Tuesday, December 23, 2008

still more snow! And a new tree star!


So, I had to get a new tree star. The one I got 10 days ago died and had to be replaced today. I like the new one! So, there's my tree.
And this is the snowperson Pat and the kids built today! The cucumber eyes were my idea, my neighbor Nevaeh helped make the snowman and she made the hat out of ice! She's only 6!
We're definitely having a white Christmas! And every Who in Vancouver likes Christmas allot!

Monday, December 22, 2008

Snow!


I took this pic two nights ago while it was snowing and the wind was blowing snow everywhere!
It's been snowing for four days, and we have about a foot of snow on the ground.
In Vancouver, that's enough snow to shut everything down!
The boys love it! they've been going to bed early every night because they're so exhausted from all the snowball fights!
It's still snowing, and it looks like we're going to have our first white Christmas since we moved here almost five years ago!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Directive

So, when I bought the movie Wall-e, It had a thingie attatched to the front of the package stating that I could enter a code online and receive a free tree seedling that would be kosher for my region. And here it is! My Wall-e tree! It's a Colorado Blue Spruce, go figure.

Monday, November 24, 2008


I don't care what anyone else thinks, Jasper was smokin' hot in Twilight!
I never really liked jasper in the books, sue me. It was all about edward and bella for me, and I didn't find jasper of any consequence.
But oh man, Jasper was so awesome in the movie! I loved how he looked like he was in pain all the time! And I loved when him and emmet were burning james, and jasper's all excited and jumping around. Frickin' Awesome!
I hope they give Jasper a bigger part in New Moon, he did great in this movie!
Okay, so I thought the movie was great. I will definetly see New Moon.
But, I refuse to see it during any time which teenage girls are allowed to be out and about. Being at that movie theatre with 100 teenagers discussing how edward was the perfect man was almost my undoing! There was a girl next to me who had to explain to her boyfriend (during the whole damn show!) why people were laughing, and who Jacob Black was! Who's Jacob Black? Why are you here philistine!
Anyway, that's that, I'm done.

Saturday, October 25, 2008

This Is Halloween


In my family, it wouldn't be Halloween without PUMPKINS! Every year, we do something different, and we always have the best pumpkins in the neighborhood!
The first on the left is Ian's haunted house, then my jack skellington, then Justin's kitty on the moon, and Pat's revenge of ichabod crane. We chose our designs well!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

it's 5am?! Where are the kids?

Where are my kids at 5am? Not in their beds! Ian has decided that no time should be wasted sleeping in on the weekends! He gets up, gets dressed, goes into the livingroom, turns on every light, and starts singing. Those of you who know me understand what a serious offense this morning time cheer is.
It is now 7:35am. Pat is still in bed, the kids are running around like loons, we've already had breakfast, and we're about to leave and go grocery shopping before they wake up the whole neighborhood!
I hate mornings!

Monday, October 6, 2008

don't look directly at the fish


I'm a little behind on the times, these are the fish we adopted a couple months ago.
Peaches, Oreo, Special, and Nemo.
They are large golfish, except for special, he's recovering from a bad bout of finrot.
All they want to do is eat. I'll be sitting on the couch reading my book, and I'll feel eight fishy eyes watching me! They beg for food all day! If you get within 2 feet of the tank, they start freaking out and knocking over the plants in the tank!
So that's why I tell my family, and friends, Don't look directly at the fish! They take that as a sign that you come bearing gifts of food! And if you don't pay homage, they try to jump out of the tank, and they spit rocks at the front of the tank! I figure when they get too big, I'll just find someone with an indoor pond, and they can adopt my adopted fish!

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Smuggy MCsmuggerton

I am so smug it should be illegal! I even had to celebrate with a secret midnight cheeseburger! My latest essay in my writing class was graded and returned to me today! There were no mistakes, and I was deemed "Grammatically perfect" by my writing teacher! I should be fined for this level of smugness!

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Ha! I'm not the only one!

I had a moment this morning, where I smiled to myself and felt very satisfied with the world in general. I take my 2 boys to the bus stop every morning, and I usually chat with my neighbors when I see them. Today one of neighbors was complaining that two of her girls had a fist fight on the bus home yesterday, and that they were openly disobedient towards her. She said they were grounded for a week and that she was shocked at their behavior.
As she told me all this, I was wheeling my 2-year-old home and he was kicking and screaming about the duckies not being in the creek where they should be.
And I couldn't help smiling to myself and thinking about all the bad things my boys have done lately! It's so wonderful to know that my kids are not the only bad ones that are grounded! In my opinion, my kids don't seem awfull now that I know other people are having the same problems! They are normal! HA!

