Family Reunion Fun

Sabin Family Reunion 2013

My Mom did a great job planning our family reunion this year. She based it off a comment that my Grandpa Bill had made a couple months before when he said, "Treasure these moments." My Grandma Joyce's health isn't too well (neither is my Grandpa Paul's health) so he was meaning to enjoy these days and times we are living now. So that's what we did this weekend. We reminisced, played, ate, laughed and had a good time with each other. Oh and we took lots of pictures and it was hard to decide which pictures to include so I just included lots. 

Getting the yard ready for when everyone shows up later that day. 

My Mom made new princess dresses for the girls to wear. Lindsey wore this Tinkerbell dress all weekend. Next time we come, I'm not packing her any clothes! She wore this and a swimsuit most of the time.

Hailey got these glasses and told Jeni that she wanted to give them to Preston. Since Preston has memorized all 50 states all the cousins are pretty impressed (well us adults are too) and so they think of Preston whenever they see stuff related to the states. Pretty funny and so cute of Hailey to think of him. He LOVED these glasses too. 

After the little fire where we roasted marshmallows for s'mores, we went out by the hay field and my Dad made a big bonfire. Marci, the great aunt she is, had music playing on her phone so the kids could sing and dance. They loved it.

My awesome parents. :)

Kevin whipping the kids around on the "magic carpet ride". I like the look of Carter and Kate's faces because it looks like they were hanging on pretty tight so they wouldn't fall off!

All the grandkids in their matching Treasure These Moments t-shirts my parents had made.

L-R: Aubree holding Zane, Paige, Preston, Kate holding Chelsea, Lindsey, Carter holding Baylor, Hailey and Reagan.

Since the theme was "Treasure These Moments" we had to go on a Treasure Hunt (or hike). 

Here's our map and off we went.

Some of us hiking up the trail. I thought the hunt or hike was going to be more kid friendly like a previous hike my Dad took the kids on. This one was longer than I expected so I didn't bring our backpack carrier. I was complaining a bit about it. And really it wasn't that steep or hard, but it would have been nice to have a backpack carrier or something had I known it was a couple miles. But it worked out fine because between a few of us we took turns holding Chelsea and Zane. 

It made it better that I had a cute face to look at. It looks like she's waving. ha!

The steepest hill on the hike to get to the very top of the hill. This is a cool picture probably taken by Sara so most of us our in it. 

Gorgeous views of the Columbia River and the farmland at the top of the hike. Breathtaking!

The kids are following the map's directions to the cave in the side of the rock where they found the treasure!

They each got a disposable camera to capture their favorite moments from the reunion. My Mom gave them each a frame to put a picture in from their camera.

Preston found a good place to put his camera. haha! He was walking back down the trail with my Mom and they were looking at rocks for Aubree. My Mom found one that was bent and asked Preston if it looked like California and he said, "no that looks more like Delaware." haha! Then he found one later that looked like Jupiter because it had rings on it. 

Marking my territory and leaving memories. ;)

Taking business calls on the treasure hike

We came back after the hike and ate yummy Frito banditos.

My Mom got the kids a treasure box that they could paint. She cut out vinyl lettering to put on top of the box that said "Treasure these Moments". 

Treasure Box Pinata time! We were all lovin' the candy.

Saturday night we had a restaurant because growing up we pretended to have a restaurant or movie theater and it was so fun! Good memories! We served Hamburgers, Hot dogs, Chicken nuggets, fries (all sorts of fries) and milk shakes (all sorts of milk shakes, even fresh strawberry one's). 

On Sunday, we went to Church in the morning, had a yummy pork roast dinner then some took naps. In the afternoon, we played a jeopardy game with trivia questions from our family's memories. We also had a fashion show with old costumes that we wore as kids and we had to guess who wore what. It's fun reminiscing and making jokes about stuff we did. It's fun laughing about it all. 

Sunday night my Mom made her famous spud-nut donuts. Mmmmm! They were delish! Thanks Mom, Dad and all my siblings for a great family reunion! We definitely "Treasured These Moments" at our reunion.

