Tulip Festival

We drove two hours north to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. It was gorgeous, there was fields and fields of all shades of tulips. The kids really enjoyed it. Devin was treated to an ice cream earlier in the day. You can see it all down his shirt. I wish I could include all the pictures. It was just beautiful.

Our attempts at a family picture

Birthdays and Beets

Brooklyn turned 5. I can't believe it.

She kept requesting pink frosting and a tinkerbell cake for her birthday. And since I've developed a strong mistrust of food dyes (especially red 40, WARNING: do not feed this to your kids!) I colored her cupcakes and frosting with beet juice. The cupcake frosting was the most hideous pink color. But when I made the tinkerbell cake, I diluted the beet juice with cream, and it turned out the most delicious pink color. I found the idea of Tink on a mushroom on the web, and loved it. You know how I go for simple.

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.