Class Act!

Boy if I've ever known a class clown...you're lookin at it! What a character! She is entertaining the church goers after a Sunday Morning worship service. Bashful???....not a chance. She has a friend everywhere she goes and if she didn't at first she will by the time we leave.

Christmas Tree Cutting/Sledding Party

I am so thankful for good friends. We have a fun tradition of going out and getting our Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. And it's a good thing we did cause we got 3 feet of snow the next weekend and we couldn't have made up to the good tree cutting areas.

Even more portraits

Kid Portraits

More Portraits

Family Portraits

I recently talked Morgan into getting our annual family portrait taken. He despises getting pictures taken, but out of love (& fear) he consented. And here we are

Rock Climbing

What Janessa lacks in soccer skills she makes up for in creativity. And once in a while she surprises us with her physical abilities. At Angie & Junior's engagement party Janessa climbed to the top of a huge climbing wall twice. Micah hollered and was pretty much lifted up the entire way. And Alysha was lifted up about half way.

Soccer Mom

I am officially a soccer mom. Today Micah & Janessa both had their respective first games. Micah's was at 8:45am in White Salmon (25 minute drive) Janessa's was at 10:30. They couldn't be more different in their outlooks on the game of soccer. Micah tells his teammates where to go and what to do...and Janessa is just there for the social aspect. They certainly don't take after Morgan or I in any way, shape, or form... =)

Friends

We....meaning the whole family are totally stoked to have our friends Steve & Brooke visiting us. Brooke was my roomie in college & Steve was Morgan's roomie in college and now we all have kids and we have (I mean we get) to take turns with the kid duty so that we adults can play. Steve & Morgan's play involved a cave, lots of dirt, and they were WAY past their curfew!!! Then Brooke left them with our combined five kids while we went out for fancy dessert and grocery shopping...the big fat chocolate cake was what Brooke ordered...and we both worked on it but couldn't quite finish it all.

REUNION!!

I can't believe that it's been ten years since we were in college. Well we had a reunion this weekend and what a great reunion it was. Who would have thought that in ten years we could produce a whole village full of kids. The five mom's pictured here have managed to bring 14 kids into the world!

Country Livin

Living in the Country definitely has it's perks. A natural "waterslide" practically in our backyard. It's actually our friend's neighbor's backyard but we have permission to use it whenever we want...

Bike Racing

Everything is a race to Micah. We have been going for a bike ride everyday for the past week and he will be WAY ahead of Janessa & I, then he will slow down and ask me if I can go ahead of him then he will get a little behind and start speed racing to catch up and pass me. It's a great game for him except for when he does it to Janessa...the scolding from her can be heard for miles. Especially because he cuts over in front of her just centimeters in front of her front tire causing her to have to slam on her brakes and scold him for all the world to hear. Its quite the ordeal...and for the past two days we have invited our neighbor, Pam, to join us on our racing/scolding/biking excursions...so I now have a witness of what I have to deal with...

thirsty anyone?

Here fishy fishy!

Alysha's favorite animal was the fish, and the sea lions. Of couse that might have been because the cave was the coolest place so we sat in there and ate our lunch while the huge sea lions put on a show for us.

Ocelots

The Ocelots were my favorite animal. And Janessa was quite fond of them as well

Elephants

Micah said his favorite animal at the zoo was the elephants.

He was especially amazed at the size of the elephant poop! "That poop is as big as sheshe" says Micah.

Grumpy Animals

Happy Animals

A Day At The ZOO!!!

Today we got to go to the zoo. We were all so excited and as it turned out Grandma Joyce was able to come with us and bring cousin Shyrah.

busy day!!

What fun we had today...we began the day by getting to go play at our friend's Lily, Reece, & Wynsome's house. Micah and Reece rode their bikes all around on the trails around their house, Janessa & Lily played house up on a HUGE lava rock shelf, and Alysha & Wynsome played dressup, & messup. Then our friend's Rain & Niya stopped by so we played some more. Alysha was having trouble obeying so need quite a lot of discipline...Janessa also had some disrespectful attitude going on so she received her share of discipline. Then we came home, ate lunch, and Janessa was invited to play at another friend's house, then right after we picked up Janessa we saw Annika & Zach playing at their grandparent's house so we played with them until dinner...we had a VERY BUSY DAY of playing with friends. After dinner Micah played with the dog while Janessa & I cleaned out the kitty's cage and made a nice new cozy bed for them. Then if was bathtime and bed. And tomorrow we get to go to the Zoo!