Kate turns 8 really soon! She is so excited for her birthday and her baptism. We can't wait. She get's baptized on June 1st and we did a little photo shoot last Sunday. 

Lindsey wanted a photo shoot too. She was too fast for me with her poses so I had to be quick.

Mother's Day Weekend

We went to my parent's house for Mother's Day weekend because we got to talk to Jared from Brazil on Sunday!!! We went to my cousin Jessica's wedding reception on Friday night (my Mom made 400 cupcakes for it) then we got a babysitter and my Mom, Dad, Marci, Kyle and I all went to Ellensburg to see Iron Man 3 (which was awesome!). We got to swim because it was 91 degrees on Saturday. Kyle got to work on the farm and help my Dad cut hay. Marci, my Dad and I ran in a 5K to benefit Diabetes on Saturday morning. Dee Ann, Melanie and her kids came to my parent's for a BBQ on Saturday afternoon to celebrate Kyle's birthday. It was a fun weekend.

Melanie's kids loved the pool and Kate loved swimming with her cousins. They were like fish and stayed in all afternoon.

L-R: Nathan, Dane, Kate, Kathryn and Reed 

Preston jumping in. Reed is behind him and was making muscle poses before jumping in. haha!

Kate chasing Owen on the trampoline

Kyle took the kids on motorcycle rides and tractor rides.

Happy Mother's Day!!!

I love my kids. I'm lucky to be their Mom. :)

My Mom. 

I'm lucky she's my Mom! She has done a lot for me and I'm grateful for her example of how to be a good Mom. She always sacrifices so much for all of us. She's amazing.

Lindsey and Hailey deep in conversation. I thought this picture was cute of these two little girls.

Here we were all waiting for Jared's call to come through on Skype. He was going to call around 12:00 pm. We were SO excited and nervous hoping it would work! We were chatting when my Grandma Helen Gene said, "Oh it says Jared is calling now." We were busy talking and not paying attention! Good thing my Grandma was there to tell us!

Jared!!! Elder Sabin!!! 

He could hear us, but we couldn't hear him so we were fake doing sign language and he would write on a piece of paper because we were trying to troubleshoot the problem. Well, it turned out that his computer didn't have a microphone. So we ended up calling him back after his companion was done talking to his family and then Skyped at the same time. 

We are hovered around the computer showing him babies, kids and Marci is holding the iPad which Jeff was on through Skype since he couldn't be there. It was awesome having everyone there. Jared was making silly faces and the kids (well all of us) were dying laughing. It was pretty funny. The kids miss having him around like we all do.

Kevin teasing Jared by eating a cookie and drinking a tall glass of cold milk. He misses the cookies and milk most of all. They don't have cold milk down in Brazil like we do here. And Jared was a boy who loved his milk. :)

We ended up eating lunch and then calling him back around 1:30 pm. It's amazing that we can see him and talk to him when we are so far apart. Love it!

I liked this picture of my Dad while he was talking to Jared. We were all like this. Smiling and laughing while talking to him. It was fun to joke around with him, ask questions and get to know more about his life down there. He's in the Joao Pessoa mission, but if he gets transferred within the next several weeks to the Natal area then he'll switch missions and be in the Natal mission (they just created a new mission down there). He's working hard and has had several baptisms already. He said the members there are great and the ward he is in now is awesome. He eats rice and beans a lot. He doesn't have a working fridge right now so he was telling us how he only eats lunch and we were telling him how he needs to eat breakfast and dinner. We are all his little mother's. haha! We were all bawling by the time we had to say good bye. It was hard to hang up with him. He looked awesome and sounded so good. He's such a good kid!

Someone took this picture on my Mom's camera and it was so cute with most of the kids together. 

 My Mom with most of her grand kids. We were missing Reagan and Baylor. Pretty cute kids I would say!

Happy Anniversary and Birthday!

