Josiah's birthday....

Josiah turned 6 this weekend. The day started with a big surprise. We got Josiah a new bike and put it outside. I knocked on the door and Josiah answered it...




he got to practice his new bike throughout the morning


I then headed for the Wedding Expo with Kim, Keith & Linda (Kim's mom). The goal... tuxes, which Keith & Linda found and scheduled.

It was an adventure. Kim did have a little slip on the stairs. I was surprised she didn't hurt herself more than she did (just some scrapes and bruises). I was a good friend, I made sure she was all right before I busted up laughing (sorry Kim). It was amusing cause I was being SO careful going down the stairs and she was too busy watching me and fell on her butt.

Then off to the bowling alley for some more birthday fun...


Alex and his dad came...


It was a Darth Vader themed party...





It was a lot of fun Josiah was so excited to see everyone (my parents came & the Lewis'). Hopefully I'll ave more time to post more photos.

The results

Alex first....
he claims his teacher lied to me and that she never asked him to stay after school on wednesday. He said he was going to talk to her this morning. So we will see. Bottom line, homework is number one and if he doesn't do it he doesn't go over to his dad's til it's done.

Josiah...
Well this one was a little tougher. Apparently Josiah has decided to flip a little attitude with the teacher, if he doesn't want to do the assignment he doesn't. So we are looking at a couple of options: 1. is the work to easy? he did a lot of preschool work last year and writing M's over and over is something he is a pro at. 2. Change, Josiah has NEVER done well with change and I mean NEVER. Preschool took a few weeks when he moved classrooms & when a teacher left the school it was a nightmare. So the principal was very nice and we came up with a daily rewards system and today's reward will be whether or not he can share his birthday cookies with the class. I'm on pins & needles waiting to find out.

I wish I had made a wagger on this...

Ok, I really wish I had made a bet with someone, anyone on how many days of school it would take for the principal to call me for a meeting to discuss Josiah. I would have won... Not even two weeks into school and guess who just called me... you guessed it. I have to go and meet with her after school today. The joy of boys. Part of me just wants to bust up laughing and the other knows that this needs to be dealt with.
Honestly we are pretty strict with Josiah, so I'm not exactly sure what's going on.

FUN TIMES! I will update the post later once I know... This is the fun part about the blog- embarrasing my kids.

OH MY GOODNESS... not even 30 minutes after Josiah's prinicpal called, Alex's science teacher called!!!! what in the WORLD is going on here...

Quotes

Since we moved office I have learned that I love quotes. I have them ALL over the place... places that I don't even notice any more. I thought I would share a few of my favorite with you.

"Whatever we accomplish is due to the combined effort. The organization must be with you or you don't get it done... In my organization there is respect for every indvidual, and we all have a keen respect for the public." -Walt Disney (I have a whole book of his quotes on my desk, but I really like this one)

"A- Accept God's plan; B- Believe He will meet your needs; C- Crucify your selfish desires; He may not be there when you want Him, but He is always on time."

"I don't know what the key to success is, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone"- Bill Cosby

"Don't let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you teach, in the way you live, in love, your faith and purity." 1 Timothy 4:12

"What comes from the heart, goes to the heart." -Frank Thomas (one of the orignal 9 old men, disney animators)

" Be committed to the welfare of others, above yourself." Fred Williams said this, but not sure if he was quoting a book or the bible.

"I am precious in His sight"

and my favorite, those who have been to Disneyland would understand...

"Disneyland is more than just a place, it's a state of mind."

I have more, but these are by far ones I read on a daily basis. Seems silly, but they are encouraging to me.

Enjoy your day!!

Spikey Hair

Last week Uncle Matt had some fun with Josiah's hair...


And this is after a well needed hair cut...

I'm old

It's official. I drank my first cup of coffee today. Not the fufu starbucks stuff with all the loaded flavors. I real cup of black coffee and I enjoyed it. Now note two things, one, it's chalked full of sugar. And two, baby sips. I have tried big gulps and learned I am not ready for that yet. It feels SO good. I am waking up just by the smell of it. I took a photo but I don't have my cord with me to upload.

Building Move

For those who are a little out of the loop that have wondered “what in the world is Cori doing that takes her away from her blog?!?” well let me tell you… a lot. We moved buildings at work, which for both David and I involved 18 hour days and a lot of hard work.



