and a picture from the scene - cottage & eastern

jake and i were talking this morning about how so many people stopped to help us before the fire dept. and police got there. they were all trying to help me and the kids and calm the kids down, since all but isaac were hysterical. but there are lots of people around here that care, even for people they've never met before.

picture of the van

Everyone's doing well. air bags went off, and seat belts did their jobs. the tail light is also busted, but no glass broke. It's a Christmas miracle, and we are so thankful that we were protected, and so was the other driver.

kids

unrelated to the pictures, but worthy of saying..... we have a book of fondant cake ideas. one of them (think cinderella) has a pumpkin with little mice peeking out the holes. and carly said (imagine a lot of feeling) "i love pumpkin cakes with rats inside"

it snowed!

yes, this is a picture of the snow. i know, it looks a lot like the grass, but the white flecks is actually snow! zoom in.

Isaac smiles

isaac's new blanket

a few more pictures

i got a few more pictures back from Natasha, including a family picture. it's a miracle she got a shot where noone is crying. she takes great pictures.

Isaac pictures

My good friend, Natasha Cochayne, took some great pictures of each of the kids as a baby gift for me. She really got some great shots, but I want your opinions on which ones I should have on me wall. for isaac, the bench backdrop, the asleep one, or the laying on blanket one?

Annelise pictures

I can't believe Natasha was able to take some good ones of Annelise. She was in such a bad mood the whole time she was being photographed. Which one should I use for my wall, outstretched arms, peek a boo, or swing?

Carly pictures

Natasha took some great ones of Carly! But which one for my wall? The arms crossed, the not looking, or the swing?

Nick pictures

Great pictures of Nick that my good friend Natasha took as a present to me. I absolutely love all of them, but which one should I make an 8X10 and put on my wall: the backdrop of bark, brick, or leaves? Please comment.

carly

carly can ride a two-wheeler, no training wheels now. she has for a few weeks, she's been taking private lessons from our 5 year old neighbor. caroline would ask carly if she wanted bike lessons, she just learned a couple of months ago, but the lessons paid off. here is a funny from carly tonight: carly burped and then said "i didn't remember eating that"

isaac robert

born friday, oct 9th 8:56pm, 9 lbs, 21 in.

1st grade in Nick's class

Today was my first day volunteering in Nick's class. I really like going and meeting the kids and getting to know the teacher. Today I just had one child at a time doing a writing assessment. When my time was up it was time for the kids to line up and head over to the computer lab. I waved to them as they left the door. This is the first time that most/all of them noticed my huge belly. So many asked me things as they were leaving like, are you pregnant, are you going to have a baby, etc. after a few of those i got, i used to be a baby, then more of the first kinds of comments, then i got a "my mom is going to have a baby" then next i got a "my mom lives in a trailer."

making dirt angels

summertime snow angels. this is one of my favorite trek pictures. jake took it while nick and i were up meeting the group at their lunch stop and telling everyone we couldn't find our little girls. of course they were with jake the whole time back at base camp, but this was just pretend. i made such cute little bonnets with matching skirts. but when i came back, the skirts looked a lot more brown than the bonnets, and their matching white t-shirts... well, after this picture, you can imagine. what a sight to behold when i came back seeing them in this state. the dust on the trail was at least an inch thick. they truely looked as though they had been lost.

phone call with Carly

i was over at mom's and i was calling my house to see if we had some strawberry cake mix. carly answered the phone, which NEVER happens. and she answered with "hi mom". i said "how did you know it was me?"
c- you are not here and i am at your house
m-ok, hey, will you ask dad something for me?
before i can tell her the question i want her to ask, i can hear her asking jake what day it is today, and jake's reply is that it's sunday
c- it's still sunday mom

some things i wanted to remember lately

mentally i've said to myself, i want to write this down on the blog so i won't forget it. and now that my internet works again, i am having trouble remembering what it was about carly that i wanted to say. first, nick and his tenderness. recently he hopped into bed with jake and i because he'd had a bad dream. that happens sometimes, but this time, after about 5 minutes in our bed he said, mom will you go check on carly and annelise because i love them. he was pretty nervous about it. i checked on them and reported that they were sleeping. are they ok? he said. yes. i know he loves annelise, but rarely is he vocal about carly. now for my funnies. annelise was at the table doodling with the markers someone left out and we discovered it when she tried to pour herself some milk and spilled. the milk was almost full, and luckily, she didn't spill much. so we put away the milk, put away the markers and then it was time to put the kids to bed. jake went to get some milk after that and saw a little bit of blue on the inside. then when he poured the milk out, out came a blue marker. and now about carly. we were making jokes about what we should name the baby. first she suggested the little mermaid. then she suggested sister macadoo.

Easter

can't get my act together enough to do pictures before church, and after church it just didn't go over so well.

nick's star wars birthday

a great star wars party complete with death star pinata, general grevious cake, pin the phone on darth vader, and knock some bad guys' heads off. oh and we also made our own light sabers out of pool foams, with a duct tape handle.

degoba

A couple of days we had a great rain. It rained hard and fast for a little while and we ended up with a couple of lakes in our backyard, and possibly a river. The girls had a good time playing in it. When Nick came home from school, the first thing he said when he saw our backyard was, "it looks like degoba." Now I hope some of you know about degoba, but for those of you that don't, it is the swampy planet on star wars where luke learns from yoda a little about the force. it's where his ship sinks into the swamp.

baby goth

i'm so sorry i do not have a picture of this. you'll just have to use your imagination. annelise found a sharpie this morning and used it like lipstick. she's the littlest goth.

open house

Nick with his Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Garcia. She's really great.


Last night we experienced our first Open House at school. It was really great for Nick to show us around his classroom and the projects he had worked on. We also enjoyed book fair mayhem. The picture of Nick and Carly was taken this morning with their new books. Jake caught Nick reading Carly's book to her, what a good big brother.

stay at the lighthouse

jake and i went on our first overnighter without kids. thank you so much to mom. it was really awesome. we stayed at the port arena lighthouse. there are 4 little huts right next to the lighthouse. we stayed in the smallest room that faced the lighthouse. it's on a great peninsula with tons and tons of cliffs to walk along. check out the site.
http://www.pointarenalighthouse.com/lodging.html
and check out some of our own pictures. we even got to see a whale spout three times on our way back down highway one.