Fall Family Photos

We had some fall family photos taken by Brant Olson, a friend from church. I actually take care of their baby, 3month old Isla, part-time. Ella really loves her buddy Isla and has gotten to know her mom, Lesli and Dad, Brant a little and it turns out that knowing the photographer really helps her smile for pictures. Why that doesn't play out when mom's the photographer, I'm not sure, but none the less, we not only had a really fun time doing our pictures, but got some really amazing shots of our family. Some of our favorites follow, but there are even more on my facebook page. You can look at them even if you don't have facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150344747750009.348149.579960008&type=1&l=6720d507f5

30, Flirty and Thriving!

That's right folks, you read right, this mama just turned 20-10! And I did so in style ;) Lem and I planned a fabulously pink "Sweet 30" dessert/cocktail party at the house. The girls spent the night with Nanny and Papa; we transformed the downstairs into a very fancy, elegant, space for our soiree. We ordered tablecloths and table runners, even chair covers and ties to match the table runners. I was able to borrow some pink decor left over from a friend's pink wedding and mixed that in with pink candles and other table decorations here and there. We got all new (matching) platters for the all-dessert spread. It was a super fun evening and I was so blessed to be surrounded with friends and family, helping me celebrate this milestone. And I was super excited for the 6 Nordstrom's gift cars I received!

On my actual birthday, a few days later, my day was quite full of celebrating, too. My morning started with a present from my hubby. When I took Sycely to school the ladies in the office had made me a happy birthday sign to go with the frappuccino Lem had waiting for me. (Ella and I visit the frog and ladies in the office every morning so he knew I'd be stopping in there.)

Ella and I spent the morning at the mall with my BFF, Julie and her son Summit who is the same age as Ella (Scarlett's little brother.) We strolled a bit and had lunch then Ella and I headed home for naptime. Lem and Sycely got home after school and we got ready to meet the fam for birthday dinner at my favorite Mexican place, Gallo's. We enjoyed a yummy family dinner and I opened a few presents from Ian and Kathryn and Nanny and Papa. I even got to enjoy a tasty treat-a strawberry daiquiri-hooray for not being allergic to strawberries anymore!

After dinner we headed home and I opened present from Lem and the girls. It didn't take me more than about 30 seconds to snuggle into my new Mariner's hoodie. A perfect end to a perfect day, a perfect birthday and a perfect decade! So far, my 30s are pretty awesome :)

Family Fun Fridays

For the last couple years now we've wanted to host one of our church's small groups in our home. We were struggling with how to make the floor plan of our house work for having kids in one place while their parents were in another part of the house for study and fellowship. Then, I had the realization that maybe our group wasn't supposed to be about splitting up kids and parents so that the parents could be ministered to while the kids were "babysat." I really felt like maybe our group was supposed to be a time and place for families to come together. It took the floor plan obstacle to lead me to recognize that we could help meet the need of focusing on families as a priority. In our culture these days, we cram as much as we can into our lives- soccer practice, piano lessons, meetings, cub scouts, ballet class, bunco night, etc, etc, etc...we do alot of these in effort to give our kids the best in life, but sometimes, more than more activities and commitments, what our kids really need is us, our time, conversation, memories, relationship. So, we decided to start Family Fun Fridays. One Friday a month we're opening our home and sharing time with other families doing crafts, playing games, sharing snacks and fellowshipping. We're taking time out of all the other crazy busyness of life to put our families first and spend time with our kids having good ol fashion family fun. We had 5 families at our first group in September and everyone had so much fun. It felt great to be surrounded by folks who share the priority of investing in their families, and spending quality time together. We feel so blessed to have our spacious, beautiful home and are so excited to be obedient to the call to use it to bless others. We love opening our home to other families and are really encouraged by the turn out and enthusiasm for our group.

Fun at the Fair

Our annual trip to the State Fair, was as usual, lots of great family fun. Nanny and Papa rode out with us this year (hooray for a comfy, spacious new van!)
Nanny was smart enough to plan ahead and suggested face painting first so it could be enjoyed for our whole day at the fair, and our early arrival meant for a shorter line, too. After face painting was accomplished we headed for the rides. Sycely took her very first ever trip on the Ferris Wheel-with Papa! They sure looked to be having lots of fun. Papa, in his usual, mentoring demeanor, took advantage of the spectacular views atop the ride and pointed out lots of interesting sights to Sycely. Ella took in some rides of her own, finally tall enough to have more than one choice this year-thank goodness there's no minimum weight requirement!After rides, us grown-ups got some good ol' fashion fair snacks- particularly important: cheese curds! The girls enjoyed some cotton candy while the rest of us munched on a variety of other tasty treats, including delicious ice cream. That's right, we got such gorgeous weather at the fair this year, we were actually HOT and needed some ice cream to help us cool off. Praise God for clear, blue skies, no rain and LOTS of warm sunshine! We put in some time at the petting zoo-Mommy's favorite. The girls, as usual enjoyed this probably more than anything else. It's so much more fun than just looking at the farm animals in their pins-though we did that too, accompanied by Uncle Gary and Aunt Lynda who we'd just run into while walking around.

