PUPPY! name to be determined!

 We are getting a Puppy!  She is so cute and so cuddly I had such a hard time leaving her there for 2 more weeks!  she is a Havanese/Lhasa apso mix and should grow to be around 15 pounds.  We did lots of research to find just the right dog for us and we think we found her!

  that little brown guy was a little bully, he had a fiesty personality!   We are looking forward to puppy kisses and cuddles soon!  We have not picked a name for her yet, we are thinking something feminine because she is so tiny and cute, or something literary either from a Jane Austen book or Shakespeare or something Cuban as Havanese are the official dog of Cuba.  you learn something new everyday.

Merry Christmas!- Our Christmas Card to you :)

 Well there is only one day until Christmas so I guess I had better write our families Christmas letter.  We have had a wonderful year, there have been so many blessings for our family.

Peter started back to school this year.  He is working towards his Master's in Public Administration at Evergreen State College.  So far he loves it and is really looking forward to some exciting research he will get to do later this year.  He is working at Department of liscensing for the State of WA, so if you get a DUI you might find yourself talking to a familiar person on the end of the line!

 I have been staying home with the girls again this year.  I am so lucky to be able to be home with my girls.  I love to read and cook and make crafts.  The girls keep me pretty busy, but I try to make time for all the things I like to do too :)

 We celebrated our 6th anniversary this August.  All we wanted was to walk around downtown in all the little shops that we can't go into with small children and to go out to eat at a restaurant that didn't bring crayons to the table along with our menu.  We had a great anniversary!

 Violet turned 4 this year.  She is in her second year of Pre school and we are all getting excited about Kindergarten next year!  She goes to speech therapy once a week and loves her time with Allison.  She has been making amazing progress in her speech abilities and we expect her to be all caught up by the end of the school year.  We are so proud of her she is such a little trooper.  She is also making great progress with her braces to correct her toe walking, she is walking correctly much more often now.   Violet has an amazing imagination and loves to pretend to be a princess, of course her favorite part is bossing us around like we are her subjects.

Claire turned 2 this summer, and she loves to be home with her Mom!  Claire is our little daredevil child and loves to climb everything and when she reaches the top she usually jumps off.  Claire loves to play with Violet and can't wait to pick V up from school each day. Claire loves to play cars and she especially loves whales.  Claire asks to have her nails painted pink every day, she loves it so much and she will show everyone she comes across her pretty pink nails.

Merry Christmas from the West Oly Coriers!  We have had such a great year and we hope you all have a great 2012, we look forward to great things this year.

Violet's magic boots

Here are Violet's braces.  She currently wears them for about 1-2 hours a day, but the goal is to make it all the way to 8 hours a day to correct her toe walking.

 We sent Grandpa out to search for some socks that would work with the braces.  Violet had been wearing microfiber tights but she needed something that could be worn with every outfit....even her swimsuit which she insists on wearing pretty much every day.  What we needed was 1. something CUTE that Violet would agree to wear 2. Knee high 3. Non slip, to prevent rubbing.

He went to REI (who doesn't love REI) and came back with a back of really cute smart wool hiking socks for kids.  Success!  Violet loves them!

Here she is all strapped in.  You can see how this would have been pretty traumatic at first but she has gotten used to them and hardly ever throws a fit when it's time to put them on and do her exercises.
Her exercises involve stretches, jumping like a frog and bouncing up and down on a small exercise ball.  Physical therapy is so much more fun for little kids!

11 days! What?!?

 I can't believe it has been since Halloween that i put up some pictures!  We've been busy with the usual, but we've had a lot of fun.  For a while Claire was obsessed with sitting on the computer desk to watch her cartoons.  ok..goof.

 This is the mummy/mommy pumpkin that the girls made for halloween.

 We got some snow in November, it lasted about half the day in true Washington fashion.  The girls had fun playing in it while I was off shopping at the Christmas bazaars!

 On our way to Grandma's house

 too cute.

 Wylie's little sister turned one!  Yay for Phoebe!  we went to the party.  The kids decorated cupcakes, "helped" Phoebe blow out her candles and open her presents ( they were so helpful, we decided the big kids needed to do the pinata and leave Pheebs alone.

 violet being the boss and telling everyone how to do a pinata...she is of course an expert on the subject.

 V won a crown!  She wore it to church the next day :)

Claire helping another baby play with a toy.

 Violet and Wylie!

 We got a real Christmas tree this year!  We have always wanted one but for various reason we were never able to get one.  Claire really just wanted to go home and take a nap, she didn't care that we were picking up a tree, she was tired.

