Long time, no post!

Well, I am embarrassed at how long it's been since I posted anything. Shoot, I didn't even blog about the election, which is horrible for a lifelong conservative to admit. (Needless to say, not happy about the results!) I am going to try to be better, I really do promise!

So the big news in our family is that Sarah is going on a MISSION! She's been called to serve in the Colorado Denver South Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She will serve for a period of 18 months. We are so proud of her and so excited for her and so nervous about not being able to talk to her (even if it's just texting) on a daily basis. Sarah had spent the last eight months at BYU-Provo for her freshman year of college. She did awesome, really enjoyed it, and made friends that will (hopefully) last a lifetime. Obviously she would be going back this fall except for the announcement about lowering the mission ages. Sarah felt very strongly that she should serve a mission. If you want to read more about her decision process, head on over to HER blog, http://sistersarahnoakes.blogspot.com/. I'll be maintaining that blog for her while she's away. (Sniff.)

We had some family pictures taken on Sunday. Here are a couple of my personal favorites. (Yes, we are a geeky family, wearing our matching Doctor Who tee shirts and all. It's just how we roll around here.)

L-R Sarah, Paula (me), Alan, Spencer

 

It's a GIRL! Don't touch me!

The hubs and me. Old gray-haired farts that we are, heh.

So anyway, that's a brief update. I promise to post more later!

Someday, I will actually catch up ...

Someday, I will actually catch up with the whole blogging business. For now, we're doing pretty great! Sarah's been accepted to BYU-Provo (her #1 choice), and is very excited for the new adventure. Spencer's doing much, much better at the new school (Mid-Columbia Partnership). He enjoys the smaller class sizes, likes his classmates, and isn't stressing out (as much) each and every day. Much easier on Mom, too!

Meanwhile, some pics ... Alan & I on our 20th anniversary, ready to go to dinner!

And Christmas photo/Sarah's 18th birthday, December 2011.

First Day of School 2010!

Time for first day of school photos! First up, Sarah, who is now a junior in high school!

She's taking three AP (advanced placement) classes this year. Yikes.

And Spencer, now an 8th grader!!

He's in honors classes, and taking Spanish, and wants to play soccer this year.

That was then, this is now ...

We went to the Oregon Coast the last week of July (I'll post more pictures from that trip later). One day we went to Cape Meares to see the lighthouse. We go there nearly every year because we love the view and the little short lighthouse. Unfortunately, some numbskulls shot up the lighthouse last winter, and the actual lighthouse is still closed due to the damage. But we were able to look around the outside and enjoy the beautiful view.

While we were there, we walked to the Octopus Tree. It's a huge, beautiful tree that has a fence around it to protect the tree from harm. A few years ago, I took a picture of Sarah and Spencer on the fence by the tree, and I wanted to update that scene this year. Here's the result! The first picture is from 2005, when Sarah was 11-1/2 and Spencer was 8. The second picture is from this year, 2010, and Sarah is now 16-1/2 and Spencer is 13. They look like the same kids, but different. It's amazing to see how they change and grow over the years!

Sarah's 16th Birthday

So very late, but still posting some birthday pictures from Sarah's 16th birthday. 

Sarah with her balloons (courtesy Grandma Noakes).

 

 

Eating Chinese takeout from Mandarin House. (Yummy!)

 

Alan and his mom (Grandma Noakes).

  

Spencer doing his best to hide.

 

But I found him anyway.

  

Sarah and Grandma Jean.

 

Me. I hate pictures of myself but this one's halfway decent. 

Sarah and her Owl City CD.

 

Sarah and her new camera.

 

She wanted the Harry Potter cake!

 

Family picture that we used for Christmas cards.

That's it! Finally posted birthday pictures, only nearly six months later. Sorry about that! More updates to come ...

Spencer's Broken Toe

Some of you will already know that Spencer broke his right big toe on Tuesday 2/9/10. He tripped on a plastic grocery bag containing the items that needed to go in the freezer. Go figure. Five more minutes and they would have been put away, or if he'd taken it a bit slower bouncing into the house from the garage (he went to get a pop), he might not have tripped on the sack. At first I thought it was a bad toe stubbing, or maybe a sprain, but when he was still in a lot of pain on Wednesday I called the doctor. We went in, the doctor said looks broken, and we got an X-ray and went right back up to the doctor's office. It wasn't pretty ... Spencer has a growth plate fracture and essentially dislocated the toe. Went to the orthopedic specialist on Thursday; they reset the toe and told him to stay off it for a week. He's 12. So far, so good, but I'm not looking forward to school tomorrow!

