Dairy Days

A few weekends ago, Danielle, Denton, Cohen, and Fenway came here for a visit. Have I mentioned before how much we love when they come to visit? Well, we do....we love it!

We started off the weekend with the dairy days parade. Who wouldn't love a parade that handed out chocolate milk, string cheese, T-shirts and candy. Oh, and Denton scored a water bottle. I just have one question, how many water bottles does one family really need?

Before we went to the parade, we stopped to see the cows.......because it's not really dairy days with out cows!

Elley stopped to pet the goats




We also made our way to the booths before the parade started. Elley, my girly girl, stopped to talk to the Mary Kay ladies. Lucky her, she got a free sample of lip gloss and she was in heaven!She is such a great big sister teaching Molly how to apply and wear lips like a lady. I can already see their bathroom counters covered with make-up! I just hope they share this well when they are older!

Elley applied this lip gloss over and over again. I guess I need to find me a Mary Kay lady to hook us up with some more samples. Don't you just love Elley's CTR ring?

I brought a baggie of cut up strawberries for a snack for the kids. Cohen and Molly shared them nicely. They turned into one gigantic mess. Strawberry juice everywhere!!!

We LOVE chocolate milk!

Molly and Cohen enjoying the parade. Cohen busy eating the strawberries and Molly busy trying to get Cohen to pay attention to the parade.

Molly

Sisters

Molly got a piece of candy and couldn't wait to eat it! She tried so hard to get this package of smarties open.

Cohen

The end of the parade brought 3 tired, dirty, messy kids. They all enjoyed and Otter Pop an then it was home again, home again, jiggy jig!

A Sunday Afternoon

We get home from church at about 4:15pm, so needless to say, the girls are tired, grumpy, and hungry....and mommy is too! Today when we got home and after we changed our clothes, Molly and Elley went outside to enjoy the sun while I was making some dinner. As I was busy getting dinner ready I was enjoying the delightful sounds of sisters playing and laughing in the backyard. And then it dawned on me......9 times out of 10, when they are laughing as hard as they were, it usually means trouble!

And this is what I found.......soaked from head to toe in their clothes.

At least they were having fun!

A Family Weekend

Our little niece Mara was baptized a few weeks ago. It's fun to get together with family members but especially when celebrating such a special event. It just happened to be Grandma Pat's birthday this same weekend. We celebrated by going out to dinner and then back to our house for games, gifts, and cheese cake!

Molly and Elley helping Grandma put candles on her cake

Molly helping herself to a bite of grandma's birthday cheese cake

Molly trying to get rid of the evidence of just taking a bite of Grandma's cake



Grandma Pat is so good about bringing special treats for her grand kids when she visits. This time she brought bubbles and the kids had so much fun blowing bubbles outside. We had to pry the bubbles out of Molly's little hands!

Elley and Mara also had a fun time playing with their bubbles....although, I think they had more fun pretending they got lightsabers

the little ones

from left to right: Grandma Pat, Grandpa Dan, Tony, (my sister in law's dad) Jay, Karen, (my sister in law's mom) and Leah

Sophie and Leah

Mommy, Elley, Molly....

and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

Ever have one of these days?

I had one, just a few days ago. It started out being just another day....you know, the typical things you deal with as a mother....fighting, cleaning, whining, cooking, but as the day progressed it got worse and worse. I had 2 extra kids here this particular day and I could tell my stress level was a little high. At one point all 4 kids were upstairs playing so I thought it was a good idea to vacuum my room. After I got the room all vacuumed I came out into the kitchen to find my haircutting bag open and all of my stuff everywhere....including my scissor pouch which I grabbed first to find it empty. My first thought was panic, I hope they haven't hurt themselves. Next, as I'm running up the stairs, I thought, NO......not their hair. I got up the stairs and went into Elley's room where I found chunks of hair on the carpet. Emma, Elley's little friend, looked at me and said, "I told Elley I didn't want a hair cut." I combed through her with my fingers and felt more hair coming out. Elley had used my razor (for haircutting) and gave her friend Emma, Emma's brother, and herself a haircut. Lucky for me the cuts could have been much worse.

This is Elley's haircut....nothing a little hairspray won't hold down, but still, my biggest nightmare came true. There are a few other places but like I said, it could of been much worse.




