The Jessee Times

"Snow"pocalypse 2012

2012-01-29T23:17:00.000-08:00

Last week the Seattle area had a snow storm. Now for some areas of the country 8-12" of snow is not much to write home about, but around here it means the world stops for a week. We got the first batch of snow on the weekend just a couple inches but enough to have school 2 hours late on tuesday (No school on Monday for MLK day) Tuesday night, after several severe weather warnings from the news, we got about 10 inches. The kids had a great day playing in the snow.

Niko looks on while Billy flings Noah down the hill.

Even Mercedes came out to play!

Noah loving the snow!

Lucy, always ready for a picture.

So, I ended up with way more pictures of Brooklyn, even though she was only outside half as long because she had slept in, but how could I resist taking pictures of that ADORABLE smile! To say she loved the snow would be an understatement. The first time she rode the board down the hill she squealed like a little girl (so that's where that saying comes from) and then got up and said, "That was Awesome! That was Awesome! THAT WAS TOTALLY WICKED-AWESOME!!!!" and she said that every time she she came down the hill. Before we went in we even strapped the snowboard on and she loved that too, and she didn't even fall down!

That night, the freezing rain and ice came and things weren't quite as fun. We lost power for 2 days and everything had a thick layer of ice on it. Several trees were broken or completely fell down. Several roads were closed and there were a ton of car accidents in the Seattle area. But we survived, Billy cooked for us on his camp stove out on the deck and we had our fireplace to help keep us warm and our hot water tank runs on gas so we could still take showers. We played some games and read some books and the kids actually played with some toys instead of the wii or computer. It was definitely a week to remember!

The thick layer of ice that was on our tree. Luckily both our trees survived without losing any branches.

Even though it caused a lot of damage, the ice covered world was very pretty to look at.

This was pretty funny, Lucy practicing piano in the dark with a head lamp on.

continued. . . and concluded!

2012-01-17T20:23:00.000-08:00

Day 9 (Pack up and Hollywood Studios)

On Monday, we had to get everything packed up and cleaned up before we headed to the park for one last day of fun. Before we all left we got one last picture all together.

After we all said our good byes, we headed to Hollywood Studios to finish out our Disney World adventure. We had a great day! One of my favorite moments of the whole week came when I got to ride Tower of Terror with my Sister in Law, Jessica. There had been talk all week of how fun she is to go on rides with because of the way she screams. Lets just say, she didn't disappoint. I was laughing so hard that I couldn't scream. Even the complete strangers who were on the ride with us said that the best part of the ride was listening to us. It was awesome. Thanks Jessica! We also had fun on the new Star Tours ride. They have completely redone the movie and there are 3 sections that are randomized, creating over (I think) 50 different combinations. We went on it twice and it was completely different both times. Billy was even pointed out as the Rebel Spy. We also enjoyed Rockin' Roller Coaster. Brooklyn and I enjoyed the Little Mermaid Show. We all liked the One Man's Dream attraction which takes you through the life of Walt Disney. Billy got called up to be in the Indiana Jones Stunt show and last but not least, we watched Fantasmic, the night time show for Hollywood Studios. It was really cool. It was after that, that our vacation started to go down hill. . .

I LOVE this picture of Billy and Brooklyn!

Here is a video of Billy in the Indiana Jones show. Sorry the quality isn't that great, I only had my phone to video with.

Day 9.75-10 (Traveling Home)

So, as I said after Fantasmic our vacation took a turn down hill. As soon as the lights came up, Lucy just started puking. . . A LOT! Luckily we were pretty much done. She seemed ok once she stopped throwing up, so Niko and I decided to hit Tower of Terror and Rockin' Roller Coaster one last time as the park was closing. I guess she wasn't ok because she threw up a few more times while we were in line. (Sorry, Billy) We made it out of the park and headed to the air port, out flight left at 6am so we had decided we would just head straight there instead of getting a hotel for 4 hours. All the kids fell asleep on the drive there. Once we got there we tried to get a little rest before we checked into our flight. Luckily Lucy was able to sleep a little. Once we got up though, the puking started up again, the poor girl could barely walk, if we stopped for even a second she would sit down on the floor. I will forever remember her crawling on her knees through security while puking into a ziplock bag. (oh yeah, good times!) She has a hard time on flights anyway so the entire trip home she was pretty miserable. She did manage to sleep for most of the longer flight, unfortunately she was using my arm as a pillow so I didn't get to move my arm for about 3 hrs. We did make it home safe and sound. Lucy stayed home for a few extra days. Noah, who was still sick from the start of the trip, stayed home the whole week and only made it about half days of the next week. I am happy to say that as of right now, (2 weeks since we've been home) everyone seems to be healthy. Now if I can just get back into a routine that would be good.

Overall, it was an amazing trip! I am so thankful to the people who made it possible to go, especially my parents, for everything they did for us, and my sister Annie who let us borrow their van, while they squished their three kids into their little car, so we wouldn't have to rent a car for the week. I'm so grateful I was blessed with such a fun, amazing family, and I can't wait for us all to be together again, even if it isn't in Disney World or anywhere "cool." Its magical no matter where we are!

continued. . . a little more

2012-01-16T12:46:00.000-08:00

Day 7 (Cocoa Beach and New Years Eve)

On Saturday, we headed to Cocoa Beach on the Atlantic Ocean. Many of us had never been to the Atlantic Ocean before so it was really fun. We rented some boogie boards and a surf board and had a great time playing in the waves and sand or just relaxing in the nice warm sun. We headed back to Orlando at about 5:00 p.m so we could ring in the new year playing games and just hanging out.

Happy New Year!!!

Day 8 (Epcot again)

On Sunday, we decided to go back to Epcot so we could see the rest of the world show case. While Billy, Niko, and Noah visited the countries and looked through the shops, Lucy, Brooklyn, and I tried to save the world from dastardly villains in the Kim Possible Adventure Missions. You get a cell phone and it sends you messages to go to certain places in the different countries and do the given task. If you complete the task, then something cool happens like smoke coming out of a chimney or a statue rising out of a pond. It was pretty fun and the girls liked using the cell phone. We ended our world tour at about 4:00 and headed back to the houses for dinner and to start packing up for the trip home.

continued. . . again

2012-01-14T16:40:00.000-08:00

Day 6 (EPCOT)

On Friday, EVERYBODY went to Epcot. We wanted to get a big group shot at one of the parks and it just worked out that it was Epcot. My family spent the morning at "The Seas" with Nemo. There is a Nemo ride and then a fun little aquarium where we saw dolphins, sea turtles and all kinds of other fish. We also did "Turtle Talk with Crush" which was really fun, Noah actually got to talk to crush and ask him a question, he asked Crush how he swims so fast. It was a really fun interactive show. Then we went and met up with everyone for a picture. Disney does this thing called a Photo Pass and they have photographers, all over, at all the parks. They take pictures and then save them to a card which you can then enter onto their website and view all the pictures. It's a great system, especially when you want a picture of the WHOLE family. After the family picture we went and did a few more rides. My family really enjoyed Epcot because there is a lot of things to interact with. By 5:00 we really hadn't even made it past the front third of the park. My sister offered to take Brooklyn and Noah home so the rest of us tried to make it around the rest of the park by the time it closed at 9. The back half of the park is a World Show Case with 11 different countries to walk through and visit. We only made it to 3 before it was time for "Illuminations" the night time fireworks show. So we wondered through the other countries in the dark but everything was closed. I'm sure Billy could spend a whole week at Epcot, he loves that kind of thing. Anyways, enough words, here are some pictures.

Lot's of fun at Epcot

On a side note, we got several comments on our t-shirts, Billy was wishing we had cards to pass out since we, well mostly me, designed and printed them.

One Big Crazy Family!

continued. . . some more

2012-01-14T13:01:00.000-08:00

Day 5 (Universal Studios - Islands of Adventure/Harry Potter World)

The kids were super excited to go see the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Apparently they weren't the only ones, the crowds were unbelievable. At one point, you literally could not walk because there were so many people. And lets just say that Universal is not quite up to par with Disney as far as managing large crowds. For one, they don't have fast passes (unless you want to pay an extra $100 per person) and the walkways are smaller, and there is really only one way to get from one area to another. We were still able to have a good time, it just took a little longer. We rode the Hulk roller coaster (after a 2 hr. wait) which was awesome, then we headed to Harry Potter. It was really fun to feel like you were in the world of Harry Potter. I wish that there hadn't been so many people so we could've actually looked in all the shops and stuff. The good news was that the "Dueling Dragons" roller coasters had no line, and they were totally fun. We also rode "Flight of the Hippogriff" and then waited 100 minutes or so to go on "Forbidden Journey." Once we were done with that we headed back out into the rest of the park and rode "Jurassic Park" a couple of times (no line) and then another log flume ride (also no line). We got to see a cool X-games type stunt show on the way out and that was Brooklyn's favorite thing. Overall it was another fun day.

