Random Silliness

Here are a few pictures of silliness. Of course, these would seem unusual to all of you who know my family....there's nothing silly about us! (I'm being sarcastic.) Enjoy.

First of all, I had to include this picture taken today, because I wanted to show that Ethan has learned how to sit unsupported. He started doing this on Sunday, March 29. He doesn't sit for very long, but he can do it. Another milestone passed. Also, in this picture, you can see his two teeth. This is the first picture I have been able to take of his teeth.
Uncle Josh LOVES overalls on the kids. Why? Because he can carry them around like a suitcase. The kids love to be swung around by Josh. He's just a big kid, anyway.

I love this picture. Joey is a couple feet over Josh's head and flying free as a bird. I was very lucky to get this shot. It took me several attempts, as I had to snap the picture before he even got in the air, for it to take at just the right moment. Joey will also pose, and make silly faces in mid-air. I tried to get a picture of him doing that, but it turned out blurry, so I couldn't use it.

And here is my "mature" and "dignified" sister doing her interpretative dancing. She dances to the music she hears inside her head. What she was interpreting, I have no idea. I guess only she knows.

Look at how graceful she is, even when goofing off. Gee, I miss her. July can't come soon enough for me.

Cousins At Play

Here are just a few pictures of the cousins playing together. This is what I miss most; having my kids close enough to play with their family. Here are the boys and Sarina in Sarina's tent. They were jumping up and down, making the whole tent pop up and down. They had a blast, and their hair was sticking up from all the static electricity.

After taking this picture, I showed Sarina what she looked like, with that faked attitude. She said, "That's what I wanted to look like!" I told her she looked just like her mom.
The big kids are holding the little kids......sort of. It made a cute picture, but was hard to hold for too long. Both Nick and Ethan are wiggly kids.

This one makes me cry. This is a group hug with Shayden, Sarina, Joey, and Nick when we were saying our good-byes. I hated tearing them apart, after they had reconnected. What cruel parents we are to show them what they are missing.

A Promised Threat

While the adults were in the other room visiting, the teens requisitioned my camera, and proceeded to take silly pictures of themselves. Now, I am sure, that they were expecting me to look at the pictures, laugh, and then delete them. Oh, no. I told them, I promised them, that I would publish their pictures on my blog, for all the world to see. So here I am, fulfilling my promise.

Oh, Jacob....you look lovely!
Nice target!

You're the woman, Rachel!

In all fairness to Rachel, she did not know that Jacob took this picture.

And although she was just being silly, I think this is a wonderful picture of Rachel. She is growing up to be such a beautiful young woman.

I must say, that after seeing Jacob, Ravyn, and Rachel all grown up, I am so proud to be their Aunt. I am blessed to have such wonderful, God-fearing, and fun-loving nieces and nephew. I love you guys very much. I can't wait to see you in July.

There are a ton more pictures to go through....I have almost 230 from our vacation. So there will be many more posts with pictures from the trip, but I wanted to get started with a few before getting some sleep. I will endeavor to post more over the next couple days.

Buh-Sprise!!

Buh-sprise. That is how Joey says "surprise." It cracks me up. For such an intelligent child, there are not many words he says incorrectly, but that is one of them. I think it will make me a little sad when he starts saying it right.

As I had said before, we told Angela that we were coming down so she could set up the surprise for Nick's parents. She set a lunch date with Paul, and a dinner date with Mary and Chuck for Thursday. It was really nice to have Steve along with us, not only to get to know him better before officially adding him to the family, but also because he became our photographer to catch the surprise on Mom's and Dad's faces.

Angie went into Dad's office and asked him to come outside and "meet someone." We were standing just outside the door, waiting. The look on his face was priceless. Steve did an awesome job capturing the moment.
When Mom and Chuck came over for dinner, we had Joey and Nick answer the door, and once again, Steve captured the moment of surprise on camera. Mary took awhile to get over the shock. I don't think she was over it, even when we went to the zoo the following afternoon.

When we got to my parents', we didn't have the "photographer" with us. I didn't want to walk in with a camera in my face, I wanted to enjoy the full force of everyone's surprise. So after greeting everybody, I had them reenact their surprise. Aubrey cooperated nicely.....

Josh did not. He behaved exactly as anyone who knows him would expect him to. And, as everyone would expect, Stacei found him hilarious. I love these guys. There is no shortage of hilarity around this crew.

