toll house

The kids have been pretty good lately so we made cookies!

Dawson is 7

Cousin Dawson turned 7 this past weekend. We got to celebrate it it twice! Sunday night we went over for cupcakes (that was her actual birthday and Sarah has a little surprise party with family) and on Monday it was the insane birthday with everybody from her class. And a magician!
Here's the class...I have no idea where Sam was and Sydney freaked out and started crying but of course Courtney is right in the middle of it all...she's my party animal!
being the youngest has it's advantage...the twinks both got to be the magicians helper!

Hawaii

At the library this morning the lady that did the reading is going to Hawaii at the end of the week. She asked the kids if anybody had been there and Courtney jumped up and said she was going for her birthday with a big smile on her face!
News to me but sounds like an excellent plan!

Everson Library

I took the twinks to the library this morning for preschool reading time. the books were all about transportation. Singing and reading... Good times!

parenting

The last three years I have had it good, wait I had it GREAT! Jon worked from home and was there for everything. When the twinks napped and I had to get Sam from school, no problem just hand Jon the monitor and I could go. If the kids were engrossed in a movie I could tell Jon I was going to run an errand. I could volunteer in Sam's classroom once a week while Jon took his "lunch" break. It was ideal! Then he was laid off so since July we could pretty much do anything at anytime (as long as it was free or super cheap!) I had a couple parenting groups I was attending regularly and the twinks were in preschool 3 days a week. Since the move this last month has been a really hard transition for me being home alone with the twinks all day and not getting a little break here and there. I miss my mom terribly which in and of itself makes life pretty hard right now. I am slowly finding things to do and getting out with the twinks while Sam is in school. I found a preschool story time at the local library and I also found a "tot soccer hour" which I wanted to try to today but Courtney wanted a lazy day (she's still in her pj's and it's 2:30) I need to get busy and I think that will help all of us.

Soccer game

Today was Sam's first soccer game. What a league we are in! We play at the Northwest Soccer Park. Crazy amount of fields. Her age rotates fields every quarter if you are the "visiting" team. Kind of a pain but that way the kids play different kids each quarter and nobody dominates! The team splits up too. It's odd but this way they get to play more. Today they all got to play the whole time because a couple of the girls couldnt come. They play 3 on 3. Sam is getting to be such a little player too. It's fun watching her get in there and go for it! She was a goal scoring machine today...but they dont keep score. It's all smiles! I am so happy she likes it!



I was bummed I ran in and grab my camera but forgot I was charging the battery! So these are from my phone. I thought I was taking videos but the pause and play I got all messed up so I was video taping when I thought it was on pause and pausing when I was actually shooting the video!. I was bummed because I thought I got a video of her 'stealing' the ball and taking it all the way for a goal! It was awesome!!

Posh and Olive

Nephew Max and Nicole got a couple of puppy Pomeranians. Introducing the new cousins...This is Olive

and this is Posh!

I dont know why I only took pictures of Sydney with the pups we all went to meet them yesterday!

AKL is going to AKJ

Alexa Kay is getting married! Bernt Johnson asked her to be his wife on Friday Feb. 18. The big day is February 19, 2012!
Funny story...Lex (my brother Alexas Dad) got a phone call from Bernt on the Weds before and asking him to luch just the two of them. Lex was like sure. Jon over heard the conversation and when he got off the phone said "you know what that was about don't you?" and Lex was like "huh what?" Jon said "your daughters boyfriend just asked you to lunch just the two of you..." and Lex said "really? do you think?" Jon said it's either he's goiong to ask if you if he can marry your daughter or borrow money." Friday rolls around and they go to luch and sure enough that was what was up (the marrying question) and he said he didnt know when he was going to ask either this week end or the weekend he graduates (he's getting his masters at WSU) Lex said "I can only keep it a secret until Monday!"
So Friday night he popped the question...and when they got home a house full of people were there to toast to the upcoming nuptials!

Our backyard

Our backyard was a huge gravel pit that is now a dump for clean materials like rocks and dirt. On Monday I looked out the window and saw this...thankfully no one was hurt and it wasn't a Ludtke truck!

the video of it being put upright!

Lynden Park

The town of Lynden (Sam calls in London) has one of the nicest parks in the area. We spent an hour or so last Sunday. I've taken Sam to this park before when she was 2. But she didnt remember it. It's one of the coolest public parks I have ever been to and the kids had a blast. The twins found another set of twins to play with...it was cute one played with one twin while the other played with the other. Courtney has a hard time with names and kept yelling "Friend!" It so funny how kids meet at the park and by the end of the day they are the best of friends!

very fun slide. Sydney (or was it Courtney) was scared the first time down but promptly ran back up and went down again and again!

so many trees around here!

Soccer

Got Sam all signed up for soccer...she really loves the sport! Her new coach (Coach Sam) thinks she's got game! It is a little colder watching her practices here though! I wore my ski coat and had a heavy blanket over me and wishing I had remembered my hat too! It'll warm up a bit...let's hope!

Whatcom Museum

The city of Bellingham has a museum and in it is a little activity center for the kids. The kids really enjoyed it so we became members. They also have a fabulous art room where there is a "teacher" there to help with a center craft for the day. We have already gone twice! I think it will become a weekly adventure...it's next to the big library downtown. We are slowly getting out and trying to figure it all out...

the tooth fairy

Sam lost her tooth! She was so excited. She put it in a plastic bag under her pillow for the tooth fairy. At some point the twinks got into and LOST her tooth. Sam was oh so sad. We looked everywhere for it. She wrote a note to the tooth fairy saying she lost and to "forgive her." Then right when she was crawling into bed she stepped on it! She was ecstatic! She promptly ripped up the note and put it under her pillow. Since it was her first tooth and all the tooth fairy left $5One week later we were out to breakfast and she pulled the another one out...the tooth fairy only left a dollar for that one!

dogs and snow

My brother, Lance, is living on the property so we get to spend time with his dogs. Samantha isnt the biggest fan of them. And Cosmo (he's not pictured) eats everything so the dogs have to stay downstairs. If you leave anything out on the counter he figures out how to get it. Since we have lived here he' ate a few sandwiches, a few bowls of cereal and a chocolate cake!

