Christmas Thoughts: Presents

Our family has celebrated Christmas in what seemed like tough circumstances the last couple of years. In 2009, we’d just moved to Tennessee and didn’t really know many people. We missed our families a lot. We’d just had a new baby and so we didn’t put a lot of effort into making the time special [...]

Family Pictures

Here’s our latest family picture: (Taken October 15, 2011)

Bedtime at our house

I did my rounds checking on the kids and thought I’d just snap a fairly typical scene about an hour after formal bedtime.
Isaac read a LOT, and had come out to tell Kathleen all about the book:

Charlotte was asleep. Often she’s awake with her cat or just thinking, but sometimes she falls asleep quickly. Usually [...]

5 Things about Isaac

Isaac had an assignment to bring in 5 things about himself that fit into a brown paper lunch sack.  Here is what he put in his sack:The book represents his love of reading and his love of space.  The cat food was his idea for a way to symbolize having cats.  If I had left [...]

Ila Rides

Ila is finally big enough for a riding toy.  She can only go forward and in a straight line and her little feet barely touch the ground.  She pushes her riding toy backwards and then sits on it and rides towards me. Sometimes she likes to stop and put her feet up:
She also likes [...]

The Boys Have Adventures–Part 2

Saturday last week I got tickets to go to the air show and hydroplane races. I imagine you can still get a good view without tickets, but I wanted to be front and center. Isaac and I took the light rail to Othello, then took a shuttle over to Genesee Park on Lake Washington. We [...]

The Boys Have Adventures–Part 1

Last week was the main week of Seafair here in Seattle. That means parades, hydroplane races, an air show, and visits from the Navy. Isaac and I took advantage, and went on some fun adventures.
On Thursday, Isaac came to work with me. After I got through my morning meetings, we hopped on a bus [...]

Happy Father’s Day- To DAD (Zach)

What better way to celebrate, than children’s artwork.  Isaac brought home the following from school: 

Student of the Week/VIP continued

For Isaac’s Student of the week/VIP week we were provided with a list of things we could bring in.  We decided to make two small posters of pictures and bring in a few beloved possessions.  The first one is mostly full of Isaac at different places (Arches, mountain top, Washington DC, Norris Dam, ect) the [...]

Student of the Week/VIP

Isaac was student of the week last week.  They sent home a poster for us to fill out information about him.  The following are his answers:
my favorites: color:  blue and green place:  a french fry store with a play place [...]

Sisters

Charlotte and Nicole are learning to appreciate each other.  They like to be together and they like to hug.  I would still rank Isaac #1 in Charlotte’s choices for a playmate, but I can see the bond growing between my two oldest girls.  Nicole looks up to Charlotte and tries to imitate her and wants [...]

Birthday Cards for Grandma Bunny

Once again.  Here are some birthday cards the kids made for their other grandma.  I can say “other” because she never reads my blog.
Text (including random capitalization and punctuation errors):  Dear Grandma Bunny,
are you having a good Day!  It’s your BIRTHDAY!  Banana.  HAHA I made you read banana!  I mIss you
Love Isaac
Charlotte: [...]

Pictures

I really wanted a good picture of my four kids together.  I ended up buying a few more pictures as well because they did such a good job. 
The following were taken on March 22, 2011 at Portrait Innovations:

Ila’s talking

Ila is a good little talker.  Her vocabulary is growing everyday and it’s often surprising what she can say.  I have recorded a little sample of her vocabulary here:
Listen for the following words:  unbuckle, no, walk, have a good day, and thank you.  She prefers to say “have a good day” over “good-bye” as you [...]

Great Grandma’s House

I blame the fuzzy head that has come with my cold, but I neglected to document the second part of our March 5th adventure which was to stop and visit Zach’s grandmother.  She lives in Seattle and the interesting thing about her house is that every inch of it is covered with plates, music boxes, [...]

Isaac’s Second First Grade

Here’s his class picture for his school here in Washington: Also, he wrote me this letter at school one day.  At first I wondered who “Kathliny” was and then I realized that it was me.

Birthday Cards

Here are the cards my kids made for their Grandma Cochran.  I love children’s artwork, especially when they start drawing more detailed drawings.  It’s a unique expression of what’s inside their brains.
Here’s Isaac’s letter.  He struggles with writing, but he is getting better. Next is Charlotte’s.  Her card is my favorite because it’s the most [...]

I cut Charlotte’s hair

Perhaps I was a bit hasty.  I realized halfway through the haircut that I was in over my head.  I have cut my girl’s hair before with no problems, but as I cut, I realized that I had been gradually slanting downwards.  I tried to fix it and ended up cutting it shorter than [...]

Doughnut

I know I’ve posted a lot about Ila lately, but I couldn’t resist posting this adorable series of pictures.

Pictures

Zach has made some good arguments in favor of switching our online photo storage from Flickr to Picasa.  I have not uploaded any pictures to Flickr since he has made this recommendation and now I’m woefully behind.  I thought I’d share some recent shots here with commentary as I mentally prepare for the switchover.