Then, after Elley's friends went home, Elley asked me for a drink. I was busy using the computer trying to come up with something for dinner so I said in a minute. Lately Elley has been on this kick of pouring her own drinks. She's getting bigger and wants to do everything by herself. She decided to get her own red raspberry drink. As she got it out of the fridge she spilt a little and Molly was splashing around in it. I don't mind her pouring her own drink but have always told her that Mommy needed to be there to help her get it out of the fridge. So, I told her to put it back and that I would help her. On her way back to the fridge she spilt a little more and then slipped on it and dumped a full pitcher of red raspberry Crystal Light all over the kitchen!

This picture doesn't even show how bad it really was. There was red drops of juice all over the kitchen!

Yes, that is juice on the ceiling! It splattered EVERYWHERE!

I even had to pull the stove out to clean up all the juice.

It took me about 45 minutes to get it all cleaned up. The good news is, right after I cleaned it up and gave the girls baths, daddy came home and took us all out to dinner!

It ended up being a great night spending time with my girls and Adam but it still was a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!

Mother of the Year

And the award goes to KEELY

Do you ever have one of those days where you think you're doing everything you need to do but something in the back of your head says, "your missing something!"

It's the middle of June and we've only had 3-4 days that actually feel like summer. So, 2 days ago, when the sun was actually out, I thought about putting sun block on but quickly pushed it out of my mind thinking, I'll do it in a minute.

I went about doing things around the house that needed to get done. I kept checking on the girls thinking sun block but quickly found something else that needed to get done. That's that problem with women, mothers.....or maybe just me? I felt like I needed to be doing everything and missed something that was more important.

In my defense, when Elley gets hurt it always looks worse than it is. I know this sunburn looks bad, and it is, but she hasn't complained about it and has been sleeping just fine. She still gives me bear hugs and lets me tickle her. We put aloe on it about 3-4 times a day. As you can tell, I still have a little mother guilt going on. How could I let this happen? It's my job to protect her! LESSON LEARNED! I now have a tube of sunblock in my purse.....and it goes everywhere with us! Sorry Elley....mommy loves you!

ZOO

The weather around here has been pretty crappy, to say the least. It was amazing to me that we made it to the zoo without rain drops....and we even wore shorts. Danielle, Denton and Cohen came and spent the day with us. We love it when they come and visit! Thanks guys, for the invite to the zoo!

Elley and her friend Ella watching their coins go down the wishing well.

My cute little Elley



The giraffe slide

Cute little man....Cohen boy!

Look at the hold Molly has on Cohen's hand. I don't think Cohen likes it to much. They really were cute holding hands while walking through the zoo.

All of us...except me, I was taking the picture

Daddy showing Molly the tiger

Lunch Break!

Cohen and Elley

Molly on the carousel

Elley on the carousel

Molly driving the Jeep

Kickball

Grandma Pat and Grandpa Dan came to our house for a visit a few weeks ago. Our little niece Mara was baptized. It's so fun when family comes into town and we get to celebrate something special like a baptism! On Monday, the night before Grandma and Grandpa were leaving, we had a family dinner at our house. Jay, Leah and their family came and we're so glad they did! After dinner we had ice cream cones and a kickball game in the yard. We all had so much fun and even got the grandparents to play. We played, and played, and played until about 9pm. The next morning Elley woke up and stood at the top of the stairs yelling for me. When I got to the bottom of the stairs I asked her what she wanted. She said, "mom, my feet are to tired from the game we played last night, will you come and get me?" And of course, being the good mom that I am, I did!

I Can Feel It

Is summer coming? That question has been running through my head for the last 3-4 weeks. On Sunday, June 6th, I wore a sweater to church.....a SWEATER.....June 6th. I feel like I haven't seen the sun for a long time. I should be use to this considering the fact that I was born and raised in Seattle, but I'm not. It's time for some sun, it's time for warmth, it's time for scooters and bikes, and shorts, and flip flops, and Popsicles!

I can feel it....summer is coming.....maybe summer is here?

YEA for the sun that poked it's way through the clouds yesterday so we could have popsicles, ice cream and an impromptu game of kick ball for family night......more pictures to come!