Christmas Thank you -

OK, Since I haven't got my Christmas Thank you cards out yet - or Josie's B-day party cards - I am feeling a bit guilty. It is that Catholic guilt sneaking its way back in. Yes I grew up in the Catholic church - many of you know we had that weird priest, oh yeah that narrows it down! Actually he is a great guy. Anyway I digress..... I am writing this blog to say thank you to an anomyous family member that I can't mention by name or I will be in big trouble - I have been told I have blogging rules that must be followed. No names no pics of them. So I will not name names.... but I will tell you all that one of my favorite gifts came from them. Take a look at the picture....




This wood piece came from Bethlehem..... yes where Jesus was born. I just thought this was the neatest thing. It says on it God Bless Our Home.... So I want to say thank you to the no name - no picture person that I think that was a wonderful and very thoughtful gift!

As far as thank you's go - I am the first to say they must be sent and quickly after the party celebration. So I am scolding myself (bad Emily) for not getting them out. May I now say - I am hoping to get them out soon. My goal is to have the kids color on them - it should be to actually get them out - but a goal is a goal. Hopefully you will see them in your mailbox soon. Love ya - Em

Since Christine won't update her site! (ha-gotcha) I will put a pic of her on my site!

Here is Christine and little Thea - they came over to play - Kjersti and John played well together - they got along! Kjersti and John have a long time stance with each other of not seeing eye to eye - so it was fun for them to share and get along! Yeah.

Sunny Day, wipin' our cares away!..... something like that.

OK, So I can't remember the Sesame Street theme - however I was so excitted it was sunny out today (and yesterday) that I have been singing it..... sort of....

I thought this pic was so fun, I just had to go for a walk on such a nice day so I loaded up the kids and went to the park. Now I forgot what John had on, cuz he loves wearing it... so when people were looking at us from there cars - it made me smile!

Here's a cutie pie

Our friend Leonard took this pic of Josie at church! We thought it was so cute we put it up on the blog, check out her hair.... she is Don King!

Nano Nano

So I thought I was pretty in the know with high tech gadgets, I sold software (4 years ago! - evedently technology moves faster than me!) so I am thinking I am savvy to the new gizmos. Not so, I bought an ipod, well you think it was from the future - it took me about half the day to figure out this plug and play little gadget! I felt like the biggest idiot. Once I got it well it seemed so simple! Nothing like new technology to make you feel old! However now I feel very cool and with it, ready to strap on the ipod and go to the gym.

Liz and Foster

Thought I would post a picture of our friends Liz and Foster - They have recently moved to Texas. I keep telling them that there vacation is over and they can come home now. I don't know if they are listening. So Derrick and I decided to take matters into our own hands and go on vacation with them. So sometime in Feb. we are still nailing down the dates we are all going to go on a cruise! We are very excitted. Then atleast D and I can get out of the rain.

OK - I am really sick of the rain

Enough is enough! I just want a couple of days of sunshine - I feel like we should all build an ark. On the plus side Derrick and I almost have lake front property. The field behind us is looking like a lake! We should have our home reappraised! Ha. I know I am just complaining, but I am tired of the rain. Usually winters don't bother me but I want some sunshine - here is a National Headline!


Seattle nearing record for rainy days
By Elizabeth M. Gillespie, Associated Press Writer
SEATTLE — After 22 consecutive days of measurable rain, Seattle is closing in on a record so dismal even forecasters in this city famous for its gray skies are complaining.
With more wet weather predicted over the next several days, Seattle may soon break a record set in 1953. The city saw 33 consecutive days of measurable precipitation then — the most since the National Weather Service office there started tracking rainfall in 1931.

Though Seattle is famous for its rain, the city's average annual rainfall from 1970 to 2000 was 37.07 inches, compared to 49.71 inches for New York City.

Kitchen

Here are some more house pics... these are of the kitchen. I am going to wait to take pics of the living room upstairs we have ordered furniture but it doesn't come in for a while. So until then here are pics of the kitchen. As you can see (those that saw the house before) it is now a completely open floor plan. Before the kitchen was like a galley kitchen boxed in, now I feel like I am not alone when I cook, I can talk to people in the living room. This is one of my favorite areas of the house. I really like how it turned out.

What is funny - is we debated between black and stainless steel appliances, we went with black thinking it would be easier to keep clean. I am not sure that worked to our advantage - but I love the look of them!
This is a pic of our new table - we just love the square ones, and it fits great!
I was trying to let you see the lights here - don't know how well the picture turned out - but this island is all new - we had no counter space on this side of the kitchen before.

Josie's B-day party!

This is a picture of the icecream cake Gram Mary made for all of us to enjoy - it is bigger than Josie.

This picture of John and Josie was taken before the party - they were both dressed in Seahawk garb. They looked so cute - but I couldn't get them both to sit still this is as close as we got!

Josie's B-day cake Grandma Mary made her one all for herself!

Look at this determination!


This is a present she got from Gram and Grampa Cotton - I wanted to get her in it cuz she looked so little - but again she wouldn't hold still!





