had fun. She'll have 10 more games throughout the next two months. Go, Eagles!

Here is Abbie checking out the grounds. She didn't really watch much of the game, she preferred to walk around. Here she is with Nana going for a little hike. I wish you could see them more closely. They were pretty cute trudging through the grass and mud.

Easter - 2008

2008-03-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

Easter morning was fun for our family. We woke up early and got the girls dressed in their best dresses and then had our own egg hunt inside. It was pretty rainy that morning, so we couldn't really do it outside. The above picture is of our family as we were getting ready to leave for brunch and then church.
Here's Gracie finding an egg that Daddy hid.
Our two girls...Abbie's not very excited about posing for pictures right now so we have to try and catch her whenever we can. She was distracted for a moment by the lens cover to the camera and Heath snapped the photo. It turned out pretty good, I must say.

The day before Easter, Gracie had morning softball practice. Because of that, we missed the egg hunt put on by our church. However, Gracie's coach ended practice early and one of the mom's had hidden 150 eggs on the school playground. There were only 5 girls at practice that morning and they each received a bag and were let loose on the playground to find all the eggs. Abbie got to participate too. It was great fun for the girls and we ended up with more candy than we know what to do with. Considering they missed the church hunt where there were a whole bunch of kids, 6 little girls each got more eggs than they would have otherwise. Hooray for Coach Wanda!

Gracie's Musical

2007-12-04T16:36:00.000-08:00

Gracie has had quite a busy few months preparing for two performances this weekend of a Christmas musical at our church. She sang in the choir and also played an angel in a nativity scene. She had a lot of fun doing the performances and was much more confident in her songs and movements this year. (She had also done a Christmas performance last year) We are really proud of her and enjoyed watching her very much!

They set the sanctuary up with tables that fit over one row of seats and then everyone is served dessert and sparkling cider. It's a pretty ingenious idea with the tables and fun to get to enjoy some nice dessert with our entertainment.

Here she is as part of the angel choir. Our seats were just a few rows back and she saw us so we got a good smile. Abbie was also calling out her name really loudly so Gracie was smiling at that too. It was cute to watch Abbie see her sister on stage. She also danced along in her seat acting like she was doing all the movements too. I wish we could have gotten a picture of that! It was hilarious. But we were too close to her to be able to focus the camera for a picture.

The performances were really good. We are thoroughly exhausted tonight due to the weather adventures yesterday and all the practices and shows. Overall, it was great fun, but we are glad that we are done until sometime in January when they'll start rehearsing for a spring musical. Wow! I'm not sure I'm ready for that yet!

Crazy Winter Weather

2007-12-04T15:56:00.000-08:00

Well, some of you may have heard about the crazy weather we have been having here. On Saturday it started snowing about 1:00 PM and within just a couple of hours, looked like a winter wonderland. Here are Heath and Gracie playing in our driveway. I was so proud of this picture...Heath threw a snowball at me and I actually caught it in the picture. Note the slightly gray round shape in the sky above the house. That's the snowball.
Our trees just looked beautiful with the snow on them. The really tall trees are part of a wetland area that is behind (actually beside) our home.

This is the view towards our front door. We have candy cane lights lining the walkway to our door.

I finally had to go get Abbie up from her nap. She was sleeping and missing out on all the fun. She wasn't quite sure what to think at first, but she really had fun in the end. Here's a cute picture of our girls in the front yard.

I loved this one. Gracie walking her little sister down the driveway. Too cute!

Here they come running back up! I wish I had a video camera at this time because Abbie is actually doing a really funny walk here. She kept walking up in sort of a strut while moving her shoulders side to side. It was really funny.

As you can see, Abbie was all smiles by the time we headed inside. It was really cold so we didn't stay out very long. Fun times though!

So, the snow didn't actually last very long. By later that day it turned a little bit warmer. By Sunday morning it was all rain and it rained all day, through the night, and all day Monday. I had to take Abbie to a doctor's appt and it took me about 50 minutes to travel about 15 miles down the freeway. There was standing water everywhere. Once I had to leave to get Gracie from school, lots of roads were closed due to standing water. Some houses just down the street from us flooded during the rainstorm. Thankfully our house was fine. We didn't have any problems and we are thankful for that. There really is a wide range of weather out here in the Pac NW.

