Christmas

We had a pretty low key Christmas day here. After hosting Josh's family for Christmas Eve, we wanted to keep everything else pretty simple. On Christmas Eve Ben, Trish & the girls came up and brought Jacob with them. My parents came over too. But, I don't have any pictures because I was too busy cooking. We had Salmon, Meatballs, Lamb, Mussels & Clams, mini quiches, mini egg rolls, stuffed mushrooms, veggies & dip, deviled eggs, potato bites, and a bunch of sugary treats too. All but the "mini" foods were homemade and I think next year that might change. ;-D I enjoyed that it was all fresh and not full of additives and preservatives, but I'll have to make some shortcuts next year. I was literally in the kitchen ALL DAY! But we had a blast, so I suppose it was worth it. 

Eli opening her "Baby Princess" book.

Back to Christmas morning, I was thankful Josh had picked up muffins on his last Costco run and was able to give the kids that special treat for breakfast before opening presents. Each kid just got a toy, book and some clothes and it's total chaos during the opening process, so that's the best picture I got, LOL.

The boys got their usual Legos from us and my grandparents got them some too. We all sat around for a few hours getting them all built.

Zaccheaus' favorite new toy! The Buzz Lightyear ROBOT! It walks...It talks... and it has a "Spanish" mode that makes me giggle every time I hear it. I don't know what it is about a little spaceman toy doing a little mariachi dance, but I find it hilarious. I even laugh at it in the TS3 movie and Josh just doesn't get it. 

This wasn't really a Christmas present, but it's too cute not to blog about. My mom and I did some after Christmas shopping and Eli flipped over this Princess Snow White baby doll. We had to get it! Seriously, she has a princess problem and I can tell you I didn't instill it in her...It is all her! Pink and frilly and girly.... And I have to say I'm actually enjoying it! ;-D

December 22

We celebrated my 29th birthday a week ago and had a wonderful time!

After my Belgian waffles for breakfast I opened my present from Josh and the boys. It's a pretzel mold kit, candy melts, an angled spatula, batter whisk and a scraper.

My birthday present from Elizabeth (snuggles w/ my pretty girl)

My sister sent me these beautiful flowers & balloons. The flowers are still looking fresh and beautiful, greeting everyone who walks in my front door.

The balloons however met their fate at the hands of a two year old ;-)

Then, I took the kids out to my mom's for a bit so Josh and I could do some last minute Christmas shopping. We went down to Burlington, to avoid the crowds of Canadians here in Bham. But, we were not impressed with the sales and only bought one thing. We did go out to the Red Robin down there and got my free birthday burger. So that was worth the trip. In Bellingham it's not uncommon to wait 20+ minutes at Red Robin, in Burlington we are always seated right away...So nice!

After picking up the kids, we had my birthday cake and ice cream at home. I just had to post the picture of my cake. That is the writing of the baker at Fred's! Looks horrible! But, it tasted so delicious! Thanks to everyone who sent cards or online greetings. Everyone made me feel very special and loved, Thanks again!

A Boy and His Allergies

Many of you may remember when Gabriel always had broken out cheeks, like in the above photo. We found out his had severe allergies when he was an infant and battled them, trying to figure out what all he was allergic to for about a year. After getting in with Dr. Elkyham in Bellingham, we began a round of food eliminations and allergy testing. Turned out he was allergic to peanuts, cats, dust and pollens and had sensitivities to milk proteins and cottonseed oils. We removed all those foods from his diet and began seeing improvements in his outbreaks (like the photo above).

Fast forward to this week and Gabriel has outgrown all his food allergies, because we were able to avoid them completely. We went to Dr. Elkyham's office this week and met with Lisa Drinkwater PAC and finished his food tests. We already knew he outgrew the cottonseed and milk allergies all that was left was the peanut test.

First they did another poke test to confirm that he is no longer showing signs of allergic reaction. The bump on the right is supposed to look like that, it's a histamine to show his level of reaction to allergens. The blotch on the left is the antihistamine and in the middle was a poke of peanut butter and as you can see there is no reaction. Praise God!  So they fed him a small amount of peanut butter. He said it was so yummy!

