Stark Family News

January 2012

2012-01-29T18:43:00.000-08:00

Can't believe I haven't posted yet this year, feels like I did. Anyway here's a few photos from the new year.

Liesel's blessing day at church.

Here's Alexus at one of the many, many basketball games we've watched this month. The team has had a great season. Our favorite games are when Dad gets excited and jumps up and down.

Liesel was about 2 ft. long and 15 pounds at her month mark. She can give smiles and tries to talk. So sweet and innocent, we love her!

2012-01-15T18:23:00.000-08:00

Found the Camara!- here's what's been going on.

All the Garner cousins on Christmas Eve-- Olivia, Alexus, Eliza, Madelynn, Lilli, Belle, Liesel, Kale, Jaden and Ellery at the Priest Lake cabin.

Stark cousins on Christmas Day at the Big H.

Visiting Tomi's grandparents. Great grandma Marie & grandpa George Walker and Great grandma Delores & grandpa Norman Garner.

2011-12-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

A Lesson in Responsibility?

Not sure who's going to learn first. The kids-- to be responsible for our new chickens. Or me--to stop taking on more responsibilities. Should be an adventure.

2011-11-27T17:36:00.001-08:00

Thanksgiving 2011
Got to spend Thanksgiving with some of my family at the cabin. This is Lilli holding Liesel. It was great to see the Loders and Uncle Zach for the first time since Liesel was born. Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving! Liesel is three weeks old now. Her doctor appointment last week showed she's growing well and is over 10 lbs. now.

Still following me?-- finally a new post

2011-11-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

Today was Liesel's first day at church. She pretty much slept through it all. She's been a pretty good baby for me. Thinking about all the possible outcomes when I went to the hospital last week, things really ended up the best they could for mom and baby. We're all healthy and well. Alexus & Olivia have had a twinge of jealousy as evidenced by yet another hair cutting incident this week. Lexi's is not noticable this time but Liv's got 1" bangs. I guess she's getting the attention she wanted now. We took time Friday to make some carameled apples and all the girls had a good time. Mostly just the caramel and chocolate got eaten though.

Halloween 2010

2010-11-03T20:14:00.001-07:00

Olivia the bunny, Belle the chef, Eliza the cowgirl & Alexus the lion. The twins are already asking how long til they can go "Halloweening" again and get lots of candy. They were really impressed with this holiday!

Happy Birthday Isabelle Su!

2010-09-26T19:37:00.000-07:00

That's a 6 on her cake. Can you believe it? Belle brings so much fun and spunk to our house. We're so thankful for her. She's doing excellent in Kindergarten and she's starting to be more aware of others and their feelings. Although today she told her Sunday school teacher that she has "a little fur" on her upper lip. So glad the teacher thought it was cute and was not offended.

Off to School

2010-09-01T21:11:00.000-07:00

These three were so excited for the first day of school. They were ready 30 minutes before the bus came. Chablis, Eliza and Belle all passed the first day with flying colors:-)

Already halfway through Summer?

2010-07-13T17:12:00.000-07:00

Alexus & Olivia turned three June 15. They are so cute, most of the time. Family gave them some wonderful presents and memories. If you can't tell from the picture, Olivia is in pink with hair down and Alexus in purple with hair pulled back.

Look what Erik brought home yesterday. Another girl (chocolate lab). We haven't named her yet.

Grandma Shari & Aunt Bre came over for the 4th of July. We wore matching shirts to the fireworks. Good times!

School's Out for Summer

2010-06-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

With Friday being the last day of school we decided to mix in a little family fishing trip amongst the parties and graduation this weekend. We loaded up the crew and headed to our "secret" lake and every body caught at least one fish. Belle caught 3 and lost a fourth and the twins got a double. It was a nice official kickoff to our summer of 2010.

Baseball Season Ends

2010-05-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

Erik coached the baseball team this spring. They made it into the regional playoffs, so all the team sported mohawks. They lost yesterday to ACH, so the season is over and hopefully Erik will let me cut his hair now.

Mother's Day

2010-05-23T17:47:00.000-07:00

The girls and Dad woke up early on Mother's Day and made heart-shaped donuts with chocolate icing and sprinkles for breakfast! It was a good day.

