Winery grounds

Vic and I have a membership to a winery in the Woodinville wine country here, and we had a shipment to pick up, so we took the kids to play on the pretty grounds. There is a resident peacock, duckies, outdoor music concerts, and a little cafe, so we had an impromptu picnic, explored and just hung around one afternoon.

Family Tea Party

We took the kids to a cute and fancy little tea room in downtown Seattle where they have a children's tea for our birthday girl. The kids got several courses of goodies and got to admire all the fancy girly surroundings. Vic and I had a very yummy lunch and grown up tea.

Birthday Girl!

It was Sofia's 7th birthday and she invited 4 girls from her class for a Junie B. Jones birthday party. She loves those books and knows so many silly details that we tried to incorporate into the party. One book has her wearing a "hair net" (we used a shower cap) and rubber gloves when she works in the school cafeteria, and Junie loves chocolate donuts, which we had instead of cake. She also likes to wear hairbows, so we played "Pin the Bow on Junie B" and played a "musical chairs" type game where each girl had to put on something that Junie B wears when the dress up bag stopped at them. Sofia thought of so many of the ideas, and all the girls really had a good time together. We loved only having the 4 of them, it was just right. The girls got to take home a Junie B. book of their own as the parting gift, and, of course, the shower cap. :-) (little N napped through the whole screeching, giggling party, that boy can sleep!)

Feb 2011

We had a beautiful, sunny February except for a very snowy Valentine's week, which was very cold! The kids had Valentine parties, then were out of school for a mid-winter break, so it worked out that they had lots of free time to play in the snow. We dressed up fancy for Valentine's day and had a fancy chef-daddy dinner. Sofia read her Junie B. Jones "Mushy Gushy Valentime" book and a "Stella" snow book to us. To get out and soak up some sun, we went on a couple of hikes along nature trails close by and rode bikes at a nice lake park. We're looking forward to getting outside more this summer now that we're all moved in, and can't wait to see all the pretty tulips soon, and a date night out in a couple of weeks, just the two of us, at a very well-talked about steak house here (gotta see how this omaha beef stacks up to texas best.)

Jan 2011

This post seems to ramble on, sorry in advance. The kids are pulling at my sleeve to be finished, so please forgive the poor editing. The end to the holidays and going back to school seem to be a blur and I've only just now stopped to reflect on what we've been up to. The school year seems to dominate a lot of our time, and with only a first grader, I'm starting to understand just how busy I'll be as the others start school. I have a tendency to sign up for a lot of things.

Stella is now already registered for kindergarten next year and is still enjoying ballet/tap, and Sofia just finished her first research paper on penguins and presented it to the class with her patented easel-like report she designed. She has gymnastics now once a week and really loves it, though she collapses in bed on Wed nights. Both the girls are reading (Sofia is reading constantly now) so I got the girls booklights so they can stay up and read in bed at night on weekends, like a special treat. We are baking 3 dozen valentine’s day cookies today for Stella’s class party tomorrow, and Sofia's party is on Monday, more cookies are needed for that. Nico is putting 3 and 4 words together now and is making us laugh a lot. He is using words more to express himself, which is also bringing relief to us all. He’s still not sitting down and eating a ton at meal time, but will pick all day, he’s way too busy. He likes taking things apart and building things, and his trucks. He plays Legos with his sisters a lot now, he and Stella are building something now, which he will soon crash with his truck.

I am doing some contract business analyst work again through April and started my naptime and nighttime hours last night – so hard to do when you’re so tired at the end of the day. But I can’t complain, I’m so fortunate to get to do it from home without childcare. I'm also teaching a children's liturgy class at church and am going to our church's MOPS on Thursday mornings twice a month. Vic is enjoying his job, he is exceling at it as well, and is also active in the Knights of Columbus at church, which he is already trying to reorganize. We are looking forward to some visits from family this summer, and to the gorgeous weather, though it hasn't been bad at all as far as winters go. We are so thankful for everything we've been given this year, and for our families and good friends who keep in touch from Texas.

Rest in Peace to Vic's grandma in France who passed away this past week. We are praying for you and for Vic's mom during this difficult time. She lived to be 99, she would have been 100 in June, and Vic's mom got to visit her in Toulouse only a week or so before she died.

Also, just realized I didn't mention the pictures yet... they are from a park visit, we are still trying to get over how everything stays green here year round. We also had a bowling outing. We've decided we will all stick to XBOX bowling for the forseeable future, as our scores are much much better than when real-life bowling. Did you ever think growing up that you'd have to distinguish "real-life" for things like bowling, javlon throwing, or discus? When we said we would go bowling last weekend, the kids asked, "XBOX bowling or real-life bowling?"

Loving the XBOX

We were very fortunate that Santa brought us an XBOX for Christmas from the Microsoft company store. He even got to use V's discount to get the Kinect camera which makes for no controllers. The camera tracks your moves and then at the end will playback what you looked like while playing the game! The kids absolutely love it, especially on drizzly winter days when no one wants to go outside. Here are a couple of videos, it is hilarious, and amazing how much energy they have -- they will go for hours on the weekend!

We are Godparents!

Sweet little Natalie is our first Godchild. What a sweetie and a blessed ceremony with all the congregation taking part. She ended up being baptized on the Baptism of the Lord Day after several scheduling conflicts. It was meant to be! We had a nice reception back at her house afterwards. Congratulations little Natalie!