WHAT A BIRTHDAY WEEKEND!!

Nathan Jade Jin Pei Moyer is 7 years old!!!! His birthday was Friday, but he had a rockin' party on Saturday... and here we go!!!!!!!!!!!
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His cake -- he has wanted a "gingerbread house cake" ALL YEAR. He came home from China in January and had never seen one before. I think there was a gingerbread house in an ad in one of my cake magazines, and he saw it when I was figuring out what to do for Mary Pearl's birthday last February. Ever since then, he has been fixated on gingerbread houses, and so here it is... Nathan Jade's gingerbread house chocolate mint birthday cake!!!



The guts --- this is the sheet cake all cut up -- before it all started sliding apart because the roof trusses were just too darn heavy. (This recipe is a seriously dense fudgey cake! Heavy!) So I took off the roof parts, kept only what I needed to hold up some graham crackers for the roof and we all had a little bit of cake on Friday night. LOL

Everything one needs for proper candy construction:

TA DA!!!!!!!

Everything is ready for the party!!! The second cake was cherry chip from a mix (the only mix I buy because it's so good!) with a homemade mint chocolate buttercream frosting.

All we need are some guests...

And then the guests showed up!! Sixteen kiddos in all, including siblings (who are ALWAYS welcome at our parties), and one very excited, Happy Birthday Boy!

The cash register was a big hit. Funny. This is Sydney and Toby. Syd is one of Emily's best friends. And I would go insane without her mother.

Mary Pearl doesn't need a whole lot to have fun. She is the most awesome kid....

Little Lily -- Jasmine's sister.

Telling jokes...

Girls hit the girls' room...

More cash register times... We are really lucky because we had an actual break in the weather, and so for a lot of the time, the kids actually WENT OUTSIDE and RAN AROUND IN THE YARD!!!! I was in shock!!!

Mary Pearl caught Mama -- a rare photo of the party planner and cake decorator!!

Balloon wars in Nathan's room:

Do I want to know why the camera has spots in this photo???

YEAH!! Present time!!!!!!

And then it was time for the cake!!!! I pulled the roof off to get to the cake, and then the kids spent the rest of the day sneaking pieces of roof to eat. Graham crackers, icing and giant Smarties... yummmmm!!!!

The littles --- Lily and Logan. Too freakin' cute.

And that's it, gang!! A very successful party for our super-awesome son!!! Next up -- a quiet Thanksgiving at home, Mary Pearl's Adoption Day on December 5, and then Christmas.

WOO!!!!!

NOVEMBER IS IN THE HOUSE!!!!

Wow -- wind and rain and we even had a few nights of thunder and lightning!! What is going on?? Must be fall on the Oregon Coast!

November 4, 2009 Sunrise:



November 4, 2009 Sunset:

Our Mandarin orange tree had an orange!! And there are more on the way!!! Our next challenge is to get the poor tree through winter ALIVE. We are thinking there will be much burlap and straw involved. Haha!!

Nathan Jade thought the orange was for him. He still has trouble with that whole "sharing" thing.

Mary Pearl, our little Orange Girl of course loved the orange to death...

How sweet is she???

We made a pillow for Jasmine's birthday party last weekend:

Nathan taking a photo of his upside-down sister:

The mountain is SERIOUSLY getting its misty on lately!!

OMG -- more roasted pumpkin seeds!!! I have discovered the secret -- clean them, tiny bit of oil then salt, and then roast them at 425 and stir every ten minutes. Don't let them burn. I don't worry about them being in "one layer" like all the recipes say. Just throw them in a baking pan. Pampered Chef stoneware works GREAT. I used our large bar pan because it has sides. YUM!!

The sacrificial pumpkins of the day. These are the gorgeous little guys the kids brought home from their teacher's patch:

And here they are going into the oven:

Smashy, smashy!!!

Who wants some PIE??????

Cooling and then they're ready for the freezer!

I have begun sending our queries for my first novel in the Elliot Lake Series. Unreal. It's the start of (hopefully) very long journey. Wish me luck!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2009!!!

Our little minkees were ready for Halloween Saturday night! I was ironing Emily's top at the last minute, but we did it!! I cheated this year and bought Nathan's outfit, but it was seriously cool for $15, so everyone was happy!! Oh, and Mary Pearl lost her dinosaur feet, because they were so big and floppy it was hard to walk, but she's still adorable!!!