Twins still wear us out

2010-05-23T17:21:00.000-07:00

One night we could not get the twins to fall asleep (long naps earlier in the day), so we were just happy that they stayed in their room and let us go to bed. This was the scene the next morning. They have tucked themselves in to their collapsible clothes hampers for beds after staying up to destroy the bedroom all night. This will be cute later right?

Eliza's Birthday

2010-05-23T16:52:00.000-07:00

Eliza turned 7 on April 26th! She asked for a "wedding cake" that was pink with white roses. It was fun for us to make. She received lots of fun presents and exclaimed, "I got a bill!" After she opened a card with birthday money in it. :-) Hopefully she'll understand the difference between the two before she gets too much older.

Happy Easter 2010!!

2010-04-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

Easter morn we arose to find these four bunnies huddled near the harth seeking chocolate, jelly beans and other bunny treats. Needless to say the Easter Bunny didn't disappoint and all were sick by 8:09am.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

2010-01-09T10:58:00.000-08:00

Belle (in the pink plaid dress) did wonderfully in the school's Winter Program. They rang and sang "Jingle Bells" as a preschool class.

Eliza (in the black and white dress) also sang in the program with her 1st grade class. They have been learning to speak Spanish and did all of their songs in Spanish.

Christmas Eve we got to open presents at Grandma Rita's house. We met cousin Madelynn for the first time and enjoyed having Lilli to play with.

Here's the twins on Great Grandpa Lyman's couch Christmas afternoon. They had a wonderful Christmas morning and we all had a delicious dinner followed by fireworks! New year's we were out at Grandpa Lynn's cabin on Priest Lake with cousins Jaden and Kale. It was a very busy season for us. We are very blessed. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Found the camara!

2009-11-15T21:02:00.000-08:00

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.

School Begins

2009-09-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

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.

Summer Fun

2009-08-14T15:38:00.000-07:00

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.

The Twins are Two and Life is Busy!

2009-07-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

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.

Things You May Have Missed

2009-05-31T16:14:00.000-07:00

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.

Happy Easter

2009-04-12T15:49:00.000-07:00

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!

Melt a Mommy's Heart

2009-03-25T20:30:00.000-07:00

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.

The Sledding Saga

2009-03-01T19:10:00.000-08:00

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.

Cuties on the Couch

2009-02-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

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!

A Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year

2009-01-19T21:36:00.000-08:00

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.

I never appreciated my electricity before moving to Northport

2008-12-19T08:34:00.000-08:00

This morning we had our 3rd power outage of this winter. Maybe some of you are like I used to be and could use a refresher on what it means to be ready for a power outage. Well, first of all no power means no heat. In Bellingham, my preparedness consisted of having some blankets. That won't cut it here in the zero degree weather. My first thoughts when the power goes out now--do we have enough wood for the fireplace and kerosene for the heater. Not only do we need to keep ourselves warm, but the pump house and our house need to be warm enough that the pipes don't freeze. Which brings me to my next concern. No power means the water pump doesn't work so there's only 1 flush of the toilets and no washing or drinking water from the taps until power is restored. Do you have enough water stored? I love baby wipes for all our cleaning needs during power outages. Also I check to see if we have enough disposable plates and utensils to use for eating since we can't do dishes. It seems the outages always catch me when I have a stack of dishes to do, and they just have to sit there until power comes back. Then I think what do I have to feed my family that requires no cooking? A lot of sandwiches happen. As well as canned fruits and anything from the fridge that will go bad. Yes we could cook outside on a campstove or BBQ but that means freezing your patutti off and not really having a good heat source in the house to help you come back up to tempurature afterwards. Is your cell phone charged and ready? Where are the matches and the candles? Can you find them in the dark? I just don't recall ever thinking about these kind of things like I have to now. Here's hoping the rest of the winter has no extended power outages. We've been blessed that so far none of them have lasted more than 12 hours. I love electricity!

The mail.

2008-12-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

The picture below is us getting our mail. Our mail box is about 200 yards from our house, so I can't just grab it. We get to go for a short walk each day to get it. It's nice that there's still no snow. I suppose when it comes, I'll just pull the twins on a sled instead of pushing them in a stroller. Maybe one day it will be bad enough that I'll think of driving to the mail box.:-)

We now get Netflix through the mail! It is our excitement, since there is no cable in all of Northport and we choose not to get satellite and there is no Blockbuster or anything like unto it for 45 miles. The girls picked out a DVD with Hannah Montana episodes on it. Belle put on some play makeup from her "Hannah Montana Backstage Kit" she got on her birthday while she watched. Fun, fun, fun.

