Nativity Collection

I've been slowly collecting Nativities throughout our married life. Whenever a family member travels out of the country I try to remember to ask them to find me a nativity set in the style of whatever country they're in. I've missed getting a French or Italian version from forgetting to ask. Shoot. Anyway, here's what I do have. Not all are foreign, but all are loved.

Starting from the back left side, the carved gourd is from Brazil that my brother Spencer got for me while on his mission. Clockwise from there is the set Spencer and Anna his lovely wife picked up in Jerusalem. In front of that is a homemade set from my mom. To the left is another set from my mom, made from little gardening pots. The bottom left is a nativity my niece just got for me in Austria (It's my favorite!) and just behind that is a set from Nepal. Behind that just in front of the picture is one from Montana (not a foreign country) that I got at a craft fair. I have three or four nativity ornaments for the tree; one from Jerusalem and the other's local or handmade. Finally, I have a wall hanging quilt of the nativity that Rob's step-mom made for us last year that is very beautiful and detailed. Oh, and I can't forget our Little People set or the finger puppets that the kids get to play with. I guess I do have quite a few sets!

I also collect Santa's. I'll try to get those chronicled sometime this next month.

Fun in Snowy Montana

Halloween

We kept things simple for Halloween this year since there would be no actual tricking or treating. The kids had a great time at their school's costume parade, which is where these picture are from. Our ward had a fun dinner/spook ally/candy fest on Saturday night where we got loaded up on all the candy we couldn't possibly eat and which is now with Rob at work and will get eaten by starving college students instead of me. We did our usual candy for toys swap with Sam and Grace and they both ended up with new lego sets and just a few pieces of candy and are both thrilled with that state of affairs. Costumes were easy; Sam's skeleton is the same pattern as 2 years ago

Eva's pumpkin costume was bought last November on clearance:
And Grace's Princess Fairy costume was cobbled together with things around the house (shirts/tights), from the dollar store (wings/crown), homemade (skirt by Nana, wand by me),or bought for the occasion (sparkle shoes which get loves from Grace and Eva).
All in all, a nice, lazy Halloween. What's not so nice is I now have to spend a good chunk of my morning putting halloween decor away when I'd rather be reading and munching on a few pieces of chocolate that 'slipped out' of the bag before Rob could take all the candy to work!

The Colors of Autumn

Waiting for Dad to be home

Accessories

Eva is a girl who likes her accessories:

Eyeware

Hats and Necklaces

Sunglasses and Braclets

Hats again

Shoes

Batman Cape

Riding the Rails

Eva on the FrontRunner just outside Salt Lake City

Lovesac

On our way home from visiting with Rob's family over the weekend, we stopped off in Moses Lake to buy some Lovesacs. Rob's been wanting one of these for years and he keeps a pretty close eye on Craigslist looking for a nice, affordable used one. Well, he struck lucky because this family was selling 2 gently used sacs for an extremely reasonable price. Moses Lake is about 100 miles from Spokane so if we had been home we probably wouldn't have gone for them, but since we were passing through anyway...

So then our only problem was how to fit them in the car. A car that was already full of 2 adults, 3 kids, a crib, 2 scooters, a baby backpack, a large storage tupperware box, 2 backpacks of clothes, 1 suitcase, 1 large tote bag full of clothes, 1 briefcase, 4 pillows, and 2 blankets. Not to mention all the little things like travel foods, toys, games, diaper bag, etc. But Rob's not a Packer for nothing (hee, hee) and somehow he managed to pack everything and everyone in the car, without even strapping things to the roof. Here's how we ended up:

Can you find Grace? She wasn't so happy being shoved in the back, but she was the only one with access to the DVD player so that kept her occupied till we got home. Sam had Rob's iPad to play on and Eva was just within arm's reach of me so I could hand back fish crackers and bottles. I had to sit cross-legged the whole way, but suffered no ill effects beyond a little stiffness.

There was no way Rob would get any use from the rear view mirror. Check out the back of the van:

We made it home without incident and the kids have been happily diving into the lovesacs ever since. Rob and I watched a movie last night and we both easily fit on the big one with room to spare. Well worth the trouble to get them home I'd say.

