Miley's First Beach Trip

Hello from the beach! This is Miley's first visit and it couldn't be any more beautiful. She even got a little sunburned on her cheeks, which is very unusual for the Oregon coast! More to come soon!

Summer Fun!

Even though we didn't go on our normal summer vacation to Idaho, Utah, and Colorado, we have been having lots of fun and staying super busy around here! Here are some things that we have done over the last few weeks.

* We went to the Silverton Library for a kids music event. I thought the guy was kinda creepy but the kids had a blast. They were up dancing around, pretending to be animals, and trains and all sorts of stuff. It was a fun night as a family.

* We had some visitors (aka skunks!) in our backyard. The night Shaun found them he went out and shot at them with his pellet gun. Then he flooded their den with the hose and we haven't seen them since!

* We've visited the water park in Wilsonville a few times and on one special Saturday Dad got to come with us. We stopped at the store to pick up lunchables and the kids thought it was pretty special! Oh to be a kid again!

 Maisey stacked all of her meat and cheese into one big lunchable sandwich!

* We've bbq'd a ton! Chicken, steak, hamburgers, brats, hotdogs, and asparagus! I love food from the grill!

 The perfect steak!

* A few weeks ago we gave Maisey two daily chores. One: water the flowers in the pots that don't get reached by the sprinkler. Two: Unload the dishwasher.

This was on day two of the chores! 

 * My aunt gave the kids these super cute chairs! There is even one more on the side of the picture for Miley. They have their names on them and the umbrellas open up! The kids totally love them and they even ate dinner out on them last night.

* The kids loved watching the workers dig up a section of the sidewalk and then come back a few hours later with a cement truck to fill it. We got out a blanket to watch on and had some snacks. Our water delivery guy also came that morning so they had a busy day watching big trucks! Gage was in heaven!

* The kids have also spent a lot of time getting into trouble these last few weeks. Ever since their cousins left they have been pretty naughty and mischievous.

 Here is proof: Gage with two nerf gun darts up his nose!

* We've spent a lot of time out back playing in the water!

 Gage got out an umbrella to run through the sprinkler with out getting wet.

* Our friends invited us to come swimming with them last week. The kids had a ton of fun and I was proud of how brave they were. Miley was awesome and slept pretty much the whole time. I had to wake her up before we left to feed her. The day couldn't have gone any better!

 Lunch break at the pool!

 He looks like he is in serious thought!

All of the big boys were running and jumping into the pool. This was Gage's version! He was so fun to watch.

* We went to a Volcanoe's baseball game. The kids were pretty good and the Volcanoe's won! And the fireworks show at the end made the whole night worth it! They were spectacular!

 Gage was literally on the edge of his seat waiting for the game to start. He couldn't contain his excitement.

 Miley is such a good baby. She just chilled most of the game. The noise or the breeze didn't bother her one bit.

Maisey was very into the rules of the game this year. It was fun to have her sit by me so I could explain things to her.

* We've mostly spent the last few weeks loving on this happy little girl!

Grammy's Birthday

Grammy's birthday was a couple of weekends ago. It was pretty low key. I gave her her birthday gift when all of my sisters were in town, so she didn't have anything to open on her birthday. Plus the kids wanted to get her something, so we went to the $ store the night before and I told them each to pick one thing. Well, I think we ended up with five things, after I made the kids put back a ton of stuff! It was really funny watching them go through the store. On her birthday (Saturday) Miley and I went shopping with her and then took her to dinner. Then on Sunday we made her a delicious birthday dinner complete with a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup cake. It was so good. I think she really enjoyed her weekend!

 Gage walking through the dollar store. He ended up getting Grammy the cup hanging from his mouth, another cup, and a beaded necklace hand clapper thing. Maisey got her this interesting (read: ugly) hula doll and a d-i-y bracelet kit. Good thing Grammy has a good sense of humor. She thought it was fun!

 Miley was so good at dinner and was stealing all of the attention!

 Gage helped me make the cake before church on Sunday. I will never let him have chocolate in his church clothes again!

