I LOVE

I love you, Russ because:

you email me cute little love wishes

...and...

when I tell you that I watched The Bachelor in the middle of the day with Case (b/c Case was sick and needed some down time), you tell me “that’s awesome”.

I love you, Layne because:

you climb into bed with me like you own the place

...and...

you give the whole family secret letters in between their sheets. There’s nothing like hearing the crinkly-crinkle when you get into bed and then getting to read a special message from Layne.

I love you, Kord because

I have to remind you that your baseball cup does NOT go on the kitchen island.

I love you ,Case because

you come in with your 3 year old sweet voice and say, “Mommy, I ‘ave good news ‘nd bad news. My bad news that I miss toilet ‘nd pee on my pants. But good news I ceaned it up all by self.”

I love you, Hadley because

I have to say “Hadley, since it’s morning and you got your shower, you don’t have time to look in the mirror and talk to yourself for a really long time. When you shower at night you have time, but not in the morning.”

LUCKY LEPRECHAUNS

Why yes we DO love St. Patty's Day? Why do you ask?

Darn you Leprechaun! We thought we'd caught you in our trap. But NO...you got away somehow.

Breakfast: green waffles, lime yogurt, green apples, green milk, green water, green straws. green clothes.

Nasty! That naughty guy peed in our toilet.

Lunch: Octopus on green "seaweed" mac & cheese, of course.

Dinner: green pizza dough, celery, green bread sticks, green apples. We even got dessert today! Mint ice cream!

Russ does a lot better with the pink milk on Valentine's Day than green milk on St. Patrick's Day. I try to make it minty green rather then puke green :) What a good sport!

Goofy Goobers

JJJump is the BEST 3rd birthday e-v-e-r! IT'S JUST SO FLUFFY!!!

Note:1. My super cute little man on his 3rd birthday.

2. My Hadley who wore a winter hat to bed the night before because "My whole body feels great but my head is SOO cold."

3.My selfless Layne as she bubbles over with enthusiasm for Case's big day.

It's the Fox Hop!!

Yep, we're a well-rounded family

Russ and I were upstairs on a Saturday morning and Case is having a disagreement with Layne about something. Then he calls out to her, “If you don’t stop I will throw a fit, then I will kick you and then I will hide”.

My Kord and Hadley got to go skiing for their first times this season.

WOW! That family LOOKS like they've been out looking for the perfect tree all day...we're a little haggard.

Layne (5 years old) family night lesson. She was holding a picture of someone getting baptized. She started, “My lesson is on prayer, I mean, baptism. After you get baptized...” Then she changed to a picture of someone getting confirmed. “…you get the holy ghost.” She took a deep breathe and a pause, then continued, “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen”. I L-O-V-E H-E-R!!!

Case woke up SCREAMING one night. I ran in to see what was wrong. He was having a nightmare so I loved him and held him. Then he finally stopping crying enough to say what the dream was about…”Hadley take away my cheerios”. Ah, to have that be the worse thing that you can imagine happening.

Important highlights

I don't have time to properly blog, but I thought that you'd like to know what I've been up to.

Just a quick recap of the highlights of the last week:

• Skimmed a curb and popped a tire on a big hill (then changed it & got a new one)
• Organized and ran the luncheon for a funeral
• Babysitting for a friend who has a baby
• Stubbed toe and broke it
• Broke (then fixed) the dryer 2 days before all the family came in for Thanksgiving
• Made hundreds of bows and sold them at two craft fairs
• Organized and made group gift for Mom’s 60^th b-day
• Had the kids write birthday cards to my mom. When I asked Case to come draw for grandma, he decided to dictate it for me to write…so I did. It read, “I don’t want to write to ganma. NO NO. I no want to color. I no want to get da paper. NO NO NO.” Why yes, he is 2…and yes, I did actually send that to my mom.
• Bought a Turkey for Thanksgiving
• Bought another turkey for Thanksgiving after Kord left the freezer door open and ruined all the food inside
• Had surprise overnight company
• Helped more then usual in kids classrooms for Thanksgiving projects
• Send a birthday gift to Hadley’s school teacher, only to realize that it’s NEXT month on the 19^th, not this month.
• Cell phone broke. Forced to mail it in 4 weeks ago - still no phone.
• Didn’t set up auto bill pay for the utilities and got my very first, “Water turn off notice” on my front door
• 

So much to be thankful for at this special time of year...JK...there really IS so much to be thankful for.

I LOVE YOU, MRS. SUN

Yes, it's true...I love the sun. Layne says that's she's a girl...hence the Mrs. Sun.

Layne and her very, very best friend in the whole world.

How can it be that we've never taken pix at the dentist. Situation Rectified.

It's pretty great to have your dad in scouting. He's there to give you your first merit badge. In fact, it's the merit badge that he and his father wanted to do together--coin collecting. The Lord had other plans for Leland, but now Russ got to work on it with Kord. I love this man.

