Seattle Part II

Part of the trek and the park. It's so weird to be in a city big enough that more than one other family is at the park at the same time. Usually our parks are so barren, but there were 20+ families here. Here are our hosts, Coby and Kori. Karen adores Coby.

Seattle

Not too far from our friends' home is Carkeek Trail and Park, just off the Sound. It is quite a trek, especially with little ones. But the weather was lovely.

sTuFf

1) My parents are in Africa. For 3 loong months. I'm very proud of them. I'm anxiously awaiting pictures of them with the local wildlife.

2) Curtis is getting so stinkin' cute! He has very silly faces and a hilarious personality. He is now giving me my vaccinations with the kiddy doctor's kit. All in the elbow, no less! And boy can he scream!!! yeeoww!!

3) I am finally having nose surgery. Not rhinoplasty... I like the shape of my nose. I'm having septoplasty, which means I'm having my deviated septum fixed. I'm really looking forward to being able to breathe and not have sinus headaches as often. That is next Wednesday.

Seattle.... Dulles... Africa

This last Friday, my family took my parents to the SeaTac airport to start their journey to Africa. Botswana to be exact. The ride up was very good. It's about 5 hours and we stopped twice. Any more than that and Curtis starts to revolt because 'you are making me get into this carseat AGAIN?' We dropped them off at Kiss and Fly Zone so the kisses and hugs were brief. I told my parents I was proud of them. They took off that night at 11:30ish, hit Dulles for a couple hours, then Johannesburg and then Botswana. They landed 8:00 a.m. our time on Sunday. LOOONG day they had!

They will be gone for 3 months and we'll make the journey to get them in October. Dad will be doing carpentry and Mom will work in their library. I'm looking forward to seeing some of their pictures.

Scrap happy!

Yesterday I made about 25 trips up and down the stairs, moving my scrapbooking supplies up to the room formerly known as Foster Kid Room. This past weekend, we painted the floor a shiny light blue. I moved the bed back in JIC we need it, the desk, shelving cubes, and STUFF! I have boxes and totes and Sterilite units full of supplies. I worked on sorting it all out, taking it out of Curtis' hands, back into the drawers, and in some semblence of order. I hope it's good enough I can actually scrap today. I'm so excited!!

Is it nap time yet??

We have had some mega-late nights lately. Friday night we had our 2nd Walk-In Theater. We have a large sheet on 2x4s we put on the garage wall, bring the projector out, and watch a movie. So fun!! Then on Saturday we were up kind of late, then Sunday night.... ugh!! Since Karen refused to nap Sunday afternoon, we told her she HAD to be in bed at 8:00. She went to her room then about 8:15, she came down the stairs asking if I would come up and pray with her. I headed up about 8:30... and she was tearing down the wallpaper in her bedroom!!! (just a border, but still it was a lot of work and money). I was livid! She is supposed to be in bed, not redecorating!! Long story short: since she can't take care of what we've given her, we'll take everything away. We filled 6 totes with toys from her room, took out her table and chairs, shelves, pictures off her wall, blankets, EVERYTHING. The only thing left is bed and dresser, sheet and pillow. She will lose 50% of her toys when we go through them, plus will have to earn her things back by chores. This has been very hard on Paul and I as we feel like failures in the parenting department. Does it ever get easier???

More pictures

I'm not going to C&P pictures of Emily, but you are welcome to look at www.steelehere.blogspot.com to see more of her. She's precious!!!

She's here!!

Emily Grace was born at 12:15ish Louisiana time. 6#13oz and 18" long.

Karen the invigorated

Karen lost a magnet under the refrigerator. She pulled the fridge out as long as the cord would go. We mopped up the dirt then pushed the fridge back into place. Then I found the magnet... stuck under the door in front.

my pretty flowers

Self portrait

Here we are on the morning of July 4, before I head to the fireworks booth. You can't tell, but we have our Old Navy Flag shirts on. I have blue shorts and Curtis has red ones.

Recycle Queen!!

So where is my reward?? I took 4 boxes of smaller fireworks boxes from the booth so we would recycle them instead of into the garbage. There are 2 boxes of empty water bottles from the booth. Then the blue box is our recycling.

I want my tiara!!!

Crazy Cat

This is our silly cat Whiskers.

This is Curtis trying to hug Whiskers w/o using his arms. hmmm... how does that work exactly??

Sparkley!

Curtis' first fireworks. He wasn't too impressed at all. The loud ones had him running for the house. Poor guy.

Uppy!!

