Playground, Blueberry Pickin', Random, Booties

The booties I made Lily.

Anna's boy, Titus (isn't he adorable?)

Stuffing her cute little face. =P

This is my friend Anna, obviously before she had Lily. =) SUCH a cute belly!! =)

Wow, this picture is from sooo long ago and she still has those necklaces on, lol. They stay on in the tub and everything. =P Cutie!

Baby Wakeups

Emily and Lainey love it when we let Bekah wake them up in the morning. Bekah tromps all over them and whaps them in the face, lol. They mumble "ba-BY" or "Bek-AH" and then they open their eyes and see her in their face and they smile huge and are suddenly wide awake. =P Hehe! Then Bekah either tackles them or tickles them. =P Yesterday she was hugging Emily around the neck and wouldn't let go, lol. This morning she tickled Lainey. It's a lot of fun.

Blech

Our water tastes like chlorine today in a nasty way. We tried making tea this morning but it tasted like chlorine, too. I don't know why it's so nasty! But all I have is apple juice and Harper's blue Mountain Dew, which is what I've been drinking today. Can't believe I still took a nap on the floor in the living room. =P

Bekah Steps, Cattail Fluff

Bek just took 6 steps and I saw it! =P Yay! She has very good balance and can bend over and pick things up and stand back up. Don't think it will be long before she's running around "the circle" with her sisters. =) We have a loop in our house through the kitchen, dining room, living room, and hallway that they love to run.

I have sad news too so I will sandwich it with other news so it's not a sad post. My aunt passed away over the weekend. It was one of those sort of expected but not entirely expected things. She's been in the hospital so frequently for so long. If there is going to be a service, the kids and I will go to Colorado. I don't think I want to take them to the service though. So maybe if you are free, Terrie, you could watch them during it? I will let you know when I know if/when something is happening.

My cousin's wife was also in a really bad car accident the other night and I think she is still in the hospital. Her mom and sister-in-law were badly injured too. They were rear-ended at 75 mph while they were stopped in traffic. All three of them were in the back seat. =\

So please pray for all of them and for my Uncle Larry.

Random other things: Our neighbor left us a bag of pears and some cattails the other day. I thought it was Jen because she has 4 pear trees. =P Took me a while to figure out. Anyway today Lainey busted one of the cattails in the house and you wouldn't believe how much fluff is in one of those! Crazy.

I unpacked the toys today. Twelve moving boxes full. We have an overflowing box of things we're not going to keep. The girls were really good about making decisions. =) I had told them only 2 tubfuls of stuffed animals (not counting puppets, which filled up one tub). But Em was so sweet making sure "my" stuffed animals all got in there that I ended up deciding they could keep three. =P I have some that Harper gave me or that I had when I was little. And some Harp had when he was little. It was progress. Now don't give them more stuffed animals, lol! =)

I went about some of it by asking the kids what they thought before they even looked at their toys. I asked Emily how many purses she thought a girl should have. She said two. So I let each of them pick two purses and the rest will be good geocache loot. =)

Filled up a small tub of duplicate play food and lots of play silverware. They got rid of the play donuts on their own which I thought was funny because they did play with them. I almost argued that they played with them and then thought um that's dumb - we're trying to get rid of stuff here. So some kids will be happy to find a toy donut in a geocache. =)

I threw my old, old yucky tennis shoes in the garbage. Yay for me. =) lol

Okay well that's all. House still under contract, roof being repaired, Harp's still employed, girls are still fun. =)

Lalalala Woo

No good movies in Redbox. Go figure. We decided to watch WALL-E. =P I like WALL-E. Pizza is ready and I need to go make popcorn.

But I wanted to blog before I forget that Bekah was waving and saying "aaah!" which appeared to mean "hi!" to people at AWANA last night. And she was waving and saying "aaah!" to me while we were hiking today too. =) So cute!

And the girls LOVE AWANA! =)

Lalalala Wee

This morning, we hiked Mickinnick again. We got quite a bit farther than last time, but not to the top. Kids were getting tired and we were totally thrown off as to what time it was 'cause our GPS was telling us Kansas time and we figured it would know where we were (right?!) and tell us Idaho time. We thought whoa we've been up here way longer than we thought. lol Oh well.