See? How adorable is she??

OMG - so adorable!!!

*GACK* Too cute!!!!

"GO TEAM!!!"

Emily wanted to be a cheerleader this year, and she wanted red, white and blue, but then wanted her school's initials (for Hilda Lahti Elementary), and so that's what she got!!

The cute dinosaur again...

Nathan at this point (you know, BEFORE we left the house?) was already in a bad mood because he had gone to a party earlier in the day and thought it would be a good idea to skip lunch and play instead. So basically he ate nothing but a giant cupcake and tons of candy at the party, no pizza. He was FLYING and p-o'ed and didn't want to smile, which is why I took more photos of the girls. LOL

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Okay. First stop was a little church thing we were invited to by Tammi, who didn't realize it was a church thing. Oh, well. We met people, talked, ooh'ed and aah'ed over the cute kids and all their costumes, then took off before the real singing began. Scary.

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Tammi has a plan for their trick-or-treating that took us through the backroads of Knappa and Brownsmead... the end result of which was a LOT of candy at very few homes. But it was also sort of a wildlife and large animal tour... We saw a LOT of giant dogs, even two Newfoundlands, and there was a deer running down the road at one point... but this is Judy's kitty...

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Cute, right??? Nice, little tabby. So... cute...

Ummm... kitty?? KITTY????? WHY ARE YOU EATING THAT TEENAGER??? OMG!!!!

HOLY CRAP!! THAT'S NO KITTY!! IT'S A BOBCAT!!!!!

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Charley holding the ginormous cat:

He was truly the biggest cat I've ever seen up close and personal. And so sweet!! He was completely overwhelmed with all the people in the house, but I appreciate the teen who kept finding him and bringing him out for photos!! lol

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This is Glori, who is 6, and the bobcat -- they both weigh 55 pounds. Now, THAT is insane.

Rub da kitteh....

Playing the piano....

Back the evening's original plan...

Nathan Jade's first Halloween haul!!!! Somehow he came home with twice the candy as the girls. Still not sure what happened there... hmm.....

We hadn't seen the sky for days, but the clouds parted, the rain went away and we had ourselves a big, fat moon to light our way.

I hope everyone survived their candy coma!!!!

Peace!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN WEEK!!!

Our beautiful pumpkins are ready for the big show....


And a few behind-the-scenes shots...

Nathan didn't really like this part by his second pumpkin, but I told him he had to scoop guts if he wanted to carve, so there you go!

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Working together:

Mary Pearl was so excited to have carved out her first star, she wanted to keep it "forever." So sweet!!

THE DINOSAUR IS IN THE HOUSE!!!!!!!

Mary Pearl as The Dinosaur.... ***ROAR!!!***

Check out my big FEET!!!

I AM SUCH A HAPPY LITTLE DINO!!!!

Oh, wait... is that lunch I hear rustling in the bushes??

Or maybe flying in the sky???

Oh, well!! I guess I'll eat later!

Where did my super-cool tail go?

Uhhh.... Mom?? I thought you were going to make my arms longer?

A back view...

Our little dinosaur...

Bedtime for sweet little boo-bears.....

Next up.... Emily Rose as The Cheerleader!!!! And Nathan's ninja outfit should be here tomorrow!!

OCTOBER FULL BLAST!

Hey everyone!
We started off October with some seriously cold days... here are Emily and Nathan tripping off to the bus stop -- it was 32 degrees this morning (on the 6th!). That morning we were getting ready to walk out the door and Nathan had no jacket on -- he didn't believe me when I said it was COLD outside!! haha


But later that same day, the sun came out and burned off the fog and the temperature soared, woo! So Mary Pearl and I went out to get some late-season shots of the garden... here is our littlest gardener by the patch of marigolds she planted:

We love these... they are now all keeled over (just two weeks later), but we will plant them again next year!

A sun-fie-you and a bee....

Charlotte's Web was with us for a few days! The sun really caught this morning... gorgeous!

At first I was disappointed the main flower coming up from the border mix was cosmos... but check out that bed! It's awesome!!

We were lying on the grass at this point...

Mary Pearl's photo of the bachelor's buttons:

Mary Pearl says, "Oh yeah - I took a picture of the half sun."

Pink cosmos!!!!

Mary Pearl and the super-tall marigolds:

Mary Pearl's self-portrait:

I love these guys!!

"Wat'choo lookin' at??"