Then we waited and every 20 minutes he had to do a blow test to check his peak flows and make sure he wasn't having an anaphalactic (sp?) reaction to the peanut butter.

More waiting... We were there from 9:30 am until almost 4pm. Some of the staff came in after us and worked their whole shifts and went home before we did. LOL!

Doing the peak flow test.

He passed the tests and we were allowed to go home without finishing the final round of testing. With each test they doubled the amount of peanut butter and by the 9th round he was eating 3 Tbsp of it without reacting, so it's safe to say he's completely outgrown his allergy. It's so great for him to be able to eat whatever he wants. Now we just need to get his brother and sister to outgrow their allergies and we'll be golden! His big brother Joshua even bought him a giant Reece's snowman for Christmas. I know he's going to enjoy every bite of it! ;-D

The Advent Told Us To

This year I decided to copy my friend's Advent tradition and I put together an activity calender for the kids to do. After setting up our tree the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I made little scrolls and wrote out an activity on each one. Instead of getting a piece of candy each day of December, we have a craft or activity to do!

Elizabeth trying to steal the scrolls

Most of the activities I'm finding don't keep the boys' attention, so we'll need to tweek this a bit for next year. Some of the highlights for them were walking to Haggen's for donuts, making snowflake decorations and making Christmas cards. 

Close up of the scroll

BTW, yes that's a fake tree. It's the first time we've ever had one. My mom gave it to us last year and I have to say apart from it not smelling like a pine tree, I kind of like it better. Less hassle than a real one! One of the activities I ended up doing myself was making a wreath with fallen branches from outside, so now I have the hassle free tree and that lovely pine smell...Perfect! 

My graham cracker house

The other activity I ended up having the boys quit on was building graham cracker houses. Zaccheaus just took some candies and his graham crackers and ate them. Gabe wasn't going to even try. Joshua gave it a shot, but quickly became discouraged and quit. If you are thinking about doing graham cracker or gingerbread houses, go to Deals Only on James St. They have tubes of decorators icing in Christmas colors 10/$1, I'm guessing they are well past their dates and not fit for eating. But, they sure look pretty on my graham cracker house! 

We were supposed to go to the ice rink on the 10th (shh...don't tell the boys), but found out the public skate times were 7:30 pm-10:30 pm and we already had plans to do our church's date night that day. They also have a homeschool skate time on Wednesday mornings but we will be at Gabriel's allergist that day, so looks like we'll be waiting until January for that one.

My favorite day was last Saturday "Dad's choice day". All my activities are either free or super cheap. Josh's activity: Go pick up Thai take out, a couple beers, sodas and movies and chill at home. I love whenever I don't have to cook!

I hope you are all enjoying this season!

We can rebuild him, We have the technology

Yes! I'm back online baby! After my computer started dropping components like flies and quit cooperating with me, I have had to resort to using Josh's little netbook and it just wasn't cutting it! With some big help from my sister we are online and I got a sweet printer on sale black friday, so the print shop is back in business! Look forward to more posts to come and hopefully I can start following everyone else's blogs again as well.

P.S. Check out my sis's computer repair company's site, here.

Snow and Giving Thanks

Our first snow has come and gone here in Bellingham. Elizabeth had a being pulled around in this little sled. While her dad and brothers were a bit more adventurous and took another sled down ever hill in our yard.

 The next morning we had the most beautiful sun rise over Lake Whatcom!

It snowed again overnight before thanksgiving, but I didn't get any photos. :-(

We had a great day on Thanksgiving. We took the kids to see Tangled with my parents. Then we all came back to my house for our turkey dinner. Josh attempted to deep fry a turkey, but it didn't turn out so well. Thankfully, I did a second in my roaster oven, that turned out delicious! The older two spent  two nights out at my parents, so Josh and I could do some black friday shopping, I finally got a new printer, but other than that wasn't too impressed with the sales this year. Saturday, I baked some yummy spritz cookies that can be seen over on OH starting on Wednesday. Then we set up the tree and decorated it. This is the first year we did a fake tree. One of the best parts of having a Christmas tree is the smell, and it's just weird that mine doesn't smell. Maybe I can find a pine scented candle, hmm? Sunday we all started coming down with bad cold and stayed home from church. Which, brings us today. The last of the leftovers are gone, all the dishes are clean and put away and we're all feeling better. Looking forward to the Christmas season ahead! What are you looking forward to?

