Murder Mystery dinner

So much fun! I played a 1930's film starlet and Matt played a lawyer. He even shaved his goatee down to this pencil mustache for the occasion (of course he shaved it all off the next morning!!) Oh yeah, neither one of us was the murderer.

The tree

Home from the nursery with our beautiful Christmas tree tied to the top of our truck!

Just like the movies!

Whoa that is one big tree!
Take my picture too mommy! See my toy?
Caught trying to pull the decorations back off!

Cabin fever!

Sitting up all by himself!
Yes I am really standing in knee-deep snow! Those pickets you see behind me are the tops of our 4-ft tall fence!
He looks like a mini-Matt in this picture!
Silly daddy falling down a pile made in our front yard by a snow plow.
Yes under that mountain of snow is Matt's poor little Toyota.

We have been stuck in this house since Saturday evening! There is so much snow and ice we cannot safely leave the house. Schools are closed, Church was cancelled, even Max's 6 month check up today was cancelled because the Dr's office is without power! With the wind chill it is about 5 below zero out there right now. There is a mound of snow on the street corner that is about 8 to 10 feet tall (piled there by the snow plows trying to clear the road). It is not even good snowman snow- too dry and crumbly. So we have barely changed out of pajamas in 3 days. Needless to say we are getting a little stir-crazy! If you can believe it- we are expecting another snow storm tomorrow!

Thanksgiving

Teresa and Daniel with baby Max
Building spaceships to fly withUncle Daniel
The boys clean up after dinner
Getting a "baby fix"?

We had to adjust our thanksgiving routine this year. We are accustomed to going to Matt's parent's place every year but this year they went to visit the Iowa and Chicago Buonadonnas- so we stayed here and hosted Thanksgiving for us and Matt's younger brother Daniel and his girlfriend Teresa. We had a wonderful time! It was our first time meeting Teresa and she is a doll! (We would love for her to become a permanent fixture in the family! *wink*wink*;o)

Procrastinating again...

I have been procrastinating on posting again- but for a good reason this time. Matt and I went to a really fun Murder Mystery dinner party and we were all dressed up- we had pictures taken, but they are on someone else's camera. We have been waiting patiently for them to email them so we can post them. Then we had Max baptized on November 5th and once again all the pics are on someone else's camera. I will post them once we get them. In the meantime, I'll share the pics we do have.

The Monkey and the Villian

We found this rare species of monkey in the wild!
Hi there!
Oh no! It's Mini Darth Vader!
Oh wait, it's just Isaac!

Carvin' pumpkins

"Cool pumpkin Dad!"

we've taught him well!

Ew, pumpkin guts!

Baby Max pumpkin (complete with a curl on the top of his head!) and Isaac's pumpkin (used to be a crazy face that daddy carved from a pattern that Isaac chose until Isaac "over-handled" it, leaving it unrecognizable)
From the top: Matt's crazy fangs, my Halloween night sky (see the bats flying around it?), and Zoee's pumpkin!

Just some pictures of my boys

The little guy is gettin' so big!
Isaac really does adore his baby brother!
Isaac stops trekking in the tractor to play with his little brother for a few minutes.
Caught sittin' on daddy!
Max was fascinated with this balloon left over from Isaac's party

The Baby Shower

On October 20th I hosted a rather unusual baby shower for my friend Denise. She has a thing for theme parties so I couldn't bring myself to have a regular old baby shower for her! So we had a chocolate fountain and lots of sparkling cider... and a henna tattoo artist! That was a big hit! We were walking around with henna on our ankles, lower backs, necks, hands, shoulders and perhaps most importantly big pregnant bellies! (For those of you who don't know- henna is non-permanent and painless.)

Mama Denise and Allison (these are 2 of my closest friends here in Lynden)

I got this henna butterfly on my shoulder!
Tossin' back a whole bottle...of sparkling cider!

Bathtime for Max

"Hey! Why is daddy taking my picture?"
"Mommy you're so funny!"
All clean!

Isaac's 4th Birthday Party

Kids everywhere! All the daddies took the kids out in the yard to start the party off.

Awesome new car from Jackson

All partied out...

Cool! A new coat! Thanks Mamo and Grandpa Victor!

"Happy Birthday Dear Isaac, Happy Birthday to you!"
Chowing down on cupcakes! It was a really fun party!!