Although he doesn't say it yet verbally, there's no denying what his face is saying!

the 5th of July

We have survived the fireworks booth!! Karen and I worked 9-12 and raked in $500. Then Paul and Doug worked 12-3. Paul worked again 3-9 with Pastor. We did just over $4k all day. It was so hot!!!! (I think I mentioned that before!). But we're done, I figured out what we have to pay (about $8k) and our profit (about $2600). That'll go towards our van loan. Friday night we are hosting a Thank You BBQ in our yard. We have a big screen for the side of the garage (a queen bed sheet on 2x4s) and the projector from church (not as cool as having your own, eh Chris?) We'll do our fireworks that we saved, too.

((I like parentheses, can you tell?))

Curtis just gave me 3 of his mints he had in his mouth. He kept the 4th.

I took an hour nap today after being so busy the last few days and up late last night cleaning out the booth.

Karen is trying to dig out a magnet from the under the fridge with a dowel rod. She keeps lifting the stick up and it gets stuck. Duh! keep it flat!!

Mom and Dad are on their way home from Alaska/Vancouver today. They leave for Africa next week.

Gotta go...crabby boy alert.

4th of July

Today is the day after my grandparents' 70th Wedding Anniversary. Happy Anniversary + 1 day to you!!!!

Today is our last day of the fireworks booth being open. Hallelujah for that!! It's smokin' hot in there! 100* in a black booth on black asphalt. I worked 9-12 with Karen and we did almost $600! Then Paul went in to help another guy and he'll be there until 9:00 or so. We need to go take dinner in and pick up cash so there isn't much sitting in there. We'll go after Curtis wakes up.

We bought a season pass to our local aquatic center. Karen loves it there and Curtis is learning to like it. He likes the shallow end, but I'll take him into the 4' area with me. We'll bob up and down, then I dunk him. He's doing well with that. He'll also float on his back with only holding onto my fingers. This swimming outfit is from Gramma Jessie.





As you know, I'm very excited to have a new niece any day now. This will be my 3rd. I also just found out my brother and his wife are expecting #3 in January. I'm sad we are done, but am having fun buying things for Pauberly (Jon and Chris' daughter's nickname). I have been busy making korkers (curly ribbon bows) for her to wear. This picture is Karen modeling the new pony-o's. Here is part of my collection of korkers and bows I've either made or purchased. Poor Sydney got stuck wearing these things since Curtis doesn't want to.

Headaches are a pain

I'm having a practically non-stop headache lately. I'm supposed to have surgery on my nose this month, but moved it to July due to fireworks booth stuff. I have sinus headaches a lot now.

Yesterday both kids were sick... karen had the pukes and Curtis had the runs. Then in the afternoon Curtis ralphed his lunch all over me. Stink! So I threw us both in the shower and the blanket in the wash. Everyone seems to be better; I just hope I don't get it!

Father's Day

Father's Day weekend!

We are heading out of town! YEEHAW! We haven't done much when we had so many kids, but now we are free-er to do stuff. I'm looking forward to hitting the road.

My Mom had an angiogram today. Everything looks good! Thank You Jesus for that! Now she is free and clear to head to Africa. They leave in one month and will be gone until October.

I'm getting a new niece next month. I'm pretty excited. I bought 3 more outfits and a pair of shoes for her. Her name is Pauberly... a combination of Paul and Kimberly... or PB for short.

I should get back to packing. I definitely have things to do. I cut both Karen's and Curtis' hair today. I need to vacuum that up. I have to put my clothes in a bag too. work work work

Keeping Current

I do hope that I can keep this more up to date. It's not been easy to find much extra time. Now that I only do 3 loads of laundry instead of 6, maybe I'll have some more free time to play.



I got my hair cut today. Just a little off the back. I'm trying to grow it out, but couldn't stand how it looked for any longer.

It's vewwy vewwy quiet...

We are back to a family of 4. It's SO quiet now. The girls went to live with grandma and grandpa on Saturday. So far I've received 2 emails and a phone call.

This is one last picture of Paul with Sydney. Talk about relaxed!
















For our last hurrah, we took everyone to Teddy Bear Stuffin' Factory. Everyone picked out a lovey to take home.

The Master Suite

See my pretty new bed?? My whole room is now new after a year's work. Last year, while Paul was gone on a trip, Dad came over and helped me redo our room. The walls are the brown paneling, so the room was dark and gloomy. We painted the blue.. "Honky Tonk Blue"... put up the chair rail, I put up the quilt rack and the room was instantly a retreat. So much more inviting and calm. Then my Dad was working on my head/foot board. It is made from old pews in the church I grew up in. Solid mahogany. Beautiful wood. I am so thrilled with the results. Someday I'll finish the room by replacing my bedside tables. Thank you Dad!!!!

