March 2019!

March 1 Baby Brons' is born!

Twining!

March 3 Eben and Kivi's fist murder mystery

March 5 picnic lunch

March 6 Tuff and Coal give Mama a tour of their forts and explain nature

Crazy Hair Night at Awana

March 9 Coal's Third Birthday! He wanted a volcano party and that's what we did! Mama made a volcano cake complete with dry ice lava, which he loved! We had his favorite, quesadillas for dinner. The kids all got into teams and constructed volcanos with recycled materials around a soda bottle and then we dropped mentos into them to see which volcano would explode the highest, however, Mama bought the wrong kind of soda. Cheap grape and orange don't make great volcanoes. Now we know. Then we all formed our own mini volcanoes out of brownies and put lava frosting on top for dessert.

Coaly, we love you so much! You are such a joy! You love your siblings and follow Tuff everywhere and try to do what he does, which is going to get you into trouble at some point we're sure. But you do understand right from wrong and have a good sense of when you need to say sorry and what the right thing to do is. You share well and love to play with your brothers during basement time. You love stories and building and Wednesdays with Nonnie, opocuses, volcanoes and all toys. You love to hide things under your pillow and have a growing collection of toys in your bed. You sleep on the bottom bunk opposite of Tuff. Your smile is infectious! We pray you will use it to win others to Christ and spread His joy to the world! Happy 3rd Birthday, Coal!

March 10 Eating the big volcano cake

March 13 Homeschool set up, boys play, Kivi track meet

March 16 Fondue and The Atlantis Escape Room for Niki's birthday

March 18 Skiing with Poppie and Nonnie and making room for Mama's new greenhouse!

March 20 Nonnie brought shaving cream!

March 21 Dada on bike patrol

March 22 Homeschool Co-op Gardening day. We transplanted seedlings, demolished the porch and cleared the big rocks and Mama and Dada put together the greenhouse that evening!

March 23 Homeschool Tea Time

March 24 Solid Rock Cafe musical at LC3 that Mama directed, Berg, Pella and Opal acted and sang in, and Kivi and Jasper helped do choreography and sets. Then we went to the Spaghetti Factory afterward.

March 26 Eben and Karl finish their rainbow Ripstik project

March 28-April 2nd Bend, OR

March 29 Skiing with the Jasper, Opal and Pella. Dada tried to ski with Coal, but he wanted nothing to do with it. Eben and Berg stayed with the Tuff and Flint. (Kivi went on a different vacation with the Schocks.)

March 30 Walk around Bend, play at the pirate playground, eat at the food trucks.

March 31 Berg, Pella, Eben, Jasper, Dada and B-Dog do more skiing. That night Mama took Opal, Berg and Pella to see Dumbo.

November 2018!

4th - Auntie Tonya's Operation Christmas Child shoebox packing day in the bus!

9th - Coop painting day!

10th - Tuff & Flint's Bee and Ladybug Party!

Tuff, you are now four! It was your idea to have a ladybug birthday party even though you are very into dinosaurs, trucks, movies, dancing and playing with your brothers. You do love gardening, so maybe that's where you got it. We don't know. You are always coming up with crazy ideas and stories and songs. And you were very excited to share your day with your Swiggy! You are big and bold and adventurous but can also get shy quickly. You like to be in charge, especially of Coal and Flint, but often tell your big brothers and sisters and even Mama what to do. And you really do think you are the boss. You love that Coal is in your Sunday school class, but like to go to worship in big church first. You go to Cubbies, but don't like to wear your vest. You are very good at watching the babies every day in the basement while the big kids do math! You are such a great big brother. You have to tell us so many things before you go to bed each night such as, "Will you wake us up at 8:00?" "Can you fill up my water?" " What if I have to go potty?" "Will you remember to wake us up?" "Will this be a short nap?" "Can you make it a small crack?" "Did you pray with us?" "Are you going to tuck me in?" Of course, we have already gone over all these things, but you like to go over them again as I'm closing the door to your room. You have a huge personality and love everyone. According to you, you even have a girlfriend, Joey! You make us laugh all the time. I wish we could record your whole life and rewatch all the hilarious things you say and do! We love you so much and can't wait to see how God is going to use your bigger for life personality to honor Him!
Happy Birthday, Four Year Old!