Like Father Like Son

After much speculation on our part, doctors confirmed last week that Gabriel has Asthma. Something like 90% of kids with severe allergies like he had end up developing Asthma later in life, so we were totally prepared for this day. We're beginning a series if inhalers and nasal sprays to see if these will help him breath better. We'll see what happens.
Josh (my hubby) was about 8 when his family moved to the PNW and he developed allergies and Asthma, so Gabe is just about on track with his daddy. I'm thankful Josh has been through this already and has experience with all the inhalers and all that.  It's not a life threatening illness, but it will take some extra caution and patience on our part, so prayer would be much appreciated.

We're still here!!!

Man! I have really let my blog go! We have been having crazy busy days around here lately. We had to update all of our programs we are on and let them know that Josh was working and just as I finished that all up, Josh got let go. We knew there was a possibility that his job may not be permanent and the more days he was there the more he realized this would be a "until the next one comes along" kind of job. Now were just waiting on Intalco and applying for more jobs. Talks of making a trip over to Wyoming have started up again too.
My poor dinosaur of a computer no longer has Internet so I will be doing all my blogging from our netbook. Elizabeth got to our good router and then our back up one met an unfortunate fate falling from where Josh had it perched. Hopefully we'll get that fixed soon, but until then we won't have many pictures on here.
Hope everyone is doing well! TTYL!

Fall Celebrations

So, last Thursday was the first day of Fall and I thought it would be fun to do a little celebration like we've done for Spring and Summer. One problem! Our Spring/Summer celebrations usually involve picnics and lots of outdoor activities. What do we do to celebrate this season without being out in the pouring rain that likes to sporadically grace us here in the PNW? Here is what I came up with (with some help from my facebook friends).... P.S this would have been posted sooner, but I was having the most difficult time with the new picture uploader. Anyone else, that uses blogger, have that problem?

We started our festivities at lunch, Tomato Soup with pumpkin and leaf shaped cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches. I really needed to go to the store, but challenged myself to use what I had on hand and I'm really pleased with the results.

While the boys cleaned up from school and lunch I whipped up these yummy pumpkin muffins. Find the recipe over here. Super easy recipe that used mostly Bisquick and a can of pumpkin.

The rain had cleared up a bit, so we headed out on a scavenger hunt walk around the neighborhood. I have them a list of things to find like, pretty flowers (in the pic above), different colored leaves, an apple tree, an animal and a few other things. Surprise, surprise our animals we found were our resident deer. Eating up all the fallen apples off a neighbors tree.

With our leaves we made these pictures. It's one of rubbing/tracing kind. The boys loved doing this and I guess I hadn't shown them how to do this technique. Now they want to do a rub tracing of everything. It's quite cute!

To bring an end to our special outing we had our muffins with some hot cocoa or in my case a homemade Carmel Macchiatto. YUM! Do you do anything to celebrate the seasons with your family? Got any ideas or suggestions on how to celebrate the first day of Winter that's coming up? Please share!

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; ... "   Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

It's not Texas, but it'll do...

Josh has found a JOB!!!!

Last Thursday Josh began working for a company called Blue Star Welding, in the Everson area. Through some friends of ours we found out that they were looking to hire a machinist and Josh went out with his resume in hand to talk with the owners. They had him start the very next morning! Apparently, the company has a good sized machine shop, but no machinists right now. So, they were very excited when Josh showed up. He is the machine shop manager, although right now there are no other machinist, so he manages himself. It's his dream come true, him and a bunch of metal and machines and no one there bothering him. LOL

And just because God likes to keep us on our toes and make things interesting he possibly might have another job in the works. Before our friends started helping us find him a job, Josh had applied at Intalco. Well, turns out that our friends have some connections there and put in a good word for Josh with the HR department. After his first day at Blue Star, Josh went out and took the Millwright testing at Intalco. He was sure he had failed, but he didn't! He did great and they want to interview him the week of the 20th!

