Busy, Busy...

We have been so busy with lots & lots of hockey and getting things all in order for Jakob's Blue and Gold Banquet coming up next weekend...he will cross over from Cub Scouts to become a Boy Scout!! I can not believe Jakob is going to become a Boy Scout...next weekend! We are so proud of him & all his hard work!!

So, here are a few pictures from the last few weeks.
Here is little Samuel in a perfect size chair at my friend Kari's house... Thank you to my friend, Susan for the adorable outfit :-).

Here is Jakob in a game against Palmer...

Rachel, with her FAVORITE, must have, blanket and one of her MANY, MANY Huskies :-).

And with her new friend, a sock puppy that she named, Maggie, after the Elephant that was transfered from the Alaska zoo down to California. Isn't this puppy so cute. My friend, Kellie, is very talented and made this for Rachel. Thank you again Kellie!!!

My Valentine Tulips, my FAVORITE...thank you sweetie!!

The kids had a few friends sleep over last Sunday since they were out of school on Monday for President's Day and the rest of the weekend we had been busy with Jakob's hockey tournament...they made it to the semi-finals, but lost :-(.

This lady makes these hats for the hockey players...aren't they cool??

So, in case you are wondering what the Sam-a-Nader could possibly do when a 10 year old and a 4 year old are left to "watch" him while I cook dinner...

He had this look like, "What did I do?"

Ben asked if Sam was going to be in time out...hee.

Look at that face!!

So, I had fun vacuuming up the popcorn topping...the entire bottle! Did I mention that I had just vacuumed that floor about 30 minutes prior to the Sam-a-Nader attack!? Then when I went to pull the laundry out of the dryer I found GUM ALL over the dryer & the clothes :-(!! The kids are grounded for a week from gum! There is never a dull moment around here!!

Ok, here we go...starting back up again!

Sorry I have taken such a long break from my blog...so it may take awhile to get caught back up. I was a little under the weather to say the least! From the first of November until 23 Jan when I had surgery, I pretty much only got about 2-3 hours of sleep because I was having so much pain. During surgery they removed two masses from the back of my head! I just received the pathology results and they determined the masses to be two BENIGN lymph nodes! Yeah, I can breath a big sigh of relief now!! Thank you God! And, thank you to all who have been praying for me! I am still on the recovery road...I think it will be a long time before the nerves they cut through fully recover! In the meantime, I am just happy I can sleep!! And so are the kids! I am not as crabby! The Moms Club that I am a member of have been AWESOME with providing our family some WONDERFUL meals!! And my dear friend, Kari, and her 4 girls came to spend the night with us the night I returned from the hospital...THANK YOU!! And my friends, Donna & Kellie took care of Ben & Sam the day of surgery. And then over the weekend, the kids went next door to our dear friends, the Torres' house while Sam & I took naps! THANK YOU everyone for helping me out since Paul is not here. You all are wonderful!!!

Ok, so here we go...

Last Friday, Rachel received an award at the assembly...here she is coming in & seeing her younger brothers & me...I love how happy she is to see us!!

Jakob's class came into the assembly just to sing one quick song. I sure wish I knew this was going to happen so that I could have brought the video camera :-(.

My two little monkeys hanging out...

I love how much Rachel is addicted to reading. "I just LOVE reading!" She exclaims almost everyday! And, I love how animated she gets when she reads to Ben & Sam...I have no idea where she gets that...hee. So, as you can see, her teacher enjoys having Rachel read to the class as well! She brought home a little play the other day. I looked it over & asked her if they did this in class already. She said yes & that she read for 3 different characters!! There were only 3 other characters left! And, yes the date on her award is the 16th...school was cancelled for 3 days due to severe ice...I will talk about that later...so they had to reschedule the assembly to last Friday :-).

We sure do miss Daddy around here!!! We are 5 months down & 7 to go!!! We are hoping that Paul is able to make it here for his mid-tour leave sometime in March! We plan on enjoying a ton of family time, going skiing & snow boarding, sledding, and Daddy finally watching the boys play some hockey! I can't wait until Paul is here to help out with the bedtime routine...I love reading to the kids, but, they need to hear Daddy read to & tuck them in too!

I am, I am, Super Ben and I can do ANYTHING!!

See, Daddy, I am working on My book, Are you??

Rachel reads one or two chapter books a day as well as lots of books to Ben & Sam...I am so proud of her!!! She is following in Jakob's footsteps quite nicely!! I pray Ben & Sam will develop the same passion!!

