Before & After... Mission Complete

For those of you who don't know... in 2004 we purchased a "fixer". Well, we should have called it a complete "gutter". With much help from many friends just 2.5 months short of 6 years we are done fixing it up! It looks just how we wanted it to and we put it on the market. It went on the market yesterday. Here are a few before and after shots of our home.
Before...











The After Pictures....

Micah's missing tooth/teeth

Micah lost 2 teeth this past month. Here are pictures after the loss of the first tooth. I can't believe he is old enough to loose teeth.k

One of the great blessings in my life

Let me start by saying sorry for no picture or updates on the blog for a while. It was not letting me upload pictures. So, instead of going back and adding my Christmas picture and try to back track I am just going to start off from last weekend.
I am blessed beyond measure to have great friends. These are 3 friends who have known me for 15 years. It has been since 1998 that all 3 of us have been together... much too long. I have been able to see each of them at some point since then but not all 3 of them at the same time. We were all able to get together this past weekend.
We were able to catch up on each other's lives. We shared the good and the difficult things... we laughed and cried. These are the friends who I can pick up with even though time has passed since we saw each other last. I thank God for this opportunity it was exactly what I needed. Thanks Amy, Steph, & Wendy for being a huge encouragement to me.
I am so thankful to Sean for watching the boys for me. And thanks to Gil, Jason, & Nathanial for supporting your wives so that they could come.
I am also glad to say that each of them is still walking with the Lord... Glory be to Him!
Here are a few pictures from our trip to Solvang, CA.

Our Christmas Tree

This year we decided to cut down a tree on our own property. It made us laugh but, it looks great in our house. It might even be our favorite Christmas tree so far in our 10 Christmas married. The tree was located on the edge of our property and needed to be cut down anyway at some point.

Sean cutting down the tree.

The finished product!

Eliza Crawling

This is mostly for the grandparents...it might be boring to all others. But, we think she's cute! Sorry about the super cheesy talking to Eliza... and Ethan is potty training to sorry about his underwear.

Cannon Beach Get Away

I am blessed... for many reasons. I am blessed to have great family and great friends. My Sean arranged for us to get way for my birthday. My mom came up to watch the boys for most of the time. Also, Gil watched the boys for a few hours, then Lisa. Then the Pettersons watched the boys on Sunday afternoon. We weren't sure where we were going to go as of Tuesday evening. Then Rich and Elaine suggested we go to Cannon Beach were they were already going for the weekend. What a great idea. I am only bummed for one thing... we didn't get a picture with our friends. Cannon Beach is a beautiful place and the Ocean Lodge is a great place to stay. We were able to leave the window open and hear the crashing of the wave and keep warm by the fire. What a great place to relax. Hard to leave it.
This is a picture of the place where we stayed.

These are views from our room.


Us on the beach.





On the deck off our room.


A great gift from friends.

Duck Park

Ali and I took the boys to a park with ducks. Love this fall time. Especially the colors!

Halloween 2009

These are a few fo the pictures from Halloween. We took the kids tick-or-treating with our friends the Nelsons & Rosenaus & 2 of the Lessley clan's cousins. It ws wet but, the kids had a great time.

Pumpkin Patch 2009

This year was different than our tradition. We went on a wednesday andwithout the Halls or the Johnsons. On our scheduled Sunday Lucas was too sick to go. This year we got to go with Ali & her friend Graham.We all had a great time. We got to enjoy lots of extra stuff because it was during the week like the play area for the kids and the hay maze. Here are pics of our time there.

Grammy Lynn came to visit

Eliza's First Solids

Eliza had her first solids last months.