Seattle and Farm

My beautiful talented cousin, Kelty (of the Weaver House) celebrated 10 years with her handsome farmer boy, Justin (of Working Theory Farm) by having the most amazing outdoorsy affair on their farm in Orchards, WA (just north of Portland, OR).   I was determined to not miss this event since I had to miss her sister's wedding 3 years ago because I had little newborn Gina.  I was so happy that Skippy was just as excited to go as I was!  Using 5 YEARS worth of American Express points, we got 5 plane tickets to Portland and a rental car.  We decided to go up a week early and have a little family vacation.  We drove to Seattle and stayed for 4 days and did all the fun touristy stuff with the kids.  We had a blast and completely wore ourselves out everyday.  One morning, as we were leaving breakfast, I was already so so tired and thought... "how did my mom do this with 5 kids??"  When I was in 5th grade, my entire family went to Eaurope for 3 weeks and I can't imagine how my mom lasted that long caring for and toting around all 5 of us!   We made it back to Portland and got to visit the farm pre-party and help with some flower arranging and other odds and ends of the set-up.  We also spent some time in the hospital during our trip because my Aunt became gravely ill during the week with a massive horrible bacterial infection and is still currently in the ICU slowly recovering.  This kinda flipped the trip upside down but it was such a miracle that all her family was there to help her and support her in her time of need.  Anyhow, Here are some pics from Seattle and a few from the party on the farm.. .  My camera is broken and only works part of the time.. so most of my pics were taken with my horrible camera phone.  ALL of the pics posted here of the party were taken by Kelty's professional photographer friends.  If you are interested, I think she has some pics of the happenings on her blog also.   (On a side note, we now have a working camera- thanks Jilly!!)

                                     The kids' first time on a plane!! They were SO EXCITED!!

                                                                   

 

Gum Wall, Seattle

                                                             Museum of Flight, Seattle

                                                            Mariners Game Free Tshirt night!!

                                                         Ferry ride to Bainbridge Island

               Pics from the farm and 10 year celebration!!  It was so so so so beautiful!! 
                      Wish I had some pics from night time to show.. it looked magical! 

Skip and my brothers at the morning after breakfast and clean-up

My family's table spot..

 you can see the 5 of us siblings having our pic taken in the background :)

                                                Everything was vintage-farm perfection!

Gina and her cousin, Eva

Han and Kel, the Weaver House girls!

Kelty and her farmer

Live music by 2 different bands.. so cool.

Magical Picture!!

                           I wish we could do this EVERY weekend.. it was such a fun night!

Haha

Those last 2 "updates" were fromlast year!! I saw them in my drafts and finally posted them.. a REAL update is still in the making. haha

lots and lots

This post is going to be all over the place. Long story short, my camera only works in short sperts of time. So, I really don't have many pics these days to commorate all the activities going on around here.

Skip and I had the opportunity to be "Ma and Pa Jacques" at youth conference this year. We went on a 3 day trek pulling hand carts. It was the most physically draining thing I have ever done, but also one of the most memorable things I have ever done. .. oh, I almost forgot to mention the best part.. we had to do it all in period clothing! Actually, the bonnets were great for keeping the sun out and the flies off.
I made cake-pops for Belen's school carnival this year. It was my first attempt and it was pretty successful! I was happy with them. The darker, cookie-covered ones are oreoballs. Yum!! I have all the stuff to make them now.. but they take so much time, I have yet to make them again.

I managed to get one pic of my kids on Easter. Seriously, my camera situation is so depressing! Gina's not going to know what she looked like as a toddler... "sorry sweety, mommy broke the camera and daddy was too frustrated to let her get a new one" lol.

Other things we did this summer that I may or may not have a picture of: trips to the beach, trip to Vegas, 4th of July block party, Discovery Science center, ChuckECheese, animal shelter, various people's pools, the movies (a lot), and other stuff I can't recall...why? Because I don't have pictures of it! ha!

Cheryl and I during the Trek

The beautiful Cakepops.

Cute kids Easter morning

Bad Camera and Easter

Last 4th of July, I was cleaning off the table outside and accidentally wrapped my camera up in the plastic table cloth and threw it away. After an hour or so, I noticed my camera was missing and finally came to the conclusion that I would have to dig through the trash to find it. And find it I did.. in the trash.. covered in coke. I prayed it would turn on.. but it didn't. I let it dry out for a while and then it turned on and I thought I had dodged a bullet.. and a lecture. After a few days I noticed the lens randomly decided when it would focus and when it wouldn't. So, I now have blurry pictures half the time.. and spend about 5 mins turning on and off my camera in order for it to focus. Without further ado..

Our blurry Easter Bunny cake

Easter Morning, ready for church Easter Baskets... yes, Gina's is a Halloween bucket.

and lastly, Blurry Thyssen in a blurry tree.

Hopefully we'll be able to get a new camera before my kids are grown and all they're left with is an out-of-focus childhood.

Recents

At our house, there's been a little...

Pen Eating ....

Chair tipping....

Soccer Playing...

and costuming...

What's been going on at your house??

Thyssen Scott

Thiss little guy has made my life so fun over the past 4 years. He came out screaming and that should have been my first clue as to how passionate he is. He is so loving and sensitive, yet also very energetic and rambunctious. He loves to trick me and tease me and loves to make a crowd laugh. He gets his feelings hurt easily, like if Belen runs too far ahead of him, or if he is last at anything. He isn't naturally confident, but gains confidence as he masters a skill. He is a huge question asker and wants everything explained to him in detail. He is obsessed with how old people are and always wants to talk about death. He is great at memorizing. When he was 2, we were out to eat and he saw a 6 as our table number and told me that if I turned the 6 upside down it would make a 9. He knows his numbers to 20 and all his letters and sounds. I think he may have a photographic memory.. he never forgets....anything. He has such a happy-go-lucky personality and loves making friends. His preschool teacher told me that he plays with all kids equally, so I guess we could say he's an equal opportunity friend. He gets a little overzealous at times and we have to reign him in or focus his energy elsewhere. We love this little guy and are so happy he is in our family. Happy 4th Brithday Thy-guy!

Belen's 6th Birthday!

I figured I better post Belen's birthday from December, since it's already Thyssen's bday in a few days. She had a Build-A-Bear party this year. She loved every second of it.. it was very cute. She got a little overwhelmed when she went up on the landing and overlooked the workshop. The entire workshop sang to her and she didn't smile once.. it was a bit much for her to take in. It was a crazy rainy-stormy day, so it was nice that most of her friends braved the weather to come. We were supposed to open presents and have cup cakes outside afterwards, but because it was so rainy, we ended up giving out the cupcakes to go and going out to pizza. I'm glad she got the party she really wanted and that it was such a special day for her. You only turn 6 once!!