Bathing Beauty & Staying @ Ga-Ga & Pa's

On Friday we went down to Ga-Ga & Pa's to spend the weekend. We had all sorts of fun plans...we even extended our trip to include Monday.

First we started off by bathing this little beauty in Ga-Ga's sink. She's sitting up SO well now!

It was fun spending so much time with family and being away from home. It really felt like a little vacation.

The kids loved being at Ga-Ga & Pa's too. They love getting to...play in the sandbox, be pushed on the swings, eat Ga-Ga's Vitasin's (aka vitamins) and help Pa water the flowers.

Lips!

Ever since Ella has gotten her teeth (she has two now) she's been doing this funny thing with her lips where she pushes them out. Puckering or pouting...call it what you want, but I think it's hilarious!

Not sure what this look is, but it sure is funny!

She totally knows she's adorable!


I have two teeth now...they're a little hard to see though.


Mmwhaa!



Peace Out Dude!!!

I think she's channelling Elvis here!

Gaze intently off into the distance...I can do that!

So Ga-Ga and I agree that Ella has red highlights in her hair. Michael says she doesn't at all. What do you think??

Eat your heart out...Angelina Jolie!

I love this goofball!

Dash Point Park

During the heat wave we had here in Washington we decided to take the kids to the beach. It really was a last minute thing. I was so tired since Ella didn't nap while the boys were so I had zero alone time and the boys were pretty restless so Michael said, "Let's go to the beach...free babysitting!"

I don't think I've ever been to the beach and been so comfortable. It was perfect! The weather was warm enough that I wasn't cold, but hot enough so the breeze coming off the water felt nice.

When we first got there the tide was out so the boys wanted to go down to the water.

Ella and I stayed up in the soft sand and hung out. She chewed on some flame throwing guy toy we had in the car.

After the boys were done with the water they came up and ran in the sand back and forth and back and forth.




Daddy brought out the sand toys after a little while.

Then I thought it would be fun to take a picture of us sitting on this particular log. We look a bit different sitting on this log since the last time we looked like this....

Yep this is the exact log that we had our picture taken at in January when I was big and pregnant with Ella. Thanks again Starr!!!

I tried to get cute pictures of both the boys sitting on the log, but Owen was being a silly boy. I actually like this crazy picture though!

Jack is still in the 'I'll cheese at the camera anytime' stage!

Ella didn't like that I handed her over to Daddy. She is more and more like me everyday. Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but when I was little I would cry so hard if my mom gave me to my dad that I would end up throwing up.

While Daddy was calming Ella down the boys and I had fun getting covered by the sand.

Cute pigs!

I could seriously eat him up! He is just the cutest thing!

We ended up only being there for about an hour because the park was about to close, but it was a blast!

Lookin' Good!

Only she...

can make...

thunder thighs...



look this good!!!

Feet Are A Girl's Best Friend!

Daddy Time...Sort Of!

I love my Daddy!

I love making silly faces!

I love touching faces!


I love my hands!

I love looking at my Mama!

I WANT MY MAMA!!!

Can You Guess...

Update: Melody got it exactly right - yams, bananas and carrots! Good job!!!

what baby food...

I made for Ella...

last Friday?

Mom you can't guess since you were there when I made them! :)

Eating Out!

Tonight we headed to Costco to return the pots and pans that I bought less than 5 months ago. They were already warping and chipping on the bottom. I got new ones and I love them already and I haven't even cooked with them yet. As we were leaving Costco the boys were saying they were hungry and we still had one more stop to make. So we went over to Olive Garden for dinner since Michael received a gift card for his birthday.

We don't eat out at sit down restaurants very often anymore. For one the money and for another we have 3 small children. Children and sit down restaurants don't go together. It was funny because right when we walked in there were these two older ladies that were heading into the bathroom. I followed them in, but they didn't notice, while I was in there they were talking and one of them said, "Wow, they are brave bringing 3 kids to a restaurant....3 SMALL kids at that!"

The kids did really great!!! Our waitress let us order their food right away so it came out with our salad and bread sticks. We did come in before the dinner rush so that helped too. It's funny though the two times we've gone to Olive Garden since having kids they've always segregated us away from everyone else. I think they expect all kids to behave like maniacs!

Ella sat on my lap for a little while playing with her new toy that Ga-Ga got her. We were sitting in this little alcove area so I decided to let her sit (she's doing really well now) on the floor and play for a bit. But...


right after this picture she fell over to the left and hit her head on the wall. Real smart Mom! She was a tough girl though and didn't cry that much. I did go ahead and feed her after that to calm her down. Poor thing! This is only the second time taking the kids to a nice sit down restaurant since Ella was born (the first was the day of Ella's dedication) and it was a really positive experience.

Down At The Pier

On Friday night Michael took the boys down to the Redondo Pier. I stayed at home with Ella since she was so cranky.

The boys had fun playing on the playground, walking barefoot in the sand, throwing rocks and walking down the pier to see the fisherman.

Daddy just happened to take these super cute pictures of our big boys while they were down there. Love these guys!

Sign Of Summer!

This is about the only part of my body that actually gets a tan!

Backyard Toys!

Remember the nice backyard fire pit we had a few days ago? It was fun having fires for about a week, but now...

The stump is gone and the ground has been filled in! (Side note: You can see Owen and Jack playing with our neighbors grandson Benjamin in the background of this picture. Benjamin was so cute when they were done playing he insisted on hugging the boys)

Here's the area at the bottom of the stairs. The boys have deemed it their new digging spot since we don't have anymore dirt in the easement. They were spreading dirt everywhere and they even killed the grass in that corner so we headed to the store and got more stones so it was sectioned off. We'll see if we can get the grass to regrow!

Once the hole where the stump was, was filled in I asked Michael to bring down the backyard toys we have for the kids and put them in place. We still have to get the timbers to section this area off from the yard and we are going to buy some pea gravel as well. We've thought of other options, but those play tiles they use at parks are way to expensive and wood chips are a wonderful place for flees. Also the idea of the boys not being able to come out in their bare feet wasn't something I wanted to worry about...so pea gravel it is!


We've had all these outdoor toys for a while now. The best part is we didn't pay for any of them! Michael got the slide for free from a job he was working on. The guys youngest kid was about 14 years old so he didn't need it anymore and he offered it to Michael. The tugboat sandbox was at my Uncle's neighbors house. I asked my Uncle about it because I had seen it sitting there not being used every time we went to their house. I asked him to ask his neighbor about it. He did, but the neighbor wanted to keep it. A few months went by and my Uncle called me and said his neighbor wondered if we still wanted it. Ummm....yeah! As for the playhouse, Ga-Ga found that one at one of the Mill Creek Garage Sales. I think she got it for around $40....maybe less.

Last year I did pick up a free swing set off CL's. The people said everything was there except the hardware. I thought that's fine we can always buy nuts and bolts...no biggie. We'll I didn't think that people would be dishonest! Once we actually started laying it out to put it together there were quite a few critical pieces missing. Oh well...we don't really have room for a swing set, but now we have to take a "free" swing set to the dump. Nice!!! We are going to put a tire swing up by hanging it from our huge blue spruce. I'm really excited about that one!

Speaking of the dump...here's the first load ready to go in Papa Martin's truck. We will probably have one more load after this. I don't know about you, but I LOVE going to the dump. I'm actually jealous that Michael gets to go by himself. I have tons of fun memories of going to the dump with Michael or my friend Kim when we first moved into our house and were remodeling. It's just fun cleaning out junk and then throwing it off the truck. I don't know maybe I'm just a little odd! :)