catching up

Mercy, why is it so hard for me to put stuff on here? I need to document these funny, smart, energetic, full of life kids that I get to hang out with every day. I forget so much of what happens, we have had quite the year since I last put stuff on. The kids are so fun right now. All about their buddies, but still young enough to love to hang out with Josh and I too. Here is a little travel-log of what the last year has brought us;

Ava started kindy. Afternoon. We love it. Playgroups in the a.m. she has the sweetest little group of friends in her class.

Luke is in 2nd grade. Played a mean season of football. And basketball. Football was quite the time commitment, but dang those boys are cute out there in all their shoulder pads and gear.

Ally turned 10, we had a girls trip to NY and saw Wicked. It was awesome. My mom and all my sisters were there. fun fun

Josh has a new love, it is remote control airplanes. Less pricey than real airplanes, less dangerous than motorcycles. I'm okay with that.

I am Primary President. Love it. Also having a new baby in June. Feel old.

What else, every day is jam-packed with activities, school and church stuff, friends, and work.

I missed Christmas in Boise because of pregnancy complications. My mom was so sweet and came here to tend me while the family went to Boise.

Ally was a great little cheerleader.

We went to the ocean

Moving to CO soon

Kids are all in gymnastics and love it. Ava spends half her life cartwheeling around the house.

Will be better.

random august things

Summer is coming to a close, we are trying to fit in all the fun things we can before the kids go back to school and the rain (and rain , and rain) starts up. It has been absolutely gorgeous here, High 70s or 80's every day, there is no where more beautiful than the pacific northwest in the summer. We went to a lake near Seattle called Green Lake last Saturday.

They had little sailboats for rent. Josh got one, while me and the other kids got a paddle boat. The kids all got turns with Josh, they sailed circles around us.

Here are Ally an Ava and Ally;s friend Maggie sporting their lifejackets.

So Ally has started cheer. And Luke is in football. Ally gets to cheer for Luke;s games, it is super fun to watch them. Ally loves cheer leading. It has made for a busy August thought, football 5 nights a week for 2 hours, cheer 3 nights a week. Green! Green! Green! Green! blackblackblackblackblackblackblack and white (clap clap clap clap) and white (clap clap clap clap). We just finished up a full day of cheer and football, those cheers have a way of staying with you long after the game. Ally is in the back middle of this next shot.

All in all, we are having a blast this August, and sad that we start school after Labor Day. This summer just zipped by, one more week of playing, swimming, picking blueberries, hanging out at the beach, and running through the neighborhood. 9,7, and 5 are the BEST ages. I love this stage of life!

just ava

Since I didn't have any pictures of Ava in the post I just did, I thought I better put one in. Here we are at the park near our house today. This toy makes me sooooo dizzy.Hi Curly.

So for years, Josh has gone to the girls ballet recitals, the kids school programs, soccer even, but I have never seen this smile on his face for any of them. Here they start tackle football at age 7, so now that Luke is....he is signed up. They start practice in August, but Josh took him in to get geared up on Saturday. It takes Luke a long time to get dressed in all this stuff. Hopefully we get it down by August, because he has to wear it five days a week.

He looks so tough, yet small under all that stuff. Hope he doesn't cry when he actually gets hit.Friday was a half day, so I took Ally and Luke and a buddy each to the zoo. Ava stayed with a friend. They loved the peacock.
the zoo right now has a pretty cool dinosaur exhibit with dinosaurs that move and make sounds. This is the T-Rex, but as you come in the front, there are two dinosaurs that move their heads and spray water out of their mouths about every 3 minutes. the kids got soaked, but loved it. We had the zoo almost to ourselves, which was nice, I guess not everyone had a half day.