Continued...Continued

2012-01-13T09:29:00.000-08:00

Day 4 (Family Day)

On Wednesday, we took a break from the parks and had a family day at the houses, we swam, played games, and had a lot of fun just being one big crazy family.

It always cracked me up that my kids were just as excited to swim as they were to go to the parks. Both the houses we stayed in had pools and the kids had a blast whenever we were home long enough to use them.

My Mom and Wendy were in charge of organizing some games for our family day.
They did a great job. The teams were drawn out of a hat by the 4 team captains,
Brooklyn, Elaine, Kaymbri, and MacKenzie.

The games included a family version of BINGO, and then some minute-to-win-it type games.

Dustin even made a score board on the TV so we could all see who was in the lead.
Team Kaymbri ended up as the winners, but we all had a good time.

After the games we went outside to try and get some family pictures. Lets just say trying to get 33 people to all smile and look at the camera at the same time is pretty much impossible. Especially when 16 of those people are 10 or younger. But at least we have proof that we were all there!

Here we are, all 33 of us.

My Parents with their 20 grandkids

The Wells' Family

We tried to get a picture with the spouses but this was the best one we got because, right after this shot. . .

. . .was this shot because. . .

. . . of this. Elaine had an accident and decided she needed to RUN to find a bathroom. Unfortunately, she ran in the complete opposite direction of us and the houses, and she is very fast!

After pictures, we sent all the kids to one house and the adults stayed at the other so we could play more games and have some kid-free fun. Another GREAT day!

We had a lot of fun playing pool, but lets just say that as a whole the Wells' are no pool sharks!

Continued...

2012-01-10T19:03:00.000-08:00

Day 3 (Magic Kingdom)

It turns out I didn't take a lot of pictures this day. We had a ton of fun riding rides, watching parades, and meeting characters. We did get rained on this day, for about an hour it dumped on us. A lot of people ran for cover but we figured, "Hey, we're from Seattle, we can handle a little rain." We were completely drenched after about 5 minutes. We got in line for "small world" and by the time we got out the rain was done, but we were pretty wet and cold the rest of the day.

This is just as you enter Magic Kingdom

Brooklyn waving to the characters in the parade.

After dancing with Goofy, Lucy and I snagged a picture.

Brooklyn was a great driver, We won the race!

Brooklyn was the most excited to ride the tea cups, judging by this face, I don't think she was disappointed.

After riding splash mountain, Brooklyn and I headed to main street to look for a sweat-shirt and blanket, (yes, we were still wet from the rain). While I was in the store I heard an announcement that they were going to start some show, I knew it wasn't the fireworks show because it was only about 7:30, but I figured I would go check it out. It turns out it was the most amazing show I have EVER seen! Somehow they project images onto the front of Cinderella's castle, all set to music, and it looks like the castle is completely changing and moving and it really is hard to describe but amazing to watch. I didn't even have a camera or anything to take pictures with. And there I was with just Brooklyn and no one else to witness it. Well we finished our shopping and headed out to claim a spot for the fireworks. Eventually, some of the various families from our reunion met up with me and I tried to describe it and I'm sure they thought I was a total raving lunatic because I was so excited about it. Well about an hour later they announced that they were going to do the show again, so I ran into the store and made them all stop shopping so they could see it for themselves, again, I'm sure I sounded like a lunatic, but MOST of them listened, {ahem...Dustin,} and they were not disappointed. I found a video of it on youTube but it really doesn't do it justice. Anyway, I just have to say that Magic Kingdom is truly magical at night and especially at Christmas!

After watching the fireworks we sent Brooklyn home with my parents and sister and then went and hit up a few more rides. It was a GREAT day!

The Magic, the Memories, and You.

2012-01-10T18:53:00.000-08:00

Here is the video I found of the show. Just trust me when I say that seeing it in person is AMAZING! It's about 10 minutes so, if you don't want to watch the whole thing skip forward to about minute 5 1/2.

No more playing catch up...

2012-01-09T21:42:00.000-08:00

So, I never update this blog because I get behind and then I feel like I need to play catch up on all the stuff I missed so then I really don't want to blog because there are so many things I missed, which means I miss even more stuff and then I want to blog even less, it is a vicious cycle and I have decided to break it. No more feeling obligated to "catch up" on months that I miss because I am too busy DOING all the things that I WANT to blog about. So from now on I will blog when I feel like blogging and not worry if it's been a day, a month, or a year since my last post. So, with that being said, let me catch you up on a few things that have been happening around here. (HA HA! I'm so funny!)

After years of planning, the Wells Family had their 1st official family reunion. And we don't really do anything small so we went to ORLANDO! We had 8 days of family, fun, and of course Disney World. Although there were a few snags along the way, (sick kids, lost luggage, those kind of things) it was a ton of fun and hopefully the memories will last forever! Here are just a few pictures (I only took about 800)

Day 1 (Tampa/Drive to Orlando) (Christmas Day)

This is the view from our hotel when we woke up Christmas morning

The boys couldn't resist checking out the beach.

After we got our lost luggage back, we left Tampa and drove to Orlando, a little over an hour drive.

Once all the families arrived we had croissant sandwiches and then sang some Christmas songs together.

Mom and Dad presented all the families with various gifts for the reunion... a really cool hand made bag, water bottles for everyone, a custom ornament to help us remember, t-shirts, a little puzzle thing to entertain us while we waited in lines, and little journals/autograph books that my mom put together. I think that is everything but I might have forgotten something.

The back of the journals. This is also the wordle that is on the back of our T-shirts.

Day 2 (Animal Kingdom and FHE)

Here we are in front of the "Tree of Life"

We didn't really try to stay together as a big family at the parks so we always thought it was funny when we would just randomly run into each other. It happened more than you might think. Here is my brother Nate and his family.

Noah havin' some fun on the drums. This poor kid was sick the whole week. He is actually still sick after a week of being home. He was a trooper even though I'm sure he would've been happy to just stay at the house and relax, but hey, we were on vacation, there was no time to relax...

We loved seeing all the Animals on the safari and walk through trails. Billy was in charge of the camera this day so all the picture credits go to him.

Here is a fun video of our trip down the Kali River Rapids Ride

Here we are in front of Expedition Everest, we are a little wet from our trip down the river.

We got to meet Tigger and his friends Eeyore and Pooh.

Brooklyn and I ready to ride the Dinos!

At about 6:00 all the families met back at the houses for Cafe Rio. (I just have to jump in here and give a shout out to my sister Annie who had the job of organizing all the food for the week, she did such a great job that I think she should be in charge of food for every reunion, she might object but I'm sure if we put it to a vote we would have a majority.) Following Cafe Rio we had Family Home Evening.

"We are a Happy Family!"

To Be Continued....

From Memorial day to Labor Day (part 1)

2011-09-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

I can't believe the kids are back in school already! We had a lot of fun this summer as usual. This is the first summer in a LONG time that Billy hasn't been working 2 jobs. Because he works a night shift at the hospital, he works 7 straight days and then gets 7 off. It was really nice to spend that time as a family. He did spend 2 of those weeks at Scout Camp and our stake Trek but he loves spending time with the youth of our church and I know he LOVED both of those weeks so even though I missed him, I was happy he got to go. Let's get to the pictures shall we....

JUNE

One of the moms in Brooklyn's playgroup put together a little graduation for the girls, it was really cute!

Lucy's Ballet Performance, she really loves to dance and get on stage, and I love to watch her!

Lucy in her Hip Hop number, (that's her doing the fancy move, she was so proud to do this cool move that no one else got to do.)

The first chance we got after the kids got out of school we went camping, this is at Rainbow Falls. There wasn't much to the Falls, but it was still a ton of fun.

I thought this old phone booth was pretty funny out in the middle of the woods.

Frisbee Golf in the dark, not sure I recommend it unless you have a light up frisbee, fortunately we do!

We really like this game called Konexi, you have to stack the letters and make words.

JULY

July brought a little bit of sun so we lathered up the tarp and made a slip and slide.

For Lucy's 10th birthday all she wanted was to go to Moses Lake so we gave her her wish. She went fishing, rode her bike, rode the Jet Ski, swam in the pool and had ice cream cake.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl! I can't believe you're 10!