I had had such a hard time not spilling the beans before coming home. I must have talked on the phone with Stacei three or four times in the two weeks before we came, and was so close several times to giving something away. And on Friday morning, Aubrey had left a note on my Facebook Wall saying how she was looking forward to seeing Nick (thinking that he was in Portland on business) but that it would make her miss me and the kids even more. I left a note back that I would have Nick pass on a hug when he got back. It was nice to know they had NO clue. It made the moment of reunion that much sweeter.

Preparation And Aticipation

Making a small car trip with three boys in car seats, say, to the grocery store, takes enough preparation as it is. But taking a trip 2500 miles away, in a plane, in the middle of the night, is on a whole other level. I had to pack enough for five people, for ten days, including diapers and pull-ups, and keep it within a set number of suitcases so that we were not charged for any extra checked luggage. With having purchased four plane tickets, that gives us four checked bags acceptable. But you have to remember that we had three car seats to bring along as well. Luckily, with having an lap infant, we were able to check one stroller and one car seat at the gate for no charge. That left us with two car seats to check, and allowed us two suitcases. So ten days worth of supplies for five people had to be crammed in two suitcases and not exceed 50 pounds. I would say that my organizational skills were put to the test, and I am happy to say that I passed. The other thing I had to consider was the carry-ons. We, again, were allowed up to four. However, I did not want to be carrying around three kids, four carry-ons, a stroller, and a car seat through the airport. Since Nick and I each had a child next to us, in different rows, I packed one small bag for each of us with items to keep the kids occupied. I also allowed one extra carry-on that remained mostly empty, until I filled it with coats and shoes to pass through security. It was good thinking on my part to allow a fairly empty bag, as the amount of spoils sent home with us could not fit in our already stuffed, almost overweight suitcases. Here are some pictures from the first stage in our trip.

Here are the three boys, each in their pajamas, standing (or sitting) next to the big bear. Notice the stroller has two of our carry-ons, and my purse, loaded into it.
Here is the luggage cart we used, piled high with three car seats, two suitcases, one carry-on, and a partridge in a pear tree. The plastic bags on the seat were for the car seats.

I was very excited to begin our trip. It had been 2 1/2 years since I had been home. Little Nick was only two weeks old when we left, so for both he and Ethan, they would be meeting most of the family for the first time. I had to get a picture of each boy showing how they shared my enthusiasm.

It's enough to make you excited too, isn't it?! These pictures make me laugh! You must remember that we had dragged the kids out of bed after only a couple hours' sleep. That, I think, is reflected most in these pictures.

Mt. Redoubt

Since the big local news is, of course, the eruptions of Mt. Redoubt, I thought I would share a couple pictures taken from the AVO website. Anchorage has finally seen some ash fall and the airport is now closed. Until now, it was the individual airlines making the decisions whether or not to fly into Anchorage....now, nobody can. I guess it is good we got back when we did.
This first picture is from space, obviously. You can see the ash cloud clearly, and it is quite amazing to know that it could be seen from space.

This is another taken from the eruption on 3/27/09, in the evening.

And this one certainly is the most dramatic. Absolutely beautiful. This was taken just before 1:30am this morning. Incredible!

Since I rarely get the computer for any length of time before late at night, I just don't have the energy to do much. I must get to bed and get some sleep before church tomorrow.

Growth On Vacation

So I have a lot to catch up on. I have been wanting to blog and get pictures up, but woke up Wednesday morning to Joey throwing up in my bed. He spent all day throwing up, he couldn't even keep down water. I felt so bad for him. At one point, he said, "Mommy, don't be sad for me, because it makes me sad that I can't see my cousins." I started crying. Not only are we missing family already, we were dealing with the sickies. He started feeling a little better yesterday, and was fully recovered today. So far, nobody else has gotten sick, so I pray that this was an isolated case, not an epidemic. Needless to say, I have had little to no time to get my pictures and blogging done.

But there is one important thing I must do without further delay. That is, of course, blog about the seven month milestone. Ethan turned seven months old while we were on vacation. In fact, he did more than that. On March 16, he started scooting. On March 17, he cut his first tooth (the bottom, right, front tooth.) On March 18, he turned seven months old. On March 23, while stuck in Seattle, he cut his bottom left front tooth. He had a very busy week.
So here are my comparison pictures for the boys at seven months old. Joey is up above. He became fascinated with his tongue just before turning seven months old, so he is sticking his tongue out in the picture.

Nick was a quick little booger when he was scooting. I would place him across the room out of the way, and by the time I turned around, he was back getting into whatever it was I was trying to move him away from. I love this goofy grin on his face.