Monday, September 8, 2008

highlights from the sausage fest.


On saturday, we ventured into the unknown and visited the local sausage festival with our neighbors! We found out it was actually a catholic school fundraiser carnival, and they only had one kind of sausage! Pat said it was tasty, but I'm still dissapointed that the so-called "sausage fest" only had one variety! But Ian and Nevaeh got to go on a few rides, and play a couple carnival games. They each got a couple of prizes and got to eat an elephant ear, so it was worth it. And I got to take this funny picture of Pat, Ian,and Nevaeh!

Friday, September 5, 2008

my ginormous flowers

Okay, if you look at the other pix of my flowers, you can see how huge they are now! The sweet peas(purple flowered vine) and forget-me-nots(little blue flowers mixed in with the sweet peas) are even bigger than they were when I took this picture 2 weeks ago. The sweet peas are almost 5 feet tall. My neighbors sweet peas aren't nearly as big as mine, and she's convinced that I'm giving them some kind of growth hormones in the dead of night!
All of my flowers are way huge! I hope they get this big next year too!


Thursday, September 4, 2008

To blog is divine....

There are 19 days until I start my G.E.D classes four nights a week! I'm very excited to finally be doing this, it was allot easier than I thought it would be!
But my new schedule will suck! I'm not looking forward to the craziness of full time mom/part-time student.
So, for now, I'm taking some time for myself. I'm not going to think about school until it's time to go! I'm going to blog, and update my myspace, and send e-mails, and skype, and play my Wii, and play in my garden, and whatever else suits my fancy nancy!

Monday, August 25, 2008

school time


9 days until Ian starts the first grade!

Ah, It's that magical time of the year when I get to send my overly-active 6 year old back to school. His clothes and supplies are hanging in his closet, and he is not so patiently waiting to use his new things. Ian loves new clothes, so I have to remind him several times a day that he cannot wear them until the first day of school. He loves shoes even more than he loves clothes.....I had to hide his shoes to get any peace.

We get to meet his new teacher the day before school starts. My only hope is that she isn't offended by class clownery, or her and Ian might never get along.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Today, I start my college adventure!

Well, today I start my twice weekly classes that will introduce me to college life, and take my G.E.D pre-test to establish which classes I should take. After that, I start my 5 weeks of general education classes. Then I can take the G.E.D test!
ADVENTURE!

Sunday, August 10, 2008

The weekend of fun is over. Huzzah!


Many events took place over these last few days. ALL my in-laws came into town, and we traveled all over Oregon on various quests for fun. We went to the beach and froze our butts off! I know, anywhere else we would be sweating! But not at the coast! we couldn't stay that long because of the crappy weather, but we did get to see Pat's aunt Dani and uncle don. They're peachy keen!
The next day after our ocean adventure, we hit the road and drove somewhere past Salem Oregon to visit my father in laws' friends' parents' cabin. wow that's complicated. But the cabin was awesome! It was right on the water! So we spread my in laws' mothers' ashes while we were down there. It was a nice spot. I wanted to stay there forever! Then today we had a wolfington family reunion. I met allot of people that I probably won't remember by tomorrow. But everyone now knows me as the girl who made the awesome deviled eggs. In fact, I was introduced to everyone as Patrick's wife Sarah who made the deviled eggs that were just wonderful!
I'm just glad that it's over and we can relax now. We're all tired and need some time to get back to a normal schedule! Damn it!










Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Nutria's revenge!

