Catching up once again!

Once again, time is flying by and I haven't posted any pictures in a week! (Sorry Grandparents!) Trevor is crawling now, Erica is loving riding her bike, we started homeschooling, my mom is here visiting and we have had a great summer! Here are some pictures from the last week!

Painting

I pulled out the paints one day last week and the kids made their masterpieces!




3-2-1 Bounce!

On Saturday, we celebrated a friend, Krista's, 3rd birthday at a bouncy place. What a blast!Caroline bravely heading down the huge slide on her own!
And their off! Erica and Kennedy race down the slides after going through an obstacle type course to get to the ladder up the slides!
There goes Kyle!


Steph got into the fun too!

Field Trip!

On Wednesday, we went on a field trip to Albertson's with Steph's old MOPS group.
The kids learned about eating healthy and had lots of yummy samples of healthy foods. Here they have cereal.

In the produce department sampling apples!Chocolate milk!

Wheat bread!
In the fish department, they had an opportunity to touch "Wilbur" the pet lobster. :)



Kyle bought these fun toys with some of his birthday money while we were at the store.


Grandma is here!

Grandma Louise arrived later in the day. Here are the kids helping to deflate the air mattress this morning. They couldn't stop giggling!

A long game of "Sorry!" took place this afternoon!


A New Do!

I had my first real haircut in years! I decided I needed to stop going to inexpensive chain haircut salons and went to a more expensive beautiful full service salon and it was SO worth it! I had my hair layered with about 5 inches cut off! The gal who cut my hair said that I was leaving with 1/2 the amount I came in with and that the hair on the floor could have filled a pillow! I love it and really hope I can replicate what she did with it!

Another First!

Thursday was Erica's day! She showed us that she can ride a bike without training wheels! She'd practiced a few times this summer, but didn't seem too interested overall. Suddenly on Thursday night, she did it! Now there's no stopping her!

Way to go Erica!

Monday, Monday! Friends and Firsts!

Today was an exciting Monday!

I have been trying to figure out when exactly to start officially homeschooling Erica. I didn't want to overwhelm either one of us with several subjects at one time, so we started with Math today! Erica was a wonderful student, despite some interruptions of my having to change a dirty diaper, and my having to break up a fight between a certain 5 year old boy and 3 year old girl. We agreed that in the future, it would be a good idea for her to have an enjoyable book nearby that she can read while waiting for Mommy to come back!

Shortly after finishing our math lesson, we had some friends over to visit. Brian and Sarah lived here when we first moved to Washington and were some of our best friends. Sarah and I had a chance to go out to lunch alone! Thanks Greg and Brian!

Happy Birthday, Grandma Pauline! We used the webcam to talk to Grandma and Grandpa today and to wish Gma a happy day!

Trevor is crawling!

Watch him go!

Swim Party!

Greg took the kids to a friend's birthday swim party on Saturday. It was planned from 12-2:30, but the weather was so hot, that I didn't see them home until 6pm! They had a great time!

Erica and Elizabeth noodling around!

Kyle spent most of his day on the noodles that he turned into a little raft!
Caroline stayed in the shallow end or the 2 foot pool most of the time. Greg floated around with her as well but she was just a happy camper in the water!

Here's Erica jumping off the diving board! See below for a video of her doing this and swimming to the side. She has come a long way with swimming and we are so proud of her!

A little sampling of what they were all enjoying...

Here she is - Miss Erica! It's hard to tell in this video, but she is jumping into 12 feet of water!

Summer Fun!

Last week was the awards picnic for our Read-a-thon. The kids enjoyed getting little prizes and playing at the park with new friends. Our family won second prize for raising the most money for the Co-op! Thank you to all who participated with us!

It has been rather warm here lately! On Thursday, I took the kids to a local park that has a play area and a "Sprayground!"

One of Erica's friends just happened to be there too!
We made microwave smores on Friday night. Fun and messy! Yum yum!

Camping with Daddy!

Usually it's Stephanie who is blogging, but this entry is all Greg! Enjoy!

It had been 7 years since our family had gone camping -- Erica was 3 months old and we only went for 24 hours as we were concerned about how she (and her new parents) would do in the mountains surrounding Lake Wenatchee.

The impetus of our return to camping was a Father-Child Camp Out put on by our church last weekend. This was the seventh year that they have had this event but we have not been able to participate until this year. Luckily, the preparation was made much easier by being invited to share space in the Minami's tent trailer. That meant not having to find time between Kyle's birthday party and the following weekend to find and clean out the 4-person tent we have had but have not used since that weekend in 2001.

The other thing that made it so easy was the location of the campground. It was only 4 miles from our house! I was able to drive back Saturday morning after breakfast and bring Caroline back to the campground for the day. I brought her back home around 8:30pm.

Erica and Kyle standing in front of the tent trailer after we arrived on Friday night. They are holding the walkie-talkies that I brought to keep us in contact in the group campsite. Other Dads had brought nicer two-way radios and they were the hit of the weekend. While the 7 to 10 year old boys were running around with their Star Wars light sabers, the girls were running around with the two-way radios. ("Rachel, this is Erica...where are you? Over.")

S'mores were a hit with everyone!

Rich and his son slept on the short side (Kyle was just over there for the picture) and Erica slept on a couch along with their daughter.

Here they are enjoying breakfast on Saturday morning. Eggs and sausages, yummy!

One of the dads brought a Bingo set along with a crate of prizes.

They had fun playing Bingo -- and you can see Erica was not far from her two-way radio!

Caroline was excited to be a part of the action -- she loved pushing her baby doll around the campsite in the doll stroller. Baby Christina stayed at home so she didn't get dirty. :)

Lunch time was outside -- we enjoyed Mac-n-Cheese.

Play time at the beach -- the boys were digging to China to get to the Olympics.

Caroline was content to sit by herself and dig a small hole in the sand.

Erica enjoyed digging with her friends by the water --- there was a ton of seaweed (green sea lettuce) all over the beach and made getting into the water very uninviting. It was high tide so the beach was very narrow as well. After only about 30-45 minutes at the beach, the skies opened up and let out the kind of rainstorm that does not happen much in Washington state and especially not much in the summertime. We got up the long steep hill quickly (Caroline in my arm and Kyle in Richard's arm). Luckily, the Dad who had set up for Bingo in the morning had left the shelter up after lunch and it was a haven for the those seeking a dry spot while waiting out the storm.

The older boys were having fun getting extra wet when the Dads would punch out the water collecting on the roof of the shelter. Kyle was wanting to be a part of the fun, but was startled when the water came out with a lot of force onto his entire body. You can see the joy was taken from him for a short time. But he was a back to his jovial self very quickly.

Caroline was adopted by the older girls. They asked about her before she arrived (wondering if and when she was going to join the camp out) and had fun playing with her.
After getting changed into dry clothes, we had some hot chocolate in the trailer.

Dinner in the trailer -- cheeseburgers, baked beans and corn on the cob. Eating well!
Here we are Saturday evening before Caroline said her "goodbyes" and we started to prepare for bedtimes for everyone. We had a great time!