Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

We got SO much SNOW! It's unusual to get this much snow here. Everything was so beautiful. It was pretty to look at, but Dave must have shoveled the driveway and walk a dozen times. We made national news here. The airport cancelled most flights and people got stranded here the weekend before Christmas.

Merry Christmas!

The kids like to draw names with each other every year. This year, Kyle and Erica got each other and exchanged webkins. Lyndee got makeup, nail polish, and other pre teen neccessities from Lucie. Lucie got a makeup storage box from Bryce, and Bryce got Amp pajama pants and a bank from Lyndee. It's fun watching them get excited about ideas, shopping and wrapping gifts for each other. That and the stockings seem to be the biggest hit in our family.




I love for Dave to take pictures of the tree and fireplace in the morning before the sun comes up and the kids come downstairs. We got a late start this year. The kids were already up and so was the sun! We had our traditional homemade waffles, sausage and orange juice.

Christmas Eve

We had a great day today! It was pretty quiet. We watched a couple of movies and had some snacks like veggies and dip, meat and cheese tray, and for dinner, I made a pot of chili with cornbread. After dinner, we went to a candlelight communion service at church. It was beautiful, topped off with singing Happy Birthday to Jesus! It was a great reminder of the REASON FOR THE SEASON.

We were trying to think of a way to get the pets in one of the pictures, but everytime you talk to Buddy, he will look at you or come to you, so it doesn't work, usually. Tonight, he just sat there and stared at Dave and I as we were behind the camera. SO, we got one of all the kids and pets together!! After the camera snapped the picture, we all cheered so loud, it scared Sophie and she clawed Bryce on her way down.

This is the 4th Christmas Dave and I and all of the kids have spent together. We have started a few traditions that we all look forward to. Pajamas and pictures on Christmas Eve is one of them. Here are some of the pictures we took. Everyone got a little silly.

WINTER WONDERLAND

These are the trees out behind our house. I walked around tonight and took some pictures of some of the beauty of all of it, since it may be years before we see this kind of snow again. Talk about great timing...the week of Christmas!

Buddy LOVES the snow. He is always so excited to go out in it, and he runs around burrowing his nose in it, and then just sprawls out and relaxes. It's so funny.


The one thing I missed when I moved here to Washington was the snow! I grew up in snow. Winter was always such a fun time growing up, playing in the snow until you couldn't feel your toes anymore, then warming up inside with some hot chocolate! MMM! Surprise! This week we just keep getting more and more snow! The kids got out of school on Wednesday, 3 days early for Christmas break! Saturday night it snowed and snowed. All day today it has been snowing. We have 7 inches right now. I don't think I've seen snow like this since I lived in Nebraska in 1995.

I love how the pure white snow makes you see colors differently, almost more vividly. The blue sky looks more blue, the evergreens look more green, and even the moonlit night looks brighter. I especially love how it looks and feels at night. It never really gets dark when there is so much white around. As I get older, I marvel more at all of the Wonders around us. We have never known a better artist than God, and he created it all for us! The beautiful colors of the sun peeking up above the horizon, and the way the clouds show off the colors of the sunset. The way the moonlight reflects off of the snow and makes it look like millions of little diamonds. Simply amazing!

For those who know our family well, 2008 has been a year of MUCH GROWTH. A lot of changes, lessons and tears. Though it's been a tough year, I'm still so grateful. We are SO BLESSED! God is constantly revealing to me, that this is all in His hands and reminding me of His promises.

Forgiveness seems to be the theme. We have such a need for justice, and we want everything to be fair. When Bryce got in trouble in the Spring, so much of that was unfair. I had always had all of this faith in "the system" and how if you tell the truth, it will all be ok. We teach our kids that, but that system was not fair to us this time. We found out that sometimes, it's all just a game that you are forced to play, and it doesn't matter if you like the rules, you play their way. It was SO hard not to get bitter, especially for me, when you feel like, at any moment, this could tear your family all apart.

But as always, GOD IS SO GOOD! He has turned it all into good, just like He promises us. Bryce is doing much better in school than he was before any of this happened, and he cares about his education. He is setting goals for himself and trying to maximize his last 2 years of High School. His relationship with his step brother and sisters has grown considerably. They all love each other so much, and it just warms my heart to see how they all get along.

We also found and got plugged into a great church full of people who have just loved us all and prayed and praised with us! I got the promotion to lead educator at work in October and that has opened up brand new opportunities for the future.

I'm very proud of my husband. He has been working through his own "growing pains", and he is a great leader of this family.

I LOVE THIS SEASON! The joy I feel at Christmas time, feels different this year. As I look back over this year, ready to welcome in 2009, I'm grateful. Grateful for all of the gifts I've been given. Salvation, life, family, friends old and new, and the strength God gives me to walk through all of these tough times in life with the Peace and Joy that only God can give.

I wish all of you, my dear family and friends, who read this blog and are such a valuable part of our lives...A very MERRY CHRISTMAS and Many Blessings in 2009!

LUCIE THE STYLIST!

Last Monday after we left the dentist, we stopped by TSPA to pick up my check. Lucie was working, and Kyle had been needing a haircut. It was perfect timing. Kyle wanted a mohawk. Lucie is doing very well in school and she did a great job on Kyles hair. 

MMM, Cookies!

Kyle had a dinosaur book that gave us a recipe for making dinosaur cookies. He'd been asking me for about a week if we could make them. We got down all of my cookie cutters ( I have a lot of them ) but unfortunately there were no dino ones. He picked out some he figured would do, (heart, flower, gingerbread boy, and 2 bunnies) and we baked. He picked out the shapes, colors of sprinkles, and how they would be decorated. Erica decided to join in after the first pan came out of the oven. They came out really good.

Latest Project

I started working on the bedroom over the summer, and recently finished it. I'm very excited about how it came out. The stripes were done with polyeurethane over the original paint which creates a shiny stripe, and then the chair rail and the purple everywhere else. It kind of reminds me of wall paper. I had a lot of fun doing it.

Sophie and Buddy....our furry family members!

McChord AFB Air Show

We went to the air show at McChord AFB today. WOW! The kids had a blast in this HUGE cargo plane, and walking around looking at the fighter jets. A couple of months ago, Dave bought a new camera and a really nice zoom lens. He was so excited to take pictures, but when we put them on the computer, we realized how great the camera actually was. The still shots of the jets were amazing! He is pretty proud of the next few pictures.

4th of July. Bryce was visiting his dad in Texas for 2 weeks, so he wasn't here with us. We had a nice, relaxing day.

Kyle riding his bike, and sunning himself with his cool sun glasses on.

FUN with COLOR!

I've had so much fun with paint in the house, I thought I'd post some before and afters of some of the things I've done. I've always loved the clean, crisp look of white on white, but this house is so much different than any house I've been in before. I decided this time to go with darker colors. I pulled the colors from the granite countertops we have in the kitchen. Because of the high ceilings and open floor plan, it worked! It looks much warmer and more cozy now.