Another Project

  Earlier this month we bought a house.  We will still be living in Bellevue, but south of 90 now. It has a lot of potential, but needs some help.  Since it was built in 1995 very few updates were done to the house.  Also we have some less fun things to take care of like replacing the windows and the backside of the house has LP siding that must be replaced.  There are plenty of fun projects though.  The kitchen and master bath need to be remodeled, and the floor needs to be refinished.  The built ins are a beautiful dusty pink wood color that are going to be painted over.  All of the original lighting fixtures are still up.  It's a lot of gold as you will see.  We are hoping in the next couple of weeks that we will have a general contractor in place, and we can get started making this house beautiful again.  By the time Avery is done with school we should be ready to move in.

Here's the family room.

The kitchen

A formal living room.

The entry way with a gorgeous golden chandelier.  Don't be jealous now.

More gold in the master bathroom!

For the first time in our married lives we will have a real yard.

Our view.  I think you can see Lake Sammamish peeking out between the trees.

Happy Birthday Harper!

  Yesterday Harper turned four.  We celebrated in style by going to a bouncy place for some quality jumping time with Tyler.  Harper loved bouncing, but was too afraid to go on the bigger slides.  She almost got up there once only to turn back when she was halfway up there.  Since Avery's birthday we have been asking Harper what kind of cake she wanted for her birthday.  She has consistently asked for a picture of herself to be on her cake, so we indulged her and now Avery has said she wants to be on her birthday cake next year.  When it was cake time she kept saying that we were going to eat her, and when asked what she would taste like she said chocolate.  The bouncy place was down in Auburn, so we did cake at my parents house with Aimee, Karl, and Tyler.  

Adam, Angie, and Logan couldn't make it for cake, but visited earlier in the day.  Avery wanted to hold baby Logan who at month is as almost as big as shrimpy Luke.

Harper on a cake.  She's such a nut.

Harper with the glow necklace Adam and Angie gave her.

Aimee with a delightfully chubby Luke.

Harper freaked out a little when she got the wish of her heart: a singing Queen Elsa doll.  Now we can hear even more Let It Go.

Harper putting coins into her Pinkie Pie bank she got from Aimee, Karl, and Tyler.  She generously is sharing it with Avery.  She really is a sweet girl.

Harper did taste good.

Dearest Emery

   When I was pregnant with Luke I was somewhat worried that Emery would become lost in the mix with the new baby.  It didn't weigh heavily on my mind though, and it was a good thing it didn't because she's the kind of kid you just can't ignore.  Emery turned 18 months at the end of December, so I thought I would do a post dedicated to our littlest big kid or our biggest little depending on how you look at it.  

   Emery is a ball of energy yet she doesn't get into to stuff in the same way that Avery did at her age.  She just has a lot of things to do.  For example, throwing various objects in random drawers, the garbage, and the hamper.  I'll give you a brief rundown of stuff I found just for fun.

The garbage:

• sippy cups
• utensils
• actual garbage! Good job!
• toys

The hamper(by far Emery's favorite place to deposit random things):

• sippy cups
• actual garbage! Please stop.
• toys
• my Surface Keyboard
• remote controls

  She loves to be held and snuggled.  Don't try putting her down before she has gotten her allotted hugging time in because she has a death grip.  She locks her legs around you and if for some reason you do get her legs detached from your torso she refuses to be set down on her feet forcing you to just lay down 25 pounds of struggling toddler on the floor spread eagle.  

  Her favorite hobbies are eating everything in my house, playing on my phone for hours after she steals it from while I am feeding Luke, and mimicking things she sees big people doing.  Don't think for a second that I over exaggerate her deep toddler love for Luke.  Whenever he is within her reach she will smother him with pats and kisses.  She also tries to sit on him.  Poor Luke.  So you can see it is impossible for this girl to be lost in the shuffle especially with her deep infectious belly laugh and her frequent shrieks of joy.  Emery makes life fun and fills the house with more love.  

Brushing her own teeth.  She also does her own hair.

Looking at source code of websites, changing the rotation of the screen, and making the cursor disappear.

Laying beside her future partner in crime.

Just this week Emery has been bringing up our Ikea bibs to me so she can wear them as capes.

Did I forget to mention that she loves to color on the floor, the windows, doors, walls, and the occasional coloring book?

Luke's Baby Blessing

  Today at Church Luke had his baby blessing.  My parents were around in the morning, so we finally managed to get a picture of the whole family together for the first time in a long time.  We were happy to have my parents, Aimee, Karl, Tyler, our good friends Ben and Christie, and Daryl's Aunts Donna and Debbie with their husband's Laif and Kent.  It was great to have family there, and I think Luke continued the tradition of having a blow out in his blessing outfit just like Harper did after her baby blessing.  And just like then Aunt Debbie took care of cleaning Luke up and putting him in his back up outfit.  Thank's for the help Debbie!

