Band Wagon

We jumped on the band wagon too. After seeing the Jordan's blog and their link I just had to join in.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9631118552

Be sure to let it load!!

Reflections of the year

This time of year I always reflect back on the different times of the year. So I thought today I would pick my favorite post for each month on the blog for you to enjoy. I only took one photo and some of the story. For the full post check out the links on the side, they are organized by month!

January!!!!!!!




Go Seahawks!!!

If you don't already know David was given the gift of Seahawks tickets last year, and one of the benefits to these tickets are Playoff games... Well last night we got enjoy the Wild Card game against the Cowboys... It was cold... it was loud... it was stressful... and it was a BLAST! I LOVE football!! We enjoyed the game with another couple from our Sunday School class/bible study, Ben and Cassandra.

February!!!!!

Here is the picture that is worth a THOUSAND words... Mikayla's first look at the castle in Disneyland.



March!!!!!!
It's BASEBALL SEASON!
Yahoo!

Well Alex started playing baseball on the 17th of this month. As you read earlier, he had his first homerun that day. On friday night I sat in the POURING down rain for two hours and enjoyed him playing again. Now being a true Seattlite- I don't own an umbrella so I was SOAKED to the bone. But I got a few pictures.


April!!!
This was one of the photo's I wanted to recreate, I didn't happen perfectly but at least I got it.

This was in 2004 when we went


And here is last week


And this one, just cause it is better lighting


MAY!!!!!!

Memorial Day
Me and the boys being eaten by a shark...




June!!!!
Proud Auntie Cori finally pulled the baby away from the proud mommy... just let me hold him for one second (*insert evil laugh here*).


July!!!!!!
July was a busy month for us!!

Ok, ok, he's only 12 so what is he doing behind the wheel? We washed our van at my mom's house and then washed my mom's car, so during the car shuffle in the driveway I let Alex pull the van back in. I was freaking out the WHOLE time, but he was beaming from ear to ear. Sure it was only 10 feet and a corner, but he loved it.



Cori turned 30!!


And here is a re-cap of the game from our coach. To see more about this fancy propsal go to Kim's blog (Link on the right).


August!!!!!!

Family Photo...


We all got clown noses when we left the park... David & Josiah were the only one's daring enough to get infront of the camera *insert evil laugh here*


September!!
(This was a hard one, I want to say the Bryan Adams concert or the Building move at work, but this has to be the most exciting day of the month for us)...
Well, it's a little late, but I wanted to share our first day of school. For those new to the blog you will know that every year, on the first day of school, I take the boys picture by the front door.
Alex started 7th grade (I KNOW!!! I'm just as shocked as you are)!



And Josiah started Kindergarten, I can't believe it either. We had a great first day. So far they both are handling the transition into school really well


October!!
So two months ago I thought it would be fun to have a weekend getaway. David had been taken care of me for 6 weeks while I was on my wheely scooter and we had enough airline miles saved up... so I told him to pick... Well he didn't think to hard and choose Disneyland, not cause he likes it but because he knew I would love it. I couldn't argue that point :-). We planned the weekend around the same time that some friends of ours was going.
here are some photos and fun stories...


(Just for the record, I did not put all the trips to Disneyland on my highlight this year, just the ones that stood out hehehe).

November!!!!!

What an exciting first.... Josiah lost his first tooth today. It has been loose for a few days now and at some point today it fell out. The bad news... he doesn't know where it is, but that's ok, we are going to make a cut out tooth for him to put out for the tooth fairy- I would hate to see him miss out on the tooth fairy just cause his tooth fell out at school and was never found.



And December hasn't officially started so stay tuned. We have a LOT of happenings going on this month, including, Josiah's first Angel Breakfast at church, Kim's wedding and other family fun events!!! I hope you enjoyed looking back over our year as much as I did!

I think I may have to look into getting a website after all this so I can really go high tech on all you!!

Blog addiction

85%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

Philadelphia Dating

I love to blog!!!

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving we went over to my parents house...
Josiah enjoying his gameboy while we watched football.




Papa gave Josiah some pointers on playing pool. This was a lot of fun to see my dad passing on something to my boys.





Then me and my dad played a game, even playing left handed my dad stil beat me. So I thought I would take Alex on for a possible easy win, but my dad opted to gang up on my and give Alex some tips on pool. I was shocked to see Alex shoot some really good shots, shots that I don't think I could even make.


