Ballet

Kate took a Ballet class this summer through the Lynnwood Parks and Rec department. Her last day was last Monday. She loved going. It was a beginner class for 3-4 yr olds. On the last day of class they let all the parents come to watch and see what they learned. It was pretty funny to watch these kids. The teacher was great with all the kids as well. My Mom was over for the bedroom makeover and Marci came up for the day (plus Kyle and Preston came) so we had quite the entourage there. It was fun and Kate loved having Marci and Grandma Vicki there to watch her. She smiled a lot...quite a little performer...she was always wanting to go first. We are working on "taking turns".

She was good at this exercise b/c she walks on her tip toes A LOT!

The 'sun' pose.

Dancing to music.

Bedroom Makeover

I opened my sweatshop so my Mom could come work for a day. I told her I had to take a picture of her at the sewing machine and blog about it. :) I bought a duvet cover at IKEA a while ago, but needed a bedskirt and some pillows made with some fabric I bought to go with the new bedding. I thought about making them on my own, but why when I have a Mom that can whip it up in no time at all?! She was busy all afternoon making me things for my room. I haven't changed our bedroom for a while so it badly needed a makeover. I love the end result so thanks Mom!!!

We added Euro shams, regular pillow shams and then the decorative pillow with matching bedskirt.

With the new curtain rods and curtains.

Kate wanted to take a picture of her room since I was taking pictures of my room (she took this picture). A bit messy... It's always a pain getting her to clean her room.

One Last Hurrah

We stayed at my parents house a couple weekends ago so we could have one last get together with Dee Ann and Melanie before Dee Ann flew back to Vegas. She has been up in WA for 3 weeks going back between our house and Melanie's house. When she gets back home she'll need another vacation to recover! She does a lot when she comes and visits. The kids love it when she is up here (and so do we!). My Mom, brother and two sisters went to Utah so my Dad was home alone. We kept him company and Kyle helped him on the farm. Dee Ann and Melanie's family came down to my parents' house on Saturday to swim and play. It was nice of my parents to let us use their house. :)

A tractor broke down so Kyle and the kids are in the front one towing the other one with my Dad back to the shop. I followed behind them in the car.

Kyle, Kathryn, Nathan and Dane swimming. Kate is too scared to get in the pool. For some reason she won't get in it. She'll swim like crazy in the kid pool at any public swimming pool.

On Sunday, Jeni and Kevin came out to Hebdon's to see Kevin's brother from Florida so they stopped by Sunday evening to see us before we left to go home. The kids had fun playing together. It's been a while since they've seen each other.

My Dad (carefully) taking them for a ride. (Inside story.) He's a good grandpa. Always willing to play with the kids.

Camping

We went camping and survived!!! This was our first camping trip as a family so we had no idea how the kids would do. We figured Kate would have fun, but we didn't know how Preston would do. He got his own very tent for his portacrib. It actually was fun camping. We met Melanie & Milo's family there. Dee Ann had been staying with us so she came with us and then after camping went back with Melanie since she flies out of Tri-Cities. We went to Ensign Ranch near Cle Elum (a church owned camp) and we had pretty good weather. It was windy so getting wet at the slip n' slide was cold. Melanie and Milo had just been there for Milo's family reunion so they knew everything we should bring. Milo's mom let us borrow her nice big 3 burner propane stove so that was very nice to have. We were camping luxuriously. It is SO much work to go camping. Our car was packed and we only have 2 kids! I miss going to girl's camp and just showing up and not having to worry about planning meals and stuff. Camping is so much easier as a kid!

This was our campsite.

Our kitchen and dining room. :)

The kids played on these logs most of the time. This large campsite area (made up of 3 or so different campsites) weren't being used all weekend so this was our "family room/play room". The kids were playing in little groves of tree and we even played games at a picnic table here. It was very nice to have this area all to ourselves. It was right next to our campsite.

Goofy!

Kate riding a horse for the very first time. The parent leads the horse around so while I was walking the horse around Kate said, "I love riding horses. I love camping." That comment made all the work to go camping worth it.

The slip n' slide. Kyle with Nathan, Kathryn, Dane and Kate doing a train on the tubes. They all loved it, but it was windy so they got cold fast.

Kathryn and Kate lovin' the pop.

We went camping Thursday through Saturday. On Friday, we ate breakfast, did dishes, went to the nice bathrooms, rode horses, did the slip n' slide, canoed, ate lunch and cleaned up lunch all by 12:30pm! We had done everything there was to do so we were joking that we could pack up and go home. HA! Our stake girls' camp was going on that week so we were able to watch all the Bishops from our Stake do a race with these boats the girl's made out of empty milk jugs. It was pretty funny. The boats really did float!

Our campsite was prime location for the outhouses. Dee Ann went to go use one and came back saying someone had pooped on the toilet lid. I went to check it out and sure enough someone had pooped on top of the lid and there was urine soaked toilet paper as well. Disgusting! I cleaned it up with clorox wipes and wiped everything down. I told Dee Ann it was all clean and it was the cleanest outhouse she probably would ever use.

A spoon full of sugar...

We found out on Monday that Preston has an ear infection. Everytime we went to give him his antibiotic he would spit it out and we would have to hog tie him to just get it down his throat- not fun. Kyle was talking to his Mom and she suggested putting the medicine on a spoon and giving it to him. So Kyle did that and you know what?.... it totally worked!!! He takes it without us even holding him and says "mmm". This is a miracle! Thanks Dee Ann! Now onto making an appt with an ENT for Preston. He's had 4 ear infections in 8 mo's, about time for tubes. We'll see what the specialist says.

On a random note... Could it be a law that people use cruise control? Seriously, on our way home Sunday night there was this most annoying white pick-up that we passed or they passed us a million times. Annoying!

