Happenings at our house

Here are a few tid bits of happenings at our house:

Tyler has two teeth now. He can do "Hola" by lifting his arm and opening and shutting his hand. He can also clap. He is finally enjoying big people food. But only that which he can manipulate himself. He ate a half a banana yesterday and especially likes crackers and cereal.

Timothy has started soccer school this week. He is loving it! He is in the 4 - 7 year old bracket. He is the fastest of his class he tells me. This is a huge outdoor school beside the stadium. There are hundreds of kids that go to this school. So far his team has won all four games that they have played amongst themselves. He is usually placed as goalie. Whenever we get into the taxi to take him to school (Tuesday - Friday, 3:30 - 5:00) the driver always grins with a look of pride and nostalgia. I don't even have to tell them where to go, they know the school from their childhood.

Raimy is doing great with art class. One of her friends signed up and is going with her. This is fun for her. Today Raimy went with a member of the church that is making a children's music CD. They needed a little girl to sing a song. So this will be cool that Raimy's voice will be on an album.

Gabrielle continued to show great desire with learning. She is a very hard worker. I can hardly believe that she is almost 6 years old. Now with the other two installed in their activities she is wanting to start hers. She says she wants to swim. We are looking at the options - but it looks like that will be what she does.

DaRonn has started a bowling group with some people from church. He really likes it. I am glad that there is a bowling ally in town. (There is only one in this town of 800,000.)

I have been very happy this week that Tyler is sleeping through the night. Well, he wakes up around 3 and fusses a little - but I let him go back to sleep and he is out until the morning. We are talking 8 - 11 hours here folks! It is nice. :-)

So that is what is happening. Oh - if you want to read a fun memory that I posted you can click here. I love you all!

Cold Morning Breakfast

Down here in the Southern Hemisphere we woke up to a crisp and cool 50 degrees (F). Thusly motivated there arose in me a craving for oatmeal. Not having any brown sugar on hand I scurried around the kitchen looking for something to jazz up the blandness in my bowl. I was very pleased with the results!

Ingredients:
(One serving)
1 cup oats
¾ cups low fat milk
1 medium banana sliced
¼ cup mixed nuts (almond slices, peanut bits and walnut chunks)
2 dried figs, broke up in pieces
2 tablespoons honey (roughly)

Preparation:
Rub the oats between your hands to crush them. This will make them creamier after cooking. Layer the ingredients as listed above in the bowl that you will be eating from. Honey should be drizzled on top. Zap it in the microwave until the bananas are soft and the oatmeal is hot, about 2 minutes. Enjoy!

(This was my shivering daughter this morning. She was saying, "Brrrrrr!")

Funny Tyler

By: Raimy Washington

One morning when me and Tyler were playing we decided to play with my necklaces, my plastic necklaces. When we were playing we were pretending that Tyler was a rich man. It was so fun. We made a plastic necklace for a crown too. Tyler almost laughed at the camera.

Terry on Chopper

Terry's been having fun borrowing our neighbor's chopper. Personally I think Terry looks much better on it than the actual owner of the bike. Terry gets on it like he and the bike are old friends, like they were meant to be. Our neighbor actually considered selling the bike for $18,000 just to get out of payments. Terry just buffed some scratches out of it for him so it looks new again.

Walking

yesterday was a big day in Sasha's development. she started walking. it began with 3 then 4 steps, going between Nick and I. she was having so much fun that she just kept going and we kept scooting farther away from each other. in the end she took 10 steps totally independently. i had a feeling that she would be walking by her first birthday. she seems to have very good balance and control. she gets that from her dad. it was such an exciting moment. Nick and I were thrilled to be able to watch her first steps together. our only regret is that the video camera was not charged. :(
in honor of her first steps daddy is going to take her shopping for a new pair of walking shoes tomorrow. (she is just moving into size 4's now.)
every day she becomes more of a kid and less of a baby. its exciting and sad all at the same time.
love to everybody.
Shawn

The Birthday Girl!

Angie,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Hope your wishes come true today! Here is a sampling of the life of this beautiful person's we call sister, daughter, mother, wife, tia, Angie.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANG!

Hope this day is filled with blessings and peace for you. Love you SOOOO much. Amazed and proud of all that you do with your life. You effect and inspire all who have the opportunity to cross paths with you. I am very proud of you, my daughter. Have a Wonder-filled day!

Happy Father's Day

As a tribute to the fathers in this family I went looking for some pictures to post. It is amazing how hard I had to look! I came to a couple conclusions. First - it is usually the dad's that are the ones behind the camera. After that I was thinking about the fact that these men usually prefer to take a behind the scenes role in our families. They are not pushing themselves into the spot light. But they are steadily doing what has to be done to make sure that their wives and children are provided for and happy. We have good father's in our family.

Thank you dads!!! Have a happy Father's Day each one of you!!! We love you very, very, very much and couldn't imagine what our lives would be like without you.