Sweet dreams little Samuel...

"Thank you Daddy for all the cool stuff you sent us from Afghanistan!"

Ok, so for faster service...I usually have the two younger boys or Rachel & Sam in the tub together...and if I am really short on time I throw the 3 of them in...Jakob takes a shower ALONE of course! So, it is rare that Sam gets the tub all to himself. This morning was one of those days. As I was watching him having so much fun splashing I realized it had been forever since I had taken any bath pictures of my little man. So, here you go...

We will have a busy day tomorrow with Religious School & then an out of town hockey game. So, if I am not too tired, I work on some more Jan. pictures! And as always, see rest of the pic.s in the family album!

Slidshow of our Day trip to Seward!

As always don't forget after you click the link to the slidshow you can hit the tab button to enlarge the video :-). Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

What a Day...Sunday was!!!

Ok, let me first start off by saying, Happy New Year! I can't believe I have been so bad about keeping up on here...one of my resolutions is to be better...especially for Paul to see what's going on back here at home! Sorry sweetie! I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas break with their friends and family and that you are all settled back into the routine of things with work and school...it took me a few days to get used to the alarm again!!! I hate that morning rush of getting the kids' breakfast made & lunches packed! I will post all our holiday pictures soon...there are over 1000 pictures to organize from the month of December...I will get to them :-)!
So, the weather here was pretty darn cold for a few weeks...one week in the -10's and then another week and a half of -20's! Finally, on Sunday we had a "heat wave" and made it up to -5* so I decided I wanted to take a drive down to Seward and take the kids to the Sea Life Center. I am so glad I did! The drive was easy since it has been so cold we haven't had any new snow since Christmas Day which meant the roads were really clear which isn't always the case here in January! The sky was clear and the mountains were BEAUTIFUL so the drive was extremely enjoyable! And not just for me...the kids looked out the window almost the whole 2 & 1/2 hours and made their own comments about how beautiful & cool the mountains were, the frozen ocean, the frozen waterfalls, the trees, etc. So wonderful to hear them say these things instead of complaining or asking, "are we there yet?" (So, glad to say that question was NOT asked one single time on the way there or back ;-)!!!) Then of course it was dark on the return trip & the three older ones played gameboys & read & Sam took a nap. It was a perfect day for me...other than of course wanting to share it with Paul!!
So, here is how our day started...this INCREDIBLE full moon we were blessed with on the way to Religious School! The pictures of course can never capture exactly how incredible it actually was...but, you can get the general idea. It was setting...10 a.m.! It was HUGE! It was pinkish orangish...not a word I know...but, that is the description the kids & I came up with :-)! So, now we have seen 5 full moons without Paul, only 7 more to go! Hopefully, you can click these to enlarge & get a better view...

I picked the kids up from Religious School and we headed out of town! This is the start of the Seward Highway...sun rising over the mountain...about 1:30...for those of you not in Alaska...notice how far down the sun still is?!?!

The kids wanted to stay here for a LONG time and watch these guys climb this rock...I am scared of heights & was NOT enjoying this...I was so scared of them falling! But, I stayed & let the kids enjoy the show for about 20 minutes.

The picture above & below are trying to capture how cool it is that the water freezes in so many different shapes & sizes...the kids were so amazed at the ice chunks. Ben said there were shark fish in the ice & they were going to come eat us...ahhhh!

So here are some favorites from the fun at the Sea Life Center & then there are many more in the smilebox slideshow I made & of course ALL the pictures can be found in the family photo link.

Jakob, thank you for being such a big help to me with Sam!!

We were the only people there!! So, it was great that the kids could be loud & excited about seeing the fish, "Mommy, Mommy come see, come see!" & I didn't have to tell them , "sh, sh." And, they had the touch tank all to themselves so they enjoyed exploring the animals for quite a while.

When we got home though I had to take care of a situation...I had asked Jakob to throw Sam's diaper in the garage before we left Sunday morning. He usually chucks it over toward the garbage cans, sometimes they go in...most of the time we have to pick them up off the floor. Well, he tossed it high...he better not have done this on purpose??...and it landed right in the canoe!!! So, I had to climb up there...remember how I said I am scared of heights? well, I am even scared of being on the ladder!!! So, I climb up & can almost reach it but I don't want to tilt the canoe to bring the diaper over to me because I was scared I would loosen the rope & the canoe would fall right on top of my van...so I grabbed the longest tongs we own & yeah, they did the job! Please don't do that again Jakob!