Ethan is such a love. I have been blessed with cuddly children. Nick was the least cuddly, but I love nothing more than snuggling with my babies. Ethan has become a little less cuddly now that he can scoot around. All he wants to do now is be on the go. He doesn't even enjoy his bouncer as much as he used to because he is still stationary. What a cute boy.

It is much too late for me to stay up any longer. I am exhausted, having had very little sleep on vacation, and none since we've been home. Have a blessed weekend, and I will aim to blog more about the trip this weekend.

Our Last Minute Adventure

I will start blogging vacation details and pictures in the next day or so....after I have recovered. I just wanted to "quickly" explain our last minute adventure.

We left my parents' around 5pm, headed back for Seattle where we were to catch the flight home. It was another red-eye, leaving around midnight and getting in just before 3am. I made the "we made it to the airport safely, call ya in the morning" phone calls and proceeded to try to wrangle three kids in the airport for three hours. We get on the plane; Joey, Ethan and I in the very last row, Nick and Nick on the other side of the plane a couple rows up. It started out as the perfect flight. All three boys were asleep before take-off! I was just praying that they would stay asleep until landing. That was not a difficult prayer to answer.

As it was, Mt. Redoubt, a volcano 80 some miles from Anchorage (I'm not real sure about the specifics...just thought I'd throw in some "knowledgeable" info) decided to erupt, three times, in fact. So, the pilot came over the intercom and said that although the Anchorage airport was currently open, it would close before we got there and we were sent back to Seattle. So we landed back in Seattle a mere 60 minutes after we took off. We were told to pick up our baggage and leave, call reservations, because they were not re-booking flights that night as they had no idea when the Anchorage airport might be open.

By now, it was 1am, we had three sleepy, irritated little boys, and we had to find a hotel as quick as possible, knowing that we were not the only flight that had been redirected. So, Nick got on the phone as soon as he could, calling all the cheap hotels first. No such luck. Finally, we booked a room at the Double Tree Hotel, a very spendy room. Unfortunately, the hotel shuttles stop running at 1am, so we had to rent another car that would fit three car seats (not the cheap kind of cars, either) and try to get some sleep.

We finally got settled and the boys to sleep around 3:30-4:00am. When Nick called the airlines the next morning, the first flight we could get was for 4:10pm on Tuesday! So now we had a day and a half to waste in Seattle.

Needless to say, I have just now got home, eaten dinner, and gotten the boys in bed. So now I have to decide whether to unpack now or leave it for tomorrow. Who am I kidding? There was no thought in my head about unpacking tonight!!!

Have a blessed week. I will be in recovery for the next few days. Feel free to communicate in any way, I will still be playing secretary around here.

Thank you Mom and Dad, Mary and Chuck, and Angie and Steve for all your hospitality. Thank you Josh and Stacei and family, Aubrey and Gary and family, Megan, Grandma and Grandpa Dooley, Paul and Taylor, Grandmama, Aunt Karen, Aunt Carolyn and girls for taking time out of your schedules to spend time with us. I love and miss you all, and can't wait to get back to see you in July.

Pictures Will Have To Wait

We have been having a wonderful time. We have been going non-stop since we got here....which is what we wanted. Saturday we stayed in, but had Aubrey and her kids and Josh and Stacei and the kids over again, so it was a madhouse of fabulousness. (Yes, that is a word!)

Sunday we had a great time at church. As soon as we got inside, Joey and Sarina found each other and ran through the church holding hands. It was a precious sight to see. Sarina took it upon herself to make sure that Joey had a good time and felt included. Josh was working, but Stacei and the kids, and Aubrey and her family were over again to play. It has been great to see them so much.

Yesterday, we went to see my Dad, Scott. He has lost a lot of weight since I last saw him. He has not been doing well. It has been hard watching the MS take over his body. I know he is not on his deathbed, but I have no promises of seeing him again when I leave for Alaska.

After we visited with my Dad, we spent the evening with my mother-in-law. It was nice to spend some time with them. The boys went on four walks and "cat-hunts" after dinner. Every time they came back inside, they were ready to go back out.

Today, I think, will be a fairly normal, quiet day. Mom is cooking a turkey dinner, which I am looking forward to so very much. Then on Friday, we will have turkey noodle soup! (Even better!) Nick is going to go to a movie with Josh this afternoon, and I hope to get the boys down for a nap; something they haven't done with any regularity since we came. The rest of the week seems to be pretty busy, so I hope to have at least one "down" day today.

