The Girls room

Natalie was posing for me on her bed. She makes it every morning now. I am not sure where she learned this since I am not a bed maker, it seems like a waste of time to me. Anyway, Jack says she does make a bed like me, stands up on the bed and shakes out the sheet. She does it neater than I do though. And she likes to put her matching sheet on top. She told me that that way her pillows math and it all looks the same. So, yeah, her covers are underneath the top sheet.

But anyway, the point of this post is that they have the most awesome room ever. Jack hung up the lights this weekend, we are still missing their big light, somehow got lost in Ikea while we were there. Now, do we go back and trust ourselves to just buy one light?

Their curtain they have actually had since Hawai. I miss FabricMart!!! Natalie picked it out, that would have been 2 years ago, it was for her 4th birthday. We didn't put it up the way we had it before, but this way is a little safer. There are still a few other things we are going to do with their room, but it is so cool. I was laying on their bed with them and I told Jack that I wanted a curtain and neat little lights. He said no, he doesn't want a girly bed :( I will talk him into it one day...

I would be happy

If we never saw snow again. By the way that is just a bonus shot of Gwen, she is watching you...
Anyway, yeah, never saw snow again. We are not cut out for the cold. There are some people who are. There are some people who actually like cold and snow. We are not those people. Give us sun and beaches and warmth.

It snowed Tuesday, the girls went out for about 7 minutes. We told them we weren't going with them. Natalie threw a snowball at the window :)

And this is her making a snow man, it was small, but she was getting the rolling down.

And I really tried to get a good picute of this. We have at least 3 inches of snow. It was pretty crazy.
Another side note. I think I wrote it here, how you know when you order indian food too much, when they know your voice over the phone. Well, in his effort to cheer me up, indian food ALWAYS cheers me up, Jack ordered take out tonight. Yeah, braved the snowy icky roads, got to Ghandi and realized he didn't have his wallet! And you know what the guy said, no worries we will get it next time. Wow! We actually ordered a lot figuring on having lunch tomorrow also. No worries. Damn I love Ghandi. And yes of course my mood improved

A merry Christmas

to those who celebrate. I hope you have a very special holiday.
It was pointed out to me lately that just because we don't celebrate christmas doesn't mean that we can't say Merry Christmas to others. I don't believe in a secular christmas, and we aren't christian. Some people don't really think anything about a secular christmas. To be honest this is something that we have been heading towards since we got married. We are bigger believers in getting something for someone when you see it, whether it be a special day or not. And we also don't like commercialism. We don't want to raise children who need the newer brighter toy. We want them to be happy with what they have. We would prefer not to do any toys this time of year. We don't think it is right for christmas to be about Santa Claus and how many toys you get and making sure that retailers make a profit for the year. This kinda makes us sick. I can't express how much this makes us sick. It have become more of a big deal the older our kids get. When we can't go out without our children being asked if they were good enough for Santa to bring them toys. What they were asking Santa for christmas... I am not sure what upsets me more, that most people assume that we celebrate christmas, or that christmas is all about the toys and presents you get. I admit that the religious aspect upsets me more than Jack. He doesn't care so much, but I do think it is really disrespectful to others beliefs. We both feel the same way about the commercialism though.
We do believe that this is a good time to remember that there are those less fortunate than us. We try to give to the salvation army when we see them at the grocery. When we see the shelters collecting at the stores we try to do some shopping for them And tonight when we went to starbucks, okay the only place open for hot chocolate :), we carried on in the spirit of the cars in front of us, each of us putting money towards the car behind us, along with a good tip. These are the things we should do year round though. An extra smile to someone, kind words, a helping hand. But there are two extremes that come out this time of year, those who start their extra kindness, and those who get impatient when you walk slowly with your kids at the grocery store. It is kinda interesting to see.
BUT for those of you who christmas does have a real true meaning, whether it be a religious meaning, or just a time when you know you can get together with your family, I do hope you enjoy your day.

Aren't they cute?

So Jack got called in today. Which sucks, he was supposed to have the day off. Gwen in asleep and we are all quietly lounging around. And I knew this was what they are doing. I am sitting right next to them. But I glanced over and was like, wow, that looks nice. Cuddled up in a soft sleeping bag reading a book. We are raising geeks. And I would almost believe that if I hadn't seen Natalie run and play basketball, or saw Layla dance. They are very well rounded. But I can't help but totally enjoy their geekyness.

