Science Day

The boys got some science kits for christmas. Sammy worked with his secret formulas and made rock candy and glow in the dark goo... Alex built a volcano... A great indoor activity on a chilly (-10) kind of day...

Princess in Training

Katie loves to dress up. She's all girl! Of course she's also quite the helper too. Check out the fancy dress as she cleans up the toilet.... ;)

Christmas Roundup

A belated wish to you and your family for a peaceful and healthy holiday season...

It's been a busy and enjoyable downtime for our family. We still have 3 true believers of Santa so the mystery and magic were back again this year. I'm hoping it lasts next year but the boys are getting smarter ;) The kids received a portable north pole e-mail from Santa this year that really was effective in getting a certain someone off the naughty list. Especially when the Santa at Home Depot was able to reinforce the good list with the help of a little elf...

The christmas wishes were exactly fitting to their personalities. Alex wished for a Mario Stuffed toy, Sammy a Lego castle and Katie a doll. Luckily Santa was able to fill all their wishes on Christmas morning and there were 3 excited kids. Their Nana and Papa filled the car with lots of presents from gifts to legos to a bike for each kid. Alex stocked up on Zhu zhu pets and accessories, a digital camera, spy gear, and cars and trucks. Sammy's pile was pretty much all lego to his extreme excitement, but to his groans there was clothes too :) He's already finished 1 of the big kits and has started another. He'd do legos all day if I let him. Katie was happy with her games, puzzles and learning toys, she got a lego barn too and had it put together on christmas day.

My favorite memory is of Katie yelling up the electric fire place after opening each present, saying "Thanks Santa!"

We've been stuck in the cycle of drs. appts for the kids and vet appts for the dogs. So each day has been busy. Sammy is having ear surgery again later this week, so our 2nd half of break will not be as enjoyable. However he's a pretty good patient so hopefully all will go smoothly...

Just another day in the life at our house, it's always an adventure and certainly never quiet :)

Catcha!

Snapped this one the other day of Alex---READING!

Gingerbread Village

We made a Gingerbread Village this year... Every year Alex remembers his tradition and decorates his house nearly the same with Peppermint Candies all around and Gummi Bears waiting to see Santa inside. Sammy has his own tradition of making his house out of bricks... He uses licorice and fills all the sides with them. Katie is just happy and decorates to her own creative imagination...

A little bit of wintertime...

We've been getting little amounts of snow each week. This makes it perfect "kid shoveling" weather!! Check out a few shoveling the deck... The 2 babies of the house are growing!

Sammy turns 8!

Happy Birthday to Sammy who turns a big 8 today! His birthday requests were so him. He wanted Hotdogs on rolls, a big salad, and veggie trays and a Batman Cake... He's unique in his own way... He's growing up quickly and has passed the 4 foot mark on the wall. He's been doing great this past month in school and has a real love of reading. He will curl up with a book over any other activity... Happy Birthday Sammy :)

Greetings from Alaska

November has been a beautiful month with nice warm temps and periodic snowfalls.. If only winter would stay this warm (20s-30s)!

Halloween Catchup

We visited the Senior Center for Trick or Treat and the kids had a blast filling their buckets and seeing the "spooky" decorations in each apartment house... Alex was a baseball player, Katie a Sailor girl and Sammy was Dr. Sammy. They each had 3 layers underneath their costume, because it was cold and windy... trick or treating Alaska style...

Photo Shoot

As Katie Sings "F-A-M-I-L-Y" My Family....

Samism

Sammy brought home a Magic Tree House book from school, Revolutionary War on Sunday. Then he proceeded to go upstairs to the bookshelf and find a copy of the book, George Washington's Socks (which I didn't even know we had!). He brought both books down and said look it's the same picture. And wouldn't you know the boy doesn't miss a trick, it was a very similar picture of George Washington standing in a boat with the Flag and other people. Let's hope he can use that attention to detail to find his gloves that he lost at school......

Snow

This is the snowman that Alex built... This is the guilty face that ate the snowman that Alex built.This was the one pic I was able to take before I had to chase the guilty party around the yard..

Meet Daisy

She's an 8 week old Springer Spaniel :)

Pumpkin Time

Signs of Winter

It's coming. We usually see snow around the 10th of October, it doesn't stick yet... But the signs are there that it's coming...

*It's been below freezing most of this week and the frost has coated the ground white.

