Our First Visitors

Yesterday afternoon our first visitors, my parents, arrived. Their flight took 2 1/2 hours to fly from Ontario, California to Seattle, Washington. We spent the afternoon taking a walk, going to the park, hanging out and having dinner.

This morning we hung out at Home School Alternative while the boys had their classes. We went on a tour of the school and then Darrick took my parents on a tour of the Naval Base.

In the afternoon we headed to Seattle, since it was a clear sunny day, to go into the Space Needle. The lookout point is 520 feet up and we had to take an elevator up. I hate heights and thought I was going to puke on the way up but I made it!

The views were amazing and it was not too cold!

After we got back down we walked around the Seattle Center.

We found a monorail and decided to take a round trip. The kids LOVED it and wanted to sit right in the front.

After dinner we went up in the Space Needle again to see the city at night. I still did not like the ride up and hugged the back wall of the elevator but it was a little better then going up in the day. The views were so beautiful with all the lights.

It was a great day and fun for our first time in the Space Needle!

Oliver gets a Pet Snuggli

The kids are so in love with Oliver and wanted to get him a Snuggli-how could we say no?

Unwelcomed Visitor

This week I was picking up a pile of laundry to put it in the washer and out popped this guy! I freaked!!! He is so gross and big and his legs are so long. The boys got a cup and we put it on the spider so Darrick could take care of it. Jacob would not let Darrick kill it so they walked it out to a field and let it go there. Hopefully he does not come back...

Valentine's Day 2010

"It's the most wonderful time of the year!"

If you know me then you know that Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday, I love hearts and red is my favorite color.


A wonderful mom and woman that I have met through adoption, Laura Clapp (you can check out her blog on the right), introduced me to the idea of starting family traditions. She has awesome ones, some of which I have borrowed. Others I have come up with on my own.


We started off the day with a new tradition of some small gifts. Darrick buys for the girls and I buy for the boys. We bought each of them their own card and wrote a personal message to them. The boys each got 2 candy treats from me and Naomi got flowers and a stuffed animal from Darrick. We bought a little something for each other too.


Then at night we planned a special family candle light dinner. We picked out a new recipe-chicken Parmesan with pasta and had fancy glasses, filled with peach tea and dined by candle light.

Then after our meal it was time for dessert. I made chocolate covered strawberries and Micah and Jacob made chocolate covered pretzels. They were delicious and the kids really got into eating them!

After the kids left the table I asked Darrick to slow dance with me. But we were soon interrupted by Naomi and Jacob who wanted to dance too. So we put on Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman and Darrick danced with Naomi and I danced with Jacob. Micah wanted no part of the dancing and said he would take pictures. P.S. Please excuse the laundry in the background!!!

A note about Cinderella:

While we were waiting to bring Naomi home this song came out and Darrick played it for me. We both fell in love with it and played it often as our hearts longed for our daughter. Little did we know that Naomi would be so in love with Cinderella and dress up like her every day. It has made this song that much more special for us. Naomi calls it her "Daddy and Me song".

Making Valentine Cookies

Our "new" Van

We have been getting by with just our minivan since we moved here. Now that the kids are taking some classes we definitely need two cars. We have been on the search for a while trying to decide what would be right. Should we get a small little car that Darrick could use to get back and forth to work? Should we get a car that can hold the whole family? We finally decided that it would be a good idea to have a second car that would hold 7. We were so excited to find this van conversion! It is a used 1992. Our parents have both owned vans and we always joked around about getting our own van some day.

Our new van is a real classic. It has wood paneling throughout, mood lighting, a spot for a tv and dust buster in the back, and the back bench folds down into a bed. We love it! What do you think?