Anyway then I ran to the store and got Em snow pants. No, it's not snowing yet. =P But Anna called and said Walmart had last year's winter clothes marked down and then 50% off that. So I went over and got Em snow pants and a jacket for $15. And I got a set for next year, too. =) So now she's ready for a good snow. Except for mittens. =P We do need good mittens still, but Harp's mom is getting some. =) Thanks! =)

Jen gave Emily and Bekah some hats that she had crocheted (she has an etsy shop) and she is making Lainey one. =) So sweet! Emily loves her hat and she wore it for half the hike today - with a tank top. =) Hehe!

So later on today I went to a spin-in. I asked the lady at the yarn shop the other day if she spun and told her I would love to watch someone spin. She invited me to this spin-in today and I went and it was really neat. One lady that was there selling yarn and books and roving (that's pre-spun yarn that's ready to be spun) and I started talking to her and she went and got her own personal wheel from her car and I only had a debit card on me so she bought me roving and set me up spinning! How cool is that? I only got one of my two strands spun so now I've gotta get my hands on a spinning wheel so I can spin another strand and ply my yarn. =) It is super cute even though it's "beginner yarn" - kinda lumpy in places. She said I caught on quickly, so that's cool. But my yarn still has lumps. =) But lumps are kinda cool too. =P Hehe! It was fun.

Off to get a movie and then making homemade pizza and having a movie night. Later!

Tea, Beach, Cachin', Whatnot

We had a fun tea party with Eden yesterday. I was happy to get to know her a little. She is such a sweet girl and I am happy for my kids to have her as a friend. =) We had tea and scones and the girls dressed up and then we did our toenails and played with the Russian dolls. =)

I woke the kids up from naps early yesterday and we went to the beach. Got a text message from Harp saying there were layoffs effective yesterday. Ack! lol Turned out they only laid off one engineer (who was sort of expecting it) and 25 production workers. Sounds like there isn't reason to expect future layoffs. Yay! I was thinkin' at least this time we could go hiking and stuff every day. =)

This morning Harp saw that there was a new geocache posted and asked if we wanted to try for FTF (first to find). We ate our breakfast and drove about 15 minutes away, up a mountain, and found an awesome cache off of a little pull-out, but sort of down the mountain. I think as a general rule, if you go geocaching in North Idaho, you'd better wear good shoes. =P I was in flip flops, carrying a baby, trying not to fall (it was steep) and trying not to get her poked by trees. =P A little crazy. We did find it but we were second. Someone had gotten there a half an hour before we did. Aww! It was fun anyway. The kids love geocaching.

That reminds me - the other day we went geocaching with the Bouchers. Their boys thought it was great. =P I think Eden had fun, too, but the boys were very into it. =) I took some pics, but haven't succeeded in getting them on the computer. I did try, though! =)

Cutie Pies

Emily and Lainey and Bekah have been having so much fun walking holding hands. =P If Bek's in the middle, she walks with them and they all think it's so great. =) Hehe! Adorable. I have a video but Laine's missing pants so I sent her to get some on and I'll try to remember to get another video.

Harp's about to come home for lunch and I don't know what I'm feeding him. We just made scones for a tea party with Eden. Jen's going to drop her off here while she takes the other kids to the library. I'm going to let my girls have late naps and I think I will wake them up today too because it's supposed to be really warm this week and I want to get some more time in at the beach before it's cold.

Lainey has started to lie. =\ Lame!

The girls want to play with my big Russian doll, so I'm going to go play with them. They are only allowed to play with it if I'm playing with it with them. =) Later!

Ouch

Bekah signed 'ouch' today! =P Sooo cute! She was sticking her fingers in my mouth and I'd bite them a little. We play that game a lot. Well I bit her a little too hard 'cause she gave me a surprised look and signed 'ouch!' Cuteness! =P I love that she is getting so big and can communicate. Her screaming has died down quite a bit and now it at least has jabbers in it. =P It's not quite so ear-piercing and you know she's trying to say something. =)

Steppin' Baby, Stuff

Yesterday the girls screamed and I thought something bad was happening. But no, they said Bekah took four steps without holding onto anything. =P They were so excited. I still haven't seen that many, but I did see her take two steps yesterday. If you hold her hands, she will walk across the room without using you for support. But if you let go of her, she decides to crawl. =P

Lainey found this picture Em drew about a year ago that I had saved. It was a flower and a stingray for Bek. Well Lainey wrote MOMMY all over the back of it and drew a very hilarious monster on the front. It was bad and she knew not to do it but we couldn't help cracking up at the monster. This hurt Emily's feelings. =( Lainey did get in trouble for it and a note was added to the paper that said what happened.

