Lauren is 9!!!

I seriously can't believe we have a 9 year old. I can close my eyes and remember her arrival like it was yesterday...every detail. It was a beautiful fall day in Spokane, WA. I was so scared (for the pushing part) and I remember Greg saying to me "God created you to do this. You are going to do great"...of course that was after he had me walking at the mall the night before, walking up and down our stairs and walking around our neighborhood to try to get the labor going!! He was sooo excited to meet his princess. She truly is a princess and we are so blessed to have her in our life. To think that God gave her to us to take care of, raise, disciple, love, teach...what an honor. She is such a joy. We love you sweet Lauren.

Family visit

About a week ago Greg's mom, brother and our nephew came to visit. It was a week full of silliness and fun. Landon is 6 months younger than Brennan, so it made for a busy, crazy, hilarious boy week. We took the younger boys swimming while J and L were at school. They could have stayed there all day, but eventually they both got cold and hungry. Gramma's birthday was while they were here, so we celebrated by going out to eat a couple times...one being our favorite Mexican food restaurant..hence the enormous sombrero. The boys LOVE...I mean LOVE Star Wars, so the dress up outfits from Gramma were a huge hit. Brennan has never seen Star Wars, but he wants to be Darth Vader and yesterday he told me he likes Darth Maul. Why does he always want to be the bad guy? It kind of bothers me.

Dbacks

For the last 3 years now we have had the kids do the summer reading program at the library and if they complete all their reading they get tickets to a Dbacks game. This year was Brennan's first year. His cousin Dominic also did the reading program, so he came too. Of course Papa comes every year as well which makes it extra special. The Dbacks lost, but it was still fun.

Camping

Labor Day weekend we went camping. No-not camping in a cabin..tent camping. Yes, I know most of my girlfriends out there think it is crazy, but I love it-just for a couple days. One of my good friends who is an experienced camper out here told us about this really nice place called Canyon Point that we headed to. It was a great campsite. It actually had bathrooms and showers! OK-so the ones by our campsite were pretty sketchy, but they did have ones up front that were flushable :). The kids had the best time exploring, shooting the BB gun, roasting marshmallows, swinging in the hammock, playing cards and seriously the part they loved best was trying to start a fire..."trying"being the key word. We did get a fire started, but it rained so a everything was wet which made it quite the challenge. Greg's patience was definitely tested! I have always been anti gun...but I am sorry when you have boys..no matter what you do to prevent it a stick, a block a tree branch the vacuum attachments, paper...honestly anything will take the shape of a gun in a little boys mind and they will be shooting at things. I am not kidding-even if they never have seen a gun before-when they are little-it is like a little boy instinct to want to shoot something!! I wouldn't have ever believed that until the first time Joshua did that when we was less than 2. Anyways, G wanted to get a BB gun for our camping trip. I was pretty against it, but I finally gave in...and I have to admit I am really glad. We had the best time with it. Of course we had all kinds of rules, but it was seriously fun. I loved shooting it and didn't want to give it up! Bella is almost 10 months. She did great camping...however I do think we need to have our trainer back, since I spent about 5 minutes sprinting after her through the forest when she took off! She is honestly a great dog and is fantastic with the kids...but "come" is not one of her strong points. We need some work on that. The first night we were there it stormed pretty hard..well lightning and thunder, so at about 3 in the morning we moved into the car. Sooo not fun, but I would have rather been there than under a tree. At the end of the trip we were all pretty tired...including Joshua. I took video of him in the car on the way home. Poor little guy.