Happy Birthday, Jacob!

As tradition stands, we started celebrating Jacob today with birthday doughnuts.  This was no easy task as Marcus had to leave early for work.  This meant an EARLY trip to the store for me where the doughnuts were not even on the shelf yet!  Thankfully, the baker was happy to accommodate me!

Jackson taking over the presents!  JJ definitely had a "Lego" birthday and was happy Jacob got some more!

This past year brought about new changes, mainly because you started kindergarten.  

You are starting read and becoming more fluent.  

You are naturally good at math, especially when it is in "everyday" situations.  I hope this mean story problems with not be a problem for you! 

I often finding you reading lists of words or working on your skip counting.

 You enjoy going to school and seem to be getting a little more comfortable (and goofy) with your classmates.

You enjoy the wii so much, we have to limit you all the time, or take it away as a consequence!

You love soccer.

You recently learned how to ride a bike without training wheels and love it.

You still enjoy playing with your sister, but also love to aggravate her.

You are great at being a friend to all.

Love you, Goofy Gus!

Weekend at Grandma's...

 We went to Grandma and Grandpa's for a long weekend to celebrate a cousin's 1st birthday...and because my kids were missing it.  They had a great time playing with cousins and playing with all their new birthday presents.  I had time to head to the campus library and get 1/2 of my class done to renew my teaching cert. I felt a little old among all those college students!

So fun to see the the "big boys" playing with the little ones.

Yeah for Spring!

I am sure I say this every year, but I love spring in central Washington!  I was never a "spring" person in the west, probably because it doesn't not hit you like it does here!  It felt so good to get outdoors and not freeze!  After school let out for break, I took the kids to a park that you have to walk to.  We actually got quite toasty, but had a great time riding bikes, playing, and throwing rocks.

Musical Houses

For those who haven't heard yet, I thought I would fill you in on the house swapping happening in our life.  And also to have it documented for looking back!

As most of you know, we had tried to sell our Chestnut house, but wouldn't settle for "giving it away" in the rotten market.  We figured we would stay for awhile longer when our church hired a new worship pastor.  The family of 5 were living 45 minutes away, in his parents house.  They were not enjoying the commute and wanted to get to town.  They loved our neighborhood and were excited to rent our house from us.

We looked for a rental house for a few months, mainly in a city just north of us, but found that the rental market was pretty bleak (as our pastor had also discovered).  We wanted to try this city as we thought it might be a good long-term fit for us.

On Nov. 1 we moved into a home on a cul-de-sac that belonged to a pastor that moved to California.  We rented from him, letting the house stay on the market.  We were hoping that it wouldn't sell quickly, as it had very few lookers through the spring/summer and had huge flights of stairs to the main level. We were hoping to make it at least through March, which is what happened.  Happy for the pastor that his house sold, we were in a time crunch to find something new.

Our adventure told us that we enjoyed our new city, but we could not find a house to buy that we thought would fit us for many years.  We did find a house that we felt was perfect, yet it was not where we wanted it to be.  We asked the builder if he would build on a lot that we found and he said yes!

That left us having to find a place to live for 5-6 months...with a dog.  Again, I hit the slim rental market and chuckle at God's timing.  I secured us a place 6 days before we started moving out of our 1st rental.  It is a nice condo, but VERY small yard and the extra 8-15 minutes it takes me to get to the boys' school feels like hours!

As spring approaches, I am missing our Chestnut house and all the areas we had for the kids to play outside.  But, I am trying to look to the future and the excitement of our new house.  It is hard to do this, as we still have a bunch of dirt, but are hopeful that a form will start taking shape in the near future.  I have complete faith that this year of "adventures" is all in God's plan,that living in 4 different places with 1 year has a purpose, and we will use it for His glory.

Our dirt...which now has grass and weeds!

Happy Easter! (I wonder how many posts have this title?)

We had a wonderful Easter!  The night before, I tried making "Resurrection Rolls".  The goal is to do a mini-lesson of sorts while you are preparing them.  The marshmallow that goes inside the dough (which symbolizes Jesus) is supposed to disappear during baking...symbolizing the resurrection.  I think my trouble came when I used older marshmallows that were too sticky and did not melt!  Oops!  Good thing my kids know the meaning of Easter and don't need marshmallows to melt!

After a yummy breakfast and not too much chaos getting out the door, we headed to church.  Ryn did have cute curly hair...for a few minutes!

After church we went to our friends' that have become our adopted Easter family for 3 years in a row now.  Christun made an WONDERFUL rib roast and the rest of the food and company matched well! I love this pic of the girls with Easter dresses and casual shoes.

Christun can't help but make yummy dessert!