Happy Birthday Fitz

Four years ago on Memorial Day, Scott brought home a little black ball of fur. He didn't ask. He had been working in Seward for a week or two and when he came home in the wee hours of the night. He laid the little furball on the bed next to me and I was awakened by a cold nose sniffing my face. Needless to say that I was surprised. We had not even talked about getting a dog.

Having a dog in Alaska is quite a commitment. It is so cold that the little thing would need to be able to come in to the house and would basically need to become a member of the family. I just wasn't sure that I was ready for that kind of commitment. I have never been a great dog lover and I knew that the lion share of the training and caring for the dog would fall on me. Scott would say it was "his" dog, but I would be the one taking on the job of training him. This was all running through my mind as the little thing snuggled into the crook of my neck and settled down for a nap.

I think that Scott was reading my mind as he stood there with a goofy look on his face. I could see how excited he was to have a dog. (He WAS adorable.) Scott let me name him. I think that he thought that if I named him, I would become attached to him. I named him, Fitzwilliam Darcy, after Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. (Little did I know how well the name suited him. We took him to the dog park last week and he towered over every other dog and his attitude was so superior to the other dogs that they were almost beneath his notice.)

Everyone loved Fitzy! I had no idea what to do with him as I had never house trained a dog. I took him to the vet and he gave me some amazing advise which I followed to the letter. It worked and before long he was trained. At first I had to carry him down and up the deck stairs as he was too small to navigate the stairs by himself, but before long he was big enough to do it.

We had many memorable moments with Fitz as he grew and learned. Puppy classes, dish towel battles, teething on deck posts and other moments come to mind. Scott and the kids taught him many fun tricks and the neighbor kids and Ward kids loved to come by and watch him perform. Scott will still put him through the paces for anyone who comes over and Fitz will do most anything for a treat.

Now, Fitzwilliam is 4 years old. He has grown so much; we think he is about 125 lbs. He is a good dog and is truly one of the family. With only Luke here, he has helped to fill the lonely hours here in Washington . He is my companion during the day and on walks around the neighborhood, but as soon as Scott drives in, I am forgotten.

I wanted to have a cake and a party for Fitz's birthday, but Luke thought it was kind of silly. Who would we ask anyway? (Scott wanted to have a party for my birthday last year and could not think of who to invite.) Instead of a party we took him for a walk along the Columbia river and Scott wore him out tossing sticks into the water for him to fetch. It is one of his favorite pastimes! I tried to take a video on my phone and after a few tries while I figured out how to do it, I finally got one. So enjoy this video of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy Ekstrom's birthday fun!!
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Family picture

December is tricky for our family. Scott and I were married on December 1st and Scott, 5 of our 7 children, 2 grandson's and one of our Daughter in laws all celebrate birthdays. (Six of them in one week!) Two of my sisters and my mother were also born in December; not to forget Christmas and New Years Eve. It is just one mad whirl!!

Well, this year all of the kids planned to come to Washington to spend some time together so I decided to schedule family pictures. With everyone's schedule, we had one day that we could do the pictures.

I was so lucky to find Kelli Christofferson at Kelli Lynn Photos. She is a wonderful person and an extremely talented photographer! We took a road trip to Prosser and she did the photo shoot at a coffee shop there. She was great! She even made US look good!

So, here's our family picture. Enjoy!!

Zuster Ekstrom

The day finally arrived. We took Hilary to the MTC. It was a wonderful day full of mixed emotions and tears. It was our 4th trip to the MTC to drop off our children so we had a pretty good idea of what to expect, but there is something about leaving your daughter that is so tender and choice.

I spent the week before with Hilary. We spent just about every minute together. Wow, my daughter is pretty awesome! I will cherish those days! She asked a million questions and it was interesting the things that she wanted to know about me and my life when I was her age and before Scott and I were married. It amazes me to think that I was married and about to become a mother when I was her age. I planned to go on a mission and had my 2 year plan going pretty well when Scotty swooped in and totally swept me off my feet. I wouldn't trade the last 30 years for anything, but a little piece of me has always regretted not serving a mission. I have come to realize that I may not have actually served myself, but I have contributed my 3 sons and now my precious daughter to the work. I am excited to serve vicariously through Hilary's letters and experiences!

I posted a few pictures of us at the MTC. Scott was in charge of pictures and for some reason he didn't take too many. The one of Hilary and Luke is my favorite. It is good to see him so excited for Hilary and I love to hear him talk about when he serves his mission.