That reminds me that Lainey is very into writing her name and writing MOMMY. She asked me one time to show her how to write MOMMY and she has remembered and been writing it ever since. She writes the letters in the correct order, but in completely random places on the paper, which is so cute. =P

Watched Titus this morning. He wanted to do a craft with butterflies. =P We did make cupcakes, bead bracelets, and go to the playground.

Em rode her scooter to the playground and Titus and Lainey "triked." I like how Lainey calls it "trikin'" and I have perpetuated it. Why not? =) If riding a bike is biking, riding a trike should be triking. =)

Tonight at dinner, Laine asked "Mom, how do you spell 'I'm watering the grass?'" =P

Oh! Haha! And Emily made a sign for her door, spelled perfectly, that says "BOYS MAY NOT WANT TO COME IN THIS ROOM 'CAUSE THERE IS ALL GIRL STUFF" =P She asked me how to spell 'cause. =P She showed it to me and I told her it was great. She admired it on her door and then asked me if there were any spelling mistakes in it. =P Funny girl. She was very happy to find out there weren't.

We went to hear an astronaut speak at the library today. I missed most of it because Bek was loud and I had to take her out. But Emily and Lainey thought it was really cool. He went up to work on the Hubble Space Telescope and talked about it some and showed video of his mission. Then there was a cakewrecks-worthy cake. I took a picture of it on my phone.

I hope it makes it on the blog 'cause I'd love to read her comments... =P Haha!

Yarrrgh!

Camping last night was fun! I slept pretty lightly because I had a sweet little baby snuggled up in my sleeping bag with me. =P But I feel great today, so maybe I fell asleep more than I realized. Bek had so much fun. She sat in a tot spot chair just like her big sisters and she squealed with delight over the campfire. She tickled Lainey a bunch in the tent before we went to sleep. =P

This morning, we went fishing and caught two tiny perch and a tiny sunfish. We brought the perch home and we'll eat the couple of bites of fish that we can, lol. =) Emily was very proud of herself. She caught the first one and then the second one bit my hook while I was taking care of Bekah so Em ran and got it and reeled it in. She loved it! I thought the kids might freak out about flopping, wet fish, but nope. =P

The quote of the day: "Look! I see a tiny, tiny, tiny, baby fox!" That would be Lainey looking at a chipmunk. It was one of those times where she seems serious but you know she knows what a chipmunk is (she calls it a chickmunk) so ya wonder if she's being funny or what. lol =P

Anyway today is Talk Like A Pirate Day and in honor of that, we're going to have a piratey night with Steve and Jen. I'm making kid dinner (chicken enchilada casserole) and we're having seafood! =P Sushi, actually. We'll let the kids watch The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. And we're going to take Pirate's Cove (a board game) over. =)

Oh! At the library here they have Carcassonne, Alhambra, Puerto Rico, and a bunch of other Rio Grande games. How cool is that?! Only you can't check them out to take home. =( Only to play there. Maybe when Bek's a little bigger we can go play games.

Okay gotta get workin' on dinner. Later!

Camping & Fishing

Yay! We are finally going camping. =) I have to run and grab a few things when the kids get up, but we are going to go to Round Lake and camp tonight and fish tomorrow. I'm so excited! =) Let's hope Little Bek sleeps and doesn't get too chilly. I will get to snuggle her all night! =)

This fishing is going to be for tiny fish, but from what we have heard it's like you throw in a hook and pull out a fish. Good first-time fishing for little kids. =) Hehe!

Another Bekah thing - when I pick her clothes out of her closet, she is usually on my hip. There are these two horse costumes that I got at a garage sale once and they are hanging in her closet. She likes to play with the horse heads while I pick her clothes. She squeals and laughs if I made the horses kiss her. =) It's adorable! She is so much fun.

