Merry Christmas

 

All Clara Wants for Christmas…

Is her two front teeth! The little cutie pulled out her other front tooth on Sunday night. We were worried that she wouldn’t be able to play her clarinet (since you use your 2 front teeth against the reed) but it hasn’t made a difference. Go figure!

It’s Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

We had a nice Thanksgiving and enjoyed the snow during that week. Since then the snow is gone and it’s just super cold. But here’s some pics of the kids enjoying the snow. A neighbor girl is included in the second one.

 

Zack's new word...

Daddy Daughter Date

Jeremy is such a great dad. He took Clara out for a date on Saturday to the next town’s college football game. Our kids love to go to any sporting event with their dad. The team was doing well this season and their field is indoors so they thought it would be fun. Clara had a great time and even let Zack come along for an hour before mom picked him up. They came home around 11pm. The team lost but Clara loved it all.

Halloween!

One of our family’s favorite holidays is Halloween. This year Zack was a firefighter, Clara was a purple dragon, and Hayley was a 50’s girl. After watching the movie “Underdog,” the kids asked if Phoebe could be that for Halloween. So she was!

On Halloween day, we were downtown and Clara found a baby bird that must have fallen out of it’s nest. It let her pick it up. Since the university here has such a big vet program, they let you bring hurt animals that you find like baby birds and the students at the vet hospital treat them. Here is Clara holding the bird at the vet hospital. She named it Grace. The college girls that worked there commended Clara for saving the baby bird. She was soooooooo happy.

Here is the bird in it’s makeshift nest at the vet hospital. We think it might be a goldfinch but it is hard to tell because baby birds’ markings are different than adults.

Fall Fun

We in the Nickels household are having a wonderful fall! Here’s some pics from our everyday life. Zack is a fire fighter. Hayley’s cat LOVES to read with her. And anytime we go someplace and leave our dog in her run, she stands on her house and looks over the fence. It makes you understand Snoopy on the doghouse a little more doesn’t it?

 

This is what it looks like from the other side of the fence to passersby. :)

Fall Update

Here’s an update on things that have been happening this fall with the Nickels family.

We came home one day to find Phoebe’s snout all swollen up.  We think she must have gotten into a wasp’s nest or something.  We gave her some benadryl and the swelling went down.

 

Here we are picking apples at a local orchard (it was unseasonably cold that day – thus the jackets).  They have old-fashioned wooden apple presses that you can use to make your own cider.  It was lots of fun and the cider was delicious.

 

We also took a trip to a local ranch to pick pumpkins to decorate for Halloween.

Zack was so proud that he could lift his own pumpkin.

The kid’s enjoyed playing in the hay fort they had set up at the ranch.

Phoebe enjoyed it too.

Kent Allen, orangutan

Mom (Betty), remember when we took this picture of Kent Allen the orangutan at the San Diego Zoo in May of 2004?  Funny.

Stacy, I was looking at some old pictures and I found this one.

 

Isn’t it awesome?

Summer Happenings

This is a barn painting I did for my neighbor in exchange for a quilt recently.

  

Geocaching in Challis Idaho.

We cached near an amethyst mine…aren’t the hills beautiful?

 

Summer Update #3: Ferry to Bainbridge Island

We blew Zack's mind by putting our car on a boat and heading from Seattle over to Bainbridge Island. The view was spectacular! Clara up on deck.
Hayley up on deck.

The girls looking down at the cars.

Summer Update #2: Take me out to the ballgame!

We took the kids to a Mariners/Padres (Go Paads!) in Seattle. The stadium was beautiful and we had a great time even though the Padres lost. :(

Summer Update #1

When Jeremy was out of town for work my friend Jane and I took the kids camping to the river and we went Geocaching. Jane was our fearless leader even though it was her first time, and she led us right to the cache!
Clara at the river.

Early in the season the garden was small but we still had enough extra for the kids to pick a big back for Backyard Harvest to come and pick up. (They are a local charity that helps feed the hungry) The neighbor girls helped us harvest.

When Jeremy was out of town in June, our neighbor Jack and his wife Molly took the kids to the annual "Fishing Kids" day where a local pond is stocked brimming full with rainbow trout. We had lots of fun and with Jack's help we caught 6 fish and a man. (Hayley caught the man:))

Summertime

( These pics were taken at a day trip to the river.)

So I haven't updated my blog- now the garden is full and overgrown, all the plants in the yard are full and past bloom, and we have had our busiest summer ever. Jeremy keeps asking me when I will update my blog and I have to admit that it's pretty overwhelming since I have a couple hundred pics I've taken since my last update. I promise that I'll get to it soon.

Since I last wrote Jeremy had a business trip and I took the kids and went camping with a friend while he was gone. When he got back we went to Seattle for a few days and took the kids to a Mariners/Padres game and explored more of the city and took a ferry (with our car) to an island and saw giant starfish and a dolphin. We had a fun filled 4th of July with the usual parades, including the one on our street, and stayed up too late setting off too many fireworks that should be banned. The girls had swim lessons from my friend and now Clara can not only swim but dive off the diving board. Then we went to my sister, Annie's house in Idaho for a reunion with my family for a few days, and then spent a week in Utah with Jeremy's family. We've had a lot of fun and now we are tired. But it's a good tired, and I'll get around to posting a.s.a.p. (Oh, and I am potty training Zack- no more diapers as of Monday- and we are about 3/4 of the way there.)

yard work

Here's some pics of projects that we recently have done in the yard. I made a dog run for Phoebe and hung a sign over a flower bed that a shop downtown gave me since the flower shop is no longer in business. We used the dirt fron the patio redo and made a "Mount Nickels" behind the garden.