More January Photos

On the evening of January 21st, I attended the Annual Astoria/Warrenton Chamber dinner to celebrate my dear grandma. She was completely in the dark and was told that my little brother was receiving an award from the Chamber for community service. Fortunately, she never suspected, and was shocked to tears when they announced her name to receive the prestigious Richard Ford Distinguished Service award for her lifelong service to the community and the City of Warrenton.

The next weekend, the kids and I attended J.R.'s 5th birthday at his house in Olney. It was a quiet birthday, but the kids enjoyed games and playing with friends outside in the surprisingly decent weather!

The next day, we had a big family party celebrating Synnove's 7th birthday. As always, it was a great time with family, friends, and food. She chose a Disney's "Tangled" theme and passed out fancy bracelets and purses to all her girl cousins and friends that came...the boys got binoculars :) She got lots of clothes, accessories, trinkets, and toys including a new bike! So spoiled!

May 5Th: Spring Tea

A few weeks ago, Soren's preschool went on their annual field trip to Hunt's Market to shop for soup ingredients for the Spring Tea. Each of the kids got a short list of items to purchase after getting the full tour of the store. Potatoes were one of the items on Soren's list...

After getting back to the school, all the parents stayed to help their kids prep for the soups. The kids scrubbed potatoes, cut up break for croutons, and helped Miss Kara mix ingredients. The kids made potato soup and taco soup.

A couple of days later was the actual event. The kids set the tables for their visiting family members and then gave a short musical performance. I'm pretty sure they were reciting a poem they learned below. Soren did a fantastic job! I wasn't expecting him to even sing, but he did all the motions and sang wonderfully!

Once the performance was over, the kids and families were led to the foyer to dish up their soup and view special Mother's Day hearts with the kids' answers to the question "what is your favorite thing to do with your mom?" on them. Soren's is the purple one in the middle...he's obsessed with collecting Candyland games of all vintages.

Three of Soren's grandmas showed up (two had to cancel last minute). Soren gave me a fancy glass jar with flowers in it covered in crepe paper shapes as a Mother's Day surprise :)

100 Years Old!

From Sunday, October 24th:

On October 27th, 2010 my great-grandmother, Myrna Backe, turned 100! To celebrate, we threw a bash for her at her retirement home in Astoria. It's amazing, but she was living on her own clear up until 3 or 4 years ago! She's absolutely unbelievable! In the last year or so, her health has been going downhill, but she still has a lot of spunk. My grandma Barb (her daughter) has been spending every day with her and they are the best of friends. How wonderful is it that my 75-year-old grandmother still gets to hang out with her mom??

The party was great. There was a slide show, lots of food, and a giant cake (almost didn't make it!). Many of Great-Grandma's friends from the home came to celebrate as well as all of her family and a few friends.

Mother and Daughter; Myrna and Barb

A view of the crowded room

Myrna and her daughter and only grandsons Mike and Mark

Myrna and her Great-Grandchildren and spouses (not in order and missing Wendey)

Myrna and her Great-GREAT-Grandchildren! Getting them to all smile at once was a chore. There were several cameras to look at.

All of us that came who are related. The gentleman on the left with the red sweater is Uncle Leo (Myrna's youngest, and only living, sibling) and to the right of him in the back is Myrna's nephew (I think his name is Mike) and the woman towards the middle with the purple scarf is Myrna's niece (her name has escaped my memory).

Visit with Cousins

My sister-in-law, Amanda, was in NY last week, so my mom-in-law watched Samantha and Carter. We don't see them too often, so it was a nice to have them visit for a couple of days last week. Grandma Patty had promised Synnove some new additions to her "fairy garden" that they started last year, and she wanted to do some fun crafts with the kids all together. Faith and her two kids came too, so we had a full house! The kids enjoyed all the company and played for hours outside. Patty had planned to stay the night, and thought that both Faith and I knew. Communication isn't a strong Brown-family characteristic...lol! I wasn't doing anything for the next couple of days, so it worked out fine, but Faith was a bit bummed that she didn't come prepared to stay as well. She had an appointment the next day and didn't want to be all frazzled. Still, she stayed till almost 11:00 that night visiting and loading up on coffee for the drive home.

Quite the fairy garden, if you ask me. Notice, Synnove is watching Grandma work...lol!

Samantha playing peek-a-boo with Cash and Synnove and Soren through the window.

