AWESOME PAINTINGS!!!----or should i say RAD?

When we were in Utah for Thanksgiving, we picked up our paintings. 

Unbelievable right? 

we have not hung them yet, but this is where i want to hang them. 

we just have to wait for our speakers and stuff to be installed before hanging anything.

My good friend Sean Hennefer is a mighty fine artist and had cancer. 

he was holding fundraisers and art shows, and we were thrilled that he did these for us

as part of his jump starting his career!!

Im hoping that more people see these and love them like I do and contact him to commision

a painting.

we were kind of a pain to work with though :) 

sorry Sean---

we love you and are glad you are cancer free!! 

Elaine---arent you glad Lucille is wearing your work of art for an outfit?

so cute.

Happy Birthday Lucille

Happy 1st Birthday Lucy!!!

Dont know why, but i always go a little overboard with the cake decorating. but i can say that Ruby totally helped with this....she did the bow all by herself. and she was loving being a cake decorater. The green platter in this picture is actually my grandma Lucile's its one of my treasures. dont you just love the name Lucille written in cursive?

Today was a miserable day. every one of my kids was sick with fevers, or throwing up. Poor baby, sick on her first birthday. All of the kids stayed home from church today. We just couldnt get her to smile in any pictures. 

this is the most smiling she did in any of them. but who could blame her with a fever?

She did manage to eat a few bites of her delicious homemade carrot cake. and she loved her baby piano, and beanie kitty we got her. after an entire day at babies r us of showing her fun toys---she was most excited about the kitty---immediately cuddling and talking to the stuffed pink tiger. she is obessed with cats. if she is crying and suddenly the cat walks in the room, she greets it with a kiss sound and "OOOOHHHH". some people are just born with obsessions.

5 years cancer free!!!

the cake says " Ruby's cured----5 years healthy"

It was yet again another bone marrow birthday for ruby. This one was the biggest cause for celebration. after 5 years of being cancer free, they are considered cured!!! They would never tell us that she was cured, but after 5 years they do. It means that she has the same chance as a normal child to develop childhood cancer again

Here is Sami with her new hair cut. doesnt she look smokin hot? So nice to have a sister in town. we did tons of crafts, hair, made cards, gourmet food----it was an awesome time. 

love having someone around that is more of a homebody than me!!! was so relaxing. cant wait to have you come again-----what'd ya say...........fly back in january?

Dont laugh at the pathetic cake. Ruby requested a pumpkin cake ( she has a thing for pumpkin lately) and she wanted a tinkerbell cake too. this was the best pumpkin cake, and i just went to the disney store to get a tinkerbell doll. ( the cake topper tinkerbell was ugly) but at least ruby got a doll out of it.  we also went to pump it up and jumped around with the kids--and it just so happened that they had a reptile show there. my kids were in heaven. 

Visit from Sam on Halloween

Here is Sam with Hazel seeing the reptiles at the W&K annual halloween party---i posted most of these photos on my facebook page and forgot to blog about them. silly me. we had a lot of fun with sam here , she just left this morning. she is wearing my nun costume and i wore the devil horns. we drove in the van together around town as we were going to the halloween party, and a bum stopped in mid intersection to point and give us a shocked reaction. then he laughed hysterically. we realized it was because of the irony of our costumes. and i was embarrassed.

my kids love the reptiles. ruby and ezra are quite fearless.

i am totally freaked out by this lizard. it just reminds me of jurassic park. when the lizard gets mad, it has this frill around its head with little poky horns. i thought it was going to get mad. but i was trying to be brave for my kids. :)

jedi transformation into yoda

the kids right before trick or treating

free pony rides at the party---weeeeeee!!

obi wan has met his nemesis.....and not too happy about it.

this is ruby at her school parade. it was a fun little party. im glad her school celebrates halloween, the school we had her in before didnt. it was lame.

happy happy Autumn!

cutie patooties!

today was picture day at school for ruby. Darn it, the pictures would have been so cute if ruby wouldnt have told them to do a cheesy ugly green background. who looks good with a green background? leprechans?

Ruby adores having a little sister

I had to take a picture of this because she is so tiny to be pulling herself up onto things. but unfortunately , it doesnt translate in the picture. she looks like a normal baby. but at the time, she was so tiny compared to the dishwasher stuff. i thought it looked cute.

Ezra loves being out in the garage doin stuff with dad. it just so happens that dad is cleaning out cat poop. and ezra is smiling because he doesnt have to do it.