We had the family b-day party last night for Josie. As it turns out part of the family couldn't make it due to illness. But the party must go on - I must tell you all I had John pick out the wrapping paper for Josie's gifts, I knew John might have a hard time with her opening stuff so I thought him picking out paper may help. He picked out care bears for her.(He loves the care bear movie) So, Derrick and I were down on the computer before the party, and when we went up stairs John had opened up all of Josie's presents. So he got in trouble and went to his room. We didn't have time to go buy more paper so I put the torn peices back on the presents and called it good. This will be a birthday story we can tell him for years to come I thought! When John came out of his room I told him he needed to help mama put the presents together. I asked him, Did you have fun opening all of Josie's gifts? " Yes ma ma he said. I just laughed.

I had fun opening Josie's gifts with her. I would start the tear and she would finish it!
I don't think Josie got any cake in her mouth - she just made it into a million little pieces! But had lots of fun doing it!

Happy Birthday Josephine Annie Forever - - We love you.

John's room

This is a pic to give you the feel for John's colors, blue and orange. The best part of his room is his light! How fun, he points to it and says airplane.

Master Bedroom

You've seen the master bath, now you can see the master bedroom. We have night stands coming in soon, we've never had night stands such a little thing that makes you excitted! So here it is.... now Jess you can see that the carpet isn't red - just the bed spread!





I don't know if you really all want to see a closet - but here it is! I think I gave all my clothes away - I looked at many of them after being in a box for a year - and I thought these are so old, so off to Goodwill they went! So I am going to have lots of fun replacing them over the next few months!

Some house pics!

These are pictures of the upstairs bathroom, this bathroom did not change much it just got a new bath tub! yeah. the other one was off white and icky - so it is now white and pretty!

Here is my new wheels!

So, since Derrick posted his car, well I thought I would post my new SUV! It is kind of a funny story - the SUV is for me and yet I didn't actually see the car before Derrick bought it. We have been looking for a couple of months now for an Expedition, so we knew what we wanted. But for some reason when we went to purchase there weren't any available with all the goodies we wanted. I found this one on line and only saw the pic of it. Derrick drove up and test drove it and made sure it had everything I wanted. He then bought it and brought it home. (He left his car at the lot so I could see my new car!) So that is the SUV story. I must say I am loving the SUV I feel so high in it, and I feel very huge and safe, that is a good thing! Em

Run from the Young home!

I stole the picture from Justin and Shanda's blog - I forgot they took the picture! Derrick thought since I just love guns that he would go all out and buy all the cousins semi-automatic bb guns... I think that is what they are called. Ofcourse Derrick had to get one, and well so did his best friend Justin. So now that we are all weapon ready - you will all have to come over and see if we can hit you with the bb's. I must say the boys had a great time running around all night, after they got them since are landscaping is still lacking - they had a great time trampling through out the yard! Detrix, Blake and Brian (his cousins) all got one, boy did they have fun!

This picture is of Detrix, Justin and Derrick getting ready to go attack one another. I don't know who was more excitted the teen or the adults!

New Wheels

Ok, here is my new car. I am excitted. For those who know the past history about our cars you will be able to appreciate this. We are in a new season and loving it. Derrick

Great Grandma Candy

When Derrick's family was here, we all went down to suprise his Grandma at the nursing home. She was so happy she cried as each one of us said hello. She was so excitted to see all of us at once. Here are some pics of the fun event. Grandma Mary took us out for some great grub at Red Robin. Great Grandma was very happy to be out and about, as she had a stroke it is not too easy for her to get out. So this was extra fun for her and for all!


Here is Detrix, Brian, John, Great Grandma, Breck, Blake, and Josephine Annie (named after Grandma)Forever... all her Grandkids.

My Picasso!

so while I was updating the blog..... my almost 3 year old was having a little fun. It seems he found a pen, we think in one of our boxes we were unpacking today, and well he had a little fun. I looked over at John and his hands had blue on them, hmmmm what is that? Then on closer inspection I got a little worried. OK a lot worried, is it permanent and where is the pen? After searching the toy room and begninning to panick Derrick comes down stairs laughing. I must admit I was not laughing nor was anything he did going to be funny to me. As I entered our master bedroom our darling son had painted a lovely portrate on our new master bedroom wall, in blue. After a small heartattack I grabbed the lysol disinfectant wipes and started praying the blue would come off the wall, it did. I was too stressed out to take a picture for fear it would be on the wall permanently. But the pics you see of our little artist, he's pretty good huh? ok, I can almost laugh now.

Fun with Dick and Jane

This movie is hilarious! Derrick and I laughed all the way through it. If you went through any of the .com fiasco of the early 2000's this movie will make you laugh out loud. For those of you who don't know the .com fiasco maybe Enron rings a bell. For Derrick and I it was a slew of small companies that took in tons of money and then spent it before they could actually pay their employees or vendors. Very funny now to look back at what happened, not so funny when it is happening to you. My company blew threw 9 million dollars in 6 months... or 6 million in 9 months I can't remember now, which way it went, either way it was a ridiculous amount of money in a short amount of time. If you have ever been "downsized" or had anything threatened to be repossessed. This movie will make you laugh. To those who survived the .com era..... Our hearts go out to you. What a time we had. Derrick and I can write a book, 101 ways to know your company is about to go out of business. Take care. Happy New Year All.