I say, ” So what did you do today at school?”
Georgia says, ” We had assembly today.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, “what about?”
Georgia says, “Today is George Luder King day”.
“oh? Who’s that?”, “What is so special about him?”
Georgia says, “He made love, he wants everyone to share love.”
Dwayne comes around the corner, “He made what to who?

Dylan at dinner tonight:

“Mama, where is the good food?” as he surveys tonight’s dinner.
“Your suppose to cook GOOD food, I don’t like this food.”

 

New years commitment- more blogging.

This activity gives me great satisfaction, not only while I am doing it, but even months or years later when I re-read what I wrote.

The summer in summary:

We had an unusually hot summer.  We did not have air conditioning at the house. The children & Dwayne suffered at home while I went to work.  I questioned who was actually suffering. J  We got a slip & slide. This was great fun for Georgie until she developed a gigantic bruise on her hip. Then she did not want to fling herself down any more. We had a camping trip with Doug’s kids, many good times had there. I made up some shadow boxes & gave them to the kids for Christmas. They loved it.  We taught all the ladies at the lake by Doug’s house how to sit in a lawn chair partially submerged in water, Red Point old lady style. The kids swam. We all hiked. My sister in law, her husband and her new son came for a visit and my mother in law came for a quick visit as well, then completely unexpectedly, Dwayne’s Uncle Daniel & Aunt Linda came with their son. It was like a family reunion!  During this time, I had off from work, a whole month off! It was fabulous, except for the major surgery part that got me the time off from work. It sure was nice to have a month off during the summer. I couldn’t do much but sit around, but I sat in some really great places.

Holiday season in summary:                       

We had a warm winter so far, no snow. Even though Dwayne went & bought the kids full snow playing gear. No snow, we are planning to drive up to the mountains before it melts from there. We baked cookies, snickerdoodles, pressed spritz – camels, trees & yellow flowers, sugar cookies, ginger bread, buck eyes, butter mints. Santa brought the kids a train set & a Barbie house and I got the kids a dog, named Santa’s little helper. We decorated the house and the tree, we made a ginger bread house and wrapped presents. We forgot to give Georgia’s teacher her gift, so we are saving it for the last day of school instead. I kind of forgot all about gifting to Georgia’s friends. I felt bad when she told me that the little girl she rides the bus with, Crystal, had given her a present. I won’t make that mistake again.  This is new, you know.  We paid off some bills, prepaid our rent for a few months and invested some cash into the stock market.  Thanks to the generous stock that I had available to sell, at a price I haven’t seen since, 1999. WOO HOO Thank you Amazon.com!

 

Stories from the kids:

3 days after Christmas, Dwayne is lying in bed, I am at work. He can hear the kids stirring in the next room, slowly waking up, he hears this.

Dylan: Georgia! Wake up!

Georgia: No, go away.

Dylan: Georgia! Wake up!

Georgia: No, I want to sleep, go away

Dylan: Georgia! Wake up!

Georgia: No, git! I want to sleep!

Hears foot steps in the hallway…

Dylan: Georgia! Wake up! There are no presents under the tree.

Georgia: That’s because it is not Christmas! GO AWAY!

Dylan: Georgia! Wake up! Come & Play with me.

Georgia: No, will you please go away

Dylan: Georgia! Come on….

Georgia:  Will you quit your bitching & whining and go back to sleep. I am going back to sleep.,go away.

Enjoy these pictures:

I cropped Georgia’s School Photo

 

Dylan & Georgia baking cookies for her class snack.

 

This incredible flower sprouted from a otherwise ugly root. Thanks Mom!

 

Turkey’s that Dwayne fried for Amazon thanksgiving lunch

 

Georgia’s Birthday cake – It was a bee hive.

 

Ginger bread house

 

 

Awww, they love each other…

 

 

 

 

My favorite place in the world is piled up with the kids and the dogs.

 

Christmas cookies – YUM!

 

 

 

 

 

Dylan’s creativity while playing playdoh

 

 

What Santa brought

 

 

The view when Dwayne & Doug went shooting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our new dog Perry sleeping with Georgia

 

Still sucking on those fingers…ug

 

 

         

  Camping over memorial day weekend.
We went to Quinault Lake in the Olympic National Forest.
It is called a rainforest, absolutely breathtaking.

 

We like making faces….

________________________________________________________________________
Lizzy’s Birthday party

We went hiking with the cousins on 4/25

Dwayne’s brother Doug, his wife Melissa and three girls, Emilee, Lizzy & Miley

Georgia is younger than Lizzy.
 
But they are equally adventurous
  .

 

Trail running

Beautiful smelling flower

 
Dwayne ran up the mountain, kids following

Em & Melissa

It was slow going at times with the little ones. Dwayne & Dylan are behind Doug & Miley in this shot.

Dwayne decided that bridges were for kids & sissy’s, this made all the kids
squeal.

Dylan’s first pee in the woods.

We had a lot of fun.

Georgia can now ride without training wheels. She is an old pro!!
She asked her Dad to take them off two weekends ago. Last weekend, she & I rode over 2 miles to and from the pharmacy & grocery store. Now of course she wants to ride her bike everywhere..but who’s complaining?

April.