We celebrated our 13th Wedding Anniversary on May 4th. It was the most random day ever. We ended up doing a last minute yard sale because others in our development were doing it. I had a baby swing and other things that I wanted to get rid of. I went through our things the night before and priced them. Then at 8 am we put our stuff out and waited. And waited...for people! I guess one of the neighbor's was supposed to put signs out and didn't. Not too many people came through. We sold $19 worth of stuff. Not worth it to me. The kids played outside while I was in and out of the house. Kyle put together our new child carrier for my bike (for Lindsey to sit in) and our 5 bike hitch rack. I didn't sell the swing. My neighbor who is pregnant and due in June almost bought it. This was my first yard sale. I think it would have been better if more advertising was done. There were 7 or more neighbors that participated. 

After our successful yard sale (haha), we ate lunch then loaded up the bikes and trailer. We went to a trail close by at McCollum Park because we needed to get back for afternoon naps. We went on our bike ride which was awesome. Preston doesn't ride a bike so we needed more room to haul everyone so now Lindsey rides on the back of my bike. It worked great. The weather was amazing and the trail was pretty easy. We want to go to other trails when we have more time to ride now that we can haul our bikes. We came home, took showers, then Preston, Kate and I went to a birthday party while Kyle stayed home with Chelsea and Lindsey who were napping. We stayed at the birthday party for an hour then left to go to a baptism for Kate's friend in our ward. Then, we came home after the baptism because a babysitter was coming so Kyle and I could go out for our date. We went to Ivar's Landing in Mukilteo. I had reserved a table online and asked for a window seat (even though they say not to because it's first come first serve). Well, I checked us in and they told me they had a window seat for us. Sweet! When we sit down there is a personalized hand written card to us for our anniversary! Very thoughtful. Big points for that restaurant. We enjoyed our clam chowder and halibut fish and chips. Mmmm, delectable! After dinner, we walked along the pier and joked that we should go park the car and...take a nap! haha! We are lame. We ended up going to Nordstrom Rack and shopped. It was fun to spend time together.

Our yard sale all ready to go! 

This is how the inside of my office looked. Is having a yard sale worth it? I'm not so sure! I used the table that normally goes in here and holds a bunch of stuff to use outside so it's a mess.

Kyle had a birthday last week. He is 35!!! He wanted a low key birthday. He wanted french bread pizza for dinner and four layer pudding dessert for his "cake". 

I gave Chelsea some to try out. She was hesitant at first, but dug in and loved it. 

Messy cute face! I love her!

Happenings

It was a beautiful day on Sunday a couple weeks ago (back in April, I've been horrible about blogging) and the kids went outside in our tiny backyard to spend some time reading. I thought this picture of Kate reading with Lindsey was cute. We don't let the kids go play out in the front where the play area is on Sunday because we try to make the Sabbath day a family day. If we were at my parent's house then we let them go outside, but since we live in a neighborhood it's hard to not let Sunday be just like every other day where they play with their friends. So to avoid that we had to just say no playing outside on Sunday. The kids are pretty good about it. We go for drives, go on walks, visit family or friends or chill at home. Then I attempted to get a picture of the kids and that was pretty unsuccessful. ha!

Chelsea likes to pull the baskets out and dump everything out. It's pretty cute. 

Kate had crazy hair or hat day a few weeks ago. She went with the crazy hair look. She even went with me to Walmart with this hairdo later that night. She was concerned that people would laugh at her funny hair. Good thing it's just Walmart and she'd fit in.

The kids love it when Kyle wrestles with them or throws them on the couches. Here they were all getting on top of him and giggling. I was in the other room and had to hurry and get a picture. 

Maddie, our niece on Kyle's side, stopped by for a visit on her way to watch a friends baseball game in Everett. She's going to college in Utah and plays soccer for UVU. She played with the kids and they loved having her around. Preston showed her how he knows where all the states go in the U.S. In this game called "Stack the States" on the iPad you have to put all the states where they go and he can do it. He's really good at puzzles so he just memorized where they go and can do it. He knows most of the names too. When we were eating dinner with Maddie, we had chili over chips, Preston bit off part of a chip then said, "this is the shape of Idaho!" It was hilarious. And it did look like Idaho!

And so it begins! The stage of getting into all my cupboards and drawers. I've already put in a request for kid locks on the cupboards. She keeps getting into the one under the sink and that's where all my cleaning stuff is. Not good. She has fun doing it though.