 Grammy opening her gift and Gage all up in the action! The kids couldn't wait for Grammy to open their gifts.

My delicious creation! 

5 candles on the left and 3 on the right for 53!

Happy Birthday Grammy!

Car Wash = FAIL!!!!!

I'm working on a summer fun post and thought it would be fun to include some pictures from our car wash today. But then we actually washed the car, and it didn't go so well.

(We've never actually washed our cars at home, so this was the kids' first time. We have a great car wash here in town that we usually take them to, but I figured it would be something fun to do on a hot day. . . Yeah, not so fun!)

It all started out fine. The older kids were enjoying popsicles in their nice new chairs (more on those in the summer fun post to come!)

 And Miley was happy in her bouncy in the garage

I ran inside to fill up our car wash bucket with hot water and I came back out to the garage holding it by the handle. Gage came up to me and just barely touched the bucket and the handle came right off spilling soapy water all over the garage floor.

The kids were super excited about using the sponge and brush but they kept fighting over them and I'm pretty sure my van got a few new scratches. 

Maisey ran off to play with her little neighbor friend, so that left Gage with free reign of the sponge, the brush, and the hose! Within seconds, he dumped the bucket out again. So, back inside we go to fill the bucket up! Good thing it was a brand new bottle of car soap.

Right about this time, Miley started crying. I knew she was on the verge of a nap, but I was hoping she would last until we were done. She had other plans. So I picked her up out of the bouncy and slipped and fell on the soapy and wet garage floor. Like fell all the way to the ground, and yes, my butt is sore! I swaddled her up and went inside to put her down for her nap, when I came back outside, Gage was spraying the hose into the garage.

I told him to stop spraying the hose and had him go get his sponge out of the bucket to wash the van wheels. Isn't that a good job for a 3 year-old boy?  Well, maybe he thought I said dump the bucket out again, because that is what he did. So this time I just poured a little soap into the bucket and filled it up with the hose. I left the bottle of soap on the driveway by the bucket and started scrubbing the car. I turned around when I heard Gage saying, "BUBBLES! BUBBLES!" and discovered that he had dumped the whole bottle of car soap into the bucket.

At this point I was sooooo ready to give up, but I didn't get to the front of the van and that's where it needed washed the most. So we stuck it out. The van eventually got cleaned, the garage eventually dried, and I came to the conclusion that I'm pretty sure I won't wash the van with the kids by myself for a very VERY long time!

July Randoms

These are just a few leftovers that really didn't fit in with a post.

As you can tell, we've been hitting up a lot of different parks this summer. It's nice to be able to let the kids run around and be wild with out having to worry about them destroying my house.

This is the Noble's little boy, Griffin. I fell in love with his eyes!

Maisey helped my mom make fruit pizzas. Maisey got the put whatever fruit she wanted on ours. It was delicious.

The 80's

It was super hot when we were in Sunriver, and when we got back into town the valley was hot as well. Hot for us at least. Because the forecast had several 80* days in a row, I decided to get out our pool. We all enjoyed the sunshine out back, even Miley.

But then our super fun day ended with Gage getting stung by a bee. :(

Belated 4th of July

Since we were in Sunriver on the 4th of July, we weren't able to do fireworks. We decided not to head in to Bend for the firework show there because it didn't start until 10:00 pm and we wanted the kids in bed. So we recorded the Macy's Firework Show on our DVR at home and Monday night for FHE we watched it and ate star sugar cookies for our treat. Well, the firework show turned into a dance party (we've been having a lot of those lately) and the kids were hilarious. Gage went and got musical instruments for everyone in the family. It turned out to be a fun way to celebrate the 4th after the fact.

Sunriver

Christina's family came with us to Sunriver this time. The kids got along so well together, it really couldn't have gone any better. We did a lot of the same things we always do, but it was much more exciting because we had cousins to do it with!

WEDNESDAY:

We got to Sunriver in the early afternoon. We played should the Curtis family around and got all settled in. The boys drove the tractor and did a really good job taking turns. We shot some hoops and went on a bike ride. After the kids were in bed, the adults got our game on! We love playing games when we are all together.