The girls both got to go on their first "pony" rides. They had a super cool arrangement where they led them around a big, looping trail, rather than just going around in a circle on one of those tied up to the wheel kind of things. The girls both enjoyed the experience immensely and seem to be hooked.

We'd ridden about everything we could, seen everything we could muster the energy for, and eaten everything our stomach's could hold so we regrouped and headed back to the car for the drive home. Another successful family trip to the Alaska State Fair-and another year staying dry!

August

As always, August was a busy month for us. So busy, in fact, that apparently, we didn't manage to take many pictures of what we were up to! Oops!

Dimond tennis started so Lem stayed plenty busy coaching the JV team again this year. We all had a couple weeks of being home together before school started and we enjoyed alot of family time together.

Sycely made her first trip to the dentist-which she absolutely LOVED. The hygienist was super great and even let her be in charge of "Mr. Thirsty," the sucker tool while she did her exam and cleaning. They gave x-rays a shot but didn't have any luck with her tiny mouth so we'll try for those again next time, but she was quite the trouper, giving it a good effort. Happy to report she has no cavities and she was thrilled to get to pick a prize from the treasure box at the end of her appointment-she chose a crown, wand, bracelet, ring set. She's been asking when she can go back since the day after her appointment.

The girls and I headed out to Wasilla one Saturday while Lem was at a tennis meet for Mat-Su Midwifery's Under the Big Top celebration. The birth center was having an event for past, present and prospective families to come out and celebrate with tours, face painting, a petting zoo, carnival games and prizes, acrobats, and all kinds of other fun. Thanks to our spiffy new van, driving out with the girls on my own was a breeze (thank you dvd player) and was a fun way to pass the time without daddy on a Saturday.

I took the girls inside the Miwifery and showed them the office downstairs where we did our pre-natal appointments. We found the photo albums for their birth years and found our newborn family pictures in them. Then we went upstairs and toured the rooms where the girls were born. Sycely could remember being there for appointments before Ella was born, and seeing "her" room then, and could remember "Ella's" room from when she was born there. Ella, on the other hand, was really doing the tour for the first time. She was so excited to see the room and the bathtub where she was born. She recognized the rocking chair right away and said, "This is where Daddy rocked me when I was born. I've seen it in the pictures!"

After our "tour" we headed outside for the festivities. Sycely, of course, was quick to get in line for face painting. Her and Ella also played a few of the carnival games, and especially enjoyed the duck pond where they got to scoop up rubber duckies to bring home with them.

Being their mother's child, though, the biggest hit with them was the petting zoo. They loved the goats, chickens, bunnies, and especially the ragdoll kittens and the baby hedgehog. They spent more time in the pen with the animals than doing anything else, big surprise....not!The girls had one final, end of summer sleepover with Nanny and Papa. The timing actually worked out really well as my dad and Kate had a layover in Anchorage for several hours on their way to Seattle to celebrate my dad's birthday. It was really nice to be able to have breakfast with them and just spend some uninterrupted time just us grown-ups catching up and visiting for a bit before they had to be back at the airport. Dad didn't know it yet, but I was in on the Baseball Birthday and he had more surprises in store for him in Seattle. I bought the Safeco Field birthday package. He got a Mariner's hat, commemorative baseball, gift certificates for food and the gift shop at the field, a card and most importantly his own scoreboard message.

Lem started back to school in mid-August and had a full schedule of back-to-school activities and excitement. Sycely had quite a back-to-school schedule of her own-shopping for clothes and school supplies, registration (I volunteered at registration for a day manning the PTA table), school ice cream social/teacher meet and greet where we met her new (first year) teacher Miss Lara. She also had an assessment with her teacher the week before school started.

Sycely was ready for the first day of school, and though it's hard to believe we have a first graders, off she went. When she arrived, she had a 2nd grade buddy (elder) assigned to her. It just happened to be a girl that was in her ballet class this summer so she already knew her! Having a few familiar faces really made for a great transition into her new class.She's in the Optional Program this year and so far it's been really fantastic. She's in a 1/2 class so she'll have each of her teachers for 2 years the rest of elementary school. She's really thriving in the student-guided curriculum and loves all the multi-grade work they do with the other classes in the Optional pod. She also really loves that her best school friends from last year are in the other, next door 1/2 optional class so she gets to see them every day. Her teacher and their teacher spend much of the day team teaching so she gets lots of time with her buddies.

Ballet started back up at the end of August too. She's been promoted to the Intermediate class this year. She's the youngest and smallest as usual, but she did leap over 5 speed bumps in class recently so it doesn't seem to be holding her back any. She's more comfortable and confident in that dance studio than any other place. Not only does she enjoy it, she really excels at it. She's got great posture and carriage when she's dancing and she's so precise and intentional by nature, that she's really loving being in the more advanced class where there's more focus on that type of stuff.