Isaac's First Day of Preschool

He was so excited! So was I- sort of. Can I really be old enough to have a kid in school? Don't answer that.

A day at the Lake

They just looked so peaceful

Isaac cheeses for the camera after waking up daddy
After Church on Sunday September 3rd we decided to pack a picnic lunch and head down to Lake Padden for the day. It's one of our favorite places. After lunch Isaac wandered along the shore tossing rocks while I read a book and Matt and Max napped in the shade. What an awesome day!

MaryJane & Victor's stay

Nothin' like an afternoon nap with grandpa!

Getting ready for bed

I'm a deadbeat blogger

Wow. My last post ended with a comment about 3 month old Max. Now he is 5 months old. I guess you could say we've been a little busy. Matt started school at the end of September and is continuing to work at Alpha part-time. We don't see him much.
I am busy being a mom. I am also in MOPS leadership and heading up the design part of the building expansion and remodel at our church. As if that's not enough, I am making and selling handmade greeting cards for some much-needed supplemental income and I am taking a home-study course to get my real estate staging certification to go with my design degree from the Art Institute of Seattle. Sometimes I remember to breathe.
Isaac started preschool! I can't believe it but my baby can write his name now! That seems so simple- but it is really huge to a mommy! We celebrated Isaac's 4th birthday on the 6th of October with a big party- lots of friends came to his CARS party!
Max is actually grasping toys now, he likes to lock his legs and stand up ALL the time! He loves his exersaucer because he can stand up in it and turn around. He is also rolling over and he just graduated to eating rice cereal. He sleeps through the night now in his own room(otherwise known as my office)- which is GREAT. It won't be long and he'll be ready to move into his permanent bed- in his crib sharing a bedroom with Isaac. We just need him to be a little bit bigger before we can trust big brother alone with him.
Okay so there's your update- now I just need to start posting pictures!

Thanks for your prayers

I will post pictures again soon, but in the meantime I just wanted to post on here thanking everyone for your cards, prayers, and phone calls over the last couple of weeks.

For those of you who don't know, Matt had a terrible accident while working on building shelves in our garage 2 weeks ago. He was cutting 2x4s on his table saw when the wood bound up and his hand flew off the 2x4 and into the blade. Needless to say it was pretty awful. The outcome is that the hand surgeon at the ER was able to work miracles putting his fingers back together, though after almost 7 hours of surgery he was still unable to save the tip of his thumb. It was his left hand and he is right-handed fortunately. There is a lot of damage and there will be a long road to recovery but he has already regained full movement and will probably regain most feeling (he severed nerves and tendons in his index and middle fingers and the surgeon was able to graft veins from his arm to reconnect things in his hand). It may be 6 months to a year before we know if the nerve reattachment will be successful. His thumb is amputated at the knuckle. He is in good spirits, though still on a lot of pain medicine.

He is such a great dad- he was determined to master diaper-changing one-handed and he has actually pulled it off. That and lots of other things too. He returned to work this past week. His productivity is a little lower, but not too bad. Matt is pretty determined to get back to normal and we all know that if Matt wants to do something you better just get out of the way.

If I wasn't SuperMom before I certainly am now! Matt's parents were here for over a week helping out with everything- I have no idea how I could have done it without them. There is something to be said about having family close by. Our church has also been an amazing source of love and support in so many ways. We are so blessed to be a part of the extraordinary church

family at Christ Church in Blaine.

All in all we are doing okay. We live each day in the knowledge that God will somehow provide. He certainly has so far. Blessings to you all and check back soon for more pictures of 3 MONTH OLD Max!!!

We're Back!

Need some light?
Fun in the Sun!
Stayin' warm at the campsite
Stayin' cool on the beach

Caught cuddling my Isaac!
Me and the love of my life
Isaac put the guys to work building him a sandcastle, but I think they were having more fun playing with his toys!

Camping with a 2-month old!?!? Crazy, right? No way man! It can be done and it was totally worth it! We had a great time with our friends Laura and Eric. We drove a long way to an awesome campground located right on the Washington coastline. So by night we camped and by day we sunbathed and built sandcastles. We got a little wet, we got a little sunburned, we got a LOT dirty and had a lot of fun doing it!