*The birds are back in full force at the bird feeder.

*The moose are gone. Don't worry they'll come back when the snow gets too deep.

*We went to 3 lakes today to feed ducks and couldn't find any. So we went to a creek and fed some aged red salmon. They liked the bread and the kids thought it was very cool that the fish were eating their bread.

*We've got all the summer stuff closed up, the camper packed up and the winter gear out and waiting.

*There are several days this week they are calling for chance of snow.

I think we are going to wake up to a surprise of white very soon.

Alexism

The kids have been very lucky lately finding coins on the ground every where we go. The other day we were in the grocery store and Alex asked what the box at the counter with money was for. We read the tag and it was a cancer fundraiser, he reached in his pocket and pulled out his 11 cents that he had found at school this day and put it in the box. Then he proceeded to find another quarter and ran back to the front of the store and put it in the box too...

Puppy Love

We got an updated photo of Daisy today on her 5 week birthday :)

Change in Season

In typical Alaska fashion the change from Fall to Winter has started with extreme weather. We've had 2 days of heavy winds with gusts to 75 mph. There were lots of power problems and down trees, Big trees, nice trees.... Sad to say all those yellow leaves have blown away and the weather seems to have that nip in the air that says snow is coming. We typically see a first snowfall around Oct. 10th so it's coming........

Best friends

Katie is happy to be back at her Pappy and Nana's house during the day. Pepe is her best friend...

Tried to get pretty fall shots today but we peaked colors yesterday. It was 33 this morning and boy the leaves have started falling now...

Puppy Love

We're adopting a little girl again. She's 2 weeks old and is a brown and white springer spaniel. Here's a pic with her mom and siblings.... Daisy will come home before Halloween... Yep you can call us crazy ;)

Kateism

Katie goes out with me each morning when we take the dogs out. She always glances for the sky and sings to the Moon and then starlight, starlight to the stars. The other day she asked the Moon... "Mr. Moon, where's your cow"? (Fairy tale... The cow jumped over the moon)

Back to School

Sorry for the absence to the blog posts but it's been a busy few weeks getting back in the school grind. This year we have 4 different school schedules and it's taking some juggling to figure it all out. Alex started 3rd grade at the new 3rd-5th grade school, it's on the same campus as his old school, but it's a new building with big kids! Sammy is in 2nd grade in the k-2 school. I've got the HS schedule. So there are the first 3 schedules that we've been fine tuning the past 3 weeks. Today Katie added her school to the mix and started preschool, 3 days a week.

Here's the munchkin on her first big day of school. She loved it and wants to go back!

Here are the boys from a few weeks back when they were waiting for the school bus. They were too big to get their pic taken with the bus!

Note the leaves are not green anymore but more yellow as fall is definately here in Alaska!

Happy Birthday Katie!

My big girl turned 4 today! And she was super-excited that it was her birthday!!! Here's Katie with Momma and Pappy... Hanging out with her big dollhouse present that was taller than her...

Opening presents, yep she can do that very well, even all the cards. She has the very fine motor skills to open them nicely!

Laughing with Nana...

I love the balloons!! Note the Dora colors to match the dora theme!

A birthday shot with her older brothers....

A shot of her Dora birthday cake. It took her older brothers showing her how to blow out candles the first time, but by the second time she got them all herself!

Happy Birthday Katie! Thank you for all the birthday wishes and cards, Katie LOVED them all!!

A little more fishing

We took another short camping trip up north to Montana Creek. The boys have really developed their fishing skills and patience and will stand in the river for hours on end. The above picture, is Sammy with his Pink Salmon snag. He was SO excited to hook a fish.

Jack and Annie

Jack and Annie have taken many tree house adventures in our house lately. Sammy, in particular, is currently obsessed with the Magic Tree House books. He listens to them on audio tapes and is even reading one of them. Something he's very proud of doing on his own. He take his book and go hides in a corner and does a really good job of reading it quietly. We even have a few Jack and Annie movies as the boys will act them out :)

Now if only I could get Alex as excited about reading and we would really be taking those adventures...

Camping

We took a few days and went up North to some quiet rivers. The sun peaked out and made the few days great! We camped at Montana Creek right next to the river, allowing the kids to throw their fishing rods into the water most of the day. It's a great river for kids to fish at, as it's not deep at all. Of course we were a little early for the pink salmons, but if you ask the boys they caught lots of fish, the fish just kept getting off the hook. Katie was happy that there was a sandy area, so she could play to her hearts content with her bucket and shovel...