"what is this table with a mirror on top, and what am i wearing for heavens sake?"

i sure look cute in my butterfly halloween costume. good thing mommy got it. 

heirloom tomatoes

These are the lovely Heiloom tomatoes from my garden

the ones on the left are "purple" tomatoes, the ones on the far right are orange, and then yellow

and the big big ones are called "rose" tomatoes. and they are so delicious. if fast food, and other food places only used these types of tomatoes, instead of the yucky beef steak ones, more people would adore tomatoes.
Some people dont know what Heirloom tomatoes are. Heirloom tomato - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  

try this link on wikipedia. it basically means that they are non-hybridized seeds. the real deal. 

and they have more flavor than the hybridized ones. kind of meaty too. 

the thing i love most about the rose tomatoes, is that they dont have hardly any of the "slime" that normal tomatoes have. they are just all meat---really solid.

the country mouse and the city mouse

Ezra asked me to read to him today. I have been feeling guilty because instead of reading with Ezra and Ruby, i have been giving all the reading time for Ruby because of school. Im sure it was just coincedental that his mom needed some important life lessons from these stories.

this is the book he chose.

The story of the country mouse and the city mouse is about two mice who meet for a luncheon held by the country mouse and all her friends. the city mouse gets invited and wont take one nibble of the meal the country mouse proudly serves because it is much to simple for her tastes. she turns her nose up at it and says, "in the city, i dine on spice cake and wine"  she wont dance with the other mice at the party because she is used to dancing on velvet carpet. 

so she convinces the country mouse to come to the city with her and experience the finer things in life. 

they get chased by dogs and at dinner, a cat. the poor country mouse almost faints with fear. but the city mouse says " oh, he chases me all the time". 

The city was pretty, the food plentiful...-----but was it worth it for the country mouse? 

the last part of the story goes:    

"that night she told her gentle friends, "i would rather lead a simple life than dine on riches, and live in fear." 

things became so clear to me after reading this book. how often do we make our lives complicated for things that we think will be luxurious or be more convienient? its never really worth it is it? I think of my I-pod. i really dont think that all the trouble of downloading and finding music is really worth the little amount of time i actually use it.

can you think of anything else that is like this?

Sick of Politics!!!

Ok, this might be a little over the top for most of you...and im warning you, if you dont want a bad opinion of me.....you might not want to continue reading . but i just cant help it. im so sick of the hypocracy, and the Jabs---from all directions , left wing----right wing. 

you need two wings to fly a plane people!!! but anyway, please know that i have not decided who im going to vote for.  i was leaning toward Obama---but now i am leaning the other way because ...well, just read my response.

and this is an email that i recieved from a friend and neighbor ( just one of the lovely aspects of living in portland-----people seem more politically charged here than most places i have been) 

read the email that i recieved and then, read my response to it. 

here is a link to the email i recieved 

Eve Ensler: Drill, Drill, Drill

my response: 

From some peoples perspcetive, if you dont believe the things as they do, you are perceived as evil. Just because Palin has strong beliefs, does not make her evil. 

The left wing believes that its acceptable to be homosexual, its acceptable to have abortions, its acceptable to tax the higher incomes and give to the lower incomes, and they have every right to those beliefs.

But, if someone believes in something contrary to what they believe, "they" are evil. 

Why is it that the right wing people cannot have similar convictions of what they believe is right? why is it that when someone has reliegious convictions, they are spat upon by the Left wing who claims to be "so accepting" of ones choices and personla experiences? i just dont understand this mentality. I was open to the idea of equality, and government control, and the idea of opening the floodgates of programs for the poor, and underpriveledged. But, i just cant stand the double standard of crap from the left wing. 

and as for Sarah Palin......

Liberals are getting quite out of hand. if there was this kind of racist, or sexist mockery to Obama---there would be a civil war proclaimed on the right wing. Its not as if she is going to be running things. How often has a vice president really had the power to change policies that they are passionate about? if that were true, wouldnt Al Gore have made incandescent bulbs, and grocery store bags illegal? Palin is simply impressive because she doesnt let anyone push her around. i think it is admirable for a woman to stand up and say ----this is what i think, deal with it. Barack Obama cannot even say that!!! he is always stepping on Eggshells to say the "right" thing. Besides that, He voted that if a baby is accidentally not aborted, and still born, that it could be killed. Who is this guy? does anyone really know? I think he is the ULTIMATE pleaser. and that is NOT an admirable quality. he comes off as a doormat.

