January & Emily's birthday

Marie got a new haircut. This was our family's first visit to a hair salon of any sort in about 8 years! (Yes, we're Dutch, and yes, there was a sale on for $8 haircuts :)

Steve's grandfather died a few weeks ago, and here are some pictures from the funeral. The grandchildren sang "I Will Sing of the Mercies of the Lord Forever", one of Grandpa's favorite songs, and it was amazing to see how many grandchildren there are! (and that's without spouses and great-grandchildren)

Moessie with her three daughters

The kids are holding there geode rocks from Ruth, which Steve sawed open. Once they found out they weren't just plain old rocks and that there was something interesting inside, they were practically splitting at the seams waiting to find out what was in them.

I'm trying to think of what's new here, but there's not much, even though we're pretty busy. We're back to regular rainy Washington weather. Steve's on the plant shutdown at work, and we're thankful he's working and even getting a bit of overtime even though the union hasn't made a deal yet and other refineries are already striking.



We had 7 girls over for Emily's birthday last week. When that many girls get together, it can get pretty crazy, we found out :) They had a fun day and Emily planned lots of group games so they kept busy. Emily got a digital camera for her birthday, and she and her friends took about 250 pictures! Ouch; now I have to find some disk space to store them all :)

Emily had a sleepover with Marie, then a sleepover with Laura & Steph, and then a birthday party on Sunday.

They're attempting to make a heart-shape.

Jenna is now in a very curious stage; she will be distracted by a string on my sweatshirt, her own fingers, just about anything... so cute to watch! And this week her appetite has scaled back considerably; I'm not too disappointed about that :)







Her rather-uncomfortable-looking spread-eagle position. All our kids did that... I guess that's normal? Another one I don't have a pic of is when they are laying on their backs and hold up both their head & their legs like a seal.