So after everyone ganged up on me and I lost three games, it was time to give up. Alex & Josiah played a friendly game with Papa continuing to show both boys how to play.




Josiah after watching Alex sink two balls


David carved the turkey.




It was a great day, full of football & family. And yes that's a Christmas tree behind Josiah. my mom started to decorate that morning.

Family Portait

Here's our Church directory photo. I really liked it, it's not very often that we get a good photo :-). It's a low resolution photo, so hopefully you can see most of it.

Bowling

As I have said before, David & I bowl every other week on a league. We have a LOT of fun and luckily for me my team doesn't mind how terrible I am. I am not kidding I am DREDFUL, you would think that with the Branley side of the family having a natural talent for bowling that I would have some, but no, that gene missed me. My average as of Saturday was 89 (for those non-bowlers, most people average 145 or above). But this week was amazing! I was so proud of myself! For the first time ever I got a Turkey (Three strikes in a row) and I got my best game ever- a 164. So I took a photo, I'm "CL".

Learning to tie shoes

Last week Josiah hit a milestone. He is in a size shoe that doesn't commonly come with velcro. So we bought shoes with laces and he is slowing learning to tie them. Here are some photos of us practicing. He has picked it up really fast and I know he will be able to tie his shoes on his own very soon!



Josiah took this photo of the finished product.



By the way, Josiah lost another tooth on Sunday! This time we were able to find it so the tooth fairy will come tonight!

Soap Box

Ok, I don't like "spam" emails, or fowarded emails or anything like that. So I decided this would be my soap box, for just a moment...
The Lupus foundation is asking everyone to Contact your Senators and Representatives to become cosponsors of the Lupus REACH Amendments -- S. 1359/H.R. 1192 -- before December 14, 2007

So here is what the Lupus Foundation website posted:
The Lupus REACH – Research, Education, Awareness, Communication, and Healthcare – Amendments of 2007 (S. 1359/H.R. 1192), would significantly enhance efforts to understand and treat lupus. This legislation will increase lupus research, support vital lupus epidemiology studies and data collection, and authorize programs to heighten public and professional awareness of lupus. Currently we have 71 cosponsors in the House and 15 in the Senate, but we need many more before Congress wraps up for the year which could be as early as December 14th!

We need this bill because approximately 1.5 to 2 million Americans are affected by lupus -- a serious, complex, debilitating autoimmune disease that can damage virtually any organ system in the body. Lupus affects women nine times more often than men and 80% of newly diagnosed lupus cases are among women of childbearing age. Of particular concern is that lupus is two to three times more common among African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans and generally is more prevalent in minority populations -- a health disparity that remains unexplained. Moreover, there have been no new drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration specifically for lupus in more than 40 years.

Please send an email to your elected officials to help get more support for this bill. This link has a pre written email to make it easier for you-http://capwiz.com/lfa/home/

Thanks!

Are you ready for some FOOTBALL??????

I realized this weekend that my dad and I have been to a handful of games in the last two years and never gotten a picture of us. So here it is


It was an AMAZING game!! The Seahawks showed their stuff and we had a blast! I LOVE going to the games...

Bridal Shower

This weekend we (Heather Jameson, Tracy Muter & I) threw Kim two different bridal events. The first one was a tame bridal luncheon...


and then in the evening we had a bachlorette party. It was my first and it was a LOT of fun. Sorry but this is the only photo I can share...

10 things you may not have know about Cori and David

Since the blog has been so quiet I thought I would do something fun. Here are 10 things you may not know about us and if your faithful readers this may not be stuff that’s new to you… I tried REALLY hard to come up with some new stuff.

1. Cori & David bowl on a bowling league. Yes, people still league bowl and it’s actually fun!

2. Cori is a HUGE Seahawks fan and David is a HUGE football fan. So when it’s time for Seahawk home games David would rather stay home and watch ALL the NFL games while Cori would rather be there cheering her team on

3. Cori’s favorite weather: Lots of wind & rain… just not enough to lose power. David- nothing too hot

4. Cori LOVES country music and Bryan Adams. David is into HARD rock. When we are together in the car we settle for the Christian radio station- most of the time.

