friends

by Alexis - September 23, 2011

Our friend Kerstin

We have a friend who we’ve known for about 5 years now. She is caring, exciting and just one of those people others are attracted to. She currently lives in Cape Town, South Africa as a missionary. And she just so happens to have been my maid of honor. 🙂 And has a blog full of fabulous pictures!

She also just so happens to be a talented painter! Here is her site. She favors watercolors but also plays around in all areas of painting. There are many beautiful ones- my favorite being ‘A Day at the River’. Buy, buy, buy! It would help and support not only a fabulous impacting woman, but also help her serve and give to the people she’s around.

*Kerstin, we love and support everything you are about and who you are. Continue loving those around you!

*She did not in any way ask me to advertise for her. In fact, she has no idea I wrote this 🙂 *

by Alexis - June 6, 2011June 6, 2011

This past weekend we went and had a blast playing in a kid friendly water fountain in town and saw a parade. It was such an awesome time! (and was totally pooped when we got home at midnight-ish)

Enjoy the pictures! Our friends that came had the most adorable children and Emma had a blast playing the entire day together! Yay for friends!

Adorable right?! Seriously the day was jam packed full of tons of fun things…but for us parents, everything centered around nap time. 🙂

And their beautiful baby…

by Alexis - May 23, 2011

my great day

******written by yours truly. me. the one, the only- emma.*****

Monday morning:

my friend came to play today! and i was so excited to show my toys to her! the moment she came in i forgot about mommy. but she didn’t forget to document EVERYTHING in photos…how annoying!

we did our best to ignore her and watched strawberry shortcake in my bed together! all snuggled under the blankets. 🙂 lots of giggling and jumping. with the white princess drape thing over us of course. privacy mother…

afterwards, my mother tried a tactic to get us away from the tv: we smelled the sweet aroma of chocolate chip cookies. MUST. HAVE! the snack was apples and cookies with apple juice.

they were frozen. made a month ago and rolled into little balls. she randomly takes a handful out to bake. i’m happy when she does. we baked some extra for daddy.

we then went outside for a walk. hooray!! i liked rylee’s bright rainbow coat better than mine (softer) and rylee liked mine. so we switched.

i now believe that before you become a mommy, you must first take a poparotsy class. some lessons before graduating: 1. You must tell your child to smile no matter what they’re doing. 2. Take forever to take a picture and finally 3. Run after child with camera yelling, ‘look at me!’.

case in point:

i’m sorry rylee. so embarassed.

seriously mom. we’re done.

you have a photo problem.

maybe your church has a healing class for it or something. it should be called, ‘photographers anonymous’. i would sign you up. because i love you of course.

so back to you reader, while my mom was clicking her heart away we heard the train coming and ran to see it up close! it’s so loud and exciting and the driver man waves at us!

i liked waving to the people inside. it’s what we do in the zoo train too.

then my mom said something that made up for all the photos: ‘do you girls want to finger paint?!’ Yeah!!!! so on the walk we picked up our own rocks to paint when we came home.

it was so much fun! then we got to go into the bath and play together (t otake the paint off)

to top it off, we then had lunch and did some artistic interpretations in chalk up on our balcony. (we scribbled)

I hope you had a great monday morning too! and if you’d like me to write more, tell my mommy. she’s a blog hog.

by Alexis - February 14, 2011

v day recap

We went to a pretty cute girly Valentines day party. They had cookie decorating, a craft with princess and pony stickers (heaven for them), heart sandwiches which were strawberry filled and TONS of other food. I think we adults had more selection. Which brings the parents in. 🙂

This is just part of the spread. She also made this creamy soup and also of course offered tea. We adults had heart shaped sandwiches too with curried chicken inside. Yum.

The hostess:

Thank you Amy for putting on this adorable party!

Please excuse the runny nose- tis the season. These slinky’s were in the goody bag they left with. Also were candy, lollipops, play dough and more candy! I seriously think Emma thinks this holiday is ‘Candy eating Day’.