For those of you who don't know, Hilary has been called to serve in the Belgium, Brussels / Netherlands mission. She will be learning dutch in the MTC.

For more pictures and weekly updates on her mission, check out Hilary's blog. I plan to update it on Sundays and hopefully it will be a fun documentation of her experience.

Oh My!

I have been so busy getting Hilary ready for the MTC that I neglected to post this awesome picture of me. A couple of weeks ago the chorus had our show. It was called "Extra Extra! Sing all about it!" and it featured a news boy sitting at a news stand and different chorus members would buy a paper and comment on the different sections. Of course we had something to sing about each section as well. It was a cute show and was lots of fun. Scott had the camera but somehow neglected to take any pictures during the show. She took this one of me in the hall after the show.

First School Dance

Well, the day of the big dance finally arrived! Last night was "Tolo", the "Sadie Hawkins" of Richland High School dances. As you saw in my last post, Luke was asked by Morgan.

The afternoon was spent at the mall participating in a picture scavenger hunt planned by the girls. Morgan was expected at 6:00pm so Luke jumped into the shower at about 5:30, then got all decked out in his black shirt and pants and his silvery blue tie! Check out the ensemb below...Luke's friend, Hayden, and his date stopped by around 6:00. While they were waiting for Morgan to pick Luke up, he and Luke entertained us with their chatter.
Luke tried on Scott's coat to see how mysterious he could look. I thought that he looked pretty dang good, except the coat was enormous!
Morgan arrived and off came the shoes. She didn't want to be taller than Luke for the pictures.

Here's the cute couple!

How did my baby boy become such a handsome, thoughtful young, lady killer?

The evening went off without a hitch and a good time was had by all. Scott and I spent a quiet evening at home watching movies and munching on the chocolate he gave me for Valentines day! It doesn't get any better than that!

Of all the fish in the sea............

Scott has a favorite story he has told the boys through the years about all the fish in the ocean and choosing just the right one. He has shared it with Levi, Aaron and Ben many times. I am sure that Emily and the twins have heard it a few times as well. Well who knew that Luke would experience it for himself! (And probably before the lecture, errrr, story.)

As you know, Luke turned 16 in December. One of the things that he can now enjoy is dating. Scott and I didn't think that we had to worry about that just yet, but little did we know that that sly young man had a sweet young thing waiting in the wings. Saturday Luke planned to go to the movies. I asked with whom he planned to go and he said, Nate, Chris, and Morgan. Well, he went to the movie and it wasn't until that evening that we found out that unbeknownst to us, Morgan is a girl and Luke paid for her movie ticket. Can you say, "date?" The sly little thing went on his first date without us even knowing.

Sunday afternoon, Luke's friend Hayden came by with an adorable young lady, Morgan, and his Mom. Morgan came bearing a fishbowl filled with several fish and a fish hook on a line. Luke had to fish in the bowl and eventually he realized that the goal was not the goldfish, but the plastic fish nestled in the rocks. He hooked it and pulled out and low and behold there was a note in the fishes mouth. The note said, "Out of all the fish in the sea, will you go to Tolo with me???"

Luke was asked out to his first school dance. It was a bittersweet moment for me. My baby has truly grown into a young man. Before I know it, he will be a man and will be off on his own! But for now I truly enjoyed watching his awkwardness as he experienced this momentous first.

Well, such a creative 'asking' deserved an equally creative 'answering.' Luke wanted to go with the fish theme. He made a pan of Jello and wrote "yes" in Swedish Fish. When I talked to Em about it she suggested he smother it in whipped cream which he did. He wrote a really sweet, poetic note and took it over to her. I don't have any pictures of her accepting his 'answer', but he said it went well. (I guess she scooped the whipped cream off an threw it on the ground, but the boys were entertained by her reaction and she was excited that Luke said, yes.)

He wrote with Swedish Fish.

The 'answer' smothered in whipped cream.

The note.

So, Scott................there ARE a lot of fish in the sea and our little boy is one of them!!

Christmas Happenings

December is always a crazy month for us. My last post was about our Anniversary which was December 1st. That was just the beginning of the madness. Five of our seven children, two grandsons, a daughter in law, and Scott were all born in December. (Not to mention my mother and 2 sisters.) (Five of them are in a single week!) Between that, and me trying to finish my sewing projects before the kids started arriving, made it busy all around.

