February 2019!

Feb. 2 Skiing!

Feb. 3 Super Bowl party at the Adams

Feb. 4 Last day with Isabella

Feb. 5 Tiny igloos and snow dessert

Feb. 6 AAA Buffet for Mimi and Opal's birthdays, Silly Swig and Awana Youth game

Feb. 7 Dada bike ride with the boys

Feb. 8 Dada bike ride with the Mama, kids make snowbabies

Feb. 9 Sledding, Swiggy sized igloo, Schock snow day, big igloo making, games and girls sleep in their igloo all night.

Feb. 10 More Snow Days - snowed in!

Feb. 13 Meet our new niece, Solly! Missed her birth because of snow!

Feb. 15 Opal gets a massage table!

Feb. 16 Opal's 11th Birthday party!  This year Mama spent a ton of time making an Atlantis themed escape room for Opal's big day. She wanted her theme to be underwater and have a slide down to the basement, which Jasper built for her out of tons of cardboard. While one team tried to save Atlantis the other team was working on their graham cracker Atlantis creations. She chose spanakopita and Italian sodas and brownies. 

Opie girl! You're eleven! You love to give massages and have been getting lessons from Miss Tony every time she comes to give Mama or Dada a massage. You have very strong hands! And a very strong personality. You like to be in control and are a good leader with the little people. You have been doing 6th-grade work all year. You are very brilliant. You would choose to sleep or snuggle with your nay-nay however if given the chance over school any day. You love Minecraft and candy. You are doing great at Awana and have lots of friends through church. We love you, Opal. You grow us. We pray that you will grow into a woman who loves Jesus and wants to please Him with your life. He's the only one who really matters, who you can trust and who loves you perfectly.
Happy 11th Birthday, Opie-O!

Feb. 15-18 Eben goes to H.S. Winter Camp and apparently spends most of his time building...an igloo!

Feb. 21 Mama and Kivi go to a painting class with the Holmes.

Feb. 23 Kivi goes to Lakes Tolo and brings Jolie.

Feb. 24 More skiing and brothers play.

Feb. 25 Swiggy in the basement. (The 3 little boys play down there for an hour every day while I teach the middles. They do amazing!)

Feb. 26 Portraits! Dada bought Mama a portrait lens!

Feb. 27 Swiggy's first steps!

January 2019!

Jan. 1st-5th Montana! Skiing, campfires, games, sister outings to the town, snow walks at the state park and a huge wind storm that broke the trampoline!

Jan. 6th Sweet Kids!  Swiggy uses Jasper to drink his bottle. First tooth! Opal gives Mama a full massage!

Jan. 11th Tuff finishes his preschool level iPad game! Mama and Dada go Duck Pin bowling with friends and score all we can play bracelets and Mama scores a 540 at skee-ball - her highest score ever!

Jan. 13th We take Tuff out for mud pie for finishing his preschool. The family comes over and surprises Dada with cleaning and rearranging the MamaDada room. (Side note: if your bed, a whole living room set including a piano, desk, 3 dressers, a hot tub, and your extended family can fit in your bedroom...it's too big of a bedroom. Stuff is gonna pile up in there!) (2nd side note: we got rid of the hot tub!)

Jan. 19th-21st Peter surprises Eben, Kivi and Jasper with a trip to Universal Studios! Here's Jasper's take on the trip:

Jan. 21st Pella goes indoor ski diving with her friend, Isabella! And the rest of us strain the honey that we got from our bees (who all died of mites) back in Oct!!

Jan 22nd Buggy and I and the kids go to the March for Life Rally at the capital in the rain!

Jan 24th After taking Berg and Pella who have gymnastics on Thursdays (or Jasper who is in advanced gymnastics on Mondays) all the way in Dupont, Tuff and Coal and I go to the garden, the library or the Dupont Museum - their favorite. After being there multiple times, I finally realized the old store was called Johnson Bros. - fitting!

Opal, Berg and Pella helped the Holmes girls in a snowman building contest at Sprinker and won first place!

Tuffy asked Jesus into his heart!!! He prayed with Mama and Dada on the living room couch during our night time devotions.

Jan. 25th Awana Youth Leader Bunco Party at our house! Mama has lots of fun leading these amazing HS and MS kids at Awana each week.

Jan. 28th Dada comes home to bring us police cookies and ice cream in his uniform. A treat since his is a plain clothes guy usually. 

Jan. 29th Babies wagon ride.

Jan. 31st Family ping pong in the basement.

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!