And That

And Bekah Jane loves baby dolls. We went shopping the other day with Lainey's birthday money and Bekah got SO excited going past the baby dolls. It was adorable. =)

Lainey had $50 from Grandy and she got a Lego set (a dump truck), a big box of pony beads, a kit with those beads that you put on a pegboard and iron together, and....and.... I can't remember. Oh! A tiger tail and ears and bowtie (don't know what's with the bowtie!) that was in the Halloween aisle. I thought there might be a fun princess dress. She said the princess dresses were pretty, but she wanted the tiger tail. =) lol

Baby!!

Oh yeah! And Anna did have her baby on Tuesday. We got to go see her and the baby at the hospital. They named her Lily (Emily is SO excited - she loves this name and had it picked for her hypothetical future sister) and she was 9 pounds, 2 ounces! Soooo adorable!

Ice Cream Carrots, Etc

I think Bek took two steps yesterday! I only saw one before she fell, but it looked like it came out of another step and she was far enough away from the couch that maybe she started there and took two steps. =P I don't know for sure because she can stand up without grabbing onto anything.

The other day I gave Bek a ride on the tricycle. Today we were playing outside and she got super excited about the tricycle. =P I gave her a ride and she cried when it was time to come in. She loves riding in the wagon too and she'll go to it and whap it and look at me like put me in! =) We have a nice long driveway here so we just do circles in the driveway.

Lainey likes what she calls the "ice cream carrot." If I peel carrot into a salad, I stop while it's shaped like a cone and let Lainey eat the cone. Now it's kind of extended to carrot sticks dipped in ranch too - the ranch is the ice cream. =)

I've been entertaining myself by putting Harper's beer bottles in a pattern on the window sill by the sink. They accumulate in the kitchen and we don't have much counter space here and I don't really know where to stick them in the garage right now either. So one of them is a vase for a dandelion bouquet that Emily picked me and they actually are kind of pretty with the different labels in pattern. =P Maybe we should build an earthship.

Seemed like there was some other long-running Abbotism to blog, but I can't remember what it is. Oh, well.

Going to JD's house for dinner tonight. I don't know his wife's name, but they have 3 kids that are 5, 3, and 1. Should be fun! =) Gonna make cookies for dessert. Later!

Looked Everywhere

But there...

Right before my parents visited us in Kansas, we checked out a Curious George DVD from the library. We lost it and looked absolutely everywhere. We had the case, but the DVD was gone. Well the girls just found it. In the VHS player. Someone had to have known it was there, but I don't know which girl. Harp had to pay $17 for that DVD!

Tab Is My Friend

Hey! My mouse isn't working. This is weird. Glad my tab key works. =P

Well early this morning, I got a call from Anna. She had been having regular contractions yesterday and and all night and was headed into the hospital this morning. We were super excited that she asked us to watch Titus. We have been having so much fun. We played outside, did a craft (it was even his idea!), went to the playground, colored, etc. The kids are all down for naps now except that I don't think Titus is trying to sleep. =P Not really sure what to do about it though 'cause he's not my kid! =) But anyway Tim called a little while ago and said it looks like she's going to be having the baby today. It's funny that I was telling her it would be nice to know what day your baby is coming. =P She was scheduled for a c-section a week from today. VBACs are not allowed in Idaho. Yeah I thought this was such a free state! Well they said if she really was in labor, they would do a c-section today. I haven't heard what's going on, but I am super excited for her to have her baby!! =)

Yesterday we went to the beach after Harp got home from work. The water was way too cold, but it was still fun to hang out there and play in the sand. Bekah kept standing up and she'd just stand there for a while and brush the sand off her hands and then sit back down and grab more sand. =) She looks so ready to walk! She has started signing 'more.' Yay! I don't always know more of what, but it's a start. =) It's a clap, not the real sign, but it does mean 'more' so yay. =)

Not much else going on. I have stuff to clean up from lunch. And maybe if Titus stays in bed for a little bit I'll scrapbook. I ordered a bunch of pics the other day and I'd kind of like to be caught up with what I have before they get here. =) Later!

Good Questions

Emily asked "Dad? When we were in Kansas, how did we get all the packing tape packed?"

