Remodel Underway...what a mess!!

Alistair eating his breakfast in a new seat...a VERY special occasion!

For those of you who don't know, we have decided to gut our kitchen and remodel it into something we like. Our existing kitchen is small, poorly lit, has very little counter space for working on and has bad storage options. To get right to the point it sucks and we have hated it since the first time we ever tried to do anything on a large scale, like a party or open house. We thought about selling the house now and getting into something larger. Eventually we are going to out grow this house and will need more space, so it made sense. However the market sucks right now and trying to unload a house would be very difficult and a financial strain. So we thought we would fix what we didn't like, namely the kitchen, and get a few more years out of the place while waiting for the market to get better. In addition to gutting the kitchen and getting new appliances, countertops and cabinets, we are doing new and MORE lighting as well as putting in hardwood floors throughtout the entire main floor. We are very excited that this project we have been talking about for so long is underway. The walls between the dining room and kitchen are gone, the cabinets are all down and the wiring has been completed for all the new lights. Right now Bill, our contractor, is patching and texturing all the holes so that we can get the kitchen painted over the weekend. We are leaving a week from tomorrow to go see the Sandholms (yippee!!) in Minnesota for a week and our goal is to have everything torn out and have the space ready to go so when we return we are ready to install and put everything back together again! Here are a few before and during shots to give you an idea of what is going on:

Happy Easter

We spent Easter in the islands, mon. Mom and Dad hosted a fun Easter day at their house on Fox Island. Seth, Alistair and I went to church in the morning. We missed last year's Easter service due to Alistair having the stomach flu (and nearly missed going this year due to everyone being in some stage of a rough cold). But we made it and it was very enjoyable. Not only did they have the choristers and an organist, but they also had a brass quartet playing along. I really, really enjoy the music the music director arranges for each service. He does such a great job and I look forward to seeing what neat surprises he plans for special occasions. The first time we ever attended a service at St. Thomas they had a Scottish Pipes and Drums band to lead in the procession and then stick around to play after church.

In addition to us and my parents, Seth's parents and my brother, Michelle and Natalie joined us for Easter. The Easter Bunny left some eggs for the kids to find and also each had an Easter basket to paw through. We had a very delicious meal and just a nice, relaxing day. We watched the various storms come in off the water and either sock us in with fog and mist or pour down rain or hail with little bits of sun in between each system.

Papa helping Alistair find his Easter basket!

Alistair and Natalie in thier Easter duds courtesy of Nana and Papa

Uncle Jeff doing Alistair's goofy smile with him!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Busy Weekend!

We had a fun, but busy weekend. Seth had a lacrosse game, we had dinner guests, we were dinner guests and we had a kiddie concert to attend! So much to do, so little time! Alistair and I went to the park on Tuesday afternoon after he got up from his nap. We had a fun time. His favorite thing is to sit in the little club house and watch the big boys play basketball!
Friday night we went to family night at the YMCA for our first kiddie concert. They had a group called the Recess Monkeys. They are a group fo 3 teachers from Seattle who formed a band and perform music for kids. They aren't bad and actually it was kind of fun!
Alistair is in this photo...you may have to click on the photo to see him better. He would wander away from us, sometimes almost across the gym and then come right back. He was pretty funny. He also liked to chase the kids around who were running in the back of the gym.
This afternoon we went to Jen and Ethan's for a delicious St. Patty's Day meal. It was a good time and was a chance to see Elizabeth and Joe one more time before they headed home! Alistair was quite entertaining after dinner. Apparently he likes celtic music (well he IS Irish!) because he was dancing like crazy, or maybe he was attempting a jig or something! Either way it was more than Seth and I have ever seen him do. He was hilarious to watch. Here is a link to a video of him doing some of his dancing. Of course I waited too long to grab the camera and so I didn't capture the full extent of his jig! (:
Alistair Dancing

Judy's Retirement Party Weekend

Judy has officially retired from Deloitte and Touche. Well, she actually retired at the end of last year, but it took until now to get something organized to celebrate the occasion. So this weekend we headed out to Cape Disappointment State Park outside of Longbeach for camping. There were 3 trailers and the rest of us stayed in yurts. We had pretty great weather all in all. It rained on us pretty good Friday night but all day Saturday was dry and sunny. We got about 30 minutes of rain Sunday, but again it was mostly dry.