OH GRRRGHH! She is still in love with Devin!!

I was playing some songs from the 80's on my computer when Ruby got home from school today. 

one of the songs that came on was "dont you want me baby" by the Human Leauge . ( many of you would be familiar with it) . and i was dancing, being goofy---then all my kids began to dance. 

and Ruby had been telling me since the minute that she got home from school ( its only the second week of school mind you) that she had FINALLY got Devin to play with her. ( there is a back story to this which you can access by going to earlier posts---the one called "rubys first love") long story short......Devin did NOT move to Minnesota. im not very happy about that. 

Needless to say----she is still madly obsessed with him, and thinks he belongs to her.

But in regards to the 80's song, she commented that "it would be so hilarious for me to play this song to Devin" . which i thought was SOOO funny. but the more disturbing thing that she told me just previous to that was something about her and Devin having "alone" time today. and how they told the other kids to go away and said " cant you see that we are having alone time right now?" 

Ruby's first day of First grade

My Baby is all grown up!!! what will mom do with all her free time while Ruby is in school?

Ruby Picking her first Desk ever.

Ruby and her bus tag 

Eating breakfast before school 

HEY, where ya goin'?????GET BACK HERE!!!!

Here is the little peanut, "Lucy Belle." 

i am so enamored with this little one. i set her down on the floor after a bath just to grab a diaper, and get her changing table ready to dress her, and she took off. 

she is a fast little one. Trying to quickly get to the cat. SHE LOVES CATS.

She doesnt dare touch him, but she will squeal, and squeak at him while waving her arms in the air with excitement.

so cute.

Post Summer Update

I know that my lack of posts and pictures this summer are pathetic. but i really dont care. 

there is not much i care about at this time. im just glad i survived this summer. 

this may end up being a very Eyore-ish post, but im pretty bummed about portland summers. 

you try to cram every freaking thing into them , because you know that as soon as it starts raining, your life is over. and you feel this panic all summer long. you cram in swimming, and camps, walks, trips to the park, zoo, etc. 

so here are the main things that went on this summer, 

*Jason worked crazy hours and was out of town most of the summer , we saw very little of him. 

*Lucille became a pro at crawling, and is all over the place , and is obsessed with food.

*We got some raised beds and planted our first garden. we are still enjoying the fruits of that.

*Ruby went to three different theater camps this summer.

*Andrew and Reachel came to visit. 

*We Broke down and bought a Trampoline, in order to stay sane. 

*My parents , Sam , and James came to visit. we all went to seaside, 

had a blast. 

*New car + Road trip to idaho+Lava hot springs+Salt Lake city for two 

weeks= tons of fun for us and the kids.

*We saw lots of family at lava hot springs at the reunion, but still felt like 

there was not enough time!!!

So, you see , it was an eventful summer. I really am feeling guilty now, i realize 

that i didnt take many pictures. im horrible at documenting.

maybe i will find some in the camcorder---

i will continue at a later date!!! 

happy first day of school tomorrow.

Slap me some INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

Beautiful Reachel

There was no way we could get the kids to pose for the camera

the fireworks were just too exciting for them, even the baby loved them!

Andrew , using his fancy camera to make the fireworks look awesome.

Hold the sparkler AWAY from your body Ezra!

We had a wonderful Fourth of July. 

We packed up the kids and headed off to Lake Oswego. Drove around to find the best spot for fireworks, we did fireworks on our own private beach near the lake at george rogers park. 

it was AWESOME. totally private. i dont think you could have gotten a better spot if you owned your own house on the lake!!

Rose Gardens

In Four years of living here, i pathetically admit i have never been to the Famous Portland Rose Gardens. I dont know why, it was just never on my list of priorities. its free, and its amazing. the Roses go on for what seems like Eternity. you cant really fathom how many roses there are there. We just went there on Thursday with Andrew and Reachel. 

Get to the rose gardens while you can!

summer is here!!!

Ezra with the falls behind.

Oh, how i Love that Pearl!!!

What a smoosh-cake!

Here is a sampling of our visit with Andrew and Reachel this week:

Here are Reachel and Andrew in Beautiful and Pristine Lake Oswego on the Fourth

The Kids with Andrew at Washington Park 

( this is the park right next to the famous Portland Rose Gardens)

Reachel with Ezra at Multnomah Falls 

( Ezra doesnt quite get the picture thing yet)