Holidays cont.

Natalie's sleeping bag. They love these. They are currently pretending to go camping.

And the tree cinnamon rolls. Gluten free, YAY!!!! They turned out pretty good. I feel better now knowing that if nothing else it isn't something I have to worry about anymore. I have a cinnamon roll recipe.

Happy Holidays!!

So feeling guilty, we went out and got Gwen two things yesterday. Thank you Kelly again for opening up your store so we could shop.
Oh and by the way, this is what happens when Daddy is in charge of getting the baby dressed. I guess she has a diaper on, right?

We wrapped up everything in playsilks this year. It worked out really well. No mess, no garbage, just put everything back in their toy boxes:) Our little DMers got two books that have minis and a game board along with a book.

They also got sleeping bags and I just realized that a few of my pictures didn't show up here. So I will post again with the other pictures.

Gwen's first word

But first some pictures from last night. This is Gwen trying to tear apart Huck's nose...I love Huck, he is so good wih them. He does expect beter behavior as they get older but he seems to know when they are just puppies and don't know any better. We did stop her when we realized what she was doing.

She loves all things furry that walk on four legs though. I swear the only reason any of my children have ever started crawling was to chase after these cute little, and not so little, creatures.

Playing how far can you open your mouth

This is the tale end of a swipe on the tongue across the face. I am so bummed I missed it. And now for Gwen's first word. Yeah all babies babble dadada, bababa. But that first word that they use, they look at something and say what it is. That is the first word for me. The others are firt sounds. Natalie, it was dadas, and she meant nursing. Layla let me ask Jac when he gets home so I know it is what I am thinking. Since Gwen was in my belly she has shown a special fondess for Layla. Is it because Layla's voice could pierce through all that water? After she was born she would totally quiet to hear Layla talk. And now she says, "laylaylaylayla" while looking and reaching for her. It is sweet.

Do you see our trouble?

Beautiful daughters that pout. Oh our life is so hard. I must lay on the floor and be miserable. Oh dear me, oh dear me. Our life is so hard. Don't you love the look Layla gives me? I think I asked to to please not take all the cards out of my wallet. How dare I!

Our craft. Special, isn't it? Jack said that we weren't going to cut down a live tree to decorate our home. Ba humbug! So we took the bounty that was given to us by the storm. A huge branch fell in our backyard. I took branches off of this branch and some heavy duty wire Jack brought home. And I made a wreath. The girls helped of course. We got all sorts of pine sap on us. And the pine cones that are there, they are real and still attached to the branches. I think it might beat painting a tree like we usually do. Jack slightly complained over the size, it is pretty big. He actually hung it from the ceiling :) The girls did a victory dance underneath it afterwards while I was trying to get a picture of it.

And Natalie's birthday cake. I have to say it was a good cake, really good. I am so impressed. And by the way, it did rise. I actually just flipped in on the plate so the rised part is in the bowl of the plate. If fit really well. And then I made a kinda icing with strawberries and whipped cream. They were all happy with it. I have tons of pictures, hopefully I will have some time to put up some more.

Adventure

You know sometimes it is odd to have something happen to you that you know is going to be something to remember.
We got snow Saturday, no biggie. The roads weren't bad. Then Sunday Jack had off. Okay we haven't been out fir breakfast in a long time. This used to be something we used to do a lot. It was still snowing a lot, but the roads were looking good and it was supposed to turn to rain in the afternoon, which would have washed all the rain away. So we go out, also thinking that we would get out to home depot to get the stuff to finish the ceiling, somehow this keeps not happening, I am trying to not get mad over this since he actually had two weeks off a month ago...
So we are out, roads are fine. We eat a nice good breakfast, Jack getting all of our toast and head out. Jack says something about seeing how bad the apartments are, you know to see if he is going to have problems getting out to go to work. So we head down ridgetop. It is not in as good condition as the main roads. As Jack starts t turn down to the apartments, I actually said, I hate that I said this, cuz I would have much rather have been wrong, umm are you sure you want to go down there? But we did, and so started our about hour and a half adventure. We couldn't get out. We were really stuck and the snow just kept coming down harder and harder. I want to think that if it had stopped snowing we would have made itout. In fact, I realy think we would have. Half way through Jack sent me to the office to see if they could help. I was soaked, it was heavy wet snow, as soon as I stepped out. On my way there I was a tree fall down in front of me. Which kinda freaked me out after seeing all the trees that were around me. The office was closed. But Jack had made it almost all the way up, so I hike back to him. But then after a few times and us not being able to see our tracks after going back down because it was snowing so much, I called usaa. Unfortunatly, they were going on emergencies. It is odd. Every few weeks we get a weather forecast with things like watch out, storm of the centuary. I am not saying that this was not weather. But it was all supposed to go away. It was supposed to get warmer, turn to rain and be no biggie. They had not sent out any trucks or anything. By the way while I am here. I have to say that Washington is the absolute worst state I have seen in their road managment when it comes to snow. So after the woman on the phone realizes we have kids, you can't really keep the quiet while you are on the phone. She tells me that kids, emergency. So she calls back the towing guy, he doesn't think he would be able to get us out. He actually came down in his truck and helped us pack up car seats and drove us home. So you know, HE had a hard time getting out of there. The next day, on his way to work, Jack says he saw about 10 cars in ditches.

