First Day of Preschool

Brooke and especially Josh have been so excited all summer long for preschool to start, and on Tuesday it finally did! They both go once a week and then come home with an extended learning packet for me to do with them. It is more work for me, but I enjoy the chance to sit down with them one and one. There are very few moments in my life that get to be spent with just one child and I treasure the opportunity.Josh and his Thomas the Train backpack . . . his pride and joy.

Brooke picked her outfit out all by herself. I have to admit, the girl's got style (today!).

Our Summer Adventures

This is in no particular order, so we'll start with our trip to the beach. We were supposed to meet the youth in our ward who were going to be at the beach all day, but due to bad weather and a wedding that night that the Bishop had to officiate, they left just as we got there. So instead of having all these young women to help me with the boys, it was just our family. A note here, the REAL beach is a two and a half hour drive from Seattle, so we weren't just going to turn around and go home. Instead we drove our car out onto the beach (like everyone else), except that we got STUCK! Fortunately, the nice people there helped us get unstuck. Then Ruston went off with Brooke and Josh to fly a kite and I stayed back to put the boys to sleep and then scour the beach for leftover firewood that we could reuse to cook our hot dogs. I did eventually get enough for a fire, but just as I was getting it started it started to drizzle the typical Pacific Northwest drizzle. Nothing to drench you right off, but after 45min. in it you are surprisingly soaked! At this point the boys woke up, so I took them to the car to feed them and Ruston started cooking the hot dogs with the kids. The hot dogs turned out great, except that I unknowingly bought the hot and spicy ones. So the kids took one bite, and were desperate for water! This is where I threw in the towel. Now we are all soaked, covered in sand and hungry, so we cleaned up as best we could, went to McDonalds, and went home! We'll try the beach again another time.

This is my birthday, my last good birthday as I am now officially 29!, and will be for the rest of my life. What made this day interesting was that Ruston tried so hard to do a lot of cool things that flopped. For one, he tried to come home early, and would have until he took the wrong bus after getting off the train and headed to Tacoma instead of home. He did get me sushi, but due to the bus thing by the time he got back into Bonney Lake, it had been sitting for over an hour. And lastly, we ran out of cake mixes at the last minute, so although he wanted to make a cake, when there aren't any mixes around, you're late getting home from work and you have four kids four and under, there's really only so much you can do about it. All in all though, it was a fun day and I appreciated all the effort Ruston put into it.

This pic is from the ZOO. Yes, with the help of my mother and neighbor, I took the family to the zoo. Brooke loved the petting zoo, Josh on other hand thought the animals were going to eat him, and would NOT feed them!

Lastly, for this post, Ruston took the kids salmon fishing. As part of my birthday present, since I don't really have time to go fishing right now, he is going to catch me a salmon. Josh had a ton of fun casting out and reeling in, as did Brooke. However, all they managed to catch was Ruston in the rear end! Fortunately, it didn't take long to untangle that and no one got hurt. I'll have to admit that I think it is so fabulous that we can drive ten minutes from our house and go salmon fishing, it has to be one of the greatest things about living in Seattle.

Luke Laughing

I hope this worked. Luke can laugh now and it's the cutest thing ever! Zach wants to, but hasn't quite figured it out all the way. He just opens his mouth all the way and ends up smiling for a long time instead of laughing.

It's nice to find some joy in all of this work!

The Baby Blessing

Here are some photos from the eventful day. Actually, it's kind of wierd, but Ruston and I aren't really into the whole big deal of it all. My wonderful friend Katie mailed us the blessing outfits her boys used, and so we put our boys in them, took them to church and blessed them.

Ruston did do a wonderful job with the blessings. . . but then it's a blessing, and doesn't that really mean that Heavenly Father has good things in store, not Ruston? Anyway, he did a good job, the blessings were fabulous, and it was nice to have Grandma and Grandpa Pack here (but mostly it was nice to have them here because Grandpa took Josh on his first fishing trip where the caught the usual . . . nothin'.)

Bring them up in the way they should go . . .

I think the scripture says something to the extent of, "Bring them up in the way they should go and when they are grown they won't depart from it". It's certainly not word for word, but boys, were banking on it. GO COUGARS!

