Kids learn to ride a bike!

Soccer on a rainy day!

Curtis and I discovered yesterday that my camera will take video! Cool! We were lucky enough to discover it right before we caught Abby scoring a goal on camera. Curtis was taking the video, so it is a little bit shaky, but Abby is #3 and she is wearing a purple shirt and grey pants. The goal is about half-way through this 2 minute video, but hang in there and wait for it! The coolest part is listening to Curtis be quite proud that he caught the goal on video! Enjoy!

Lounge like Lizards

WOW!! Nothing like 70 degress and sunshine to bring out the beach bums in us! The kids have been asking all weekend to go to the beach! So, today, we headed out to our favorite, about 15 miles south of Asotin and we had a big strip of sand all to ourselves! It was heaven!

Curtis showing off his 'beach body'

Abby and I loved "lounging" like lizards!

Hope it was sunny in your little corner of the world!

Earth Worm Charmers

The things you hear your kids say..... Yesterday was the warmest day we have had in what feels like a million years! The kids were playing outside, and I had the windows open in my house. Curtis ran in at one point, yelling out to Abby, "Hold on, I will get my earthworm book!". A little while later, this was his proclaimation: "Abby, wait!! I just read how to charm earthworms! I will be the earth worm charmer!" They then proceeded to build a "Wormery" with dirt, leaves, apple pieces and of course, one poor little earthworm whose life has surely come to an end!! Hooray for warm sunny days, for playing outside and for earthworms!

Happy Birthday Abby

Here's some pics of the Birthday Girl at her finest! She is the sweetest thing ever!

She blew out her candles as we were singing to her! Guess she had a wish that couldn't wait.

Cowabunga Dude! Surfing in the bathtub!

Happy Square Root Day!

Curtis was fascinated by "Square Root Day"! We figured out that the next time we have a Square Root Day, he will be almost 16! Yikes! Here's a picture of the not quite 16 year old (but almost 9 year old) boy and his favorite girl!

The Lion Princess

Since she was 9 months old, Abby has "loved" her Lala, a stuffed lion that my mom got her for her first Christmas (picture on the top). Lala has been through a lot in his nearly 6 1/2 years, and though he shows signs of wear and tear (worn off nose, several repaired holes, a lot less stuffing), he is still the object of Abby's true devotion. She still sleeps with it most every night, although, we recently have been able to leave it at mom's house when she goes to visit her dad (which was no minor feat!).

So, when her first grade class had to choose an animal to do a research project on, Abby chose the Lion. On the bottom, is a picture of her 3D lion that she had to make as part of her project. Turned out pretty good if I do say so myself!

Future Oscar Winners

Curtis and Abby, with the help of their dad, created these great videos starring their Garfield and Odie slippers!! What a couple of funny kids!! Enjoy!

The Little Pet Shops meet the Dinosaurs

For as long as I can remember, Curtis and Abby have been able to create the most amazing play scenarios of just about any kids I know. When they were little, the stories were about Little People or Thomas trains. Lately, their favorite thing to "Play" is the Little Pet Shops (Abby's pet shop animals) meet the Dinosaurs (Curtis's Imaginext Dinosaurs). These "plays" can go on for hours, even days. Tonight, the story revolved around "Turtle" having a birthday and "Spike" coming for a visit. A memorable line, from "Mouse", "Spike, when you walk that way you are rattling my cheese!" (My kids are still in their pajamas and its nearly 5 pm. Its been one of those days)

I know that there is going to come a day, quicker than I care to admit, when they aren't going to want to do this kind of stuff anymore. In the age of video games and internet, I feel pretty lucky that they still do now. But in the meantime, I think I'll head down and see what kind of a cake a turtle gets for his birthday!

The Wisdom of Curtis

We have some of our best conversations at the dinner table; usually they revolve around the question, "What was the best part of your day?". One of the most remarkable changes in Curtis over the last 6 months has been his interest in sharing about things that happen at school. After years of "I forgot" or "I don't remember", he is pretty willing to tell something just about every day. Tonight, talk turned to recess and something that happened on the playground. It started with the comment, "Sixth grade girls are mean!". Then he reported that, one day, he walked by some 6th grade girls and they said, "Girls go to college to get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupider!" Here is (almost verbatim) what he said:

First of all, that whole thing about "sticks and stones and words will never hurt me" is not true, cause words are powerful things and they can hurt. Second of all, going to college really has nothing to do with gender!...And third of all, if someone went to Jupiter, I think that person would be way smarter than anyone who ever went to college.