A couple of weeks ago, I was at my father-in-laws house picking various ripe berries in our garden. I brought my neighbor with me so that the job would go faster, and she could have half of everything we picked. We were half way done when I noticed that underneath one of the marion berry bushes there was a nutria. For all you who don't know, a nutria is a cross between a rodent and a beaver.They have beaver teeth, a beaver body, webbed back feet, and a big rat tail. Don't ask me how the nutria came to exist, I don't even want to know. They are generally peaceful and scared of humans, but they will bite if they're scared.
So I took my kids inside and pat & my neighbor tried to get the nutria out of the yard. Well, the thing was hurt, and after many failed attempts to get anyone out to the house to remove the nutria, we decided to move the nutria back to the creek bed over the fence behind my father-in-laws back yard. That's usually where the nutrias live. So we thought he would stay there. Long story short, he didn't stay there. He went the long way around the house and got back into the yard because my father in law had left his side gate open! Nermal! Three days later, we went back to his house to discover the now dying nutria in his yard again! This time we called the police and they came and disposed of the animal. The cop put a "suppressor" (he called it a suppressor, but we all know it was a silencer) on his gun and shot the nutria in the back yard.
The thing was so hurt it could barely walk, all I can say is that it was determined to die in that back yard! It used up all it's strength to get back there! I don't have any pictures of nutrias, but you should google it, they're icky!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Leavin' on a jet plane....

Well, I've finally decided to continue on with my plan to go to Colorado. I was going to reschedule my tickets and stay here, but I'm going because it would be a waste of money to reschedule.

I will be bringing the destroyer with me, and may Neptune have mercy on all our souls!
What? Did someone say my name?

Monday, June 30, 2008

my flower bed

So, this is my flower bed that I made underneath my livingroom window. It is wonderfull and beautifull!

Friday, June 13, 2008

Toothless wonder


This is the fifth tooth Ian has lost! He looks like a jack-o-lantern! Or maybe a hockey player!
He's getting so big! The last day of kindergarten is on tuesday, and I just can't believe that he'll be in first grade this fall!

Saturday, June 7, 2008

yesterday

Yesterday Pat had his last test with the urologist, and we're officially done having babies! Woo-Hoo! I celebrated by buying flower seeds,shocking, I know....
I went out last night with my neighbor and one of her friends to an adult "toy" party. It was pretty interesting.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Pat stayed at home with the boys and saw to their manly education by watching the first indiana jones movie with them. They loved it!
I was treated to an hour long discussion of the movie first thing this morning. Ian's hooked, I have no choice but to get the other two movies and let him see them.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

more stuff, and the WARBEAST

Dianthus
Morning glories, and my toes...
Wave petunias in a hanging basket
Justin playing baseball at joe's house
Ian on the warbeast at joe's house
So, I had a productive weekend. Ian built a new planter box for veggies at joe's house, and I planted more flowers! Yeah!
Also, I had to bribe Ian to get this picture. He was allready playing the warbeast when I came inside from watering the veggies, and he knew he was in trouble. So, I bribed him with a cheeseburger and this was the best he would give me.

plants



So, this is probably my new favorite flower, stock.
It smells WONDERFUL

Monday, June 2, 2008

12 days!

There are 12 days of school left! I'm more excited about this that Ian is! It's like I get a summer vacation too!
But the weather sucks! We are nothing but doom and gloom here, and it's chilly!
I'm just hoping that in 2 weeks, the warm weather hits! Or else I'm in trouble.
Also, I'm proud to say that Ian is in the top of his class for math! I'll freely admit, he got pat's gene's on this one. I'm hopeless at math.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Garden



Well, the ever expanding vegetable/ fruit garden is still growing. We now have: cilantro, oregano, lettuce, cauliflower,broccoli,jalapenos,green peppers, yellow peppers, red peppers, two other kinds of peppers that I can't remember(the tag said HOT), pablano peppers,peas, green beans, zucchini, lemon cucumbers, regular cucumbers, baby carrots, spinach, walla walla sweet onions, cantaloupe, watermelon, sweet corn, three different types of tomatoes, five grape vines, eight blueberry bushes, three cherry trees, too many:blackberry,marionberry,boysenberry,and raspberry vines to count, and two brand new Asian pear trees!
(F.Y.I. We also have pumpkins, but we can't plant them yet)
So there you have it. We've gone nuts! Joe's even experimenting with a homemade watering system and plans on building another planter box today. I guess this is just another way we're biting our thumbs at "the man" and his high food prices!

