2012 Kindergarten Class Picture

Can you find my little ray of sunshine?  :o)

A New Niece

Kyle and I are so excited about our new niece, Nina Christine Minton.  Nick and Kora welcomed their first baby on Monday, April 2nd.  Kora's water broke around 2:00 a.m. Monday morning and she labored all day and pushed for a loooong time.  Nina finally came out to greet us on Monday evening.  She was 6 lbs. 11 oz, and 18 1/2 inches long.  She's so dainty and absolutely adorable.  Mom and dad are very tired, but all three are doing well as they adjust to life as a family of three.  I'm so excited to watch this little lady grow up.  Love you, Nick and Kora!  Congratulations!  Click HERE for more pictures on Kodak!

Oldies but Goodies

I'm reorganizing a lot of things in the house right now and came across a few fun old photos of the Hussey kids circa 1978..  Big sister Michelle and twinners Kyle and Kimberly.  Cute!

A little older in this next one with Peter Cottontail.

Things that make me happy....

Although, I always feel a little sad for these little guys when they are covered with frost or snow.  But mostly - this just makes me excited for spring!  I mowed the lawn last Sunday and weeded a couple of my flowers beds yesterday.  Now to deal with all the moss growing in our lawn...  Maybe I'll have Kyle do that. ;o)

Griffin's First Visit to the Dentist

Griffin had his first dental check-up today and did awesome!  I recently got both kids in with Dr. Kapust in Tumwater. Formerly, Sophia had been seeing Kyle's uncle for dental check-ups.  But Uncle George/Dr. Hussey is way up in Marysville and it's a little too far out of the way sometimes!  I chose Dr. Kapust because (1) I went to his father (also Dr. Kapust) my entire childhood, (2) because he is a pediatric dentist, and (3) because he also does orthodontics.  Griffin was a VERY good boy (as I expected).  Dr. Kapust and the hygienist each mentioned that little boys Griffin's age don't ever do that well!  Way to go, Griffin!

 

Sophia had her appointment last week and also had a great check-up.  She had some sealants put on her molars as well as her regular cleaning.  They both love the stuffies with big teeth and the oversized toothbrushes to play with.

Proud of my little ones and how well they brush and floss!

February

February went by pretty quickly! Even with the extra day. :o)  Here is a little recap of our month...

Baby Don and Griffin - pretty good little buddies. We had to do a little photo shoot of them in their little boy/big boy matching jammies.

Valentine's Day before sissy went to school...

Valentine's Day after Sophia got home - she is such a great sister. She shared all her candy with her little brother and even let him wear her 100th day of school crown.

Valentine's treats for after dinner from Mom.

Last Friday Papa Dan, Griffin, Grandpa Don, and I attended Sophia's assembly at school. Griffin was elated to have both grandpa's there!

Here is Sophia receiving her 3rd place award for the Box Tops collection contest!

She earned a certificate and a $10 gift card for Toys R Us!

After Sophia's special assembly, Griffin and I headed home. He was excited to see the fire truck parked outside of the fire station in Tenino, so we stopped to take a peek. The fireman on duty even let him get in the fire engine to look around. And then, even more exciting, the fireman got a call and had to get all geared up and drive the firetruck away. We also saw a police officer at the fire station who let Griffin check out his police car. He flashed the lights for us and gave Griff a pretend badge. Pretty great day for the little guy and the big sister!

Hawaii 2012

Finally getting to our Hawaii pictures!  There are a lot and I hope to get them all uploaded to Kodak sometime this weekend. Here are some of my favorites!

Our kids LOVE the beach and the sand.  Griffin spends all day just digging with his diggers and shovels, while Sophia takes full advantage of everything on the beach.  She rolls and digs in the sand, then she swims in the water and runs in and out of the waves, then she'll look for treasures.  She's just busy!  Kyle also loves to swim in the ocean and body surf and snorkel.  I like to simply sun bathe and watch my family - with a cocktail, of course!

 (note: I always wear my cover-up when someone is holding a camera...)

 My boys.

Here was the whole group!  This year Don, Deniece, and Michelle went (they stayed at the Westin Villas).  We stayed at Aston Maui Kaanapali Villas.  And the Wyckoff family also went.  Kimberly, Zach, Abigail, and Baby Ty stayed at the Whaler.

We made a visit to a different Westin to see their flamingos.  Sophia has been completely infatuated with tropical birds for the past 10 months or so.  She was elated!!

While in Maui, I celebrated my 33rd birthday.  We all went to Kimo's for dinner.  Zach and Kimberly surprised me with reservations for the whole group.  Very thoughtful and even more DELICIOUS!