We moved out of the Smith Tower, a 90 year old building in downtown Seattle that I loved. The building used to be the tallest west of the Mississippi, then someone came in and made a taller one. Well the owner didn’t like that, so he added a flag pole at the top so he could maintain his claim of the tallest building. This is the basic history, you can get a lot more plus cool photos here: http://www.smithtower.com/History.html . But for now, let me share with you some pros and cons to our Smith Tower adventure.
Things I loved about the Smith Tower:
**Its beauty
**Marble on the walls
**Copper elevators, with glass doors. Don’t worry you get used to it after a while. I never had motion sickness before, so I was glad when it started to wear off. Here is a virtual tour of the elevators, for those not “technically savvy” use your mouse button and you can view top bottom & all around. http://www.vrseattle.com/pages/vrview.php?cat_id=710&vrs_id=vrs868
** Elevator Operators. That’s right, the elevator’s don’t run on their own. Even though we weren’t suppose to have favorites, it was hard not too… Hamilton was by far someone I enjoyed talking to. He was an elderly gentleman who loved his job and loved the Lord. We had great bible study talks and we learned a lot about each other’s lives.
**the view!!! I had a window seat that over looked the water, which was amazing. I’m going to have to frame these photo’s for my new desk.
**Leaving at the end of the day and having six or seven people saying goodbye & you wishing them a nice evening. I really miss that, and I think I’m getting a little “home” sick. I may have to run down there just to say hello.
**The lobby. It is wonderful, hand carved Indian heads on the ceiling. And at Christmas it was wonderful. Here’s another virtual tour that you can enjoy…. Be sure to scroll your mouse up so you can see the ceiling. http://www.vrseattle.com/pages/vrview.php?cat_id=710&vrs_id=vrs867
**A Starbucks IN the building (now we have to walk across the street and IT’S JUST NOT THE SAME). I guess I will be saving money .

The View from my window...



Things I am happy to leave behind:
**The windows!! Oh man! My biggest complaint… I FROZE year round. I had two desk heaters & a quilt at my desk and when the wind blew it was like you were standing outside. The blinds moved with the breeze. Cindy and I (my cube buddy, Cindy) complained a LOT, we both froze every morning. We would remind each other to wear layers if it was going to be bad the next morning.
**Elevators. I know, I just said they were amazing, but… they were SOOOO SLOW. Sometimes you could wait 10-15 minutes for an elevator
**Elevator Operators. Ok, so I had my favorites, I also had those I dreaded. The old man that smelled like smoke and never put his teeth in. The Disney freak that would not open the doors til he was done talking to you. The guy that sings chants all day. I could go on. After a while it gets old, your patience wears thin and 20 flights of stairs doesn’t seem so bad.
**Pioneer Square. During the day, not so bad. At night, bad. During the day you still see things you wish you never had. At night you quickly move to the parking garage and if you needed you ask the security guard to escort you.

The new building is just 4 blocks away and it’s another world. A clean one (LOL). There’s no one in the lobby saying “good morning”, we don’t even have to go outside cause the garage is in the building. Outside we see people rushing to and from work, no drug dealers or homeless people (if they are there they aren’t easy to spot). It really is a different world.
The exciting part is all the “Disney” stuff they decorated the office with, but that will have to wait for another post.

first day of school

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


There is so much more happening in our lives. I really hope to blog a lot more tonight when I get home.

TTFN!

Good News!!!

Great news!! No more wheely cart! No more crutches!!
I can now put weight on my foot and I only have to suffer one more week in the boot and then it's a real shoe!! I can't believe it!!!

What a fun weekend!

We had a fun weekend...
On Saturday we went to the Caceres for a fun afternoon on their property in Lake Stevens. We brought David's brother Nathan with us, he is here from Kentucky and will be around for the next week before he heads home to get ready for his third deployment in Iraq.



Here is me and Katrina, I just adore her. She is an amazing woman of God. (and no I'm not just saying that cause you read the blog!).


They had two good size, blow up, waterslides in their back yard. Josiah spent most of the afternoon on them.


Here's Samuel, Michael & Katrina's oldest son. I enjoyed talking to him about all different kinds of things. He is also a good blogger, you can see his post on the Caceres' blog, linked up above.


Here's Micah, their youngest. He's enjoying the Chocolate fountain and luckily I got this shot in, once he realized I had the camera he hid from me. He is really a cutie.


Simeon McLeod also enjoying the chocolate fountain. It was hard to gage who loved all that chocolate more... the kids or the moms.


Below is Alex Bartlett taking a wap at the pinata. My favorite part of this picture is Katrina in the background giving Micah tips on the best way to hit the star... I thought I was competitive.



Here's Josiah taking a wap at it. Nathan decided to hold the pinata once the top broke so the kids could keep hitting. He had more guts than I would.