And the other night when we were watching Cars Em was asking me how the cars could see. I was telling her it was all fake and it was just a movie they made with computers and she was having a hard time explaining what she meant (because she knew it was computer animated). I finally understood that she wanted to know, since their eyes are so far back, how they can see the road over the hood. =P

Late Night, Funny Kids

Yesterday we met Anna and Titus at a park, then came over to our house to play. They played outside in the cardboard house and with the wagon mostly. And we ate a bunch of fruit. =) Then we met the daddies at Subway for lunch. Lainey and Titus were being so silly at lunch, touching their Cheetos to each other's and then cracking up. I thought I got a video of it on my phone, but I still don't know how to work this phone and when I go to my videos there is nothing there. =( Maybe I needed to push something to save it.

Anyway then last night we had a poop fiasco. lol It made me laugh so hard it hurt. First Lainey pooped in her Pull-Up during her nap but didn't tell anybody and wandered around in it for a long time. We were upstairs, but going down (where the wipes were) so I told her to go into her room and grab some panties and bring them along so she wouldn't have to come back up for them. We could just stay downstairs and have dinner. Well she went and grabbed some panties AND took her Pull-Up off. She came downstairs with an icky bottom and Harper saw her and freaked out, lol. He got her in the kitchen and by the time I got there, she had grabbed a baby wipe and wiped herself. lol Anyway so I wiped (more like scrubbed) all the dried-on bits. Eew. So eew.

So then we had dinner. After dinner, I went to get Bekah out of her high chair, but when I pulled the tray off, there was a massive poop between her legs, all over the high chair. The way she was sitting, the poop almost completely missed the diaper. lol! So Harper picked her up while I tried to wipe her off a bit because poop was dropping off the outside of her diaper. lol We got her up to the bathtub and found Lainey's poopy Pull-Up in the tub. LOL So gross! By that time I had poop all over my hands anyway so I skipped the wipes and rinsed Bekah off in the tub. Then I had to give her a real bath. Then I still had to clean up the high chair. Eew!

So we were going to have a movie night and watch Cars. I like popcorn when I watch a movie and we didn't have any and Harper wasn't going to make our night later by going to get me popcorn. But then I cleaned up lots and lots of poop so he said he'd get me popcorn. lol =) So we didn't start the movie until about 9:00, I think! But that's okay. I couldn't stay awake for it all, so I left and ordered pictures to stay awake.

This morning, we're going to pick blueberries with Tim and Anna and Titus. Lainey and Titus are climbing, jumping, adventuring kinds of kids and they have so much fun together. =P

Last night we were so tired we didn't realize Lainey was going to sleep without a Pull-Up on! She made it until pretty much morning, but she peed the bed. This morning I found her panties and shorts and my jeans in the tub. Harper called to the other room, "Laine, why are Mommy's jeans in the tub?" She said "Mommy's cheese on top?" lol

Oh and yesterday I cooked a roast, but the veggies weren't done at dinnertime. I threw them in late because I don't like them mooshy but I didn't notice that it was already on warm and they didn't cook. Anyway we all ate meat first because we were hungry. I boiled the veggies in a pot in the roast water. Lainey asked me for ice cream and I told her she had to eat her veg first. She said "I already ate all my veg!" I said "No, you didn't." She said "Yes, I did!" I told her I was still cooking it and hadn't given her any yet. She said "Yes, I really ate all my veg!" I asked "What kind of veg did you eat?" =P "Meat!" Hehe.

Lainey Funnies! and Internet Guy =)

Aww, she gave me something to blog today. =) Hehe!

I had Better is One Day playing and she started singing "better is one day on your horse." Hahaha!

And she drew this picture of four people and there was a green dot at the belly with a red circle around it and then green lines coming down from the circle. I asked her what all that was. The dot was a bellybutton. I asked what the green lines were. She said "That's to hold his bellybutton on." LOL

Funny kid!! Okay the song thing reminds me that when the internet guy came this morning, I had Kutless playing. He commented about the song and we started talking and he goes to a church in town. I had asked if they had a statement of faith at this church when we first got here and they didn't. So I told him that and asked him what he would say they believe. He said he didn't really know. So I asked him what they taught about salvation - how you could know you were going to heaven. He said he didn't really know and he figured as long as he was doing his best and trying to be good he'd get to heaven. So I asked him if I could tell him what the Bible says about it. He said sure! So I got to share the gospel with him. How cool is that?

