We have snow! And lots of it too! I took these pics this morning....this shows the "drifts" that have been created as the snow has been blown up against the fence. There is another drift on our back porch that is probably about waist deep!
Why did I snap a pic of our recycling bin? Just to show how much snow has actually fallen....it looks like about 4 or 5 inches to me.
This is NOT what I meant when I said I wanted a winter garden!
Alayna checking the lights in the star....just to make sure they all work, of course!
Gavin and Alayna were a BIG help getting the lights onto the tree!
Gavin singing for his school Christmas concert. It was a very neat concert. The theme was "Around the World at Christmas Time". Gavin's class sang "What You Gonna Call Your Pretty Little Baby?" (African American Spiritual) and "O Tannenbaum!" (Germany). Select other songs included "Here We Come A Wassailing" (England), "Para Pedir Posada" (Guatemala...Yes, the 4th graders sang in Spanish) and "Gong xi fa cai" (China...And yes, the 3rd graders actually sang in Chinese!!!) The whole thing was highly impressive!
This is the church where the concert was held...just beautiful!
I wanted to get a picture of Gavin's music teacher because he looks completely different from what I would have expected. You know, the sterotypical male elementary teacher in his 40s and wears a sweater vest....this guy looks like he should be in a rock band or something. (Sorry if I've offended any teachers out there.) I took several pictures, but this was the only one that was somewhat not blurry. Oh, and this picture is actually taken of the 5th graders who learned to play these instruments....I can't remember what they are called, but think of a bell choir, but with these sticks that you hit on your hand and the different colors produce different sounds. It was highly cool!
It has been way too long since I've posted pictures, but hopefully this little smiling face makes up for it! Cade is now six months old. He just started rolling over and scooting around on his tummy. He very much wants to crawl and one of these days (soon) he'll figure out how!
We spent Thanksgiving in Puyallup with Chad's family. Everyone was in charge of a portion of the meal.....we provided the turkey & stuffing! It was a great day spending time with everyone!
Chad and his brother, Dan, relaxing at the table after the big meal!
Kate (Dan's girlfriend), Ashtin (our niece; Tammy's oldest) & Cade posing for a pic.
Mama & Alayna taking a picture of ourselves....Alayna loves looking at herself in the viewfinder!
Princess Alayna & Batman
Ok, well back to sleep then!
Brother & Sister.... I love this picture of them together!
Chad was in Kansas City for a week long training for his new job at Yellow. He left early Sunday morning and is coming home tonight (Friday night). As I type, its 10:30 p.m..... his flight should be coming in at any time and I expect him home within about an hour or so. It was definitely a LONG week, especially with all of the Doctor appts (all three had appts this week). Oh, that reminds me. Cade had his 4 month check up and is already 17 lb, 8 oz!!! He is in roughly the 85% for both height and weight. Of course, he's still in the 10% for head size....that's my kid for you! All three of them had 10% heads....go figure!
Alayna loves to grab Mommy's cell phone and "talk" to people. She informed me that she was talking to Daddy this particular time.
Gavin can be such a weirdo sometimes! Here he is, in a laundry basket, on the chair, watching TV. 
We've had a whirlwind of a time the last couple of days. Alayna has been battling excema for well over a year now, but it really has gotten horribly bad over the last month.....of course, now that we don't have health insurance (we are covered again with Chad's new company starting Oct. 1st, soon). So, two nights ago it got so bad that Alayna had scratched her knees until they bled.....and I'm not talking about a small scratch with a little blood. I took Gavin to church and when I returned home Chad met me at the door frantically wondering where the first aid kit was. Of course, I knew exactly where it was and we had to clean it, but vaseline on it and bandage it with gause and medical tape (our biggest bandaid wasn't big enough). Poor thing was miserable! Chad said we HAVE to take her somewhere....this just can't wait any longer. So, next day I took her to our naturopathic doctor....I absolutely LOVE Dr. Jen at the Natural Childbirth & Family Clinic! So, we think its allergy-related. We're going to get allergy/food intolerance testing done in a couple of weeks (its a different dr. who does the testing and that was the soonest we could get an appt.) In the meantime, we're doing hydrocortezone cream and lots of vitamins and probiotics to get her immune system under control again. We talked lots and lots during the appt. and I mentioned my garden and we talked about all of the foods we've been eating lots of. She mentioned that the most common allergens for this time of year and from what her skin looks like are corn, tomatoes and dairy. Well, the only thing we've been eating in massive quantities are tomatoes!!!!! Dairy, sure, but we've always eaten lots of dairy. We won't know for sure until the testing, but I'm thinking that's probably the culprit! I'm avoiding all of those foods for awhile, though, until we know for sure!
My little monkey doodle in his Monkey Doodle diaper!
We went to Puyallup this weekend to spend time with Chad's family, attend our niece, Tate's, 10th birthday party and while we were there, we decided to go to the Puyallup Fair. Now, the fair is a big deal. Chad has fond memories of going to the fair each year when he was a kid. There are vendors who sell things, big barns of farm animals and tons of rides. Chad has been saying for years that we need to go to the fair and this is the first year we've gone. Above, Gavin got to try on a fire fighter jacket at the fire truck display. As for rides, Gavin was very specific on the rides he would and would not go on. The giant slide was his number 1 pick! In fact, he liked it so much he rode it twice....the first time with Daddy and the second time with me. He also decided he would ride the Ferris Wheel, which Chad went with him on. However, any ride that went round in a circle was a no go.....even the chinsy little kid rides he refused to ride.
We thought that it would be cute to get Gavin and Alayna on one of the little kid rides and they both were excited about this little motorcycle ride (basically a small carousel with little colored motorcycles), but as soon as we put Alayna on it, she freaked out! Gavin wouldn't ride by himself and the ride was for kids only, so I have no cute picture of the kids on the motorcycle ride and Alayna spent the rest of our time there in her stroller.
Megan (Chad's youngest sister) went with us and this was the ride she was most looking forward to. As you can see, you sit inside the bear and you go around in a circle and you can spin the bear (can you see the wheel that Chad is leaning on?) Despite its cuteness, this ride actually made Chad feel sick.....too much spinning!