This was the best picture. Really.

Here's a sample of the other three pictures.  Harper looks great.

Two Months

   Luke is now two months and is a delightful addition to the family.  He's pretty mellow, and is beginning to just hang out at times carefully observing his surroundings.  In the past week he has begun to gift us with his first little smiles.  Emery continues to bombard him with her sweet toddler love at any opportunity she has.  When she tries to pick him up she has a strong death grip on him.  Avery loves to read her homework books to Luke, and is still having me invent conversations between her and Luke.  

  Luke is now 10 pounds 8 ounces which puts him in the 20th percentile for weight and is just under 22 inches long putting him in the measly 11th percentile for height.  I have noticed that he is a little on the shrimpy side, but he has a lot more time to grow.  

A little sweet baby smile.

Here's Luke in his church outfit last Sunday.  He has become quite the fan of the swing.

Luke and I were talking, and he kept giving me smiles.  It was a sweet moment.

Here's Luke and the monkey.

Luke and Daryl hanging out.

So This is the New Year

  I am going to wrap up 2014 with one last post that kind of straddles 2015 as well.  Daryl's dad, also a Daryl, came to visit after Christmas and went home after the New Year.  We had a good visit.  It's been a while since we've seen him since he lives in Texas now.  The girls enjoyed playing with him and got to go out to lunch to McDonalds with Grandpa Daryl and their Dad since Daryl wasn't really able to take time off work.  As usual I forgot to take pictures, so when we did think to take pictures Emery was already in bed and Avery and Harper were super grumpy.

   2014 was a great year.  I'll give a rundown of the highlights:

• Avery started full time Kindergarten!
• We moved to Bellevue very close to Daryl's work!
• Daryl was accepted into grad school!
• Luke was born!
• We had two cute nephews join the family: Hudson and Logan!

  Like I said it was a great year.  We had some changes and had to say goodbye to West Seattle and the friends we made in Church there.  We especially miss our old view, but we don't miss Daryl's terrible commute.  It's going to be a great year with more changes to come.  We're ready for them though, and are eagerly awaiting the return of eight solid hours of sleeping!  Happy New Year!

The one picture with Avery in it.

The one picture with Harper in it right before I carried her off to bed.

At least we go this picture with Grandpa Daryl and his cooperative grandsons Tyler and Luke.

We accidentally left a bucket out for months.  It collected rain and when it froze a really cool ice formation formed called an ice spike.  Our accidental science experiment.

Christmas

  Christmas was spent at my parent's house.  The children were good to us and didn't wake up until eight-thirty.  We opened stockings as soon as they got up, and once we got the whole gang together we gathered around the tree to open our gifts.  Later on we went and visited Adam, Angie, and Logan briefly for the boy cousins to meet each other.  It was also the first time that Avery, Harper, and Emery met their new cousin Logan.  Later on we enjoyed Christmas dinner

Hudson often has a deer in the headlights look for pictures.  This should be my sister's Christmas card next year.

Hudson seemed slightly more excited about it being Christmas morning than a seemingly disinterested Luke.

The Christmas tree in all its glory.

Grandpa and Grandma with Luke, Hudson, and Avery.

Hudson and Chris readying themselves for presents.

Emery being adorable.

My sister Alex always passes out presents when she's around for Christmas.  She's been doing this as long as I can remember.

Daryl opening onesies for Luke of course.

That's me!

Avery very excited about her pink shoes.

Harper, Daryl, myself, Luke, Hudson, and Chris watching a puppet show Avery was putting on.

Harper with her new bath mat

Avery used their new Princess Anna and Ariel dolls to put on a surprisingly violent puppet show.

Enchanted Village

  We decided that we had fun at Enchanted Village last year, and we would do it again this year with Aimee, Karl, and Tyler.  Emery and Luke sat this one out at Grandma's since it really wasn't their speed.  Avery, Harper, and Tyler had a great time riding all the rides, and taking in the lights.  At seven Tyler has definitely matured in his ride selection, and wants to do things that go fast and high.  I felt especially glad that Karl went on the one that spun you around in a circle with Tyler.  

This is what you get when you try to get three kids to smile all at the same time.

They added this cute backdrop, so now you can see how tall the kids are.

Avery and I on the carousel together.

Harper went on this ride by herself while Tyler and Avery were doing rides she was to short for.  She told Daryl that she liked this ride.

Tyler was too old for this ride, so Daryl stood in line with Tyler for the roller coaster while I took the girls on this one.

Gosh Aimee and Karl are tall.

Let's not forget Daryl.