Halloween 2007

2007-11-08T19:52:00.000-08:00

Here are the girls on Halloween. Gracie was a Cheetah Girl from the Disney Channel and Abbie was a little purple bumblebee.

This is just before heading out the door for trick or treating
I finally got Abbie to smile
She didn't like the hood very much

These are our neighbors Paige and Ryan that Gracie was so excited to trick or treat with. We had fun in our neighborhood this year.

Abbie discovers the candy pumpkin

Oh, this looks good...

Yummy sucker!

Oooooo, I like candy

Gracie loses her first tooth (and second)

2007-11-08T19:41:00.000-08:00

Gracie lost her first tooth last week. It was so exciting considering lots of kids in her class both last year and this year were already losing their teeth. She actually let her daddy pull it using dental floss tied around it and she was very brave. There were a few tears but then she got to take it to school for show and tell. She just keeps growing up!

P.S. She lost her second tooth this morning while eating breakfast...here is that picture too!

New York City

2007-11-08T14:36:00.000-08:00

We finally have found some time to post the few pictures we were able to take in NYC. Many of you have heard our pitiful story of the trip. Unfortunately, our trip turned out to be not so great due to a stomach virus hitting 6 of the 9 of us. It began with Abbie throwing up on the plane as we were flying there, twice, and pretty much took all of us out. These pictures were taken on Saturday of our trip, which was also the morning that Gracie threw up in a crosswalk as we were leaving breakfast. She had not eaten anything because she wasn't feeling well, but got sick anyway, as we say, "on the streets of New York." We went to the park right after that and then quickly took a taxi back to the hotel. She tried to feel better, as you can see she tried to play at the park, but it didn't last long. The rest of the weekend was filled with everyone else getting sick. It was very memorable, but not neccessarily for the reasons we would have liked! I guess we will just have to go back and try again soon.Gracie on the swing which only lasted about two swings. You know how swinging makes your stomach feel...not so good.

Abbie playing basketball with Granddaddy and Aunt Jodi (or Jo-Jo as she calls her) and then going down the slide.Gracie, Joshua, and Abbie headed down the big slide all together.

2007-08-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

August 30th was Gracie's first day of 1st grade. I can't believe she is old enough to go to school all day long! I wept like a baby after dropping her off. This year was much more difficult for me than it was last year. She seems so grown up!

She graciously posed for some pictures for me before heading out the door this morning.
Abbie wanted to get in a picture with big sister too!
In the classroom
Reuniting with a friend from kindergarten
Posing with the teacher - Miss Hislop

Gracie's 6th Birthday

2007-08-29T08:46:00.000-07:00

We just celebrated Gracie's 6th Birthday on Monday and had such a great time. We had her party at Jump Planet and there were so many friends that were able to come. At one point, she complained that "everyone wants to play with me, I'm tired" to which we said "that's what happens when you are the birthday girl!" She received lots of really great presents and has enjoyed playing with everything since then.

These are all the inflatable jumping rides that all the kids loved going crazy on!

Abbie had fun too. She just loves to walk around which is what she did most of the time. Thankfully my mom and sister were there to help watch her because she was all over the place!

The Birthday Girl!

Gracie and her friend Carly racing down the slide

Abbie looking cute

Abbie with her friend Sadie

The princess birthday cake

Blowing out the candles

The whole gang!

1st posting

2007-07-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

Hello, everyone! We are excited to start this blog and hope you find it helpful to know what our family is up to these days. This summer has been fun but really busy so far. Gracie has enjoyed several weeks of camps through school (dance camp and cheer camp) plus a week of Vacation Bible School through church. She still has another week of camp (gymnastics) and then we head out on vacation to Idaho for a family reunion. We have enjoyed some hot weather and now some rain the last few days. I'll just post a wide variety of pictures from our summer. There are some of Gracie graduating from Kindergarten, some of us being silly at home and enjoying the outdoors, and few of the 4th of July. We walked in the Kirkland Children's parade and had a great time. We also dedicated Abbie to the Lord on June 9 so you will find one picture of that. Enjoy!