And this is where the deer have been sleeping in the cosmos bed:

We saw the moon that cold, cold morning, too... big and bright!

And then the rains came back:

October 16 -- glorious sunrise on the way to the bus stop:

And then, on my brother's birthday (HAPPY LATE BIRTHDAY, DOUG!) we braved the rain and went to Columbia Farms to try and decide which beautiful pumpkins to bring home. They were all perfect. It was such a change from our trip last year where we started at Krueger's Farm and everything was smooshy and gross. And then we went to Columbia Farms and they had nice pumpkins... so now our plan is to just start out at Columbia Farms!

Here is a plug for them: http://www.columbiafarmsu-pick.com/

The last holdout:

Ready to hunt for the big orange fruit:

Nathan has carved this one with a cat face:

Emily has carved the traditional jack-o-lantern face into this one:

(She is traditional girl like Daddy!)

Photo op in the rain in front of a really old truck:

(They have weird looks on their faces because they are saying "pumpkin" instead of "puppy.")

Nathan wanted to take this one home:

And then we went to Krueger's Farms --- (I might be spelling that wrong, I should look it up), and they have the full-on farm store and produce and cider and face painting and lunch and whatevah...) --- here are some beautiful squash:

Cinderella pumpkin, just add white mice:

Emily says, "WHAT is THIS?"

Cool kitty bucket with corn inside:

Dried peonies -- I didn't know you could dry peonies?!

They have caramel apples....

...and watermelon???

The big, giant scale:

Wow -- look how our pumpkin has grown!!!! Mary Pearl is 2 in the first picture and 4 now!

Okay... back to October...

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"POOR MAN'S MP3 PLAYER"

Mary Pearl says, "I can't hear the music, Mama!!"

And then we went to find the closest beach to us at Aldrich Point -- but the TIDE was in, holy smokes... and so we will have to go again when the tide is not super-high, then we will have beach to play on!

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This is a VERY Photoshopped photo of the Columbia River looking west...

And then I treated this cool shot of the ripples:

Without Photoshop, this photo would have been every shade of gray. And that's no fun!

The kids on the rocky dock:

Walking along the river...

Daddy and Mary Pearl....

Okay... nobody tell the ducks that there will soon be dudes with guns in this boat later:

The Columbia River, looking across to Washington:

This is our neighbor's tree in its full glory! So pretty!!

And today we are carving our pumpkins we brought home... so I wanted to get this update in now! So far we have a kitty, a traditional and a roaring dinosaur!! We have three more to go, and I am also putting the finishing touches on Mary Pearl's orange dinosaur costume so I can start Emily Rose's cheerleading outfit for Halloween.

Hope all is well with your families and thanks for stopping by!!

HAPPY MID-AUTUMN *MOON* FESTIVAL!!!!

"Cynthia" means "Goddess of the Moon" so this is my holiday.... Happy Moon Festival!! Get out yer jade rabbit and moon cakes and have a ball!!
Here are some moon cakes to get you started....


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We got an early jump on planting trees, though. Charley brought them home last weekend and so we have four new little guys out there, but at least with the rain we had last week we didn't have to worry about watering them.
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Speaking of rain -- while we were busy planting our trees and weeding the garden and planting garlic and flowers and all that good stuff last weekend, my beloved Metro Manila was nearly wiped off the map by the typhoon Ondoy. And now Pepe is right behind, already striking land, although tracking news from the Philippines is nearly impossible. I have only heard from one friend in the Philippines, and the brother of another, but one of my dearest friends, Nelson, lost everything on the bottom floor of their house plus their two cars. I have no idea what the extent of the damage is to their house, but it all just makes me sick. Please pray, cross your fingers, send a wish to the Universe that the recovery from this insanely ridiculous storm is swift. Nelson's plan this entire time was to finally move his family to the U.S., but waiting for permission to come over (he is a nurse) has delayed their process for years, and now this.
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This is the *second* story of their house:


To all my barkada -- mahal kita!!! I love you all so much!!!
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For more information on the relief efforts:
http://www.redcross.org.ph/
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Now on to our boring, normal DRY homelife...

Here is Mary Pearl in her natural state:

Playing with Play-doh:

Playing peek-a-boo:

And just a small fraction of our wonderful tomato crop this year -- just one day's worth! It's like growing candy in the garden.

