sunshine, cold and NON-smelly cars....

someone pinch me. seriously. i woke up with sun pouring into our windows and thought this MUST be a dream! IT WASN'T!! a perfect afternoon to take the boys out to Birch Bay for some good ol' rock & log throwing. admittedly, rye and i spent some time in the car...too cold for us old folks. nothing keeps the boys down though. they would have gone swimming if we let them. lucky for us, this trip we left all the 'wildlife' in the ocean where they belong. most trips we end up taking all sorts of animals home (boys snuck in a bucket "just in case we changed our mind") and then the poor things die a few days later! so it was strictly a rock collecting trip! (just to mention, thankfully, the car didn't smell like a sewer tank when we got home!!)
thank you God for a reminder that spring is right around the corner. i needed that today.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE B!

i'm just getting around to posting pictures of my brother Brady's 36th birthday party. (way back on march 1)i can't believe my baby brother is 36. dang, he's old. our favorite thing to do is the 'party grill'. however, can you say CHAOS?????? 7 kids+7 adults= complete mayhem! still a great time. happy birthday dear, dear brother. i'm so honored to be your older (and wiser) sister. i love you buddy.

a beautiful man...

yesterday was one of those days!! you know the one's i'm speaking of cuz you've all experienced them....knowing there is much to do but you'd rather sit down in front of that BLASTED computer all day. today, that was me. i had my mind set up to make a book. i wanted it down NOW. i found this great website called Blurb. they are hopping to be able to get me some answers. i was back and forth with them for hours yesterday, getting very little answers. so when rye called on his way home for work asked me if i needed him to pick anything up at the store. in my sweetest, more least irriatating voice, i told him milk and a CASE of wine. when he walked in i was going to aplligize for snapping at him. after all, it's not HIS FAULT that some one's website wouldn't work! i met him at the door, fulling prepared to beg for his forgiveness, when, wouldn't ya just know it....here he comes, strolling in with these gorgeous roses!! instead of thinking about how crabby i was to him, he thought about a way he could cheer me up. i tell ya, this boy is something else. sweet. sweet. sweet. :)
after he had a little dinner, i LOVINGLY set down my laptop in front of him and said, "FIX IT!" i said it in a calm sweet voice if that helps. well, almost 2 hours later, he's shutting down his computers. you fixed it right??? let's just say, this problem has been passed on to the tech department. well then...guess i won't be up all night putting together this blog book that i have been dying to start! oh well, we'll try again tomorrow. wish me luck. :)

learning the really important stuff at school....

Lynden Christian gym class consists of learning how to play soccer, football, jumping rope,doing sit ups, jumping jacks...etc...etc...all the stuff that gets their little heart rates up. one thing i didn't realize until this week is that they are also learning the REALLY IMPORTANT STUFF in life....

learning how to build a pyramid. yup, that's important stuff. jack and max were showing me how it's done. sam wasn't about to let too much fun pass without him. this was one of those moments that rye leans over and says, "gee, maybe they really do like each other!"
it does my heart good. :)