first turtle of the year

it was a weekend full of baseball and soccer.
but those photos get old.

yesterday evening isaiah came home with the first turtle of the year.



he was an adorable little guy, or girl, i suppose.



a sure sign that summer is coming.
and i think i might be getting a bit better at capturing these little guys on camera..



either that, or the spunky little turtle just wanted his picture taken.
which, now that i think about it,
seems a whole lot more likely.

Happy Monday

the girls celebrating their birthdays by going out to dinner.
they are having a great time.
really.

so, mother's day.

with all these birthdays going on, i didn't post about mother's day.
it was great.
i got a robot that vacuums my house for me.
fab.
love her.
we named her hattie.

but what i loved most, was seeing 4 out of my 5 kids up on stage at church,
singing and dancing.
micah got to sing a solo.
jesus loves me.
it was adorable.



after that we took my mom to lunch at the chart house.
love her.
love the chart house.



and i got one photo of all my children.
i am not in it.
but i was there.
trust me.

Happy 13th Birthday Emily!

it is so hard to believe my first born is 13 today.
it really doesn't seem like that long ago
that i was wondering...
will she be bull-headed as a teen?

uh, yah.

but again, i wouldn't have her any other way.



she is strong.
mentally, emotionally, and physically.
she will always be able to kick isaiah's butt. :)
she hates social injustice
and is passionate about her causes.
she is honest, always.
she is beautiful, inside, and out.
she has more common sense then most 30 year olds.
and even though she is a bit too much like her mamma,
i love her.
we love her.
happy 13th birthday emily.

funny things micah says...

yesterday...
steve says to hannah:

hannah, thanks for having a birthday!

micah looks at me, and says:

yah, and thank YOU for giving birth to her!

-----

this morning while i was trying to get him out the door to school, he kept playing with a calculator, i said:

micah, i already asked you to put that away!

micah: geez, i just want to calculate some numbers.

good times...

Happy 9th Birthday Hannah

Hannah is nine years old today.
so hard to believe.
and although she gives me a ton of dirty looks...
or ignores me all together,
she is exactly how i would want her to be.


she is mellow,
and loving.
motherly
and caring.
she goes with the flow,
and remains my "easy" kid.
she is even keel
and a beauty.
inside and out.
happy birthday baby girl.
we love you.

MORELS!!!

so, this morning,
i decided that emily needed to,
as my dad used to say,
participate in an educational experience outside the classroom.

i wanted someone to go hunt mushrooms with,
because as much as i adore brody,
i was in the mood for more grown up conversation.

the three of us left while it was still pretty foggy
and as it turns out,
she was good luck.

we only found two...
but they are beautiful!

me and my baby boy

i am loving watching brody gain confidence,
becoming his own little person,
not needing me so much.

but i also still love it
when the "big" kids leave,
and we crawl back into my bed and cuddle.

he is at a good place.
and i am so blessed to be his mom.

most improved!

so, it was mother's tea at preschool.
i was kinda dreading it,
given the christmas performance.

but what a difference a few months makes!
brody was totally into it,
singing his little heart out.

very cute,
love him.

it helped, i think,
that he got to stand next to his favorite person at preschool.
it's good to have friends.

mushroom hunting...

we didn't find a single one.
could have been because we were hunting with a 3 year old.

spring green

my favorites from last weekend....

emily.
i love her.
she gets stuff.



and this one made my heart melt...
totally spontaneous.
they were walking back to the car to get a snack in between games.

more kids...

what the other kids look like at baseball:

and seriously, i get this look from hannah all the time.
why does she want to kill me?
she is eating popcorn, in the sunshine, at a baseball game for goodness sake.


brody, happy to be involved... i think that he thinks he is on the team.


and micah, in his own world yet again.

weekend baseball has begun...

micah's labels

someone gave micah some sticky labels
this morning before school he decided to write on some,
and he was very serious about it,
as serious as a five year old can be.

important stuff.

most mornings..

when i go in to wake hannah up for school,
this is what i find.
silas is a good boy.
been a good cat, if you have to have a cat.
and he loves her.
what more could i ask?