I would love to post some pictures, but I forgot to bring the USB cord for the camera, so pictures will have to wait until we get back. There are some great ones.

Well, I have one son dressed, one son half dressed, and one son still in pajamas. I suppose I should finish the job, and perhaps get myself dressed as well. Have a spectacular day.

Just A Quick Note

I know I have been silent lately, but there has been a very good reason. I have had a secret, a surprise, that has been all I have been thinking about, all that I have wanted to talk about. But I couldn't talk about it or it wouldn't be a secret. And if I had mentioned that I had a secret but didn't go on to reveal the secret, I know there are certain tenacious people who would not stop until the secret was known. So, I figured it would be better for me to keep quiet than to say anything at all.

I am home!! In Forest Grove!! At this very minute, typing on my parents' computer. This is the first time home in over two and a half years! The secret was that nobody knew we were coming. Let me rephrase, on a couple people knew we were coming, and they only knew to help set up the surprise.

We told Dad so he could make sure that they were prepared for a moderate invasion and so that he could help set up the surprise on my side of the family. I had called Mom a couple weeks ago to let her know that Nick was going to be in town on business and could he please stay the weekend with them. Also wanted her to invite Josh and Aubrey and their families for dinner to see him.

We also told Angie, Nick's sister, so she could help set up the surprise on Nick's side of the family.
We took a red eye flight on Thursday morning, and because my parents were both working a 24 hour shift, we planned on staying with Angie for Thursday night. Angie set up a lunch date with her Dad and a dinner date with her Mom. So when Angie brought Dad outside of his office to "meet someone" there Nick and I were with all the kids. The look on his face was priceless, and captured beautifully on camera by Steve, Angie's fiance. (Pictures will have to wait until another time. I really should be in bed, but couldn't sleep, so I'm up getting some of this off my mind.) We spent the lunch hour with Paul going from table to table showing off his grandsons.
When we got back to Angie's we took a much needed nap and then started preparing for the next surprise. Angie had told Chuck about our surprise so that she could enlist his assistance in making sure Mary would be available for dinner. When they showed up, we had Joey and Nick (the little one) answer the door. Her look of astonishment was also caught on camera by Steve. (I asked him if he wanted to come to my family's on Friday to be our photographer, but he passed.) We had a wonderful time with Mom and Chuck and were completely blessed by Steve and Angie's hospitality. They were fantastic!
On Friday, I guess that is still technically today, we had to wait until dinner to see my family, so we spent a fairly leisurely morning with Steve and Angie. Taylor, Nick's "little" sister (several inches taller than me at 13) didn't have school today, so she was dropped off by Dad on his way to work and got to spend the day with us. In the afternoon, we went over to Grandmama's to surprise her, and then headed off to the zoo. Mary was able to take the afternoon off and met us at the zoo. This was the boys' first trip to the zoo and they had a blast. Again, they had no nap and both Joey and Nick walked just about the entire time without complaining. I was super proud of them.
When we left the zoo, it was to head out to my parents'. I called to let them know that Nick was on his way over, and since Dad answered the phone, I was able to make sure that everybody was coming and that nobody knew that anybody other than Nick was going to be there. Unfortunately, my Mom was one of those tenacious people I mentioned earlier, and she figured it out.....but not until just this afternoon, so she was still surprised but at that point was expecting us. (She didn't know all the details, or that I had to stay away all of Thursday and Friday to make sure this surprise worked.) Our "plan" was to have Nick show up after everybody was there and say his "hello's" and then forget something in the car...then the boys and I would come back in with him. But since Mom knew, and we didn't know exactly when everybody would show up, we decided to just surprise people as they got there. When we pulled up, Aubrey and Gary were already there, so we stormed in en masse and gave Aubrey the shock of a lifetime. It was fantastic to see her (and the rest of the family) again. It was really funny, because earlier Aubrey had left me a note on Facebook saying that she was looking forward to seeing Nick but that it would make her miss me and the kids more. So I was ecstatic to be able to see her and be seen by her.
Josh and Stacei showed up a few minutes later and Nick met them at the door while the kids and I hid in the other room. Then the kids and I made ourselves visible and it was another round of squeals and laughter and tons more hugs. This has been the best two days in a very long time!
What's even better is that we don't go home until the 22nd, so I have eight more days to be here.

Well, this was supposed to be a quick note....but I seem incapable of making a note quick. I have lots of pictures that I will be able to post tomorrow....and of course I will be taking tons more. So now I should make another attempt at going to bed.
Have a blessed beyond belief weekend.