For the not-faint-of-heart, here are pics of the X-rays. Before ... the big v-shaped gap is where the growth plate broke. Oh, and his toenail was popped out of place also.

And after being set. No more big v-shaped gap, toenail back in place.

 

Much better, huh?

Memory Lane

This is my little trip down memory lane. Thirteen years ago this month, Alan was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Twelve years ago this month, we were sealed as a family in the Seattle Temple. Here are some pictures from that night.

Here is a family shot at home before the baptism. Yes, I was pregnant with Spencer at the time ...
Here's a picture of Alan and I at the post-baptism dinner. We went to Cedars Pier One, I believe. Alan would remember but I will check that detail later.


Here is Sarah with my mom and dad at the dinner. My dad died not quite four years later, so this picture is special to me.


I will post more later ... after I get them scanned into the computer. These are all from "back in the day" when we used film in cameras!

More cute Halloween Pics

Here are some more cute Halloween pics of the kids. The first batch is from 2001.


Here's Sarah by herself; she's almost 8 in these pictures.


And Spencer by himself. He's 4-1/2.


And here is a picture from 2002. Sarah is almost 9 and Spencer is 5-1/2. This was obviously the Toy Story year, LOL.

Halloween Past - 1997 to be exact

I have to thank Lisa S. for this one. She posted pics of her girls on Halloween past, and one of the costumes was a pumpkin. So it reminded me of the pumpkin outfit I made for Sarah when she was not quite 4. Spencer was almost 6 months old in this picture, wearing the same baby pumpkin outfit that Sarah wore when she was a baby.

Alan and the kids. Alan has much more and darker hair in this picture than he does now! What 12 years will do to you!! (Including me in that statement!)

This is what Sarah calls her "aren't I so cute?" pose. She did this pose a LOT for several years. Age: 3 years almost 11 months.


And the baby pumpkin, Spencer. Age: 6 months. Cute little turkey ... er pumpkin ... isn't he?!

(If anybody's interested, Lisa's blog is here http://donaldandlisasorensonfamily.blogspot.com/ . Check out her post from November 2 with her darling girls!)

Spencer's Halloween Costume

I think this is Shadow Link? From The Legend of Zelda video games. We don't have any, so I don't know. LOL. But he wanted to do this for Halloween so here we are. Cute kid, eh?!

Spencer's first Boy Scout awards

Wednesday night was a court of honor at church, and Spencer got his first Boy Scout awards. He earned four merit badges, his Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class patches. We're very proud of our little guy! Plus he looks so darn cute in that scout uniform! Here are some pictures. The first one is Brother Shannon giving Spencer his merit badges. The second one is Brother Shannon, Spencer, me, and DH (who came in from his Webelos group for a few minutes) (pardon DH's filthy jeans. He worked hard and didn't have a clean pair to change into -- bad wife moment LOL.). Of course Spencer didn't want to pin the pins on me, but he did anyway. He also didn't want to kiss me (LOL), but I did snag a hug!

My Babies are Back!

Both my babies are home now. Sarah got back Friday about 1:30 pm. She had a blast. The 4th years went on their own hike and campout and she really had fun. She was ticked off when they got back to camp because the younger girls had basically tossed everybody's stuff in the tent and then walked over it to get to their own things. Sigh. Her glasses case got broken; luckily no glasses were in it, and her gray flip flops went missing. She's cranky about those, they were her favorite. But she lived and had fun, so that's great.

Spencer got back Saturday, around 2. They said 5 pm originally, so we had canceled dinner with Gma Noakes thinking he might not be up to it. He was actually pretty bouncy and lively. Talked about the merit badges he worked on and seemed to really have a good time, eating issues aside. Said he had a couple of days where he didn't feel very good. I'm actually thinking from what he said that he might have had some heat issues like his mom. He said he had a headache and queasy stomach and just felt bad. That's what heat does to me. Plus Sarah had a bad cold the week before camp so he might have had a touch of that too. Spencer does colds like Alan does. Two days and then he's done. I hate that. Sarah and I have colds and they last eons. Anyway, he got over it and had a great time, it sounded like. He had money left over and actually did eat better than the scout leader initially thought. There was a camp store and it had snacks so Spencer spent some money on those. Not the best diet but he didn't starve. And he got three merit badges done and a couple more worked on. Pretty good I'd say!