Flint, our baby boy! How has a year passed? You are the smiliest, happiest baby! You love everyone and let anyone hold you. You are very wiggly during diaper changes. You still don't have any teeth!! You have the sweetest strawberry blonde, reddish hair and get lots of little bumps all over your cheeks. You crawl but won't try walking. You love bottles, your ney-ney, and binkies. You make silly sniffy faces, love to clap, kiss with a big open mouth, sometimes with tongue. You love stories, crawling all over the house, from room to room looking for your siblings. You are very good and not getting into things you can't touch. We love you, you cute little Swiggy man and God loves you! We are so glad he put you in our family! Happy First Birthday!

12th - Flint's one year old photos

13th - Kivi's Cross Country Banquet

21st - Mama finds a dead owl and preserves its wings in cornmeal. I did not succeeded in my one goal for the year, so I'll have to substitute this owl for my raccoon.

21- 24th - Ocean Shores Thanksgiving get away!

25th - The Great Christmas Tree Hunt at Hunter Farms!

25th - Friendsgiving at the Wells!

27th - Eben puts up the tree and we get out Christmas decorations.

28th - Painting a nativity set. Jasper is the dragon in the Awana skit.

29th - Mama gives blood for the first time.

30th - Making gingerbread and designing Gingerbread Bethlehem.

Remodel and Camps

The kitchen remodel on June 21st.

The cage that Jasper built on June 22nd. They loved being trapped! It's been an amazingly warm summer. The kids are still doing school, but play outside in between all the time.

June 24th - the kids helped get rid of the huge pile of debris by cutting it into firewood size pieces and hauling it down to the wood pile.

June 25 - July 1 - The big kids go to Black Lake Bible Camp for the week. There was a cute barn, so we posed for family pic too.


Kivi got to stay in a tepee with her favorite counselor Picasa and 4 other girls from LC3. Jasper and Eben stayed in a wagon with three other LC3 boys and had Baja as a counselor.


They had a fun week! The only pictures I got were these cool ones of them posing with a wolf and an alligator.


Pella and Berg also had camp that week. They went to Rainier View's Drama Camp and gave us a performance on Friday of "Let's Rock". They were both singers.


On June 26th our friends the McPhollands came to visit from Hawaii so we went to the Children's Museum in Olympia that morning, visited Eben, Kivi and Jasper at camp that afternoon and had a bunch of friends over that night for dinner for a reunion.


July 1st - Tuff and Coal love to go in the swing that is attached to the garage. They go in it every day while I quiz Berg on his multiplication cards in the papasan chair outside. This day Tuff fell asleep - so cute.


July 2nd - Mama works hard for a couple of days in a row to put all the kitchen cabinets together. Tuff loves to be a helper, but it's actually Eben and Kivi who do all the heavy lifting for Mama who can't move them once they're assembled.

Dada Trip, Engagement and Father's Day

May 25th to June 2nd Dada went to Wyoming for his Lodge Boy trip and then to Fort Worth for work.

On June 4th we were asked to be a part of Tim (Uncle Bushy) and Marlee's engagement! We went on a walk along Ruston Way and at the end we all ran ahead to hide so we could take pictures of the surprise proposal on the bridge.

June 18th - Father's Day we had a relaxing morning, then took Dada out to Pho for lunch. 

Later in the day our families came over to celebrate and have Mexican and we let Dada build his cornhole game.

Pella also gave us a ballet performance in the basement because this was her ballet recital day, however we found out the week before that she wouldn't be able to perform in the actual recital because they forgot to order her a costume. Buggy had a similar story of missing her recital when she was five and Pella was able to dance in Buggy's costume!

A good day for both Pella and Dada!