Roller Skating = Pain.

The PTA at the kids elementary school raised money for the kids to have a free skate night. The kids have not had a lot of experience roller skating. Troy and I decided to sit and watch our children get hurt.

Can you all imagine Troy roller skating?

OK, stop laughing.

Ella and Anna did great. Soren and Olivia had a harder time staying up.
Roller skating is dangerous. The kids had bumped mouths, heads, legs, arms and bruised butts.
Boy am I a good Mom just watching all of this. Anna and Ella would take turns with Olivia trying to help her.

It got so bad that the last time Olivia fell, she didn't want to get up.

"Help.......me..........Mom.... save........me....."

Soren fell and pulled his groin muscle and was in tears. So we packed up the kids and took them for an ice cream cone at DQ.

I don't think rollerskating is going to become one of my kids hobbies.

Although, I may join a roller derby group.

Just Sayin'!

A weird week.

My baby girl is sick. Just a cold, but we don't like colds for Olivia. It scares me to death. With all her health problems, colds always turn into something bad. So we are keeping her comfortable and lot's of water.

Yesterday she smacked her eye on her own knee. Leave it to my kids to do that.

Soren was feeling a little left out.

Then to add to her beat up look, she has lost a second tooth. She really looks like she's been in a boxing match.

On to a random picture of Lynden Washington. From what people have told me, it was settled by the dutch. Really?

It's a cute little town. Lot's of old dutch buildings.

Last Friday was a crazy day. Soren was home from school sick, Logan hit a skunk and I was having to make extra driving trips to pick up kids. Soren and I got into an argument about whether or not the above picture is of a sheep. He told me sheep don't have horns. I argued until I was blue in the face. Finally I just told him it was a goat and he shut up.

There are so many gorgeous old barn around here. Sometime I need to just drive around and take pictures of just all the barns.

This is the poor skunk.

Or should I say, poor Anna and Logan who had to smell it after the car ran over it.

Saturday we were all working out in the yard. We had the Buster, Nutmeg, and Poppy outside with us to get some exercise. So in case you don't know who that is it's a little dog, bunny and cat.

All of a sudden the eagles come screeching and land just by our shed. All of us panicked, racing around to get all the little animals in the house. It was quite all very comical.

They would watch us and we would watch them. Troy told Olivia that eagles eat little kids too. So off she goes screaming to Soren, " Soren, run inside. They eat small children."

The kids and Troy went back to there chores and I stayed in the yard and just watched.

They are just amazing.

It's been a weird week. Eagles snatching small children, dead skunks and little girl boxing matches.

Welcome to my life.

20 years since our first date.

This picture was taken 20 years ago. Twenty years ago I fell in love with my best friend. I was a girl of just 16 and Troy was a young man of 20.

February 11th will be the 20th anniversary of our first date. We were both so naive and clueless to what lay ahead in our lives.

Now twenty years later we both look at this picture and laugh. We aren't the same kids who were laughing and messing around without a care in the world.
Twenty years later, I am still in love with my best friend. He has given me 5 beautiful children.

There is no way to describe the love I feel for me children.

In November I flew up to Vancouver to be with Troy for a few days. This was when I was still in New Mexico and he had already started his job. We needed to find a house, so I hopped on a plane and off I went to Canada. That was the first time I had ever left the kids for more than a couple of days. The first time to leave Olivia at all. It was so much fun just to be with Troy.

We laughed.

And laughed some more.

We've grown up together over the past twenty years.

We've had babies, graduated college, moved all over the place, changed jobs, made friends, lost friends. We have made some major changes in our lives. We have laughed together, cried together. We have been happy with each other, and couldn't stand one another.

I know one thing for sure in my life though. Troy loves me like no other.

He is the most tender of Fathers. The most loving of husbands.

I am the luckiest to have him as my husband and daddy to my kiddos.

Local wildlife, including children.

There are the most lovely deer that come and feed in the strawberry fields by our house. I love to sit and watch them. I've started to carry my camera around with me all the time. There is so much wildlife out here, I'm always spotting something.

Behind the deer there is a dairy farm.
I had to pull off the road for this picture. Don't know what kind of bird it is. I swear it looked right at me. I could just imagine what it was thinking.

This is the eagle across the street from us.

I think it's the daddy eagle. In the picture below you can see the nest to the left. He just will sit on the branch and watch the nest. I haven't seen the other eagle.

Maybe there will be baby eagle's soon?

What do they call baby eagles?

Eaglits?

Eaglings?

I think these are the same deer I saw before. There is just 4 of them. Aren't they pretty? Troy said that they would taste good.

Seriously Troy?

This is Mt. Baker from the road by our house. I was waiting for the kids to get off the bus and just taking some random pictures.

On the way home from picking up Anna from school, I had Troy stop so I could take some pictures of some really cute houses. This little house is so small, but so beautiful. Love, love, love the barn.

Look at this beauty! Not loving the green garage door. Love the windows though.

Ok, so back to picking up kids from school. There is almost nothing that warms my heart more than watching my kids great my husband when they get home or when he comes home. They hug and kids him. I on the other hand don't get much attention. Why is it different for Daddies?

That's why I was so surprised when this happened.

Oh my stinkin' heck. Is she just the cutest thing you have ever seen? Click on the picture below and make it larger so you can see her expression. I gave birth to the most beautiful children. She melts my heart.

I love it when the kids go to school in the morning. I get peace and quiet for a while. Get chores done. Relax, find my inner peace.

I love it more when they come home!

Eagles, Bigfoot and little girls.

My fascination with the eagles is becoming borderline obsessive. I had just taken Buster and Izzie outside for a potty break this morning when I heard screeching. Off in the distance I could see a couple of eagles flying over the nest that I always talk about. These couple of pictures are from my front porch.

After I realized that it was the eagles so close to us, I grabbed Buster up in my arms and ran to the house. I grabbed the door handle and went to go inside but the door was locked. So you can just imagine me screaming " the eagles are coming, the eagles are coming" and running into a locked door. Poor little Buster got smashed in between me and the door. All I was trying to do was save the poor little thing from being snatched. My kids just laughed at me.

Later on in the day Troy and I walked down to the bus stop to pick up Ella and Olivia from school. Soren was home this week sick. I went to show Troy the eagles and they were just sitting off the side of the road.

My flash wasn't on. I could kick myself. Aren't they amazing? Troy stayed back a ways. You know he's scared of birds. It has to do with this unfortunate incident of him being attacked by a falcon. It's quite a hilarious story. I'll have to tell it later.

I can't stand how excited Olivia is to see Daddy. I wish I had that kind of energy at 4:00 in the afternoon. Ella is like "don't embarass me Daddy".

Then she spotted me. I wish.

I was holding Buster.

Poor little thing. He can barely keep up with her.

Then off we go back home. I do this daily. I love this walk. I have to admit that I always take Izzie with me. There is a little, OK huge part of me that is a little scared of the woods.

I swear, one of these days Big Foot is going to walk out of here and want to chat with me or something.

Another spot that I walk by.

It's kind of creepy when I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up and Izzie will go into her point stance. I wouldn't trade it for the world though. I am so lucky to be living here. The smell of the woods is amazing. The sound that it makes are beautiful even though I'm a huge chicken. Good thing I have Izzie girl to protect me from Big Foot.

So one day you will all here about how I was attacked by a Bald Eagle or mauled by Big Foot. Who knows, maybe Big Foot will become my friend and help me with my yard work this summer.