Happy Halloween

2008-11-02T17:55:00.000-08:00

Our Halloween Haunted Gingerbread House. Thanks Grandma Shari!

Halloween was quite a busy day for us. Erik was running the school's Scare Fair so Mom got to try to dress and entertain the 4 girls for Halloween. The girls had fun for the most part but it was very difficult to get the few pictures we do have. So here they are: Belle, the princess, Eliza, the clown, Alexus, the bee, and Olivia, the Lion.

Soccer Season Comes to an End

2008-10-05T17:06:00.000-07:00

Eliza & Belle had a great time playing soccer this fall. The season was about 5 weeks and consisted of about 10 games. We drove to Colville for all these games, but the girls had a great time. In their U-6 league they have 3 kids from each team out on the feild at once. There are no positions and no one is allowed in the "shark pit" or goalie box. So they just run after the ball and try to kick it into the goal from outside the shark pit. The field was about the size of the infield of a softball feild and the shark pit was about 4 feet square. Eliza scored several goals as the season came closer to its end. Belle was quite distraught that she never made one, but we keep reminding her of how well she ran and kicked the ball. Belle was still sad when she played the last game and can't wait for next year. In the team picture Belle is the bottom row middle and Eliza is next to her bottom right.

Almost forgot our favorite double play!!!

2008-09-10T21:11:00.000-07:00

Alexus and Olivia (born 6/15/07)

I am not sure why it is putting writing over here.......

I can't believe that we haven't found any cute stories to post about the twins. There was the time Olivia bit Alexus and then put her finger in Alexus's mouth hoping her sister would return the favor and thus avoid punishment....or how about when they don't like what they are eating they put in on their sister's tray until all the food is on the floor. Olivia definitley takes after her mother, she always is trying shoes on....her hands and Alexus loves to play joust with the kitch broom handle. Anyway, they are now almost 15 months and keeping us busy.

Back to School

2008-09-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

Eliza started kindergarten! Here she is on her first day of school. She had two boxes of pencils, a box of crayons, a pencil box to put them in, a pencil sharpener, new PE shoes, two bottles of hand soap, a picture for her teacher from Belle and her lunch all in her backpack. She had a great first day and said she got to read a book out loud in front of the class.

I can't believe how fast we are getting old

2008-08-11T15:42:00.000-07:00

Erik is struggling today, he cannot grasp the idea of having a child old enough to lose a tooth. Eliza lost her first tooth. She notified me of a loose tooth on Friday at lunch. Within twenty-four hours she had lost it. Needless to say the toothfairy was totally unprepared and their was a little stress between Erik and I as we had not yet discussed how the toothfairy would work in our family. Somehow the toothfairy did come but I think it will be a little different next time if he's better prepared. By the way that was another part of our discussion. I believe the toothfairy is a "he." Erik wasn't so sure. Of course if you've seen "The Santa Claus" you know he is a man. Anyway, we have a kid old enough to lose teeth and go to kindergarten in a few weeks. And Erik just keeps repeating that randomly throughout the day. Poor guy.

New Haircut

2008-08-02T15:12:00.000-07:00

Belle looked a little different to me today. After admiring how grown-up she's looking for some time, I realized she has bangs now. I asked aloud, "Did someone cut your hair Belle?" She was quiet. When everyone else said they had nothing to do with it, I asked, "How did you do it, Belle?" She said she held the scissors up and they cut through it. She doesn't know where the hair she cut off went. But I am very impressed with how nice a job she did.

Welcome to the 1990s

2008-07-11T13:23:00.000-07:00

We are so excited. We found out that we can get cheap dial up all the way in Northport and decided it was worth a try. Yesterday we almost had to evacuate due to a forest fire a quarter of mile away, but the locals quickly saddled their horses and put it out. The down side was we didn't have power until 3:44am this morning.

It was a good test run for a real emergency since it took us two minutes to get ready to go with 72 hour kits, clothes and Tomi's Sr year book as a keep sake. The twins are still not running which we are OK with since they are hard enough to keep up with when they mostly crawl. We'll keep you posted as life happens.