We had such a great time and we all slept like logs that night.

David & Nathan

David's aunt just posted this on their blog from their wedding 20 years ago... The top one is David, the blonde kid is a cousin & the one on the bottom right is David's little brother Nathan. WOW, Josiah really got the Lewis genes.

My Weekend

It's really sad when you base the excitment of your days on whether or not you have anything interesting to put on the blog.... And even sadder when your friends notice that your life is so slow that the blog hasn't been updated. The sad fact is life is going crazy right now. At work we are moving buildings so my mind is swarming with logistics... the worst part is those in charge of everything are being tight lipped, so I've gotta help 100 people move with very little information- fun times.

On top of this choas, I offered to take Gabe for Saturday night & all day Sunday. Yes I was NUTS. We had our annual family picnic on Sunday and between my foot, a two month old and sheer exhaustion from not sleeping the night before I didn't get too many pictures, so here is what I did get...
Here's my mom with Gabe...


My Uncle Tom has a very quirky sense of humor, right before this pic he thought he'd scare my 3 year old cousid Caiden with a can of whip cream. Caiden didn't like Whip Cream on his face so my uncle Dan decided to get him back...

My Grandma Branley holding Gabe. It's always a good thing when their are new babies at the family picnic.



It was a really fun day. Tiring too. I slept like a log that night.

Best Husband Ever!

I hate to brag....
David had to run to our other building for work and completely surprised me with Market flowers.... I love flowers from the Market they are always so PRETTY and smell so WONDERFUL.


BTW, I posted this in hopes that I don't get into too much trouble for the clown nose photo below :-).

Keeping Busy

Ok, first let me give you a little background. The last two weeks have been complete CHOAS at work, by the time I get home my mind is so fried I can't even function. So last week when I found out about our Softball party I didn't even put two and two together that I had other plans that night... and to be honest, I didn't even put the two together until 10:00 last night when I saw I missed a call from Kim and my mouth hit the floor. I stood them all up, what a huge DORK I am. But in all honesty, I needed the break and being social would not have done that for me, so the other thing was a lot more fun and just what I needed (I feel TERRIBLE for not showing up to the party... sooooo sorry Kim!). I guess it just goes to show you that I really am a space case most of the time (Remember my hair is colored red, when I was a kid it was blonde).

So now onto the relaxing a FUN night we had. My mom and I both won tickets to the Everett Aquasox minor league team last night, so off we went. First, if you have ever been to a game you know to fill out all the contest stuff cause they do something inbetween every inning. So I grabbed all the forms, sat down & filled them out for all six of us.

Well right after the game started we here: "David Lewis & Doug Branley please report to the Comcast information booth"... Uh-oh... I'm in a LOT of trouble. Their eyes got HUGE... we didn't know what game they would be playing. My mom and I sat in our seats and laughed... what if it was the grocery cart game, where they raced carts around the basis... what if it was the trike race... uh oh... they are going to kill me.
Lucky for me it was the remote control car, which made me excited, the prize was $100.00 and my dad, who can't even work his TV, was going against David, which means David was a shoe in to win!


And their off, David takes an early leave, Doug... he can't get the car going... David's car hit's first base in no time, but not before trying to run over the right fielder... Doug can't get the car to get past second, it's stuck, or is it the operator, probably both. David rounds first and heads back and has a close collision with Doug, Doug still struggling to get past second, oh the Staff member has taken the remote control over and is returning Doug's car to the starting line...David wins by a LANDSLIDE.
It was a lot of fun.
We were also in the wheelchair seating and we got to enjoy Webby the Aquasox mascot for a bit.




Ok so later that night we here "Betty Branley, please report to the comcast booth" I am NOT kidding, I thought she was going to FREAK out. She won the prize from the WA Lotto. So she got a gift pack. It was a lot of fun. here are some random photos of the rest of the night.

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*



overall it was a well needed family time. we had a great time and I need to remember the AuqaSox next year for some affordable family fun.

Softball

This last weekend David & his team took first place at a local softball Tournament. Then on Tuesday night they took second place in the League Championships... here's some photos for your enjoyment.

Another fun filled weekend!

We had another great weekend in the Lewis household. On Saturday I spent the afternoon with Kim shopping for dresses and David took his final physical test with PUD (Public Utilities District- he's trying to get into the lineman apprentance program).
Then on Sunday we had our company picnic at the zoo. It was a lot of fun, but with me not walking and on my little scooter we only got to wander a little before my knee was screaming at me...

