Sunday, November 15, 2009

Found the camara!


Our camara was no where to be found for some time there. I can't imagine how something 2" X 4" could get lost in our house, but somehow it did. Anyway, here's a family photo we took real quick after church in September. The girls are all doing great. We had to take our Halloween pictures with our film-camara. But I'll have you know that it went wonderfully. Eliza was a girl from the 50's ready to go to a sock hop. Belle was herself, princess Belle from Beauty and the Beast. And the twins were jack o'lanterns.






This was from Belle's birthday at the end of September. We didn't get a post up about her birthday before the camara went MIA. She turned 5 and picked a chocolate butterfly birthday cake. Choosing steak for her birthday dinner pleased us all. Her lastest thing is thinking of a new joke to tell the kids at preschool each day. I love to watch her loving life.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

School Begins




Eliza started first grade and Belle preschool this year. Here they are on their first day, each wearing the lates fashion thanks to Grandma Shari.


After a long day of reading, writing and Spanish , Isabelle and Eliza don their super hero costumes to clean up the streets of Northport and make northern Stevens county a safe place for all.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Summer Fun





Here's all the Garner cousins at Lynn & Rita's. Top from left to right: Eliza, Olivia, Belle & Alexus
Bottom from left to right: Lilli (Andrea's), Kale & Jaden (Jared's). Sorry there were no pictures with all 7 looking up.










Here are 3 of the 4 sets of twins on the Walker side of the family. This was at the Walker reunion at Priest Lake. The oldest are my cousin Loren Cox's twin boys, Campbell & Cooper. There's my Alexus & Olivia on the right and the youngest are my cousin Jaynae Bunch's twins,(which happen to be the only boy & girl set) Eleanor & Allister. Not pictured are my cousin Randa Headrick's twin girls.






We went camping on the coast at Deception Pass State Park again this summer. It's kind of our Stark Family Reunion tradition. It's always fun. I could tell it's getting easier with the twins being older because we got camp taken down before noon this year.












Erik and I took advantage of a free babysitter, free hotel stay and free flight and went to Vegas for 3 days. We did enjoy being tourists. We went to a dinner theatre and ate at one of Mario Batali's restaurants, San Marco, just so we could say we did it. Boy, can you go through the money there. I do have to say one of the water shows in front of the Bellagio was my favorite. It was so beautiful I cried. (I know what a baby.)








I felt like I really should have noted Eliza's kindergarten graduation at the beginning of summer. But, better late than never. We are very proud of her. She received a Reading Fluency Award, the Principal's Award, an American Citizenship Award, & the President's Education Award from Barack Obama.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

The Twins are Two and Life is Busy!




This is the only digital picture I could find of the twins birthday. Most of the day is on video. I also didn't get a picture of the cake since I dropped the camara in it while attempting the best shot. They had a great birthday none the less. They of course immediately began the frequent use of the word "no" and temper tantrums. But we still think they're pretty cute and enjoy that they also use the word "hug" a lot too.









Erik's mom has been able to visit a few times lately so Erik and I got to go on a date! We went fishing. I was so rusty after 6 years but I caught a nice 16 incher, which was bigger than both Erik's fish put together. Meadow Lake was a beautiful and only 20 minutes from home.


















Sunday, May 31, 2009

Things You May Have Missed


Belle lost her first tooth. She's 4, that was unexpected for us. She has since lost the tooth next to it as well. So she needs her two front teeth.







Belle played on the TeeBall team. She never really understood the point of playing outfield, but still enjoyed it.








Eliza played TeeBall too. The first two innings the teams hit off the tee but in the third inning the kids try to hit a slow pitch from the coach. Eliza hit better without the tee and loved it.







Eliza turned 6 on April 26th. She helped decorate her own cake and loved the journals and clothes she got. For her birthday dinner she chose to have steak, special potatoes, caesar salad and strawberries.





