The 4th Celebration

What a busy and fun weekend we've had.
We normally don't do much the 4th of July weekend. We pretty much stay
at home and do our own thing.
This year was out of the box.
Saturday we spent the late afternoon/evening with my best friend's family.
It was so much fun to see all her siblings that I haven't seen in several years. The kids had fun with all the other children there playing tag, Frisbee and exploration on their five acres.
We had a wonderful dinner, scrumptious cake, and then enjoyed a round of fireworks from their deck.

Yesterday, on the fourth, we were invited to the Brown's house.
Chris works with Bryan Brown and his daughter, Brooke, is Rhaevyn's best friend.
What a wonderful time we had visiting and eating good food.
The kids were in heaven with a swimming pool, swings, a creek and making mud pies in the mud kitchen.

Elsa says she is ready to go!!

Here is Bryan and Chris.
They are pretty much like peas in a pod.

This is a bit of heaven in the Brown's backyard.
I love the sound of the water trickling over the rocks.

Carol was explaining to Myles that he could try and catch something in the creek.

Carol and Kyle help Myles into the creek to look for mud fish.

Myles caught a couple of snails.

The kids enjoyed some pool time.

Myles was excited that it wasn't too deep for him.

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Elsa loved running around on their acreage.
Here she is on the swing.

Time to gather round the campfire for s'mores.

The bug zapper gathered quite the crowd.

Time for sparklers.

And she's out.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...................

Myles enjoying the firework show with a sip of soda and....

a smakeral of ice cream.

Usually Myles enjoys watching the fireworks from inside the house.

On Saturday he was on the lawn with the kids watching fireworks and did good for the most part, but I had not realized that he had a bit of meltdown. Thank goodness for one of the kids, Jesse, who took him under her wing.

So on Monday we decided to get him some ear gear. Why we didn't think of this sooner I don't know.

At any rate, he absolutely loved having his ear protectors on. No crying, and he was able to be out with all of us enjoying the show.

Rhaevyn got to try out a Roman Candle.

The Finale....
We love the mortars!

How thankful we are that we get to celebrate this great nation's independence.
Here is to the hope of being blessed with many more family and friend filled Independence days to celebrate in the years ahead.

A Week Of Mylestones

This week Myles learned to jump rope.
I told him that out of our kids he is the one to learn to do it before hitting five, so far. We will have to see if Elsa breaks that record. I remember Rhaevyn hitting that accomplishment in first grade. What an exciting Mylestone, Myles!!

You can do it, buddy! Just keep trying, just keep trying.

Myles wanted to go the dollar store so badly to spend his dollar.
He bought himself a jump rope just perfect for his size and one that won't hurt.

Myles tried origami this week too.
Any guesses on why Myles picked a Penguin? Anyone?
Ben? (Hint, hint).
He did pretty good, with a bit of help.

Mr. Penguin has one green eye and one blue eye.
Just in case it doesn't survive until we see you next, Ben, here is a picture for you.

Aeva and I did a bit of crafting while Elsa took a nap.
We each painted a huge clothes pin and then mod podged some scrap-booking paper onto them.
This is Aeva's clothes pin.

At the store the sample had it as a photo holder.

I bought four and have in mind to use them for a bigger project.
Maybe I will get to that project soon.
Here is my first attempt.

And here is my buy of the week.
So, our stapler bit the dust, and I have been holding out on getting a new one.
I received a five dollar off rewards coupon plus a 20% off coupon from Staples. I figured that was a sign. So I headed over to Staples and picked this up for........drum roll please........
11 cents. I had to pay $5.11 upfront, but I am getting a $5 rebate.
Aeva and I were practically dancing out of the store.

Aeva tried out origami this week too.
She made three fortune tellers, a snake, a turtle, a lady bug and a grasshopper.

On Monday all of us girls painted our nails.
Elsa kept looking at her toes all day and would say "Pretty!"

