Halloween 2009

This year Jordyn wore the lion costume...the same one Patience has worn for the past two years. Patience wanted to be a butterfly, but when we tried to find an antennae headband, we were unsuccessful. But we did find this great butterfly wand and this cute little ballet skirt, so she was flexible and dressed up as a "butterfairy."

Nick wore the purple dragon costume that Pam gave us a couple of years ago! He was very cute, but had difficulty walking : ) This is the best picture I could get. He didn't understand what the heck we were doing. He tried to go in every door that was opened. Next year he'll be much more "into" it.

Jordyn, who has been a tad bit under the weather, asked if we could go home about 15 minutes into the evening. Patience, at about 1/2 hour in, said, "I think we should go home. My bag is getting cumbersome." So, we decided to take her advice. She obviously was the smart one if she could use that word correctly.

Carving jack-o-lanterns

Since Patience's kindergarten field trip to the pumpkin patch was cancelled due to torrential rains, Don took the girls to Co-op to buy pumpkins for carving : )

This afternoon, after fishing, they set up shop and turned pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns!

Cutest boy in the world

Gone Fishin'

For the past week or so, Jordyn has asked us on a daily basis, "Can I go fishing someday?" We're not sure where that came from, but when the sun started shining today, Don thought a fishing trip would be an excellent idea! He found a stocked trout pond not too far from here and the girls each caught a fish!

Patience is mildly excited with her fish : )

Not to be outdone, Miss Jordyn hooks one, too!

Cabin fever sets in

We have officially started to "hunker in the bunker," where we do 99% of our living in the suite end of the house. It's small and easier to keep heated without busting the budget. We were so fortunate this year to have a warm fall...we didn't move to the suite until the last week in October. Here are some random shots I took of the kids goofing around yesterday:

Dylan makes radio debut

Dylan will be playing on JR FM this Friday morning at their live broadcast from Otter Co-op! Start praying that he gets "discovered!"

Me and my boyfriend

Here is an updated picture of me and my boyfriend. Oh so cute. And sweet. And he thinks I'm the best thing since sliced bread.

Happy Birthday Haley!

Tuesday has become the evening that Dylan's girlfriend, Haley, comes over have dinner and spend the evening with us (well, with Dylan, really). She's very brave because she lives in a very small family of just her mother and her sister, so you can imagine the culture shock that comes with having dinner with our huge and loud family : ). This Thursday Haley turns 16, so last night we had cake and ice cream (complete with candles and a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday to You"...she was a great sport) and presents.

Dylan was so nervous because he knew I had gotten her a gift but I wouldn't tell him what it was. He was afraid the gift would totally embarrass him or be inappropriate. It didn't make him feel any better when Valarie, through Messenger, suggested that it might be "sensible underwear." In the end, all was well, as Don and I got her a gift card to the movies, and the Littles all got her candy to eat there.

Patience and Jordyn just love a good birthday celebration!

Haley blows out her candles with help from the girls.

Dylan helps Haley with her cake and ice cream. She's got a really small appetite! I told her that if I only had eaters like her I could probably get by with $80/month for groceries. Seriously, Patience eats more than her. A lot more.

Playing outside

Today Don worked all day in Vancouver. The weather was cold but sunny so we did some playing outside.


Nick climbing up the slide.


Nick and Patience playing ball.

He was actually rolling it back and forth to her!

Nick loving the outdoors.

Nick making sure I'm still there : )

Nick massages Storm.

The kids play with Storm.

Patience in the tree.

A great shot of Jordyn in the tree (if I do say so myself).

Happy, happy Nicky! In his new Curious George coat compliments of Pam and the twins : )

Mrs. Niddery

Patience loves kindergarten. This is no surprise given her general love of life, but I can't help but think that part of her enjoyment stems from her wonderful teacher, Mrs. Niddery. Mrs. Niddery has taught for 35 years! She makes school fun for the kids with songs, games, and candy prizes : ) I'm hoping Mrs. Niddery will stick around for a few more years so the rest of the Littles can experience her kindergarten class!

Nick's First Birthday

Surprise! I bet you thought you'd never hear from me again : )

Well, here, from last month, is Nick's very first birthday. It was a family-only celebration, and unfortunately Nick was a little under the weather, but you can see that he enjoyed his cake anyway. And that Don and I are finally smart enough to strip our 1-year-old before letting him eat his cake!

