She won!!!

Atira decided to enter the fair this year, which was not as easy as it may sound. We finally got it all figured out, got her entered and waited, wondering how she did until we could go see for ourselves. We finally made it to the day we were going to the fair, raced to the area she had her photo displayed in and SHE WON!! She won first place and she won best in class! She entered only one photo, of her doll, and it was a big winner. We are so very proud of her accomplishment!! Congratulations our talented daughter!! 💗

He's a grown up?!?!

It's hard to believe he is 18 already. These years have gone by so very quickly and I am so blessed and thankful I was there, full time to watch him grow into the amazing young man God created him to be. We are so very proud of him. 

For his 18th he decided he wanted a Dispicable Me party! Just love that! We made Twinkie minions and loaded them up onto a costco cake. He had som of his favorite foods, dairy free biscuits and gravy, steak and mashed potatoes and of course BBQ burgers, corn on the cob and chips. We had a houseful of folks to celebrate with us. It was a wonderful week! 

The Lord bless you Jordan as you journey on into the life God has for you. ❤️ 

Anniversary blessings.

We finally got out for our anniversary celebration made possible by our amazing kids and my mom! Our family has blessed us. God has blessed us! We went away to a beautiful place in Granite Falls called Country Cedar Inn.  Beautiful. Relaxing. Rejuvenating. We had a beautiful large room with floor to ceiling windows looking over the grounds filled with trees, flowers and wildlife. We woke up to birds singing, squirrels chirping. We came in on Friday afternoon and our car did not move until checkout on Sunday. We rested, napped, ate, played games (bananagrams!), read books and just in general enjoyed spending sometime together away. It had been years since we had had that kind of time and it was way overdo. We hope to go back to this place again, only months from now, not years. Thanks Mom and Kids! 

Heels!!!

Our little one is really not so little anymore, she is growing up so very fast! Today she and I headed off to the store, she has been looking at this beautiful pair of heels for sometime now and hoping we would give the OK for her very first pair. Daddy and I agreed, it was time and she was thrilled! Thankfully they had her size and she was in shoe love! They were quickly purchased and changed into as soon as possible! We had to run a few errands after so it gave her time to practice her skills at walking with a heel on. She did great and looked like such the lovely lady that she is. ❤

Ice Caves

Magnificent! Beautiful! Awe inspiring! Amazing! Gorgeous! Breathtaking! There are just not enough adjectives to describe the beauty of God's creation!We had the opportunity to join in on a hike up to the Big Four Ice Caves a few weeks back with a group of homeschoolers. It was just incredible. Apparently my mom tells me I had been up there once before, but I had no memory of that trip...but I highly doubt I will ever forget this one! What a lovely, easy hike with an incredible blessing when you reach the caves. Seeing the snow and ice forming these caves, feeling the temperature drop when you get near, incredible puffs of evaporation coming out of the mouth of one of the caves as the cold and warm air mingle. I am really looking forward to attending this one again. Atira, of course was in her element, being in creation is something she LOVES and looks forward to all the time. Sadly, Scott could not make it, this was a day hike and he was at work and Jordan had allergy issues he was dealing with so we felt it best he not make it worse. But one of these days when he is doing better, we are definitely going back!

Family portrait

Thanks to my amazing cousin who also happens to be an amazing photographer, we finally have an updated family photo! Yahoo! This photo was taken at my Grampas wedding in June on the shore of Lake Union. I'm looking forward to printing, framing and hanging this up in our home. 

Super amazing blessed moments!

When we went to the American Girl store for Atiras birthday celebration we were told that there was a one day only release of Saige's new movie being shown in the theaters at the end of the month. Sadly, all of the tickets had been give away. The clerk recommended we try calling in and seeing if there were cancellations in the meantime. Which we did. Faithfully. There were not any cancellations. Last night Atira asked me if we could just go and see in person, which one of the operators recommended to us from AG. They were also having a celebration at the store that day because they were also releasing new items. I am so glad I said yes! We headed out nice and early so we could wait if need be for the first showing at 10:30AM, we said a prayer as we left. When we got there we were a little later than I had originally planned for, but not late for the movie, I was a little stressed. I then proceeded to make a wrong turn into the parking lot....I decided to just go with the flow. We ended up parking right by the theater, walked up the steps and saw the red carpet (literally) all laid out, with velvet ropes lining it. Off to the side was an American Girl wall for photos of all the celebs coming up (which would be US!) In addition there was a hot air balloon made out of balloons to have a photo done as well, which they even had a photographer there to shoot all these photos! We walked up to the sign in table, where two ladies were just going over a list they were holding. We explained our situation and this sweet lady just handed us tickets and a flyer with the biggest smile! We were stunned! Neither of us quite knew what to say and honestly I was not sure we were actually getting in. I finally came up with words and asked if we were in and she said YES! She told us they had JUST finished calculating the number of seats still available and we were IN! WHAT A MIRACLE! Atira nearly started crying and truthfully so did I! We were both so utterly surprised!

