JeffKatieEmma.com

It’s been quite awhile since we’ve posted on the blog.  For the very few people that check the site, I apologize.  We’ve had quite a busy summer.  We have spent as much time as we could out at the lake, although that ended up being a little less than we thought.  There have been birthday parties for Emma to attend as well as other obligations that have kept us from making the trip a few times.  Between that and the somewhat pathetic summer we’ve had here, we just didn’t get as much "sun" time as we had hoped.

Lots of things have happened since our last post.  Emma had her 5th birthday party which was small but fun.  We had the party out at the lake and had cake and ice cream at the park.  Her friend’s Maddie and Jena both came out to the lake for the party and Maddie’s family spent the night in their tent trailer.  We had a GREAT time!

We’ve had a few milestones this summer as well.  Emma is now reading books with no help.  She is pretty much reading anything that she can get her hands on so we’ve made some trips to the library and have bought a few additional books as well.  It’s so exciting!.

Emma also learned how to ride a bike with no training wheels.  It was amazing to watch her learn.  She saw two kids at her daycare riding with no training wheels and that was all it took for her to focus her attention on learning how.  She came home and asked us to remove her training wheels.  After 45 minutes she had gotten the balancing down and by the next afternoon she was riding around with no help.  She didn’t even crash once while learning.  She continues to amaze us.

And the third milestone for Emma is that today is her last day in day care.  Last night we attended an open house at her new elementary school and she is very excited to start kindergarten next Tuesday.  She has seen where her desk is, and has already taken all of her supplies in to her classroom.  It’s hard to believe it’s already been 5 years!  Here are a few photos from the summer:

At a birthday party beauty shop

Emma’s birthday party at the lake

Emma reading a book

Who knew that kids graduate from preschool these days?  Well, they do.  They had a ceremony at Emma’s school to mark the completion of their program.  In September Emma will start kindergarten and she couldn’t be more excited about it.

As I was sitting in the audience at her graduation, I was struck with how quickly time goes by.  It seems like just yesterday that we were agonizing over putting Emma in daycare.  Hindsight, it’s the best thing we have done yet for her.  While we missed her during the day, she has excelled in the environment.  Her social skills have come so far and she has experienced so many different things while she’s been there.  She has climbed around fire trucks, raised caterpillars in to butterflies, done a TON of art work, celebrated many different cultural holidays, learned how to read and write letters and words, and the list goes on and on.

Katie and I could not have been more proud when the graduation ceremony started.  Emma was picked to give the welcome speech to the families.  I had wondered whether she’s be petrified with being in front of that many people because she does tend to get shy around people she doesn’t know well.  As soon as she spoke I realized that wouldn’t be an issue.  Emma used a very loud voice and read the entire speech (it wasn’t very long) without an ounce of fear.  When she finished, everyone clapped and were very impressed with her.  Katie and I were smiling ear to ear.  The highlights of the graduation ceremony were the songs that the kids performed.  They had been practicing for awhile and they all did a wonderful job.  After the graduation there was a reception with lunch and dessert.  The kids all enjoyed it.

Here is a link to the video of Emma giving her welcome speech:

http://www.jeffkatieemma.com/Emmaspeechf.wmv

It’s hard to believe how fast time is going by.  Last Friday we went to the elementary school near our house for "kindergarten  round up".  Amazingly Emma will be starting kindergarten in September.  Friday we went in and attended a two hour session where they threw a ton of information at us while Emma went with all the other kids to do a couple projects in her new classroom.  From what I understand they evaluated all the kids during that hour to see where they are at developmentally.  They did a few projects and performed simple tasks like writing their name and answering basic questions.  They also did an art project (they each made a paper hat).

While Emma was in with all the kids, Katie and I listened to all of the various information that was presented to us in the library.  We heard from the principal, school nurse, teachers, librarian, PTA president and on and on.  It was actually very interesting, but at the same time a little scary to think Emma is beginning her school journey.

Besides that, not too much is going on.  Katie and Emma attended a birthday party for Emma’s friend Jena and then visited Sarah’s for a little bit on Saturday.  While they were busy with those trips, I went to mom’s and hauled a couple loads of topsoil to spread on the grass and flower gardens at her house.  It actually went very quickly and we were done by about noon.  I picked up one more truckload and came home to our house to spread that.  It was nice and sunny and was a perfect temperature for working in the yard.

On Sunday we went down to the Earle’s and celebrated Jaden’s 4th birthday.  Lots of pictures are HERE: http://www.theearlefamily.com .

We have a couple trips planned over the next few months.  We’ll be heading back to Ellensburg for our 10 year anniversary.  Yeah, I know that sounds like kind of a funny place to go but we decided since it’s where we met, it might be fun to go back and see how things have changed at CWU.  While we’re there we’ll visit some of our old favorites downtown (The Tav is on the "definite list") and just have a nice relaxing time wandering around.  Later this summer we’ll also be driving back to Montana for Carolee’s wedding.  It’s shaping up to be a family reunion because just about everyone is going to be there.  Of course we are trying not to book too many weekends over the summer because we’d like to spend the majority of it at the lake.  Every time we go over there we get the goose bumps because it’s still hard to believe we can stay there now.  There will be lots of projects to work on there, but there will also be lots of time to relax.

Over the last 1.5 years I know we’ve probably overwhelmed you with cabin progress photos.  Well, since we passed our final this will be the last cabin progress post (until we do landscaping).  I thought I’d post a couple pics of the inside now that we are in the process of moving in.  Basically we are taking up one piece of furniture each time we go up there and now have a table, and also a couch.

