Saturday, January 31, 2015

Daddy Daughter Fun

These two boys got to have a movie night with Mom, while...

...Gracie and Daddy went to a Daddy/Daughter Dance at Mead High School!


Daddy took her to Twigs for dessert before they went to the dance, where girls frolicked and giggled, danced a bit with their crazy daddies, and then ran around the gym while the dads watched the basketball game which was being projected on the side wall.

And a couple of weeks later, my day was made when Gracie brought home these darling dance pictures!

Friday, January 30, 2015

Mental Health Day on Mt. Spokane




Jeff had a semester break day at the end of January and spent it going snowshoeing on Mt. Spokane!  These were the pictures he kept sending me throughout the day.  A great mental-health day:  fresh air, endorphins, and time to think about anything and everything!

And that night Chicken Little was busy helping with the dishes again...

...and we had a family movie night.  Freshly-aired (and exhausted) Daddy only lasted ten minutes.  :)

And I have to include a similar picture that was taken just fourteen months earlier:

Ahhh...time is flying by WAY. TOO. FAST.

Weekend Homework

Lose that tooth!  (although losing it at school earns her a cute little bring-home container...decisions, decisions!)  Six year-old dilemmas...

I DO have to say that she eventually lost it ON THE 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL, WHEN they were reading a book about tooth-losing traditions from children around the world.  It could NOT have been a better day.  She came home with a cute little tooth treasure box, about the size of your pinky, and was so excited to leave her tooth for the fairy.

The next morning, Joshy came into my bathroom right at wake-up time to deliver "some sad news."  The tooth fairy had forgotten to come, and Gracie was so sad!!!  Well I, too, felt extremely saddened by this news.  I immediately texted Daddy to see what he thought happened.  He suggested we look behind the dresser in case the Tooth Fairy left a dollar bill and maybe the fan blew it off the dresser in the middle of the night.  Although that didn't explain why the tooth was still there, Gracie went to look and DID, in fact, find a dollar bill peeking out from behind the dresser.  When we questioned the presence of the tooth, Daddy told Gracie about the "Lucky #7" tooth.  Apparently when kids lose their 7th tooth, the Tooth Fairy visits them for SEVEN NIGHTS IN A ROW (many times leaving little monetary gifts) until he/she takes the tooth after the 7th night's visit.  Well, this was news to all of us!  Josh, with all of his baby teeth still holding on strong, couldn't help being a little jealous about this attention.  But once he learned that Tooth Fairy dust left in the room helped loosen teeth, he started sucking that bedroom air in, and sure enough, his teeth seemed a little more wiggly after that.

It was a very memorable experience at the Lochhead house.  Lucky Tooth #7 will be remembered for a LONG TIME...

Monday, January 26, 2015

Candlelight Dinner

My first week of the lighter work schedule--from M-W to Th-Fri, yeah!--we decided to have our carpets cleaned.  So one night our furniture was all cramped in the kitchen, Jeff had something that he had to stay late at work for, and Micah had gone to bed early.  The biggers and I decided to have a candlelight dinner amidst the crazy arrangement of furniture...


Saturday, January 24, 2015

The RV Show--Family Entertainment, Lochhead Style



Good, clean, family fun!  I had my doubts, but the RV Show turned out to be a very fun outing in January.  Our "biggers" kept running from one trailer to the next, calling dibs on the bunks and seeing which ones had the best showers.  Oh, and we found out which booths gave dum-dums and hard candy. :)  It was also nice to see Jeff's friend, Chris, who works at the show...

Friday, January 23, 2015

Winter Fish

The winter months are so blaaaah, when it comes to doing anything active...so we decided to have Josh and Grace take winter swim lessons from the Y during the month of January.  Two days a week the kids had lessons at the same time, at opposite ends of the pool--one day I took them, and another day G'ma Colleen and Jeff took them.  It was dreamy...

...at least for our fish!  :)  When I went, Micah spent an hour in the stroller going through his gourmet snack trap while I kept busy picking up what he dropped and seeing how long I could keep him happy in the stroller.  And yes, I'm aware that the Y has childcare, but seeing as Micah scream-cries for ten solid minutes before the sweet childcare workers come to get me, I found that we were all better off avoiding that stress.  :)  But we did try several times... 



