Dueck's Roost

This year little Mae (although I really can't/shouldn't/better not call her little anymore) enjoyed the sweet experience of being baptized ... by her father, with all of her loved ones (most anyway) and some great friends there to celebrate the special occasion. What a beautiful thing to enter the warm waters of baptism, excited to be new and clean and committed to keeping special promises (covenants) with our creator--a loving father in heaven--and our sweet Savior, Jesus Christ. Such a perfect experience for this beautiful girl. So, the sad part is that due to electronic failure (that's my story, and I'm sticking to it anyway) I lost all the many pictures I took on her big day:(. Fortunately, I had taken these of her in her dress ahead of time. As a side note, Grandma Loo slaved away piecing together every ruffle on this dress. Just kidding. I found the idea on "a girl & a glue gun" blog to use ruffle fabric. Here's the URL ... http://kimboscrafts.bl...

So to backtrack, as mentioned we lost all of our pics from Halloween. They are currently floating somewhere in the virtual Bermuda Triangle. But, I did just find this little gem on fb that Ms. Sarah snapped during the ward party/trunk-or-treat. We are something like this ... one ninja, one artist (mistaken quite easily for a mime), three very eclectic tourists (one who looks like he may be a Cuban drug lord in cognito), one zombie (who happens to be terrified of zombies--go figure), and Anakin Skywalker himself. Oh yeah! - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Somehow we ended up with very few pictures of Thanksgiving. In fact, the month of November as a whole (and really, I may as well wrap Halloween in there since we can't find our pictures of that evening) was kinda a low point from a picture perspective. But only on that basis. Everything else about the harvest month was great. We have so much to be grateful for. Absolutely everything in fact! To save a little time (since I'm currently grateful to have actually woken up when I planned and for the prospect of having a very productive morning/day), I'm just going to put it this way ... the only things I'm NOT grateful for are cockroaches and tapioca pudding. For mostly everything else, I am overwhelmed daily with gratitude. My favorite pictures from Thanksgiving this year are really just images of the place cards Mae made while having a sleep over the night before at papa and grandma D's house and helping them prepare for the big meal. It started something like this for...

On the day of Brooks' family party this year, he decided he wanted it to be a surprise. Hmmm. Yes, the party was only hours away Yes, he realized a true surprise was fairly impossible now that he knew it was occurring. Yes, he was willing to hang out upstairs the rest of the day so we could prepare to surprise him. Love this kid! So, we sent him on his way and began preparing--putting up some hodge podge decorations, finishing up his cake, and waiting for the grandparents to arrive so we could hide and surprise him all together;). He did start to get a bit antsy after a couple of hours, and began to wonder ... "is it almost time?" Finally it was time, so we turned off the lights, hid behind sofas and chairs, called down the birthday boy, and yelled a big "surprise!". Man did he eat it up. What a great reminder that attitude is all about perspective!! Cute birthday boy! Cute birthday boy with homemade weapon thingy from big bro. J. Big bro. J himself. The awesome...

Cousins really are the best! I for one loved spending time visiting cousins (of which I had many!!!), and hanging out with them at family reunions. Lucky for us, we were able to enjoy a couple of days worth of "cousin time" with Gracie, Janie, and Carter towards the end of October. Movies and popcorn. Playin' in the rain. Dressing up and putting on shows. And gearing up for Halloween. Love you guys! Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Little angel???????????????????????????????????????????????? Or trouble baby ????????????????????????????????????????????? Jury's still out! - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Some things in the Dueck family are just inevitable, like basketball and backpacking. With birthdays only six days apart, Kevin and Mae sharing a yearly b-day party is just one more of those things. And this little beauty is a very good sport about it! But then, she's just good in general, about lots and lots of stuff!! One of the many things I love about her. She's already busy planning next-year's friend party, but this year was just the fam. She got lots of fun presents, like a cool speaker for listening to her music, an MP3 player, the Little Sweetshop book she'd had her eye on for some time, oh, and cold-hard cash--nice;)!! Kev had already gotten a very early birthday present ... or two (e.g., his new sage fly fishing rod). But he also got a couple of fun prizes ... a salmon fishing reel and Therma Rest camp mat. And updated family pics for his desk at work. Oh, and I guess I shouldn't forget his favorite cake--German chocolate. What special, loving, talented,...

Okay, so on Kevin's 36th b-day we (along with mama and papa D) went to the Broadway production of Wicked. It wasn't exactly a birthday present--as I'm sure it was probably more for me than for him--but when we purchased the tickets and noticed his birthday night as an option, we just thought that would be a fun way to celebrate. And it definitely was. We started with dinner at Cheesecake Factory (our favorite), where we have the exact same thing each visit ... Louisiana Pasta & Chicken. Delicious!! We always share so we have plenty of room left over for dessert! Kevin's yummy b-day treat:). Cannot remember what it was, but it looks good to me. Pretty sure I got the key lime cheesecake this time. Oh, yeah! And then we continued on to downtown Seattle's Paramount Theatre for the show. Which was super fun. And ended up pretty full. The funny, and kinda sad part of the evening was when we all discovered that Papa D had never even seen the Wizard of Oz (the story off...