Recent Photos

For some reason it's been hard for me to sit down and post pictures lately, but I am going to try to get them up in the next 12 hours, including some retro Thanksgiving trip pix, so after Monday night, scroll back and have a gander. For now, here are some pictures of our weekend.

Friday, 11/30: Just Chillin' at home and Christmafying the house... Heidi has moved from playing with/ lining up three-dimensional toy elephants to printing out elephants from the computer, coloring them cutting them out, and lining them up.
Last week I put Christmas trees in each room of our house excpet James' and ours. James crawled into the girls' room early Friday morning--it was dark except for the tree--and I found him just chillin' with Christmas Bear.

Saturday, 12/01: Mom & Addie's Tea Party Date!
Addie and I attended the Nutcracker Tea Party at Livingston Bar & Grille. We were seated adn Addie chose Sugarplum Spice Tea, and I chose Candy Cane Tea. We got plates of tea sandwiches, cheese, crackers, cookies and fruit...
Here's Addie in front of the buffet table.

Later we traded tea because I liked the Sugarplum and Addie liked the candy cane...
Here she is sipping her tea.

Later, we got a sneak preview of scenes from the upcoming Nutcracker performance.
Here are Clara & Fritz fighting over the Nutcracker.
Here all all the dancers from the preview.

Addie with Clara (who is also the assistant teacher in her ballet class).
Here's Addie as we left the tea party, in front of the Bar & Grille on Main Street.
It was 9 degrees, but not windy, so it felt great!

Later that night, Heidi was having a tantrum, as usual...
And then she took this picture of Dad & James--so cute!
After bedtime prayers, James tried to climb up to Addie's bed--he LOVES her!
That little stinker won't walk, but he climbs EVERYWHERE!

Here's Heidi in her dirty sweatshirt, getting ready for bed.

After the girls were all settled down, James was crawling around and found these lights...



Sweet Christmas Boy!

Sunday is voided because Heidi started throwing up at 6am and we did nothing but lay around, eat popsicles, (well, Rich and Addie went to church) and clean up barf until 6pm. Now it's Monday and James just had his first barf...here we go again! I guess my baking day is called off! It would NOT be a nice gift to share these germs!) Which brings us to TODAY...

What did Heidi beg for as her first solid food after yesterday's Barfies? Spinach with ranch and bacon bits. I told her yogurt woudl be better, or toast, but NO! She wanted Spinach! She ate two bowls like this!

Jill asked for some decor pictures, so here you go. These are just of the front great room. There are decorations in every room--so fun!

Heidi & the tree with lights off--the basket of Christmas books is behind her, growing each year!
I put most of the Santas here near the kitchen...
...and here are those cool giant bulbs from Target. This picture makes me want to clean my kitchen--I need more cabinets cuz I hate all those appliances and utensils out!

So...I gotta go be on barf patrol. Rich just got James out of the tub and has to go back to work. How are your Christmas plans going?

A Good Prayer

May our eyes remain open even in the face of tragedy.

May we not become disheartened.

May we find in the dissolution

of our apathy and denial,

the cup of the broken heart.

May we discover the gift of the fire burning

in the inner chamber of our being

–burning great and bright enough

to transform any poison.

May we offer the power of our sorrow to the service

of something greater than ourselves.

May our guilt not rise up to form

yet another defensive wall.

May the suffering purify and not paralyze us.

May we realize the greatness of our sorrow

and not run from its touch or flame.

May clarity be our ally and wisdom our support.

May our wrath be cleansing, cutting through

the confusion of denial and greed.

May we not be afraid to see or speak our truth.

May the bleakness of the wasteland be dispelled.

May the soul’s journey be revealed

and the true hunger fed.

May we be forgiven for what we have forgotten

and blessed with the remembranceof who we really are.

~ The Terma Collective

PS: Happy Birthday, Kelli Melin!

For the Beauty of the Earth...

I have a ZILLION pictures to post and no time, but I couldn't wait any longer to post our beach pix. I have to hit the hay soon, but here's a look at what we did after Thanksgiving dinner...

We drove 90 miles out to Canon Beach on the Oregon Coast to play and watch the sun set (at like 4:40pm!!!) Here is our family at the Beach...