Daddy why can't we have 3 Kitties???

Daddy look how sad I am...don't you think I need a kitty too? Love Alysha
(just kidding I don't even hardly touch them cause they might scratch me or lick me or something i much prefer to pick up huge garter snakes that coud bite my whole finger off)

Daddy Called!!!!

Today Daddy called us!!! We were soooo excited to hear from him in Argentina! We all got to talk to him and we laughed at the funny things he said and has seen. He told me (Janessa) that he saw a monkey that screamed at him and was yelling at him. That was at a free zoo in Corrientes! We couldn't beleive that there are zoos that don't cost any money...ours costs lots of money. We are going there though we heard mama spelling z-o-o to daddy so we wouldn't know what she was saying but Janessa figured it out so she will have to learn another language so she can tell secrets to daddy.

Sheshe the Sailor Girl

Queen SheShe!!

At the Peck's b-day we got to go to the lake and go out in the boat by ourselves. The grownups had a rope tied to it so they could pull us in. all i (alysha) need is my servant to fan me with a palm branch and feed me grapes as they are rowing me around the lake.

Janessa's Island Adventure

We had such a great at the Peck's birthday party!!!! We got to go out to the island you see in the picture on the left. And we got to fish, kyak, and pretend we were discovering a new land...it was great fun, the only thing we were missing was daddy! We couldn't catch any fish...I can't imagine why...we only had 11 kids fishing with our uncle Mark's "shock-n-awe" technique, and throwing rocks in the water, and throwing themselves in the water. Maybe next time

Celebrating!!!

Today we celebrated! Mama finished all the t-shirt orders that she has been working on all week so we went on a bike ride and to the coffee shop and then we got to go to a birthday party at our friend's the Peck's house. i (micah) got a little to close to the t-ball & bat when my friend was swinging and i got a bat right in my eye socket. i only cried a little and i got a nice little shiner to show for it. then i got to go for a boat ride on the lake, and fish there too. i didn't hook too many people but i did catch the bushes quite a few times. no fish this time though. at the end i did make it over to the island (the water wasn't even over our heads that we were boating in) so i decided to follow what everyone else was doing an walk back from the island but i fell in and thought i was getting swept out to sea so i stood right were i was screaming for my mama to save me and she had to wade out in here jeans to rescue me.

Today's Events

Not a hugely exciting day...I made about 125 t-shirts today! The kids played fairly well together. The most excitement we can report today was the bike ride to Jonah Minstries to deliver some of the t-shirts and ate watermelon and returned home via bikes in the hottest part of the day! The breeze made it bearable though. Oh and the kids got to go to Robin's house (A very nice lady in our church) and Janessa saw crawdads in the creek and some rock creature that she insists daddy told her about but she had never had the pleasure of spotting until this very night!!! AND Micah VOLUNTARILY pulled himself away from the much loved and coveted video game (after only 20 minutes) that he LOVES to play whenever he goes to Robin's house...he was obeying my request that he not play the video game the entire time he is at their house. I got to go grocery shopping without a million and one questions, comments, and fights. And Hood River now sports a Pizzicato...which I treated myself to as payment for all my hard work of grocery shopping, doing the laundry, etc...

Janessa's Kindergarten Graduation

Kittens

Well we have finally entered the world of having kittens. Janessa got her first kitten about 3 weeks ago and the next week we got Micah a kitten because he was so gentle and kind with Janessa's kitten. Janessa named her kitten Rosie Cuddly Colburn and Micah named his Teddy Climber Colburn. It has been quite fun for the kids to have these furry pets. They are actually taking the place of

all the reptiles that we decided to put a stop to the kids catching as they were littering up the porch (after they died) and stinking up the containers that they were housed in.