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I got a knock on my door while Emma was sleeping and it was a delivery of beautiful pink lilies! They also have a beautiful purple filler flower but have no idea what it’s called. I read the card Trav put with it and started crying. It was so sweet and I felt so loved. (sigh)

I wish for your sake there was ‘smelloblog’. Our house smells so sweet thanks to those flowers.

by Alexis - January 13, 2011

girly friends

friends. they love pink, wearing princess-y dresses and eating cheese. They like spinning, dancing and holding hands and singing ‘ring around the rosies’ (which is really messed up song) They both will sit and watch too much TV if we let them and they both like to tell their parents how things will be. Born negotiators. Will do anything to swim.

Both crazy loved by mommy and daddy. Friends since well, before birth.

Rylee and Emma 🙂 Soon to be 3 year olds (whimper and whine) Such beautiful strong willed girls you are becoming. You amaze both your parents everyday with your independence and caring.

by Alexis - November 18, 2010

Polish Restaurant in LA

We went to an amazing Polish restaurant tonight here in LA. (can’t believe I wrote that sentence!) Trav and I went with a couple that we had met here who care called to Mexico. They are super nice and passionate for the families in Mexico who have nothing. They not only build houses and provide food for the many touched by their ministry, but they reach the people’s spiritual needs more importantly.

We ranted and raved about how amazing Polish food is and as we sat down I realized that there was a chance they might not like it! They’re called to a country that eats mostly beans and rice so what would they do with stuffed cabbage and sauerkraut stew? (which is my favorite)

They gave us soup, salad, main course and dessert. Crazy good food! This is a picture of the amazing salad that I devoured- and I don’t like salad. I run away from anything that looks like close to it.

The food guy ate here! I was so impressed and happy we tried this place! (thinking of you Amy!) They also decorated wierdly. Like with a rabbit with ears…um, yeah. Hey, made me smile! It was so good to hear Polish again it actually surprised me. I practiced whatever minimal Polish I knew and was apparently understandable because she started talking to me a million miles a minute and I was like….”uh, tak?” ( “uh, yes?”) then we all laughed.

After that Travis in his all knowing wisdom answered her questions. I have a lot of Polish to learn!

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I have more pictures to upload but I’m both tired and cold. Bed time. More pictures to follow in the morning!

by Alexis - October 31, 2010October 31, 2010

Encouragement

Yesterday at church we watched a video that had missionary friends of ours. Watching them was wonderful and surprisingly emotional. I had tears in my eyes and desired to be with them and be missionaries ourselves. I can’t deny the huge pull to Poland and even though there are moments of discouragement and tiredness (and we haven’t left yet!) I have a strong conviction and excitement to move there and follow whatever God has for us there.

I think the hardest and most daunting task is learning language. It for sure seems like a HUGE mountain and that I will never get over. It doesn’t help that the laptop we have died and it had our Rosetta Stone on it. So we are reinstalling it again on our main home computer. Looking forward to that actually-learning Polish. It’s a very hard language so I’d appreciate your prayers. 🙂

by Alexis - September 25, 2010October 26, 2010

Portland Polish Festival

They were amazing. The Poles know how to bake.

Travis and AJ

This is sweet Rylee. She got a HUGE amount of apple cotton candy and loved it.

Isn’t she adorable?!

Polish pottery is famous. Isn’t it beautiful?! You know you want it. I saw a gorgeous tea pot and wanted it badly. Sad day.

It was a beautiful day. More pictures will be coming tomorrow

by Alexis - June 29, 2010

Good friends and animals

This last Saturday we were able to squeeze in some time with friends, the Newtons. It is always wonderful hanging out with them. These pictures are of last Saturday when they surprised us by taking us to the Woodland Park Zoo (Seattle)! Thank you Josh and Erin! It was so surprising and fun, we love hanging out with you both. Your little son, Jakob, is adorable and I look forward to the times he and Emma will be able to hang out just like we do together. Love you both!

* Be prepared for tons of pictures- you have been warned. Oh and click on one if you would like to see it bigger.

by Alexis - June 14, 2010

Too many beach pictures!

You have been warned…We went to the beach this last weekend. Here are some pictures. It was a fun weekend with friends, annoying whistling toys and lots of food. Took too many pictures and will now have to go through tons,and keep only a few. Hate that.

I’m busy hanging out with my sister while she’s in town, love it when she’s here.