Our best cake eater ever

Josette officially turned the big 1. I decided to finally be a good mom and make a child's birthday cake and since Josette is our moose baby...well at least I tried! Josette fully appreciated it though. She dug in with both fists and when that wasn't fast enough she leaned over and tried to lick it . I don't know if that is a sign of things to come but it made for the best first birthday cake eating I have ever seen. Happy Birthday Little Girl!

Trying to get at the cake from another angle.

Could there be a happier baby?!

How to be the coolest kid in 2nd grade

As of yesterday morning Sophie became that "cool" kid. I remember being in the 2nd and 3rd grade making braces out of paper clips. While Sophie sat in that orthodontic chair I told her how I had wanted braces so bad that I did this. I had forgotten about that but all the kids wanted them. At what point braces became "uncool" I'm not sure but for right now life is good. All the kids in her class keep telling her that they'll have to get braces soon too. The only down fall is that she was growing up way too fast and now it just skipped a couple of years. Nobody will believe us now when we tell them her real age.

Sophie is modeling her new hat and sweater compliments of a very talented Meme who has been knitting like a crazy women.

I have officially gone crazy as I run all the kids in different directions. I guess this will be the next 17 years of my life. We are doing a mom (joy) preschool again, which I love. This year though I've split up B. and C. because they 1) they are on different learning levels and 2) they really need some time apart! B. and C. have become so overly competetive. Now competition is good. I fully support a good competetive streak but it is total meltdown if one is done before the other. B. was even saying that his stitches were worse than C's! It is a sad day when B. is excited to visit the ER and is pulling us by the hand to make sure we take him. It was his first visit and he was sure proud. Everyone at church knew about how he tripped on the wooden stairs and cracked his chin open. In the long run it is going to save us a ton of money if I get a nursing degree just so I can learn to do stitches.
I guess two plates of lasagna will do you in!

Our best 1 year checkup ever

We met with Josette's surgeon for her one year check...it was great! She is doing really well and as of right now it doesn't seem like she should have any more corrective surgeries. We'll go back in a year to make sure that her chest forms correctly (it's a little malformed at the moment) but that too will hopefully continue to fill out as her lungs grow. The best way to illustrate how far she's come is with the x-rays.

This was the x-ray taken about 5 minutes after birth. The right side is intestine, the heart is to the far left corner and her lung is the black space beneath the heart.


This was taken this week and it 's wonderful! Heart is in the middle and two lungs!



Modern day medicine is wonderful!

PS We still love those WSU Cougs despite the shellacking they received today.

You can't soar...

My Grandpa always used to say "You can't soar with the eagles if you're up with the turkeys." That was the story of our very short summer. We spent too much time with the turkeys and things did not get done as they should have. That is the nice thing about school, it forces us to get up and soar with the eagles. I get work outs in, breakfast for everyone and kids dressed by 9:00am. Sophie loves school and is so excited for this year. She attends a charter school with only one class in each grade so she knows her teacher and all her classmates already.

Life is always eventful in the Mower household. We enjoyed a great weekend spending Friday night an the state fair. There is nothing like the lumber jack show. The jokes are the same each year and the guys are getting older ( they are over 15 now..) but we love watching them saw, chop and log roll. The kids were laughing hysterically.

Saturday we got to blueberry picking. A spectacular day on top of the world. It was the first time Matt had been able to go on a hike with us.

There is still Hope

We have a great nightly routine in our home the last week. Sit in front of the tv and cheer on people in incredible shape and comment on their muscles. I just got done seeing a 38 year old women win the marathon and a 41 get a silver in a all out swim sprint. It makes me think that there is still hope for me to get those amazing muscles.

I love the Olympics! The kids have really gotten into it doing their own Olympics. Gymnastics and now racing is occurring nightly in our basement. The front yard shares gymnastics and volleyball. Matt and I try to pick what events the kids would do. So far Sophie gets volleyball, Carsten is the swimmer, Benjamin the shooter, and well, Josette is badminton.

Now to watch Phelps win #8.

Sun Holiday

Matt called just after lunch to say that a "sun holiday" had been declared at work and everybody was heading home. He would stop and pick up some sandwiches, head home and we could go to sheep creek for some fishing. I was all for that and hurried and got the kids all ready to go. The blue skies send us off on our adventure.

Drinks, Kid pack, fishing poles, boots, check!

Uh, oh what's this...black clouds and pouring rain 20 minutes from the house. Should we turn back? I didn't bring any rain gear, heck you saw the picture when we were leaving, no reason to bring any. We'll keep going and hope that the clouds are working back towards the house and away from the direction we're going.

We guessed right. It was beautiful and sunny again at the creek. The kids are all ready, eye protection and all. Anxious to get their lines in the water.

Sophie would yell that she had a fish everytime there was a little tug on the line coming in. I caught a big silver but then being a novice at landing them I lost it. Sophie loves it and has her own chest waders and everything.

Nobody is watching, I'll just take a few.

After getting skunked fishing and the boys going swimming in their clothes we called it a day. But it was to nice to let the evening end and so we took the scenic route home. We took the back side to Hatchers pass. A 1 1/2 lane dirt road for at least 35 miles. We saw a beaver dam with a family of beavers working on their home. It was so cool to see them in the middle of this mountain pass. We also had a bunch of baby ptarmigan (or so Sophie says) run in front of the car.

An amazing sunset in the mountains. An end to a great day.

Emergency Prep

I have really been feeling that need to get things in order. If I were expecting it would probably be called nesting but Matt says I'm always nesting. We had seriously depleted my stock piles in preperation for our over-seas move. When that got changed I felt very strong impressions that emergency preparedness needed to take center stage again. This has been reaffirmed by the talks and council that we have been receiving in General Conference and from our Stake. I have also felt that need to get things other than food in order. I know that for the longest time I was always trying to get food in order but I have greatly broadened my horizons. I have had a weekly focus on what to add to our supplies. So far I've done sterile gloves (Costco has a coupon for them this month), Bleach, laundry detergent (another Costco Coupon) and TP. I never had really thought of TP but boy I would hate to be without it for a while if we were restricted to our home for a long period of time!

We have some amazing men and women in our area when it comes to this stuff. We live in an area that is still remote and can easily be cut off. If Seattle shipping shuts down for some reason we get cut-off from food and other items. I try to pick their brains as much as possible and want to pass on a bit of what is shared with us. You'll now find a little side bar with my weekly goal and Web-sites that offer some great items for emergency preparedness. This will hopefully help me stay on track and accomplish what I say I want to do.