Chugging Away, One Day at a Time

 Holy Cow!  This will be a brief rundown of life for us over the last 4 months, so hang on!

My mom came out to visit us in June just after the girls' dance recital.  We all had so much fun with her.

 

Abigail's 9th Birthday!  I know it.  Where has our first born baby gone!?  Abigail's cake request was specific, and it didn't turn out exactly as she envisioned, but she still thought it was "really beautiful Mom."  It was all edible too!

The fair.  The girls and I went on the ferris wheel.  Claire got to ride her first pony.  She cried and cried when she had to get off:(  Now she asks to ride every "hu-see" she sees.

 

Our annual cumulative birthday bash.  "Welcome to the Jungle" was the theme!  Complete with a reptile man, 30 kids, a pinata that fell off the rope after the first swing, an extra long slip-n-slide that you needed floaties to make it all the way down, and two Anaconda cakes!

   Aaron was sad his Antlion larva had disappeared until he realized they were in cocoons!

 

Love is in the air;)  Bear loves bugs!

 We enjoyed a very nice visit with Richard's parents and our nephew Jacob this summer.

 Call me fantastic and five!

Her cake request was a beautiful, black and blue, sparkly butterfly.  She was pretty darn pleased with it:)

We were able to squeeze our one and only camping trip in over the last two years. Can I get a "hallelujah?!"  We also tried our hands at picking wild huckleberries and blueberries with some good friends.

First Day of Preschool.

She didn't want to hold my hand and told me I could leave now:)  What an independent woman!

 School picture Day.  Dad drove us out into the country to an abandoned homestead with an apple orchard that's over 100 years old!  So fun!  School is going well.  Abigail is in 3rd, Aaron 2nd, Leah preschool, but we're supplementing with Kindergarten work at home, and Claire does her best to disrupt it all in her own sweet little way.

Moments to Remember

Oh the joy of the butterfly life cycle! The kids have been wanting to do this for some time. Below are our Painted Lady caterpillars and now their crysalids. They should be breaking out any day now to become beautiful butterflies:)

Below is an Antlion Larva.  The craziest looking creature our kids have found in our yard yet!  They turn into a member of the lacewing family at adulthood.  Our kids have several plastic containers filled with them.  They love to fetch and feed them ants and watch them devour them!

Aaron with his four missing top teeth.  The dentist pulled them all a few weeks ago.  Apparently his adult teeth are so large that they take up two baby teeth spaces.  So, either pull them now and delay orthodonture or have early orthodonture.  No brainer.  Besides he looks cute with that enormous gap:)

Our trip to Sunriver for Richard's work turned out to be a fun little excursion.  We were blessed by having the Kingsley kids with us and a visit from Richard's sister Nicole driving on her way home to CA too.  We took the kids to the new Sunriver pool Resort.  We all had some sort of sunburn, even after appling a ridiculously high SPF twice!

Abigail found a friend from home.  I couldn't get a good picture of the boys together.  They road around the Lazy River for hours in a two man innertube, but hid when they saw me with the camera!

Richard and I had a night out to a really nice company paid dinner.  The theme was Monte Carlo, so we dressed up.  Richard hasn't worn a tux since our wedding.  He looked really dashing!

 

The last day we  took the kids on a hike around Paulina Falls.  It was warm and an easy hike.

Last night the girls had their dance recital.  They looked great and did great!  I'm super proud of them both.  Leah was hot and cold all year about dance, but finally decided she wanted to go up on stage, smile, and just have fun.  If she remembered a few of her steps, then that was great too.  She gets rewarded now by going to the movie Brave today.  Abigail is ready to do ballet again next year, but when Leah was asked if she wanted to do dance next year, her reply was, "Nah, I think I'll do soccer instead." 

So Long Spring, Hello Summer!

Once upon a time, there was a mom who used to blog................................. O.K. I confess. That's me. However, between finishing school two months early, home improvement projects, art, science, history, geography, field trips, birthdays, soccer, dance lessons, piano lessons, and reading, I haven't exactly been sitting around eating Bon Bons either! Richard is loving his new job and coworkers. We couldn't have asked for a better work environment for him to start into. God is fully awesome! I have decided to resign from the hospital and focus primarily on homeschooling the kids and being a stay at home mom. I'd like to do other nursing work in the future, but at this juncture I'm focusing on being at home with the kids. It's been a blessing thus far for the whole family and less stress on myself too.

Our field trip to Cada Dia Cheese. This is a local dairy that specializes in making whole milk cheese.  AMAZING is all we have to say!  The kids had a blast.  Bear loved Alfie the dog.  Below, the kids were learning "listening lessons" from Alfie while hunting for 4-leaf clovers in the cow pasture.
 
 
Yes, their home is made out of straw bales and cinder blocks!

Bear's Big 2 yo birthday party. She wasn't feeling well between her cold and getting her 2 yr molars, but still found a way to enjoy the frosting and candy on her cake. Poor mija!  She's talking so much.  Animal names are the sounds they make, except our two cats are called the same name "Min."  Dad is "Dah-yee," Mom is "Mama," Abigail is "Sissy," Aaron is "Yah," Leah is "Yee-ah," outside is "out," swing is "wing," blankey is "kee-kee," birds are "fly," crackers are "crack," and if she loves something she says things like, "Aaaaaaaaaw, cuuuuuuute," and, "Oh! Cooooooool!" And so many more wonderful words!  I love this sweet, stubborn age!

 

Bear with the best babysitter ever! Our Ashy:)  Her 16 yo self would freak out if she knew I posted this photo (wink, wink).
 

 Our science project. Hatching praying mantids! I took this egg sac off of a bush in our yard this spring.  It took them about a week to finish hatching out. Our kids are totally nuts about nature.  I love it!
 

Oh yes, it's almost that time. Potty training 101!

  

Yay, the Big Guy is now 7! He's very pleased with his dirt, Komodo Dragon, & insect infested cake!
 

Our field trip to Crescent Moon Alpaca Ranch. The kids got inspected by the very curious babies if they sat really still. Bear almost never sits still, so she kept scaring them away.  

 Richard's 35th Birthday!  What a looker!  Abigail has a t-shirt that says, "I get my good looks from my dad!"  She likes to tell people it's the truth!  How precious:)