Rainbow Season is upon us:

The garden is beyond beautiful right now. I can't believe I was upset so much cosmos was coming up from the "mix" I planted from Territorial Seeds. I will plant nothing else next year!

A shot of the whole garden:

It is also Misty Mountain Season:

And Charlotte has been busy on the back porch:

This morning:

CANNON BEACH WEEKEND!!!

I am going to have a mainly Wordless Sunday today... but I wanted to make sure I got these photos up because it was such a fun day. Our friend Jeanne T. comes down to Cannon Beach every year in September, and that is our time to visit and catch up. And each year the kids just get bigger... funny how that works! Her son Colt is 3 and will soon be 4 in November.
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Looking north - the really huge seastack is Haystack Rock. Not to be confused with the huge seastack right off the coast in Pacific City, Oregon, about 90 miles south of this one, which is also called Haystack Rock.... (der?)

Looking south...

I sure wish the beaches in Oregon weren't so crowded. It's such a drag.

One very sandy Colt:

Emily Rose with a touchdown for the beach:

Dirty hands!!!

Jeanne T. doing the mom what-are-you-doing? look....

Me playing on Photoshop -- this photo was really dark and blurry!

Another Photoshop fun time....

Jeanne T. and Colt's dogs... Angel and Kenzie (not sure how to spell Kenzie!):

Cartwheel, of course....

And Nathan spent most of his time digging really big holes:

This is the ocean coming up through his hole, because the tide was getting a *little* too close to our log we were sitting on!
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Sunday was a lazy day, but we made bread and did some chores, then we visited our friend Smiley (he gave us all of our awesome tomato plants!). He loaded us up with veggies from his garden and invited us back next weekend for corn. He needs to open his own farmer's market!

Have a great week everyone!

OMG! THE CIRCUS CAME TO TOWN!!

Our sweet friend and neighbor Tammi scored us some tickets for today's Shriner Circus Gatti in Astoria... woo!!! So we and our five kiddos piled into the van and headed over...
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I *tried* to get some decent shots, but wasn't sure what was going to work, and I was also juggling a rotating cast of children on my lap so they could see, as well as drinks, popcorn and cotton candy.... I wish I would have taken some photos of the girls doing their excellent aerobatics on the ropes/hoops/scarves but I didn't... next time.
It's a shame, too, because they were sooo sparkly!!!
:-)
Here they are with Bingo the Clown... he is doing a rope trick. He gave them cute cards and pins with his clowny face on them.

The clowns... doing strange things with a ladder. These are also the tight-rope guys... you'll see them later. Brothers from Columbia... *cute* and *agile* and the big one nearly fell off the high wire. Not fun. The bodyguard/bouncers shot forward to catch him. *yikes*

Jeremy the Juggler... he rocked!!!! See how blurry he is??? ha ha

With balls....

And of course, fire. Don't try this at home, kids!!!

Here are the aforementioned clowns... now risking their adorable necks on a tiny wire high up in the air. The older brother is jumping over the younger one, and then they switched. OMG!! Where is their mother????

And THEN the older one decided it would be a good idea to walk across the damn thing BLINDFOLDED!!!!!!! (I think someone needs a timeout in his room!)

Our whole goofy crew except for Aaron who is too old to pose with clowns! *ha*

My only decent photo of one of the girls -- she was excellent. Here she is doing the human hula hoop holder thing.... She started this, and all the kids in the audience were screaming, "SLINKY!! SLINKY!!!" I can only think this is now a common hula hoop term, since all the kids are into hooping and not Slinkies!!!

The dog and pony show pics looked horrible, so by the time the elephants came on, I had the whole camera thing worked out... nice!!!! I am still not a fan of animals in circuses and would be happy with just watching acrobatics and silly clowns, but I can't change the world, darn it.

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Dancing:

This was cool -- the one on top stayed like that and moved as the other one went in a circle. I can't even get my kids to pick up their toys, yet someone taught these ginormous animals to do this. I completely suck.

On the other side...

After the show, I asked two of the performers if we could get a photo with the kids, and since Nathan had already walked off somewhere and wasn't listening to me (I know, everyone is SHOCKED), the girls got to be in the photo. This is the younger brother tightrope walker/ladder clown and one of the three enormously pretty acrobatic girls (ignore her frightening amount of makeup) as they were topping off the evening by selling some more snowcones.

And.... that's all, folks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

COMPANY PICNIC.... WOO!!!!!!