As an FYI, they had their two month check up and Luke (on the left) weighs 13 lbs. 4 oz. and Zach weighs 12 lbs. 4 oz. They are just chunkin' it up, and I couldn't be a prouder mama.

My Other Hero

Okay, so the accommodations were terrible (a mattress in the living room), the work load overwhelming, and the food . . . actually that might have been the only redeeming aspect of this job. However, the memoreies instilled in those she served will never be forgotten. Thanks to a wonderful mother-in-law who cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and tended to all of our needs . . .

THANKS!!!

She was a life saver and we certainly couldn't have made it through the month of June without all of her efforts.

??? The Mystery Photo ???

What is Josh doing? Any guesses?

My Baby Brother's a Missionary!

Okay, not to steal the thunder from Andrew, but I have to mention that my sister's hair looks so cute! I haven't seen it since she cut it, and I LOVE IT! I hope she keeps it that way for a while. Also as you scroll down to the last picture you'll see her son Carter, and wow, he is so big. I'm always so amazed at how much everyone else's kids change.

Now to the real reason for this post.

It finally happened, my baby brother is headed on his mission. He got his call back in May and is headed to the Columbia, South Carolina mission. I wish he was going foreign, but don't most people hope to go somewhere exotic? Then again, I've never been to Columbia and I'm sure there are parts of Columbia that will be as foreign as anywhere outside of the US. I'm also jealous of my brother Jeff and his wife Andrea, who will be only hours away!

What a sharp looking guy! I like the suit, like the tie, like it all. You'll have to remind the girls in South Carolina to back off, your servin' the Lord.

Good luck baby brother! We'll send you cookies, pictures from the kids and keep you in our prayers. We hope these next two years are some of the best of your life. We love you and can't wait to see you when you get home.

Josh's Birthday

On June 30, our little Joshua turned 3 years old. In the last couple of months he's been to several birthday parties, so when his turn came, he was so excited. He loved the streamers we had up downstairs, and the balloons, and everyone who ever asked him what he wanted for his birthday all got the same answer, a water gun. If you asked him what he was going to do with it, he also gave the same answer, spray BROOKE! Because he was so insistent on the water gun, we did finally gave in. Brooke gave him two water guns for his birthday. One for him to use and one for her to defend herself. To my utter amazement, there have been no fights, no crying and no arguing about them.

Josh was also set on having a monster truck cake, and this is what we came up with. The basis for the idea came out of a book we have for cut-up cakes, and then we added a few things. Needless to say, Josh thought it was the coolest thing ever, and when it was all said and done, I was pretty impressed with my craftiness.

The War is ON!

This morning we woke to find that we had been attacked in the middle of the night. Apparently bandits dressed up as some of the youth in our ward came to our house and not so stealthfully (according to my mother-in-law who was trying to sleep in the living room) and saran wrapped the front door and Ruston's truck. When I got up this morning, this is what remained of their night time escapade.

So what's a girl to do . . . but fight back with juvenilles!

We went to the allegded bandits house and fought back with T.P. The kids had a blast and hopefully this "crime" doesn't make it all the way to the police since we did photograph ourselves in the act! I'm such a good role model for the kids!

The Post of Randomness

This summer we invested in a $30 pool from Target, and so far it has been worth every penny. Josh is in his swimsuit EVERY day. In the beginning they used the pool as a normal pool, sliding down the slide, playing the water and splashing each other. However, it has since become a barbie bath, yet another place to catch bugs, and a place the play with sand toys when there's no sand readily available.

This is NOT typical for Brooke, although she loved holding both boys at once. What is typical though is for her to be holding one, or laying next to one, or shoving, and I mean shoving her face into one! She really is an aspiring mother and for the most part it's cute. As a side note, both boys are now over 10lbs, which to me is funny because that's where my sister's son Carter started!

Lastly, amidst all of the craziness of life, we've still tried to find time for Ruston to go biking. He found a new place just south of the airport that has jumps and other crazy things. He's getting a lot better, and I have to admit I think he looks pretty cool in this picture.

The Hero of the Day

My mom is super woman. She spent the entire month of May with us to help with the transition, and I could not have done it without her. She took the boys whenever they were fussy . . . day and NIGHT! Now that she's gone I really appreciate all that she did while she was here. So this post is entirely to tell my mom, and let everyone else know how fabulous my mom is. We hope she comes back SOON and OFTEN!