I am down to posting once a month. Many apologies. So busy with this transition to living in the Emerald city. I have been doing mobile uploads to facebook, only cuz it is easy. These text & pic blog posts end up there too, so it all works out. It is the stories that I am missing. I am not really chronicling the fantastic stories that happen every day with these little gems that I have in my life.  Everyday they have some sort of drama, acomplishment or hilarious moment.  The good thing is, I am spending more tiem enjoying that moment than capturing it for posterity.

That being said…here are some pics & intermediate stories mixed it.

Lets start with what my weekend morning usually look like:

Georgia is usually the first one up. We have tea together sometimes. Sometimes we make plans for the day. Sometimes we just watch cartoons or wash dishes.

One weekend I got the kids together with my friend Darlene & we went to Gasworks park to fly kites. There is a really big hill there that everyone flies kites from. I realized the kids are too little to fly kites, so they played.

Here are a couple of shots from around the house during the week.

Yes, Dwayne does house work…and yes it is totally rad!

Ok, Easter…

base color set, time for detail.

Dylan’s hands

Georgia’s hands

I wanna be in the Zoo!  egg

The other children

The final assembly

The hunt

The baskets

We had a real good day today. Walked to the library, got some books, made some candy & baked some bread.

I decided to post instructions on the 5 minute a day bread that I have been making pretty steady for 5 weeks now.

Recipe, ask questions if you can’t make out my handwriting.

Tools:

and a one cup measure, a teaspoon measure, and thermometer.

The first part of the directions say to mix it up, I stir in one direction only. I find it makes the ingredients mix together more completely.

After the two hour sitting period, the dough will have expanded.

Then sock it away inthe fridge till you need it. Then hack off a chunk

Make a loaf

slash it, I double deep slash (slash in a slash), I find it helps the dough rise in the oven.

let it sit for another 40 min while the oven & stone & boiler pan get hot.
Then bake, for me it take like an hour, but it may be the altitude. Experiment.

Then when  your bucket is empty, filler back up. When you add the hot water, get a whisk & stir up all the left over bits that are stuck to the sides from the previous batch, they add to the flavor. The longer the dough sits int he fridge, the more of a sourdough flavor it picks up. I have been wanting to pick up a bottle of Sammy Smith oatmeal stout for one of the batches, cuz I think it would add to the awesome flavor.

I made pretzels, pizza and bread sticks with this dough. It is really stretchy & versatile.

Have fun.

BTW, thanks Mama for the Valentines day candy. It has always been one of my favorite things to get a box of chocolates from you.  Here is a pic of the kids munching on theirs.

I worked a long day today.
Ordered a pizza to be delivered to my hungry family, from work.
Finally at 8 pm finished up my reports & headed for home.
I saw a 7 car pile up on the highway & thanked my Jesus that I was not involved.
I get home grab a slice of pizza. My sweet daughter brings me a soda & tells me she loves me.
My husband moves the turtle tank for me, as we have repair guy coming out to fix our damaged wooden items from our move out to Seattle.
I make my way upstairs.
Georgia is sitting in the bathroom & I make a comment on her nicely painted toes. She painted them herself. I tell her it’s ok to paint her nails. Off she goes.
I walk into the living room.
The living room is perfectly cleaned
In all I am feeling pretty darn lucky & loved.
My husband is in mid-sentence, when I notice saw dust on the seat of my great-great aunt Evelyn’s rocking chair.
My heart sinks.
I walk to it, across the room.
I see holes.
Many many holes
drilled into the fine dark wood.
As if I just chopped off a finger I wave my hands around saying nothing but “Oh”, “Oh”
My son, decided that the rocker needed holes & he used his Daddy’s drill to do it.
As I cry, I hear him apologizing & crying in his bedroom, he is only 3 yrs old.

Everything calms down.
I drink my soda.
My daughter comes out of the bathroom with a problem.
She had an accident with the nail polish.
“Sooo sorry Mommie”
She says.
What can I say at this point?
I turn to Dwayne
I say
Grab the camera…

We put the kids to bed early.

I get up, get the kids ready…I want to go outside. Dwayne is going to shoot guns with his brother.
We get outside, get in the car & head for Sara’s coffee shop.
They make great cheap food.
We pile in, my kids & I.
It is a full house. one booth left. I get the hairy eyeball. Not sure if it is because I look funny or because I have the toddlers & everyone is bracing for the eventual screaming.
For some reason, they are behave, I have no idea why I deserve such an event, but I take it in. Feeling lucky that day.
As we eat, Dylan waipes his hands on his shirt, I offer napkins periodically, he uses them then forgets & goes for the shirt again. We play this game for a while. Then I give up. Then he starts wiping his hands on his shoes, well, the bottom of his shoes because he is sitting on his feet.
“Dylan, don’t wipe your hands on your shoes, honey, they are dirty.”
“I not eatin’, wook, (opens mouth wide to show there is no food inside)”
And I laugh.
Silly little boy.

JANUARY:

The kids like pancakes

The kids like computers

The kids like weird Japanese kiddie drinks

The kids like crabs

Mmmm crabs

The Dylan likes ot make his own PB&J

I like this smile

And I like this smile

And I like this smile

And I like this smile

And I like this smile

And I like these smiles

We went hiking in a park near the house

The kids like to throw stones

Georgia took off up the hill

Dylan wanted to try jumping off the log

Thank you Jesus!

The kids liek to ride Bikes

The kids like to ….Move it, move it…

FEBURARY