Losing it!

So, we've been losing things in the Lochhead household.  I don't know why this surprises me--we're pretty NUTSO at this house.  One day last week we were even more nutso than usual...it was a day I decided to use a gift card someone had given me, and when checking out at the cash register, I couldn't find it.  I was SICK! Not just sick about losing the gift card:  I rubber-band all of my gift cards together in my purse, and the WHOLE STACK was gone.  I didn't panic at first, I just thought through the places I'd look to find them:  the car, the kids' toy box (it happens), the cupboard in the kitchen...  I prayed that God would help me find them--if he cared about a lost coin, I figure He cares about the small things in my life.  :)

Going on simultaneously, I had been using the extra set of keys for the van, because our others were misplaced.  Every time I'd needed them we were in a hurry, so I'd been using the extras for a few days.  I kept having great intentions to search all of my coat pockets and clean out my purse, but alas, it never became a priority--after all, the spares worked just fine.  

This all sets the stage for the next scene:  I am realizing it's time to get the hungry herd fed, so I open the fridge (how every good meal starts!) and start scanning for potential dinner inspiration.  But instead of inspiration, I found humor:

 Don't see it yet?  Look closely at the fruit drawer...

...VAN KEYS!!!  A very logical spot for a toddler to put these after he makes the van "honk" by locking it through the house/garage walls.  [Insert 2-year old maniacal laugh here.]

What cracked me up even more, is that I could almost hear God telling me:  See, you didn't even KNOW these were lost and I helped you find them.  Trust me with the gift cards.  :)

And the happy ending/misplaced goods MIRACLE concludes when I find the gift cards in my purse drawer at school.  I was on the phone with a parent when I found them and ended up telling them the whole story, I was so relieved.  :)  Ahhh, sometimes it takes losing it to remind you you never had it to begin with.  :)  Control is so hard to give up...

BTW:  My mother has amazing stories about finding desperately lost belongings--with God's help.  She found her WEDDING RING in the last scoop of junk being filtered out of the burn barrel...and found Grandma's bracelet while working in her garden...

Us, these days...

These days... Josh has been practicing taking off his own diaper.

This is a fun shot--the not-so-fun shot would've been taken of his crib this morning when Jeff found that he'd taken off a POOPY diaper.

 These days...the kids have been playing more and more dress-up.

These are the Mickey/Minnie hats that our friend, Emma, had at her birthday party.  I try putting them on stuffed animals for the kids to find in the morning and they quickly snatch them off as soon as they spot them.

These days...Grace's favorite game is "put this up so Joshy can't get it."

This little pouch is filled with Gracie treasures.  I find them stashed up on counters and desks "where Joshy can't reach."

These days...we're fighting colds and taking medicine, fighting siblings and hugging it out, fighting to be big kids and snuggling with mom and dad.  We love these days.

Colton Comes to Spokane

The Colton Girls Basketball Team won the State Championship--for the FOURTH year in a row--last Saturday, here in Spokane.  I am constantly asked if I'm related to the Mosers on the team--by sports' page reading friends here in Spokane--and the answer is yes.  Fifth cousins, once removed?  Ha!  Something like that.  Chances are, if their last name is Moser, Weber, or Druffel, we're related somehow.

We were really excited to see the team come to Spokane, because it also brought the whole town of Colton to see...US!  :)  We were so excited to eat dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory with my Aunt Sheyanna and Aunt Diane & Uncle Tom--and then we even took the kids to see the semi-final game on Friday night.  We weren't sure how the kids would handle the game in the Arena, but they did great!  We had so much fun, that the next night we called a babysitter and made it to the final game at 9pm.  It was so fun to see so many familiar faces from Colton--and so fun to watch this team play.  They really are amazing--a deep roster of talent!

Happy 5th Birthday, Janers!

Cousin Janie turned FIVE on March 5th--her golden birthday!  This year she had a Wonder Woman birthday party at Jump and Bounce in the Valley--it was so fun!

Jumping...bouncing...climbing...sliding...throwing BALLS...

(Joshy knows that we just throw BALLS, not anything else...)

 ...it really was a kid's haven.  Jeff enjoyed it, too.  :)

 Look at all of Janie's friends!  We all had such a great time celebrating this sweet 5-year old!  How did FIVE happen, by the way?  Time is going by much faster than I care for it to move...

Thanks for the pictures, Jen!  I'm going to tie the camera to my hip so I don't forget it next time!

They're Home!

After 3 weeks in the hospital, Baby Oden and his parents are home!  We hear that during the last days of his stay at the hospital, Oden started eating more and more on his own, and all of a sudden he didn't need the feeding tube anymore!  Gracie, and the rest of the Lochheads, are very excited that God answered our prayer that Oden would grow big and strong!  

So now this sweet little family is home.  And I'm sure no one is happier about it than...SWEDE!

This picture of Oden's family was taken a week ago when Scott and Colleen got to go visit--and take pictures on our behalf.  (BTW, Oden--150 pictures with G'ma Colleen is just a warm-up for pictures with Auntie LE, you know...we'll come see you sometime soon!)

Love you, Lochhead Family!

Party for Baby Moser

We are getting so excited for Ben and Kelly's baby to arrive!  Less than a month away...

