Thank You To My Family

I just wanted to post a HUGE Thank you to my whole family. A lot of you read my blog and thought this would be an easy way to reach out. I wanted to let you all know how much I appreciated your open arms for our large group of kids and dogs at Xmas. From Rick playing chess with Tyler to Owen wanting to play with Haley all the time. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you all.

On another note, I have some good pics from the festivities. I will try to post them soon. We still have Tyler and Haley until Thursday, so busy times still this week.

I Love Snow, BUT...

It can go away now. I can't believe that we have had to deal with winter weather for a week here in Vancouver. And it isn't even winter until tomorrow (officially). We have gotten over 4 inches of snow today and they are saying we could see 4 more tonight before it changes to freezing rain...Yippee! Hope we don't lose power. I have been baking cookies like a mad woman. Had nothing else to do.
And Steve and I have tickets for the Wonderball with Storm Large tonight in downtown Portland. We are not going for fear that we would not be able to get home and right now even malls are closing early because of the weather.

OK...Now that I am done whining, here are some pictures from today and tonight of the snow. Bubba loves it.

Push the snow, push the snow. This was about 2 o'clock today and it is already all covered again.


2 PM today



6 PM today



Bubba Loves Snow!!! He runs along with his head down and eats it as he runs along.



Maggie was catching snowflakes on her tongue. She feels like she is back in Alturas.

Misc. Stuff

I finally downloaded pictures off of the camera and realized it had been a while since I posted anything on the blog.

Owen had one of his birthday parties at the beach with all of us. It was fun to watch him enjoy the cake and presents.



I don't think that you could find any prouder Grandparents. Ruary was not even an hour old when this picture was taken.



We are not sure what kind of cologne Matt is using, but both Harper and Owen seemed to like it. Eau d Cupcake, perhaps?



HOHOHO!!! Merry Christmas from Uncle Steve!

He is Here!!

Ruary Dale arrived into the world this morning at 10:56 AM. He weighed in at a whopping 9 pounds 11 ounces and was 21.5 inches long. Kelli did awesome pushing for almost 2 hours, but his head just was too big and ended up having to deliver him by C-section. Mom and baby are doing wonderful. Dad is doing good too. Everyone is very tired. Pics will be posted soon.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUARY!!

Come on Ruary!

Dear Ruary-
Your mom and dad really want you to arrive. They want to know what you look like, what your cry sounds like, and what color hair you have. The rest of the family wants to know all these things too. We all want to kiss your little nose and toes. Can't hardly wait to meet you.
Love,
Auntie Lori

Peace Man!!

Halloween 2008. Steve and I decided to try out the Hippie lifestyle. It was fun to do. The flare bottoms ended up being pretty time consuming, but I think they turned out great. We went to our friend Travis' house for a Halloween/Housewarming Party. Fun was had by all.


I only lost one or two layers of skin taking off the tattoos off my cheeks.


Oh, and my Network was there...

Roloff Farms Pumpkin Patch

While the kids were here last week, we went to Roloff Farms, the farm from Little People, Big World on TLC. It was really cool and weather was awesome. We saw Amy and Matt, the mom and dad from the family. They are both little people. Haley watches the show, but was too bashful to talk to Amy and have her pic taken with her.


The 'fun house' was a little creepy. This is one of the scenes they had in it. There was one with a 'baby' pumpkin I was going to post, but I didn't want to scare Kelli.



The kids wanted a whole bunch of pumpkins, be we finally narrowed it down to one each. We sent them home with them to carve.

Misc. pics and news...

I have not posted any pics for a while, so I figured I would give everyone
something to look at. A picture says a thousand words, right?
First few pictures are from August when Tyler and Haley visited. Maritime museum, trolley ride and Mariners game...









Owen was popping Haley's bubbles as fast as she could blow them.



And, it is official. Steve asked me to marry him last night. We are officially engaged.

Babies, Babies Everywhere (Almost)

Well two out of the three babies in our family have been born. And on the same day. Jennifer gave birth to Marley at 2:00 AM on October 22 and Alina gave birth by C-section to Lila at 3:00 pm on October 22. Exciting times. They have the same birthday. How fun is that going to be. I am having a hard time not running down there to squeeze the little ones. Moms and babies are both doing great.

Now we are awaiting the arrival of the Schimmy baby. Can't wait to see him.

Busy Week!!

Steve went to Medford on Sunday and picked up two of his demons, I mean children. It has been a busy week. We are going to take them to Roloff's Farms tomorrow to see the sights and get an extremely overpriced pumpkins. But it should be fun.
Like Steve puts it, we are making memories. Even though T does not even like me.

I am anxiously awaiting phone calls about all the Baby Mama's at the beach. It was so fun going through all of the stuff Kel got at the shower. I agree that everyone was very giving and it made us all feel very lucky that we have such an amazing group of family and friends.

Not as long as the preggo!

I could survive for 41 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

It is STILL Summer!

After the crappy weather last weekend, I am glad to see that the weekend is going to be nice. I really don't want summer to be over yet. Even though kids are back in school and wanting to wear new sweaters and jeans.

I feel like this fall is going to be good. There are new babies coming and that is very exciting. Steve and I are also going to concentrate more on getting our business going. I am going to sell Pampered Chef products to supplement the income a bit. Looking forward to getting Steve's kids up here more often.

I am a Pampered Chef Consultant

I took the plunge and decided to try my hand at selling www.pamperedchef.com products. I have many of the products already and love them all. I have not had my first show yet, but am planning my 'Grand Opening' show for August 6 at my house in Vancouver. Everyone is invited to come and bring a friend. Wish me luck!!!

It has been too long since I posted....

IT IS SUNNY AND IT IS FRIDAY!!! Oh my heck, the weather has been so bad. I can't believe
it is going to be nice this weekend. Going golfing tomorrow. Can hardly wait.

Well, I am going to be an auntie soon (although I have been one to the dogs for a long time). The whole family is very excited and anticipating the arrival of the butterball.

Tomorrow it will be May

I have not posted in a long time. Don't really have a good excuse, except that my last entry said I was going to start eating better and lose some weight, and I haven't done that...so hanging my head in shame.

I am excited that April is almost. It gives me hope that the weather will finally be nice and I can get outside more. The dogs would love that too. More walks around the neighborhood.

Steve is in California this week, so I am bach'ing it. Last night I let the dogs sleep with me. They love that. Maggie lays across the bottom of the bed and will not move. Means I have to sleep sideways.

Wow...Winter has been hard

I am trying to re-commit to Weight Watchers. I have put on weight and I am not happy.
Starting today, I am going to start watching my portions, cook good food, and exercising. Steve and I have fallen into the Happy hour trap and can't seem to get out. This is my public commitment to better health. Thanks for listening.

Wow...What a start to a new year

I can't believe it is February 2008 already. Seems like we just had Christmas.
With Grandpa Neil passing away in January, the year has a been a bit of a blur so far.

I have also gotten my business license. Steve and I are now Auto Inventory Solutions.
Steve does all the work of course. He will be helping auto dealers maintain their inventories...
And help anyone find a car.