Maisey slept with the giant bear every night! Her and Shayla got to have a slumber party in Grammy's room every night as well.

THURSDAY:

On Thursday morning we headed to the village to play on the inflatables and ride the train.

After lunch, we put the kids down for naps and Christina, Clayton, Shaun and I played tennis, while Grammy stayed back with all six kids. It was *HOT* and we forgot sunscreen. Shaun got fried, but it was soooo worth it. We played boys vs. girls and the games were all very close. Our reservations were for an hour and a half so we only had time for two sets. The boys won the first one after a tiebreaker. But Christina and I came from behind to win the second one. I wish we had time for the last set because we definitely had the momentum going our way, but it was nice to end in a tie so everyone was still happy. This was probably the most fun we've had playing tennis at Sunriver. It was nice to be able to play doubles because you don't have to chase the ball around as much.

Shaun's post-tennis sunburn.

After tennis, the kids woke up from their naps and wanted to get in the hot tub. They had fun swimming all around and playing with the pool toys.

After dinner, we all headed back to the village to jump on the inflatables again and for another train ride. Then we headed to Goody's for ice cream! While the mom's stood in line for ice cream, the dad's took the kids to a dance party in the village. It was hilarious. There was mostly upbeat fast songs that the kids were having a blast dancing to, but towards the end the band played a slow song. It was so funny to see Gage slow his dance moves down and shake his hips real slow to the beat. Eventually I went and danced with him while Shaun and Maisey danced, then we put the two kids together to dance with each other. It was a fun night.

The girls riding the train.

Dance Party!

Father/Daughter Dance

How cute are they?

Yummy ice cream!

FRIDAY:

On Friday we went to the new aquatic area that just opened. It was incredible. There were water slides, a lazy river, fountains, a beach entry pool, and fenced in kid pool with a sand area. It was super crowded, there wasn't a lot of shade, and again it was HOT!!! We played there all morning, then went home for lunch and naps. During nap time, the girls (adults and kids) decided to bike ride to the village and go miniature golfing. Well, the bike ride didn't go exactly as planned. The little girls were having a hard time keeping up, so we called Clayton to have him come pick them up and take them to the village and we would meet them there. Well, by 2:00 pm, it was way hot and it was taking a lot longer for us to get to the village then we expected. And add to that my mom almost crashing and breaking her leg, once we met up with Clayton and the little girls, we decided to send all of the bikes back with him and call him again for a ride back home when we were ready. Miniature golf was fun. It was Maisey's first time playing and she loved it. She even got a hole in one with out me helping her. Among the adults the loser had to buy ice cream afterward. Good thing I brought money with me because I lost by a lot. That night after dinner, we headed back to the new aquatic area. It was a long, tiring day, but we all had a blast.

I only managed one picture of my kids at the new pool, and it wasn't even them swimming. Gage loved playing in the sand area. And it was way better than the beach because you could rinse off and then not have to walk back through the sand again to leave.

All 5 bikes in the van.

Our failed bike ride!

Maisey's first game of golf. She caught on pretty quickly.

SATURDAY:

Saturday started off with lots of tears. My kids lost their playmates. The Curtis family had to leave to head back home. Maisey cried and cried and Gage kept asking, "Where my friend go?" After a while, we distracted them with taking them swimming again. This time we headed to one of the old pools that was much smaller and way less crowded. It was kind of nice because we could just lay out while the kids played and we didn't have to worry about losing them. Maisey loved going down the water slide in the big pool. At one point Shaun got out of the pool and didn't want to get back in, but Maisey really wanted to go down the slide again. She was really scared to go down it with out Shaun in the pool to catch her. So we told her we would pay her $5 (she's had her eye on a new $5 hula hoop) to do it with out Shaun and she did! She ended up going down it a ton all on her own. I was very proud of her and how she overcame her fear! That night we at dinner at the village and watched another band play, then headed home for games!

Doesn't she look brave?

No one there to catch her.

Miley hung with us during games. She must have been bad luck because Daddy lost pretty bad that night!