Courtney loves Cali!

We woke up on the 27th to snow! The kids were super excited. I drove to town to find some sleds but both Target and Wal-mart were sold out. They seemed have fun anyways!

Everson Elementary

Sam started Everson Elementary on February 24 (one month ago today.) She goes from 9 to 12:30 every day except Wednesday when she goes all day until 3:30. She really likes her new teacher and she is excited to have homework! (I wonder how long that will last!) on the 3rd week she was there it was the end of the semester and she got a report card. She is way beyond what she is suppose to know by the end of the year (Mrs. Nuesse and all day kinder rocks!)

The one thing she is super thrilled about is the BUS. Here she is waiting patiently for the bus to pick her up!

and off she goes...

and her she is coming home from school...

Moving on up to WA

We packed up a 52 ft Ludtke truck on February 18th and realized we had way to much stuff and had to rent 12 ft trailer from uhaul. At first we had it behind the Tahoe but then we decided to let Jon take off and get to WA asap while Papa, me and the girls road in style in the RV. We took off on Saturday morning for the long trip from AZ to WA. It's about 1600 miles. Something was wrong with the plug in on the rv so the lights on the trailer wouldnt turn on which meant we we could only drive during daylight hours! Needlessly to say it was a long trip. 4 nights and 4 1/2 days of driving. (I drove 2 hours of all that) Jon made it in 2 days! The kids were exceptionally good considering that we were stuck in a 40 ft winnebago. There was a 36 hour period were the kids didnt even get out of the rv!

I let Sam sit at the table and color until the twinks thought they should be able to too. This was the first trip that I did let them out and they could lay on the bed and watch movies or read or whatever but they couldnt walk around!! That helped out a lot but they did like to sit up front in their carseats.

the twinks watching something. They did spend a lot of time in that position!

Our second night we stayed at a KOA near Lake Shasta in CA. I didnt pack for snow but that didnt stop the kids from playing in it! They were out there for 20 minutes or so until they got cold!

perfect shoes for walking in the snow!

playing with all the technology...ipod touch, mobigo and my first leap pad

Papa wore that outfit for 3 days!

Welcome to WA!

My best friend, my mom

Kay Ludtke
March 3, 1939-March 2, 2011

On March 2, my mom passed away from pneumonia. It was really quick and very unexpected. I am still in shock and a little numb about the whole thing. I miss her so very much. 7 1/2 years ago she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. They tried a bunch of different things until finally in January of 2006 she got a stem cell transplant from a woman back east named Debbie. For the past couple years she has been fighting grafts vs host disease in her legs and of course taking a ton of pills. Last month was her last treatment in AZ and she was excited for us to all be in Bellingham. She left AZ the 2nd week of February to start packing. They were moving to the condo out at Birch Bay and my family took over the ranch. She was so excited to finally live full time at the bay. We were stressing about all the stuff we had. We were both downsizing and we way to much stuff. We talked about how we'll have a big garage sale in the spring and sell stuff on ebay. We got up here on February 23rd (after a 5 day journey in the RV with my dad driving the whole way...I did drive for 2 hours one afternoon) She wasn't feeling to hot but she came out to tell me what to do with some of the stuff. We didn't go see her that weekend because she was sick. We talked a lot on the phone though, that's what we did! Really early on Monday morning my Dad ended up calling the ambulance to take her in. That's when we found out she had pneumonia and she was in septic shock and her white blood cells were gone. She was in ICU. On Tuesday morning she woke up and was doing as dad put it 189% better. I went to visit at 4 that afternoon she was coughing and they were trying to figure out what was going on. My dad decided to go get a hair cut and then head home so he could organize the heavy stuff before she came home. At 4:30 I helped her to the bathroom and her heart started pounding hard. I got her back into bed and called the nurse and dad. The next thing we know a bunch of Dr's were there. It looked like things were calming down so I left at 5:30. My last conversation with her was about Charlie Sheen (she wasn't a fan) and these pewter cups that she had. We laughed about these cups because when I was a kid I finally got to sit at the grown up table one evening and she was using these cups (think knights of the round table big pewter goblets) and I was so excited until I drank out of it and my water tasted all metallicy! We laughed about it. She told me to pack them up and we'll ebay them (I think I'll keep them now) and she apologized for not talking so much. At 9pm I called my dad for something and he said things werent looking so good and they were talking about taking her back to the ICU. At midnight he called and said she was going. My brother Lance is living here to so we raced into town. My other brother Lex met us there. He passed out in the ICU and ended up in the ER and he had pneumonia. He was gone for an hour or so. The Dr talked to us and told us that she had been on 6 different antibiotics and nothing was working. My dad and the Dr talked to her earlier and she didn't want any heroic measures taken. She wanted to go with "God's plan." That's the one thing that brings me so much comfort is she was so strong in her faith. It was truly the hardest day of my life. At 5:20 am on March 2, 2011 she went to be with the Lord Jesus Christ. She was and will always be my best friend. We talked up to 6 times a day on some days and life just isn't going to be the same without her. I am sad that my kids aren't going to grow up with Namy. But as Sam told me one morning that "she is watching us Mom, she is everywhere. She is my Angel!"