Summer fun 2009

It's been a busy summer for us! We have spent a lot of time outside, playing on the slip n' slide, going to soccer camp, going to the county fair, picking berries, peaches and nectarines, swimming at the city pool, attending the summer reading program at the library, playing at the river, having picnics, going to the zoo, and who can forget fireworks on the fourth of July!! Check out the summer pictures by clicking on the link to the right "Summer Fun 2009"

Happy Birthday Reed!

Well we knew it was going to happen every few years and this was one of them, Reed's birthday and Easter fell within the same weekend! Needless to say planning a celebration required a little creativity since most people spend Easter doing family stuff so, Reed had more of a Birthday week. It all began April 2nd with a trip to Kids Castle in Yakima. Reed's bestest buddy, Taryn, was going to be out of town over his birthday so we road tripped it in The Tahoe with all 5 kids (my 3 as well as Taryn and her sister). Thank God Taryn's mama also came along! Then the next day the kids and I packed up the Tahoe and went to celebrate with Grams in Seattle since she was going to be in AZ over Reed's birthday.

Grams birthday

It also happened to be Grams' 60th birthday and I hosted a Tea Party at the Queen Mary Tea Room (click on the above pic and it will take you to the album). Then we made our way back home and went about our week as usual until Friday, April 10th (Reed's actual birthday) and we held a family celebration (Monster Truck style) at home where Papa, Dode, Aunt Jessie and Cousin Marie were able to join us. It was lots of partying and Reed loved every minute of it! You can see the pictures of our fun by clicking on the link to the right.

Happy Birthday Paige!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Paige, Happy Birthday to you!




Paige turned one this month and we had a family celebration at home (see the link to the right for more pictures). We had decided to take a trip to Cannon Beach the weekend before her birthday to make her first birthday a little something extra. Reed thought the ocean was "scary", Riley loved running from the waves in his mud boots and Paige was more interested in playing in the bathroom in our hotel room! We stayed in a hotel with an indoor pool so we did a lot of swimming (considering there was a huge storm coming in during the time we were there) and we spent time at the Tillamook Cheese Factory and the Air Museum.














Yes, that is Paige in an F-14 engine! She had her one year well child check and she is pretty petite for her age (5th percentile in height) and got the A-OK for a set of tubes to fix this chronic ear infection issue we seem to have! At least we dodged shots at this visit :-)

We're back in action!

Woo Hoo! After 2 long months of no computer, we finally bought a new one (and went wireless). Now I can post again. So, to play catch up visit the photo albums to the right. As for the present, today we took the boys to Mt. Hood Meadows to ski for the day. We figured that since Paige is still getting the walking thing down (note the the bruise on her forehead) it wouldn't be fair to strap a pair of skis to her feet yet, so she stayed behind with the grandparents.

Riley was on his own from the first run. He was definately ready for the lifts, but unfortunately mom and dad didn't plan on that so we didn't have the right lift tickets. Dad even offered a bribe to the lift operator and was shot down!

Reed tried to keep up with Riley, but the closest he got to independence was holding mom's hand and skiing side by side.

I guess rope tows are a thing of the past because now they have this conveyor belt called "The Magic Carpet" that you ride up the hill. It's a bit rough, especially when someone falls and they have to abruptly stop it!

Reed really liked his skis, but it was a bit of a challenge to find a pair small enough to fit a 2 1/2 yr old!

Reed had such a hard day of skiing that he passed out on the bus back to our car in the parking lot!

The mothership . .I mean the motherboard is down!!

What I am going to do with my free time???? I was on the net doing my daily surfing the other day (I was checking out "Black Friday" ads) and all of a sudden my computer turned off and won't turn back on!!! AHHHH! How the heck am I supposed to do my Christmas shopping??? I took it to "Geeksters" today and they told me that my laptop is toast. :-( I guess if it was going to happen, it couldn't have happened at a better time. After Thanksgiving sales, here I come . . .

A farmer, a pig and . . .a robot???

Halloween went pretty well this year. It's actually the first Halloween that no one was sick!! Riley had been set on dressing up as a robot since last year (a friend had a really cool robot costume) so his costume was easy to come up with. Reed isn't so cool with "dressing up", so being a farmer was a given since there was no fussin' to his costume, just good ol' overalls and a flannel! I had seen the farmer idea on a website that had the "farmer" being pulled in his wagon with stuffed farm animals and I decided to put my own twist on it by making Paige the Pig. Riley was a bit bummed when he discovered that he couldn't sit in the wagon too, but he quickly got over it when he saw how much quicker he was than Reed to get to the candy! By the end of the "Trunk or Treating" (in Goldendale, people park their cars downtown, decorate them and kids trick or treat from car to car) we had a nice stash of candy and Reed was one scary costume away from a massive heart attack! Click on the link to the Right- Halloween 2008- to see all the pictures from pumpkin carving to trick or treating.

First bath???

Paige is a little over 7 months and she had her FIRST bath last night! That sounds terrible, but actually we have always showered her with one of us -conserve water, shower with a friend :-) right? The boys have also always been showered and it really makes our evenings less chaotic (they have never had a fear of "the shower" like a lot of kids do). As you can see she had a lot of fun splashing around with her toys.