The new Moses Lake Frisbee Golf Team. There is a bridge that leads from the campground to the state park where they have a real frisbee golf course. Billy took all these kids over to play a round. Luckily he had one other adult with him because the little ones lasted like 5 minutes.

The following weekend, my nephew Max flew up from Texas, by himself, to spend some time with his Washington relatives. I got to pick him up from the airport and then we headed back to Moses Lake for a quick trip. Max was really fun to have around and he was determined to try wakeboarding.

After Moses Lake we headed over to Bremerton to hang our with my parents and my visiting Grandma, she is 93 and still going strong, she loves to play cards and will beat you at anything from poker to pinochle.

Grandma Joyce and a few of her Great-Grandkids

More frisbee? (I'm sensing a theme here)

Lucy modeling the sweater my mom knit her for her birthday.

Noah and Lucy also played baseball this summer. They both enjoyed and said they want to play again.

Billy was the coach for both teams and luckily his good friend Jesse was there to help because most of their games were at the same time. So Billy mostly covered Noah's team and Jesse mostly covered Lucy's team.

Look at that determination, he was pretty good at hitting the ball.

This was the first year of Fastpitch for Lucy. Her hitting really improved over the season.

And she even did quite a bit of pitching.

Memorial Day

2011-06-16T15:38:00.000-07:00

This year for memorial day, we spent the weekend with our friends the Ketner's. We went up to La Conner and had a blast hanging out and playing on the beach. The weather was beautiful. On Saturday we drove up to deception pass. It was really cool to walk down and around the bridge and see the beautiful views.

Beautiful view from the bridge.

Playing on the beach on the other side of Deception Pass.

Niko giving Noah some pointers on the Kayaks.

Where'd Billy go?

Oh, there he is, I guess he needed a little wake up after working all night.

Beautiful sunsets every night.

The girls decided they wanted to build a raft so, with some help from Billy and Jesse, they did.

I think there were some flaws in the plan.

After a little down-sizing the raft was perfect for Brooklyn.

I'm not sure but I don't think that kayak was made for three people, luckily they didn't mind getting a little wet.

Go Niko, Go!

We had quite a few Bald Eagles sightings while we were there. This one stayed put long enough to get some good pictures of.

Amazing!!!

On Sunday evening we drove over to Mt. Erie and enjoyed more breath taking views and playing in the trees.

Jessica, (big) Noah, Lucy, Jaden, Brooklyn, and (little) Noah.

Looking out over the San Juan Islands

Just Monkeying around!

A whole new World!

2011-06-03T12:04:00.000-07:00

Lucy got glasses last week and it has opened up a whole new world! It was pretty funny when she got them, she put them on and went outside and was just amazed at all the details she could see in the grass and trees and everywhere she looked. I think she looks pretty cute!

Picture Dump (April-May)

2011-05-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

So the past few months have been relatively quiet around here. But with the summer approaching I know it won't stay that way for long. I figured I better dump some pictures up here while I can.

Ok, so this picture isn't really from April or May. It is actually Lucy back in September of 2005, but as I was going through the pictures from April and May I found the following picture of Brooklyn in the same outfit.

Brooklyn must be taller than Lucy was because the skirt is much shorter on her and she is a little younger than Lucy was in the other picture. I think they are both pretty cute, but I may be a little biassed.

This was my attempt at rag-tying Brookie's hair.

In her words. . ."Mom, my hair looks funky!"

Some of you may know that the Northwest has had their fair share of rain in the past few months (ok, like way too much!!!!!) Noah and Brooklyn were so tired of being inside that they finally just went out in the rain. Brooklyn is wearing Billy's rain boots! I think they look great with her tutu.

These two definitely brightened up my day even with the rain!

For Spring break we took a trip over to Bremerton. My sister Annie and her girls were visiting too so it was fun to spent time with them. Despite the awful weather, Billy took Niko and Lucy camping on the coast. I don't have any of the pictures but when I get them from billy I will try to post a few.

Noah celebrated his 7th birthday in April. His birthday fell on the day before Easter this year so we had a busy weekend. On Friday he had a friend over to spend the night. We dyed Easter eggs and decorated cupcakes.

Brooklyn showing off a couple of her eggs.

On Saturday, Noah's actual birthday, he had a soccer game,

Noah really likes soccer and is getting better all the time. He scored 3 goals in one of his games so he was pretty stoked about that. (So was Billy, who is also his coach)

Then we went to an easter egg hunt at our church. The kids had a blast gathering the eggs.

They also had two jumping castles set up in the gym so that was fun too.

For those of you who know Brooklyn and her personality, this picture is hilarious. She looks like a perfect little angel doesn't she?

What a sweetie, smelling the tulips. (insert snicker from mom here)

Brooklyn surprised us all by losing her first tooth in April. Let me remind you that she just turned 4 in March. She had a dentist appointment the following week and they said that there wasn't any sign of trauma, she is just a little ahead of her time.

So far in May, we have had a few sunny days. The kids have taken full advantage and spent a good 3 or 4 hours playing in this "pool" that Niko set up. I think they are a little sun deprived, what do you think.

note - it was maybe 63 degrees on this day.

Happy Birthday Brooklyn!

2011-03-11T10:46:00.000-08:00

THIS

little girl is 4!

THIS

is the little girl helping to make t-shirts for her birthday party.

THIS

is the little girl playing "Pin the tail on the Unicorn" at her birthday party.

THESE

are the little girl's friends that came to her birthday party. (There was one more but she didn't want to put on her shirt and be in the picture)

THIS

is the shirt that the little girl made for her party.

THIS

is the little girl's Unicorn birthday cake.

THIS

is the little girl waiting to blow out her candles.

THIS

is the little girl eating her cake.

THIS

is the little girl hitting her Unicorn Pinata.

THIS

is the little girl opening her presents.

and THIS

is the little girl playing with her toys after all her friends went home.

I can't believe my baby is 4!

I love this little girl so much, she is hilarious, sweet (when she wants to be), stubborn (even when she doesn't want to be) and just plain adorable!

Happy Birthday Brooklyn!

Miss Auburn!

2011-02-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

As you might know, Lucy has been participating in the Miss Auburn Little Sisters program. Basically they assign each contestant in the Miss Auburn pageant 2 little sisters that are elementary school age. The girls get to do fun things with their contestants and get a glimpse at what it might be like to be in the Miss Auburn Pageant. (Just fyi Auburn has the highest scholarship amount of any other local pageant level in America, this year they gave away over $50,000 in scholarships to the contestants.) It has been really fun for Lucy.

Friday night the "Littles" (little sisters) got to perform a dance routine and then sit back and watch the contestants perform the Talent part of the competition.

This is for my dad, he always used to take close ups of our eyes. As a parent, I can understand why, I love my kids' eyes and Lucy's definitely have that sparkle.

I think I am in big trouble in a few years!

On stage doing her dance

Saturday night the Littles got to perform the dance again. Then they also got to walk on stage and be introduced with their contestants for the Evening Wear competition. Lucy was so excited to get all fancied up.

I asked my friend Joanna if she would do Lucy's hair and make up. Joanna LOVES all things girly so she was all over it.

I think she likes the finished look.

Dressed for the dance number again.

You Go Girl!

"ok, have you taken enough pictures yet? I wanna get on stage!"

Just a little excited!

On stage with Melissa, Lucy's contestant, and Brianna, Melissa's other little sister.

Awww!

Melissa didn't win but she was a fun big Sister for Lucy. Poor Lucy is cursed with the Wells' crying gene (basically we cry over everything and then it shows for hours afterwards) She was sad that Melissa didn't win.

This is Lucy with the current Miss Washington. I guess she was the 3rd runner up in the Miss America pageant in January. That's pretty good for Washington!

Overall, it was a ton of fun and I know Lucy wants to do it do it again.

January, I'm almost caught up!

2011-02-12T13:00:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share a few pictures from January to finish getting me caught up and then hopefully, I will be able to post things as they happen, or at least do monthly updates.

we had 1 or 2 nice days in January so the kids went out and rode their bikes, I just had to get a picture of Brooklyn with her helmet on backwards, I'm sure it will still protect her head, right?

Too Cute!

Brooklyn also started a Gymnastics class and LOVES it! She hasn't had any issues getting a long with the teacher which I was extremely worried about.

Lucy participated in a play at her school. It was "The Frog Prince" She played a spider in the Swamp. It was a very fun play and the kids learned the whole thing in one week of after school rehearsals. It was a long week but fun for the kids and parents!