Asparagus Boy!

How things are going...

Goodness... it never slows down around here!! so below you see some of Curter's Birthday Party pictures.

We got a new computer for Christmas with a new photo program, so I'm still learning how to use it.

Curtis turned ONE on January 13. We had his party the next day. We had a monkey jungle theme with green streamers all over the ceiling (still need to pull staples out!). We had two cakes... one was free from Safeway and one I made that day.














Curtis got a cool gift from his great-grandpa-Cecil Curtis... Grandpa had been wanting to make that for a long time. Curtis likes the ping pong balls inside the wheels. Bingo anyone??













The girls have now been with us for 5 months! Can you believe it? Time has sure flown! Sydney is doing great! She's meeting every benchmark for development, weighs almost 16#. She is such a smiley little girl... our "Little Bit".

Curtis is 24.5# and 30-some inches long. Growing like crazy!! He has 8 teeth coming in so we've had some miserable days.

Gracie is doing great in Kindergarten. She's learning how to spell words and can recognize and give sounds for most of the alphabet. She is a very hard worker around the house. Her half sister lives here in town so we see her every day (we watch her after school).

Karen is zooming through reading and math classes. Although we still have anger and bully issues with her, she's growing up and learning how to effectively deal with problems. She's so beautiful!

Vanessa is doing very well in 3rd grade. She is involved in Good News Club after school every other Tuesday. She can memorize and retain Scripture superbly. She quotes verses from September's lesson!

Birthday Boy!

This is Curtis' birthminute photo. 365 days to the minute!

I still haven't learned how to put these in order easily!!

almost Christmas time

here is my monthly update. I do think aout this thing quite often, but it's so hard to find time to sit still anymore without interuptions.

Currently the 3 big girls are eating Happy Meals (hey, it's Saturday... I get a day off!), Curtis is napping, and Sydney (baby 4 mo) is with my friend for the day. (YAY!) We are supposed to go to Safeway here soon for the girls to decorate gingerbread houses. They provide everything and I get to leave the mess there!! hooray for that!!

This morning we had rehearsal for the Christmas play for the kids. We ran through it 3x, but I think we could use another 30. IT's so hard to get Karen to cooperate... she's all over the place. Gracie, 6, is fighting a cold and just wanted to lay down. Vanessa, 9, was sick last Sunday, so I think she's not 'all there' in terms of what she did last week. Sydney is going to be baby Jesus. Curtis, if I can find his costume, will be a baby bull in the manger scene. Or he'll just watch.

We are getting a new computer for Christmas. It's all here right now, but Paul needs time to put it all together. Being a computer geek that he is, he has to buy it into pieces and create it.

We're back to training Curtis to sleep through the night. Syd has slept through 2 nights in a row, but C wakes up 3-4 times. I'm TIRED!!

Chris and Jon arrive next week for C-mas. YAY!! We will spend 3 nights at the in-laws. Should be interesting... 2 of them, J&C, Kim, and us 7... 12 people. Thankfully they have 2 bathrooms!!

Well, if you read my Christmas letter and have come here for updates, here it is. The girls will be with us a couple more months. I'm getting DSL at church (Paul is installing it now). my msn is rizaroni73@hotmail.com.

I should see if I can find my kitchen counters before we leave for the grocery. Merry Christmas!!

Trick or Treat!!

Can you believe this was my first year to take Karen trick-or-treating?? We've always done church events. This year the foster girls' mom, grandma and aunt came over, so we hit the Main Street merchants for candy, came home for dinner, then hit the blocks around our house. We then headed to our pastor's home for his 'treat'...the fact he and his son dressed up and tried to scare them. Then the girls hit the neighbors' for more goodies. They had a lot of fun. Boy do I have a lot of chocolate to eat!! MMmm!!

Karen is a beauty queen (although she changed it to a 'fur queen'), Curtis was a baby bull, V was a cheerleader, and G was a Queen. Baby S was a piglet... I just made her a hat with piggy ears on it.

October 8

Life continues to be insanely busy. Looks like we'll have the girls for another couple months. No one can ever tell us for sure, but it doesn't look like they'll be going home any time soon. We are doing better at getting in a routine. I just wish we had a 2nd bathroom!!

Curtis is now a crawling maniac! He also started pulling-to-standing on his own. He's SO proud of himself.

We had the kids' pix taken yesterday.