So, here we are...praying and thinking about which to choose. Josh's dream job that could possibly include some profit sharing in the future. Or playing it safe and going with Intalco. Intalco is part of the Boeing machinist union and he would earn a bit more per hour and we would have full medical for the whole family. But, they work crazy shifts, he wouldn't be in charge and at some point he would "cap out" on the pay scale.

As you can read it's a tough decision, but with either one we will be staying in Whatcom County. So lots of people are pretty excited about that (us included)!

First Day of School

The Price Homeschooling Academy has opened for another year. I wanted to do something a little fun for our first day of school this year and judging by my tired kids, I think I succeeded.

Marshmallow Mateys and Hot Cocoa in their new Starbucks cups

We started our day off with a hearty breakfast of marshmallow mateys cereal and hot cocoa in their new starbucks mugs (I was going with a theme, I don't always serve up straight sugar for breakfast).

Next we did the fun little quiz I did with the kids last year again. I write out some grade appropriate math questions. Have them do some fill in the blank questions about themselves and then they draw a picture of themselves and write a story about it. Doesn't really mean anything, but as a parent it's fun to see the differences each year.

I set out all the books we will be working out of for this year and let the kids look through them. In addition to the basics, we will be doing some American History focusing on the Pioneer times and learning about animals only found in North America. So, look forward to posts on field trips to northwest trek, pioneer park, yellowstone and possibly Fort Langley. I'm sure we'll be playing lots of Oregon Trail and web rangers, too!

We took a break (recess!) and then after mommy was ready for the day, we headed off on our first field trip of the year! Has nothing to do with what we are studying, but it was still fun and educational. I packed our picnic lunch of what was supposed to be fish & chips (tuna buns and potato chips), but I was out of tuna! (Remember there was a theme going with the day) So...We had turkey sandwiches, chips and carrots on our picnic at the harbor. I had the kids try to guess where our field trip was to and said their food today was a clue. Only Joshua figured out where we were going. Everyone else guessed the aquarium in Seattle. LOL!

Zaccheaus in a bubble

At the Bellingham Harbor there is this fun little place called the marine life center. There are a few tanks of fish, crustaceans and other marine animals (the octopus tank was empty). A viewing pool of what one may find in the tide pools around Whatcom County and the touch tank which all the kids loved (pictured below).

The touch tank

All in all we had a great day. If you have any suggestion on fun activities or field trips we could do, please share! Plus... we have some other news to share, but that will be another post. And no, I'm not pregnant! It's something else! ;-)

Egg-celent!!!

We aren't failures as chicken farmers! And here is our proof...

Our First Egg Sept 3, 2010

We got our first egg today. We have three chickens, so we should start seeing three eggs a day real soon.

Store bought large egg for scale

The first eggs are supposed to be smaller and light in color to start. But, as you can see it's not much smaller than a store bought egg. We're guessing this is from our Rhode Island Red.

First pepper!

I picked our first pepper today too! I will probably be our only jalapeno, we have a bell growing too and have seen nothing on all our other pepper plants. I have one tomato growing as well...had two, but a hungry deer got to it. I would have a lot of produce right now if it weren't for those six deer who occasionally help themselves to my veggies. Anyone want some venison? LOL I'm joking ;-)

Stitches!!!

Well, it's finally happened...We had to take one of our boys in for stitches this past Friday. You think with 3 boys this would have happened already. But, (praise God) it hasn't. No broken bones either!

So, Friday Josh and the boys decided to try out the bike trailer and take it for a spin around the block. They bumped the curb a bit and since Zaccheaus wasn't wearing a belt he got launched out of the trailer. Josh wouldn't allow me to see the initial injury, due to what happened the last time someone was seriously hurt in our family. (i.e me fainting)

Goofing off in the ER

Obviously, other than being scraped up, it didn't effect him all that much.

