Christmas

Ella wanted to pose today with her babies and new stroller she got for Christmas from her Grandma Florko. I am working on getting the rest of the pictures put on today.

Dee turns 90

Picture with Papa

singing happy birthday

all 90 candles lit 

We celebrated Dee's birthday a day early last weekend when they came down to visit. 90 candles on a cake is hot and hard to light fast enough so that all the wax doesn't cover the cake. It was pretty funny, but when all said and done we lit all 90 and sang happy birthday

Hockey

Eli scored his first goal today during his Jr. Mite hockey game!! He is too funny to watch out on the ice, for starters he is the smallest kid out there, and he is usually trailing behind the puck trying to catch it. Today they played three games and he did great! Here are his team pictures along with his individual picture with Ethan.

Elijah and Ethan 2011

Jr. Mite Raptors

(Can you see how happy Eli is to get his first team picture..usually there are no smiles in hockey pictures, the boys try to look tough)

Christmas Picture Attempts

My good friend Erin came over today to help us try and capture the perfect christmas picture. After many, many attempts we managed to capture a few good ones. Here are some out takes for you to enjoy.

Video of Eli Skating

Watch for the red helmet skating fast

Elijah playing hockey

Elijah is now playing hockey on the Jr. Mites Team "Raptors." Here are some pictures from their first game. He is number 14 in the red helmet.

Boise Getaway

I had the chance to make a quick weekend trip down to Boise to visit my family and my best friend from high school. I was able to come by myself, which rarely happens. Here are some pictures from my trip.

Ella turns 2

 opening presents with her two helpers

 baby!

 so excited she got a baby (notice the face in the background, I found about 5 more looking at the pictures)

 another little baby

This is her new smile we get every time we ask for a picture

Happy 2nd Birthday Ella

The many faces of Ella

Chris has been working on different facial expressions with Ella so I though I would capture and share some of them with you.

Back to School

We are back to school once again and things are sure different this year. Ethan is now a 7th grader, if you can believe that! He gets to get up early and ride the bus to school everyday, (not sure how long the excitement will last)  and he gets to go to 6 different periods each day with all different teachers. Today went smoothly and he didn't have any complaints, so far so good. I am going to try to snap a picture of him tomorrow getting on the bus...he he he :)

Elijah did not want to go back to school today, but once we arrived he didn't throw a fit and went right into his preschool class!!

Ella is always ready for school until we get there and then she grabs onto my leg and doesn't let go....why does this always happen to me. I want to be the dad sometimes and just wave goodbye like they do with him.

Well I didn't win the mom of the year award today and post back to school pictures like all my friends, but I had a good excuse..our carpet arrived today!!! I have been waiting for this day for the past three years. Pictures to follow

Ethan Wakeboarding for the first time

sorry this is sideways

Fun on the Lake

Yesterday we had a chance to go boating out on lake CDA with a good friend of mine from college and the kids and I had such a good time. Ella surprised me the most, I thought she would be scared, but it was just the opposite she was yelling and laughing and dancing the whole time. Elijah and Ella wouldn't get in the water, but the rest of us did and we had a blast, Ethan and I even tried wakeboarding for the first time...we need more practice!

Here are some pictures from our fun filled adventure :)

getting ready to head out on the water

 Ella wanted to drive most of the time so we let her try it out for a little bit

 This is as close to the water as Elijah got

 they wanted to sit at the front of the boat and Elijah was cheering the whole time

 we took a break to stop in at Eddie's and eat

 Ethan getting the wake board on his feet

in the water ready to go...I will post the video of him

staining fence

 Eli was my little helper this week when I was staining the fence, we finished 2 sides of the fence!

Horses

A friend of mine let us come over and see her horses and Elijah was so excited that he was able to ride around on one. Here is a pictures of the day...afterwards we visited and picked raspberries. Yum Yum!

Kiwana's Sprint Triathalon

Finished my second sprint triathalon today out in Medical Lake! My time improved a lot due to the shorter swim (I am a terrible swimmer) and I am pretty sure my bike was faster too. I think I need to be doing more than one a year and I need to get my own road bike. I am going to keep working at it!!

U District 5 K

I have started the summer 5 K series again, hoping to get back into running again. Here are the three of us from last year back at it again.

Shawna, Susy and me

Surviving Silverwood another year

We started with the little kid rides, here are the planes

 Then we did a little bit bigger rides

 Ella was mad she couldn't go on the swing ride with the boys since she was too short

 another kid ride for Ella and Elijah

 train roller coaster, Eli is having a blast!

 helicopter ride, they were fighting over who was going to steer the ride, Ella won

 toddler springs, Ella's favorite part of the day. Chris and Ethan went on the tube rides while we were at Boulder Beach

 this is the ride that gets you pretty wet

Eli on the slides at Boulder Beach

All in all it was a good day, about 73 degrees so not too hot, but the water wasn't very warm. The kids had fun and Elijah almost got to go on the rollercoasters to end the evening, but he was 2 inches too short. Next year for sure.

Skyhigh

I didn't get many pictures of anyone jumping because they all came out blury. I guess I do not know how to capture shots on the trampoline. Here are a few pictures that I did get.

 Ethan's 12th Birthday Party at Skyhigh

 Logan, Hunter, Wealthy, and Cade came to celebrate with Ethan

Ella trying to jump with Ethan