8 years and counting!

today is our 8-year anniversary! i can honestly say that love and respect allan more today than ever, and i hope i can say that as each anniversary passes. he is the best husband - always encouraging and supporting me, doing special things for me, helping me with whatever i need help with (especially diaper changes, baths, and letting me have a night off), leading me and our family Spiritually, and looking for ways to improve our relationship with each other and with God. i am so thankful he is MINE! i love you, allan!

we didn't do much in way of celebrating tonight because allan has planned a weekend getaway! i don't know anything about it, so i'm really excited! (i would usually have a clue by now but i was real good this time and didn't try to get the info out of him so that it would remain a surprise.) i can't wait for the weekend to get here!

makes me want a fourth

pumpkins galore!

my most FAVORITE time of the year is right now! i love the fall season. the hot, HOT sun is no more, the air is crisp and cool, the colors are amazing, and the smells are irresistible. mmmm. i wish it could be like this all year long. except maybe christmas. i do love christmas! last weekend, allan and i took the kids to a new (for us) pumpkin patch because we heard they had cool pumpkins and great prices. we ended up with a wagon-full of pumpkins of all different colors and sizes. so fun! if you live nearby and haven't checked out job's nursery in pasco, you gotta go! allan and i will be going back for some trees in the near
future. :)

davis lake getaway

i have never gone on a women's retreat before, so i thought it would be fun to see what one would be like. it was a lot of FUN!!! i was originally going to stay in a plush cabin (i.e., in the lodge), but seeing that the "rustic" cabins were a lot less expensive, i opted for one of those instead. plus, all of my girls from my small group were staying in the rustics. we were lucky and got a cabin right next to the bathroom. it made the super cold mornings more bearable. :) i had a great time hearing awesome messages from some very Godly women, praising God with very moving worship music, learning more about Jesus and why it is critical to preach the Gospel to ourselves daily, hiking, laughing, goofing off, zumba-ing, and just hanging out with some great girlfriends. i am looking forward to this again next year!

(1) FAT file girls (2) davis lake (3) our rustic cabin (4) the girls! (5) me and brenda (6) bre and abby (7) getting ready to hike (8) me and rachel (9) bren, me, and rach (10) rach, me, and bre zumba-ing! (11) devotional speakers, karen and kelli (12) me and erin (13) thesisters cake (14) goodbye shot in front of the lake(pics courtesy of rachel and melissa f. thanks for sharing, girls!)

one short month...two big deals

september was a big month for our little elise. first of all...elise turned 1! allan and i were excited to celebrate her first birthday, but at the same time sad that our baby is getting to be not-such-a-baby. it was hard to see lucas and emma turn 1 and start walking and talking, but we also knew that we would have another little one to hold, rock, and cuddle. but with elise, she's our last; our last to swaddle, to rock to sleep, to hear coo, to feed a bottle to...the list goes on. sniff sniff. in fact, we want to keep her as a baby so much that we are purposely not encouraging her to walk! how wrong is that?! anyway, we had a wonderful time celebrating our baby girl on her first birthday. we threw a bug-themed party with her friends logan and analise, who both turned 1 within one week of elise. the kids were so cute all lined up in their high chairs waiting for their cake. see for yourself! (pictures to come)

then, on elise's actual birthday, we took her to chuck e. cheese's per the request of her big brother, lucas, of course. check the three of them out riding on the fire engine and motorcycle together! lucas also requested that we dress elise up in his power rangers costume.

the second big event for elise (and for us) this month was her surgery at children's hospital in seattle. she had to have a small cyst removed from her upper chest area and had to be put under general anesthesia for it. sniff sniff, again. we drove over to seattle on tuesday afternoon (9/22) in preparation for her surgery, which was first thing wednesday morning (9/23). praise God everything went exceptionally smoothly! i have to say, it was extremely hard to let our baby girl go in the arms of the anesthesiologist (they preferred us to stay in the waiting room). but the hospital was very good about keeping us informed every step of the way and our surgeon was thorough but efficient. we were expecting for a good long wait, but our buzzer buzzed before we knew it and we were talking to the surgeon about how the surgery went within an hour of sending elise off. it took elise a little while to wake up and recover from the anesthesia, and she did get a little cranky/mad for about 10 minutes after waking up. but, overall, she did GREAT. better than we could have asked for. she did so well that she didn't even need tylenol the next day. amazing. these little ones are so resilient. look at our little trooper of a girl. (the pictures are chronological beginning with us heading over to seattle to right after we got to hold her back in our arms)

school starts again!

lucas started his pre-k class on monday and so far he seems to really like it! he gets to have his buddy, cody, in his class this year so that is a real treat for him. lucas also has class 3 days a week versus only 2 days last year. he's getting to be such a big boy! :( i really like his new teachers, ms. kim and ms. holly. their class seems a lot more structured and they do a great job keeping the kids focused on the lesson being taught. i'm sure some of that has to do with the fact that the kids are now one year older, but still. i'm liking it!

my sweet and handsome baby boy

yoo-hoo...

i'll just make this short and sweet...enjoy the pictures!

some park time with our friends, carter and logan.

for my birthday, we made a visit to the darigold dairy in sunnyside, wa, then went peach-picking, and then enjoyed a yummy steak and lobster dinner cooked for me by nate and my sister...a wonderful birthday!

we spent labor day with the kids, just enjoying family time. we took the kids biking and to play at a nearby park. usually, allan is the one to pull the bike trailer, but i have never done it (and have been wanting to) so i wanted to give it a go. i figured if i couldn't do it, allan could bail me out. well, allan hitched me up and i started pedaling and it was EASY! i can't say what it would be like to go on hills, but who pulls 3 kids in a bike trailer on hills anyway?

chop, chop, timber!

back in the beginning of summer we enrolled lucas and emma in swim lessons at our community pool. emma's class was a parents and tots class (the parent goes into the pool with the tot), but lucas' was not so he had to go into the pool with his class by himself. he would NOT do it. it took a lot of encouraging, coaxing, coercing, and a tiny bit of threatening just to get him to go into the pool. once he was in, he wouldn't participate with the rest of his class. interestingly, though, as soon as his class was over and emma's started, he would BEG to go into the pool. emma and lucas had the same teacher, miss katie, and she didn't have a problem with lucas doing that. well, lucas was a totally different child during emma's class time. we couldn't understand it except that he must have wanted one of us to be in the pool with him. so, instead of enrolling him into a second session, allan decided to teach lucas on his own. lucas has totally thrived with this new plan and is now jumping into the pool on his own! we are so excited to see him love the water and enjoy swimming!

fireworks galore

we had a nice bbq dinner and then headed out to enjoy the fireworks show our neighborhood puts on every year. it was amazing! elise went to bed early so she missed it all, but i'm sure she'll be part of it next year. happy 4th of july!

honoring allan

i'm not as technologically savvy as allan is so i didn't even try to put together any sort of slideshow or video for him for father's day. instead, i utilized my own savvy skills in the area of crafts and worked with the kids to make a card (it was cool, if i do say so myself...and i do!) and a keychain for allan. he loved them both! we had a great day honoring allan by going to church, taking him to his favorite lunch place, and then just hanging out doing the family-time stuff. allan is the perfect husband for me and the best dad the kids could ask for. he loves them so much that he's contemplating having a fourth. can you say, "craaaaaazy?!" um, no, and that's my final answer. :p i love you, allan!