Me, Alex & Josiah being Catepilars...


Josiah & I


Getting pics of the boys is getting harder and harder, here are some of Josiah, he is more than willing to pose for a few photos... and trust me I didn't direct him.

Which one is the monkey?








And the highlight of my weekend...
Alex came home from Grandma Billies!!! Although he left this morning for his annual camping trip with his dad... Yes... he needs a haircut.


Overall it was fun but tiring. I am looking foward to this weekend when all we have to look foward to is a softball tournament... oh boy I can't wait for a nap :-).

One thing I forgot

After the party and everything we were walking through the mall and Kim pointed this out...


They were holding hands.... oh it was SOOO cute, I couldn't believe it.

The Good thing about having boys....

Some of you may have heard me say this before, but I will say it again. Having two boys is so wonderful. There are so many perks. No boy bands, one pair of shoes at a time, no accessories, no barbie shoes to step on in the middle of the night, No weddings to pay for- only dinners.... I could go on and on.
The down side? I don't get to do girly stuff like shoe shopping, dress shopping, playing with barbies, taking a princess to Disneyland and going to libby lu. So thanks to my best friend Kim and her boyfriend Keith they have let me join in on the fun of all the great things they do with his daughter Mikayla. She turned 6 this weekend and I got invited to the birthay party at Libby Lu... I was so excited. Those that are new to the blog she is the one I also got to dress up in a Cinderella gown & spend the whole day in Disneyland with a real princess.
So we went to the mall a little early and took Mikayla (She spent a couple of hours with us before the party) and Josiah to build a bear...


Then my parents took Josiah to Underdog while we went to Libby Lu for everyone's Hannah Montana Makeovers. Here is just a couple of photos... If you want more I am sure Kim's blog will have more.
All the girls got to dress up, get lip gloss, eye shadow & their nails painted as well as a Hannah Montana wig & microphone. Then they turn on Hannah Montana music really loud and the girls take turn walking the runway and lip syncing to the tune.
Here is Mikayla:


It was a LOT of fun. She is really a great kid! Overall Boys are a lot more fun and easier to raise (until the puberty part, than I think it's a wash). But It's great to have a little girl I can borrow for just a few hours and enjoy all the girly things we get to do. Boys just really don't care unless it has to do with dirt or bugs :-).

And by the way, we spent the whole weekend spotting the Good Year Blimp. Since we live next to Pain Field it was not hard to spot.

This last weekend.

This last weekend was a BUSY one for us. Friday I took the day off, mainly to fight my ticket. For those who have been on the edge of you seat waiting to hear what happened. I instantly jumped at the chance for a defferment- that means as long as I don't get another ticket for one year it stays off my record.
On saturday we spent the whole day running errands. I was wiped out by the time the day was done. We hit three malls in ONE day! that's is a lot for us.
We went to the Army Surplus store and Josiah ran up to the statue of the army guy out side and yelled "Mom take my picture", David responded "Josiah, mommy doesn't have her camera". My mouth dropped... I ALWAYS have my camera.


Saturday night my dad's company (Community Transit) had their annual company picnic at the Aqua Sox game so Josiah & I tagged along since David was going to be "hanging out with the guys" that night.

Josiah got a spider web painted on his face at the picnic...


It ended up turning very cold at night. We curled up in blankets for most of the game. Hard to believe that it is August.



We sat in the wheel chair seating at the game and they are by far the best seats in the house. We were right next to the opening of the opposing teams dug out and feet from first base. We spent the evening keeping Josiah busy and at the end of the game one of the opposing team game out of the dugout and handed Josiah a bat. Josiah was so happy. Don't worry- we will be hanging on his wall, it will not be a toy :-).



We had a great time and the fireworks were fabulous! I can't wait to go back. Only going without a five year old might be a lot more fun. I didn't get to see much of the game, I was too busy keeping Josiah busy and my poor dad had to make so many trips to the potty :-).

Finally a post

I feel a little lost, I haven't posted anything new & exciting for over a week!!! I am so sorry to those of you who check this daily. But our lives have been very quiet the last few days.
David played in our final CoEd game on Sunday, it was a devasting lost, but what a great season we had. I have been resting as much as possible, Still in a lot of pain and still dealing with the swelling. Friday morning I learn if I really do need to stay off of it for another 5 weeks, I'm hoping he will say "wow youa re healing so fast you can walk on it now" (I know, I'm wishful thinking) but I feel so useless and my house is a mess and David is having to take care of everything- he really is wonderful!
I should have some photos after this weekend!
I hope you all are doing well.