The Beach House

We have been going to the same beach house since before I was born.  It's in Lincoln city and it is right on the beach.  You walk out the door and your feet are in the sand.  I have a ton of great memories from this house.  I have taken friends as a kid and couples from church as an adult.  It's really cool to see my kids enjoying this place as much as I did.  The only bummer is that it is barely cared for.  My inner decorator always comes out when I am there.  I think about how I could make it beautiful and that I would like to buy it some day.  The first thing I would change is how painful the shower is, the water pressure is so hard you have to protect yourself while you are in there.  This past weekend my family went to this house, minus Kyle who was at men's retreat.  We had a great time, we always stay up late playing games and eating junk food.  We laugh alot!  Pee your pants kind of laugh.  My oldest brother's son is now 16 and he is stinkin' funny.  It's really fun to see how these kids are growing up, but sad that it happens so fast.  Below are a whole bunch of pictures from our trip this weekend.  Enjoy.

Adam and Sarah are playing on rocks that I played on during the early years.  One year we came to the house after a big sand storm and the rocks were totally covered.  Now they are starting to show again, it's probably been 15 years since these rocks were as visible.
Alex and his dog, I thought this was a cool shot.  Padme' loved the beach, but felt a huge need to bark at everything.  
Adam is standing in the D river.  The river was deep and fast but the kids were able to walk in the shallow parts with their rain boots on.
My kids being my kids.  They are so cute.
Grandpa and Adam.  Adam had the strength and energy to get to a location but ALWAYS needed carried back.  He is lucky that grandpa loves him so much.
Sarah is holding a treasure she found in the rocks.  We were actually looking for agates but this rock is pretty too.
The beach house has a mantel full of rocks with guests names on them.  Fun tradition they have going there.
I was trying to get a picture of the dogs together, but they never stop moving long enough.
Alex and his much loved cousin Cooper.  He is always so excited to see him and spend time playing together.  Coop is a sweet, sweet kid.
Sarah and grandma walking to the tide pools, and then Sarah and Carter on the rocks where the tide pools are.  Man does she just love the camera or what. 

All the grandkids except Courtney, Jeffrey's sister.  She had soccer playoffs.  Poor Jeffrey is clearly older then the rest of the crew.  But he is such a good sport.
Alex is holding a hermit crab that we found in one of the tide pools.  He is still saying how much he misses "that little fella"  (his words).  I just know I am going to have like 3 snakes, a lizard and a big old spider some day because of this kid.
The tide came in pretty high on the last day and the kids had to wait a long time to get out and play.  Here is Adam looking longingly at the beach, see how you walk off the deck onto the beach, LOVE IT!
These two were searching for anything they could find with these binocs.  They had a hard to spotting much more then birds.  We did see a bald eagle fly over the beach and then right over our deck carrying something in his talons on Saturday.  It was truly awesome.  Such beautiful animals.  
I just love this picture, I think it is so cute.  Sarah looks so tiny, and you can feel the love they all have for each other.
Adam was content to dig and dig and dig!  Dump sand and repeat.

Here is the whole crew posing for the camera.  It was pretty funny getting this picture with the timer on my camera, but finally my brother Mike made it happen.  And amazingly we are all looking and smiling at the camera!

Below are a few scenic pictures that I took.  I am still learning to use my new camera but I think it takes pretty awesome pictures.  Or maybe it's just the photographer :)

Let's Bow-ow-owl tonight!

We were finally able to do our Christmas celebration with Kari and her kiddos.  We went to this really fun bowling alley in Vancouver called Big Al's.  The kids had an awesome time, mine had never been bowling before, Sarah said it was her new favorite "sport"  The bowling alley also has a really nice arcade attached to it, so of course we played a few video games after all the bowling fun.  My only complaint was that it was REALLY loud there and I lost to Kyle by 5 points!  I'm so happy to have Kari and her kids in my life, our friendship has been a major part of my life for over 13 years now.  I look forward to watching our kids grow up loving each other.  Right now they love each other a lot.  They love to be goofy together, play together and hang out.  Works great for their moms who love to do the same things together.  If only we could do it a little bit more often :)  Here you can see the boys and girls being their silly selves!  So cute.

I love that in some of the pictures you can just see the kids standing there watching their balls.  That is because it took the balls FOREVER to get down the alley.  What was great was this silver ramp for the little ones.  They just had to push there balls down the ramp.                                                                                    I can't get all of the formating for the pictures just right, but you can see in some pictures that the kids think they made a great shot so they are celebrating.  In one of them Alex is doing a little jig.                               

Here is our little family, and then the group shot of the kids.  Check out Adams pose, sweet!

Funny Faces

I have REALLY been loving being a mom these days.  Something about the three weeks off, getting the extra time with Kyle to help out and get the house organized, has made being a mommy a bit easier.  Or, it is more likely that God has been giving me extra patience and been opening my eyes to how truly blessed I am.  I think I have the best kids in the world, the most beautiful, the sweetest, most talented, most fun and funny.  Don't all moms feel that way.  I think we may have had one of the best Christmas's as well.  The kids really loved what they got and are still playing with all of it, so maybe we are actually figuring out what their current passions are better.  Sometimes it's a little hard to tell when they like so many things and activities.  Anyway, I have had a few nights on my own with the kids, Kyle has had to work a lot.  This has given me a chance to sit back and just have fun with them.  A lot of the time when Kyle is home he does all the playing and I finish household chores that need done.  Anyway, I was the designated kid entertainer since he was gone.  We watched our last Disney trip video, which is an hour long, and went to Toys R Us to spend gift cards, and baked cookies.  Somehow we managed to keep bedrooms picked up and the playroom clean, so that went a long way towards my ability to just enjoy them without feeling nuts.  Here are a few pictures of my kids being who they are.  Goofy kids!  I love them passionately and look forward to future fun times.

Here is Sarah doing her new trademark move...the tongue role!

Adam has a hard time making funny faces, he'll get there, it seems to come with age.
                 I love Alex in this one.  What a nerd.

Alex has a HUGE mouth!!!!

Girls Are Fun

So I love having a daughter, but I have to say I'm actually glad I was blessed with only one.  I can only take so much drama in my life.  Anyway, with girls you get to paint nails, shop, play dress up, play with dolls and bake!  Sarah loves to bake and for Christmas got this really cute cupcake maker.  The actual cupcakes work like an easy bake oven, but you use the microwave.  The actual decorator is the cool part.  You will be able to see from the pictures that we need to work a little longer to get the right consistency of the frosting.  Ours was to thick and came out in one poop like blob.  But we had fun together anyway.  It was one of those rare moments at home just us girls.  Enjoy the pics of my sweet girl being a girl.                 Here is Sarah with all her tools for this project.  Isn't that cupcake maker cute.  
 Here she is with the cupcake mix ready for the oven.  It smelled interesting, REALLY sweet.Here is Sarah putting the cupcake into the cute cupcake baker dish.  We then put it in the microwave from here.  Below you can see it all baked up.
The frosting is where we went wrong.  We needed to add a little more water.
 Here is Sarah so excited about her sprinkles and working the actual cupcake decorater.  The cupcake spins while the frosting is pumped out, so it is supposed to have this spiral effect.  You can see that she ate the finished product, I got the thumbs up so it must have tasted alright.  I gotta say I don't think I would have tried it.