What's been happening

Graham loves to get in on the action. Whenever someone is playing the Wii, he thinks he as to have the other remote. I keep saying we need to get a dummy remote for him.

We survived the chicken pox. Hunter didn't have them to bad. He was back at school by Wednesday. This week I'm watching the other kids closely for spots. Harrison was sure that he had chicken pox with Hunter. He had a couple of scratches and those were his pox. Today he said, as he was coming down the stairs for breakfast, "I don't have chicken pox any more." Wow, that was any easy case to get through.

Aaron and I were able to get to the temple Friday night. Thanks to our brother-in-law Jason. He watched our kids, his 4 plus friends that came over. What a guy!! Our kids of course were not happy to leave the cousins. It's so nice that we close to family.

The weather was beautiful this weekend. I got some weeding done in the garden. I even found an Easter egg still hidden. It had a dollar in it. My luck day! Jared, Lydia and kids came over for dinner Saturday. The kids had a great time. Again I love living near family.

Hunter got to play his violin in a Teacher Appreciation Night that our stake sponsored to recognize elementary teachers. Hunter and Gretchen nominated Mrs. Kreta. She is currently Gretchen's teacher, was Gretchen;s teacher last year and was Hunter's 2nd grade teacher. We hope she'll still be at Lincoln when Gavin is in 1st grade. Gretchen got to be a greeter. She was able to show all of the teachers where to sit and give them a corsage or boutonniere. It was a wonderful night.

Feeding Himself

Graham has been working on feeding himself with spoons and forks. He is doing pretty well. That doesn't mean there are less messes. He still gets food all down his front. Well, so do some of the other kids and they've been feeding themselves for a bit longer.

On another note, Hunter got in the car yesterday after school and said, "Mom, for some reason I have a couple of bug bites. They really itch." Upon further inspection, Chicken Pox. It has been going around in his classroom for about a month and a half. Hunter has even gotten the vaccine. So hopefully he won't have to bad of a case of the chicken pox. I'm just waiting for the other kids to get it. Oh Boy!!

Snow...in April?

The kids watching it snow.

It doesn't look like much. I had heard the weather report of snow today. I really didn't think it would come to pass. We had big flakes coming down. The snow soon melted, less than an hour later.

Adding a Little Color

Gretchen's room- finally she likes pink.
Hunter's room- time for some accessories on the wall

Graham's crib in the boys room

Gavin and Harrison on the opposite wall of Graham's crib. We have some pictures that Gavin drew of some football players that I still need to hang up.

We've been in our house for 2 years and finally had some time to add a little color to our house.

What a Week!

Even though the kids only had two days of school this week, it sure was busy. We had Kindergarten Open House for Gavin. Can you believe he'll be starting school? I can't.
Gretch had her first Activity day. She was so nervous but had such a great time.

High School Musical-On Stage and Scouts for Hunter on the same night same time of course. Thank goodness for Dawn for getting Hunter to and from scouts. It helped Aaron be able to have time with the younger boys.

Student-led conferences(Parent-Teacher) at school. At Lincoln the kids are able to show us the things they have been working on. I love it.

I painted, with the help of Lydia, Hunter's room. Gretchen was able to talk with the primary president of our ward about the Faith in God program.

Dentist appointments the next day, bright and early. Their teeth are looking great. Then we took flowers to Dawn on her birthday.

Hunter had a violin practice for a teacher appreciation night. I started painting the boys room. It was a quick project, luckily. The kids of course all wanted to help.

Our Stake had our Women's Conference. Chieko Okasaki spoke to us. It was wonderful and I learned some more organizing ideas. I love to organize. The ending to this busy week was Gretchen's baptism. What a wonderful event. I'm so proud of the choice that she made to be baptized. We had our family and friend over afterwards for dinner. The weather was beautiful, sunny and in the 80's. What a way to finish out a week. This beautiful weather is making me so excited for summer. I know we still have some rainy weeks ahead, but am so glad we have these wonderful breaks between. Onward to hopefully a slower moving week.