(our nephew, Gabriel was sleeping in the van)

I think this is my favorite picture of the day--my girls at sunset.
Addie collecting shells
James facing the sun set with the moon rising behind him
My cute boys

Me & my 15 chins, my hubby, and my darlin' son
Addie walking with her "kid-uncle" Marshall
Good night, sun...



"For the beauty of the earth
For the beauty of the skies
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise."

Beautiful ending to a beautiful day.
Hope y'all had a wonderful holiday!

PS: Yes, that IS the beach from Goonies, which was filmed in Astoria (30 miles north of Canon) and at Canon Beach! Good eye! I didn't even notice, but I haven't seen Goonies since I was 13! Laura, there is a 30% chance of snow on 12/7 and 0% on 12/8, so maybe you can caravan with Posties for safety, then go home in the clear! Both highways are pretty major, so I imagine they'll be clear. Anyway, thanks for all the comments--luv U guys!

More Washington Pix

Heidi is really enjoying Nana's dog, Sydnie

In the backyard on Wednesday

We found the best DVD for Heidi in the Target dollar bins--Video Zoo! We gave it to her when Addie was opening her gifts. It has relaxing music and no talking, so it will be perfect for quiet time!
Addie riding Marshall's scooter--she loves it so much, we got her one for her bday!
Nana & Addie
Cousins/ Aunt & Uncle singing to Addie at her bday lunch party
Opening her new sweatsTalking to Grandma Melin
Reading her cards
Excited about her Furberry
More card reading with mom

Dad and James at Ad's bday lunch--

Bubby still has a fat lip from falling at our hotel last Saturday.

Birthday Girl

Sweet Adeline Turned SIX Today! Her day started with a breakfast date with Uncle Michael. Mike let us sleep in this morning and took Addie, Heidi and Abby out to a birthday breakfast. They loved it and Addie felt so special and grown up to be taken on a date with her uncle! (Thanks, Michael!)
At lunchtime, she got a call from Grandma Melin back in Montana (buried in snow!)...Gram Melin and I agreed the Addie's birthday is extra-memorable because it's the day I became a mother and she became a Grandmother!

And even though Addie was Nana's 10th grandchild, Nana thinks she's pretty special, too!
I love this picture of my girls just waiting for the festivities to get going...

...and here's Addie with her long-wished-for Furberry Bear from Nana!

We had such a fun day today, still working yo sort through things at the house...I have tons more pictures to post. Hopefully I'll get a second wind later. Let me just say that Rich found the BEST bday surprise for Addie. She's been having so much fun riding around on Abby's razor scooter, Rich looked up on the internet where they might be on sale. This morning he found one online at Target for $18.99, so we went and picked it up in time for Addie's bday lunch party. She is THRILLED and I have the cutest pictures to prove it...coming soon! What a fun daddy!

If I don't come back by tomorrow, yall have yourselves and Merry Little Thanksgiving now...it's my favorite holiday, remember?

The Gorge

Columbia River Gorge

I-84 east of Portland, Oregon...these waterfalls were everywhere!

So...we made it to lovely Vancouver on Sunday afternoon at 4pm, 3pm local time. We left Spokane around 9:30am, stopped briefly in Kennewick, and enjoyed the MOST BEAUTIFUL drive down I-84 along the Columbia River. Oh, my, it was beautiful! Seriously, in the Top 5 most beautiful places I have ever seen. It was raining really hard for our first three days in Washington State, so we didn't get any good pictures of the river Gorge, but I took a few from the car as we drove.

The Drews were still at church when we arrived, so we came in and straightened up the (mostly empty) house and inflated our airbeds. We had a really fun reunion and went out to Baja Fresh for Sunday dinner. It was exciting to bed down and be ready for the movers at 8am on Monday & Tuesday. We worked really hard and enthusiastically on Monday, and more hard and LESS enthusiastically on Tuesday to get Mom and Mark moved in to their new house. This house is HALF the size of their Missouri home, which is a good thing, but Mom is continually surprised by how little room she has. It will take some time to get all settled, but it has been fun. The pine trees are so tall, the woods are thick and pretty, and Mom's house faces a tiny farm with chickens and little goats, with lots of green grass and big trees--it's really beautiful. The neighborhood borders a rural area, a lot like where they lived in Missouri. The kids are having a great time riding scooters and bikes around the wooded circle. There are lots of nice stores and restaurants nearby.

