"My Redeemer Lives"

I remember 3 years ago today...

Our sweet little Brooke joined our family!
I tried to make her birthday as pink as possible: pink cake, pink presents wrapped in pink paper, and pink decorations. But she just wouldn't keep the pink bow in her hair!

Here she is in her blessing dress at 2 months old. Does the dress look familiar? It is a portion of my wedding dress that my sister, LaRene, recreated into a blessing dress. Hopefully, Brooke will have a little girl who can wear it also.

10 months old in a dress her Grandma got for her in Viet Nam.

Brooke's hair is finally long enough for a pony tail!

(1 1/2 years old)

My only thumb sucker.

Brooke loves babies, purses, and other people's shoes! She is wearing Nicholas' shoes in this picture.

Labor stories are always fun: Even though she is our 3rd child, I was clueless about the beginning stages of labor since I had no labor with Nicholas (c-section) and Zach was induced. So I ignored the regular, mild contractions. By the time I realized this was the real thing, got the boys off to Grandma's, finished up whatever I was in the middle of, Brooke arrived 45 minutes after we got to the hospital! I didn't like the "no epidural" idea, but we had no choice. She arrived 9 days early weighing 7 pounds 3 ounces.

We love you, Brookie-girl!

Sleepless to and from Seattle

Why can't my kids sleep in the car? We went to Seattle for a day trip and even David wouldn't sleep in the car! We wanted to go visit Mike's sister, Sara, and also visited Pike's Place Market and the Seattle Aquarium.
This first picture is at the Low Flying Fish counter, waiting for someone to order fish. Brooke wanted to touch this big fish that was hanging over the edge of the counter and as she approached it, it jumped and scared her to death! (The person behind the counter pulled it to make it move.)


Here is Sara helping Brooke touch something in the aquarium.

Sara with the boys. Zach is the scuba diver and Nicholas is the eel, or whatever it is.

Zach riding the shark's fin!

And Nicholas!

What brave boys!

Walking around downtown in the beautiful drizzle of Seattle sunshine!

Yeah! The kids finally conked out the last 45 minutes of the drive home (even David).

The Karate Kid

(The song I added for this post is from The Karate Kid soundtrack - no, not Glory of Love - called "You're the Best Around." It's the last song on my playlist if you want to hear it. It will take you back to the 80's!)

Nicholas has started taking karate! He's been asking me to look into it for a couple months and he's pretty excited about it. Here are some of his new moves:
What great form!

And yes, he fell over while doing this kick:

But hey, give him a break, it's only been 3 weeks. He's excited to test for his orange belt in another month!

Silver Falls

On our first day of Spring Break we went to Silver Falls for a hike. There were many waterfalls to see along the way, which made if fun for the kids. All my pictures are of the first waterfall, here we are at the top: We weren't too sure what we were getting into, so we brought our big double stroller for Brooke and David. It worked well most of the way, even through the mud, but when we came to the stairs we had to turn around and go back. That was fine though, the kids were done by that point.

This first waterfall has a nice paved trail going behind it so here's a picture of us behind the waterfall:

Another shot behind the waterfall:

And here is Mike playing "Pooh Sticks" with Nicholas and Zach. (Dropping your stick over one side of the bridge and seeing whose stick comes out first on the other side.) If you look closely you can see Brooke and David too in the stroller to the right of the picture:

Cannon Beach

On the last day of February we went to Cannon Beach with Mike's mom, sister, and her boyfriend to celebrate Mike's dad's (Darwin) birthday. Darwin passed away 6 years ago and since he loved the beach and Kentucky Fried Chicken, we like to hit those places and hear Mike's mom tell some Darwin stories.

Nicholas was brave to go barefoot since the water was SO cold. In fact, the whole day was pretty cold and we went to the beach in between rainy moments.

Nicholas and Zach with Haystack Rock in the background:

We had a pretty good day trip, until Mike ended up with the stomach flu and I had to drive home. He was pretty miserable the next 24 hours and fortunately it was a quick sickness.

And also unfortunately, Mike's sister and her boyfriend got in a pretty bad car accident on their way home. They were rear ended at a stoplight, both were unconscious and were taken to the hospital with a concussion, broken ribs, and lots of other aches. Fortunately, both are doing better and are back to work. It's true when they say "your life can change on a dime."