I had been talking to someone when we were helping Anna and Tim move in and he gave this great illustration, which I shared with this guy too. He said there are sins of commission (you do what you shouldn't), sins of omission (you don't do what you should), sins you aren't even aware of, sins in your thoughts... And he said a "good person" might sin like three times a day, right? Like that would be really good to only sin three times a day. So then say you live to be 70 years old. That's over 1,000 sins a year and over 70,000 sins in your lifetime. For a good person! What if someone was in traffic court for 70,000 "minor" violations - would you expect the judge to call him innocent? I didn't actually say anything about the traffic court - internet guy was like WHOA that is a lot of sins. =P

Anyway he had never heard before that it is not about trying to be good or that we are all guilty and totally deserving of hell! It is all about knowing that we can't be good on our own and trusting in Jesus for forgiveness. He was like "That makes SO much sense. Thank you SO MUCH for telling me that!" So how cool is that? I thought it was cool! So we are going to be visiting that church in a few weeks and maybe we'll see him there. =)

Drought

So we have had kind of a drought of funnies lately. What's up?! I was reading my blog from the beginning of the year, getting ready to scrapbook some of it, and Lainey was saying hilarious things on a daily basis. =P I think she's getting too big! I guess it won't be too long before Bekah is cracking me up. Just gotta keep the babies comin' I guess so there's always a funny little kid in the house. =)

The girls are watching Toy Story. They've been looking forward to watching a movie, but Lainey was really looking forward to watching Cars. So I told them I wanted them to talk about it together and decide on a movie together. Lainey's a go-with-the-flow kind of girl for the most part, and will agree with just about anything you suggest. =P I'm sure Toy Story was Em's idea.

Anyway the internet guy is coming back today to set up our internet upstairs. I told him we were going to move the modem upstairs but he didn't mention that it wouldn't work. =P So they waived the fee for him to come back and set it up upstairs. Then I'll have internet on both computers and putting pictures up won't take quite as long.

We had Steve and Jen over for dinner last night. YAY! We are so happy to have this table. =) We got a card table and chairs on clearance at Walmart the other day too so all the little kids sat at it. Ephraim was sad about having to sit at the "girl table," lol. He makes me laugh.

Anyway and yesterday we went to the library and Steve and Jen were there. It's fun living in a small town. =)

Emily & Lainey and Eden have been making things for each other. They are all really into crafts. =) Every time we see them, one of the girls has something to give another. =P It's sweet.

Wellllll not much else to say. =P Doing laundry and waiting for the internet guy. =) Later!

Playing, Hiking, Rainbows, Etc.

This is all out of order. =P

Pretty rainbow in Coeur D'Alene on the way home from hiking. It was the brightest rainbow I've ever seen and for a while it was a full double rainbow. So pretty!

Lainey had fun with Eric. =)

There were the longest pine cones I have ever seen!

Bekah loves riding in the baby backpack. =)

Yesterday we drove down to Heyburn State Park and met Scott's parents and Eric and Molly for lunch and a hike. It rained, but it was still a lot of fun! I didn't take many pictures because of the rain. In fact, they were all taken by the car right before we left. =P But at least I got something!

Emily led the way on our hike and talked and talked and talked to Molly. =) I couldn't hear what all she was saying. Lainey bummed a ride off of Jerry for most of the hike. She probably didn't need to at all, but she just liked it. =P I heard her telling him "God made boogeymans" after he told her there were boogeymen under the bridges. lol She didn't know what a boogeyman was. I guess she figured it was some kind of animal 'cause she told him they were in the water. =P

We saw two deer and Lainey was pretty sure they were camels. =P Hehe!

This last pic was at Barry and Cari's house on Saturday. Cari is the IT lady at Quest and Barry is the pastor of the church we had been visiting. The boy in the pic is Ephraim, Jen and Steve's little boy. Harper took all the pics that day and he doesn't look at the settings before he takes pics! So I tried to make it look semi-intentional, but yeah this is a messed up picture. =P I think they were playing duck, duck, goose. They had so much fun playing outside. Their house is on 10 wooded acres and it is so pretty. Not very close to Sandpoint - maybe 30 min or so away from Quest. But pretty. They bought the land and built the house. Sounds awesome!