Triple Chocolate Cheesecake

1 package (9 ounces) chocolate wafer cookies
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
4 bars (8 ounces each) cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted
Chocolate Ganache, for topping (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Assemble a 9 inch spring form pan with the raised side of the bottom facing down.
2. In a food processor, pulse cookies until finely ground. Add butter, and pulse to moisten. Transfer to prepared pan, and press crumbs firmly and evenly into the bottom. Place pan on a rimmed baking sheet; bake 10 minutes, and set aside.
3. Wipe out bowl and blade of food processor. Add cream cheese, sugar, and salt; blend until smooth. With motor running, add eggs, then sour cream, and finally chocolate; blend filling until smooth, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
4. Pour filling onto crust, and bake just until set, 1 hour. Turn oven off, and let cheesecake sit 1 hour in oven, without opening (this helps prevent cracking).
5. Run a thin knife around the edge of the pan (this helps prevent cracking, too); leave in pan, and cool completely on wire rack. Cover loosely and refrigerate, at least 6 hours or up to overnight.
6. Prepare Chocolate Ganache. Unmold cheesecake. Spread gananche in center of cheesecake; let set before serving.

Chocolate Ganache
1/4 cup heavy cream
4 ounces chopped semisweet chocolate

1. In a small saucepan, bring cream to a boil. Remove from heat, and add chocolate. Stir until melted, then set aside until thickened, 2 to 5 minutes.

Our Break at the Coast

My brother Shale's family and a couple of my kids watching the sea lions in Newport.

The kids still watching. The weather was gorgeous. It was in the 50's sunny and no wind. Beautiful!!

And still watching. We were waiting for them to start fighting about territory. It never happened.

Harrison made me a little nervous here without a railing on the other side.

Graham enjoying being down and able to walk on his own.

The kids enjoying the tide pools at the Hatfield Marine Science Center.

More tide pool fun.

Graham getting in on the action. We got to watch the octopus being fed. All of the times that we have been there we have never timed it right to see this. It was very interesting and the kids had such a great time watching it.

Shaelee and Gretch heading out to the waves. After Hatfield's we head to the Devils Punch Bowl and the tide was coming in. Which made it so fun to see the giant waves splashing against the rocks.

The girls realized how cold the water really was. My nieces wanted to wear their swimming suits to the beach. They haven't been to the Oregon coast for 5 years.

Of course when we woke up the sun was gone. That doesn't stop us here. We headed to the tide pools.

Unfortunately, the tide was beginning to come in. That didn't stop us from going and seeing what we could.

Trying to keep Graham warm.

Our last night at the beach we had a fire and roasted marshmallows and had smores.

Of course it started to rain when we were down there. But it sure was fun.

The big boys were having so much fun with the sticks in the fire.

We got back from the beach and the kids need to have a little relaxing time in the tub.

Natalie reading a story to Graham. I love being with Shale, Carmen and their kids. The kids get along so well and we always have such a great time. It really didn't seem like there were 11 kids and 4 adults. It never seemed like too much. Time definitely flew by. Before they left we went for a walk around our neighborhood and down on the path the river. And of course got caught by the rain we found some shelter at the park and waited out the rain. Then headed back to our house. We visited my Grandpa Robison. We went to Osborn Aquatic and swam for 2 hours. The kids had a great time on the zip line and playing basketball. It was such a wonderful time. My kids keep talking about what a fun time they had.

Thanks for coming to visit guys!! Can't wait to come see you in July!

It's Great to Be Eight!

Hannah, Erin and Gretchen doing some karaoke to High School Musical 2(with Harrison as the audience). We didn't have enough microphones to go around, wooden spoons work well too.

Gretchen requested a cheesecake again this year. We saw someone make a chocolate cheesecake on TV so we tried it. So good!!

Always the little mother, even when she's in the spotlight. Gretch just loves her brother.

The three girls enjoying some cake.

Gretchen was surprised yesterday after school, when some of her friends showed up at the doorstep for a party. It was a small group of girls, but they had such a great time together. The party continues next week at Philomath High School. They are putting on a play of High School Musical. Gretchen is so into HSM2. It is constantly playing in her room. She is very excited to start going to Activity Days at the church. Her baptism will be later this month. I asked how she felt about being baptized and she replied that she was nervous. I asked if there were any questions she had about being baptized. She said,"No, I'm just worried about being in front of all of those people." Boy, she is so much like her mom. Once she's in front of a crowd she is just like her dad very comfortable. I still can't believe our little girl is 8. What a blessing to have her in our family.