Which brings us to yesterday. It did finally start to get warmer overnight. And then it started to rain. http://kitsapsun.com/news/2007/dec/03/after-deluge/
Go there if you want to look at some pictures and see what happens when we get unusual rain. I didn't think much of it. Truly, we were getting lots of rain by the house, we had lots of puddles in our yard, but it wasn't bad. Then I looked on the news to find stories of mudslides, sink holes, and cars stuck in the water. Around lunch time they closed the base to people didn't NEED to be there. Jack was able to come home. The problem? We actually needed to get a friends car somewhere so when she comes home today she can drive home. So, me actually slightly terrified after the fun we had the day before, we went out and braved the weather again. We drove her car there and then drove to the apartments to pick up Jack's car that he left there that morning when he picked up the van. I wish I had pictures to show you what we saw. But you can look at the pictures at the kitsapsun. We saw the Central Valley flooding, we actually drove through it. We drove down Tracyton, where we saw someones side yard turn into a whirlpool, there may have been some sort of building there, we are not sure. We drove down by the mall and saw one of our favorite restaurants, 2 Margaritas, under water. But we made it home with no incidents.

It has been an interesting few days. And I am going to apoligize to Washington right now. See, everywhere we have been stationed, we have always brought record rainfall. We didn't really think we would see crazy weather here. Everyone told us, oh the weather there is so mild, almost never snows, just rains. Bull!!! But it seems that we haven't lost our touch, maybe it will be a good thing for us to get to San Deigo. I think they actually need rain.

Our first snow

This season of course. What I have been dreading for a few months now:( It has happened. Please excuse the blurriness, but I had to try and catch the big, fat wet snowdrops. Now let's all hope that Jack's truck doesn't again get stuck down there. And let's also hope that Jack's volvo can make it up the driveway better than his truck was able to.

Way too cold

First this is the reason I chopped my hair off. The girls always need to brush hair. Stephanie has some seriously beautiful hair, I think that the cat brush doesn't feel so good though. Layla is usually pretty good about brushing hair. It does make me sad that I cut it. She used to love brushing it. Oh well, it will grow again, right?

And it looks like the girls are just standing nicely near each other looking out the window. It seems like they just want to see outside, right? No, look under their feet, they were all standing on the heat vent. It is cold, though it would also help if they would put more clothes on.

Autumn fairy

It has been awhile, or so it seems, that I have put up pictures. Sooooo......
Your Autumn fairy:)

Thankful

Random gibberish warning.

It is so nice when Jack has leave. It really really is. I am incredibly thankful for our relationship. I love that we can talk about everything and anything still. That I am not afraid to look stupid in front of him. That even when we don't agree on things we can still hold an intelligent conversation. That he knows when it is alright to bring something up and when he needs to wait a few days because I am pmsing and it would just be better for him to make me a cup of tea so I don't decide to poison dinner.

