New stuff

A few nights ago, Logan accepted Jesus into his heart! At bedtime I was reading a story that mentioned sinners going into eternity. I know, it doesn't really sound like a bedtime story, and I was even thinking it was a bit above him, but as I explained what that meant, he started asking questions about Heaven, which led to him wanting to ask Jesus to come into his heart. (That's the short version anyway.) This picture is just after. He was excited. One morning recently, I was awakened by Meadow saying, "Mommy, I need help. Ashlen's milk is exploding everywhere." As I sleepily tried to figure out what she was talking about, I suddenly realized she meant "in the microwave!" I ran upstairs and sure enough, there in the microwave, with a time of 12 minutes remaining, was a burned and melting mess! I forgave her though. Sweetly, she had decided to try to make breakfast, and had poured herself some milk, and tried to warm some up for Ashlen. :)

We just had a fun week with Auntie Christy here for a visit! She has her own lights that she balances on her head. It's the new fashion in Seattle. And we are about to repaint our peeling house. These are the new colors we tested out tonight. Pear Green with Espresso trim! Or we could stick with white trim. Do you like it? Which looks better? (pretty sure we're going with brown.)

Seattle Again

On Sunday I (Caren) took Meadow and Logan for a special trip to Seattle, and to pick up auntie Christy and bring her home with us! We had big plans to go up the Space needle and a few other things. When we arrived, we went for dinner to Chuck E Cheese's. Here the kids are riding a video roller coaster, and you can see their faces on the screen.

Unfortunately, the next day I woke up very sick, and spent the day vomiting. (I'm sure you all wanted to know that.) So Christy took the kids to playgrounds and other fun things that they wanted to see, but not the Space Needle. We flew home the next day when I was finally feeling better. The kids took turns sitting by Christy on the plane.

Logan found lots of coins on the trip, and saved them up so he could buy a gumball! So here they're showing their gumballs in front of our jet "Tinkerbell" who flew us home. When we touched down on the runway, Logan patted the wall and said, "Good job Tinkerbell!" I thought that was cute.

The model on the ferry across to town.

That's about all the pictures I took. It was a nice little trip anyway.

A very technological evening

Tonight we made good use of modern technology. We were on speaker-phone on our home phone with my dad, who was on skype with Katie and William with his phone on speaker-phone, and we had Christy on speaker-phone on my new iPhone, and we were texting each other from Matthew's iPhone to Katie's cell phone and Williams cell phone, and talking about it. Then Matthew took a picture with his phone and sent it to my dad's blackberry. Unfortunately he didn't receive the picture in time to show it to Katie on skype, which was our hope, so here's the picture. Also, he and Christy were both watching a Mariners baseball game, and "ohh-ing" and "aahh!!-ing" at things at the same time.

Does this make sense? I suppose we could have all just written each other a letter and sent it in the mail!

Our Trip

Well, I had hoped this next post would be pictures of Barrow and me swimming in the Arctic Ocean, but alas, our flight to Fairbanks was full so we could not get on. We almost made it but the last 3 people booked on the flight came running to the gate at the last minute. It was a disappointment, but we decided to spend some time in Seattle instead. So, we took the new Light Rail to downtown Seattle. We shopped at Old Navy and Nike, then walked down to Pikes Place Market, which we didn't like much. Then we found the "gum wall". It's a wall along an alley that is covered with chewed gum! We weren't chewing any gum at the time, so we didn't add to it. Isn't it lovely? We decided we'd better not take the kids to see it because Brennen would surely pick some off and chew it!

Then we walked all the way to House of Hong in Chinatown, were we met up with Christy and her man Chris, and our friends Trista and John, for a huge, delicious dinner.We overnighted at Christy's, then returned home today. It was a nice little trip, kid free, but I missed the kids. I think Seattle is more fun with them. We will try for Barrow again at the end of the month hopefully!

4th of July

We had a fun day beginning with breakfast and an early service at church, then the parade and festivities in town! It was supposed to be really rainy today, but the sun came out instead!

Ashlen loved watching the parade.
The main highlight for the kids was all the candy they got from the parade, and afterward they had their first cotton candy too.
By the time we arrived at my parents house to spend the afternoon, they looked like this:

Sugar low, I guess!

Another special event happened today, Meadow lost her first tooth! (we think she must have swallowed it.) She was quite excited about it! This is a flag 'fruit pizza' we made.

After a nice dinner cooked by Matthew and fun visiting with friends, we went to see the fireworks. Logan only lasted a few minutes. This is on the drive home. Everyone fell asleep. (all the kids, that is!)
In the morning, Matthew and I are going to try to fly up to Barrow!!!!!!! I hope to finally swim in the Arctic ocean, and see the midnight sun! It will depend on space on the plane. One of the segments is full. We're just hoping a couple people don't show up for the flight so there's room for us, since we fly stand-by for freeeeee!

Old Yellercopter

Today we got to get up close to Grandpa John's big yellow helicopter. Well, the one he's using for the summer for Forest Service work. Brennen was happy that his Crocs matched it.

They even got to sit inside!