Aunt Michelle and Sophia

Griffin wouldn't let us rest until we rode the Sugar Cane Train.  We rode it last year and he loved it.  He was pretty disappointed this year, though, because the steam engine broke down the day before our scheduled ride and we had to use the diesel engine.  He enjoyed the ride, even though he kept telling us how mad he was that we weren't hooked to the steam engine.  :o)

Griffin was such a trooper the whole trip.  He fell asleep at dinner 3 nights in a row.  this was the third night at the Old Lahaina Luau.  Here we were waiting to get in.  My tiny 31 pound baby boy...  my arm was dead!

Sophia looking beautiful in white sun dress.  Glad we captured this picture before her dad whacked her in the face (on accident) with the video camera and gave her a bloody nose - all over the white sundress... ugg.  Tears and blood and a big baby in my lap while daddy rubbed the blood into the dress with a wet rag.  Good story, though. :o)

Abby and Griffin waiting for the hula show

And then the funniest part of the whole trip - a monsoon arrived as we started to eat dinner!  We were SOAKED, and so were our dinner plates.  The staff tried to get everyone a poncho ASAP.  Griffin was not happy that his mug full of sunflower seeds (his dinner...) was filling up with rain.  We got it covered with a plate - but he was not in the mood for this debacle!

Now this next picture is not the most flattering, so I apologize.  But it's hilarious!

Here are the savage beasts that Kimberly and I are lucky enough to call our husbands.

They were much more worried about shovelling the pork into their mouths than getting wet!  Kyle, who'd had quite a few MaiTai's all day (remember the bloody nose incident earlier), was finally just yelling to everyone to "just take your shirt off!" because it was so much better than wearing a wet shirt.  Our server started calling him Tarzan!  Nice, Hon...  Kyle and Zach both just look like they are in survivor-mode in this picture.  It makes me laugh every time I look at it.

Here's a more flattering picture of Zach and the rest of his lovely family, while they enjoyed the hula show. :o)

All in all it was a great trip with some silly adventures.  I will try to get all the pictures loaded to Kodak this weekend.  ALOHA!

January 2012

Griffin and Papa Dan have lots of fun together these days.  Papa Dan usually stops by about 2 mornings each week to hang out with Griffin and to greet Sophia once she's off the bus.  Here they are painting the wooden train that Papa gave him for Christmas.

 Griffin concentrates very hard when he's doing his art projects.

Baby Ty came for his first visit to our house.  It's become a little joke to have all the babies wear the baby cowboy hat for a picture when they're here.  :o)  Baby Ty was 2 months old in this picture.  Such a sweet little guy.

SNOW!!

 Sledding....

 ...and then lots of hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream!

 Our picnic table is somewhere under there.

Lots of snow and ice in January.  We lost power for about 3 days - luckily we had a generator this year!  It makes all the difference in the world.  We were cozy and warm the whole time.  All the ice really took a toll on all of our huge fir trees in the yard and we have a huge mess to clean up.  It's so messy that I'm actually looking forward to our clean-up day.  It will be a good workout and a dirty job.  :o)

Getting Caught Up - Christmas and New Year's 2011

Sorry for such a long delay in a new post.  I am behind in everything!  I will try to at least get my blog caught up, though.  Here we go!  First group of pictures is Christmas with the Rotters at our house on Dec. 24th.  The kids all love each other so much and have so much fun together. 

After the Rotters headed home we had a little down time and then headed to Christmas Eve Mass.  After mass we came home and started preparing for Santa's arrival.  Kids in bed and Kyle and I had some work to do!  Here is what it looked like after Santa arrived!

Griffin was crazy about his new workbench.  He still plays with it everyday!

Sophia got an Easy Bake - she was very excited.  A few days after Christmas we finally got around to using it.  She made pizzas the size of a quarter for everyone.  Disgusting. :o(   Maybe the cupcakes will be better.  She had a lot of fun making the pizzas, though!

After our Christmas morning at home, we headed over to the Hussey Christmas in the afternoon. 

Griffin and Sophia always get so excited to see little cousin Abby. 

This year they also had fun with Baby Don and Baby Ty.

Finally, New Year's Eve.  Don and Deniece hosted a party at the "Lakehouse" aka Grandpa Dick's.  It was mostly Don and Deniece's friends, but there were also a few of us representing the younger crowd.  Sophia even had a friend come!  The three kids all made it to midnight and were still going strong!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!  So glad I finally did this post.  More to come...