We are raising pheasants to release when they're full grown. We started with 100 newly-hatched chicks and still have 88 of them. All the chicks we lost were in the first week and I hear that it's pretty normal to lose at least that many. It's been a lot of work and is supposed to be teaching our kids about responsisbility.





Last weekend we hiked to the top of SilverCrown Mountain and took this picture. That's Northport way down below us and the Columbia River. It was gorgeous.



































Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter




Yesterday there was a egg hunt in the city park followed by a drawing for various candy and stuffed animals. The girls enjoyed it. Olivia quickly figured out the idea of grabbing the eggs and putting them in her basket. Alexus got a few too, with a lot of encouragement from Mom. Once Olivia's basket was full we quit and went over to see how Belle did in the 2-4 yr. old department. She had a good amount. I'm not sure if it was because Belle's basket was bigger so it looked like it needed more or what, but Oilvia took all of her eggs out of her basket and put them in Belle's basket. This morning, Easter morning, all the girl's enjoyed finding eggs and the Easter baskets left by the Easter bunny. It was fun to watch. Belle's primary teacher gave her a little baggy of chocolate-covered raisins. The attached note said since she hadn't been that good this year all the Easter bunny left was a little bunny poop. Belle of course thoroughly enjoyed going around telling everyone she was eating bunny poop. Happy Easter!

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Melt a Mommy's Heart

Eliza doesn't know I'm sharing this special moment, so please don't ask her about it. She handed me a note at bedtime yesterday. And here's what my little kindergartener wrote completely on her own: I like you Mom. I bet you like me. I love you. I know you love me. I like it when you help me. I think you are glad when I help you. Love Eliza
Life really is much simpler than I make it. I left in the misspellings (there weren't any.) I couldn't be happier with her.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

The Sledding Saga


After a week in the 40's, yesterday the temperature was below freezing and we could actually walk on top of the deep snow. We went sledding a week or two ago and had to trudge up the hill sinking up to our knees in the snow every step of the way. So, when we saw the chance to try it again without the sinking, we were excited. Well, we learned quickly that if the snow is icy enough to walk on, then it is very fast for sledding. Eliza and Belle took a run fast as lightning. At the bottom they rolled off the sled, and Belle came up crying. The left side of her face got scraped. I said, "These are kind of dangerous conditions." Erik disagreed. Then I took Alexus down on my lap, we also fell off before we got going too fast. Alexus came out of my arms and scraped her cheek. I said, "I think we should go home." Erik was still not convinced so Eliza took another run. She was great and even took the jump at the bottom of the hill. But she didn't land on the sled and scraped her cheek. At which point Erik conceded and we all went home. It's hard to see but the top picture is the girls today with their scrapes.



Thursday, February 5, 2009

Cuties on the Couch

Just thought I'd post an up-to-date picture of the girls. It's the cute moments like this that keep me from going insane. They really are good girls, just a lot of work sometimes. Keep smiling!

Monday, January 19, 2009

A Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year




I'm finally back online. December was very busy and very snowy. This led to numerous power outages of course, but it was gorgeous. The winter scene was taken from our living room couch. We got tired of having blurry pictures and having to change the batteries in our camera way too often and splurged at an after Christmas sale for a little new one. Hence we have no pictures of Christmas for the blog. It's all on video (not digital video.) We did get some New Year's shots. I have been unable to post anything til now due to our phone line being down for 2 weeks as well. Wanted you all to know we did have a wonderful Christmas. For those who haven't already heard the story, I thought I'd pass along Belle's Christmas miracle. She came to me later on Christmas day and said,"Mom, you know what? Even though I picked my nose, Santa still brought me presents!" She got away with one this time. Hee, hee. On New Year's we had Erik's neice Chablis with us. We had to get a picture of our "toast." I got some sparkling cider. When I told the girls we would be having a New Year's toast, they asked if they could have cinnamon sugar on their toast. So we started a new tradition.