Happy Harkers

Our winter activities in Pasco included some 4-wheeling snowboarding....






Fun times playing with cute-as-a-button Eliza...


New Christmas jammies....

Puzzles....

Food....

Fun hairdos....

New toys....

Walks in the snow....

Giant snowball fights....

Cccccold weather.....

Staying bundled up.....

Time together.....


And we just enjoyed being with everyone!!

Can you guess who took this picture? I'll give you a hint....it was someone who is not as tall as us....

It was Jayden! Second time's a charm!

Cole with baby Eliza

Ethan thrilled to death over his new slippers

Cute Cole with his new slippers from Grandma

Sabrina's new dress and baby doll wearing a matching outfit


What a wonderful Christmas we had! We are so grateful for all of our family and the fun times we spent with all of them! We love you all!

Christmas 2008 with the Harkers

Nick was very excited on Christmas morning....and if you know him well, you know the very first thing he was on the phone!


Deb is excited to open presents soon!


Posing in our Christmas PJ's (for those faithful blog readers, you may have noticed that these are the same as last year's pj's)




Christmas breakfast....what a spread!


Christmas morning before Bruce woke up, we took out all of the gifts that Santa left for him in his stocking. We replaced it with a little bag that said "You've been naughty" and had 2 lumps of coal in it. Hehe


Deb got Bruce a really nice picture of "The Amazing 7" cowboys (I think it's amazing...maybe fantastic?) to go in his western themed office. He loved it!

I need to explain the story behind this next picture. About a year ago we got serious about taking multi-vitamins every day. Nick started doing more research, and pretty soon we were taking about 5 different pills (fish oil, flaxseed oil, vitamin E....). Normally he would get them out each day for us to take, and so pretty soon he began begging me for a pill box. My first reaction was "NO WAY! We are NOT old enough to need a PILL BOX!!". However, more often than not we would forget to take them, and I realized what a pain it was to get all of the different bottles out. So when I got Nick a pill box for a Christmas gift, he was very excited. :)


Me checking out the awesome cook/craft book from Debbie. We recieved many other fun gifts from Bruce and Deb and each other including a pedicure kit, wheat grinder, clothes, jewelry, tools, martial arts classes, date night coupon, and other fun things! Thanks to Mom and Dad Harker for having us over for a fantastic Christmas 2008! :)

Winter 2008

Our winter in Spokane, WA was definitely an eventful one. After receiving a record-breaking snowfall in a 24 hour period (2 feet) we continued to get nearly 7 feet total in just the month of December. Memories include: fun times getting to work in the mornings, playing "Where's Waldo" with Nick's car, shoveling several times daily, and enjoying negative temperatures. I can't wait to move to Wisconsin for some REAL winters! (if only you could hear the sarcasm...)




When we weren't dealing with all of the snow, we baked 5 different kinds of goodies that I could share with everyone I work with. One of our fun creations included these "stained glass window" sugar cookies. They are fun to make, taste great and are so pretty! Once you have your sugar cookie shapes cut out, you use a knife to cut out another design in the middle of the cookie. After baking them like normal for a few minutes, you take them out when they have about 2 minutes left to bake. Sprinkle crushed up hard candy in the middle (we used jolly ranchers) and put back in the oven for the last 2 minutes. This will melt the candy, and then you just let them cool. So cute!

It's been awhile....

So I have lots of "catch up" to play with all of the pictures I have from the past few months. I haven't been exceptionally busy or anything, I just keep putting it off. I'll be honest, it's more fun for me to see everyone else's blogs rather than add to my own. Things have been going well for us, and we are getting excited for spring to come! We are trying to plan out our spring/summer before we move, so let us know if you have any good ideas! More to come...

Thanksgiving....only a month later!

Thanksgiving my wonderful family drove to Spokane to spend the weekend with us! Little did they know we would put them to work fixing sewing machines, cooking, and shopping!



Daddo catching up on some reading while not hard at work

Decorating the table...rocking the "no-makeup-because-I-was-busy-cooking" look

Mom hard at work...
Dad all ready to eat

The fixins

Nick keeping everyone entertained

Pie making the night before

taking a break on the couch!

The girls baking pies




Unfortunately Kyle was the photographer for the weekend, so we didn't end up with any pictures to document that he was there too! We had a wonderful time and were so glad we got to have our family here. Thanks for making the trip everyone!

Home Alone VII (I think there are at least that many of those movies!)

Nick went to Pasco for a day so I spent my night alone catching up on things like house cleaning and blogging! I discovered that I don't really cook for myself anymore...I spent the evening snacking on junk food and when I decided to finally eat something for real, I ended up opening a can of ravioli. Real nutritious, I know. Not only that, but I ate it straight from the can. No need to dirty another dish! Thank goodness for Nick being around on most days so I can make a decent meal! While looking through old pictures, I found this one of my lil bro, Gregory. He is on his mission in Atlanta, GA. Here's a tribute to you, Grego. What a hottie! :)

(I wish those retainers still fit!)

Saturday is a special day...

it's the day we get ready for Sunday!

And sometimes those things include cleaning guns and painting dressers! A few weeks ago we went out for breakfast with Nat and Kev, then the girls painted one of Deb's old dressers while the boys cleaned guns. It made for a fun and productive Saturday!

Nice view of our food storage in our messy garage!

Nick's sweet gun-cleaning skills in action...

!

Winterizing..... :-/

I am sure those of you who have been to our house will roll your eyes at how cheap we are, but in efforts to save some money on our heating bills this winter, we "winterized" our house. Our brilliant ideas included added weather stripping to our doors so that they are air and light tight, and covering our windows off with thick foam-board insulation. Oh and it's sealed off with the ever fashionable duct tape! As you can see, the results really add to the aesthetics of our home. Just kidding. Actually we put the blinds back up where we could, and I put up some curtains to hide the window in our room since the blinds wouldn't fit over the foam. So call us tight wads, but it is amazing how much warmer our house is without turning on the heaters. With the temperature dropping below zero this week, we have been using the heater more often. But here's to lower bills! We all could use some of those.....

Here's Nick with the finished product in our room...


He was pretty excited that he got to use one of his knives to cut the boards!


And here he is with the fabulous mess that dang foam makes ALL over the house! Those little styrofoam pieces float everywhere, and just fly away when you try to catch them with the vacuum!

Fall is here!

I put up some fall decorations to help me not be so sad that it is so cold! I'm pretty sure our garden died last week the first night it froze. Luckily I picked the last of the tomatoes and squash the day before. Instead of dreading the snow again this winter, I am focusing on enjoying the fun parts like the holidays and celebrate them to the fullest. I am not sure what I will do come January when we still have 3 feet of snow for another 4 months, but I have some time to think about it! :)