 On February 26, we threw a shower for Kelly and the little baby girl that will be joining our family soon. Kelly had MANY helpers and was so patient with them...

 We had so many people come--aunts and cousins, grandmas and neighbors--and Kelly went home with a load of baby stuff!

 Aunt Diane made me a birthday scarf--and with the leftover yarn she made Gracie a matching scarf!

Josh was grateful to have his cousin Conner as a buddy at the shower...I didn't tell him that there would be few boys at the party...

Ellie's Birthday Week!

We celebrate birthdays for a whole week in this household.

This was my week to be spoiled.  Jeff was the biggest spoiler--giving me a present each day of the week leading up to my birthday on the 27th.  Gifts ranging from an old Elizabethtown movie poster to a new purse...I was REALLY spoiled.  On Friday after work we headed to the farm to see my family.

 Brownies was the requested dessert this year...and I had lots of assistance with opening gifts.

I had to snap this matchey-matchey picture of  Mom and Dad, all decked out for the WSU game...which we won't talk about the outcome of...

We threw a baby shower for Kelly on Sunday, and after, we ran back to Spokane to celebrate with the Lochheads.  More spoiling here...a birdbath, dinner gift certificate, dead mouse from Harvey...ha!

 And then on my actual birthday, we got to see Heidi and Kai for lunch and then Jeff surprised me with dinner with the whole Van Sickle family at Fat Daddy's that night!  The kids and I also celebrated with a special snack after naps:  kiwi fruit!  They'd never had it before...  De...

 ...stinkin'...

...licious!  I also received all kinds of notes, cards, phone calls and texts!  Thanks for all the love, everyone!  What a great birthday week to remind me how much I am loved--and blessed.

More Josh-isms...

Two of Josh's favorite pastimes:  stealing Dad's hat and pretending to be "Da-da!" and ripping Toy Story stickers out of his sticker book. Quite often he rips them in half:  "Uh, oh!" he says as he brings them to me to "fix."  We are finding curled up Buzzes and Lotsos without "stick" all around our house.

Where's Waldo?

We had a hard time finding our children on the night they decided to fairly evenly distribute their blocks around the ENTIRE living room.  Thanks for the blocks, Daniel!  :)

Oden's Weekend of Arrival

We won't soon forget "the weekend we waited for Oden."  :)  We heard that Annie was close to having him on Friday and we "quick!" put a plan together to be there to meet him.  Gracie and Josh were thrilled to get to go to the farm for the weekend--so when Jeff got home at noon, we loaded everyone up and met G'ma Joan in Colfax.  She was quite the trooper--she and Papa had just gotten back from a week in AZ visiting friends!  But, no problem, they were delighted to spoil their grandkids for a whole weekend without Mom and Dad around...  (Pictures to come--they ended up having a GRAND time--Abby's basketball game, playing at the Morrow's house, visiting G'ma Trudy and Papa LeRoy, and feeding kitties and getting to see Aristocats for the first time!)

Here we are, the White-Tag Crew.  Oden decided that he'd take his own sweet time in arriving.  So, we snuggled into Drew and Annie's hospital room off-and-on, throughout the weekend.  Scott and Colleen drove over as well, and Martha and Slick and Twinkles helped keep vigil.  Highlights of the waiting time included catching glimpses of Arrested Development Season Two(?), keeping track of nurses on duty, seeing what treats Colleen and Linda brought, and watching Annie's "mountain range" of contractions on the monitor.

So with Annie and Drew waiting patiently at the hospital for their son to arrive, we felt that it was our duty to go experience Portland for them.  :)  They directed us to Por Que No?--a Mexican restaurant that will live in infamy forever in our lives.  I am quite serious.  The best guacamole and margaritas reside here.  We should've gone TWICE.  But we DID go to Powell's twice...and we got to spend the better part of Saturday with my cousin, Megan, who is working on her Masters in Architecture at the University of Oregon in Portland.  She has a great apartment that we got to see...we ate at Henry's...and she showed us the finer places in Portland that she frequents...  So fun to spend time with you, Megan!!!

So on Monday, just when we were trying to prepare ourselves that we might have to go home without meeting our little niece or nephew, Oden decided to make his grand entrance!  At 12:28, while putting a puzzle together in the waiting room, we got a text from Drew giving us our first glimpses of little Oden Thomas.  We were thrilled at how big he was--5 lbs, 11oz!--and couldn't believe the strawberry blond hair that he was sporting!  He is a little champ--arriving so early, yet breathing on his own, and within a day he was regulating his own temperature.  We're pretty sure he's gifted from the very start!

After we got to see Oden in the ICU and give Annie a high-five, (did Jeff give Drew a "good-game" butt slap?  I forget.  He should have if he didn't...) we high-tailed it to the farm to pick up our sweet rug rats.  It was late, so Jeff took Tuesday off of work and we spent the night at the farm.

Gracie and Josh are very excited to meet Cousin Oden...but we're going to wait until he's a little bit bigger to be certain he can hold his own in this hurricane of love.  :)

We love you, Drew, Annie, and Oden!  Thanks for letting us be part of your special weekend.  This boy is precious!  Well worth the wait.