Our Future Home

Sometime in November (we hope) we will be moving into our new house! After years of planning on building we changed our mind and found this great house on the lake. We plan to fix a few cosmetic things inside before moving in so we're not sure of an exact move date yet. I'm excited for the kids to have a big playroom again and I'm looking forward to having a garage and an office!

This is not the best picture but for some reason both pictures I took of it I cut off the end of the house.

Puppy Update!

Somehow our 6 puppies turned into only 4 -guess it was survival of the fittest or something like that. But they are growing big and fat and have just opened their eyes.

This picture was taken last week after Morgan crawled under the stairs to pull on out for us to check out. (soon after she was peed on).
Out of boredom, we again had Morgan go under to bring us in a puppy to see now that their eyes are open. He was so cute trying to crawl around in the house (until he pooped on Chelsea).So then we took him back outside and Morgan brought out the rest of the puppies for them to play with on the back patio. Max is finally getting a chance to check out his pups up close. He was pretty nice about licking them all clean.

So if anyone wants one of these cute, free puppies (3 girls and one boy -we think) they will be available for pickup around Oct. 17th. But you can come pick yours out beforehand.

Update on my sick kids- Collin came home Wednesday with a fever of 102.5 and is still sick. Collin wants me to say that he also lost 2 teeth yesterday right next to each other while he was home sick (one was his first molar). Chelsea is still sick with a fever, sore throat and ear pain (I think caused by her swollen glands/tonsils). Morgan still has a fever and sore throat but doesn't seem as bad as the others. Mia had a fever for 2 days and yesterday seemed to be over it. I hope everyone gets over asap. I still have a cold and thankfully Cameron is still well enough to work and hasn't had any symptoms yet.

Sick . . .

It started with Chelsea - a sore throat (swollen tonsils) and a fever (about 103 without tylenol) on Sunday. Then Morgan came home from school yesterday not acting like herself and she too had it. She said my throat hurts and so I felt her (burning up) and took her temperature (102.5). Poor girls. Wrote about it on facebook and realized that maybe this could be the dreaded H1N1 virus (or "swine flu") but not sure since I don't want to take them into the doctor to have that confirmed. I don't think it's strep. So then at 3 a.m. Mia barges into our room crying that she's sick and needs to throw up. (Luckily she doesn't but since the last time she was sick it was that and she got to sleep with us I think that's what she said was wrong) Really she was burning up (about 102) and had to go potty. So I got to sleep with a hot heating blanket next to me the rest of the night and got very little sleep (also thanks to a dog who has turned into a wimp or something and barks most of the night now). So it looks like my week will consist of staying home with my sick girls. If Collin is going to get it I hope it is soon. I had a bad head cold last week but am getting over that. No big deal. I hope we don't spread what we have to anyone else. Cameron is bringing home more Tylenol cold tonight because by then we will be out of it. So if anyone is wondering what we're up to . . . that is it.

The End of Summer . . .

Since we hadn't used the boat for the whole month of August with our familiy we headed down to the Columbia River in Desert Aire on the last day of the month for a fun family night with Kips family. All the kids and Dads did lots of tubing. The Bird families were also at the river that night and after dark we had a barbeque together before heading home. Here are some pictures of the fun that was had:

Collin, Alex, Chelsea, Cameron, Morgan, Regan and Ben

Chelsea happy after lots of riding (last year she was scared and this year she LOVES it)

Even Mia loves it along with Cameron and Morgan (Regan behind them)

Kip was the driver at the start

Then Cameron took over so Kip could have a turn -with Chelsea, Morgan, Collin and Regan

Keitra and Heloisa (their foreign exchange student from Brasil) joined in later

Everyone was one the water until it was too dark to ride any longer!!

Finally!

Many times this year we asked Chelsea if she wanted to learn to ride her bike without training wheels and my scaredy cat always said NO! For some reason about 8pm last night all the kids went out to check on the dogs and ride bikes on the patio. Collin somehow convinced her to take the training wheels off her too small bike and try to ride without. And without help she did!! Now if we could just get her to try on the bike her size I think she'll be a pro by the end of today!

Crafty

So I have felt very un-crafty for years (I think) now. Only occasionaly breaking out a few quick crafts. I look at crafty blogs all the time and think one day I'll do that and never do. Well, out of boredom today I finally felt inspired to see what I had around the house to make something functional for my girls flower clips. I knew I'd seen a cute idea somewhere and was quickly able to find it HERE. So here was what I came up with what I had a home:

Puppies

Our dog, Max made friends with the neighbors dog, Ruby (also a golden lab- we're guessing on both but they are both nice looking dogs). They hung around pretty much at all times and we knew we needed to get our dog fixed asap. Our first attempt ended in a run away dog- no where to be found on the morning of surgery. Finally about a month or so ago Cameron finally made another appointment and he got it done. Soon after that our neighbors said they'd be moving and wouldn't be able to take their dog. So we said we'd keep her. Then we realized just a few weeks ago that she was looking pregnant!!! Great - we were too late! I'll spare you the details but this morning I was realizing that she looked like today was the day (not that I've ever had a dog who had puppies). And after school we looked under the stairs and there they were. We think there are 6!!!! The kids are very excited for them to come out and play. I'm not excited about all the work they will be. So if anyone is interested in a FREE, very cute golden lab puppy- Come on over and pick it out.

Our Last Summer Weekend Getaway

We had one last weekend before school started and decided we really needed to get away. We thought about going to Silverwood or the Oregon coast. But after our friend was in an ATV accident that put him in Harborview Hospital in Seattle we decided to head over there to visit him, see my sister and her family and have a little fun. We spent the first afternoon visiting Rebecca and having her babysit my girls. Then Collin, Cameron and I along with Brendan Bybee (Caden's younger brother) headed over to the hospital to visit Caden and his parents. Caden seriously broke his arm and lost muscle and had to have skin grafts due to his accident earlier in the week.. Collin and Brendan bought him toys at John Deere to play with at the hospital. Sadly I forgot all about taking pictures there (and we visited him twice).

That night Rebecca's family met us at the hotel and we swam in the fun (yet slightly gross) pool. Then the next morning they met us again at the Fun Center next door to the hotel for a few hours of expensive fun!

Little cars for the little girls

Slightly faster cars for the bigger kids

Some time was spent in the kidopolis play area

Chelsea helping out Taylor

Rebecca got to play too!

Collin tried to ride a Harley like his Dad. (We did make a pit stop at the Harley in Renton)

Morgan, Chelsea, Logan and I tried out the trampolines (Collin did too but no pictures). Can you see I'm doing a back flip in the back? I was sore the next day!

Morgan doing one of her many flips!

Next stop was lunch at the Rainforest Cafe.

Then just our family headed over to the Museum of Flight.

Cameron,Chelsea, Collin andMorgan all took a turn in the flight simulator.

Next, we got to check out a former "Air Force One" and pretend that we were the first family!

After a late night dinner at Cheesecake Factory and another hotel. We swam and had a great buffet breakfast before heading back to downtown Seattle. We did the Argosy Harbor cruise and had a fun little tour around the harbor learning about all the points of interest.

It was a nice end to our mini vacation.