Baby Names

With no influence whatsoever, Lainey named one of her babies 'Helicopter' and another one 'Pencil Color.' Pencil Color is a boy. I think Helicopter is a girl.

Big Baby, New Table, Stuff

Bekah was standing more on her own last night and she stood up in the middle of the room. So far, she has only pulled up to stand and then stood there without holding on. So yay for Bek! She's getting big. She was feeding her baby doll cheese the other day. =P And right now she is playing with a baby and hugging it. She loves babies. She's getting really babbly, too. Still a pretty serious girl, but you can make her laugh if you really try. =P

Yesterday we went garage saling to try to find a kitchen table. Nothin'. Then we went to a couple of furniture stores and looked around. Nice, big tables are expensive! Harper had been emailing with someone that had a table on craigslist that was brand new and only used to stage a house. So we wrote back to her and met her to look at the table. We got an oak table with 6 chairs that is HUGE even without the leaves in it and gets way bigger. And the leaves store in the table, which is really nice. $450. We would have spent about 3 times that at the furniture store. So we are lovin' having a kitchen table again and I want to make fun quilted placemats so we don't destroy it. I want to surprise Laine with a dinosaur one that matches her shirt. I'm glad I have so much scrap fabric! =P

Last night we had Steve and Jen over after dinner (during dinner we were getting our table) and we played Carcassonne and the kids played Boom Blox and babies and stuff. Emily got stuff for the girls to make masks. She is so into crafts.

Today we're going to a barbecue (which here means grilling out - what I'm used to, but not usually what people meant in Kansas) at the house of the pastor of the church we've been visiting. His wife is the IT lady at Quest. Steve and Jen will be there too and some other Quest people that we probably haven't met yet.

Tomorrow's church. Monday's hiking.

Cute Washers...

Okay so when my washer is done washing, it plays a song. Haha! I love it. My washer and dryer in Kansas didn't even beep when they were done. I am so much more efficient with this washer. Aww, there it goes! Hehe, it just finished a load. And Em ran and said "I'll get it!" Haha! My kids love doing laundry too. This rocks! Oh and it has LEDs in it! Which means Harper loves it too. =P Emily is rotating my laundry and I didn't ask her to. =D She can't reach the buttons to start the dryer. Maybe someday I will have to get a nifty dryer just so my kids can reach the buttons. I wouldn't have to do laundry anymore. Haha! I'm just kidding. But they could do it sometimes. =)

This morning I took sheets off the beds (yeah we have been here 3 weeks and it's the first time they've been washed). Emily's bed was made SO perfectly that I didn't want to take it apart. =P But I did. She always makes her bed before she leaves her room in the morning and she has gotten so good at it. The sheet is even smooth under her quilt now and it looks as good as if I had done it. Big kid!

Today after work, we're going to head to the lake. I have chicken burrito stuff in a crockpot (Alyssa's recipe) and I'll make tortillas quickly when we get home.

I was unpacking some more stuff yesterday and found some tiny booties I had made. I think I'll make some for Anna's baby! Cuteness... I want to find cute crochet patterns for kid hats. Hmm in Craft magazine there was an article about making hat patterns. Maybe I'll play around with that. =) Wonder if there is a yarn store up here...

Gonna play Memory with the girls. Later!

One Happy Momma!

Woo hoo! I have laundry going in my new washer. And it is even cooler than I thought. It makes little singsongy music when you select stuff, lol! And it has a water filter and it's just so stinkin' cute!! =)

We had a fun time making the box into a house. We made a door with a curvy top, a window with curtains sewn into it, and a nifty roof out of the flaps and another moving box. Anna came over right after we got the washer and started on the house. Titus and the girls colored all over it with colored pencils. There are monsters and chickies and birds and nests... =) Very fun.

I love my washer. I love my house. I love the friends we've made up here. I love these mountains and the beach and the parks and I still can't believe we live here!! YAY!