Just another round of dinner table wisdom from Curtis!

Slip, Sliding Away

Today the kids, myself and our friend Jody ventured south to Snowhaven, a small ski/tube hill in Grangeville. They have a hill devoted entirely to innertubing, with a rope tow and super fast snow. We had been planning to go for the whole week and we were excited to finally arrive and get started. The kids explored all different kinds of ways to go down the hill -- solo, tandem, sitting in your tube, laying on your tube, etc. We finally decided that our favorite way to go was hooking all four tubes together and all going on our tummies! The snow fell the whole time we were there and it was COLD!! Flying down the hill, the snow would fly in your face. Curtis exclaimed once that he was pretty sure he ate a million snowflakes on the way down. Abby was a maniac, of course, but it was really exciting to watch Curtis enjoying it. He's not much for this kind of stuff, but really loved it. After we dropped Jody off and were headed home, I asked them to rate the fun on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most fun thing you have ever done. They both decided it was a 10, for sure!

On our way there, I passed a snow plow on the right (I don't recommend it). The kids were thrilled with all the snow that was on our car when we arrived.



















We had a great day! Definitely ready for HOT cocoa and coffee when we were done!

Is it your Human Right to have a cookie?

This was the question that Curtis asked as we walked into a MLK Jr. Celebration in Lewiston tonight when he noticed that they were handing out cookies!

It is an exciting night at our house. Abby has had a countdown for the last week on when "Arockabama" is finally going to be president. Although I am pretty sure they are Obama supporters because their parents are, it is nice to see my kids believing in the process that America goes through to elect a leader. They even know enough to stand up for that belief when necessary. On the day before the election, Curtis told me a story of two boys sitting at his table, telling him that if Obama was elected, horrible people would come to the United States and try to kill everyone. When I asked him what he said, he told me "I told them that it wasn't true and that were trying to scare me into believing what they believed." Wow, pretty wise kid. Later that night, when we watched Obama's victory speech and Obama mentioned that he would work with John McCain, Curtis's face lit up. "See mom, they want to work together!"

Here's to at least 4 years of more peace and working together.

Ice Skating Fun

Abby and her "BFF" Terra have been buddies since they were babies. Maybe even before...her mom, Brandy, and I were pregnant at the same time. They grew up going to the same daycare and saw each other at least 3 times a week. Then, they both started school. Abby in Lewiston and Terra in Moscow. We still try really hard to get them together as often as we can. Today, we traveled to Moscow for some ice skating and got to have Terra join us. It was a great time for the girls, as well as Curtis and mom. Curtis was too fast to get any pictures, but here are a couple of the "buds".

Gonna Give It a Try

So, as I waited...and waited...and waited for sister Stephanie to get rid of the Jeff Duncan story and put a new post on her blog, I decided that I can't really complain about it if I don't do something myself. She has been asking me for months to get one started so that she can read about our life in Lewiston and see more frequent pictures. So here goes!

January has been an exciting month so far! We rang in (well, more like slept in) the New Year with Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Scott in Snohomish, WA. Spent the most fun New Year's Day with family, playing games, watching football and eating! The Northwest winter weather made travel pretty interesting on the way home, but considering that most of the roads we took have since been closed off and on for a week, I think we were pretty lucky!

Back to school this week. I got a small reprieve in that Moscow schools had a snow day on our first scheduled day back. The kids got right back into the swing of things. Our most exciting first-week-back-to-school news was Curtis was named Student of the Week, representing the 3rd grade!!! Most of you know what a HUGE accomplishment this is for him. He got to go out to lunch yesterday with his wonderful principal, Craig Lenzmeier. Curtis is not one for big emotion, but you could definitely tell that he was very proud. Abby started a 6 week basketball clinic last weekend and will be playing every Saturday for about an hour. They don't start official games until 3rd grade, but they meet each week to work on fundamentals, i.e. dribbling, passing, etc. She, of course, loves it.

All the snow is gone, for now! It was amazing to watch nearly 3 feet of snow disappear in a week! Luckily, we are free of the flood worries that the west-side has, although the Snake and Clearwater rivers which run near our house our VERY high, and VERY full of debris!

OK, so my first post is done. Hmmmm, can't figure out how to add pics! Maybe next time!