We entered the theater and were told we have tickets for popcorn, we headed up to concession, and were GIVEN each a popcorn, drink and candy! I was amazed as this is all FREE! We then went in and got ready for the movie. We found two seats together in a GREAT spot in the theater and the movie then began. Atira had seen a trailer and was not sure if she was going to like it as much as some of the other movies, as it turned out, it was great! We both really enjoyed it. Great story and message.

We headed out after lots of giggles, some sad moments and a few whispers between us. As we exited the theater there was AG staff waiting and giving away gift bags to all the girls! Atira received 2 posters, a Saige drawing pad, doll tshirt, doll popcorn, sticker, doll size tickets and the latest edition of AG magazine.
It was quite an incredible blessing!

We then, of course, had to head over to the AG store and take in all the new release items. On our way we popped by the photo studio to pick up our prints(above). Atira takes pictures to update her blog of all the new items and reviews them for her followers. Once at the store they were giving away cupcakes! YUM! She had a quick snack and then we made our way through the store getting photos and some hands on checking out of the new merchandise! It was truly an amazing morning and afternoon with my girl.

I should add, all the time while we were gone, Jordan mowed the lawn twice because it was so long, emptied and refilled the dishwasher and put in laundry. What an incredible young man he is becoming! I brought him a slurpee when I got home. He deserved it!

(total side note, but I do believe I am STILL TALLER than she is in that photo of us against the AG wall, right?)

Her BEST birthday party EVAH!

                                     

 Our sweet baby girl is now 13! I can hardly believe that she has already reached this age. Truly, it feels like she was just born.....except she sleeps through the night which we all really appreciate! :) On her ACTUAL birthday day we headed out to where else? American Girl store! Grandma Sheila took us out for lunch and then we had a wonderful, leisurely time meandering through the store, touching everything, talking about everything and learning tons from one of the sales associates. Atira is pretty sure that some day she will work there! I really do believe it could be true!

 We came home and that night she opened up her gift, which was a combined present from both sets of Grandparents and her mom, dad and brother. Our budding photographer received a camera! She was thrilled! She has taken many photos with her new gift and is loving every moment of it. If you would like to see some of her work, head on over here: Atira's photography blog

The birthday princess chose to have a homemade dinner of hot dogs, corn on the cob, onion rings and watermelon. Topped off with ice cream for dessert. It was delicious. :)

 Now on to the best part, her PARTAY! Atira chose to do an 80's themed birthday party which included a photo scavenger hunt. It really was an amazingly fun afternoon! We headed out fully dressed in 80's to our local grocery store to pick up a bouquet of flowers. These flowers were for giving away to people on the streets of Snohomish as we made our way through the town. While at Fred Meyer a few of the clerks came together and sang Atira Happy Birthday. It was a most fantastic start to our radical day!

 We had many items on our list to take photos of one of which was "sitting on a wall".

 I just thought this was too cool to not get a shot of! HOW FUN! They look like an 80's band!

 "Reflection in a window"

 "Having an argument" They decided to argue about how awesome their pony tails were. It was HILARIOUS. I should have videotaped it, it was that priceless.

 "Sitting in one chair"

 "Reading books" Ok, this one was hilarious to me. All these girls are homeschooled, so I was not too worried about taking this bunch into the library, I just told them they had to respect the rules and they were good. What got me was when one of them came up and said "what do I do if I find a book I want to take home?" HA! Only these girls would want to stay and actually look for more books to check out and take with us on our next stop!When it came to finding books most of them were quite discerning! They were not really even reading them, but they were looking through as if they would be! Cracked me up!

 "Reading"

 "Fell asleep reading"

 "Silly"

 "Fell asleep, again"

 No 80's party would be complete without SLURPEES!! This was definitely a highlight!

 A stop at the park with our slurpees.

 Rock it girl!

 Goofy faces!

 Jumping, this was a really hard shot to do.

 "form a star"

 "Human pyramid"

 "Piggy back"

 This is a huge rock in Snohomish where the local high school kids come and repaint with all kinds of different sayings. Atira has always wanted to go and see it. Today was a perfect day for a visit!

 Wrapped up the day with swimming and a BBQ! The 80's menu consisted of nachos, corn dogs, watermelon, cheetos and candy. Lots of candies.

 Grampa Curt literally took the words out of my mouth with this get up. Oh my word. He was wearing a mullet. It was AWESOME!

 I will have to follow up this birthday post with all the pictures of her Photo Booth. That was such a great idea! The girls had a lot of fun with it! In the end, the day was filled with so much laughter, great friends and family and the very best memories. So blessed to have this amazing young lady in our lives! God is good to us!