The only spider I will ever love!

August-part 2

2011-02-07T15:05:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't figured it out, I enjoy photography. As I started looking through my pictures I realized I had taken 750 pictures in the month of August. Some of them were just pictures of what we were doing but a large part of them were pictures that I had taken for other people. A friend of mine asked me to take some senior pictures of her daughter which some of you might have seen on Just Showing Off the blog I share with my family to show off our craftiness. I did a practice shoot with Lucy before and I love some of the shots I got of her. Another friend asked me to take pictures of her adorable little girl. Then, I also took some pictures of Nicholas for school. It was a lot of fun. Because I enjoy it so much I started a new Photo Blog NJ Photography (there is a button on the side, the photo blog is a work in progress so I will try to let you know as I add more more pictures). Some people have asked me why I don't charge, it's because right now I like just doing it as a hobby, maybe someday I will make that move but for now I'm happy to get all the practice I can.

Here is some of my work from August.

August-part 1

2011-02-07T10:41:00.000-08:00

August started out with another trip to Moses Lake, the kids love that place. Brooklyn asks me at least once a week when we can go to Moses Lake. I try to tell her in the summer but then she just asks when will it be summer. It is a never ending conversation that we have had several times.

Lucy just chillin' on the boat. (not our boat, our friends' boat)

Billy wake boarding.

That is our friend Skyler in the background. (yes, he landed it)

The kids took turns getting thrown off the boat.

Lucy, by far, flew the highest and farthest. (Probably has something to do with the fact that she weighs nothing.)

I promised you a video of Noah wake boarding way back in July, well here it is.

We also spent a few day over in Bremerton and took a drive up to Fort Warden. The kids had a great time on the beach with their cousins.

They had a great time building this sand castle.

The Jessee's and Richmond's

We also went and explored the battle stations at Fort Warden, it was pretty cool but very creepy!

Also in August, our friends, the Ketner's invited us to go spend a weekend in La Conner. Their family owns a cabin right on the water. It was soooo fun. We love just hanging out with them and it helps that our kids are really good friend too.

This is Noah and Jaden, they are the best of best friends, seriously these two could and should be brothers, well actually they like each other a lot more than brothers usually do. Anyways, they met in preschool about the same time Jaden's mom, Jenny, and I met at the gym. Soon we couldn't go a day without one of them asking for a play date with the other and thus, the friendship was born.

Look at these 2 ready to take on the world!

Let me backtrack a little further, One day Jenny and I were on the treadmills at the gym and she mentioned that they were thinking about booking a trip to Disneyland, I stopped, looked at her and told her that just that weekend we had booked a trip to disneyland. It turns out we were going at the same time. We of course didn't tell our kids so imagine Noah's surprise when we walk into Disneyland and there is his best friend Jaden. It was priceless.

Back to the present, this is Lucy and Jessica, they met and became friends on the Disneyland trip. They have become very close friends since, so now we usually swap Jessica or Jaden for Lucy or Noah so everyone is happy.

We had a camp fire right on the beach and roasted marshmallows

Even Mercedes got to come, she enjoyed wandering the beach and getting dirty.

Lucy and Jessica had a lot of fun on the kayaks.

We always like a good card game.

And we caught a ton of crab. YUMMY!

Uh oh, I think I might be jealous!

Flash Back-September

2011-01-30T18:06:00.000-08:00

Since there wasn't much to blog about in October, besides Halloween which I actually already blogged about, I'm skipping to September. September, as always, means back to school. This year I was surprised to find that I didn't want my kids to go back to school, I enjoyed our schedule free summer but I guess they need to learn and grow so off they went.

Lucy had some big changes this year, a new school and a new teacher. So far she has enjoyed it overall, the change was a little hard at first, but she has made some new friends and is doing well in all her school work.

Noah started 1st grade, which means all day school. He wasn't too thrilled and all month I kept thinking he should be getting home soon only to look at the clock and realize it was only 1:00 and he had 2 more hours. He is doing good at learning to read and he REALLY loves Math and Recess. He also played soccer again and loved it.

High 5in' the coach after he scored a goal!

Good Kick Buddy!

Nicholas went into 7th grade this year. We were sightly surprised to find out, when we picked up his schedule, that he had qualified not only for Algebra (which we knew about), but for honors Language Arts and Social Studies too. Language Arts has been a bit of a challenge for him but he continues to try to do his best (and since its the end of the semester when I am actually typing this, I can let you know that he got 4 A's and 2 B's on his report card, so he's doing pretty good). He also decided to try football, so that was fun to watch.

Niko is #64

In the middle of the month I got to sneak away with my Mom, Grandma, and sisters for our annual girls' weekend. This year we went to Orcas Island in the San Jaun Islands. It was beautiful and fun and crazy like always. We always have such a fun time together! We look forward to this weekend all year!

Back to November

2011-01-28T16:29:00.000-08:00

I'm still trying to catch up on part of last year so, here are some pictures from November.

Just some cute pictures of 2 of my favorite red-heads.

Who doesn't love the beautiful fall colors?

What can I say?

Lucy painted this for the Reflections program. The theme was "Together we can"

The week of Thanksgiving, we got quite a bit of snow. Brooklyn couldn't wait to go out and see it!
(yes, those are her pajamas!)

The last few years we have played a turkey bowl with some of our friends. This year we got to play in the snow. It was SOOOO fun!!!

Look, Lucy and Noah aren't fighting. I had to take a picture!

Skyler lead everyone in some warm ups.

After the turkey bowl we ran home to get ready for Thanksgiving, which we hosted at our house this year. Aunt Kristi helped Mackenzie and Brooklyn put hand prints on the cake that Aunt Wendy made.

With a little re-arranging we were able to get all 17 of us in one area. It was a great meal and I am thankful I have such a great family to share it with.

Back tracking to December:

2011-01-11T20:08:00.000-08:00

Because I plan on printing this blog in the future, I wanted to go back and touch on a few of the things we did in the last few months. This is the December recap.

Lucy is participating in the Miss Auburn Little Sisters program. It is a great program where the girls get paired up with one of the contestants as their "little sister" The little sisters get to learn a dance and perform on the night of the pageant and they get to walk out with their "Big Sister" for the evening wear portion of the pageant. Lucy is super excited to get a dress and be on stage. Here they are leading the crowd in songs at Auburn's Santa Parade.

We spent a lot of our time and energy in the beginning of December working on a school project for Niko. His honors english class was reading "A Christmas Carol" and for 100 pts. extra credit, he could build a house or other building for a Dicken's Village that would be displayed in the school. Well, he really needed the extra credit so, we built a house. Neither Billy or I know a whole lot about building houses so it was a learning adventure for all of us. Niko did most of the cutting and painting himself and he really enjoyed it, so, for christmas we decided we would build him a work bench out in the garage so he can try making other things like shelves and stuff.

Finally done! Yeah.

a look at our front door if you were only 2 inches tall.

the back

We even added lights.

Billy and I enjoyed a nice night out and went to his law firm Christmas party. It was a lot of fun to dress up and have a night out with my hubby. But, the best part was that I surprised him by booking a hotel room in downtown Seattle so we could stay the night and enjoy the next day shopping and just having fun. It was a blast!

Finally, we had a great Christmas, we spent most of the break at my parents' house and I really enjoyed the down time. We played more dominion (a card game) than I want to admit and we beat all the levels of "Angry Birds Seasons,"(the kids would come upstairs and my mom, dad, sister, and I would all be playing Angry Birds, they would just roll their eyes and laugh at us) and, we ate way more sweets and junk food than we should have. Santa Clause managed to find us so the kids were happy.

It was great!

Mr. Goody (an elf) brought the kids pajamas bottoms and white t-shirt with puff paints so they could make their own christmas shirts.

Noah with his ninja swords in a back pack.

Brooklyn all snuggled up in her Dora sleeping bag.

Niko counting the money that was in the piggy bank Santa brought him.

Lucy opening her cell phone, I think she was excited.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-19T20:50:00.000-08:00

We are still here and doing well,

hopefully I will get better about posting in the new year.

Happy Halloween!

2010-11-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

Our Jack-o-Lanterns

Ooooh, Spooky!

Lucy-Vampire Hannah Montana

Noah-Black Flame but halfway through the night he decided he looked like Darth Maul

Brooklyn - "a sparkly-pink-dancing-flower with a wand of Love with a star thats pink and sparkly"

Niko-a pirate

the whole family, Billy was the Riddler and I was a scarecrow

It was a fun Halloween, we went down to the church for the trunk-or-treat, there was a huge turn out and it was lots of fun. On the actual day we just hung out and gave out candy to all the trick-or-treaters.

