A beautiful day for yard work

Well, it's the middle of February, and instead of having our usual 30 degree weather and lots of rain, we have mild temperatures and sunshine! It has been a beautiful week, and Jonathan and I were able to work on the planters in our front yard. They were covered in moss and rocks, so we had to remove the thick moss covering all our beautiful rocks and rearrange them into a nice planter. Once it really is Spring and we don't have the chance of a frost again, I will probably plant flowers around the trees.

We also worked a little bit in the back, although that is going to take a lot of work. Yesterday we just worked  on ripping moss off the rocks and taking out dead plants.

Dean was a HUGE help, as you can imagine. He wanted his gloves on too just like Daddy, and he pulled plants out that weren't dead. He had a great a time.

Here are the boys after a hard day of working in the yard. We also tried taking family pictures but it was actually quite a disaster so we were pretty wiped out. I put on a movie for the kids and Jonathan sacked out on the chair.

Here's a fun picture. I made this collage of pictures I took while we lived in Little Italy in Cleveland. I got it framed and put it up in our office. I miss our 4 years in Cleveland SO much, and this helps me remember all the fun we had there. To everyone who lived or lives in Cleveland, we miss you!!

Christmas, Moving, and the New House!

What a whirlwind! That last two months have brought much change and excitement to our family. We closed on our house on December 18th and left for Idaho on the 19th. We had a great time with Jonathan's family celebrating Christmas. We had a big family dinner and gift exchange with 3 out of his 4 siblings (Jo, we missed you!!). We actually got Dean to sing Jingle Bells for everyone, with the help of his cousin Whitney, Dawson and me.

Here are most of the Walker grandchildren all wearing their new Christmas pajamas. I can't believe we got almost all of them smiling at the same time.

Dawson had his grandpa pretty much wrapped around his little finger.

We got the fortunate opportunity to have Santa and Mrs. Claus come visit us on Christmas Eve before Santa made his rounds. Dean wasn't too thrilled, but Dawson LOVED the candy canes!

This is the boys on our 10-hour drive home from Twin Falls. It really wasn't that bad, except that the kids never slept at all. It's true! A 10 hour car ride and I think Dawson took a 45 minute nap. That happened on the way to Idaho, too. What in the world is wrong with my children?

Dean got a scooter from my parents for Christmas and he was so excited that he took it to bed with him.

Okay, time for the fun stuff! Here are two "before" pictures of the house. This picture is the living room with some ugly paint on the wall and my sis Shelby helping tape it up.

And this is the office with, again, some ugly color.

The "after" pictures! Here is the finished living room with a beautiful "Biscuit" color. (I think I was hungry when I picked out everything. Listen to these colors: kitchen is Toasted Nutmeg, entry way is Fresco Cream, and our carpet is Muffin. Hmm, someone around here likes to eat...)

This is Jonathan's new "man chair" that his parents brought us.

Here is the finished office with our new desk from craigslist. I love that site!

Dawson's room

Dean's room (of course!) Eventually it will have red trim going around the middle of the room where they gray is.

Toy room

the kitchen, and thanks to Jonathan's grandparents for their table!

The front room

Here is my backyard. I love it!! I will love it even more when we redo a lot of it this summer. It has a large patio area for the kids to ride bikes and a nice area for grass, although right now it is overgrown and ugly.

We're going to plant grass up to the rocks and have landscaping above the rocks, and I will be so happy when we finally rip out that UGLY tree that Jonathan is standing next to. It just looks so sad all droopy like that. :-)

I absolutely love my new house. I love the view of Mt. Rainier and the quiet cul-de-sac and how close it is to everything I need. The other night I took this picture of the sun turning the sky pink. It was beautiful!

Big News! (no, Caprice isn't pregnant)

This is Jonathan here, reporting on some fun news.  The house that we put an offer on 2 months ago has FINALLY been accepted.  We will actually have our own house!  If the closing process goes smoothly, we close on Dec. 22.  It is in a beautiful neighborhood in Puyallup, with a spectacular view of Mt. Rainier.  

Also, my new niece was born this week and totally STOLE my birthday.  I have been the only November birthday in my extended family for a long time...my whole life!  Since she is so flippin cute though, I am happy she is here and glad to share our birthday.  Congrats Jill and Steve.

Yesterday I took Dean to the traveling Train Show that happened to be coming through town.  He was amazed at the hundreds of trains everywhere.  His favorite was the Thomas train display with all the characters.

He made me so proud by deciding to go on the big Thomas train ride.  He NEVER does anything like this.  

Dean was so good at not touching the trains, but couldn't help putting his finger closer and closer.

We need to make this a yearly thing Dean.  I really had a great time with you. 

Just me and the boys!

This is Jonathan here doing a post since Caprice is gone AGAIN doing something fun over the weekend.  She's a great Mom though and honestly deserves some time off.  She went to Seattle for a scrapbooking convention with her sisters.  So...the boys and I spent some quality time doing some male bonding.  Well, it was actually just a trip to the mall so they could play on the toys there, and lunch at McDonalds.  I think they had fun though.  We passed by a photo booth there and couldn't pass it up.  They had some great smiles for the camera, and I thought the shot of them both looking backwards was hilarious!  They probably did that on purpose so I was the only one looking like a fool doing the fishy face!

One of the malls here has this awesome play area.  The only thing I could think about was how many swine flu germs there are everywhere.  We used plenty of hand sanitizer on our way out!

Sunday evening we enjoyed some horsey rides!  

With Brittany and Aaron living here too it is quite the full house!  Evelyn and Dean are best friends and get along so well...I wish I could relay sarcasm when typing!

I love my boys, they are the best!

Walker's Halloween 2009

It's a little late, but Happy Halloween! We love Halloween in this family, and we were so excited to dress up. Dean really enjoyed helping us make our spider web sugar cookies with plastic spiders on them.

My sister Shelby is excellent at making her own costumes, so this is her witch costume that I borrowed. Jonathan was a vampire, complete with his own fangs he made at his office.

Dawson was a great sport wearing his puppy outfit. He kept the hat on for a few minutes, then kept pulling on the ears to take it off. At least he let us put the costume on him.

Dean was another story. One of his cousins was supposed to be Nemo, but refused to wear it, so Dean got the hand-me-down. Well, he refused to wear it also! We tried to get him excited about it, but it just didn't work. Finally halfway through our ward party, he put on the hat part and trunk-or-treated in that. Most people thought he was a dinosaur. Whatever. There's always next year...

Here he is with his cousin Roman being Spider-Man

Although he wouldn't dress up, he had a blast asking people for candy.

This is Monique's family, the pirates!! I love their costumes. Arrrrrg!

Jonathan was craving more than just the chili and cornbread... sorry, bad joke.