Snow Day!

Matthew has been wishing for snow lately and this morning he got his wish!! School was cancelled and both kids wanted to immediately go outside (while it was still dark and before eating). It was pretty hard for them to wait, but it did encourage them to get dressed quickly. I'm not a huge fan of going in the snow. It's cold and wet and there's always going to be laundry to do at the end, but I went out anyway and helped the kids build a fort, go for a walk, and have a little snowball battle. Then they were on their own while I watched from the warm house. 

 

 Matthew keeping safe behind the fort

  

I discovered that our camera could do multiple shots in a row. That was a fun little discovery today, so you get to enjoy the kids in action too. :)

Blam-o!

Now off to laundry and hot chocolate!

Merry Christmas from our Family!

Merry Christmas Friends and Family!

Here's a quick recap of our 2012:

We moved to State College, PA for 5 months. We had a great time there exploring the east coast. We visited Washington DC, Palmyra, and a few other places that were so beautiful. We made some wonderful friends while we were there too.

In June, we moved to San Diego for 2 months. We soaked up the sunshine by the pool at our apartment complex, at the beach, and at Legoland.

Before we moved back to beautiful Bremerton, we picked out a house and started the purchase process. While that was going, we lived with our dear friends and had such an amazing time. All 7 kids played hard every day and it was fantastic. A couple of the kids even helped Sean learn to ride his bike without training wheels! 

Sean started kindergarten this September and we moved into our house about a week later. We love having a house, even though it will take some work to get it in a more perfect condition. It meets all our needs and I can't wait to start a garden next spring.

Those are the highlights, and now here are some pictures of our two handsome boys:

We wish you all the best!

Matthew's Birthday

Matthew turned four! I can’t believe how fast time goes. We actually had cake the day before since Jon had to go out of town on his actual birthday.  He would not make a normal smile for the camera; he kept doing this crazy winking thing, but he’s still cute and he was super happy.

He was so, so excited about his presents. I think he only had 4 or 5, but he had the biggest smile the whole time. It was so precious!

Here's his birthday interview:

What did you do for your birthday?

Opened my presents

What is your favorite color?
Orange!

What is your favorite toy right now?
a truck

What is your most favorite thing to do?
open presents

What are your friends’ names?
Eliza and Alyssa, and Baddy (Alyssa is a girl in Sean's class and Baddy is the nickname for his imaginary friend BadMatthew)

What is your favorite food?
cookies

What is your favorite drink?
water and rice milk

What is your favorite animal?
an orange dinosaur

What do you want to be when you grow up?
a dad

What is your favorite song?

The bird song (moves like Jagger)

What is your favorite book?
Creepy Monsters, Sleepy Monsters

What is your most favorite thing to do with Dad?
wrestle

What is your most favorite thing to do with Mom?
hug her

Oh how we love our sweet Matthew boy!

Thanksgiving 2012

**UPDATE: Pictures have been added!!**

I'm not able to post pictures right now and that's super frustrating, but I thought I'd at least write about what we're up to.

We had such a nice long weekend of fun! Mom and Grandpa came up the day before and we made a couple pies. Thursday the Espinos came up and the kids were so excited to see each other again. Jon’s in charge of cooking the Cornish game hens (we’ve cooked them since 2008).

Some highlights included the kids dressing up, putting puzzles together, wrestling, Isabel reading to everyone, playing games, Grandpa washing all the dishes, and lots of eating.

Why are these children attacking their great grandpa?! 

Grandpa at his post.  

 I love Jon! He cracks me up!

The next day was really relaxing and perfect.

The day before Thanksgiving, Jon discovered that we had about a foot of water in our crawl space, so Saturday morning he rented a sump pump and pumped it all out. We figure it must have come through the crawl space entrance (the door was broken so when it rained 6 inches in one day, it all collected under our house.) He finished that job right as Dad and the Garner grandparents arrived for the day. Amy came back up that day too. We went to the Naval Undersea Museum and spent a couple hours there looking at all the exhibits and watching the kids play. Sunday, we all headed to Tacoma for a continuation of the party. We stayed at a hotel with Dad with a pool!

It was so nice to have so many days in a row of fun with so much family. It was hard to go back home and to reality.  I guess we can’t vacation all the time!

Matthew's Cuteness

I wanted to write a couple things down so I don't forget them.

We watched Ethan (our friends' 10 month old boy) yesterday. I had the boys clean up all the little choking hazards around the house before he came over. We all had a good time playing with him, and today Matthew noticed that there were magnets on the fridge and said "Oh no! Mom, we have to move these magnets so baby Ethan won't choke on them." Then I told him it was ok because Ethan wasn't coming over today and he very sadly said "Awe!" He also told me yesterday "Ethan is so cute and that's why I love him."


We had a great, long Thanksgiving weekend with lots of family and fun adventures. Our first night back home by ourselves, Matthew said to Jon and I, "Sean and I are the luckiest! We're the luckiest boys!"

More pretty fall colors

We occasionally get dry days in our part of Washington, and when that happens, we head outside! The boys like to ride their bikes "around town" which means around the neighborhood. There is a tree that has been dropping big, beautiful leaves and the kids love stomping or riding through them.

I'm glad these guys don't clean up the leaves immediately when they fall. What would entertain Matthew and Sean if they had? 

Matthew's Imaginary Friend

Matthew has a friend he talks about a lot. His name is Bad Matthew. His bad Matthew friend likes to push the fire alarm button in the elevator. His bad Matthew friend just eats candy. Bad Matthew's mom thinks it's funny when Bad Matthew does naughty stuff.

I asked Matthew some more about his friend today.
He's a kid about Sean's size. He has crunchy hair (which means it's long) because his mom never cuts it. And his hair is pink. He's 4 years old and he lives in Washington so we can go to his house. He's nice to us and he's bad to us too because he ties us up. His eyes are pink and red. His other eye has an ouchy. His mom put a bandaid on it with medicine and he winks. He likes to eat rice milk.

It cracks me up when Matthew gets an old phone to call his Bad Matthew friend because he'll push the buttons and then say "Hi Baddy!"

I was remembering that Sean had an imaginary friend he called Jon Brady. I looked up that post and he was about the same age that Matthew is now. I wonder how long Bad Matthew will stick around. I hope his poor choices don't rub off on my sweet Matthew.

Bike Riding!!

Sean can ride a bike!! The kids are usually on bikes for a large chunk of the day. All summer they rode on the large driveway and had a great time. One of our friends learned how to ride her bike without training wheels this summer and that may have motivated Sean to try. Our other friend has been encouraging Sean to try too and giving Sean some pointers. Well, in the last couple of days all the stars aligned and Sean can ride a bike!! It's not his bike, and it's a short one so he can put his feet down if he needs to, but I LOVE that he has this new skill. Check him out!

Sean started school!!

My sweet Sean boy started Kindergarten this week. He has been looking forward to school for a while now and was so excited for the first day to finally arrive. Before I took him to school, I was on facebook and I saw lots of other first day of school pictures. So when I was taking Sean's picture he asked me if I would put it on the computer and on the internet. Of course I will Sean. That's what I do. :)

  

He liked making various faces and poses.

 

   

Matthew, of course, wanted to be in on the action. He also brought his backpack to school to drop off Sean.

    

 Three of the sillies I live with!

Sean absolutely loves school. He's so excited to go back on Monday. I think he was a little upset that today was a Saturday. He's so stinking cute and I'm proud of his independence and eagerness to learn. The morning of his first day he crawled into bed with me and told me that he said a prayer for me that I wouldn't miss him too much while he was at school. This boy is good for my heart! I'm excited to see all the progress he'll make this year.