Smiley Spence and Swimmer Lou!

We decided in February to have the big boys join swim club and have the little ones take swim lessons at the same time. Well, it was a good thought. Lora wasn't old enough to be in lessons and so badly wanted to go swimming she kept getting closer and closer to the edge. Next thing I knew she had was gone and did a pretty good job of thrashing to the surface. The next day we came for practice a sweet swim teacher volunteered to swim with her for a while. She loved it! She is a water baby! We soon realized two hours of practice and lessons 3 to 4 times a week was over the top for right now. We will try again next year I think.

I put these cute pictures of Spence in too. He is such a sweet happy baby! I will document for history sake. We officially have been cleared of any drastic illness with him. He always sounds raspy and wheezes all the time. He has had pneumonia 3 times and been sick more a lot more than that. We worried that he had cystic fibrosis or severe asma. But after testing the doctors say he is a "happy wheezer". He has a floppy respiratory valve. So, air or mucus going in or out makes wheezing noise. He just always sounds sick even if he is not. His floppy valve will heal itself in the next year or so. We feel so blessed and relieved to know what is wrong and that it is not serious. The wheezing cry is good for an attention getter for him. We all feel so bad for him that we rush to help him right away. That's okay though. He's the baby.

Scouting is great!

As you have probably noticed I am not that great of taking pictures. I forget the camera most of the time. I do have these few pictures of our fun scouts. I think I will be a scout leader for a long time. I already have a few years under my belt and I think I have a few to go. I have been Josh's scout leader all through wolves and now bears. He just went into webelos and I miss having him in my troop. Scouts is at our house so he is not that far away. I asked him last week if he was doing scouts with us and he asked what we were doing ( he said he had a good book that he was reading and had to see if it was worth it - the turkey!) He did join us though!

We have done some great things this year. We have toured the police station, gone swimming, gone bowling, cleaned a local park, planted trees for the city, gone to the zoo, built tool boxes, played marbles, learned knots, made feet impressions, dug holes, and played kickball (at the time we played our septic was giving us a little trouble and the boys had 2 and half acres to kick the ball into and almost every time they kicked it and it went towards the septic system. Nathan was really good at retrieving the ball. I just thought I would make sure they washed their hands well afterwards, then I looked and noticed Nathan licking his hands -yuck!) We have a good system down to help the boys earn lots of awards and hopefully have lots of fun. I love scouts. Nathan will join us for real in two weeks! Yea!

February park days posted in June - Great!

This blogging makes me feel stressed. It is just like scrapbooking. It's not that hard but it just feels a little overwhelming to get started on. Some day I am going to get caught up!
These pictures were from a fun day in February. It rains a lot here in the winter but we also have some beautiful day that give us a hope and little boost of joy. On this day Spencer, Cole, Lora and I decided to go to Lake Sacajawea which is right by C.J.'s hospital. We called him and lucked out as he was able to meet us for a few minutes for lunch. It was great to enjoy the sunshine, my hubby's great company and being outside. Life is good!

January Days

In January we tried to get life in the swing of things. This was an example of a typical afternoon. I was impressed that Spencer started rolling from his tummy to his back before he was three months old. That is a record for our slow moving kids. I left the camera down and Lora took about a 100 random pictures. She got a picture of Cole playing game cube and one

of her fingers and numerous other pictures.

January happenings that didn't get pictures or the pictures are on C.J.'s phone. Nathan started wrestling and is tough! Sam has been doing a lot of scout fund raisers for national jamboree next summer - the biggest fund raiser was a yummy all you can eat crab feed. C.J. is working hard at seminary and we had all the seminary kids at our house for make-up Christmas breakfast (since the other one got cancelled because of the snow). Josh is busy with scouts, high cap, piano, and voice lessons too. Grandma and Grandpa Cahoon also came for a weekend and helped us get a lot of projects done. We built Lora's Ikea dresser, fixed our broken recliner, build dvd storage shelves and cut bedroom doors so they would shut now that the new carpet is in and is thicker. We are so grateful for their help!

Cahoon Family Christmas Pictures

We decided we had better take a few quick pictures for Christmas cards and for a calender Aunt Angela was making for Grandma Stevens. After church I told the kids they couldn't disappear and do the superman change, my friend Taryn Harmon came over and took pictures for us. C.J. and I joked that red and black on pacific northwest winter white family is not the best complementary choice to add to our looks but hey, that's what we look like and memories! The family picture is taken in front of our tree house. Lora is not the favored child but I haven't figured out how to change the order of pictures once they are downloaded and I had to go back and look for hers. Here is a picture with Nathan and Santa at our ward Christmas party too.

Spencer's Blessing

Our sweet little Spencer's blessing day was eventful. We decided to wait until December to bless him as he was still little and pretty sick in early November. We got special permission from our bishop to bless him the second Sunday in December so Grandma and Grandpa Cahoon could make it (they had a schedule conflict the first Sunday). The big weekend rolled around and so did the weather. We had a big blizzard hit. Grandma and Pa C. made it okay and my folks were still on the rode and going over mountain passes. I was worried they wouldn't make it - I called and told my dad if they couldn't it would be okay but he told me they would be here unless the roads were closed. Sure enough my mom and dad and cousin Isaac braved the storm and made it safetly. The next day for church we got a call that because a lot of our ward lives up big hills and roads were slick, church was canceled. Aaag! A member of our bishopric Eric Wilson came to our house and we were able to have a wonderful sweet blessing. We missed Gina as our blessing recorder. We sang a songs together, had a little primary lesson, played games, had a nice dinner, and just enjoyed feelings of love and peace in our home. All the Grandmas and Pas had a terrible time traveling home but we will forever remember all of their sacrifices to be here and the wonderful feelings of love they brought and showed to our little boy.

December Snow-in

Hi Everybody!

This is Sam. I am helping my Mom since she has been a little bit behind on her blog. So we will start in December.

Here in Washington it has been more snowy than usual! But it definitely has been both good and bad. First of all the snow has been so frequent and hard that school and church were canceled for two weeks. School was canceled for a week also. But then the roads have been icy and scary and many cars crashed. Our car slid and spun a few times too! Luckily, we still live!

Tami back again - The kids had a great sledding snow forting and caroling in really deep snow. Our only big worry was if everyone was going to make it for Spencer's blessing and if we got to to to Boise for Christmas. All turned out well though!