Glacier National Park

2010-10-02T21:16:00.000-07:00

When it was time to leave Waterton we decided we would take the "Scenic Route" home. It added about 3 hours to our drive but it was totally worth it. We drove through Glacier National Park. It was amazing! I have a million pictures and I didn't feel like putting them all on my blog and I know I will never scrapbook them all so I decided to throw them into a slide show. Don't feel like you have to watch it I just thought I would share it. The background music is "For the Beauty of the Earth" performed by Jon Schmidt.

Waterton

2010-10-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

*Sorry about the epic length post*

Wow, today is the first day of October! I guess I should start trying to recap our summer adventures. We had a busy, but way too short summer. We packed in a lot of fun in our little 2 month summer break. When I last posted we were getting ready for our trip to Waterton. We had a blast! With travel days (it took about 12 hours to drive there and about 15 hours to drive back) we only had 5 days in the park. We didn't waste any time, it turns out the Jessee's like to play hard. Who knew? We hiked about 20 miles while we were there. I'm going to break it down into days for you. But before I begin I have to give a shout out to the Goates' family for being our hosts and guides, it was a blast!!!

Joyce, Annie, Scott, and Elaine Goates

Day 1

Day 1 started out with a tour of Waterton (the village) for Billy, Niko, Lucy and Noah. Later that day, Annie took us on our first hike. It's called Bear's Hump. Annie said it was a good test hike to see how we did and how the kids would do. Well, we passed with flying colors as Lucy and Noah led us to the top in record-breaking time. After we came back down we decided to put on our swim suits and go check out the Lake. Just FYI, all of the lakes in Waterton are glacier fed lakes, so they are cold. But who would want to let a little thing like that stop us right? (Well, I would, I'm not crazy!)

Kids at a waterfall in town.

Lake Waterton

View of Waterton from Bear's Hump

First Bear Sighting. Apparently, in a normal year this is pretty rare, but for us it happened a lot! We are bear Magnets

Nicholas on top of Bear's Hump.

Niko diving into the glacier water

Lucy's turn

Go Billy!!

Even Noah, I would've but someone had to take the pictures. (And I should mention that Scott jumped in too.)

Day 2
On Day 2 Billy and I drove to Cardston to go to the temple. While we were there Scott took the kids on a hike but I don't have any pictures of it. When we got back, we went on a hike up to Lake Crandell. We packed hot dogs and s'mores makings and had a campfire. It was really fun. On the way back down the trail, Lucy saw a bear just sitting right on the trail. To quote her, "I was just walking and then I saw a bear and I thought, 'I don't remember seeing a statue of a bear on the way up.' Then I realized that it was a real bear." Luckily Scott was right behind her and knows all about bears and how to avoid being attacked so we backed up a bit and then made a lot of noise to scare it off. Pretty crazy!

Cardston, Alberta Temple

The Whole Family

YUM!!!

Lucy really loved learning about all the wild flowers along the trails and I think Scott really like having someone to share some of his knowledge with.

This isn't the bear that Lucy saw on the trail, this is one that we saw on the drive back to town.

Day 3

On day 3 we finally got some sun so we decided to play at the lake in the morning. Scott's Dad has a boat so we did a tour of Lake Waterton. It was so beautiful. I have about 300 pictures of just mountains and scenery from the week. Anyways, the lake is right on the border between the US and Canada so you can actually cross into the US via boat. It's cool because they cut the trees at the border line so you can actually see where Canada ends and the US begins. After the tour and playing in the water for a while, we went home for lunch and then Annie took us on a hike up a creek to find a natural water-slide. I'm so sad because our camera died so we didn't get very many pictures. It was so cool because we were literally walking up the creek, crossing back and forth to the banks, and climbing rocks and branches to get to the next crossing spot. It was so fun. The kids loved it! Unfortunately, when finally got to where the slide had been, there was a tree and a lot of rocks that had fallen across the slide. But we still had a ton of fun! It's all about the climb right?

Right on the Border.

A momma bear and 2 cubs.

This is a Grizzly. Most of the bears we saw were black bears (even if they were brown). Grizzlies are more rare and more likely to attack.

One of the 2 pictures we got of hiking up the creek

The other picture from the creek.

Day 4

Day 4 was Sunday so we went to church, which was surprisingly full. Literally standing room only. Then we mostly relaxed. I wanted to try and get a nice family picture so we took a lot of pictures. Between the sun and the wind and trying to convince 4 kids to all smile at the same time we didn't get too many good ones but there were a couple.

One of my favorites, totally us!

I haven't mentioned much about the deer, they are literally everywhere! there would be easily 15-20 in one group and they aren't scared of people. We got caught in the middle of what Billy called "deer gang violence" We were walking down the street one night and the deer just started running back and forth right in front of us, I thought they were going to run us over. It was crazy, poor Lucy jumped and dropped her huge ice cream scoop. She wasn't quite so excited about the deer after that.

*insert evil laugh here*

Family bike ride.

Canadian Mountees

Day 5

On day 5 we did our longest hike. It was up to Rowe Lakes. I'm not gonna lie, it was hard!!! and the bugs were really bad. But it was totally worth it. It was so beautiful! But more than that I was so proud of my kids. They did so good on ALL the hikes. They hardly ever complained. Both Niko and Lucy carried back packs on this hike and I'm pretty sure not very many 6 year olds would have been able hang with the rest of us but Noah was a Rock-Star! Brooklyn was in the back pack most of the time but she did good too, I can't imagine having to sit in that thing for 6+ hours.

It was AMAZING!! Thanks again to Annie and Scott for the great time.

Pictures really don't do these mountains justice, they are massive!!!

This butterfly really liked my shirt. I think it fits right in and Brooklyn loved it!

Lower Rowe Lake.
We thought about stopping here but decided we could make it all the way to upper Rowe Lake which was another 2-3 miles up a really steep trail.

This is the meadow before the steepest part of the hike,
the big mountain in the background.

My boys! (well 2 of them anyways)

We made it to Upper Rowe Lake.
(Don't mind Noah he was mad at niko for taking something.)

We were up so high, we found snow. How often to you get to play in the snow in your swim suit? I love it!!

"And I think to myself,
What a Wonderful World"

Happy Birthday Niko!!!

2010-07-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

Well the day arrived. My Baby is 12 years old!!! As you can see we got him a cell phone and he was SOOOOOOO excited!! He couldn't even finish his breakfast. It was pretty funny the way we gave it too him. I put it in a gift bag and then just put it out of sight in the dining room. We sat down for breakfast, (Crepes-his choice) and I had told Billy to start calling and texting in about ten minutes. We are enjoying our breakfast and we start hearing some weird sounds. I asked what it was and he thought it was my phone but my phone was sitting on the table so that couldn't be it. So, he starts trying to locate the sound which leads him to the bag and he starts to clue in. He had this huge grin on his face and was practically hyper-ventilating. He opened it and was so excited that he said he felt like he was gonna be sick and couldn't finish his breakfast. It was pretty funny!

Niko is a great kid who is funny, caring, a good friend, and a great helper. I'm so happy to have him in my life. Of course, I might change my mind, as the teenage years are approaching fast! We'll just have to wait and see.

Love Ya Buddy!!!

Wow!!! We've been busy!!!!

2010-07-18T23:22:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe the kids have only been out of school for 3 weeks! We have been so busy!!! I have 2 days before we leave on a road trip to Canada so I thought I better get a post in. Let me just list a few of the things we have done.

Last day of school

A week of basketball camp (Niko and Lucy)

My Birthday

4th of July

Scout Camp (Niko and Billy)

Lucy's Birthday (slumber party with 7 friends)

Trip over to Bremerton to visit with family

Balloon Release for sweet Paris (check the side bar)

and a

Trip to Moses Lake for some fun and sun!!

It has been crazy but fun. Here are just a few pictures of the 300 I've taken over the last 3 weeks.

Lucy and Ms. Feguson- I love Ms. Ferguson! She has been Lucy's teacher for 2 years now. (Plus she worked with her in 1st grade for art I think) Lucy has blossomed so much in the past few years and I know Ms. Ferguson had a big part in that. Lucy could have had her next year too but she was accepted into the STEP (gifted) program for our school district and decided to go. (just to show what a great teacher Ms. Ferguson is, out of the entire Auburn School District, 26 third graders get picked to go into the STEP program, based on test scores, and 6 were accepted from her class! I think that is pretty good!) It was a really hard decision for us to leave Hazelwood and Ms. Ferguson but I hope that Lucy will continue to grow and learn thanks to all the love and support she has gotten from Ms. Ferguson in the last 2 years.