Here are a couple shots:

On a completely separate note it hailed at our main house a couple evenings ago and was amazing.  Hail the diameter of dimes were landing all over the place.  I’d say we got about 2 inches of hail by the time it was done.  So much, in fact, that Emma and I made a couple "Hailmen".  Crazy weather!!

Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly do any more work on the cabin, Emma came to the rescue.  She showed up with all her gear on and was ready to do some heavy construction.  Emma received a "Lil Helper" tool set for Christmas from Sarah and Dan and was excited to put them to use at the cabin.  We took a few pictures and a cute video as she pounded away on nails.  I think she had a great time "helping" and we kept all the gear up at the cabin so that it’s there for her next time.

Katie finished a quilt for Dan awhile back.  Dan had a ton of racing T-shirts that he’s received over the years when he was involved in racing.  Rather than throw them out, they decided a T-shirt quilt would be a great way to keep the memories without having a pile of shirts sitting around.  Katie chipped away at it during the last few months of the year and finished it in early December.  There is a picture of it below.  This is the second T-shirt quilt that Katie has made.  The first one was with a bunch of T-shirts that I had.  It has turned out to be our favorite cabin comforter.  :)

I’d say that work continues on the cabin, but you probably already knew that.  There are just a few more things to do before we call for the final inspection.  We are really looking forward to getting the place signed off so that we can finally rest when we go up there!

Not much else going on here.  Judy put up a New Years Eve picture from our evening at Mom’s.  We had a nice time and we all stayed up later than we have in quite awhile.  Emma was dying to go to bed at about 9:00 but she refused to go to bed unless the other kids also went to bed.  Since the other kids wanted nothing to do with bed, she ended up staying up until midnight.  Amazing.  That’s the latest she’s ever been up in her short life.

Anyway, Happy New Year.  We are all back at school and work now.  It’s already feeling like we are back to the grind…….

There just doe n’t seem to be enough hours in the day.  We have all been very busy lately.  Since we haven’t posted for ahwhile, here are a few of the highlights from the past month.

We went to Remlinger farms with Jessica, Nathan, Ryan, Mom, and Aunt Jean.  Everyone had a great time!  I’ve posted a couple pictures from the event below.  Emma always love going there.  They’ve done a great job of creating a magical place for kids there!

A few weeks ago we took the train down to Portland to visit friends.  It was the first time that we’ve all gone on the train together and it was a lot of fun.  We were all surprised at how fast we got there!  We’ll definitely do that again!

Emma has been sick over the last week.  She had a very high fever (103.8).  We got her to the doctor quickly and they diagnosed an ear infection.  She is on antibiotics for 10 days to clear that up.  It’s really kind of amazing how happy she can be when she’s sick.  She definitely didn’t get that trait from her dad!

Last weekend, Polly and Vic came to town to visit and we had an early Thanksgiving at our house.  Sarah, Dan, Alex and Sydney also came over and we had a “Brown” thanksgiving.  Lots of food and it was all delicious.  Polly and Vic headed back to New Orleans a couple days later.  They will be going to England in early December to spend time with the relatives there.  Polly will go earlier and Vic will meet her there for a couple weeks in December.

We have been working on the cabin.  I can’t wait until we can’t say that anymore.  The sheetrock was completed and the mud/tape/texture was just completed last week.  We spent this weekend priming and painting.  Katie and I spent all day on Saturday painting while Emma played with Grandma at the other cabin.  We were able to prime the entire interior, paint the ceiling white once the primer dried, and today we painted the bathroom and kitchen.  There is still a little more painting to be done in both rooms but that will go quick.  We also wired in all the smoke alarms and installed all the trim for the can lights.  The ceiling is complete!!!

Next week we plan on going up to complete all the painting and will also work on installing outlets and light switches.  That should go relatively quickly.

On the way back from the cabin today we stopped at Lowes and looked around.  By the time we had left, we had purchased all the appliances for the kitchen, a granite countertop for the bathroom and a few other miscellaneous items.  I also can’t wait until we are done spending money.  It’s amazing how expensive everything is!

Well, my fingers are getting sore so I think it’s time to stop typing.  Below are a few pictures from our month of October/early November:

I guess we are little late posting this but we wanted to put a post up about Emma’s birthday.  Emma had a birthday party with some of her friends the day after her birthday.  We had it at our house and had a couple different crafts for the kids to do and also had a waterslide in the backyard (Thanks Brent and Tonja).  The girls got to decorate their own notepads (with foam pieces) and also made foam sun visors.  The theme for the party was “Ladybugs” so the gift bags were made by Katie in the shapes of ladybugs and the “cake” was 35 cupcakes with a giant ladybug on top of all of them (like a cake).  The girls had a great time.  Emma invited a few girls from her class and a couple long time friends.

Here’s another short video of Emma teasing Pam and Andrea on the 4th of July.  She had a lot of fun hanging out with them during the picnic!

 Emma had a great time riding on Steve’s tractor.  Here’s a short video of them driving back up the gravel road to put the tractor away:

We uploaded a bunch of the pictures that we took this last week while we were out at the lake.  They include 4th of July pictures, construction pictures, time at the park, tractor time with Steve :), and working on the trackhoe.  Basically, just a misc chunk of different photos.  I guess you could call it a photostream not unlike Flickr.

Anyway, click here to check them out.