My Story about Chad

By: Gabrielle Washington

One day I was with Chad. Then I was dressed like a princess. And they really liked it how I was a princess. They're happy in Kristy and Jeff's house. We were just so happy. And Chad liked how I was dressed. Chad just really liked it. And they took a picture of me by myself as a princess and me with Chad like a princess. And it was just so fun. We just played together, had fun and we had fun with Chad, and Raimy and Timothy and me and Chad - alot of people.

Me and Amanda

By: Raimy Washington

One day when we were in the United States we were at Amanda's house. I was playing alot with her. She was having fun with me. We were playing with little umbrellas. We were pretending we were little ladies. And we were talking to Amanda's dad and he made jokes. One of the jokes he made of a basket ball hoop and a basket ball. We asked, "What is this?" And he said, "This is a big orange jelly bean and you have to throw it in the hoop and catch the jelly beans that fall out." We laughed alot! Then we went inside to have a little snack. When we got out Amanda's dad made jokes again. He pretended he knocked on a door and said, "Donde esta el bano, por favor." It means, "Where is the bathroom please." Then it was time for me to go home. But we played a little longer with basket ball.

Tyler and Timothy Puppet Show

By: Timothy Washington

One day when I was making a puppet show for Tyler, Tyler was looking at the puppets and at me. And we were playing. And mama took some pictures of us. And we played until school. And then after lunch we played together again. And we played together alot.

The End

Kent's Races

Kent did cycling at the Special Olympics. He had a great coach, Diane. Terry and Dad took off work to attend and Mom got a studio-sitter. We had a lot of fun. The clouds rolled in and sprinkled a couple times before finally ending the whole event. Our Olympian came away with a silver and a bronze medal. Here are some pictures of the fun day. As you can see, Allison is the official cheerleader. Though we were all cheering for Kent, Terry got involved in all races even if Kent wasn't in them to cheer on the underdogs.

Studio News

The studio expansion has moved through the first phase of construction. Just after Mother's day and the graduation and the visit to St. Joe, we dug in.
We reduced the gallery to the entry way area by packing away alot of art. Tore up the carpet and gave it away. Laid a new floor that matches the first studio. And moved the hand building area into what was the gallery. Got a few new wheels for the pottery studio and voile'. We are ready for the increased class sizes we are experiencing. It's all good!
The next phase will be to add a couple of new sinks in the clean up area. That takes plumbing, which dad can do. But we have to wait for the time to become available. Once that is complete, more than one person at a time will be able to clean up at the end of classes. Every one will be happier.
We had a pottery sale this weekend in conjunction with the neighborhood garage sales going on. We brought wheels outside to throw during the sale. It was 2 nice days outside doing pottery. ( except that Thursday was super windy). Everyone enjoyed it and we sold some pottery.

Summer...

Thought I'd fill ya'll in to what little I'm doing this Summer.

Terry took me to Topeka Saturday for the drag racing and it was awesome. We had fun. I loved the fresh sqeezed lemonade. The track was too hot for the cars to make a good pass, but it was cool because they would start to lose control and swirve and then slow way down, but for a moment you held your breath for what might've happened. I got a cool visor and t-shirt and a hot sunburn. It seemed okay until Monday when it blistered around my neck. YUCK! OUCH! At least Terry got me out of there early Saturday or it would've been worse. I was not smart by not wearing sunscreen. I never want to do that again. I haven't in a long time. You all remember my sunburns, well this is my last.

Monday I helped my photography teacher hang his show for Botanica. It was all black and white "old-fashioned" photos. I helped him frame them before school was out. It took all day to hang them because we had to suspend them by fishing line to the ceiling with hooks (the walls are brick). He paid me $100 to help him.

I got a letter yesterday informing me that I made the dean's list for last semester. That makes 5 out of 6 semesters. My first politics class screwed me up when I made a C. But as some of you heard I made a B in the following politics class.

Lucas, I've been wanting a bike trailer so Ali can go on my bike rides with me like we had for Kent. I just thought this morning to look on Craig's List and found on in Derby for $50 barely used. I am going this afternoon to get it. I am so excited! I love biking to get/keep in shape and now I don't have to worry about what Ali's doing, she can come with me.

Kent is back at Starky where he will work five days a week the same schedule he had for school. Mom or I drive him in the morning and pick him up at 3:30pm. He didn't want to go back but now that he's back he is enjoying it. He still has time afterwards to play Wii. His high score on bowling is now 277. He only had one spare and the rest strikes. I so wanted to see him get 300. Maybe sometime.

Last week Allison was inseperable from her puppet frog who she named Allison Laura Houtz and it was four years old almost five. She brought it everywhere and in stores and restraunts. She couldn't be without it and talked to it and used it as a medium for us to communicate with her. I was telling myself it is a phase and luckily it seems to have been a short phase. I haven't seen the frog for two days now. Which is good because she would actually order food for the frog and not herself.

I hope my family is good. I love you all.