Lucy's Birthday Party- We played in the pool and ate pizza and pizookies and just had a jolly-good time. Because Billy and Niko were at scout camp and Noah went to spend the night at a friends, it was a girls only party! Brooklyn loved feeling like one of the big girls, she was hilarious. We did get an unexpected guest though.....

You should have seen these girls, they were actually fighting about who got to hold the frog. I guess these aren't your typical girly girls! All the girls were good and they only stayed up 'til 4:30am! We had homemade cinnamon rolls in the morning and sent them home. It was a lot of fun!

I can't believe my little girl is 9, she is growing up so fast! I want to just stop time and keep my kids the ages they are now but I know I can't, so I will just try to cherish every moment I can.

And speaking of kids growing up too fast. . . my little boy went to scout camp for the first time! He turns 12 in ten days and I can't stand it!!! I don't have many pictures from scout camp but I do have this one...

... of the day he got home from camp. He slept for about 5 hours and even walked downstairs in the middle of his nap to get a drink and he doesn't remember it at all. CRAZY that my baby will be 12!!!

This last weekend, we went over to Moses Lake to get in some fun in the sun and boy did we!! Noah shocked us all by not only getting in the lake, (last year he refused because he was sure there were sharks or alligators) but he was also the first one of my kids to want a "crazy" ride on the tube. I went with him and we had a lot of fun, he was yelling the whole time and having a blast! AND THEN to top it off, he decided he would try wake-boarding too!

He did so good!!! He actually got up for a good 10 seconds or so. Which is good in my book! I have video but it is on my other camera so I will try to post that later.

After Noah was so brave, Lucy decided to go for it too, so her and I went on a crazy tube ride and then she wake boarded too. She tried to back out at the last moment but we "encouraged" her to try and she did great! She got up on her first try and rode for a long time, now we just need to get her to turn her board.

She rides the whole time like this and just goes back and forth like she's plowing on a snow board. I'm so proud of both of them and i hope they keep trying.

Well, like I said it's been a busy 3 weeks, hopefully we will be able to slow down a bit when we get back from Canada.

Super Brooklyn

2010-06-18T18:04:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of my favorite little red-head.

Soccer

2010-06-18T17:58:00.000-07:00

Lucy just wrapped up her spring soccer season. We got on with a new team and she really liked it. She loves to play goalie and begged her coach every game to let her play. She did pretty good but I told her if she wants to keep playing goalie we need to practice this summer so she can learn how to dive and drop kick. We'll see if that actually happens.

Piano Recital

2010-06-18T14:43:00.002-07:00

The kids had their end of the year recital last Sunday. They have both really loved piano this year. It's been fun to see them get better over the year. Here are the videos.

Memorial Day

2010-06-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

For Memorial Day we took a trip over to our favorite RV park for some camping. Even though the weather was colder than I wanted and we got rained on more than once, we still managed to have some fun. My sister Annie and her family came over from Pullman and it was really fun to spend some time with them. We also had quite a few family friends there so really, what more could you ask for right?

(Oh yeah, nicer weather)

I think Elaine is chasing some birds in this picture.

Lucy doing some modeling for me. She is always a willing subject.

(I didn't take the time to edit any of these pictures so you just get the straight out of the camera shots.)

Noah had fun chasing some bubbles that some other families were blowing.

Niko's look for the weekend. I can't believe how grown up he is getting, he looks like a teenager! YIKES!!!

Cute picture of Joyce chillin' in a lawn chair.

Tuesday morning was finally sunny enough to brave the lake for some water sports. Lucy and Billy loved the Jet Skis.

My kids weren't brave enough to wake-board on the first trip of the season but I got some fun shots of our friends with my 70-300mm zoom lens. This is Hunter.

This is Talan, check out that air!!!

Brooklyn loves the water and was so funny on the jet ski, she just started giggling in this really evil way, like she was ready to take over the world.

She also loved riding in the tube behind the boat with her friends Ryder, Dallis and Abi.

Even though Lucy doesn't look like she is having fun, she really is.

Finally, Abi and Elli went for quite a ride on the tube. Billy actually got sick just from sitting in the boat. It was a miracle they never fell out!!!

Overall, it was a very fun weekend and I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time over in Moses Lake this Summer.

"You mean, this blog doesn't write itself???"

2010-04-29T17:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought maybe if I waited long enough my computer would just take over for me and upload all my pictures and write something interesting to go with them but apparently, that is not how it works. BUMMER! Here is my attempt to catch up. . .

Happy 6th Birthday Noah!

2010-04-29T17:00:00.000-07:00

Noah turned 6 on the 23rd and we celebrated by having his friend Jaden and his family over for dinner and fun. The highlight was the Pinata.

Noah picked out the Darth Vader Pinata and we hit it with a lightsaber. The kids loved it!

Just before the Dark Lord met his DOOM!

And Darth Vador is defeated!

He was so excited, he had to hold his breath while we sang to him!

Happy Birthday Buddy! It's been a fun 6 years!!! I hope we have many more!

He's a Biker-Dude!

2010-04-29T15:43:00.000-07:00

Let me just start by saying that Billy and I have been trying to get Noah to learn how to ride a 2-wheeler without training wheels for over a year now and he has refused to try. Well a few Saturdays ago we were working in the Garage and he got out his bike and started playing with it. Well within about 15 minutes he was totally riding it and we didn't help him at all, we tried, but he wouldn't let us. He is so Billy!!!

If you are wondering why he is riding a pink bike, it's because we realized that the bike that he was supposed to learn on over a year ago, was now too small, so he used Lucy's.

(Just for fun, here's one of Brooklyn)

Two-Wheeler

2010-04-29T15:42:00.000-07:00

"Catch!!!"

2010-04-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

One Sunday afternoon, while I was off at choir practice, Brooklyn and Noah decided to play a little catch. (I have to give the credit to Billy for these pictures)

Brooklyn got herself ready to go. . .

You gotta face it, this girl has style!!!

Love the tongue out, she totally gets that from her Dad.

And check out that follow through! I think we may have a future pitcher!

Easter

2010-04-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

This year Easter fell on the same Sunday as General Conference so we had a fun relaxing day. We started the morning off with Cinnamon Rolls, Yummy! And then we cooked a Turkey, cheesy potatoes, and rolls for dinner. It was all very good. And of course in between all that cooking we watched conference and played games as a family. It was a great day!

Diggin' for Dinos

2010-04-29T15:09:00.000-07:00

Noah got a fun dinosaur kit for Christmas and we finally got out the part where you get to dig for dinosaur bones in a block of sand. Noah and Brooklyn had a blast. Many of you are probably wondering why I would post about this, but it is pretty rare these two to get along for more than 2 minutes let alone 20 so I thought this was pretty amazing.

brooklyn video

2010-03-22T12:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a video from brooklyn's birthday.

Brooklyn is 3!

2010-03-22T12:07:00.000-07:00

I know I'm a few weeks behind. Brooklyn celebrated her 3rd birthday on the 7th and I figured I better get some pictures posted before she turns 4. Brooklyn is such a fun girl. She seems older than my other kids did at 3, probably because she talks so well. She is always singing and dancing around the house and I love her cute little voice. Right now she is going through a really competitive stage. Everything is a race or a game. And this sweet little red-head knows how to trash-talk! Even if we are just walking down the hallway she says, "I'm gonna Win!!" The one time I actually tried to challenge her by saying, "nuh-uh, I'm gonna win!" She responded by running faster and yelling, "Not today!" and of course she is laughing the whole time! And she ALWAYS does a little victory dance. If I wasn't busy laughing my head off at her I would probably try to teach her a little more sportsmanship. (Maybe we'll work on that next week.) She had a fun birthday, when I asked her what she wanted in the weeks leading up to the day, all she would say was a cake and balloons and a party. Pretty easy demands, and since I have older kids and know that these simple requests won't last long, that's what she got. Here are some pictures from the day.

we had noodles for dinner, (brooklyn's choice)

Brooklyn doesn't like to be the center of attention especially when there are lots of people around, so she was very nice and let her siblings help her open her presents.

Brooklyn's friend Dallis was able to come over for cupcakes and icecream.

Brooklyn's 2nd cupcake, I don't think much made it into her mouth.

Brooklyn had to have her two new dolls to go to bed that night.

