Karen Burks

Karen Burks, 37, of Seattle

Karen Burks was a born mother.

Before slipping into bed as a child, she would first climb into her younger sister's bed to warm the sheets for her.

Then, with a family of her own, the accountant turned stay-at-home mom did everything from cutting her children's hair to shuttling them to dance classes, Sunday school and preschool.

''She was kind of a supermom ... very friendly, very warm,'' said her husband, Bruce Burks, an accountant she met while working at a Bellevue accounting firm.

After graduating with an accounting degree from the UW in 1986, she took part in a church mission to Vancouver Island, teaching native children.

For the past two weeks, she had stayed up late into the night writing a parent manual for the Crown Hill Preschool. She was also did volunteer work, serving on the board of the Seattle Habitat for Humanity and helping build houses in Colorado, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Mexico.

Burks also enjoyed skiing and golfing and added an artistic flair to everything she did, from drawing sketches to making memory scrapbooks for her children.

Along with her husband, she is survived by her children, Emily, 4, and Kelsey, 1; parents Herb and Coralee Owsley of Federal Way, and sisters Sidney Blank and Kris Owsley. ? Gina Kim