I didn't send out a family update with our Christmas card this year.

But if I would have, it would have said something like:

Damon's mom moved in with us this year and is working in downtown Seattle.

Damon is still with Wells Fargo.

Rachel ran a half marathon in 2 hours and 22 minutes.

Brooklyn will be 5 in January, (still unbelievable to me). She is in preschool and dance. She loves to color, ride her bike, play with her friends, and alternately help and torture her younger brother.

Devin turned 3 in October, and we're pretty sure he is now taller than Brooklyn ( I don't see it all the time, but I've seen it in a couple pictures). He is also in Dance, and he will be a sunbeam this year.

We are wrapped up in our kid's lives. We visited Utah a couple times, but other than that, we stayed around here exploring the area.

This Christmas was hard for a lot of my loved ones. A lot of folks I know are either not working or under great stress about the way things are going at work. My heart goes out to them. We are not free of this stress. It is a scary and unpredictable time. God bless us all with peace in our hearts and minds.

Homemade Christmas

Tonight I made these awesome batman capes. Alright, my amazing sister, Deborah, did all the hard sewing (there was a lot of hard sewing). They turned out great. I'm oh so proud. Devin doesn't have enough boy dress up clothes. He is often seen wearing his sister's princess dresses. Yesterday i told him, "you need to dress like a prince," and he replied, "we don't have any prince costumes." Can't argue with that. But I am getting him some swords, a cowboy hat, and the above mentioned capes for Christmas. Hopefully this will help. Merry Christmas Everyone! Love you all!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am thankful for my blog! And for all of you. And it's time I told you that Damon's mom has moved in with us. She has been out of work since early this year, so she was looking for a job in Dallas and here, and landed a sweet job in downtown Seattle. The kids love having her here. She misses her country property in Dallas. Anyway, that's the news. Happy Thanksgiving.

We painted

After two years of white walls, we finally did it! A chocolate brown, seriously, it kept reminding me of chocolate, and a sky blue. Damon built a scaffold to reach the wall in the entry way.

Autumn

These are a couple pictures I took of the beautiful trees on my street.

I have come to love, love, love green on green.

These two spectacular trees are right at the entry to my neighborhood. I love how they have yellow leaves hiding behind the bright red ones.

And a beautiful display of clouds.
Gorgeous.

Happy Birthday

Devin is

3

He got a spiderman cake, and some other loot.

My baby is no longer a baby. Sniff, sigh!

Sleeping Children and The First Day of School

I don't know what it is, but Damon and I both love taking pictures of the children while they are asleep. We have a whole folder of them. But in other news: Brooklyn started another year of preschool, see top picture. And we had a big weekend around here: Devin potty trained . . . himself, and Brooklyn is riding her bike with out training wheels. I know, I know, exciting stuff!

Snoqualmie Falls

We went to Snoqualmie Falls today. I've been meaning to go since we moved here, and hadn't made it yet. Turns out it is only a twenty minute drive, hee hee. It is beautiful, breathtaking, wonderful. The kids were champs, and hiked the half mile down to the bottom and half mile back to the top without complaining. O.K., we brided them with an ice cream cone on the way up if they wouldn't whine. Hey, I'm not above it!

My trip to Utah for Tamara's wedding BBQ

The Backyard

Devin

Alicia

Deborah and Baby Alec

Family Pictures

Brooklyn in a pretty pink dress

The Whole Crowd

The Romans are Coming!

I made Roman Shades for Devin's room. I'm so proud of myself. It is the easiest shade you can make. Hee hee. but I don't consider myself a sewer. The gene stopped with me. All my older sisters own sowing machines, but up until recently, me nor my two younger sisters did. Deborah, my oldest sister, gave me her old sewing machine when she upgraded. Thanks Deb! And I put it to use. We needed a black out curtain for Devin's room as we thought it would help him sleep better. He was getting up WAY too early in the morning. But black out shades are expensive, so I made one, at half the price! Woo Hoo! And Devin has been sleeping better (later) ever since.

The Garden

I know I've blogged about this before, but I just couldn't help this one:

BEFORE

AFTER

I'm really excited, 'cause I wasn't sure anything would grow!

Beautiful blueberries

Do you know what grows beautifully in the Northwest? Berries, of all kinds. Today I picked blueberries. I got 4 1/2 lbs in an hour for $1.50 a lb. Mmm, think of all the things I can make, pancakes and muffins, oh my!

Puzzles

The kids love to do puzzles lately

And Devin falls asleep in the afternoons sometimes (with his face in the couch).

Don't tell Daddy what we do while he's at work!

And a star is born!

Laugh Track

Every comedian needs someone to laugh at their jokes. Devin is that someone. His laugh is so boisterous and contagious, and he'll laugh so hardily at other kids, that they will be silly over and over trying to continue making him laugh, and he always pleases. I've enjoyed watching him do this since before he turned two.

And there were naps no longer, (sigh)

That's right, Devin has given up naps. I'm having an easier transition than I did with Brooklyn :). Here he is pictured sneaking out of his room in the evening because, "I don't want to go to sleep," and falling asleep at other random places in the house.