back to blogville

Whew, so it has been at least a year since I posted last, and it took me forever to figure out how to get back on here. I thought the blog was lost forever, but (as you can see) I figured it out, so we are up and rolling. I will be better at doing this more often. I will. No eye rolling out there. I am back on it. So, sorry for the random pictures, I was more curious to see if I could even remember how this all worked. Why oh why is it my destiny to be so dumb about computers? My kids spin one-handed computer cartwheels around me, even Ava who is four can get on here, find some cartoon fancy ladies to dress up and have them eating dinner with their cartoon boyfriends with nails all painted and hair all done. All while getting the Wii to play Netflix movies and like or not like her favorite songs on Pandora. I am actually kindof worried about this generation. But that is for another day, because I am back on. Wahoo.So can you tell who this potato is supposed to be? White glove? Microphone? Doing the moonwalk? That's right, it's a potato (this was a St patricks day school project for Luke's 1st grade class) dressed up as Micheal Jackson as a california raisin. This is because Luke is obsessed with all things Micheal Jackson. Its a whole new Pepsi Generation.
So since this time last year, we have moved from Eagle to Mill Creek WA, about 20 miles N of Seattle. We were sad to leave, but happily report that rain (and rain and more rain) aside, we love it here. My kids have adjusted very nicely, here is Ally at Red Robin with her 3 new best friends, after shopping at the mall all night. We still miss Eagle, but are glad we are in such a nice place with so many nice people.
When we do go home to Eagle to visit, Grandma and Papa spoil these kids. During spring break, they took them to do a little chicken shopping. They ended up getting 2 new chickens each (6 chickens total) who got their little chicken feathers nearly patted off during that week. They all happily made it through though, and my little farm-babies-in-their-hearts are excited to go back to collect eggs in the summer. Thanks Grandma and Papa.

no pictures, just words

So I guess it has been quite a while since I have posted anything. A lot has happened, we are in a new year, with lots of changes coming up. We had a great year last year, some highlights, Ally got baptized, Luke started Kindergarten, Ava is still not potty trained. Josh started a new company, worked his heart out, sold it, and now has started a new job in Walla Walla. Lots more, too many to list. I can't remember it all. Here are some highlights of what I did today, however:
woke up at 5 am, put the kids in the car and took Josh to the airport
brought the kids home and put them back in bed where they thankfully fell back asleep
made breakfast
did 3 loads of laundry
hosted playdates at my house for four different sets of friends from 10 until 6 ish
picked up after above mentioned friends
un-crusted several slices of bread for snacks for the same friends
ate the crusts
sorted through three piles of old papers
read 3 books
played trains
delivered dinner to 3 families from my food co op
made dinner for my own family
hosted family home evening where we decided to save and send money to haiti
dishes
scriptures
prayers
many good nights
ate chocolate ice cream with malty balls
whew.

nauvoo

Well, what a summer the Wester family had this year. boating, camping, backpacking, how to squeeze it all in, I guess I will at least post the highlight of our summer, a three week trip to Nauvoo to visit the folks. I flew across the country with the three kidlets, whilst Josh stayed home. That part was not the highlight. The kids had a blast working at curly grandma's custard store, riding papa's horse drawn carriage, and visiting with their cousins. Nauvoo has church history galore which the kids soaked up. We came back spoiled from the grandparents, more knowledgeable about the early beginnings of the church, and a little stouter around the waistline from a daily dose of custard. Oh but it was so smooth.

There is a little variety show put on by the senior missionaries and the young performing missionaries called Sunset by the Mississippee. My kids thought it was the funniest thing and we watched it nightly. Had most of it memorized by the end, the kids could sing all the songs and recite most of the little jokey plays. Here's curly and Ava watching intently. After this we always ran over to play the pioneer games that go on before the pageant every night. The kids had a ball.
Dad hooked up Leo to the carriage and took us for a ride. The kids laughed and lauged at how Leo would run whenever he got in the grass.

Ally at the reigns

And here we are at Carthage jail, such a powerful place. The kids loved it too. It was funny, they show you a little video before they take you through the jail, and it tells about Joseph Smith. Luke knew this was where he was shot, so he leaned over to me during the video and said "mom, when we go up there, are they going to shoot us too?" no.