January went so well--both kids mastered everything in their classes and moved up to the next classes!--that we decided to sign up for February lessons, too.  February got trickier, though, with lessons at different times--4:40 and 5:20--and a one year-old that was getting tired of the "watch brother and sister swim" routine.  Oh, and both lessons were on my days off now, so I got to take them both times.  I quickly decided that we may have peaked in January...


But in February both kids had the same teacher, Evan, and continued to grow as fish.  Gracie's class started meeting in the lap pool, which made her grow up way too fast in my eyes, and Joshy's class met in the deep end of the pool.  They loved their lessons, and after our first week off in March, they were asking why we hadn't been to the Y to swim "in ages!"

Such great exercise!  Tired fish are good fish, right?  It was good two month run.

(And truth be told, I"m blogging this in April and we haven't been since then!
Eek!  I say we make a lovely Y "donation" each month! )

Thursday, January 22, 2015

3 Kid Accomplishments in 1 Day

 1.  Plates can play peek-a-boo.

2. "iTV" cards can be found.

3.  Lists can be made for the day. (Notice how Grace edited my "To Do" list to become her "Today" list...my other favorite is "usleep")

Monday, January 19, 2015

A New Car Shell...for a Cute Little Hermit Crab

              ...........Micah's 2nd day...........                                     ..............Micah's 423rd day.............
                                  10 lbs.                                                                               25 lbs.

After doing a little growing, our backs decided that Micah was ready for the big boy car seat...

He loves the new view!

Sunday, January 18, 2015

Our Seahawks Season

We had a miracle playoff game, winning in the last play of the game...taking our Seahawks team to the Superbowl.  It was a miraculous comeback and we were all thrilled, here at the Lochhead house.  Our growth group was here with us, and we watched the game and ate wings and wings and wings!




(Kai slipped over for a little time with us while his family watched Harry Potter that night...)

And then the heartbreaking Superbowl...the comeback that almost was.  We should have ran in that last yard in the last play of the game, but an interception broke our hearts, and that's all we're going to say about that.

Megan's Flipfest 2015

Gracie and I got to experience a new sport on January 18.  Gymnastics came to town, and with it, our amazing Megan.  Grace and I spent the Sunday with Katie and the family watching four events from bleachers:  bars, beam, floor, and vault.  Megan scored NINES on all four events...








...placing her as FIRST in this regional competition!  She was amazing.

Her team scored first overall!

And now we know all about gymnastics raffle tickets, judges scoring, and "Gymnasts, salute!"s.  We're ready for the next one, Megs!

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Fishing at the Farm

Over the 3-day MLK Jr. weekend, Jeff and Matt went fishing for Steelhead on the river and the kids and I vegged at the farm.  Movies, naps, good food...  Unfortunately it was just an overnight, as we had Katie and Megan coming up on Sunday for her gymnastics outing.  Next visit will be longer!



And this picture looks like an identical picture taken in 1983...Micah and Uncle Ben are lookalikes!  I really am going to get Ben's baby book out next time I'm home...he used to stand in this rocker AND he has the same face!  And here I thought all of my kids looked like Jeff...

Friday, January 16, 2015

We laugh a lot...

...and pick up a lot...


...these days.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Saturday, January 10, 2015

Stage 4 Klinger

He is SOOOO darling.  And he loves his MAMA!!!  Over Christmas break he especially honed his affection for me, not letting me get too far away without him.  Someday this kid will be in college and he'll only call Jeff...so I'm choosing to treasure these clingy days...





Getting Into the Presents!

Thank you, Auntie Debbie, for the California sand!  It was an awesome Christmas gift that stayed put away until the Christmas crazies had died down and Mommy had gathered up enough patience to have sand in her kitchen.

They loved it.  I took a Valium.  And then swept sand for a while.  :)  Thanks, Auntie!

And Debbie's mom, Yancey, has started sending the kids packages...this latest included CALENDARS that the kids spent two days coloring for their rooms...


Is he bleeding?

Nope--just playing "Where's Micah?" with his huckleberry pancake plate.  Sometimes you just have to BEG for a bath around here...