I will post more photos ASAP...tomorrow (Wednesday) is Addie's 6th Birthday. Adios...

Road Warriors

Greetings from the nicest QualityInn Suites on the planet! We are in Spokane Valley, Washing ton enjoying another beautiful, overcast day on the road. Yesterday we left home in Montana at 9:30 am and drove to Butte to do some insurance business (Rich had to photograph a beautiful new restaurant we have insured in downtown Butte). Since Laura and Darrin have to work all weekend, Matt drove Gabriel down to Butte from Helena to meet us. We all had lunch at the BK and let the kids play a little. We topped off our gas tank and kept on truckin' with nephew Gabriel (age 13) on board. We arrived in Spokane at 5rpm our time, 4pm local time.

We checked into our surprisingly luxurious hotel (with my $25 employee price) and took the kids swimming. We found a Taco Bell for dinner and talked to Cousin Dave Clark who is the mission president here. He is on assigment in the Spokane North Stake this weekend, but invited us to come stay over at the mission home next Saturday our way home. We weren't going to stop, but we'll change our plans to visit the Clarks!

So we just ate dinner ad snuggled up and watched Animal Planet all night (guess who was soooo excited about that?) and played computer games (we inherited this laptop last week a it's fun--although my typing is even worse on this keyboard). The kids fell asleep later than we thought they would, but our room was so comfy and nice! This morning we enjoyed a full fresh breakfast buffet with eggs, sausage, waffles, yogurt, etc. Now we are packing up to go to the temple and head over to Nana's house in Vancouver (350 miles from here).

The drive was so pretty! There are a zillion little mining towns tucked in crevaces next to the railroad and the highgway, all in dense fir forests with creeks running through them. This is a part of the country I have never visited and I really love it!

Here's a funny surprise: my kids are watching "Atlantis Squarepantis" right now and the King of Atlantis is voiced by none other than David Bowie--yes, Bowie--and it's CRACKING ME UP!

We're all done chugging our Airbourne, so it's time to load the car. Best wishes for a beautiful Sabbath...we'll post more from Vancouver!

Back in October: Party With Postums

Matt and Amie had Thursday, October 18th off work & school, so they cam eto Livingston to visit us!Of course we had to make out traditional trip to Chico for Pizza dinner and swimming.

At dinner, we realized the last time we had been together at Chico, I had stayed out of the water because I was sick and prego with James and I held 10-day-old baby Sam the whole time. Now Sam is almost two and James loves to float, Matt has been to Iraq and, and we just felt really grateful that things are, miraculously, "back to normal!" It's so nice to be together again!
Here's crazy Heidi jumping off the edge of hte pool...it's super steamy because the water is hot and the air is cold. MAtt is probably watching the Indians' game on the pool bar TV...
And here is Super Jake following Heidi's lead...those two little three-year-olds are like two peas in a pod! SO FUN!

Heidi, Addie, & Jacob
Matt & Amie brought muffins from Wheat Montana Bakery, so we ate them for breakfast with yogurt and juice on Friday morning. The stuffed animals also ate muffins, apparently.

After breakfast, I hid some Halloween treats and made some clues and sent the kids on a treasure hunt around our house.

Here's Uncle Matt reading one of the clues to the kids
Here we are walking to find a clue. ..

...more walking (taken by Amie)
Addie was excited to find a clue on the slide out back.
And here, Addie, Jacob and Heidi listen to Uncle Matt read the very last clue...they foudn the treasure box on the front porch and enjoyed their treats. And then the Postums had to head home to Helena. We're sooooooooo glad they came to play!

Back in October: Fall Birthdays Rule

This is a picture of Addie & Heidi on 10/20/07 getting ready to go into Boston's and Alexander's birthday party (they are born the same week--Boston is now 6 and Allyjander is now 5)
Here's their yummy jack-o-lantern cake
There's the back of Alexander's head blowing out his candles
Heidi helped Alex open and play with his gifts
Addie (along with Kelli adn Gracie) helped Boston open her gifts and then all the girls went downstairs adn played dress-ups while the boys adn Heidi played dragons and dinosaurs. We LOVE Boston & Alexander!