 Violet had a blast!  It was super loud so she wanted to go home as soon as we found the perfect one but she has been so excited about our tree and every morning she gets up and "wakes up" the tree.

 Claire loves to build stuff and work with her hands so she was super excited to help Peter assemble the stand and put the tree up.  I'm sure he appreciated her help!

 Just tightening some screws here and there.

 Violet loves to take Pictures with my phone.

 Did my roots that morning!  yay for freshly dyed hair!

 up and lit.

 found this on my new pepper grinder.   Well that narrows it down.

 Our Christmas wall

 The tree skirt that took me 8 hours to make!

 ooh and aah, people!  I worked hard on that.

There are only 11 days until Christmas!  I usually like to have everything done and wrapped by the 10th but I wasn't able to get it all done in time.  My new goal is by the end of Saturday to be done with all my Christmas stuff.  It's coming together just a few odds and ends to finish.  I'm looking forward to a relaxing Week before Christmas!

We went to the Montesano christmas parade this year.  I had gone when I was in school with one of my friends who had family there.  We had a great time.  The kids loved it and so did G&G Corier.  We are already planning what to do next year for the parade (it involves a thermos of hot cocoa...brr!)  These first 2 videos are of some cool houses we were standing next too.  The last one is the finale of the parade.  Very cool.  Anyways, Hope all is well, have a Merry Christmas!

magic boot update

just a quick update.  Violet has been wearing her boots every day for 1-2 hours!  She still doesn't like them all that much but she will allow me to put them on, and will walk around and play like normal during her "boot time"
We are seeing a difference already in how much she walks on her toes,  the boots are really working to stretch her leg muscles out so she can stand more comfortably on a flat foot.  :)

sometimes he lets the storm rage...

I found this on pinterest a few weeks ago, and I really needed it today.

As you may know Violet is a toe walker.  She has always loved to just prance around on her toes like a ballerina.  It's super cute and so sweet, except for the part where her leg muscles are tightening up and may actually get shorter.  That is not ok.

So after several Dr visits with her pediatrician, a physical therapist and an orthopedic specialist, today we picked up Violet's magic boots! I'll post a picture later, but for now, Violet is still not too happy about these magic boots.  They are called AFO leg braces if you want to google them, but they look like small walking cast, they are molded to her feet and they have butterflies on them!

I was really nervous about todays appointment, and I was really concerned with how Violet would react to wearing her new braces or if she would agree to wear them at all.  I knew that she would be upset about them and for those of you that know Violet she can be quite the raging storm when she is really upset.  As we were pulling out of our parking lot this morning, I saw an elderly gentleman walking with a can and I happened to look at his feet (I don't really know why) and he was wearing special shoes that have a heel platform to help support him because he too was a toe walker and had never had it corrected.  I have never seen this man before and I'm not sure he even lives in our complex, there is a retirement community across the street so maybe he was just taking a walk and decided to take a walk in our parking lot, but I do know that whatever his reason was, he was there to calm my nerves before our appointment and help me to see what all the effort would be for.

So Heavenly Father didn't calm Violet and make it so she would instantly love her new boots and be agreeable and wear them when required, but he calmed me so that I could have the patience and the resolve to work with Violet so that she could get used to her new boots.  So even though there has been a lot of crying, screaming and even some throwing stuff, we've made it and I know we have been watched over today.

Sometimes it is those small and simple things that just get you through the trials of life.
My goal was for Violet to wear her braces for 1 hour and after I got her calmed down she did agree to wear them and even walked around in them a little bit towards the end of her hour.  When the timer went off she ripped them off and shouted HURRAY!!!  it was adorable, now if only we can repeat this tomorrow we will be on our way.

Halloween!

 Violet went as Barbie this year.  She told everyone her name was barbie and that she was going trick or treating with Wylie.  I think this is the year she has really known ahead of time how much fun she was going to have and actually anticipated it, this makes me excited for Christmas!

 Claire went as a princess.  (they pretty much just wore their dress up costumes, it's halloween all year round in our house!)

  Claire wasn't as excited about Halloween as Violet, but she was really excited to find Super Why on tv.

 Violet had a quick costume change and did a chicken dance before switching back to barbie for Trick or treating

 This is the 3rd year that Violet has gone trick or treating with Wylie.  New additions are Claire and Phoebe.  The little girls are catching on...sort of.

 After trick or treat we went to my parents house for cider and charlie brown.  Diana and John had been busy carving pumpkins all week.  Here are some of my favorites (there were 18 total)  This one is a shark.

  Spongebobs friend Patrick.

 And of course Cinderella :)

The girls ended the night with a tea party with Grandpa.  They had a great night and slept great!

Happy Halloween!