The Breakfast

I have so much blogging to do and so little time!!  Instead of trying to keep things in chronological order, I'm just going to start posting and although things will be a bit out of order, hopefully I will be able to do all the excitement in our lives justice here on the blog.  I'm starting with a huge fundraising event at work.  When we returned from our European Adventure, I realized that nothing had really been done in my 3 month absence at work to get things ready for the upcoming fundraiser.  Another staff member, a board member and myself basically pulled the entire thing together in about 9 days.
We had a few last minute successes and fiascos.  Literally, just a few days before the event we had a vendor step up and donate all of the place settings, napkins, and linens.  This would have cost close to $1500.  It was such a relief... until we went to pick the things up the less than 12 hours before the event and they tell us that because this kind of donation is unprecedented that they couldn't give us our requested "all white" assortment but instead they had to give us all of their old stuff.  This meant black table linens, black and white plates, and red napkins.  Hmmmm, the donation didn't sound so good now, but we made the most of it (ditching the red napkins) and the table setting actually turned out really nice.  Free is always really nice.  The centerpieces ended up being all of our collective mason jars and the sugar packet holders were all of our smaller canning jars.  Same with serving spoons. It is amazing what you get when you pool the goods from just a few houses.
Another big success was having the event at our friends, James B. and Renee's Church/Coffee Shop/Event Venue.  The venue triples as all three and does a fabulous job in all three areas.  http://www.unionchurchseattle.org/,  http://kakaoseattle.com/, http://www.415westlake.com/  They are really good friends of ours as well as the couple who married us.  They couldn't have been more helpful for supportive.
Marty, who is on the OSL board was roped in to be the MC and did a fantastic job.

 The food was really yummy.  Fresh fruit and mascarpone crepes, Mini Three Cheese Breakfast Quiche,
Chocolate Crunch Banana Muffins, Irish Potato & Egg Casserole, Fresh Fruit Tarts, Fresh Cut Fruit and
Lemon Scones.  All prepared by the OSL staff.

Although it was an exhausting 9 or so days (especially directly on the heels of our trip and recovering from jet lag) it was all worth it in the end... even the all-nighter the night before... which is saying a lot coming from me.  We had about 180 people in attendance and we were able to raise nearly $30,000 dollars to help the hungry in our community.
Here is a video that was part of the event program.  http://vimeo.com/40624506
It was shot and produced  by a friend of ours, Jesse Michener.  She also took amazing  family photos last spring.
Coming up (in no particular order) Benjamin's Birthday, Franziska's Arrival, Josie riding her bike without training wheels, a trip to the Tulip Festival... and of course our Europe trip.

We're Leaving on a Jet Plane

Our bags are packed, we're ready to go.... 

Tomorrow we leave for Europe for 2.5 weeks.  2 weeks in Germany and 4 days in Paris.    If you have even a twinge of jealousy just imagine us, all 4 us, and 3 seats on a 10 hour flight to Paris and then a 2 hour layover and then another 2 hour flight to Berlin.  That might help :)  

I don't know if I'll be able to blog from there... but you never know.  

Friends

 We've been having a lot of fun with our friends lately.  Thankfully, most of Josie's friends have younger siblings so it makes a nice double play date for the kids and the moms.
A couple weeks ago we went over to Josie's friend Will's house.  He has a younger brother named Charlie who will be in Benjamin's co-op class next year.  Here the 4 kids are playing "rocket ship" inside Will's closet.

We met my friend Molly and her kids Dawson (2 weeks older than Josie) Reagan and Gavin (2 weeks younger than Benjamin) at the Sculpture Park.  When we got there it was snowing.  Thankfully, the indoor pavilion was a great place to play and kept the kids entertain so Molly and I could talk and catch up. 

A quick pic of Josie's building structure before Benjamin, AKA "Godzilla" knocks it down. 

The crazy spring like weather... snowing when we arrived and sunny when we left.  Crazy!

 Josie's best friend, Bryn, also has Fridays off with no school.  The past few weeks they have been having fun play dates together.  Thankfully Benjamin is napping for most of the time Bryn is over otherwise I can only imagine Josie's frustration at her little brother who loves to destroy anything Josie sets up... like this little tea party.

 Last week the sun was out and the girls thought that it was summer time.  They brought their chairs outside and wanted to enjoy popsicles in the sun.

Preschool Days

 Benjamin has been loving his co-op preschool class.  He only goes one day a week but is very excited to say good bye to big sister and Daddy and take off in the car to his very own preschool class.  He has made some good friends... or should I say, I've made some good friends and we both have a great couple of hours playing, talking and learning.

Spring 2012

Every year we determine when Spring starts roughly by when our daffodils open up.  This year it was on March 11th... or at least that is when this photo was taken.  The weather has been far from "spring-like" however.  Just about daily since this photo was taken we've had some mixture of the following: sun, rain, wind, hail, snow, sleet, fog.... hmmm, think that is about it.  We are waiting rather impatiently for warm sunshine to fill our days.

On March 7th you can see them just starting to open up and then a few days later they are in full bloom.  A fun tradition to take family photos in front of the flowers.  Every year they open at different times. Here is a look back to our previous spring photos. It's interesting to look back and see when the daffodils bloom each year.  Also, I'm sad that I tried to hide my pregnant belly in the 2010 photos, although tired of it at the time it would be fun to see it now.  I remember not getting around to taking the photos last year as it was just around the same time Benjamin had his first trip to the emergency room.  Thank God he has been seizure free since then!!

Priceless

 

We were at Home Depot once again... actually I think it was Lowe's.  Same difference really.  The paint and other supplies were expensive.  The other two cuties in the cart, PRICELESS!!  

ALKI

Last weekend we spent some quality time down at Alki.  It doesn't need to be sunny and summer time for us to have a good time there.  It was quite windy and a bit cold but we had fun at the whale tail park first, then to the beach and our final stop, as usual, was to Pegasus to meet friends for pizza.

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The video depicts a daily scene  in our house.  Josie builds things, then screams wildly for one of us to take a photo or video... anything to capture her work of art and then yells for Benjamin to knock it down.  That kids loves to knock things down!

And then off to the beach. It was a beautiful winter day, perfect for throwing rocks into the water and digging in the cool, wet sand. 

For Marty's birthday I had bought him a commemorative brick that would support the parks around Alki.  We all had fun trying to find our brick. In the end Marty ended up finding it.