November 2019!

Nov. 1 - Lakes Cross Country Dinner

Nov. 2 - Kivi's Cross Country Meet - the girls and boys made it to State!

Nov. 4 - Mama's 44th Puzzle Race Birthday Party

Nov. 7  - Pella's 8th Birthday at Great Wolf Lodge with Berg and Mama and Dada

Dada bought Pella this amazing pass that let her do everything - high ropes course, mining maze, glow golf, candy feast, the water park and Magi quest.

Pella, you are our family's darling! We love you and how you are helpful and encouraging, smart and funny you are. As our little performer, singer and dancer/tomboy, you are friendly to everyone and have tons of friends. You have your own little fashion and love to talk. You are daring and love to have fun usually doing some sort of outdoor activity. You are a great reader and ahead in math. You and Berg are great friends and you love dollhouse with your sisters. You hate to have your hair brushed or put on shoes. You love Jesus and are great at memorizing verses. We are excited to see how God uses all these gifts for his glory in your life! Happy 9th Birthday, Little Chuggy!

Nov. 9 - Kivi's XC State race

Nov. 11 Outing with Mimi to see the big slides in Ruston

Nov. 12 - Tuff earns mud pie by finishing a phonics box!

Nov. 13 - super low lake tide

Nov. 14 - Kivi's XC banquet She got the Most Motivtional award!

Nov. 16 - Tuff's Rhino Rootbeer 5th Birthday Party!

We had a rootbeer tasting contest, a rhino riding competition, rhino scavenger hunt and cookie decorating.

Only our Tuff could come up with this great theme! Everything you do is big, over the top, and done with grand bravado. You are excited about life, learning and fun. You are our mega performer, are friends with lots of people older than you, adults included and you are not shy to talk to anyone in the most confident way. You keep our family on our toes and are helping us not get stuck in a rut with discipline. You are a great big brother to Coal and Swiggy and they look up to you in everything! You three do everything together and you are a good leader - usually. You are very strong and have many opinions and we pray that you will use your strengths to further God's kingdom and spread His love to many! We love you so much, Tuff! Happy 5th Birthday!

Nov. 21 - Swiggy paints with cars and busts open his head.

Nov 23 - Family Birthday celebration for our November babies!

Nov. 27-28 - Thanksgiving trip to Ocean Shores

Beach walks, trips to the movie theater with Mama and then Dada, girl's made a quilt, D and J paddle boarded, switch games, puzzles, a chocolate taste test, fun Trader Joe's snacks and Thanksgiving meal.

 

June 2019!

June 5th - Awana Awards Ceremony for the 2018-19 year!

Dada - Commander

Mama - Youth Leader Director

Eben - Games Director

Kivi - Yellow Team Game Lead

Jasper - Youth Leader

Opal - T&T Excellence Award

Berg - T&T Alpha Award 

Pella - Wing Runner Book Award

Tuff - Cubbies Award

June 7th - Boys snacking on our front porch swing.

June 8th - Mama and Dada dates bike riding to Coffee Cabin.

June 14th - Policeman Dada brings donuts for us! Later that night Eben has his last Pierce College concert for the year.

June 16th - Father's Day

The kids each made a page for Dada in a cute book. We went for a bike ride with Poppie and Nonnie in Dupont. The farthest Berg has gone on a two-wheeler. We ate a picnic lunch in the park and then enjoyed some ice cream! That night we had both Grandpa and Poppie over for an outside Father's Day dinner.

June 18th - Walk through the Nisqually Nature Reserve with the Nobles.

June 19th - Awana Youth Leader Foam Party

I decided to throw my leaders a party as a thank you last year at the end of Awana and it went so well, we did it again this year! The kids love snacking, swimming, roasting s'mores, hanging out with friends and sliding down the hill of foam that Peter so dutifully sets up for me!

June 20th - Dada makes pretzels with the kids. 

June 21st - Dada does lots of this. He loves it!

June 22nd - Our nephew Styrkur's 2nd birthday! A pillow party! He loved a pillow from our house so much that Nonnie had to buy him his own! We had a pillow fight, and Styzee singed his eyelashes on the candles. (That's why he's crying.) Happy Birthday, Styrkur!

June 23-30th - Mexico Mission Trip with LC3 for Mama, Eben and Kivi. Eben and Kivi worked on building a home for an Oaxacan family and Mama went to help out at orphanages and help disabled children.

The church sent us off in prayer.

We flew down in our small groups and drove to In&Out for burgers!

This was one of the two houses we stayed in on the beach

Eben working on house.

Kivi playing with some of the kids that would live in the house.

Painting the inside.

Putting on the roof.

Almost done! I can't believe they built a house (really two houses, we had two teams) in one week!

The beach out the back door of the houses.

One of the amazing things was the beach had hot springs about a mile down from where we stayed We got to go twice! We'd lay in the surf and boiling hot water would come up from the sand.

Eben was not a fan. 

I may have wrestled him into the water at some point and forced him to "enjoy" it. 

The kids made us a welcome home sign!

Meanwhile, the kids at home did amazing!!! Dada still went to work everyone and they did school, and cleaned the house better than when Mama is home!!

Family Camp & Berg's Baptism

August 12 - 14th was our church's Family Camp at Black Lake. Peter and I backed off in the Programming dept. and just ran the skit night because we knew we'd have an infant. It worked out that we didn't try to do too much because Peter ended up having to work and coming later on Saturday. So I took all 8 kids all by myself for a day and a half to camp. It was crazy. I like it way better with Peter.  On Saturday night, Eben and Kivi did an amazing job performing the Rumplestiltskin skit from Studio C (Eben's costume was epic), but since Peter was running all the behind the scenes act changes and I was the MC, we didn't get any pictures!! Thanks for these, Chris!

We did get lots of Eben and Derek on a photo challenge, which they won.

 Sunday morning was a big day for Berg. He decided he wanted to be baptized! He was pretty nervous, because of course this symbolic ceremony required dunking in water, his arch nemesis. But despite his being afraid, he wanted to do it and after reading his testimony Dada baptized him in the cold lake. He was so brave! I know how much this kid hates water and he did it anyway, without any prompting from us.

All of the Johnsons came out to see Berg's baptism!