The next day, Patty and I spend a lazy morning visiting while the kids played outside. My fridge wasn't full enough to create a suitable lunch, so we headed to town to have sandwiches at the Wheelhouse. Coincidentally, Patty and I both were in dire need of oil changes, so we got that out of the way and headed to the beach.

The weather was surprisingly beautiful! I took them all to Fort Stevens to explore Battery Russel before finally ending at Peter Iredale Beach for a quick run through the sand. I actually wasn't planning on going, so I didn't have my camera with me. I could have got some really great photos of the kids playing in the little pools created by the shipwreck. Though the beach isn't far, it's rare for us to actually go there. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was pregnant with Soren the last time I was at Peter Iredale. Peter Iredale Beach is less than 5 miles from my Parent's house. I suppose knowing that it's there is enough for me :)

Cash Michael Turns 1

On Saturday, the 14th we went to Vancouver for Cash's birthday. We were having a mini heat wave so we decided to take our gas-guzzling truck with working air conditioning. I'm so glad we did! Of course, that gave Adam an excuse to find something big to buy on Craigslist that just happened to be located in Vancouver. He bought a roof rack for his Beast...we picked it up on the way to the party.

We arrived on time...most everyone else was quite late. I just hate that. Anyway, he opened his gifts and we started in on the food. Cash looked so dapper in his tie and suspenders, but was later stripped naked to take a dip in the kiddie pool. The heat would have been stifling, had it not been for the slight breeze outside.

He's so stinkin' cute!

Grandma Patty with all her grandbabies

When the party was over, talk of IKEA crept into conversation. I had only been once, and Adam was game to go...if only to quench his slight curiosity. Plus, IKEA has cheap dinner!! SO, Faith, Alice, Adam, the kids, and I headed over there. Patty, Carter, and Samantha were gonna meet us there a bit later for dinner. There is just something about IKEA that makes me love it. Maybe it's the meatballs??

They had a special on crawfish...Faith had never had them before

We must have spent a good 2-3 hours there. Even Adam wasn't too unimpressed with all the Swedish particle board. By the time we left the store, it was about 8:45. The kids were flat-out pooped and were asleep within just a few minutes of us getting back on the freeway.

Rainy Day Paint Project

Recently, one of my dear Grandmothers had a series of unfortunate events that has landed her kitchenless for the last month. Long story short, she's getting some new stuff, and I'm helping her revamp her walls...NOT an easy task. But, that's a blog for another day. ANYway, while prepping her walls and taking things down, I managed to accidentally break the letter sorter that she has had for umpteen years. She wasn't too hurt by it, decided it could easily be fixed, and left it at that. Of course, I felt bad and had to figure some way to make it up to her. I thought I'd go to Ross and pick one up for cheap, but then I remembered that I actually had one at home! I had picked up an old one at Goodwill one day thinking I would repaint it and use it. I never found the time or motivation to do so and planned on re-donating it back to Goodwill on my next trip. As soon as I found a chance, I pulled it out and started brainstorming.

First, I shabbily painted it with a light green paint. Then, it sat on the counter for a couple of weeks while I spent a handful of hours of "research" on the computer. When I finally figured out what I was going to do, I went to www.letteringdelights.com to find a font that I could copy. I copied several fonts to my photo-editing software, sized them appropriately, and printed them out. Then, I cut out the words, scribbled pencil all over the back, then traced over the front onto the letter sorter so that I would have an exact copy to paint over. It worked perfectly. Unfortunately, I did quite a few re-paintings as I couldn't decide on the right font and color. OH, and I used an old stencil that I had to make a cool background before tracing a painting the words. After that was all finished, I spent a good hour or two perfecting it. It turned out way better than I originally imagined.

I'm sure she'll like it, as it was made with love =) I haven't given it to her yet...so if you're reading this blog Grandma...SURPRISE!

Took a "before" pic shortly after I started painting.