Today is the first day our daddy has been gone to Argentina. Everytime we hear an airplane we say is that the one daddy is on? We had fun playing with the new toys daddy got us today. We only had fights about them once in a while and tonight we had a fun time playing bingo (Janessa's new toy) Oh and we got to go to John & Michael's house. They are our neighbors who live in the Snyder's house and they have been gone for 3 and a half weeks. It was great fun.

Look at my HUGE fish!

Alysha & Mom but mostly mom caught this whopper at the annual fishing derby that I had to take all three kids to by myself. Thankfully, my wonderful husband who was away rafting on the Snake River arranged for one if the High School guys (Tim) to help Micah and he was a HUGE help. And one of the high school girls in my accountability group (Anna) was there as a volunteer and she kindly offered to be Janessa's very own personal volunteer so that only left Alysha for me to try to catch a fish for and this is what we managed to land!!!

Why is it that everyday we have an issue about what Alysha wants to wear? I thought that didn't happen until Junior High or High School. She insists on wearing a "stirt" (skirt) every single day of the year...and no matter how much I dicipline her for throwing a fit about it...she does it again the next day.

Well Janess is now riding her bike without training wheels...it was a bit tough for her to watch (from the bike trailer) her younger brother riding over two miles to the school and back. Micah has been giving her all the tips he knows about bikes & riding. So when she finally learned...he was just as excited about it as she was. Now Alysha thinks she is going to learn...but her petite little legs don't even come close to the pedals.

Micah loves track meets...since everything in the world is a race to him. He sees the world and people in terms of who he can run (0r bike) faster than, or who is faster than him...there aren't many who are faster than him...however losing is not his strong point...I'm not sure where he learned that from...it certainly wasn't from me!

Micah: mom, what color is my tongue?
Mom: pink
Micah: can I see what color your tongue is?
Mom: sure...see...ahhhh
Micah: did God make our tongues or did people make them?
Mom: God made our tongues
Micah: well why did he make my tongue pink...he should have made boys have blue tongues and girls have pink tongues
Mom: I don't know, MIcah, maybe we should ask him when we get to heaven.

One of my goals for my kids was to teach Janessa to ride her bike (without training wheels) this year...well 3 days ago, Micah taught himself to ride without training wheels he is very proud of himself and is giving me frequent heartattacks. Camocauzi doesn't even begin to describe Micah's bike riding, he just learned, he's four years old, and he barely ever uses the brakes, and already he goes to the top of our driveway and just flies down but he never complains even when he crashes multiple times in one sitting.

micah's message

micah here, i can’t write much cause i gotta go race around the house and try to beat my fastest time (17 seconds), then i have to race my bike down the neighbor’s hill (Jimmy & Pam’s cause it’s steeper than ours), then i need to jump off the porch or the furniture (depending on if my mom remembers that i’m not allowed to). so some of the things i’ve been doing since you last heard from me, riding my bike, playing with my new neighbors john and michael (they have cool toys), climbing on daddy (everytime i see him i have to climb on him or tackle him, or wrestle him) and sometimes i get lucky and he throws me on the bed or tickles me), finding bugs with janessa, playing with my cars, asking what we are going to do next that is fun, and then after that what are we doing to do fun (i love to have fun) but lately i’ve been getting in trouble for always asking what we are going to do fun next cause my parents say i’m not being grateful for the fun things i am currently doing. oh yeah and i’m not three any more i am four now and next year i’ll be five. but i don’t get to go to school yet cause i won’t be five until after school has started…but i already get to ride a bus to Awana. i am in awana cubbies and we play games and learn verses and color and hear bible stories. i’m getting better at coloring (i don’t scribble everything blue) like my friend Justin. he colors in the lines. but i am almost the fastest when we have races. there is only one boy who is faster than me and that is the grey shirt guy. awana is almost done this year and next year i get to be in sparkies with janessa and alysha will be in cubbies. I have starred in 3 plays so far and 2 out of 3 I totally fell apart on stage because the first one, someone was supposed to pass me the bread and they skipped me and I just huffed my mouth and crossed my arms and pouted and cried the whole rest of the performance. the injustice of such a thing happening to me was too much for me…the second play was at Christmas and I had practiced and knew all the songs and verses by heart and I was so excited to redeem myself after my previous catastrophe as an actor. but no body informed me that we had to wear these choir shawl thingys. I mean, can you believe, they wanted me, a boy, to wear a robe, shawl thing!!! I was horrified at the mere thought of it…so I pouted through the entire performance once again. but this time, Easter Sunday, I finally made my big debut without a single frown. you see I got to be a soldier in this play and not only that but I was a soldier with three of my good friends and i got to carry a sword around...it was great! well i better get to runnin’ track season is in full swing and i need to practice so i can race everyone and win. did i mention i love to race…losing i’m not so good at but winning i can handle.