Water 4 Christmas

enough said.

it's monday

monday indeed.

beginning each day with tremendous

my dad starts his day off with a mixture of fruit and greek yougurt.
so when we were there,
we did too.
and it worked.
we felt great.

so this morning,
i made some for steve and i,
and presented it to him in bed...
and said,
"Here. Start your day with tremendous!"

tremendous is my dad's way of living every day.
so from here on out,
this fruit is know as "tremendous"

fine.

brody is fine.
totally better.

and i am very happy
that there will be
no more trips to the doctor.

a pattern? *updated*

when i got home from the dr. this morning,
brody was acting funny.
he said his foot hurt.

my mom was here,
and she said he was limping when he woke up.

brody tends to be dramatic,
so i can't really tell.

but it is not his foot,
it's the outside of his ankle.

if i have to go to the dr. again today,
i will lose my mind.

i'm going to take him to preschool
and see how he does there...

praying he is just a good actor.

*he really can't walk. and crawling through preschool
makes me look like an even worse mother than i really am.
so, he is staying home.
i'm giving it until tomorrow...

The $200 Pebble.

last night, when micah was getting ready for bed,
after a long bath,
and a late dinner...
around about 9pm,
i say to him, "Micah, how are your ears feeling these days?"

not sure why i asked him,
i guess because i hadn't asked him in a while,
but really, i can't be sure.

he says, "Well, I feel like i have a rock in it."

"Really? Let me look..... Uh, Micah, DO you have a rock in your ear?"

"Okay, yes, I put a rock in my ear."

well, i tried to get it out,
but his screams stopped me rather quickly.
we packed up and headed to the ER,
where a very crafty doctor tried all sorts of new ways
to get the rock out of said ear.

in the end, he gave up.
called the ENT surgeon,
and we made an appointment for this morning.

as is true with most things,
the proper tools generally get the job done.
we left with a rock free ear,
and a pebble in hand.

yesterday WAS earth day after all,
so my best guess
is that he was trying to be one with the earth.
hoping he tries something different next year.

my father and his beloved

my dad is an easy one to take pictures of.
he will throw down a pose the minute he sees the camera come out.

however to get a genuine look is much more difficult.
maria has to work really hard
to get him to show SOME emotion that isn't canned.


but sometimes, when he doesn't know the camera is out,
i catch it.
adoration,
trust,
and devotion
for his beloved.

in a single glance.

little people

my sister and darin have five kids too.
so we had to see them.
even if it meant taking a different route across the country.

ella and liam... steve's in the middle. :)



porter



camille and morgan

me and lisa

when lisa came to visit back in october,
we took a ton of self portraits.
mostly because there was no one else around to take them.

it only seemed right, to me,
to keep with the tradition.
she didn't exactly agree..
but i can beat her up,
so here they are:

veracruz

i have been eating at veracruz for over 20 years.
20 years.

i would go there on friday nights,
even before i lived with my dad and maria, when i would come for the weekend.
my dad and i had heart to heart talks across these same tables.
i used to skip classes so i could have lunch there in high school.
steve and i would go there on our date nights when we were first married.

here we have a number 15.
it has always been a number 15.
some things never change.
veracruz is one of those things.

it has become a favorite place to eat for my children as well.
and when we walked in,
the waitress,
whom we haven't seen in 2 years,
greeted us like family, and asked where everyone else was.


contemplating the greatness of veracruz...

running around town

when we awoke to rain on friday morning, it was no surprise.
it IS seattle.
and the forcast was for rain showers all day.

but like i said,
it IS seattle,
and by noon, it was beautiful.
here we are, in the costco parking lot.
seriously.
the man can't live without costco.

we ran around town all day,
coffee with my sister in the morning,
trader joe's,
value village,
costco,
nordstrom rack,
and lollipops.
oh, and we checked out the old house too...
i think it gets smaller every time we go back.