Hey everyone,
We had a blast on Saturday at Oaks Park, a family amusement park in Portland, where Charley's company had their company picnic. So fun!!!
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See, it's official. Here is our sign:


These are the oaks of Oaks Park. Some serious board feet here, man....

A rare photo of the five of us in one spot... and matching shirts and everything!!

This was in the afternoon after we'd been through the amusement park part already. We needed water and wanted to see what was going on in the picnic grounds, and there was ice cream!!

The kids in front of some seriously big tree trunks.

But Mary Pearl wanted her own photo in front of a tree she chose.

Emily and Mary Pearl in a really sparkly car!

Ooohh... riding the go-carts was very popular!!!!

The BIG slide......

We LOVED the tugboat ride.... I want one for the backyard!!!

It started by sliding up and down and back and forth on this big incline, then the whole boat started spinning!!! YES!!!! Charley can't go on rides like this. He forgot his Dramamine this morning. hahaha!!!!!

These buckets spun like crazy if you got it going the right direction....

And you know you have it right when Mary Pearl has this look on her face:

The gorgeous little train engine:

Okay. I have a bigger mind than most, but WHAT the HECK is the deal with the naked guy and his SWORD on the carousel ride?????? *ack*

"Don't touch it, kids! Don't even look at it!"

Cool shots from the Ferris wheel:

Wayyy off in the distance there is downtown Portland! Can you see Daddy's office building??

Loved this guy....

Until next year.... thank you, Campbell Group, for such a fantastic day!!! (It was so sweet of them to order all of that hot weather and blue skies, too!!! Excellent!!!)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DIEGO!!!!

Our baby kitteh Diego turns 1 today!!! He is truly the coolest cat, too. Purrs so loud, follows Mama everywhere... he keeps me company while I wait outside the kids' rooms at night. I read my book, he snuggles on my lap. Definitely a win-win for us both.

Diego was Mary Pearl's present for her 4th birthday. She wanted a kitten, she wanted an ORANGE kitten, and she wanted to name him Diego. So there he was on Craig's List. He came home at about five months old, cute as a bug, Mr. Loud Purring guy... he's awesome.

Here is Mary Pearl practicing for her senior portraits... where's a tree trunk when you need one?

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!

We did it -- we made it through the summer!!! And here they are, ready to go tripping off to school for their first day of first grade!!

They each had about 50 pounds of supplies in their backpacks, plus they were each carrying a lunch, and so by the end of this year, we figure they will be ready for a career in professional wrestling.

We are boycotting the usual pile-of-expensive-professional-photos and instead will take our own photos (gee, like I don't HAVE a million photos of these guys already!) and we will just get the class photo. These are the two I took this morning -- keep in mind the quality of Blogger is NOT the greatest!! Everything always looks blurry, even though the photos aren't. *goofy*

And this.... THIS is my moment of zen... a mother's reward for a summer full of insane activity, driving back and forth, making a zillion meals, washing a katrillion dirty dishes, hanging eight thrillion loads of laundry on the line... yes... this... beautiful sight met me this morning...

Can I please just have a moment of glorious silence.

Emily Rose has been counting down the days until school started, though, so it's not just the mommies who go cuckoo-crazy trying to fill three long months of "There's nothing TO DO!!"

That is our friend and neighbor, Tammi, driving the bus and in her defense, I snapped the shot when she was talking to me. Sorry, Tammi!! She was asking me if Nathan would be riding the bus, and I told her that nope -- he was riding with Mom this morning! I went with him in the morning and picked them up at night, just to make sure he knew the routine... because tomorrow he will be riding the bus!!!

(Yeah -- and getting upat 6 a.m. sure was fun today!!! Let me tell ya!!)

And here is Little Miss Emily Rose in her new desk in Mrs. Johnson's class....

And here is Nathan Jade Jin Pei in his new desk in Mrs. Holloran's class...

And now going back in time over the last week or so.....

Making gingerbread cookies on September 1st:

This is Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba...

Mary Pearl had a little surgery on September 2... new ear tubes, her third set! Hopefully this will be her LAST set and her little ears will catch up with her and so we won't have to do this again! (Because, gee, it was SO MUCH FUN to be at the hospital in Astoria at 6 a.m.!!)