5. Cori has only been in 4 states (WA, OR, CA, NV) and David has been in too many to count

6. Cori lived in the same house until she got married. David moved 19 times in 18 years.

7. Cori played the flute for 7 years. David played football & wrestled in high school

8. Cori had a cat she once bathed in Motor Oil… the cat lived

9. Cori got a trophy from the hospital when she was born

10. Cori is a HUGE KLUTZ. Now you may think I’m kidding but I’m not. Almost daily I could give examples, for instance, today I went to sit down at my desk and got my foot angled on my foot rest wrong and bent my ankle way too far. I had to cover my mouth, I’m not sure if it was to keep from screaming or to keep me from yelling a bad word. Now I’m limping again. Ahh the joys of my life. I wouldn’t have the ankle problem if it wasn’t for my klutziness.


I tried to keep this about David & me, but towards the end I got desperate for some stuff.

More Tim Hawkins

Kim posted a Tim Hawkins video on her blog and I LOVED it. I went to his website and found this one on parenting and it made me laugh so hard! The song is the best and the story about boys is even BETTER!


Enjoy and check out Kim's blog on marriage! or just go to You tube and check them out.

Time for me to brag about me

Ok, I am SOOO excited. This whole blog thing started in November of 2005 when David's Aunt Juanita started a family blog (See Lanny's loonies link). Well I started to feel like I was bragging to much about my kids, so in mid December of that year I started my own. Then one by one my friends picked up on this little habbit. Today I am so excited that the Jordan's have jumped on the band wagon as well. I LOVE reading what is going on in everyone's life and it has become a habbit for me every morning to run through all my blog links to see what new posts are out and I get so excited to see them.
Thanks everyone for picking up this dreadful habbit & running with it!!!

And the best part of all, as soon as I get my camera out I get all three boys ask if it's going to be on the blog. LOL. Sometimes they aren't all that happy about it. Alex now thinks he has to approve what goes up.

Happy Birthday Alex!!!!!!

Ok, I wont go into all the sappy stuff about how bad I am feeling that my little boy is growing up, I'll save that for another sappy post about my boys.

Alex turned 13 yesterday!! we decided to keep it low key and went to Lunch with my parents at Red Robin, somewhere they would sing to him :-).


The prized gift was an iPod, we all pitched in for this since it was something he really wanted.



And the afternoon ended with some good old embarrasment...

Goofy Vs. David

One of the best stories from our Disneyland trip was the time at Goofy's kitchen. I had to wait to get the pictures from everyone else because I was too busy laughing to even think of getting photos.

Goofy & David made peace at the end, but I think Goofy might consider walking on the opposite side of the street from now on.


Plus David got his picture with Belle, what more could he ask for?

First tooth!!!

What an exciting first.... Josiah lost his first tooth today. It has been loose for a few days now and at some point today it fell out. The bad news... he doesn't know where it is, but that's ok, we are going to make a cut out tooth for him to put out for the tooth fairy- I would hate to see him miss out on the tooth fairy just cause his tooth fell out at school and was never found.

Halloween!!!!

For the first time we decided to go away from the normal Halloween tradition of trick or treating in my parents neighborhood. This for me was a tough decision, especially since I have spent every halloween for 30 years trick or treating at those houses. But frankly, it's COLD out there and I don't think I could have handled another walk down memory lane while freezing my tale off.
So we ventured to "Trunk or Treat" our annual church Halloween event. This year I volunteered to work the coffee stand (so I would have an excuse to stay inside in the warmth). So I gave David the camera and off he went.

When we first arrived to set up we ran into our friends the Santori's and their son Christian, who was dressed as Yoda. It was great to see Darth Vader (Josiah) and Yoda having it out...



The fought for a long time... at least until Darth's sword broke...




And our friends Samuel & Micah also joined in with the Star Wars theme.


Darth Vader & his Storm Troopers were all over the church last night. It's interesting to think about how those movies are 30 years old and kids still LOVE them.... and yes.... I still haven't taken the time to actually watch them and I have no desire to do so.

Alex & I stayed behind the espresso stand the whole night. I should have asked David to get a picture, maybe next time. I think I work this Sunday, so maybe I will grab Alex & we can recreate the night :-).

Have a great day!!

Pumpkin Patch

Josiah and I went to the pumpkin patch to get some pumpkins. It was a lot of fun.


We got to go on a tractor ride and through a haystack maze. At the end of the maze Josiah got to go down a big slide.