A Brief Conversation with Eva

1st shiner and Father's Day

For Father's Day the kids pooled their money and took Rob to a Spokane Indians baseball game. They had a great time watching the game and eating $1 hotdogs and ice cream sandwiches. The Indians aren't really that great of a team, I gather, and they lost pretty spectacularly. On the way out to the car, Rob and Sam decided to play catch in the parking lot. (Allowing a 7-year-old to throw a baseball surrounded by all those windshields... a sure sign Mom was not around).Luckily no cars were hit, but not so luckily Sam's face was.

These pictures are from this morning and Sam was not at all happy about me taking them. But I felt that we should document this mile-stone in a young boy's life. The first black eye is pretty important, right?

The rest of our Father's Day celebrations were fairly mild and pain-free. Instead of Rob taking the day off from fatherly chores, he actually had a day showing off what a good husband and father he is. He got up with the baby so I could sleep in, did dishes, got the kids ready for church, and helped prepare all the meals. I would like to say that I've been fighting off a cold for a few days now and just couldn't get everything done on my own. So if Father's Day is intended to remind us just how much we need and rely on the father's in our life, then I say job well done!

Subtle hint

Any guesses as to what Eva wants right now?

Sisters

Grace 2006

Eva 2010

Same dress, same shoes, same hair.

Same drool spot

(actually not the same shoes, but close enough)

Not exactly a dainty eater

Will blow your mind

I'm a big fan of chocolate and especially interesting chocolate and this bar caught my eye at Walmart a few weeks ago.

This chocolate is just as bizarre and fabulous as it sounds. I'm addicted and I bet you will be too!

Welcome to the family

It's late at night Friday. Well,actually not that late, but I'm pretty tired so it feels late. I'm writing on our brand spanking new iPad and I just can't seem to turn it off and go to bed. This thing is so much fun! Rob's been saving his pennies for this since it was announced; well,really before it was announced because he knew something like this was coming. Anyway, he had a target of September to buy it, but we had an unexpected windfall this week that got him exactly to his goal to buy this nifty thing. So happy early graduation to rob!!!! Now you just have to make sure you get through your defense successfully.
So we've only had the iPad for a few days but we've all been using it a lot. We have to use the timer for Sam and Grace to make sure that they both get equal time playing. They've been so excited about it that it really has almost felt like we have a new member of the family! I suppose that feeling will wear off with time. Until then, however, in suppose I'm going to be having a hard time getting to bed!

Eating a Banana Muffin

Hello my lovelies

This is the first year that we've been serious about having a garden. We had a garden plot at the community garden in Pullman two years ago but out-of-town vacations quickly lead to weed takeovers and we harvested very little. Last year we had some tomato and pepper plants in pots on the deck which were nice, but we didn't get as much produce as I wanted. This year we decided to follow Mel Bartholemew's Square Foot Gardening technique. Rob built two 2x4 boxes for me and him and two 2x2 boxes for the kids. We planted a few weeks ago, a little early it turns out because we had a few frosty nights. However, we only lost a few sprouts and one tomato plant. Here's to my future salads and salsas. Aren't they looking great?

Three minutes of Eva

April Happens

I can't believe the month is almost over and yet I don't feel that I've really accomplished anything to talk about. So I just picked some of the best pictures of this month and we'll call that a blog post. Maybe I'll put a little explaining with each picture to give some context. If you're lucky. And if Eva doesn't wake up in the next few minutes. Which really, to be honest, she's going to wake up in the next few minutes. And she doesn't like me to be on the computer when she's awake. Cause that means I'm not giving her my 100% undivided attention. And that just doesn't go down with this girl:

Spring is slowly creeping home around here. Almost like it's trying to give winter one more chance to show itself. But the sun sometimes pokes its head out. And Grace sometimes has her eyes open:

Our garden boxes are built, filled, and planted. If it freezes and kills off my summer veggies I'm going to have words to say.

Eva is one and she loves chocolate cupcakes:
And her bottle:
And her brother and sister but sometimes she's not so sure about them:
Grace REALLY likes bumper-cars. Smashing at high speed into your pesky older brother and sending him skidding across the way. What's not to like?

Sam's leaning how to be obnoxious when it comes to taking pictures. Time to confiscate Calvin and Hobbes:
Eva has gone from detesting the very sight of a hat to actually leaving them on her head for brief moments of time:

Rob's scouting out back-packing destinations for us for the summer. Really I think the biggest appeal is that he gets to buy fancy light-weight new gear. Good thing Gonzaga is giving him a job so we can fund it all. Congratulations honey! Make sure you get me a comfy sleeping bag.