A little preview of Blogs to come....

Coming soon....the building of a play pit....also the slow release of DD.....Strawberry Festival Parade.....Baby Jude's Dedication.....and next week(hopefully) our Zoo outing! Enjoy and hope to hear from you soon!

Thanks for the Win Mariners!!!

So Saturday we drove up to Seattle for the Mariners game against the Detroit Tigers. The kids were excited and very good on the drive up. They read books for about an hour until we had a pit stop, then I started a DVD for them to watch for awhile, (thanks Uncle Nate and Aunt Kaydi for the priceless use of your portable DVD player!!!) After it ended we decided to stop for lunch at a Rest Area, mmmmmm PB&J's so yummy along with Cheez-Its! We hit the road one more time and Dylan was doing well, Ally was little cranky...eventually she fell into a little snooze. Finally we glanced out first look at Seattle in the distance, then a little bit further down the road we got our first look at Safeco field!!! About 20 minutes later and weaving our way down some streets we finally found our typical parking spot and loaded up our backpack and headed out. About a 10 minute walk later we got to the Home Plate Entrance of Safeco field. As we made our way up the stairs we hear the cheers of the crowd rooting the M's on! We stopped a little off the 3rd base side to watch a little before making our ways to our seats. As we made our way to our seats we passed the Kids Play area, which was remarkably empty, so Daddy dropped the kids and I off and went up to enjoy the game while the babes played for a bit. So Ally was not so much interested in playing but Dylan once he figured out where to get up to the slides had a blast! So after playing for a little bit we decided to head up to our seats and have a little snack. We watched the game for a little while eating and hanging out. After a bit we decided to get up and walk around and get another little snack, so off we went down to get some Cracker Jacks.....small bag....yet expensive....$3.75 later we went back up to enjoy. At first Ally wasn't interested so she would just feed it to me but once she got a taste of it there was no going back! After a bit a family got up to leave and asked if we would like to use their play area passes, we said yes that would be great since we hadn't signed up for any times, so they graciously gave us their passes. So about 15 minutes later we went down to play some more. This time Ally figured out where to climb up and how to get going....she was having so much fun! Dylan was running back and forth from one play thing to the other climbing up and sliding down. We got 15 minutes of play time then went back up to watch the end of the game. This was one of the quickest Mariner games I have ever been to lasting only 2 hours and 28 minutes!! Oh well probably for the best with two little ones. As we sat in the stands in the 8th inning and everyone was chanting Ic-I-ro....Ally got into it, Daddy had taken Dylan to use the bathroom and I got the question of the year from the guys sitting next to me...."Are they twins?" Ok so maybe I am just irritable but Dylan is like 6 inches taller!!! OK moving on, JJ Putz came in in the 9th inning to close out the game and it was a 3 up 3 down inning! So after a dismal loss on Friday they came back and rallied for a win for us on Saturday, so THANK YOU MARINERS! The ride home was not so pretty so I will spare you the details.....we made it home in one piece around 9, both kids still awake and went pretty much straight to bed! Lets hope the Mariners at least break 500 this year!?!?

Is there anything more precious......

There is one part of my day that is more amazing than any other. After my babies go to bed I always go in to kiss them and tuck them in. Some of you may understand the feeling I am about to try pitifully to explain, some may not. Walking in and seeing my children sleeping so peaceful and relaxed is something that I will cling to whenever I need to have peace in my soul, and some of you may think well its just because they are asleep....that is not it at all....when I walk in and they are so peaceful it makes me feel overwhelmed with joy and contentment. To see them sleeping so peacefully makes me feel like I am doing something right, that they are comfortable enough to just completely surrender to sleep knowing that if they need me all they have to do is call out and I will be there. I love to just sit in there at the end of their beds and listen to them breath or just sit in there for awhile and watch them sleep it is truly a remarkable moment to be able to study them. When they are not moving you can see all the little things that you miss during the day, you can study them and commit every nuance of their faces to memory. My kids are growing and changing so fast I don't want to miss any of it, so I try to take advantage of this time as much as any other....excuse me while I go watch the babies sleep.....

30 Years a Legacy of Love!!!!

Tonight we got to celebrate a wonderful milestone in my parents life. They celebrated 30 years of marriage on May 6th, so tonight we went our to dinner to celebrate. We decided on Great Wall Buffet in Salem, very yummy Chinese buffet. Joining us to celebrate was Grandma Winnie, Uncle Roger, Uncle Eric, Aunt Cagney, and Terry and Andi Sanders. My brother and I are VERY lucky to have parents who still love each other and can be an example of a lasting marriage! I am very thankful for being able to be witness to this long lasting amazing marriage.

Mothers Day...creative, loving, fun gifts!!!

I was struggling trying to come up with a fabulous gift for Mother's Day this year for my Mom and Mother-in-law. Then the light bulb lit up right above my head with the most fabulous idea!!!! We have a pottery place in Albany called Surefire Pottery, so we went down one Thursday afternoon to see what we might possible paint for Grandma Jo and Grandma Hotrum. We decided on dinner plates to adorn with the kids hand prints and paint job. So I proceeded to paint Dylan's hand with the blue paint that he picked out, meanwhile Ally was very intensely waiting for her opportunity to get her hand painted. So I lay Dylan's hand down on each of the plates, now onto Ally. Ally picked out purple paint to paint her hand with. So I paint her hand purple, trying to get her to keep her hand flat, she really liked the squishy feeling on her hand. So I get her to lay her hand on each of the plates to make her hand prints. After that I tell her we are all done and she can start to paint and she has an absolute meltdown.....apparently she thinks we are just going to keep painting her hand. Poor baby, I get her calmed down and she gets interested in the painting. I also let the kids paint tiles so while Dylan was painting his tile and Ally was adding more to one of the plates, I added some details to the other plate by outlining their hands and writing their names on their hands. I also added the phrase, "Mothers Day 2008" to each of the plates. So we finish up painting, pay for the items and leave them to be glazed and fired, we get to come back the next day and pick them up! I was a little nervous that it wasn't going to turn out well because the colors seemed so dull on the plate. When we picked them up the next day they were so beautiful and vibrant!! They were absolutely fabulous, I could not wait to give them to the Grandma's!!!

So this last Wednesday Grandma Hotrum came over to visit the kids and we decided to give her her present early. This kids brought her her presents and helped her open them. She loved it!! Yeah! Then on Friday we decided to go and have lunch with Grandma Jo and give her her present. So after eating lunch we let her open her presents and again the kids help, they are VERY good at unwrapping presents!!! Again....she loves it!! Woo hoo for us! I hope that you all have a wonderful Mother's Day, and I will share soon what my wonderful family got me!