On Sunday I sat out in the car the last hour of church with Aeva.
She had a bad headache, so I let her just lay down in the front seat.
At one point she happened to look up at the sky out the side window and
exclaimed that there was a rainbow in the sky.
I thought that was strange because it wasn't rainy, in fact the the sky was perfectly clear.
I rolled down the window and poked my head out.
Well, there was a rainbow in a sense. It was a ring around the sun.
That was so cool to see. All the kids thought it was simply amazing and it gave us something to look up on the computer and learn about.

Big Brother pushing Little Sister.....on the swing.

Last but not least, here is a little video of Elsa swinging.
She hit a milestone too.
Now, while this milestone is exciting it is also bittersweet.
I always thought the "baby" of the family was supposed to let the mommy actually enjoy making the baby's babyhood last. Perhaps that is in the world according to me. In the world according to Elsa the "baby" is supposed to run to catch up with all the things the siblings are doing.
My baby has learned to swing on her own. While we still love to push her on the swing, she really doesn't need any help at all. I think she has hit this mark sooner than all my other ones.
At least kids never seem to outgrow the love of having mommy or daddy push them on the swing.

Wishing you all a very safe, fun and enjoyable Independence Day.
Happy 4th of July!

A Found Entry

I had loaded these pictures to an entry, but wasn't quite finished with it when I had to stop.
I saved and closed the post, but it got filed into drafts.
Apparently, I don't have my setting to just list all blog entries.
Low and behold I have found where all my drafts are that I thought weren't getting saved for some mysteries reason.
So, most of these were meant for a longer entry, but I don't want to spend the time to combine entries or reload pictures.

Elsa's fancy bun.

Ready for church.

Senorita Rhaevyn.

Myles loves to rock Elsa.
He often volunteers to rock and hold her
and tells me to go do something else.

Water fun.

My little star.....

Let Summer Play Begin

Bubbles, noodle wars, swinging, scooters....oh my.
I love the rain, but it is so nice to have some warm weather and sunshine so the kids can
romp about outside. I love hearing there laughter and loud voices waft in through the window.
We have more kids in the cul-de-sac this year for them to play with too. It is great that they all get along so well despite age differences, which range from 4-12. Even Elsa seems to be incorporated into whatever they are all playing when she goes outside.
I have taken a couple of pictures of Aeva, Myles and Elsa on the swing. Yesterday Myles and Elsa collided. Elsa got the worst of it with a bloody nose. Poor thing, yesterday was not her day. She also ran into the front door handle with her forehead. She's got a nice purple egg, but she didn't let it slow her down.

Elsa trying to push Myles and Aeva on the swing.

Ah, my handsome little man... I just love this guy!

I can't believe he is almost 5.

This is Myles's version of a Lego aircraft carrier.

I had to take this picture. I loved how by the morning they were crisscrossed.
Elsa is so good with Myles's teeth grinding, and Myles is so good with Elsa waking up crying in the night. Once they fall asleep, they are usually pretty heavy sleepers.

It is never a dull moment around here, as I know I have commented before.
I happened to find some pictures of Myles from around 18-24 months.
I had forgotten how much he was like Elsa......eating bananas through the skin, climbing, and taking apart anything he could get his hands on. It is funny how when you are so focused on the current youngling you forget that they aren't the only one of your kids to do all that fun stuff like bathing in the sugar canister.

Elsa's latest was trying to shave her lips with Christopher's razor.
She was in the bathroom with me while I was doing my hair. I looked down and discovered she had a hold of the razor. I am not sure how she got the drawer open because it has a child safety thing on it. I put the razor away. A minute later I picked her up because we were getting ready to leave, and I notice her lips were bleeding. It took me a while to get it stopped.
I love this girl.....she keeps me on my toes and gives me lots of stories to someday tell and laugh over.

Elsa wanted to be rocked and Myles came bouncing over to volunteer his services.