Ashlen enjoyed it too! Then away it went, off to Juneau for the weekend. Even from way back here the wind was strong, as you can see from Meadow's face!

Since last months post....

I seem to be very bad at updating lately! Time just speeds by for me these days. Life has been pretty regular, but here are some cute kid pictures.

I like this one with them all lined up in order of age.

Beautiful Meadow, who dressed up her dolphin, and was so excited that her shirt fit him.

Logan being silly, with his collection of puffins, which are his favorite animal.

Sweet Brennen, probably the only kid who sleeps with an eagle. Funny Ashlen, and her first encounter with starfish. :)

World Cup Watching

Matthew set it up so we could watch the England vs. US soccer game on the big screen at the church with friends. We were the England supporters, as you can see. The kids kind of like soccer; I think Ashlen and Brennen have the most potential. Logan will need to figure out how to put his pants on the right way around first!
She looks like a pro! But Matthew says the Winnie the Pooh shoes just won't do!

Recently...

Hello faithful blog checkers, sorry for the long delay in updates! I'm a busy mama! Anyway, here are some pictures over the last month. We've had lots of beautiful weather as you can see!

Low tide on a misty morning,

Lots of playground time,
Many trips to Temsco to watch helicopters come and go, and sling radio buildings to mountain tops,

A wonderful mother's day cruise around Guard Island for the mothers in our church,

And my wonderful builder husband building us a beautiful, huge, new deck!

Logan's B-day!

Logan turned 4 on April 20! And he's very proud of it! We had a family party a few days before, where we gave him a bike! He loves it, but finds it hard to push the petals. He'll hopefully get lots of practice this summer! On his actual birthday he had a kid party after school. He wants to be an astronaut and fly a space shuttle when he grows up, so we gave him an astronaut party, with a shuttle cake, and space ice cream (which is freeze dried). He wanted me to save the last little pieces of the ice cream so he could take it on the space shuttle when he goes to space! :) Here are some of his friends and their moms having lunch.

Singing Happy Birthday. The candles were the fire in the engines. The cake. It was my first time using fondant icing. It actually turned out better than I had expected!

Birthday Boy & Girl

Yesterday we celebrated Matthew and Ashlen's birthdays! I'm afraid Matthew's birthday will never be the same since Ashlen has taken over! This time he had to share his nice pink butterfly cake with her. It had a candle antenna for each of them. Ashlen just tried to grab the flame. Ashlen is showing off her frosting. She loved her cherry cake, and kept looking at me like she couldn't believe it was really for her! The four little goofballs She also just learned how to walk! She still mostly crawls, but can walk very well when it's convenient for her!
Here are the little 1 year old friends (and mommies and Krista) who came to the party-
Haddy, Levi, and Piper

It was a fun time. Ashlen was such a happy girl through the whole thing!

More Colorful Church Foyer

Our church foyer was recently redone, and I thought all you mover-awayers would like too see it. The main wall is a lovely green, with a beautiful cross made by Bud Schultz (I think). Mischa painted the words.
Here's where the bulletin boards used to be. Each of these frames has a missionary family's info on it, with their newsletters hanging down below. It looks really nice! The Pattisons made beautiful new trim around all the doors and floor. The old bulletin board is now in the sanctuary on the wall between the classrooms. It looks good there. What do you think of the changes? I also have plans to remodel the nursery. Hopefully that will happen soon!

WHAT??!!!

This is a Godin Montreal hybrid guitar. It can do regular acoustic guitar sound, or electric. Matthew has been wanting to get this particular one for a long time. Today he got a call from McPherson's Music store, telling him they had one come in that he could look at and try playing. So of course he went to town to see it. When he was done playing, they asked him what he thought of it. He said it was awesome, and he definitely wanted to buy one when he had the money. "Well, it's yours!" they said! "We can't tell you who bought it, but they just wanted to say they love you and appreciate what you are doing out there." (meaning leading worship at church)

So as you can see he is very happy, still in shock, but very grateful and humbled that someone would do this for him!!

Whoever you are, if you're reading this,

THANK YOU!

Kids Say the Funniest Things

Tonight our church had a fun catered dinner with entertainment. Each of the fold groups did something. There were skits and a few song and dances. They were pretty funny! Here's what our family fold did...

F.F.F.F.F.F.

Wondering what the title stands for? Fabulous Family Fold Fondue Fellowship Fun! Sunday night our FOLD group met for dinner. Each time we get together, we have a different meal theme that everyone contributes to. This time was Fondue! We had an oil one for meats, some yummy cheese ones, and some dessert ones- notice the chocolate fountain! I like this picture with the two bald guys of our group, Steve and Matthew. Stephanie, Carla, Krista What makes this a Blog-worthy event is the fact that we had 40 people at our house! 21 adults and 19 kids- who all but 4 of them are under age 4! In this picture there are 19 people. Here are some of the kids.

I like this happy action shot! This was running with a purpose, they weren't just running wild. All the kids played very nicely together. We were actually shocked afterward when we counted up how many kids there were, because it didn't seem all that crazy!