More Penelope....

Welcome Penelope

Penelope was born on Monday. She was 6 lbs. 11 oz and 19 1/4 inches. We are all home and healthy and happy to have her as part of our family. Of course... more pictures to come.

Forks, WA

If any of you are Twilight fans, then you know that Forks, WA is the mecca for all things vampire/twilight. Some great friends of mine, who are HUGE twilight fans, invited me along for a weekend at Forks to check out all the sites. Of course I brought my camera.... and at one of the stops, La Push Beach, I took the opportunity to feed my need to take some photos that Erik and I could have a lot of fun with. I posed the girls in vampire fashion, then when I got home, Erik and I played around with different looks on photo shop to see what we could come up with. Now, those of you twilight fans know, that the vampires in twilight are depicted as very appealing and beautiful, unlike other representations of ghoulish vampires. So that is why here, you won't find them all gory and ghostly, but more like Stephanie Meyers describes in her books.

This is Laura....








and Alex....

Lily Isis

Meet Lily, our newest niece. She was born while we were visiting Erik's family a few weeks ago so I was able to do some newborn pics....

Trip to Cali...

Erik's mom Jill, flew up and spent a few days with us before driving with me and the kids to Sacramento while Erik stayed home and worked. Erik was able to fly down and meet us later in the week. We had a great time visiting with Erik's family with lots of lazy days by the pool.


Every day we enjoyed swimming in the pool. The kids were pretty worn out each day, but they had a blast! All three kids did great in water wings and Zoey was instantly loving being independent. Max took many days before he would venture out by himself. But as soon as he did, he was so proud of himself.






Every day the kids enjoyed ice cream cones. They dripped everywhere in the hot sun an d made a big mess, but they were in their suits and easy to wash off.





Another favorite thing was the trampoline. All the kids had fun but Max especially enjoyed himself...





Here are some other various pictures while we were there.


Eriks brother Justin and his oldest daughter Anika

Max says Grrrr...

Potty Training Update

So it's been about 10 days since we started the dreaded potty training. Max is doing well with few accidents. He does need some persuasion at times since he doesn't want to stop what he is doing to do something as un-fun and going to the bathroom. Although, he is very proud of himself that he is a big boy an no longer uses diapers.

I have to say, on day 3, I thought I was going to have to wait and try again. He hated going, had accidents constantly and I had a hard time keeping him motivated. By day 3, the newness had warn off, the stickers and prizes for doing a good job were old and he didn't seem to care that he was wet. BUT, my good friend Jalaine came to my rescue. Her daughter Justice is just 6 days younger than Max. On day three, they so nicely invited us over to a birthday lunch for the next day. The condition... Max had to stay dry between days. AND HE DID!!! He wanted to go to Justices Birthday Lunch and we was motivated! We even stoped at the store on the way and had a quick stop at the gas station...he made it! After that, he has been much better about going and has been able to go longer in between trips to the potty so I think going isn't as much an effort as it was in the beginning when we were going constantly.

So all in all, I would say we made it through. He still need a lot of reminding but my baby is now wearing big boy underwear!