July 4, 2009

First of all, happy anniversary to me: we've lived in Washington for two years now. I drove out of Utah two years ago on July 5th. Time has flown by, I can't believe it.

Holding to tradition, we went camping with the Jensens for the 4th. I bought a "family friendly" misquito repellant, that didn't have deet. The little buggers didn't even care we were wearing it. We all got eaten alive. Brooklyn scratched one of her bites open and got a serious infection. So now she is on antibiotics. And I dressed Devin in the stylin' shirt pictured above for church. You can't see it in the picture, but the shirt also has a black hoodie. I couldn't help it. We went to the local church near the campsite, and it is a "come as you are" ward. A friend, who doesn't read this blog, gave me the shirt as a hand-me-down from her son. She was serious. I got a good laugh out of it. Now it goes in the Good Will pile.

13.1

I ran my half marathon on Saturday with my rock star sister, Hannah. She flew up with my parents from Utah. My time was 2:23. I'm still kind of amazed I could do it. A few years ago, all I could run was 3 miles. The training schedules really work. Our course ran next to Lake Washington for a few miles, and thenwe ran through the tunnels on the I-90 bridge, and came out in downtown Seattle. It was stuffy in the tunnels, but there was a nice breeze as I came out from them and the air smelled like Seattle. It was great. I ran my little heart out. Hannah and I wore feather boas around our waists, as it ws a "rock n roll" marathon. It got us a lot of attention. People on the sides would yell, "go, boa ladies!" Hannah said, "That is as good as someone calling my name." We made signs the night before with the kids, and they met us at the 6 mile marker and the finish line. You can see in the photos that they were prepped to cheer, but we must have taken longer than they thought we would to get there because by the time I ran by, the kids were sitting in laps, and just watched me run by with nary a wave. I accomplished my goal though, I ran the whole time, and didn't stop to walk! Yea me!

Father's Day 2009

Brooklyn's father's day gift to Damon: My dad is 5 ft. tall. He weighs 3 lbs. He has brown eyes. and black hair. He likes to eat eggs. My dad's favorite thing to do is go to work. I love my dad because he comes home from work.

PRICELESS!

Sleeping in

I am usually the first one up in the mornings around here. Morning workouts and stuff. Damon and Brooklyn are sleepers, but Devin is also an early riser. I usually come home and find him in my spot next to Damon. Sometimes he lays there and waits for me, but sometimes, like today, he climbs in and falls asleep again.

Oh, did I tell you . . .

We made raised garden beds. Damon made them, we filled them, and I planted. But they are in, and I am so happy. We have no real space in our yard to plant a garden, until the kids are a little older and we rip out the play set. And we don't want to mess with the previous owners landscaping. They did a good job, and we don't know what we're doing, what with draining low spots in your yard and such (Northwest talk). So we built these babies! Hopefully lots of veggies grow!

And I got a cute, new haircut for the summer

Happy Mutha's Day 2009

Nie has inspired me, among other things, to include myself in more pictures on my blog as I chronicle our lives. This is our Mother's day afternoon. I love Devin in this outfit. I think he looks so handsome, and look how green everything is around us. Now I need to learn how to take timed pictures on my camera, so I can get all of us in.

Office Space

Damon got a desk for me last week from Craigslist and set up our office space. I told him, "now I feel like we are co-workers." The desk in our office has ALWAYS been a mess, and I always thought we co-created the mess. Now we know whose it really was.

His

Mine

Every day I mean to clean it.

Conversations around the house

Devin wanted to pry open the metal tab on a new box of Malt-o-Meal. When he accomplished this feat, he yelled, "I did it, I'm going to go tell Daddy I did it." jumped down from his stool, and ran to tell Damon, who was in the bathroom with the door closed, getting ready for work. From the kitchen I hear Devin yell, "Daddy, I did it." And then ran back into the kitchen and told me, "Daddy said, Yea!" Later Damon and I were laughing about it. Damon had said, "Oh, yea, what did you do?" To which Devin replied: "I did it!"

Brooklyn had a friend over this afternoon, and they were headed into the bathroom in their bathing suits to take a "swimsuit bath." Brooklyn yelled to her little friend, "Let me go first because I'm . . . . Brooklyn."

The kids are into potty talk lately. The other night Damon was reading to the kids. I came up the stairs to hear them talking about farting, and I hear Damon say to the kids, "We only talk about this with me, not with mommy, or other adults. Awesome (I know who he got this parenting tactic from!)

Mossy Moss

It's called thatching, my friends. Lawn care in the Northwest is way different than what I was used to in the lovely deseret. Instead of raking leaves in the autumn (because there are barely any deciduous trees here, only evergreens), we thatch moss in the spring. Moss grows everywhere. It grows on driveways, on rooftops, on decks. My sister has to restain her deck every year because it's too mossy and slippery otherwise. I would probably grow moss if I stood still outside too long. So we put a weed-n-feed on our grass, which kills the moss, and then we rake and rake the dead moss out of our lawn. Fun! The three piles in the picture below are all moss I have thatched out.