Poca

I know I haven't blogged in a while! There has been so much going on in our life it has been crazy! Hopefully I can give you a brief overview very soon! In the meantime though I wanted to let you know about one of the things that has been happening! We have a very sweet family in our church who are also dear friends of ours who recently lost their foster child due to a very corrupt DSHS system. Our local NBC news affiliate has been covering their story here and they are scheduled to be on The Today Show this coming Thursday morning to tell their story. I have added a link to their blog on my blog (under friends and family blogs) to the right. When you go to their blog, you can click on the news stories and watch them yourself! Thank you so mcuh for all your prayers!

Pretending it's warm...

Although we have had beautiful weather lately as far as lots of sun goes, it hasn't been very warm lately! We are so anxious to really get outside again and enjoy the weather that last weekend, when it was in the upper 50's, we just decided to get outside and enjoy the "sort of" warm weather! Upper 50's is actually pretty good for us! Anyway...we spent some time at Kayak Point and then went to Lake Goodwin with some good friends of ours. We had lots of fun even if it was a bit chilly!

Rylie is 7!!!!!

Once again, I am going to say it...I can't believe my "baby" is 7! Every year is amazing but for some reason "7" sounds really old to me! :) Rylie is growing and learning so much these days and becoming an amazing little young lady. She is filled with love and compassion for others and has such a sensitive little heart. Sometimes I truly am humbled when I watch her and realize that God has given us such an amazing little girl to raise. Don't get me wrong...she has her moments...but they are few and far between! So...happy birthday Rylie! We are so proud of the little lady you are becoming!

On the party front...Rylie chose to have a roller skating party this year! She and her friends had such a good time and we even got some of the mommy's and daddy's to skate too! It was a little difficult to get some good "skating" pictures because they were moving and because of the lighting but here are a few pictures from the day!

Rylie's Cake...it was so cute and no...I did not make it! :) I wish I was that talented!

Madison's Birthday...the big 4!!!

I know I am so late on getting these posted but...better late than never! :) Believe it or not, Madison turned 4 on January 20th! I know I say this every year, with every birthday but I cannot believe she is already 4...although I have to admit that I am glad "3" is behind us! She decided she wanted a "heart" party which turned out great for me because it was right before Valentine's day so we had lots of things to choose from! Here a few pictures from her party...

The birthday girl with some friends!

We had party hats that the kids decorated with heart stickers.




We also played a game where the kids threw heart "pillows" into a heart bucket.



Some of the adults standing around

Rylie!!!!



Madison and her cake!

Here she is waiting while everyone sings "Happy Birthday" to her. She was anxious to get to the candles!

After the cake had been cut!


Opening presents!

Kathy helping Madison get her new skates on!

This is her "it's been a long day" look!

Snowed In - Days 3,4 & 5

So I haven't done a great job at posting each day with the things that kept us busy...sorry! It is amazing how tired I have been each night though after entertaining 3 little girls who are, once again, stuck at home! We are offically now at about 17-18 inches of snow with more expected over the next 6 days! It is crazy! This is very, very unusual for Seattle but it has been very fun! It is absolutely beautiful right now and, even though we are stuck at home, it has been a nice change from our usual rainy winter! So...here are some of the things we have done over the past 3 days!

**We made scones and had a tea party! Rylie was supposed to have an international potluck at school on Friday where all the students brought in dishes from different countries to taste. We were going to make English scones. Since she didn't have school on Friday we decided to make our scones anyway and have our own little tea party. It was lots of fun! (Rylie had also done Madison's makeup earlier in the day which is why she looks the way she does!) :)

**We made Christmas cupcakes (shaped like stars) and then decorated them. They were actually pretty yummy!

**We actually got out of the house for a couple of hours on Saturday and braved the snowy, icy roads. We realized that if we didn't get out, the girls were not going to have a chance to see Santa so we went with some friends to "Santa's Den". We didn't get any pictures there because you aren't allowed to use your own camera but here are some pictures from our trip there. We had to hurry home so we could get there in time for the next snow storm to move through!

**We opened 1 gift...from Mimi & Papa! We decided to let the girls open 1 of their gifts so that it would give them something new to do! All 3 girls got huge tubs of Crayola products so we have done lots and lots of crafts!

**Rylie did our makeup! As you can imagine...we were all beautiful! The pictures didn't come out very well but...you get the picture!

**And finally...we got more snow! Here are a few pictures to show you where our snow level is now! The first picture is of our mailbox...if the snow gets any higher someone's mail is going to get wet! The last picture is of a fire hydrant right in front of our house. You can barely see it (it is yellow) so look closely!

Snowed In - Day 2

Today was day 2 of being snowed in with no idea of how many more days it will be before we venture out! The snow finally stopped tonight but it is not supposed to get above freezing until after Christmas which means this snow will probably stay. There is more snow in the forecast for Saturday night/Sunday as well! So...we are getting comfortable and not planning on going anywhere anytime soon! So here is what we did on day 2:

- We watched movies, played games and misc. things around the house. Mommy spent some time overhauling the playroom! We got rid of some old stuff, cleaned up other stuff and organized everything!


- After a lunch of grilled cheese, Taitlyn went down for a nap and daddy headed outside with the big girls! Our snowman had collected some new snow overnight and he now has a big afro or helmet as the girls called it! It was really funny! They also went to sled some more. The snow was so deep that the girls had to trail behind daddy and walk in his footsteps!

Daddy and his girls!

If you look closely you can see the snowman's new "do"!

Madison eating snow...again!

- The rest of the day was pretty restful. The girls watched another Christmas movie, rode their scooters in the house, did puzzles, played games, etc. We made pizzas together for dinner and then watched home videos from the past 2 days. It was another great day!