Welcome! The living room..or as I call it the "granny room" This is my favorite room.  

 

 

 

The basement family room. This is Spencer's favorite place. 

Here you will see Neue's favorite pass time...Smoking Salmon. Just came out of the brine and rests until the smoker is ready!  

 

Master bedroom 

Madeline and Sophia's room 

 

Spencer's room 

 

Saturday, February 26 2005. The warmest day of the season so far. The high was about 65 and it was sunny and beautiful. We took off to meet the Blauer family at the park and had a grand time. The worst part of the trip was that we lost the pump needle to blow up the football. Neue had just stopped on his way to the park to pick up the needle and within minutes of having it we lost it among the grass and deer droppings!

Sophia is waiting patiently for Dad to repair the cracked frisbee with strapping tape! For future knowledge...don't use strapping tape for anything but moving boxes. This project really needed the tape that makes the world go round...duct tape!

Spencer just loves being outside and is very excited this day to be at the park with his "best buddy" Micah! Just so you know, Spencer won't let you refer to anyone else as "best buddy." Apparently that title belongs only to he and Micah. Spencer will correct you anytime you misuse it!

Most of you know that Madeline lost one of her front teeth in a horrible collision with the coffee table last Spring. She wants everyone to know that her other front tooth is loose and her bottom two front teeth are very loose as well. She is very excited for the upcoming visit from the tooth fairy!

Off we go....to the "Black Woods!!!" Well this is what Spencer has named the park that is a few minutes from our house. We call it Dishman Hills Natural Area. It has great hiking trails and a huge grassy area where the kids can run and play. Here Dan and Sophia are gearing up to hit the trails with all the Williams and Blauer kids.

Madeline is a Daisy Girl Scout this year. I will post a picture of her in her little outfit soon.
She absolutely loves it and has met some really great girls in her troop! On Saturday the 19th her troop took part in Thinking Day. Thinking Day is a day that the girls spend learning and thinking about other countries. Each troop that signs up takes the time to prepare a display for the country they chose. Then, on Thinking Day, each girl gets to walk through and learn all they can from the other troops about the countries that they selected. There were about 20 countries represented. All the girls had a really great time. One of the highlights for that very weekend was that Grandma Lu decided to come up for a visit and she was able to stay from February 17-21. She was able to go and be a part of Thinking Day with her grandaughter. The kids all had such a great time with Grandma and as always it was hard to see her go.

Here's my little Sophers after an afternoon of hiking. How come she's so tired, she rode on my back the whole time?!

Madeline and her troop friend Jillian at Thinking Day. Her daisy troop selected Brazil to be their Thinking Day country. They were all dressed up for the 'Carnival' celebration that Brazil holds each year.

Here is Madeline visiting "France." She got a lovely French manicure!

MADELINE TURNS 6

Our very first "friends" birthday party" Madeline had invited 4 friends form school and 3 from Girls scouts and of course little cousin Grace from Oregon. She had her party last Saturday afternoon. It was so much fun and all the kids had such a great time. She chose to have a my little pony party and so Dan and I worked at making it as creative as we could be. This is the first year in 4 that I didn't make her special cake. All my energies went into the pinata. I will have to get back on the cake next year.

Once again Dad did a really great job drawing. We had a great round of Pin the tail on the Pony. I love seeing all the kids play this game. They are so cute! My mom had made a huge tail that was full of different colors and sizes of curly ribbon. It was great. Much like all the great ribbon hanging from the pinata!

The Pinata! I refused to buy a cardboard pinata that the 5 and 6 year old girls wouldn't be able to crack. So I made our very first Williams Pinata. It took several days and some trials..oh, like spending two hours getting the entire first layer of paper mache on and then having the ballon pop making all of the wet paper mache collapse into a giant ball of goo! all so that I couldstart over at 2am! But it was so worth it. We had a ton of fun.

Madeline turned 6 January 26, 2005. It so hard to believe that she is 6 years old. These last 6 years have flown by. She is such a sweet sweet blessing from the Lord and we are so very proud of her! We had a tiny little celebration on her birthday with a few presents. Here are some of those pictures.

His big dimples make him so cuddly cute! He should be the face a cabbage patch boy doll!

Madeline's very first Cabbage Patch doll. This is Maggie Montana.