We headed to Talkeetna for a quick trip and got a great view of McKinley with the blue sunny sky. Of course I didn't have the camera!

I always forget how much the kids eat and didn't have enough on the food front. Out of the pack of 16 corn dogs, Katie ate 2, Alex ate 5, and Sammy ate 7. My kids do eat... Of course we still had lunch meat, so most meals one of the boys was making a sandwich after the dinner as they were still hungry :) I can only imagine the food bills when they hit the teen years!

PS..@ Montana Creek the boys wanted to walk across to the other campground. Once there they kept looking and looking at the campers. They were looking for Lewis and Rita, who visited last year and thought they might still be there from last summer :)

Swimming

I signed all 3 kids up for 2 weeks of daily swimming lessons, so it's been a bit busy running around. The boys love to swim and are mastering the backstroke, front stroke and their floats. Katie spent 3 days screaming everytime she went near her teacher, so we're just sitting on the sidelines for now. Funny thing is she loves water. On vacation she had no fear of the pool. Thinking it's just the strange teacher, won't preschool be fun :)

Otherwise squeezing in doctor and dentist visits as we count down the days left until school starts....

Kateism

Katie grabs a piece of paper and walks over and says "please write Katie. K-A-T-I-E.." Okay this little 3 year old doesn't know her letters yet but shes picked up the spelling of her name just from when I write and spell it aloud. She shocked me on that one!

Tidbit

I added a chore to the boys' list this past week. Now not only do they empty the dishwasher but they must load it with all the dirty dishes and run it. Well Alex thought is was pretty cool to load it and put the soap in and turn it on. Very grownup. Sammy had all kinds of noises and sounds and kept saying "This is just disgusting!" These people (us) need to clean their plates better (him). He has done it twice so far and both times says I WILL NEVER be a dishwasher!

Oregon Vacation

We took a short family vacation to Portland Oregon the last week. The weather was sunny and warm in the Pacific Northwest. We spent a few days in Portland and travelled around the city via Max and the Trolley Car. The kids loved riding the train throughout the City. We did a lot of Kid activities. The kids enjoyed the Oregon Zoo with Alex loving the birds, Sammy the Dinosaur Walk with the spitting dinosaurs and Katie just loved everyting! On day 2 we headed to the Science Museum where the submarine was popular with the boys and the human Body portion of the museum was a hit with Sammy.Before we left the city we took the aerial tram up to the top of the mountain to see the views of Mt Hood and the city.

The second half of the vacation we headed to Newport along the coast for some sun and sand time. Unfortunately the hot temps caused the fog to roll in but the kids weren't fazed we just loaded on the jackets and pants again and played in the sand anyway. While in Newport we spent time at the aquarium, a cool place to take the kids and see all the animals. We stopped in Salem on our way back to the airport and enjoyed some time at their beautiful riverfront park very kid friendly.

Here's some pics in very random order as blogger isn't cooperating well on the pics.

Alex and Katie playing at the aquarium playground.All 3 on the turtle at the aquarium.The aviary exhibit at the aquarium..Katie watching the divers cleaning the aquarium tank.Alex posing by the shark tank, I think it's a fish in the pic though ;)Sand, sand, sand. Just let this little girl play in the sand.Walking on the beach in the fog... Huge beaches we were in the middle and still quite a ways from the ocean.I LOVE the sand!Everyone was happy outside...Alex was perfecting the perfect castle. Darn fog had us socked in pretty good though.A beautiful Oregon Sunset that broke through the fog for about 2 hours... Carousel riding at the Salem Riverfront Park. Katie was scared of the horse for a little bit and then cried when she had to get off... At the Science Museum the boys were holding onto some kind of bug. Sammy really wanted the tartanula but the lady said he wasn't very friendly that day, thank god!

The human ear at the science Museum in Portland.

The smallest US Submarine on display in Portland at the Science Museum.

Three men went through the sub tour, the girls stayed above ground for this one.

The view of Portland from the Aerial Tram.

My three artists on the floating restaurant on the Willamette River.

Katie loved the Penguins at the Oregon Zoo.

Dinosaur Walk @ the Zoo.

Watch out for the spitting ones.