(thanks Grand-Parents)

P.S. We are goin on 1 week with out the Binky, I think we are done with them! (They started getting holes in them so she didn't like them, and then she lost her last one about a week ago and we are hoping she doesn't find it.)

All Bundled Up!

2010-03-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

This week at I {heart} faces, The theme is "all bundled up." This picture is from last year, the day I got my new camera. This was probably like the 12th picture I took with my camera and I knew that I was not going to regret switching from a point-and-shoot to a DSLR. I have loved it ever since.

Check out the other entries at

Valentine's, Mid-Winter break, and Photo-Fun!

2010-02-24T20:22:00.000-08:00

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post, but a lot has been going on.

First, we celebrated Valentine's Day and my hubby surprised me with these little lovelies.

And, I gave Lucy a cute Valentine's hair do.

We decided that instead of buying our kids a bunch of candy and stuff, we would spend some time together as a family so, we made red-velvet cupcakes and decorated them together. It was a lot of fun.

(although, truth be told, the cupcakes were kind of dry)

Our kids started their mid-winter break on President's Day so after church on Sunday we headed over to my parents house for a visit. The kids always love going to Grandma and Grandpa's house, and we are lucky that both sets of grandparents live in the same town so we get to see them all. We had fun visiting and playing games with everyone. One of the highlights of the trip was making caramel apples. Grandma had the caramel and apples all ready to go and my kids had tons of fun coating them with candy and chocolate. And even more fun eating them.

Don't they look DELICIOUS???

We left my parents house on Wednesday and on the drive home, I started to get a scratch in my throat and a stuffy nose. By that night I was already feelin' pretty crummy. I spent Thursday, Friday, and most of Saturday either on the couch or in bed. Thankfully, my kids and Billy took good care of me. While I was down and out, I read the first 3 books in this series:

I have always found Greek Mythology interesting so I really enjoyed the books. They were a quick read and I always like that! (Now I just have to find the last 2 books in the series.)

Finally, since the kids have been back in school, I have been trying to catch up on my house work. During my breaks I like to come fiddle around on the computer and so, I put together this shot.

I found pictures of both Lucy and Brooklyn wearing this dress and sitting on the stairs so I thought it would be fun to see what they would look like together. It's funny to see how much chubbier Lucy was. And of course, who could forget the thumb and belly-button.

Lucy's Valentine's

2010-02-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

This year I decided I would use my digital skills and make Lucy's Valentine's Cards. She helped me design them on the computer and then we uploaded them to Costco. Then she stuck them onto cute scrap-booking paper that I had lying around the house (left over from my non-digital scrap-booking days). She was really excited to use my tape gun. I think they turned out pretty cute and it only cost me $3.39 to make 48 of them.

The first piano recital. . .

2010-01-30T14:19:00.001-08:00

Nicholas and Lucy had their first piano recital today. They both did really good! I'm so proud of them. And I love that they LOVE to play, I hope they stick with it forever.

(I really wish that I had taken lessons when I was younger but I guess I was always too busy playing sports.)

This is Niko before the recital, he looks excited doesn't he?

Lucy showed a little more enthusiasm.

Here are the videos:

Yahooo!

2010-01-21T18:34:00.000-08:00

This Little Girl is Potty Trained!!!!

(Caution: potty talk ahead!)

I never thought I would say that potty training is fun, but with Brooklyn, it was! She was hilarious! While sitting on the potty she would sing songs, that she made up, for example: "it's coming out my bootie, it's coming out my bootie!" (sung in an upbeat, kind of nanner-nanner tune), or play games on my iPhone, or look at books.

If I put her on the potty and she didn't need to go, she would tell me, "My pee-pee's are sleeping, I'll try again later." And then when she needed to go she would yell, "My pee-pee's are waking up! My pee-pee's are waking up!"

It only took her about 2 days to get the hang of it and is even making it through the nights with no accidents. Now that we've gotten rid of the diapers, I guess its time to go after this. . . .

(but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.)

Christmas (By Annie)

2010-01-14T19:01:00.000-08:00

My Sister Annie posted this on her blog and I figured if I just cut and paste her post it would save me about an hours worth of time. So thanks, Annie, hope you don't mind!

Okay - so I don't think I'm going to give you a play by play of Christmas because that would just take way way too long, but here are some highlights... There was 26 people at my parents' house and 24 for the week following and it was just chaos - in a completely fun way. There was always something going on, even if that something was sitting around talking. There was lots of eating done (as my waist can testify) - and lots of good ole fashion family time. It was so great to see everyone and to share Christmas with everyone, I love this time of year!

Christmas Eve we did a nativity with Sierra and Noah as Mary and Joseph

What Nativity would be complete without a little bit of antics? A shepherd (Kaymbri) decided part way through the nativity that baby Jesus was hers (which in reality it was her doll) - and was not amused by someone else holding it.

Our religious songs got a bit... boistorous... toward the end of the nativity. "Star of Wonder..."

Everyone that was there for Christmas Eve - minus the little ones, Joyce and Owen who were asleep by this time.

"Before"

"After" It was insane to try to fit all 26 of us in my parents living room with all of our parents AND do our tradition of taking turns opening presents, youngest to oldest. The kids ended up checking out early to go play with their gifts...

Opening presents... Next to me is Qiujie, Scott's office mate and my good friend who came with us to brave the crazy of my parents house to experience a "real" Christmas. She loved it - she loved having so much family around, she loved the games, she loved the presents and she loved shopping for everyone. We loved having her there - it was fun to see Christmas with new eyes. One of her favorite things was that we gave actual gifts instead of money - in China for their big festival all the kids just get cash - and she loved getting toys and fun things for the kids and recieving fun presents too.

My big present from my parents was a sewing machine! wahoo! My big present from Scott was an Ikea gift certificate, which is so cool - because half the fun for me about IKEA is shopping there!

Scott wiped out after present opening

Mom made the younger kids knit sweaters. This is Joyce's - there is an adorable little hat that goes with it.

The girls (there's four that were born within a year of each other) all got matching sweaters from Grandma and matching dresses from Wendy - they looked so cute together - but we never did get a picture with them all because after all - they are all 2-3 years old.

One day we all went to the temple and did family names - so fun to have everyone at the temple for a reason other than a wedding!

One night we did Crepes - this year I did a Philly Cheese Steak crepe with garlic cheese sauce, a buffalo chicken one, and an chicken artichoke one... plus any you could make ala carte. Super good!

Fondue - also a favorite - this year there were so many of us we had to do it in shifts!

The girls performing for M&Ms - one of the rare times when one of them wasn't upset at the other one for something!

Chocolate Fondue - Yum!

I {heart} faces: My Best Face!

2010-01-11T10:01:00.000-08:00

This week I {heart} Faces is celebrating their birthday and the theme is "Best Face Photo." The picture has to have been taken in Dec. '09 or Jan. '10. This picture was taken in early December when I caught my 2 year old eating Oreos by the computer, a definite "No-No!" But after she gave me this face it was a little hard to punish her.

She is obviously in Heaven! (And of course she only licked out the white part!)

Merry Christmas

2010-01-03T16:00:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. We did. We spent a whole 8 days at Grandma and Grandpa's house. My parents had 5 of their 6 kids in town. (2 live there) We had a great time hanging out and playing games with everyone. With 8 kids in the house (three 2-year olds and two infants) it was a noisy place (and that's not even counting when my sister, who lives in town, was there with her 6 kids,) but it was so much fun! I'm sure you are expecting lots of fun pictures but one of the things my parents gave me was a gift certificate to "Kaleidoscope" which is website that sells textures and overlays for editing photos. I really love her stuff. I've spent the last couple hours playing around with my new "toys." So, these pictures are from Christmas but I'm also showing the before and after of my pictures. The first one is the straight out of camera (SOOC) shot and the 2nd is with the textures and stuff. Anyways, let me know what you think.

My attempt at a christmas picture (sorry about not sending out cards this year)

Noah waiting, not so happily, to go upstairs on Christmas Morning

Brooklyn after she got caught getting into Lucy's make-up kit.

Brooklyn ready to ride her new bike.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

2009-12-14T15:27:00.000-08:00

I think I will just let the pictures tell the story.

wait for it. . . . .

AWWW! The JOYS of CHRISTMAS

We {heart} Tooshies!

2009-11-30T20:14:00.000-08:00

This week over at I {heart} Faces it's "We {heart} Tooshies" Week. So every entry has to have a (fully clothed) Tooshie in it . This was taken on our trip to Big White this past year. Billy carried Noah up the hill behind our condo several times so that Noah could practice skiing. I chose this picture because it shows what a good Daddy Billy is.

