Amber on February 14th, 2013

Happy 15th Valentine’s Day Joshua.  The love and connection I feel for you has grown and deepened over the past decade and a half.  And now we get to see that love each and every day within our children.  They are little bits of both of us.  Here are the Valentine’s Day photos over the years.  (We did not take much on V day before kids…..)

1st Valentine's Day 1998 copy

Our 1st Valentine’s Day together. I woke up to find the room covered with post it notes!  It was amazing.  Each note was unique.  I still have most of them.  ;)

Wesley's 1st Valentine's Day.

Wesley’s 1st Valentine’s Day.

Valentines Day 2007 copy

His 2nd and last as an only child. :)

 

2008

2008

2009

2009

2010

2010

2012

2011

2012

2012

2013

2013

I love you Joshua with all of my heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Joshua on December 31st, 2012

After we moved to Anacortes I got a really nice dart board from Amber and put it up in shop. Sometimes when I’m stuck on a programming problem I’ll throw a few darts and see if it comes to me. So far I’m not getting much better at darts or programming.

The problem is that Wesley and Jillian wanted to throw darts as well. I was fine with that. But it became obvious rather quickly that their aim was not good (genetic I suppose). They were filling the door, wall and floor with little holes. The board itself was mostly safe.

So we bought one of those plastic tip dart boards and hung it below my board. But frankly they suck. You throw the darts, they bounce off. Or if they do stick, they frequently fall out on their own. It was frustrating for the kids and for me. Next we tried a regular dart board, but hung it lower thinking their problem was one of height. It was not.

Finally we got a Doinkit Darts dartboard. We hung this below my standard board as well. These use strong “rare-earth” magnets and they really work. Of hundreds of throws I don’t think any have bounced off. They are safer than the plastic tip darts (as long as you don’t swallow them) and work so much better. Plus because they don’t bounce off we have a special oche at a Jillian distance without fear of her getting poked.

We got ours on Amazon, but you can also get a set at your local toy store. Ours is Read Me A Story. It costs about as much as a good set of standard darts, but is really worth it if your kids want to play darts and you care about your walls at all.

Highly recommended with one caveat. Because the tip is so much wider than a normal dart you’ll need to decide what scores. Do you score whichever field the majority of the tip is in? Or do you let the thrower pick whichever of the touching fields they want? We go with the last one because it lets the kids do better and makes the game less frustrating for them.

 
Amber on December 25th, 2012

Everyone slept in until 7:30 and this is what they found

Stuff from us is wrapped by the tree – Stuff from Santa is on the couch

With our gift from Jillian

His reaction to the DS he wanted

With her CuddleUpPet from Santa!

Then after they thought they were done we gave them the Wii controllers to open

We had it hidden behind the TV

Wesley and Jillian are having a great day – and can’t wait for the rest of their time with family.

 

Merry Christmas!

 

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Amber on November 1st, 2012

Jillian and I started out our day getting ready for her Orange Day party at school.

She really loved the bat I put in her hair.

Then we went to Wesley’s school.  After school he had practice for the play he will be in this weekend.  He is in The Secret Garden, he will be playing “The Garden”.

Here he is with some of the Garden cast.

Then we rushed home, ate dinner and then put on Wesley’s makeup for his Zombie costume.
Jillian was a bunny (her plan was to be a rock star, but she was a bunny at Wesley’s school and wanted to stay in it.).

Waiting patiently while Wesley becomes a Zombie.

Wesley the friendly Zombie.

Then it was off to scare the neighbors…  We were only able to go to 7 houses, but they got 30+ houses of candy from them.  :)

Here is a link to a video of Wesley as a Zombie.  He is not so friendly in this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hunterji/8143562883/in/photostream

 

Wesley: 6 years, 11 months, 5 days
Jillian: 5 years, 2 months, 18 days

 

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