Now we are into back to school, pictures will come later skater.

haircuts

The girls were looking a little scraggly (Luke's hair is just growing back from a sahve, so he is not) so I tok them in for haircuts to my good friend Jayme. This was Ava's first real haircut-which means it was not me snipping away at long looking pieces while destracting her while in the bath. She was a little nervous, but had a good time and loved to show off her hair cut to dad and her friends later.

She is afraid of the blow dryer at home, but sat very still for this one. she still did not like it one bit though.

Ally loved her new do too, she got a lot taken off. We do it curly most days though, its was easier, and cuter too, I think.

I went and got mine cut short a couple of days later. So all the girls have new hairdo's for the summer. I didn't get the dog cape, or any pictures taken of me though. I did sit still.

Easter

We had quite a few fun Easter festivities this year. lots of eggs and treats. The highlight though, is always the egg hunt at grandma and pa pa's house. The kids got quarters this year, which came in very handy last week at a garage sale. And Josh and I had little competition for the dollar-filled egg find. Too bad no one else came home for Easter this year. Here's Ava, having a great time. The favorite Easter bunny item was a bubble blowing dog. While the treats lay languishing on the floor and in the baskets. I thin I ended up throwing a lot of the candy away. but we still have the bubble dog.

Luke got tricky bubbles too.

Here are the kids in their cute easter outfits, thanks to grandma and her savvy shopping. Luke also had a cute moroni tie, but did not want to wear it for the pictures, and looked very grouchy in the picture we took after we made him put it on. He loves it, just not while he was trying to enjoy his Easter stuff.

Hope everyone had a happy Easter!

visitors

We have had a lot of visitors lately, and we have loved seeing our family and friends. Ava was more than happy to share her coveted and over-rubbed belly button with Drew and Ashley's littlest... The kids had so much fun with their friends, and got some good exercise doing this until we got smart and hooked the four-wheeler up to the wagon.

My dad came and we loved the key lime pie that he taught us how to make. It is so fun to see him cooking, he makes us a new treat each time he comes.

WE are crushing up graham crackers for the bottom of the pie. And eating some. It turned out Ally had strep throat, and it is amazing that none of the rest of us got it after this.

And my grandma came with my dad. it was so fun to see her, she is one of my very favorite people in the world, and always sucha great example to me. We had some good talks and learned some interesting things about her from her great stories.

gardening

Curly grandma came and we got into some serious gardening. Here are some of what she bought. I think we planted peas, pumpkins, strawberries and raspberries so far. Once she left we got lazy and have not yet put in the rest of the crops. We are taking baby steps this year to see how our luck with gardening turns out. Luke and his best buddy Garrett from two houses down were great little helpers, digging and digging in the dirt.

And then they needed to take a break after some hard work. These two little guys are so cute, it is fun for Luke to have a great neighbor finally.

Ally's bookclub

For Ally's bookclub, we read Socks (2 out of five stars-kindof boring) but since it was about a cat, we made these little cat cupcakes. And pipe cleaner and paper kitties. Ally came up with these little critters on her own.

lookie here, Ava and Ally with their cats, waiting for their friends to arrive.

each girl designed and ate her own cat cupcake.


We also had chex mix for dry cat food and ate it out of bowls (not shown) to offset the chocolate milk and many other chocolate items. the food was a hit. the discussion was kindof like...well, like herding cats.

sorry, no pictures of Luke at this time, but he has a big soccer game tomorrow, so we will try to get some of that up here soon.

painting day

I had a poster to paing for our church primary activity, and Ava came down in the middle of it and decided to get in on the fun. she is real proud of her painting shirt

this picture is for curly grandma, she is saying hi.

It's kindof nice the day when Luke has his playgroup and Ally is in school, so Ava and I can just hang out.

little angels

Ava was hanging out with Ally, and then I went up to check, and here they were, all worn out and fast asleep. What little angels.