I am thankful and glad that we are changing our thoughts about not only how to homeschool, but how to raise our children. Again another yahoo for John Holt, seriously read his books. Today, his last day of leave, we just went out and walked around. Yeah, outside would have been best but we were cold we went to the mall and got hot chocolate and walked around. Natalie lead us to the places she wanted to go. She went to the dance store and told me that she does want to take dance. I found this to be a hard decision as Jack tells me that I may have pushed her to this. I loved dance and miss it greatly. In fact, I would love to dance again. But she does sound serious about it, so we will try. She went to a bunch of places and asked questions. And it reminded me that it isn't too often that we go out just for them. Today we were lucky that we had nothing else planned. I plan to do this with them more often. we already try to take our time in the grocery store. It is important to me that they see how we shop, reading ingredients, looking at prices. Jack always used to get on me about just picking the one that looks pretty:) Or the cheaper one, but not looking to see that it is a smaller box. I find it funny that there is a whole class in school, remember home ec?, that is to teach these things that we are too busy to teach them ourselves. There is one good thing about fall and winter is that it is very slow. Since the rain and cold has started we have slowed down a lot. The only thing I don't like, and I am trying to not remember was that in Hawaii we didn't have a slow fast time, everything flowed. We didn't have to get outside as much as we could, because we could at anytime. Time went there and it was all nice. I do miss that. But I am trying to think of good times here. Curling up with the girls and drinking hot chocolate. I realized recently that I am full of crap. I had gotten myself good, NICE, hot chocolate mix. I had told Natalie it was for me because, and I realized I was about to tell her that she wouldn't enjoy it the way I would. I stopped and realized what an assine thing to say. Bullshit that she wouldn't realize that it was a special treat. Why do we try to treat them like children that can't appreciate anything? It is the same thought that bugs me when people say that their kids don't like, for instance indian food, well that would be too weird for them we will get them mac and cheese. Side story, we went to gandhi a few days ago. And were thanked by both the owners over how well our kids behaved and that they always enjoyed seeing us. They actually talk about us:) It made me feel very good. We almost always get complements on how well behaved they are, but it was something else to have them say something. I am very thankful that my children have the chance to try new things, to learn new things. I admit that I have a hard time still trying new things sometimes. I grew up with mac and cheese, meatloaf and spaghetti. But at a party recently Natalie tried shrimp, no hesitation. Jack and I don't care for it, but Natalie liked it. She wanted us to buy her some. And I hate the comments, like I almost made, of she is just a kid, could she really enjoy things like that? Or eww she won't like that! Why are you putting these ideas in my kids head? Can I please duct tape your mouth now?

And another random thought. We went out for Jack's birthday, Silver City I thought just this once, they always get the fish and chips. You know, I did not realize till that day how different my children had been acting. Natalie was completely insane for two days. Seriously, completely insane. I am pretty sure that it was not a color and flavor issue, she did have a half of a cherry, but I can't see that causing two days of insanity. I had read that wheat, like all allergies, can cause a behavior issue. I didn;t really believe it. It isn't worth it to eat wheat again.

Happy Birthday!!!

We had lots of fun today. We went and saw salmon, okay yes, forgot the camera... we looked at more apartments, that is alway fun, right? The girls and Jack finger painted. These are really cool finger paints we got from Kelly, again, www.thegreenkangaroo.org. Layla's are on the left, Natalie's on right, Jack's on bottom. These are his birthday pictures. He got a nice long email birthday song from my family, including the polish birthday song.

And what birthday wouln't be complete without a wheat free, artifical color and flavor free cake? it is chocolate, and I made the icing too, scary. It actually wasn't bad, kinda brownie like. The last cake I made wasn't done all the way. And Jack is a little freaky about things being done, at least I never have to share licking the bowl...So I baked the cake an extra 10 minutes, it could have been longer. But it was alright with him, I guess.

And you know, you also need a zombie baby for your birthday, right? Gwen has thrush. Gentian violet stains, and really when they say a drop and put it in their mouth, yeah A DROP, drop, that is all a drop. It is going to look like we beat our baby for the next three days.

on leave

Ahhh, the lazy days of leave...
We actually have a very simular picture of Natalie on Jacks shoulders, they both enjoyed pulling out his hair.

We have decided that the girls will now work. The odd thing, they LOVE their chores. They like feeding the animals, vacuuming, clearing the table, emptying the dishwasher and helping me with the laundry. BUT aske them to pick up their toys and yeah, that doesn't work. Natalie really wants to do the cat litter. I am trying to decide what age is alright for that.

Gwen has had a few different foods, but very far from regularly. This is broccoli, she does like it, she also likes giving some funky faces.