Part of the festivities for the weekend was heading to Astoria to The Seafood Center for a cooking class and dinner. We cooked salmon with a balsamic red onion glaze, butternut risotto, marinated roasted vegetables and garlic bread. Everyone did a little part of the meal whether it was chopping, cleaning, stirring or spreading. It was a lot of fun and the meal was delicious! Alistair did a good job hanging in there. He wore his chef outfit from New Year's (minus the hat) but wasn't really interested in the cooking aspects. They had a big hanging screen and system for playing movies or music. We brought Finding Nemo (not realizing until we got there how appropriate it was!) and they put it up on the big screen for him. That made it more enjoyable for everyone! (: He had his booster seat on the floor to sit in and got to have dinner while watching the movie (what a treat!). He also got his Dino Nuggets grilled on the flat top grill, how fancy! (:

There was razor clam digging again this weekend. Everyone, minus one person, got up early (the morning after daylight savings time mind you) and headed out to the beach for the morning tide. There were 8 of us that had licenses and a limit is 15 clams. We were out for 2 hours or so and got 11 clams TOTAL. It was a group effort with people spotting clam holes and someone else digging. Despite the small take, it was fun and I think those who stuck it out had a good time!

We had 15 people and a toddler camping together. We all wanted to be able to eat together, so we made accommodations accordingly. Judy added the finishing touches with her 2 candle abras - very classy!

Alistair is a true outdoorsman. He LOVES camping. He spent all day wandering around, exploring areas and playing in the dirt, puddles and anything else that looked like fun. There was plenty of people to keep an eye on him, so we just let him go. He was so crabby when we got home yesterday and we firmly believe he wasn't happy to be home! (:

Our camping group!

Alistair!

Alistair started Kids Gym at the YMCA 2 weeks ago in addition to his swimming. It is really fun. It's 45 minutes long and we sing songs and play games and there is a ton of soft-sided equipment for them to crawl and climb on, over and through. There are lots of different balls and such for them to play with as well. He seems to really enjoy it and so far the one day a week where we have swimming just before, he doesn't seem too tired for gym. I pulled his tunnel back out now that he is more into it from gym and we played in it quite a bit one day.
Alistair was taking my picture in the tunnel too.
Spaghetti night...need I say more?
Alistair likes wearing our glasses. I pulled out an older pair of my glasses for him to have, but he still insists on wearing our glasses. He has gotten quite adept at taking them off our faces with one foul swoop. He was wondering around our bedroom last Friday in the above state while we were trying to get packed to leave for the ocean.
We bought Alistair a couple of hooded toddler-sized towels a while back and he really likes them. For a while he would cuddle the lion one. He wanted to continue wearing his towel after his bath one evening. He looked so regal walking up and down the hallway with his robe dragging behind him on the floor! (:

First Camping Trip of the Year!

Well ok, it was yurting. But we were outside a majority of the day and sat around the campfire in fairly cold weather! Saturday didn't get too nice until the afternoon, but Sunday and Monday were gorgeous! The photo above is the sunset on Sunday night. We went out with both sets of parents. We had a great time. This was the first time since Alistair started walking that we have been out. There is a lot less sitting around with him wandering ALL OVER the place!

Alistair has the hang of the morning ritual: Breakfast cookie and some milk while sitting around the campfire! Mmmm, mmmm!

The rowdy crew before we left. Yes, Sadie is wearing a T-shirt. She had a cancerous tumor removed from her front right flank/shoulder and has a HUGE shaved spot and a 5 inch incision. We had to keep it covered so she didn't get her wound dirty. I think she felt foolish as did we for dressing our dog, even though people thought it was cute! ;)

Our little family portrait

It's January and It's Snowing!