Day 1

Josh was feeling bad that this happened when they were supposed to be having fun and Zaccheaus milked that for all it was worth. While they were at the ER, I finished up dinner and we ate when they returned, but I had made a bunch of stuff that was too hard for him to eat. So we gave him some Jello and said after dinner daddy would take him to get some mac and cheese at the grocery store deli. We finished eating and Josh said "ok, ready to get your mac and cheese". Zaccheaus replied "Uh-huh (yes) and a TOY"! LOL! Apparently Zaccheaus led Josh all over the grocery store picking out his dinner, some candy for everyone and a couple toy cars. He tried to keep that up all week, but it didn't last long. Hopefully he doesn't think this is a good way to get new stuff.

Day 2

"My stitch" will be a running joke in this family. Any time he was asked to do something, he just let out a little whimper, pointed at his head and said "my stitch".

Day 3

We made it to church Sunday and out to the picnic afterwards. Zaccheaus told a slightly different version of what happened, but enjoyed getting so much attention from all our curious friends.

Day 4

Sorry no day 5, had jury duty again and spent most of the rest of the day out.

Day 6

His stitches fell out today and we're not sure what happened to them. Just all of a sudden they were gone. (and no they weren't the dissolving kind) He's healing up really well and I want to thank everyone, who prayed for him. You're prayers were noticed! PTL!

Elizabeth is two!!!

On Sunday, August 15th we celebrated Elizabeth's second birthday with a "pretty princess tea party". We had yummy snacks and dined out on the deck under a hastily made canopy to shield us from the blazing sun. ( I swear it was at least 90 out that day)

We opened presents and had our cupcakes inside.

Then it was pinata time! We cycled through all the kids and then I took a turn trying to knock it open. Once Josh got a turn it was finally broken open and all the kids were diving into their spoils.

The kids took a break to watch a DVD and enjoy their treats, while the grown-ups cleaned up and visited.

Happy Birthday to my sweet little girl!

Leavenworth

Josh and I just recently returned from our four day getaway to Leavenworth, WA. It's a quaint little Bavarian themed town. We had a lovely time, so fun that I completely spaced out on taking photos of everything. So...here they are...all 3 pictures I took. The goats were photographed on the very first walk through the town. The knight was shot on our way out of town. LOL

For a second we thought we were seeing some real mountain wildlife. Until we saw the fence keeping these guys right by the main walk through of the town. Down the hill from them was a golf course. Kind of felt bad for these goats. Until we saw the people pushing their dogs around in strollers. Then all sympathy for lil goaties was gone and we found ourselves feeling very disturbed that companies even make dog strollers. They were nicer than the one I have for my kids! Wish I took a picture of that!

We also visited near by Cashmere and Wenatchee. We did some shopping. Had a picnic and basically just played tourist.

I always thought of Leavenworth as a place that a lot of German people had settled at. Kinda like Lynden...But, no! In the 1960's some investors came up with the idea of making the town into a mini Bavaria to attract tourist. Worked on me! LOL! Still want to see the real thing, though.

Hope you all are enjoying your summer!

Happy Birthday to Josh

Josh's 30th birthday was last week and we celebrated by having our friends over for a BBQ.  We had salmon, corn on the cob and a bunch of other sides. We played guitars and visited. I made a really awesome guitar shaped cake with this pan and of course we had Josh's favorite, Dairy Queen ice cream cake. Earlier in the day I made sure there was new batteries in the camera and the SD card was in it, then I left it sitting there on the shelf through the whole party. ☺ oops! I really should just hire one of my photog-friends to take all the pictures. I'm constantly forgetting! Thanks to all who made it, Josh had a great time!

Hey, Howdy, Hey!

Last Sunday was Zaccheaus' 5th birthday and we celebrated with a Toy Story/ Woody's Round-Up party.

The Party Table

My mom and I found the Toy Story buckets on clearance after Easter and I have stashed them away since then. Table cloth is from the Dollar Tree. Popcorn containers from WalMart and the toys we already had.

We played pin the tail on bullseye, which can be found at disney's site.

Congrats to Gabriel for being the winner!

The birthday boy enjoyed opening his presents.

And of course we had some cake!
I loved using this theme, since the new Toy Story movie just came to theaters. There were so many things available in the stores with the characters on it! Fruit snacks, crackers, ice cream and many more yummy things! I made the cake. Not perfect, but I'm happy with it as it was my first venture into fondant. Thanks to our family for coming over and all the lovely gifts. We are truly spoiled!