Emily and Patrick and the kids arrived on the 18th, followed by Levi the next day and Hilary, Ben and Sarah the next. All of them traveled through the snow and ice. We were so grateful that they all arrived without incident. Hannah was supposed to arrive the morning of the 21st, but because of the weather, all flights into Pasco were cancelled. She got the airline to switch her to a flight to Spokane, but flight after flight was cancelled and she was bumped from one flight to another. It looked like she would be stuck in Seattle for a day or two. Scott looked into the driving conditions but every highway to Seattle was closed somewhere. In the afternoon when it became apparent that she wasn't going to get on a flight, we saw that they had opened Highway 90 so Scott, Emily, Patrick and Hilary packed up and headed to Seattle to get Hannah. I was a bit nervous, but they made it there safely and successfully collected Hannah and returned home unharmed. What a blessing!

Aaron and his little family arrived Monday afternoon and so for the first time in many years, all of our children were under one roof! It was so much fun to be together!

Tuesday we had family pictures taken in the morning. The photographer I had hired lived in Prosser so we headed up there. I will post some pictures once we have them. Hilary went to the Temple Tuesday afternoon and then that evening we had a group birthday party! Levi, Aaron, Sarah, Eli, Isaac, Hannah, Hilary, Luke and Scott were honored. We had a big cake (with I think a million candles). Following the birthday celebration, we did one of our Christmas Eve traditions. Aaron and Lindsay were heading back one the next morning and wouldn't be with us Christmas Eve, so we opened the gifts that we had for each other. (We have been drawing names since the kids were small and we usually open these on Christmas Eve.) It was fun and it was good to do it with everyone together.

Christmas Eve was amazing with our traditional reenactment of the events of the first Christmas. It was fun to see how creative the kids can be with their costumes. Christmas morning was incredible. I just love seeing Christmas morning through the eyes of Children! They are so excited about everything and they love everything. Isaac got a Nintendo DS game in his stocking and he was thrilled. The funny thing is that he doesn't have a Nintendo DS game system. He didn't even mind, he was just go excited to have the game! (Of course, the game system was wrapped up under the tree and he was so thrilled to get that too!)

We spent the days after Christmas being together and playing games and eating. On Luke's birthday, we got out the leftover cake from the big birthday party and put candles on it and sang. We tried to bring it out again on Scott's birthday, but he wouldn't let us. (Who knew one cake could do so much!)

Almost everyone has gone home. Levi is still here and will leave tomorrow or Tuesday. The house is quiet; no toys litter the floor and there are no little bodies for me to snuggle. The chaos of the past 3 weeks has settled into a melancholy lull, each of us anticipating the return of the structure of work and school. We're all settled into the same room enjoying the warmth of the fire and the Spirit of family and love which still lingers. Months may go by before we meet again, but we know that the bond of family unity has been strengthened; fortified by sharing the magic of this special holiday!

Here are some pictures highlighting just a few of the things we have done this month.

Here is the mass birthday party! Eli and Isaac are poised to blow out the candles. I think that Mr. Luke took care of it before they got a chance! I think that Ben is taking the picture.

Sledding on the hill behind the church. The grandkids had never been sledding before and they really had a good time!

Before the Traditional re-enactment of the Christmas Story. Joseph is giving one of the shepherd a few pointers.

Is this how angels normally pass the time between singing engagements? Esther is a sheep.

Shepherds tending their flock of sheep. Can you see Esther's tail?

The holy family. (I am not sure why Mary is still riding the donkey.) Wise men and sheep are worshiping them.

Christmas morning we discovered this little princess.

And this proper little princess.

Princess tea party.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed!

Christmas breakfast! Notice the matching pj's on Hannah and Sarah! One of our traditions is to open new pj's every Christmas Eve. We usually end up wearing them all day on Christmas! This year we went silky! You can't see Ben's, but the guys all got silky pj pants.

Look at my quillow Grandma made!!

Snug as a bug watching Gilmore Girls! Actually, my Pj's were so slippery, I kept slipping off the bed!

Everyone made gingerbread houses. I thought it would be fun to vote on the favorite. It turned out that it wasn't one of my best ideas. Little children and grown boys are sad when they don't win!

Luke is sweet 16!! Cake and ice cream!! (Again??!!??)

Sweet little things enjoying a sweet treat!

The girls and I making a snowman. Esther had been rolling the ball, but it got too big and I was helping.

Cute little girls with our snow man! This was right before Esther pushed his head off!

This was so cute, I had to post it. Esther wanted to set the table. I have a picture of Mr. Luke setting the table when he was about the same age using the same technique.