Happy Halloween 2010!

Happy Halloween!! Hope everyone had a FUN and safe night!!

Here are the girls all dressed up. As Avery said at 6 pm...."FINALLY its time!!" Been hearing A LOT of nagging today and this week....

Snow White and Rosetta are ready to go.....TRICK or TREATING!!


Natale as Rosetta a Tinkerbell fairy....also showing a smile.


Mama and her girls....

Toddler trip to the Pumpkin patch

Today, we met Natale's preschool class at Carleton farms off of Sunnyside Blvd. near Frontier Village. When we arrived, we loaded up into hay wagon and took a ride to the patch and then trekked thru the field and found her prize....

After the hay ride, we watched Ms Kayla shoot a pumpkin out of a cannon x2.

The kiddos enjoyed their snack time receiving a cupcake to decorate with frosting and candy corns. Natale slid down a tube slide , ran thru a maze and then Mama took her to check out the animal barn. There were peacocks, a few goats, a sheep and a Mama chicken with 2 brand new babies with more eggs hatching in the nest.

Mama and Nat

Natale is just over 3 ft tall...

She found her pun-kin....

We had a great, sunny day at the pumpkin patch and I hope to get the whole family there before the end of the month....stay tuned!

Marriage of Jake & Darci Smulkowski

What comes around goes around......

One of our best friends, Jake Smulkowski married Joe and I in November 2004. When we found out Jake was going to marry Darci, we were SO thrilled for him. In June 2009, our family vacation to Sun Mountain Lodge in Kellogg, Idaho also included a visit with our Reverend and his fiance. During our visit, I started asking questions about the wedding, where, when, location and other important details that were in their plans. Darci then shared that Jake intended Joe to marry them just like He marry us. I almost cried.

July 2010.....We had planned for several weeks for our trip to Hayden ID. to be without kids. We headed over on Thursday morning to make it to the rehearsal by 5pm in Deer Park. We had a great weekend celebrating our Friend's Big day. Joe and I stayed with Jake at his place and I had a great time hanging with the groom, best man and officiant....GOOD TIMES! :)
It was great to meet Jake's mom and dad. Renee and I had never met, but you would have never known. It was nice to have conversations with adults and not have little ones interrupting you. I was included in a Bridal Tea for Darci and got to know many of her girlfriends and her lovely family. Thank you for including us like family!!

The BIG DAY.....July 17th 2010

The Princes with the newly married Smulkowski's. Jake and Darci got married at a Beautiful farm in Deer Park, WA just North of Spokane.

Joe as the Officiant and the Groom waiting for his Bride....

Here comes the Bride....

Darci looked SO Pretty!

the hand-off

And then....They're MARRIED!!

Joe did a GREAT job as the Officiant. He received several comments of approval. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and watched them cut the cake. We headed out a bit early to start our trip home. We missed our babies and were tired from the FUN-filled weekend.

We are SO very happy for Jake and Darci!! Congratulations!! We Love you!!

And a BIG Thank you to Gram and Gramps for taking the girls and Henry for the first few days....and another Big Thanks goes to GG for having the girls the last part of the weekend and for Auntie Krissy for being there too with a brand new baby!! Thanks for your help & WE LOVE YOU!!

Happy Mother's Day

Hope ALL those MAMA's out there had a GREAT day!! Because I sure did!! :)

planting flowers and finding bugs

This spring, we wanted to put some height in our front flower bed, so we planted a few Alaskan weeping cedars. We also added some colorful perennials, Azalea bushes, and several poppy plants (Joe's favorite) that will brighten our pathway to the front door. We also bought a few Espalier (branched out to grow on trellis) fruit trees that we hope will bear apples and pears in the summer and fall.

Our front yard....our grass is so green.....for now!! :)

On another sunny Pre-spring day, Mama and the girls took a trip to the Home Depot and bought a few primroses and seeds packets for some outside springtime planting. Avery and Mama were able to get outside to get the flowers planted and watered while Natale took a nap.

Avery showing off her 5 primroses

After planting the flowers, Mama & Avery started pulling weeds and sorting out the rocks in the backyard that still needs to be landscaped. But that HUGE project will be done in the near future. While Mama was busy digging and racking she found some critters....

a few juicy worms

Avery showing off the lady bugs and worms

lady bug crawling up the grass

Another lady bug!!

I Love Lady Bugs and hope they might bring us some "Good Luck" because we saw 3 of them that afternoon. We hope to share more of our outdoor garden adventures soon!!