Have a wonderful first official week of "real summer" as Myles says.
He wanted reassurance the other day that it was "real' and not "fake summer."
I had to giggle.

Father's Day

I love watching the kids get so excited for Father's Day.
They usually can't hold out until the actual day to give Chris what it is that they have either made or bought for him with their own money.
This year Myles made Chris a card, writing his name all by himself. He gave this to him on Wednesday.
Aeva went to the dollar store and bought Chris a package of York Peppermint Patties, which are his favorite and was given to him on Thursday.
Rhaevyn bought Chris a card this year from the store. She was so cute picking it out. She got a perfect one, which she said made her cry when she read it because it reminded her of her dad.
Happy Father's Day, Dear!

Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him Father.

Surprise!!!

Ben and Stacey came down to visit this weekend.
We had lots of fun. Ben came on a two mile walk/jog with me, Stacey went to Micheal's with me so I could finish up Christopher's gift, the kids enjoyed their time with Uncle Ben and Auntie Stacey, Chris enjoyed having a man date with Ben (lunch and test driving cars), and we had some yummy treats.
Our time with them always seems to go by too fast.

Myles took this picture of Ben preparing the cookies
for our cookie hot fudge ice cream sundae

Ben had fun with the Doodle Pro.

We took a few pictures before they left for home
and we left for church this morning.

Piano Recital

Today was Aeva's piano recital.
She normally gets pretty nervous, but she was very calm today.
We were a little worried about how things would go today because yesterday she accidentally got her fingers slammed in the door heading out to the garage. Thanks to ice, Tylenol and prayers here fingers worked just fine today.
Here she is all dolled up, curls and all.

Her first song..."Puppet Dance."

This one is called "Fandango."

She did a great job. It is always so fun to see and hear the new students and what pieces each student has chosen to play. I love that all the students and parents are so supportive of each budding pianist. We couldn't ask for a better teacher either. She picks a piece to play each time too, and that is always neat. She usually picks one that she wants to learn or hasn't played since she was young and works on it. Yesterday she played Fur Elise, and what a treat it was to hear.
Afterwards we all enjoyed ice cream with a smorgasbord of toppings each student brought.

Chehalis Steam Train

School has unofficially ended for us. All the books have been turned in, semester tests taken and courses 100 % complete. Ya!!!!
For our end of the year hoorah, Chris took the day off, and we all went on a day outing to Chehalis and road the #15 steam train. Our Wava teacher arranged for this fun field trip. We were joined with a busload of kids from a nearby school.
The train ride was over an hour long. Poor Myles was having a hard time at first with the noise of the train, but I think by the time we headed back he wasn't having so much sensory overload.
He kept busy by trying to catch leaves as we passed by all the greenery. He also spotted three deer. We were all excited to see the bald eagle and its big nest. Aeva was excited to walk the train while it was moving and volunteered to run the errand of getting us some red licorice to share.
The landscape was so beautiful, and I felt like I was in a different time.
We crossed a small trestle bridge and rode along the Chehalis River.
We also learned about the legend of Ruth....

The origin of Ruth's name is a bit of a legend. Once upon a time, the train used to pick up and leave off a woman named Ruth at this point. She always met the train alone, and nobody on the crew ever knew where she lived. She'd just walk out of the woods to meet them, and walk back into the woods when they let her off.

The most exciting part of the trip for Myles, Aeva and Chris came after the train ride was all over. We saw that the public school children were all waiting in line and taking turns getting up onto the engine. Once the line dwindled down, and the school kids were getting ready to leave, Myles, Aeva and Chris hopped in line. Not only did they get to take a look around the engine, but the engineers offered them a ride on the engine as they backed up the train so the conductor could switch the tracks, and push the passenger cars back into the garage. Wouldn't you know it, my camera batteries died so I didn't get any of it on video. Note to self: Make sure you bring an extra pair of new batteries.
The three of them were on cloud nine. We were so glad that we decided to make the trek to Chehalis for this.
It was quite the memory maker.