After:

She sailed through this surgery the easiest of all of the procedures this kiddo has had. In fact, she was excited to go, didn't mind missing her morning hot chocolate (Carnation Breakfast drink) and was packed the night before for her (very) short hospital stay... because she knew she'd be getting a new little stuffed animal. ha ha!! This time it was a yellow triceratops she named Twinkle. Need to get that little guy's photo on here.... (Actually, Twinkle might be a girl...)

Here is Mary Pearl going right for the jelly in her danish her nurse brought her:

After our terribly exciting hospital hang-out session, Emily Rose had a first-grade girls party to go to! Here she is with the frame she decorated:

Decorating cookies -- my mother's recipe, and they are awesome!!

Emily's cookies she decorated for us to have after dinner that night:

The whole Cookie Crew:

And here is Miss Emily Rose in her natural position. Mary Pearl is all in lavender and wearing the tomato-collecting bowl on her head. (We were going out to the garden!)

Digging potatoes...

Mary Pearl napping in the garden:

And with our first carrot!

The whole harvest that day!!!

Our new bread recipe:

It is seriously good... it's a new one, and I'll have to get the link on this computer. Our regular desk computer finally breathed it's last and had to be put down. So over the last week I've been using the laptop, but now we have the new one up and running and I haven't had a chance to switch over links and things yet!! *ack*

I am beginning my new daytime job (Pampered Chef!!) here now that the pieces are in place -- kids are in school, we're nailing down Mary Pearl's speech class time, we know tumbling is on Thursday after school, and the *real* computer is here again so I can work on it, and print things, and ALL that good stuff. :-)

So you will all be getting news on the Pampered Chef goodies available... start your ovens!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SEAMUS, YO GABBA GABBA STYLE!!

Saturday night the kids were invited to a Yo Gabba Gabba Birthday Dance Party for a sweet little boy in Mary Pearl's speech class -- Seamus who turned 4!!!

The photos speak for themselves!!!


Here is Emily Rose... but behind her glorious smile is the birthday boy, trying to make off with his own decorations!! haha!!

Mary Pearl and her hair doing some dancey squats!!

Nathan negotiating with baby Davin over some balloons:

Me playing with Photoshop... but Mary Pearl is obviously our future basketball star:

Davin reaching for... something.... not sure what - crayons? balloons?? the cake???

And here is our future volleyball star -- look at that stance!! And that chin! She's ready for action!! Kicking ass and taking names, people!

The birthday boy, Seamus, on the left and his brother on the right... waiting for the CAKE!!

Getting..... tired...... at this point Nathan was laying on my lap!

Opening presents....

And that's all.... folks!!!!

KNAPPA DAYS 2009

We got to see history in the making on Saturday -- the return of Knappa DAYS!!! Next year we will be more prepared... we had no idea how much they were going to really have, so we didn't get up and going early enough for the parade, and by the time the logging show began, we were already home and getting ready for Seamus's birthday party.... BUT -- we saw the lawn mower races and THAT makes up for a LOT!! ha ha

Here they are...


This is was too funny.... we saw one roll-over (the driver was okay!!), three crashes and two different guys drove off the track into the field. WOO!!!!! It was LOUD and SMELLY and too much fun!!! Yes.... we live in the country!!!

The winner!!!!!

Now, this is the point where my camera battery died, unfortunately... and so I didn't get any more photos. I got one short video, but I missed the end race -- eight guys going around the track for 10 laps, after the fire truck dumped God-knows-how-many gallons of water in the lower parts of the track creating GIGANTIC PUDDLES!!!! YEAH!!!!!!!!!

On with the festival!!!!!!!

Bat girls:

The cupcake walk on the left (so much fun for 25 cents!) and a lot of Red Devil Football Dudes running around on the right near the petting zoo.

Our little neighbor.... Glori!!!

Balloon kids:

Our neighbor, Josh, also known as BALLOON MAN!!!!

This is Mitchell..... a born ham!!!!!

Emily says, "Boys sure are dumb." hahaha

The petting zoo....

The festival close to closing up....

The Girl Scout Bake Sale.... my no-bake oatmeal cookies sold out, and Mary Pearl bought my last blueberry muffin!

The cupcake walk... Emily won a cupcake, and then after that was over, we went to the Girl Scout booth and got that blueberry muffin for Mary! In the background, you can see Nathan Jade in the blue shirt sword fighting with other boys.

The stick-your-head-through-the-hole thing...