We went to Applebee's for dinner to celebrate them being home, and they both plowed through their dinners. Then we went to McDonald's for shakes, ice cream, and a McFlurry, then came home and after showers we all watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. And Spencer had popcorn and a baked potato. LOL.

And today we went to church and Spencer actually passed the sacrament again. The counselor conducting made a point of saying the deacons had been to camp and it was great to see them all there at church to pass the sacrament. Spencer did ask to go home before priesthood, though, so Alan took him home. When we got home he hadn't been to bed yet, so we made him go lie down, and he conked out. We had to wake him up at 5:45 to go to Gma Noakes's house for dinner! So the little guy must have been tired, after all.

And they're OFF!

I now have NO children at home. For the next FOUR DAYS, then Sarah gets back from girls camp. Spencer doesn't get back until Saturday, though. Wah! I am having a hard time letting him go. I guess because he's the baby? He's never been away from home for this long and I got home from taking him to the scout leader's house and BAWLED! It didn't help that the car wouldn't start and I had to hitch a ride home from one of the other parents. Luckily she'd stayed to say goodbye to her son also. (Thanks Deena!) Alan thinks it's the starter (again), and says it's an easy fix. I hope so. I can't handle hard (or expensive) this week!

I am headed to bed as soon as I publish this post. I'm exhausted (basically NO sleep last night), and my head is threatening a full-fledged migraine. Bleck. Night all ... earplugs are going in and the nightgown is going on!

Blah Blah

I'm not having a great couple of days. I'm tired, stressed out (who knew preparing a 12 yo for his first Scout camp was such HARD WORK!?!), tired ... did I mention tired? I haven't slept very well for the past what, three nights now. I'm headed for a serious nap in a couple of minutes. Alan's home and I'm gonna crash for a bit. He and the kids can handle Papa Murphy's for dinner and then they can wake me up for Jeopardy! (maybe ... maybe I'll tell 'em to DVR it and wake me up for Eureka ... sounds good!). One thing I've accomplished is making the invites for Mom's 80th birthday celebration. I'll put one below so you can see what I've done. I have to get the envelopes addressed and mail them this weekend. One more thing!

Spencer's Rash

And in other news, Spencer has a weird rash that broke out yesterday. He was grumpy all day, finally after his shower he came out and said he had a weird bumpy rash. I sent Alan to the store for Benadryl and cortisone cream (yeah, bent the Sabbath a bit there but we had no liquid Benadryl and Spencer can't swallow pills yet). It looks a bit better today, but here are a couple of pics of how it looked last night.

Organized Linen Closet

I love the organized linen closet! Kudos to Sarah and Spencer for doing this on Saturday for me. Kids can be GREAT when they're in a helping mood, LOL! Here's a couple pictures of the nice, organized closet. Still a lot of stuff in there, but the closet is VERY small, so we're stuck.


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Spencer left for a two-night scout camp tonight. They're going to Trout Lake, near Mount Adams. *Sniff.* First time he's been gone more than one night, and those have pretty much been to a grandma's or a friend's in town. I'm not sure how many boys are going; there were about 5-6 that I know for sure were going to be othere, including Mark, my niece's son. When we pulled up, Mark said he was claiming Spencer for his tent, because it's a two-person tent and Spencer's skinny. LOL. Here are some pictures from the packing up of the trailer at the Shannon's house. Mark is in the second picture with Spencer. The dog is the Shannon's, named Bogus. Cute, huh?

Here are the performances!

The kid had their piano recital today. Shirley does such a great job with her students! Sarah played Fur Elise, and Spencer played the theme from Stargate SG-1. I recorded their songs with the camera, and of course took pictures!

I haven't posted Easter pictures yet (sigh), so here they are. First off, DH and I. Aren't we handsome and gorgiferous? (LOL) Then, we have Sarah and Spencer. At least they don't act like they hate each other.

Next is a picture of Sarah and me, and then Spencer and Alan. This was just after Spencer's birthday (he turned 12), so he was ordained to the Aaronic priesthood on this day. *Sniff.* We went to Diane and Sam's for Easter dinner, and got to spend some nice time with them. We didn't do an egg hunt this year, and nobody seemed to miss it. Well, Sarah did mention it, and did a fake pout when I said she was too old for it, but other than that nobody cared much!

(You know, I really hate it when pictures don't go in the order I put them in the silly post! ARGH! The picture of Alan and I should be first, but it decided to go in second. Go figure.)