If you want check out some of the other Tooshies go visit the website. And if you have a Tooshie that you love go ahead and enter, it's just for fun!

Halloween

2009-11-01T17:07:00.001-08:00

We started the week off by going to the pumpkin patch. It was fun to go through the corn mazes and to pick our pumpkins.

Noah had fun pulling Brooklyn around on the wagon.

Brooklyn dressed up as a punk rock fairy. I made the tutu and wings at my family's girls' weekend. I was afraid she wouldn't want to dress up but when it came time, she was a very willing participant and even broke into model mode when I started taking pictures it was really cute.

Niko was a vampire. Scary!!!!

Poor Lucy was sick so she didn't really get to do halloween. At the last minute she threw this robe over her pjs and called herself a witch in pajamas. She was going to be Hannah Montana.

Noah was a flame. I think he turned out pretty cool and he loved running around and "burning" people.

Girls' Weekend

2009-11-01T16:28:00.000-08:00

Last weekend my mom, grandma, sisters and I got together for our annual Girls' Weekend. We had so much fun (as always). This year we rented a house in North Bend. We went to "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" in Seattle, made tutus, played games, ate, and just had a grand ol' time. This first picture is a pretty good summary of the weekend as I am laughing my guts out, but I threw in a few more just for fun.

Oh, yeah, we made chocolates too, which somehow turned into a chocolate fight between Kristi and Jessica. I think the official story is that Jessica started it but Kristi definitely finished it. Jessica is married to my brother Nathan and apparently hadn't picked up on the fact that we are a slightly competitive family. I think she understands now. Love ya Jessica!

Every year we play a game where we have to open a present while wearing oven mitts. This is my 91 year old Grandma goin after it! She ROCKS!!! After this she showed us her "abnormally" large middle finger.

Here we are! The Wells Girls!

(those are all the tutus we made hanging in the background)

. . .and the Silly pose!

. . .and one with the tutus on our heads. Check out my Grandma's face. Ha Ha!!!

Basketball

2009-11-01T15:57:00.001-08:00

Nicholas has been playing basketball for school. He is really enjoying it and learning a lot. He is adjusting really well to middle school and is doing very good in all his classes. I still can't believe that I have a son in middle school!!!

Soccer 2009

2009-11-01T15:09:00.000-08:00

The kids have been having a lot of fun with soccer this year. Probably because they get to have DADDY as their coach! Billy has been coaching both Lucy's and Noah's teams this year (with a little help from me when the games conflict) I think everyone has had fun.

Billy coaching Lucy's team, the Pink Bears.

This was Noah's first soccer season. He says he wants to play for the Sounders when he grows up. We'll see!

Lucy has really improved this year. It has been fun to watch her grow as an athlete. She has always been good at getting the mental aspect of the game but now she is starting to improve physically too.

And while Billy and I are watching/coaching soccer, Brooklyn finds dirt to play in.

Flashback Friday

2009-10-16T07:28:00.000-07:00

We Miss You MARA!!!!

2009-09-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

One year ago, yesterday, Sweet little Mara Adams passed away. She is so missed!!! Her family held a Family Home Evening in her honor on Monday. It was a very sweet night, after a few songs and a brief message from her parents we had a balloon release in her honor. I will always remember, right when we moved into our ward, we sat behind this little girl with the most beautiful curls and an adorable face. It was Mara, she was so cute! I miss Mara. Even though I didn't get to see her on a daily basis, it was always a joy to see her at church and witness her sweet spirit.

www.maraadams.com

September?????

2009-09-23T18:55:00.001-07:00

Wow, I can't believe that we are already this far into September!!!! I figured I better get a post in quick or it might be Christmas before I did.

First Day of School!!!

It was a big first day of school around the Jessee House. Noah started Kindergarten. So far he is doing very well. (I'm kind of shocked how well he is doing, actually.) Since he started, he is so funny because he is totally health conscious. He always wants to eat "healthy food" so anytime I make him something to eat he asks if every part of it is healthy. "Is cream cheese healthy? Is Jelly Healthy? Are Bagels healthy?" and so on and so forth. He is also very concerned about being a "good boy." I don't know what they are teaching at this school, but I know I like it!

Lucy's first day was not quite as exciting, but she was still thrilled! She has the same teacher and basically the same class as last year. She is in a 3rd/4th split class and she has been with the same basic group of kids since she was in 1st grade. It is such a great class and I couldn't be more thrilled that she gets to be in it.

Nicholas had a big first day of MIDDLE SCHOOL! Yes, you read that right, Nicholas is in Middle school. I can't believe it! He seems to be adjusting pretty well and after his 3rd schedule change seems to be getting into a groove. Go NIKO!!!

Go Cougs???????

For the past several years the Washington State Cougars have played a "home" game at Qwest field. We went this year, and unfortunately, the cougs were a little less than stellar. They were quite pathetic actually. But that didn't stop Lucy from cheering!

And it didn't stop Brooklyn from eating all the popcorn. : )

Go Sounders!!!!

We have been loving our Sounders tickets this Summer. Due to a scheduling conflict, Billy was not able to go the game last Saturday (he had to go to soccer pictures with Noah and Lucy because he is coaching both their teams), I got to take Niko and 2 of his buddies to the game. We had a lot of fun! Here they are singing their hearts out to the National Anthem.

And here they are enjoying their half time treats. Is 6 cookies each too many????

Play Date/Photo Shoot

2009-09-01T17:08:00.000-07:00

Last week, Brooklyn's friend Dallis came to play for a little while. These 2 girls are hilarious together!!! I figured it was a good time to play with my camera a little bit, (how could I resist such cute models???) These are the unedited versions. If I get a chance, I will try to post some that i've played with in Photoshop.

My Little Ballerina

2009-09-01T12:59:00.000-07:00

This summer, Lucy participated in a dance camp. It was mondays and wednesdays, from 9am-5pm, for 3 weeks. At the end of the camp the dancers got to perform in Snow White and the 7 Dwarves ballet. Lucy was cast as a villager, a sunbeam, and one of the dwarves. This is the opening number where she is a villager. It was a lot of fun to watch and Lucy did a great job. (This is actually the dress rehearsal because the performance was on the same day that we flew to Cancun.)

Cancun, Cancun, I miss you so!!!

2009-08-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

Billy and I spent the last week in Cancun, Mexico. It was the best get-a-way ever!!!! We stayed at the Excellence Playa Mujeres resort. It is an all-inclusive hotel geared entirely toward couples, super romantic! It has 7 or 8 super YUMMY restaurants, 7 beautiful, warm pools, a beautiful sandy beach, activities for just about everyone, and pretty much, it is AWESOME!!!! We spent the days going from pool, to food, to beach, to pool, to lounging, to pool, to food, to beach, to pool, to food and so on and so forth. We stayed for a whole week and it was a very sad day when we had to come home, not that I didn't miss my kids, because I did, it was just so beautiful and relaxing there. Here are some of the pictures from the week.

Billy and Me in paradise!!!

The chocolate cake of all chocolate cakes. It was a daily mission to seek it out, it was supposed to be available only through room service, but we found a couple of waiters that would track it down for us. SO YUMMY!!!!!!!

This is on the back deck to our room.

Room service breakfast on our back deck.

The view from our back deck. We had what they call a swim-up suite, which means we had direct access to one of the seven pools.

Breakfast of Champions: Chocolate Fondue.

Our friends, Deanna and Paul, came on the trip too. We had so much fun together. This is Deanna and I enjoying a very healthy breakfast!

Every night there was a show in the theatre. They were all pretty good but the Michael Jackson show was the best!!!! This guy was actually really good!

One of the beautiful views around the hotel.

Billy and I on a Kayak tour. We got to Kayak out to a sunken ship, it was fun, even though it was a lot of work.

Billy and I all dirty after driving the Boogies.

On Wednesday we went on a little excursion to the jungle. We got to do a zip-line course with 11 different zip-lines. We got to drive dune-buggies (Boogies).

AND we got to swim in an under ground lake. It was SO cool! The under-ground lake was amazing, it was so deep that you couldn't see the bottom even though the water was crystal clear. It glowed like it was lit from below, but it was natural light from the openings in the cave. It was so beautiful!!!

AND we got to jump from the cliffs into the water.

Billy goin' for the kill in beach volleyball.

Deanna and I with the Mayan guy at the flea market.

Billy sailing the Catamaran. It was a daily event!

AWWWW!!!!