TRISTAN LEARNED ABOUT INDIANS IN SCHOOL TODAY

I FORGOT TO POST THIS. TRISTAN MADE THIS INDIAN HAT IN SCHOOL (on November 20th) AND CAME RIGHT HOME AFTER SCHOOL AND DISAPPEARED FOR ABOUT 30 MINUTES. LATER WHEN MICHAEL GOT HOME FROM WORK TRISTAN RAN UPSTAIRS WITH DADDY'S HAND AND SAID, "DAD, LOOK WHAT I MADE AT SCHOOL TODAY!" THEN HE CAME INTO MY OFFICE AND SAID, "AND DAD, LOOK WHAT I MADE FOR YOU!"

HOW CUTE IS THIS?!

TURKEY TROT IN SNOQUALMIE, WASHINGTON

ON NOVEMBER 15TH WE PARTICIPATED IN THE "FIRST ANNUAL 'TURKEY TROT'." IT WAS A FUNDRAISER FOR THE TWO ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS HERE IN SNOQUALMIE, WASHINGTON. MICHAEL AND MADISON RAN IN A 5k RACE AND TRISTAN AND I RAN IN THE 1k "FUN RUN". FYI: RUNNING IS NOT MY THING. IT WAS NOT A "FUN" RUN FOR ME. :-)

THERE WAS A PANCAKE BREAKFAST AFTER THE RACE. WE HAD A GREAT TIME. MAYBE WE CAN ALL DO THE 5k NEXT YEAR. HA!

Girls just want to have fun!!

Madison will be turning 9 on the 16th of December which is on a Tuesday so, we had her party this last weekend. Madison invited 4 girls to go with her to get a manicure and pedicure and come to the house for a sleep over. Every parent that dropped their daughter said "Man! You are brave!" I thought no big deal.

(We invited the whole soccer team two years ago for a slumber party. We had a blast and there were 9 girls total. We made pizza from scratch for dinner and made a picture frame for a picture from the party to go into.)

THIS YEAR: WE ORDERED PIZZA, THEY COLORED ON A FUZZY POSTER AND ATE POPCORN AND CANDY WHILE THEY WATCHED A MOVIE.(which they argued over)

THERE WERE 3 MELTDOWNS, 2 INJURIES AND 1 SET OF VERY EXHAUSTED PARENTS!! I WAS LATER TOLD, "THERE IS A FINE LINE BETWEEN BRAVERY AND STUPIDITY." I AM PRETTY SURE THAT I FELL INTO THE 'STUPIDITY' CATEGORY THIS TIME.

I WAS SHOCKED AT HOW MUCH MORE WORK IT WAS. THEY ARE TWO YEARS OLDER THAN THE GIRLS FROM THE LAST TIME! NEEDLESS TO SAY, THIS WAS THE LAST 'MULTIPLE GIRL' SLEEP OVER.

Madison had fun though and that is what is most important. Here are some pictures from the

party.

Poor Tristan...You don't think he completely enjoyed himself do you???? Of course he did. Ha!

Leave them alone for just 5 minutes...

I wondered why they got so quiet when I asked them to go upstairs to get ready for bed. I should have known they were up to no good. As soon as Tristan heard me coming up the stairs he took off and shouted, "I was not doing anything!" "Madison is in her room!" I did not know what to think except...it could have been WAY worse.

I dont even know where the stickers came from.

Decorating the Christmas tree

Each year we buy a live tree for Christmas. This year was no different. What I did notice though was that they are a LOT cheaper up here. I guess it is because they are not cut down from so far away. Ha!

Here are Madison and Tristan putting on the final touches.

Halloween 2008

A little late but, this year Tristan was a "Ninja" and Madison was an "Innocent Witch". Whatever that means. lol Also in the picture are two girls from down the street that went with Madison and Tristan to trick-or-treat.

Notice...Madison does not have her glasses on. We went to contacts about 6 weeks ago. It did not last that long though. They are the harder lenses because of her script. She went from taking them in and out by herself to, "mom, will you do it"? After a week or so of that we just said, "You are not ready for contacts". It sure was weird to see her without them after her being in them for 7 years! I am glad to have her back. Ha ha!

For Thanksgiving this year we had some friends over the night before for drinks and h'orderves. The next day we had a quiet and relaxing day, just the four of us. We had some wonderful ham that was shipped all the way from Texas from our good friend Scott. Thank you for that by the way. It was like a little bit of home for Thanksgiving.