from Janessa

(if you got our mass emailing this will be a repeat)

Hi this is Janessa Colburn, I am six now and I go to kindergarten. I love my teacher Miss Wroe. She teaches me all kinds of new and fun projects and we get to do crafts and color a lot which I love, and we are doing math now and learning Spanish and I love those too. There is only one other girl in my class and seven boys. But we all have lots of fun learning to read, write, and doing math. I also love Awana and Sunday School! I love to sing and we even learned a jewish dance for the Easter play I LOVE catching bugs and worms, and snakes, and lizards. And when I’m not catching them I am arranging the containers for when I do catch one. I have a hard time when they die though. I get pretty attached to them. This week Alysha found a frog and she “gave” it to me (well actually I begged and pleaded and manipulated her until she consented to calling it mine) but when I was trying to “fix up” it’s cage I thought I’d give it a warm water bath and I accidentally cooked it in the warm water. That was pretty traumatic for me since I didn’t know that it wouldn’t like my warm water and I didn’t know that I would kill it. I cried for a good hour over that precious little frog. But today Alysha found my snake that my friend Annika had caught and given to me, but it had gotten out of it’s cage somehow. So I’m happy again cause at least I have one critter. I also LOVE to do crafts. I’m not sure how catching bugs and critters has anything to do with crafts but I love them both. Every day I ask my mom what kind of craft I can do. she-she (Alysha) is into crafts too but she’s still to little to use my box of scrapbooking stuff cause she will ruin everything, just everything! I love to play with Micah and Alysha as long as they play what I want to play and how I want to play it. Sometimes I do what my parents are trying to teach me to do and I try to be kind and use kind words with them, but it’s soooo hard. I also love hearing “REAL” stories that my dad tells us at bedtime. Instead of reading fiction books to us at bedtime he has started telling us stories about him and his brother and his parents growing up. And even some stories from college, and stories that he knows about mommy too…we all love it Especially the story about Uncle Mark getting fouled at the end of an important basketball game and shooting two free throws to win the game. We even have motions to that one. Alysha is the puppet that daddy moves as he is telling the story and it is sooooo funny. Pretty much everything we do with daddy is funny, unless we need discipline L. Well, I have to go now because there are a lot of bugs outside right now that I need to find and catch to feed to my snake (gardener snake).

Potty Training

I despise potty training more than I can express with words. Alysha "decided" that she was ready but half of her potty training experience has been me cleaning up the brown excrement that she drops on the floor out of her pull-up as she is attempting to get on the toilet to put it in there, wiping it on and off the toilet as she slides her rear across it to get on and across it to get off. And then she attempts to "clean it up" herself. UGH!!! Disgusting! Oh and did I mention that I also despise the smell of urine? Janessa and Micah were easy, to potty train...I mean one day of accidents tops...but this is just too much! I need a raise!

Janessa: my favorite thing about going to Grandma & Grandpa's house is their worms!!! They have huge worms! Grandpa caught one for me that was 16" long! And mama and I let them go in our raspberry patch cause we don't have any worms in our dirt and we need some.

Say Cheese

yes you do have to have more pictures and you have to like it. now say cheese.

kids: (unenthusiastically) cheeeeeeeeeeese

Do we HAVE to have our pictures taken?

a la naturale. mom do we have to take more pictures?

morning hair

morning hair...it was a wild night for she-she.

get with the times

so after reading some friends from multmonah's blog's I decided I need to get with the times and get one myself. Especially after laughing so hard I cried when I read Mike and Steve's blogs...and Beth agreed with me that I needed to get with the times...I didn't want to be left out....so here goes nothin