Bekah Baby

Bek is really getting a lot of personality. =P Her shrieking now means something. =P Well before it did, but it was "my gums hurt" all the time. But now she screams a loud scream if she wants to go play in the sand at the park or if she wants a sip of my water or if she wants food. She also gets excited about things. Like every time I get a cart, she gets giddy about sitting in the seat. She wiggles and squawks and kind of leaps for the seat. She did the same thing when I bought Cheerios today. She was SO excited to see that box. =P She also gets giddy when I go to get her toothbrush every night. =P She doesn't seem to really enjoy having her teeth brushed, but she's always excited by the thought of it. =) Haha! She is adorable. She likes veggies most and meat is fine, but she's not a big fan of fruit. I tried to feed her a baby food jar of apples and apricots the other day because we went out to eat. She spat it out and refused to take another bite. =P

The other day we were at Staples and she screamed and terrified the cashier. I'm not joking - she jumped and shook, like someone was getting murdered next to her and she was in some kind of horrible danger. It's still crackin' me up... =P What's funnier is that I was oblivious to the scream. Harp told me about it after we left and showed me what the cashier did. I was not far away, at the other registers. I must be used to it. =P

So today I couldn't find my keys. Ugh. I always lose my keys. I lost a set of keys in Kansas that I never found. These are new. I know I have been seeing them somewhere but I can't think of where. So we walked to Safeway today because it was the last day of a good cereal deal and we were on our last box of Cheerios. I got 6 big boxes of Cheerios, 2 boxes of Kashi Honey Sunshine (Harp has been wanting to try this), and 2 bags of Nature Valley granola clusters (100% natural and super yummy! I had never heard of these but I got 80 cents in overage for each one so why not?). All 10 things for $4.42. Yay! I love that we have Safeway here. =) And all the coupons were printables and the kind you put on your Safeway card. Woo hoo!

Harp picked us up from Safeway and we headed to Coeur D'Alene to go to Target. Lainey had a gift card from her birthday and she got a truck that pulls a boat, a little airplane, and a little car. Haha! She picked them over Littlest Pet Shops and Pollys. Em was trying to influence her, so I took Em and Bek with me and we did our coupon shopping while Harper took Laine to pick toys. I took pics when I got home, which I haven't done in a long time. I guess it was fun. ;) I got 10 individual string cheeses, 4 Dreyer's ice creams, 1 Haagen-Dazs mango sorbet, 5 Gerber bottles (for the food pantry), 10 single-serve cereal bowls (for camping or the food pantry), 2 bottles of Johnson's baby wash, a package of Bic pens, a package of Bic mechanical pencils, and 2 things of travel-size contact solution. All o' dat: $2.48 =) I would have paid that for the baby soap! I was almost out. I'm likin' Target today. Oh and only one coupon from all of that wasn't printable. Nifty huh? I need to organize my newspaper coupons. I haven't organized them in over a month. Anyway...

Tomorrow I get my washer and Anna Tumulty is going to come over. Yay! If I didn't blog that we helped some people move in last week, we helped them move in last week. We bought their dryer from them, too, and canceled our order at Home Depot. They were at Cessna too and took the voluntary layoff, figuring they'd get laid off anyway. =P They have a little boy named Titus, who is 2. I think closer to 3, though. And a baby girl due this month. Yay for little girls!! =) I'm excited to get to know them. =)

Whoa, it's later than I thought. Night!

My Mountain Girls

These are from our hike on Mickinnick Trail. I didn't take my camera 'cause it's heavy but Harper got these pics on the video camera and he took video on our trip. I think next time I will try to take my camera anyway though. =) I can stuff food into my camera bag in the other pockets. =)

This coming weekend, we're going to go hiking with Scott's parents and his brother and sister-in-law. Yay! I am so excited. We haven't met Eric and Molly before, so we're excited to meet them! And hike! And geocache! Have I said this place is awesome? =)

Eeeek!

I get my washer tomorrow! =) Am I crazy? I'm excited to do the mounds of laundry I've been saving up! =P

Driving Around Not Picking Huckleberries

City Beach Pics

Bekah LOVES the beach. She loves to crawl in the shallow water along the edge and splash. And she loves to pick up sand and watch it fall through her fingers. And she loves to grab wet sand and rub it between her hands until it all falls out. =)

Playground Pictures