"After"

Close-up

It's Safe to Say, We've Been FAIR-ly Busy

It's hard to believe, but my kids didn't roll out of bed till 10 AM this morning! I can count on one hand the number of times that has happened in my kids' lifetime. Exhaustion has been commonplace around here for a while now...for varying reasons. Fortunately, the reasons are good :)

I suppose the madness started to creep a couple of weeks ago. Synnove was starting up swimming lessons again and I was looking forward to using our lazy mornings/afternoons visiting family and friends that I hadn't seen in a while. Well, those mornings/afternoons soon became filled with other plans and the week flew by in a flash. We went to Portland for a shopping trip, spent some warm afternoons at Fi Fi's house playing in her pool, took a quick trip to Longview, and my MIL and niece, Brandi, came for a visit. On Saturday, Adam continued work on the chicken run in the blistering sun while I finally finished laundry and cleaned the house. I was up late that night printing photos and framing them to enter into the fair the next day. On Sunday, Adam left the house early to meet up with his friend Chris and visit his Dad before heading to PGE Park to see his sister Amanda graduate from college. It was gonna be SUPER hot in Portland that day, so I opted to stay home with the kids. I had to do some last-minute things to get my entries ready for the fair, dropped the kids off with my parents, and headed to the fairgrounds. That night, Adam didn't get home till pretty late because the Civic busted a hose. Talk about deja vu!

On Monday, the heat was almost too much to bear. The animals were in survival mode and the bunnies' fur was all sweaty. Bunny-Him was the worst...so Adam brought him inside and put the fan on him. He didn't even want to jump away...he loved the fan! Adam then put one of our window fans above their cages so that they would be cool through the night.


Tuesday was the the beginning of the fair. Elise had asked Henry and I if we would volunteer our time to come and work in her coffee/smoothie booth. I thought it sounded like fun! It was gonna be a bit tricky for me though since I needed someone to watch the kids. Mom was busy working at the shop in town, Fi Fi was busy at the fair all week, and Dad was only really available for one of the days. It was quite the juggling act...especially since Synnove had swimming lessons every morning.

Henry worked Tuesday morning, so I didn't come in till around 2ish. Of course, right when I got there, I headed to the exhibit hall to see how my entries did. My cross-stitch got a blue, and two of the 4 photos I entered got ribbons...one got a third place ribbon, and another got a champion ribbon with a special "judge's choice" award. I was pretty excited, so I snapped a picture of the display.

After that, I headed to Weesie's booth and lived there off and on for 5 days. I don't think Elise realized how busy she was gonna be. We hardly ever sat down and were completely wiped out by the end of each day. Elise was there every day from 6:30 AM till around 10 PM. Henry usually worked in the mornings and late evenings, and I worked everywhere in between. Dad watched the kids on Tuesday. Fi Fi watched the kids at the fair for a few hours on Wednesday till Dad got back from a meeting in Portland. Thursday was tricky because Dad went tuna fishing and took Henry for the entire day. Adam went too and got seriously seasick...poor guy. Anyway, we stayed the night at Mom and Dad's on Wednesday night. Mom got up at 4:30 AM every morning to make fresh cinnamon rolls for the fair...so, she made them, dropped them off at the fair, and came back to be with the sleeping children and take Novie to swimming lessons. I left when she got back to work at the fair the entire day. I was there for like 13 hours without a break...Henry came in the late evening to help Elise close up. On Friday I was draggin' my feet. Dad watched the kids for a couple of hours until Mom got home from the shop (the shop was busy too, so Mom was pretty exhausted every day as well). On Saturday Adam, of course, watched the kids. All three of us (Elise, Henry, and I) worked the entire day. Henry had to leave at around 8, so I stayed late and helped her pack up some of her stuff to take back to her shop in town. I got home at around 11. The whole week was a marvelous success for Elise, and it was great exposure for her coffee shop in town. She'll likely do it again next year.

It was fun, the 3 of us working together.

Nice, Henry...

Through all the madness, the kids got to come to the fair like 4 times. Once with Papa, once with Fi Fi, once with Grandma, and once with Daddy. This year, Soren actually rode the rides without being scared. I was sad to have missed it all. Here are a couple of pics Adam took...

Soren didn't want to ride the "alligator" (as the kids call it) on the first day, but rode it on the last!

On Sunday we all slept in and I headed to the fairgrounds to pick up my exhibits. Apparently, Elise slept in too and I ended up meeting her and my parents there to help clean and pack up her booth. Once at home, I spent the entire day cleaning up my messy house while Adam continued to work on the chicken run and finally fix the hose on the Civic.

The next day (yesterday) I spent the day helping my Dad can the tuna they all caught on Thursday. We filled 96 pint jars! Then we all had a big BBQ tuna dinner with Chris and Elise, Jack and Jeanne, Grandma Barb, and Henry and his new girlfriend Kiley. We didn't get home till after 10.

Today, I plan to do a lot o' nothin'.