Monday, May 19, 2008

Yesterday

Proof of the heat wave! Please make note of the blue sky! You might not see it in another washington picture for a while! And, that's actually a three ring pool, but the heat and water did something globular to it and the middle ring sank to the ground.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

A tropical heat wave

Oh yeah, we're havin' a heat wave! On friday it was 96 degrees with humidity, yesterday it was 93 with humidity, and today we're supposed to be about 83 with 75 % humidity! Me and my neighbors have been burnt to a crisp because we have been congregating outside every day. The kids are all right, since we were diligent with THEIR sunblock they are just getting tan instead of burning.
I brought Ian's blow-up pool to my apartment yesterday and set it up for the kids, and I'm glad that I did! The pool that was supposed to open yesterday had to close early because it wasn't fit to swim in and had to have it's chemicals redone! EEEWWWWW! But we had fun anyway, we had the little pool, waterballoons, and super soakers. We grilled burgers and hot dogs, and there may have been a tiny little bit of alcohol consumption.
All in all, it was good times

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Speed Racer

Pat Said that Speed Racer was good
He said it's very fast-paced and brightly colored
like some crazy acid trip. But it had some really
cool special effects in it, and he thought it was great!

Nemo 2.0

Well, the other day we got fishies from the pet store! There names are: Nemo, Special, and Sparkle. Sadly, Nemo died yesterday while justin was taking a nap. So I had to run out and get a new one before he realized that his Nemo was not in the tank.
So now, we have Nemo 2.0 ( I don't think he's as pretty as the other Nemo, but this was all they had).

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Ian has lost another tooth! After two weeks of pain, and lots of complaining, he ripped it out last night! Huzzah! That was the fourth tooth he's lost so far, and brings his tooth fairy money count up to $8. We figured with the rising cost of everything, $2 each gives him a decent chance to get something at the store. Oh, and, Ian had a great week at school, and he aced a math test! So It's off to speed racer they go today! I'll report back later with all the thrilling details.

Thursday, May 8, 2008


Well, I've officially started my spring flower planting! I've got Cyclamen (shown here in red and white), tuberous begonias in Go-Go Orange( I'm not even joking, that's their name and color), primroses, mums, mini purple daisies, forget-me-nots, ultra violet pansies, and this year I'm growing my own geraniums...so I have 15 seedlings that I just transplanted today. Plus, I went and bought my neighbor some pansies in different colors( one is called Matrix Morpheus, you can't make this stuff up!) some English daisies, and a huge pot of yellow snapdragons! So, we're supposed to plant her stuff tomorrow. And, we're doing a vegetable garden over at my father-in-laws house. We're going to have: corn, beans, lettuce, watermelons, pumpkins, three different kinds of peppers, tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, walla walla sweet onions, broccoli, and I can't remember the rest. Let's just say, I've gone insane with the planting. Every year I get more flowers, so I have to get more pots to put them in! Then I need more potting soil, and I always buy too much so then I have to buy more planters and more flowers! It's a vicious cycle. I think I'm an addict, maybe someone should cut me off before I go through with my plan to dig up my neighbors lilac bush because I think it would be "happier" at my house.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Star Wars

A week ago, my 6 year old (yes, the ninja Ian) has become obsessed with star wars! We watch a different movie every day directly after lunch, and he is now a font of star wars trivia knowledge. He can tell you where anakin skywalker lived before he was a jedi. He knows the difference between an X-wing, a Y-wing, and an imperial starship. And he knows what color light saber everyone has! He insists that he's seen a real ewok before, and that he can hear obi wan kenobi speak to him. He's just obsessed! Could it possibly have anything to do with pat's collection of star wars figurines, movies, legos, video games, and toys? Call me crazy, but I think we're one small step away from being insane star wars convention people who dress up as tuskan raiders to prove that we're worthy fans to the other geeks!
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Friday, April 25, 2008

ninjas


So, I've decided that my 6 year old is ready for swim lessons. He thinks he'd rather be in karate so that he can be a ninja. So I calmly explained to him that a ninja can still drown, and his reply was: " I wouldn't drown, I would karate chop the water like kachow, pow-pow (insert dramatic hand chopping motion here) and knock all the water out of the pool". But I insisted that he get swim lessons, so now he's content to practice his ninja skills at home.