Mom (Pauline Jones) had the kids with her for a couple days while Russ and I went to Bend, Oregon to play (biking, tennis, relaxing). While we were gone they had oatmeal. Grandma asked what kind of sugar they would like. Hadley said, “white”; Layne said, “brown”, so Case looked around at them and said, “blue”. My mom being who my mom is, got out some sugar and dyed it blue for my baby Case. I love my mom so much.

My baby Layne is in Kindergarten.

Hadley came to Russ and asked what kind of jobs she could do as a teenager. Russ suggested babysitting, Taco Bell and Safeway. Hadley thought for a minute and then said, “No, a smart job. You know, a job that smart people do. Like computers.” They went on to have a great conversation about possible job choices.

We LOVE LOVE LOVE Bend, OR!!!

Why yes, I DID put my pants back on by myself...and yes, my mom is out of diapers for all time!!!!!

12 year in the northwest...I think we're officially locals...we went canoeing in the rain and it was a BLAST. We LOVE that these fantastic lakes are 1 mile from our house.

August over already!?? NOOOOOO!!

We went to Grandpa Merrill's house this summer. TONS OF FUN! We had big days so Layne and Case would crash pretty hard when it was bed time.

When we went to my dad's house two years ago, Kord crashed this golf cart into a tree. They were a little nervous about that for the first...four seconds. Then they went tearing across the property. We didn't even end up in the river--I call that a success.

I traveled by myself with all four kids from coast to coast and I kid you not, I read on the plane. It was only for a few minutes, but still. I had to borrow Harry Potter from Hadley since it hadn't even occurred to me to bring a book--who would have thought I'd have time to read. There are perks to your kids being a little older.

These, my friends, are bird dogs. When I was a kid, we ate these when we went out on the sailboat. We, of course, mocked those powerboaters with their big engines and small IQs. Evidently, when you get old--it's okay to have a trawler--since my dad just traded the sail for the motor. Okay, back to the bird dog recipe: Make a slit in a hot dog, put cheese (preferably processed) into the slit. Then wrap the entire thing in bacon and cook. Yep--absolutely disgusting, but Adam and I used to love them. So I made then when we were there. I stuffed a TON of veggies into my kids though to help offset the nastiness.

Why yes I AM SUPER MOM. I took the kids to Philli and NY all by myself. Have I mentioned that I love these kids?!

Then we came home and played with our best buds.

While we were gone, Russ wrote, "Spent the day mt biking at Lewis River Falls - ended the day by jumping off the falls - a good day. But...., I'm ready for my sweetie to come home ... There is a pair of pants in every room of the house - I haven't seen a vegetable in over 10 days - I've gained 4 pounds - and I'm in serious smooch withdrawal. Come home Nicole, come home."

And "I love my wife dearly... miss her when she's gone. But I've eaten red meat 5 nights in a row. The cherry on top? I noticed a note on the fridge tonight that says... don't forget the honey-do while I'm gone. I thought that was an excellent idea so I drove to safeway and bought a nice big honey-do. I love honey-do even more than cantaloupe. What a gal, always thinking of me."

Then when I got home there was cole slaw in the frig. Gross. So I asked Russ if I could throw it away. He let me know that he bought it a couple days ago because he realized that he really needed to eat a vegetable. WHAT!!???

Cole Slaw is NOT a vegetable.

July...I've never looked better

For those of you who did not see my facebook post (or the family newsletter...thanks a lot Mom), I thought you'd like to see my "before" shot. Some of Russ family are doing a weight lose contest. I thought everyone should see what I look like before the contest. Wish me luck!!!!

Holy fun batman! Ben and Rochelle and lot's of their clan (we missed you Lars and Hans) came out and played with us. We showed them what a northwest fireworks lawn (or cul-de-sac) show looks like...none of this Utah sparkler stuff for us!!

We convince Ben and Rochelle to let us have the three younger kids for a while before everyone else came. It was CRAZY fun!!! We're Avatar the Last Airbender ADDICTS. So they all dressed up for opening day--including Leif and Sven getting arrows shaved into their heads.

What a bunch of troopers. We all went to Shi Shi beach on the Olympic Penninsula. It was miles of hiking into the beach and then a couple days of living on it. This is after we've already hiked out, so though we look pretty hammered, it was SUCH a great memory and was so great.

Grandma Katie came to play too!!!! We baked, hiked, swam, and waited until 2PM every day for the sun to come out...I'm not going to lie, the weather was tough on me until about mid-July. We had SOOOO much fun with you Katie, thank you for coming!!

Okay, so I think it's cool that we're all exactly one head apart in height (except for Russ, he would ruin it so he took the picture...I love you snoogally-woogally pie). The crazy part is that 4 weeks later Kord was up to my nose and Hadley has grown so much that Layne only comes up to her chest.

GO THOMAS'

The kid was turning 11 and he had never had a gun cake...what kind of Thomas' are we. We rectified that ASAP!