Playground with Daddy

The weather, with the exception of a day of rain, has been just beautiful lately. Last night Don dropped Sean off at Guard practice and then took the Littles to a great park in Aldergrove. This is a new feature at that park! As you can see, Patience has no fear of heights.

After a lot of hard playing, they got ice cream sundaes at Dairy Queen! Lucky Littles! And lucky mommy, who was at home with nobody for a good 90 minutes or so. Not that I don't madly love my family...it's just so nice to have peace and quiet for a little while : )

Dylan is stepping up to the plate in a big way. Bigger than I've ever seen before. In addition to his usual music commitments (enough to keep him busy in and of themselves), he's playing senior boys' volleyball (daily practice), taking (and studying!) Physics 12, and is playing in the local community college orchestra twice a week. He has zero internet during the school week, and he hasn't even had time to complain once about being abused and mistreated. I am impressed.

Nick turns 1 next week! How can that be? And my other baby, Nathan, turns 20 in two weeks somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Maybe he'll get two birthdays if he crosses the international date line at the right time. Or maybe it wouldn't work that way...dates and time zones are kind of confusing for me.

We've fallen into a comfortable little routine. I have stepped up my food production to meet the needs of Dylan and Sean who are gone sometimes 10 hours at a time and the addition of my daycare son, Darrell. Darrell and Patience attend Kindergarten daily from 8:40-11:15. Jordyn goes to preschool Tuesday and Thursday at the same times (making drop off and pick up a little tricky). When Jordyn is home alone with me (Nick naps in the mornings) we spend time baking or preparing food...we're having such a great time and she wears her little apron that Heather and Haley made for her last year. She's turned into my little helper.

This morning after taking Patience to kindergarten I put Jordyn and Nick in the double stroller and we walked about a mile. That's a great workout!

So, all is still well in our corner of the world. Life is good : )

First day of Kindergarten!

All ready and very excited!

Boatswain's A-School Graduation

"Colors" parade. All the students in formation in their various classes. Yorktown teaches most of the Coast Guard trades, or rates.

Most of the students are in their ODU's (ordinary dress uniforms). You can see the graduating class in their trops with their white tops standing front and center.

Nathan marching from the parade square to the graduation reception, where they served a continental breakfast and had some short speeches/presentations.

Nathan's favorite person at A school, BM1 Lisa Pillips, who was in charge of the class. She was well-loved among all the students. They all pitched in to get her a gift, and they wrote a letter of comendation that will go in her file.

After graduation, we hit the dusty trail! It was a good trip. Long, indeed, but lots of fun. It was nice to have countless hours to visit with Nathan after not seeing him for 13 long weeks.

The end of August through the middle of September

Wow...I don't know that I've ever taken such a long hiatus from blogging. If it's any consolation, I have felt guilty most of the days that I've taken "off."

At the tail end of August I travelled to Yorktown, Virginia to see Nathan graduate and drive back across the states with him. I'll cover that in a separate post. We came home and he had exactly one week of leave in which to pack for his new duty station in Cordova, Alaska. The fun thing is that his ship, the USCG Cutter Sycamore, is currently underway on a training trip (I think) to Japan and Russia, so Nathan flew out there and met up with his ship at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Tokyo. He flew in on September 10 and called me this evening from the ship to let me know he got there without incident and that "everything is amazing." He's going to try to find some internet somewhere so he can write an email or something, but in the meantime it's nice to know all is well.

The kids all started school. Dylan is in Grade 12 (horray!), Sean starts Grade 9, Patience is in Kindergarten, and Jordyn begins her second (out of three) year of preschool.

I am providing day care for my friends little boy, Darrell. He's here M, T, W and he's in Patience's kindergarten class, so it's very convenient.

Nick is walking more and more! I counted 12 steps today. Also today, he took a few steps away from me, realized that was a bad idea, turned around, and took a couple of steps back to me. It's great to see how much he grows and changes every day.

Don is BUSY. Two full-time jobs, it seems. This time of the year is always extra stressful, as he's under the gun to get all the tree work done in time for harvest. Thankfully Dylan is on board to help him both days this weekend.

Dylan and Sean are both on volleyball teams at school. It's hysterical because they come home from practice (4-6 p.m.) so sore and tired that they can barely lift their arms. They've done really well the first week of school, especially considering we cut off their internet habit cold turkey. We're reserving the internet for weekend entertainment...the weekdays are for school, music, cadets, and other worthwhile interests.

So, in case you were wondering or concerned, all is well in our neck of the woods! : )