nutri-grain bars

So, I've found out that my two year old cannot survive without nutri-grain bars! A new grocery store opened recently down the road from my house, so I decided to shop there instead of driving across town to my regular store. I bought my groceries, and bought nutri-grain bars for my kids. But they were different from the ones I had bought before, they had some kind of icing on the bar, and my 2 year old was not amused! He wanted the bars, but as soon as he tasted the frosting he flipped out and mashed the bar into the carpet! And he would cry for the bars, and reach for them on the shelves, just to be even more upset when he realized they were the same ones! This went on for a couple of days until I had enough and drove all of us to the store across town to get the nutri-grain bars that were not tainted with "ickies"! We had to sit justin in the cart, so that he could be close to the three boxes of nutri-grain bars he could not live without! He was so excited, he kept saying: " my bars! Blue bars, green bars, berry bars, my bars!"
So, as soon as we got home he devoured 3 of them in rapid succession! That was all he'd eat! And the next morning, he wouldn't eat his breakfast either! He begged me to cook eggs, but did he want them when they were made? Oh No! Surely they were poison, and he wasn't going to eat this slop when he had the nectar of the gods just a few feet away.
So, when I was busy trying to clean up the bathroom, he took one of his little plastic chairs and his grabber( its a toy that is a long arm with a handle on one end and little pinching arms on the other end that can grab things) and helped himself to a couple of nutri-grain bars! There's no stopping him! Perhaps if I buy some of those airtight bear containers, fill them with nutri-grain bars, and hang them from the tree outside he wont be able to sniff them out and help himself to their fruity goodness!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Black-Pat

So this is Pat, my wonderful husband.
Proud owner of 200 transformers , 75 lego sets, 2 car racing tracks, numerous comic books & collectibles, radio controlled cars and hellicopters, a ps2, a wii, a gameboy, a super nintendo, a nintendo 64, and an original nintendo. I'm sure I left some stuff out,
It's been awhile since I went through his stuff and demanded a down-size.
He likes to read, and we mostly like to read the same things, which is nice because we allways have something to talk about.
Sometimes I like that he's a big kid because I refuse to play transformers with the boys. That's the only thing I absolutely wont do. It's my girly right to refuse to play the super boy games! He is a native oregonian (or Portlander), but we met in Utah too long ago to mention.
We share the same passion for video games. And, more often than not, he's mad at me for hogging the wii. I think we're well matched, but I can kick his butt in dart tag! Oh Yeah!
He's a good daddy, and the boys pine for him while he's at work. We would be lost without his manly skills.



Justinother stark

He may be the smallest of the starks, but I think he has
the most attitude. His favorite phrase is : "I wanna do it!"
Justin is going through a difficult 2 year old temper tantrum phase.
He loves to be outside. I think it's because he was born in
washington, and state law requires that natives spend at least
half of their day outside making merry. He also is a shoe fiend,
which makes me wonder where my children inherited this trait!?
He was a very inactive baby when I was pregnant with him, and
now he's hell on wheels. I call him little Mcgyver, because he can
make something out of nothing, and he's allways in trouble.
I think he'll grow up to be a sky-diving motorcycle riding dare-devil.

In another lifetime, she was a queen



In my world full of boys, this is the queen who rules them all. She does have one lady-in-waiting, princess Cora,but she is far too young to threaten her rule. She is all girl! Her knowlegde of tweendom is great and her shoe collection vast. There could never be enough pink, or cheetah print, or sparklies in her world, and all must bow down or suffer her wrath, which is great indeed. I think she's tired of all the boys with their stinky ways and light saber battles. But, alas, we cannot change their gender, and why would we want to? We allready have the world's most perfect girl!

Funny things



My oldest son, Ian, is the class clown. He lives to entertain one and all. He is full of energy day and night and he's the ultimate chatter box. He has his own ideas about how he should dress, and we mortals are not allowed to help with his wardrobe choices unless he deems us worthy. He is a shoe fiend, we cannot even think about getting shoes for any other member of the family unless we have enough money to buy him new shoes too. He wont hesistate to tell family members his thoughts on their outfits, especially their shoes....sorry Tobi. His greatest ambition used to be to go to Texas. But now, he would rather go to Ireland. And have 100 dollars. I don't know why, but in his 6 year old mind 100 dollars beats anything. He says funny stuff all the time. But, of course since I want to write about it, I can't remember it! I'll be doing separate posts for each child, so maybe I'll remember later and add it in.

Well, we've arrived

Well, I have to say first that my sister MADE me do
this. I never wanted a blog. In true north-west fashion
I've been damning the man, finding energy efficient
ways to make my life better and cheaper, eating meat
free of antibiotics, buying crazy organic things like sheets
and makeup, and promoting peace and serenity via my
flower garden on my patio.
But in my zen-like hour of yoga this morning, I decided
That maybe she was right, and I did need a blog of my
very own. Plus, I allready have a myspace page, so I'm
allready as mainstream as I can get.
So, here you go tobi. Your north-west invasion has
arrived!