We miss all of our friends and family.

Jess

Snow Day??? Nope! Rain Day...

So...The phone rang at 7:30 this morning. "Hey Jess, just wanted to make sure you knew that there was no school today". What??!! Veteren's Day was yesterday...No, I did not know there was no school.

So as it turns out, it rained all night and morning and the city thought the Snoqualmie River might flood by afternoon making it hard to get bus kids back home.

No school!! Because of rain??!! I thought that it was SUPPOSED to rain alot in the Pacific North West.

Oh well. The kids were bored to death. Please, let there be school tomorrow! LOL :-)

Not tired anymore! Ha!

O.K. So it has been 5 months or so since I last blogged but I am really going to try and do better. Especially since we live so far away from everyone we know.

So...Where to start???

Madison and Tristan started school here in Snoqualmie, WA. So far, they love it. The name of the school is Cascade View Elementary. It is surrounded by the Cascade Mountains (Imagine that). Madison is in third grade and Tristan is doing half day Kindergarten. They both adore their teachers.

I am not going to make these very long so that I don't feel like I need a ton of time to do this when I sit down to actually do it.

Tired these days...

Well, for the last couple of days things have been pretty non-stop. We found out last week that my paternal grandmother was sick and was only supposed to make it another two weeks, TOPS. Then Wednesday night this week, in the midst of packing to head towards the Austin area to see her and say "good-buy" Thursday morning, I received a phone call saying that she had passed away. I still went to Bastrop to visit Thursday, but it was to help plan a memorial service instead. She was very loved and will be missed dearly.

On a happier note...One of the reasons I started this blog to begin with was to try and "catch" some of the cute, funny and very memorable things that the kids say and do. Here are a couple from the last day or so.

We were about to eat dinner tonight and Tristan was asked what he wanted to drink. After thinking about it for a second he said, "Ummmm, I want 6-up". It took me a second, and then I asked, "7-up"? He was like, DUH!

We were talking about the kids busy day today and what they did while I was gone and Madison gave her laundry list of a day. (My friend Hannah watched the kids for me yesterday, last night and today until I got home from Austin. She told me that her daughter, Madison and Tristan woke up at 6:30 this morning and that they should be good and tired tonight.)

Madison woke up at 6:30-Ate breakfast and played then went swimming. She played all afternoon with swimming sessions off and on. Her friend Payton and Payton's grandmother invited Madison to go to Athens (about 25 miles down the road) with them and watch some good old fashioned "fiddle playin'". When they dropped her off afterwards, her dad was home. She ran in, said "Hi daddy!" and took off again to go and swim some more (Tristan likes to hang out at the house when it is hot outside). After a while she ran back in and got dressed and back out the door she ran again. When it was dinner time, she hatted to have to stop but, she did. Much to her dismay I might add.

(Back to dinner time) While sitting there eating we kind of said wow, you stayed so busy today Madison! Aren't you exhausted? She looked at us like it was such a strange question. She cocked her head with tons of attitude and said "What??? I like to stay busy all day! That's what grand-dad does!" "Geez!"

Excuse us... Michael's dad is 80 years old and still out-works us on a daily basis. Madison has always been her grand-dads little shadow. :)

Well, off to bed I go. I feel so old! Ha!

My first blog! April will be happy!

Madison at Chuck-E-Cheese's for the Birthday boy!

The Birthday Boy!!

Mommy's baby is 6! :(

Daddy and the "Minnie Me" Birthday boy!

Well...Here goes!

It's late, as usual. The kids are watching E.T. for the first time ever tonight. They were so excited when it came on. Tristan is cuddled up so close to his daddy that he can barely see the t.v. He is still not sure what to think...is this cool or should I be scared??? Madison is just laughing like crazy. If it even remotely resembles an animal, she LOVES it!

Ummm, what else?

Oh, I know. Tristan turned 6 last week. May 21, 2008. I can not believe my baby is 6!

His day consisted of: 1)Brownies for breakfast. 2)Chuck-E-Cheese for lunch. 3) Shop with his Birthday money at Toys-R-Us. 4)Trip to the Tyler Zoo.

Baby fever is kinda getting to me. : o Maybe I'll cool off. It's kinda nice not to have to worry about bottles, diapers and check-ups every few weeks at the doctor. Who knows.

Until next time...