We woke up to snow this morning. We have been hearing rumors of snow all weekend. We had about 5 minutes of rain mixed with snow on Saturday and then it was sunny yesterday. When we went to bed there had been a light dusting of snow and we thought, well there is our snow they have been forecasting. Boy were we wrong! We have about 3+ inches and it is supposed to snow tonight. If there is snow forecasted, we usually get it. We are in a convergence zone. We will have snow and you can go 5-10 miles down 405 and there will be no snow at all! Seth decided to stay home today, so we have been having some fun playing! We took the kids out to the front yard and played. This is Alistair's first time playing in snow. Though we did let him down when we were snow shoeing, he really didn't play!

Sadie LOVES the snow and just runs and flops in it and rolls and just goes crazy. She was in 7th heaven this morning having all the yards to run around in and roll in untouched snow! (:

Alistair got this nifty snow suit hand-me-down from my mom's coworker. It is lined with fleece and is nice and warm! Other than his hands getting a little cold, he stayed quite toasty for the hour and a half plus we spent outside!

He also got this cool baby tobogan from her co-worker. We keep forgetting we have it, it would have been good to have for snow shoeing! We dragged him around the block, through the park on the corner and then found the icy spots on the road to make him skid around. He thought that was pretty fun! We also made our driveway into a sledding run and pushed him down it a ton of times. Here is a video of him on a pretty good run! (:

A Walking Fool

Alistair's new found skill is still very much a novelty to him. He is walking all over the place. He will just walk back and forth across the room we are in if nothing else. Everyone kept telling us we would be sorry once he started walking but we are 1) relieved that there is nothing wrong with him 2) glad he can do some walking and give our backs a break and 3) love watching him be so proud of himself walking around and carrying stuff! (: I managed to get another video of him walking. This time it is horizontal and you can see how much progress he has made in his walking since the last movie!

So many things to talk about...

Happy 2008! It's a new year and it already has started off with a bang! As most people know by now, Alistair has finally decided to walk; he started walking on New Year's Day (the last post has a video attached to see evidence). We have been busy, busy since New Year's Eve. The Sandholms flew in that morning and spent the week with us! It was so great to see them and was amazing to think it has been 3 months since we last saw them. Having 2 busy babies around the house is sure a lot of work and forget about having any clear floor space. The Alistair and Sully express comes through every 5 minutes or so and knocks over and/or dumps out anything we attempt to clean-up. We kind of gave up after a while and just waited until they went to bed! Sully loved our stairs and was like a bee to honey to them. He loved going up and down repeatedly albeit we had to really watch him because he would either try to go down head first or at some point get his legs caught underneath him and start to go. Alistair would try to race him down the stairs, but I don't think he got that Sully was a novice! Story time and everyone looks excited about it!New Year's Day was the annual Hennessey Ravioli party. We all got there around 10:30 and started up the machines. The guys all stuff the sausage and then the gals jump in after the sausages are done to roll out pasta and make raviolis. Judy made all the kids chef hats and aprons - except Alistair. He got the head chef ensemble - from head to toe! Sully got stripes on his apron since he was a seasoned sous chef.

The guys diligently at work - it is definitely a teamwork thing!The raviolis are coming together nicely!
Sully is having a good time rocking out on Alistair's Rocking Puppy!
Mmmmm - the finished product! Time to chow!

The weekend after New Years was our annual "French" night weekend with the Sandholms and Folgedalens (part of the reason the Sandholms came out). We headed out to Seabrook, which is out by Ocean Shores. It is a new seaside community that has tons of houses to rent that are very nice, state-of-the-art and very reasonable during the off season. We went out Friday and came home Sunday. We had a great time! Our group picture really says something about the evolution of this gathering - we are all dressed up, we have our wine glasses full and are about to eat our crab and shrimp cakes and on the edge of the table are cut-up chicken nuggets and a sippy cup! (:

Alistair is taking notes and learning so that one day he and Sully can cook all the food for us and all we need to do is sit around and be waited on! Ha, Ha!

Ah, empty glasses, empty bottles and very full stomachs!

He Walks...FINALLY!

On New Year's Day, Alistair finally took his first, unassisted steps! He walked about 5-6 steps at a time and did it a couple of times during the day. He did a few steps here and there this weekend. This morning he walked across our rec room and back. I managed to grab the camera and take a video of the incident. I apologize for the sideways view, I wasn't thinking when I started filming! (: