October 2017!

Oct. 2nd - We took the kids up to Seattle to meet their new, two-day old cousin! 

Oct. 9th - We went to the Spooner Farms Corn Maze - My favorite FALL thing to do!! We brought Nonnie along with us and did all of our traditional poses, on the bench, in front of the corn maze entrance and in the maze. We've never finished so fast before! We found all of the check points right away and got through the whole maze in about 1/2 an hour! Then we had some lunch and headed home. A great fun fall morning activity!




Oct. 14th - We attended Grandma Lee's memorial service and Marlee's bridal shower in one day!
Oct. 15th - Both of our new cousins came to visit! We took Buggy to JBF to buy her some baby stuff and the uncles stayed with all the kiddos. So I got a picture of all three of the little cousins!

Oct. 19th - Baby Hula Belly Shoot - We finally got one!

Most of the time Coal was trying to crawl all over the place and under my legs and Tuff was giving us his crazy evil smile! This is what most of the pictures looked like:

Oct. 20th - Eben turns 14!! We are celebrating his birthday later, but Dada and he went out to a birthday breakfast and Mama cut his hair all off and gave him a different style.

We also went to Peter's Aunt Valerie's memorial service.
Oct. 21st - The kid's all eat breakfast at the island!!! Well, Coal is still in his high chair, but close enough. This new kitchen is turning out great!

Oct. 22nd - Opal and Jasper get a turn to paint Mama's belly. They chose to do a globe theme and did such a great job! I love the one where we are all holding a globe!

Oct. 23rd - Dada hangs our pendant lights over the island. More finishing touches!

Oct. 25th - We have to start our Awana year later because of the remodel going on at our church. (Our kids think it crazy that the only two places we go are having huge remodels done at the same time.) So we had a Drive-In where the kids decorated cardboard cars and sat in them to watch a movie. The kids had fun coming up with their own car designs and eating tons of popcorn with their friends.
Oct. 26th  - We keep having birds fly into our dining room window and breaking their necks and dying. So I suggested that they use one of these dead birds as a dissection project. I was surprised that they got so into it! We watched a bird dissection video on YouTube first and then those brave kids just cut that bird right open and found all of it's organs. Kivi did most of the cutting, Opal and Pella illustrated what they found  and labeled parts and Eben video taped the process.

Oct. 27th - We took the fall baby pumpkin line up picture!


Peter threw me a surprise party for my 42nd birthday! He ended up telling me about it because he was trying to send me to go shopping at Goodwill Outlet, but all I wanted to do was stay home and rest. So I stayed in my room and he and the kids cleaned the house and set everything up for a fondue gaming party! He even bought me new linen napkins (which Kivi made into candles!) and an extra long runner!


Oct. 31st - Our church didn't have a Harvest Carnival this year because of the remodel and Peter said that was a blessing. The kids all choose their own costumes, which I thought they would appreciate, but they all said it was better when we dressed up together. That actually made me happy that they like doing our crazy family costumes. But not this year. So they dressed up and we took them trick or treating for the first time (that they can remember). We went once before when Eben was two or three. We joined some friends and had a fun time going door to door. The kids were nervous at first, but ended up having a blast and it was a warmer night, so everyone stayed happy - even the littles!

Jasper's 11th and September's End

Sept. 23 - We took the opportunity to dress up at a friend's 80's rock birthday party. Our church is not having a Harvest Carnival this year on Halloween and our Baby Hula is due on Nov. 2nd. So, while I would have been very sad to not dress up as a family all together for the first time ever, I was sort of relieved and Peter thought it was a huge blessing for our family to not have to stress over silly costumes which I guess I do make a big deal out of. We were able to put these together quickly and have fun at our friend's party! And you never can get too much of Peter in those purple leggings!

Sept. 28, 29 & 30 - Eben and Kivi help Dada to grout the new slate in the dining room and kitchen! They earned a new Switch game for all their hard work!

Sept. 30 - Jasper's Birthday Party! This was a crazy day! He wanted a ripstik party for his 11th. Meanwhile, my sister Buggy is in labor! So I headed to Seattle in the morning, but ended up coming back after a couple of hours waiting at my other sister, Shmee's house (and maybe going to Goodwill outlet) just before the party started. Peter and the kids did so great setting up the party! They took over a covered area, set up cones for ripstiking, put up the banner, balloons, cooked cobblers for dessert and put snacks on the tables. It was great and sunny and kids were riding bikes and ripstiking around.

 Then it started to get cold, and rainy and then suddenly started down pouring all within a few minutes! We were getting soaked even under that covered area. So we quickly made a decision to move the party to the Schock's house (thank you, Schocks!!). Everyone scooped up everything, the decorations got trashed, ripstiking was done. You can't ripstik in the rain. 

But Jasper is such a trooper, he was fine with it. That's such his personality. He was just happy to have a day with his friends, play Wii and eat cobbler. That was all he wanted. 

Peter kept the party going while after singing "Happy Birthday" to our boy, I went back up to Seattle, because Buggy said she was ready to have us there for the birth. 

We may or may not have taken a couple selfies with the laboring Mama. She was so cute, even in the middle of labor. It was long, but Bug was strong and did amazing! Illilouette was born in the tub at their house at 11:58pm!

Jasper, you are one great kid! You are fun and funny and love people. You have so many friends, because you are so friendly. You are helpful and creative and have your own style - still shorts, every day and now your hat. You are super at school and usually finish before the week is done and get to have free time before everyone else. You are still loud and sometimes rough, but so much more refined than those Jasper Grasper days! You are wonderful with your younger siblings, make a mean bed and are diligent at doing your jobs. You learned how to mow the lawn this year and wake surf and got better at wake boarding. You are sharing and kind. This year was marked with the passing of your Great Grandma Lee on your actual birthday the 20th and the arrival of your new cousin, Illilouette on your party day. You are an outstanding blessing from God and we love you, Jasper! Happy 11th Birthday!

Our Idaho Trip!

This vacation was inspired by our kids' reading program. When they read a certain number of hours they can earn a ticket to Silverwood, the theme park in Idaho. This year we decided to stay for longer than one night, like we've done the past two years and make a trip out of it. Peter found a beautiful horse ranch VRBO that would rent to our large family and it was actually in Eastern Washington.

Sept. 7th - After driving the whole day before we decided to just take a day and do stuff around the ranch. There was plenty to do. We had a pool table, and a large bonus room the kids could play in. Every morning they would go over there around 6am and play games on the Switch and play pool. We went to a little local mercantile where they made us pizza for lunch. We swam in the hot tub every day and ate fun treat foods and of course we visited the horses and learned all their names. In the evenings we would do devotions and watch the Answers In Genesis DVD that we borrowed from our church library.

Sept. 8th - The amazing couple who lived in the house took all the kids on a trail ride. (The house we were in was above a separate garage. They learned how to brush the horses, put the saddles on, and ride a horse. Eben and Kivi rode by themselves while the littles all had Miss Bonnie or Dada or I hold the lead rope.

Sept. 9th - We took the day to explore the Gardner Caves, home of the largest cave column in the Pacific Northwest. Then we took a short hike into Canada and straddled the border. On the way home we also hike a short way to some waterfalls.

Back at the ranch the kids spent time with the horses. The girls found apples and leaves to feed them and Tuffy couldn't get enough time with his favorite horse, Big Red. Coal worked on his walking with Dada and ended up just crawling around in the dirt watching the horses.

Sept. 10th - Silverwood day!  We had a relaxing day playing and riding rides at the "just the right size" theme park. After we did the log ride together, the big kids went off by themselves to ride the big rides and Dada and I stayed with the little five at the little land. Then Opal, Pella and Berg got adventurous and decided to ride the big roller coasters. So after an awesome all you can eat lunch for Dada and I at the Chuckwagon Johns, they went to the big rides and Tuff, Coal and I rode the half hour train ride around the park and they both slept through the whole thing. We met back up with the rest of the family for the amazing Magic Show and pizza dinner.

Sept. 11th - We decided to try and find these crazy long natural water slides. We drove around for a long time because there are no actually signs to get there. We thought we found them and ended up boulder jumping, because there was no trail. Then drove around again and almost found them. We ended up finding some natural water slides and we played in them for a long while, all the kids and Dada slid down the cold water, but we realized later that these were not the ones we were actually looking for, we needed to hike for another mile past where we were. But we had a fun time anyway and we'll have to find the real ones next time!

Sept. 12th - The first night we bought 4 gallons of ice cream and 2 boxes of waffle cones, so every night the kids got to pick a different flavor of ice cream and have a cone. On our last day we all had to have a morning ice cream cone and use up the rest of the ice cream. They didn't complain. And I took the opportunity to take their cute picture in front of the horse fence that our little house looked out upon. Then we headed home.

The Rest of Aug. 2017

August 21st - Our viewing of the eclipse. Eben and Jasper invented some glasses for us so we could stare at the sun and we all went down to the lake and set up theater style seating to watch the minute long show.  We also invented an eclipse dance, similar to the hokey pokey.

Aug. 23 & 26th parties at our house. We have hosted many parties this summer, although we have had no kitchen and are ourselves eating every meal outdoors. But it's been the warmest summer and we've had no rain so it's worked out. These parties are middle school and home school ones.

Aug. 26th - While we were out eating dinner with some friends the kids called to say there was a bat in the house. We told them to leave the back door open and close the door to all the bedrooms. When we got home it was gone, but the kids did a great job not freaking out like I know some adults in this situation have done! They even got some pictures of their new friend. This guy was big!

Aug 29th - Dada tiles the dining room and kitchen floors! Actually, this took almost a month to finish. Every night he'd come home from work mix a 50 lb. bag of mortar and lay two rows.

Sept. 2nd - Nonnie would take the kids, mainly Pella and Berg, to the condo pool and have swimming lessons all through the summer. So they gave us a swimming show.

The Schocks and our big kids, Nonnie, Poppie and Grandpa Schock all went on an excursion floating down the creek from Lake Steilacoom to Chambers Bay. They stopped along the way at Kobiyashi Park where the little kids and I were all waiting with lunch. At the end of the journey most all of the tubes were popped, it was not a well beaten path, but quite the adventure!