And a shout out to my brother-in-law who got a job and started today. I'm glad for them. They really needed this and I hope it goes well. I have to admit that i'm a little jealous b/c we are still enduring this thing called unemployment. Not fun. Thank goodness for my education and that I can pick up work, but it's been tough to experience this role reversal. I want to be home and Kyle wants to be at work. It's so easy to get depressed over it and wonder about all the "what if's" and "when will he get a job?" but we have to keep plugging along and try to stay positive. It's hard, so very (emotionally) hard, especially as the time gets longer and longer.

Summer Stuff

At the Mukilteo Beach. It was actually hot enough to get in the water and not be freezing.

Preston being brave and playing in the water too.

Preston threw up in his car seat and then ATE SOME OF IT!!! GROSS!!! I thought it was crazy that he was smiling in this picture. It reeked. Kate cried because he got some throw-up on her. Lovely child.

At the Forest Park petting farm.

Preston chasing this goat around. hee hee!

The kids playing in the pool in the backyard. We have had some crazy hot weather lately.

Kate in her pioneer skirt and hat that my Mom made for her. She wore it to our 24th of July picnic and loved it. She is still talking about it.

Princess Bear

Kate was so excited because Grandma Dee Ann took her to build-a-bear last week. She has never been. She loved it to say the least. At first she wanted a unicorn, but the unicorns don't have any cute clothes to wear so we talked her into this bear and this cute outfit (they are having an amazing deal at build-a-bear for the month of August if any of you are interested!). She got to choose an outfit and pair of shoes. She chose how much stuffing she wanted in it and then gave it a bath and got it dressed. We even have a birth certificate for the bear. Kate named her Princess (no surprise there!).

Princess wearing Kate's pajama shirt as her nightgown.

Drive Thru Zoo

We went over to the peninsula to Sequim to the Olympic Game Farm with Dee Ann. I went there growing up and we have gone with other family, but Dee Ann has never been there. We rode a ferry over and the kids liked that. Kate got scared when they blew the horn and we were outside so it was loud. She asked a million questions about the ferry when we were waiting to load onto the ferry. The day started out overcast then the clouds burned off and it was a nice day. We had hot cocoa on the ferry ride over and had ice cream at Port Gamble before getting on the ferry to come back. Quite the extremes, ha!

You drive through this game farm. There are llamas, bears, peacocks, a rhinoceros (that didn't move), elk, bison, deer, lions, tigers and other animals. A lot are behind fences, but several are wandering around and as you drive through they come up to your car and you can feed them bread. Our car had lots of animal slobber by the time we were done. It was funny. I remember coming here growing up and we were in our camper (one that fits in the back of a pick-up). Well, the buffalo were rocking our pick-up and we were screaming and worried the pick-up would tip. My Dad was laughing because he knew we were fine. The buffalo also stuck their head into the cab of the pick-up right next to my Dad. It was quite the memory so it's been fun to go back and take my kids here.

These llamas were aggressive. They sure liked the bread. All these animals are carb lovers. Who knew! They get so much bread fed to them from all us crazy people. :)

Preston hanging out on my lap.

The bear waving to us. Some of these bears and animals have been in movies in Hollywood. They are famous. :)

Peacock spreading it's feathers.

One of the elk trying to get into our car. It was funny. They left so much slobber. Kate would get scared when we drove by the elk. She didn't like them chasing our car. She even jumped into the very last row in the suburban to hide from the animals. It was hilarious.

Kyle feeding the elk some bread. While I was taking a picture out his window, somehow my window got rolled down all the way and Preston was sitting on my lap. Well, Kyle says, "Heidi, look out!" I look and their is an elk about to nibble on Preston's head. Preston wasn't doing anything. But I got scared and moved my legs to move him and Kyle drove away trying to get away from the elk. It was scary, but funny. Good thing nothing happened.

The buffalo (actually American bison, but who can tell, right?) would wander slowly up to the car. They were BIG and hairy. The elk were crazier because they were fast and would chase our car.

The deer swarming the car in front of us.

Cooking with Paula Dean

Dee Ann bought Kate a Paula Deen kid cookbook so they made cookies one day. Kate loved it. She tries helping me cook whenever she can. Dee Ann also made her this adorable apron.

This one makes me laugh. Kate crosses her eyes often (for fun I guess) so I had to post this one.

Family Fun in Seattle

We had a good weekend with Dee Ann, Melanie and Milo and their kids. They came to visit and left Dee Ann with us (more posts on our fun adventures later!). We went to Jetty Island with them and the kids had fun. It wasn't as hot as the record breaking temperature of 103 degrees the day before, but it was still nice. We were roasting in our house so it was nice of my Mom to bring an A/C window unit over from Tri-Cities. All the Costco's in Seattle and Portland areas were sold out and she was coming over to Marci's house and brought one over with her for us. It was sure nice to have when Melanie and Milo came over. (Thanks Mom for meeting late at night for the rendevous/exchange!)

These are Melanie's kids playing on Jetty Island on the beach...

These are my kids "playing" on the beach. Hmmm, something's wrong here!

On Saturday, we went to the Pacific Science Center and had a good time. I haven't been there in forever. We went to an IMAX movie about undersea creatures before exploring all the exhibits. Then we checked out the space needle and the water fountain while eating snow cones.

The kids were worn out after the Science Center. The boys all watching TV. Funny.

The girls playing dress up in Kate's room.

Preston fell, once again, at the Pacific Science Center and got this HUGE bump on his forehead. The scab on his nose from his previous fall (where we thought he broke his nose, but he didn't) already fell off. He is always falling on his face. After he fell at the science center, he threw up and it was a mess and we hadn't even started looking at all the exhibits yet!