Some really cool kitties!!! The face painting was AMAZING... just tooo spendar for us! It was $6 PER KID!!! YIKES!!!! That's what was SO NICE about this festival -- no rides, no expensive vendor food/garbage... just local people and lots of free things for the kids to do!!

We are DEFINITELY looking forward to next year!!!

JUST A QUESTION

Okay -- so when I check to see where our blog viewers are coming from, about HALF of the referrals lead me to images from our site -- specifically photos of a few of my cakes (Diego) and photos of our "beach-themed" bathroom. I see these over and over and over again....

Who are YOU?????
Just wondering......
:-)

A DAY IN THE LIFE

I made my usual list of what-did-I-do-today on Facebook yesterday and my friend Amy scoffed and said she wanted photos... so here we go....

Backing up, though, this is from two days ago -- this is what happens when you are letting your yeast proof in an 87-degree kitchen while you are getting one kid settled on the desktop on Noggin.com, another kid on the laptop playing a Clifford game, and the third kid on the portable DVD player playing a Chinese singing and dancing DVD. Yikes!!



Here are the adorable little apples we got from our neighor's tree... this took like five minutes to pick. They are tart like Granny Smith apples, and so half went into the dehydrator for apple candy (dried with cinnamon sugar) and the rest were made into applesauce and are cooling their heels in the freezer. One of my friends told us about the joy of frozen homemade applesauce, and SHE was RIGHT!!!!!

Garden Walk --- 8-19-2009 :-)

A bee doing his thing on a very pink cosmos flower.

I *LOVE* this flower -- look at that lavender color!! Another cosmos bloom.

Mary Pearl's marigolds in her dinosaur nest corner. When we were building the garden, she chose the river rocks most resembling "dinosaur eggs." This is their nest:

Here is our popcorn... a little on the short side, but it's all good. We're excited anything grew at all and we are really happy with our first year in the garden!!!

Daddy's hops plant has taken off, too. So pretty! Charley put a wire across the top of the garden, and so each year it will be fun to see how much further the hops grows!

A side view -- you have to keep reminding it where the wire is. ha ha

A close-up. We love the flowers -- like papery pine cones. Nice scent, too.

More of Mary Pearl's marigolds. If it were up to her, our whole garden would be full of marigolds and California poppies. ORANGE! ORANGE! ORANGE!!!

Miss Emily Rose - this child never stops moving!

Mary Pearl in a very sweet pose.... She is my little baby bug backpack. I am not sure how I will be able to send her to kindergarten in a year!! :-(

Nathan and his babies -- his panda he got from the notary on his adoption day in China, his black horse (he LOVES horses!) and of course, our little black Lab, Twilight. He never met our dogs. Oh well. :-(

Okay -- this is where Amy challenged me for photos of what I did yesterday.... here are the brownies I made for Charley's lunch, and then the homemade refried beans all ready to get popped in the freezer......

Here is half of the laundry I got off the line. This load was crispy dry by 2 p.m.!!! That doesn't usually happen here, but it did get up to 90-something yesterday!! ha ha

The mess created when we make apple candy -- apple bits doused with orange juice and lemon juice, then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and dried overnight. Yum!!!!

Here are the chocolate-banana popsicles I made yesterday -- Nathan calls these "pot stickers" of course, he calls pot stickers "pot stickers" and he knows there's a difference... he just can't hear the difference yet! Too funny. :-)

After I made these, the kids wanted smoothies of the same concoction, so I had to turn around and make another round of chocolate-banana smoothie... unsweetened cocoa, a shake of cinnamon sugar, two frozen bananas and enough soy milk to make it all blend up. Yum!

This is me battling the sun -- the bamboo shade has spaces between the little bamboo shoots, and so I got tired of the sun SCREAMING into the kitchen and blinding me, not to mention the heat generated, so I just got up there and clipped a sheet to the damn thing.

Cooking the blackberries (which we picked on our road) for the evening's cobbler:

Beginning to put the enchiladas for dinner together. Homemade beans, homemade sauce, and Tillamook cheddar....

Mmmmm...... the blackberries all hot and steamy crazy and ready for their topping. This smelled so good, I cannot even tell you....

Enchilada Anatomy 101:

Everybody sharing the oven:

Oh...... my....... God.............. GET A SPOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahhhhh..... there's my spoon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jack says, "Mama.... just go to bed....."

Goodnight, Jack!!