this is how my kids have been feeling today.  henry and abigail both have the flu and ellie has a barky cough. poor kids.  hopefully mom & dad can keep from catching this bug!  hope everyone's healthy at your house!

today we wrote letters to disney princesses on cards covered in sparkly pink glitter!


abbey wrote her letter to ariel.  it says: "dear ariel, what is your favorite color?  i wish i was a mermaid like you.  i love the color of your hair.  i will draw a picture of me on the top. love, abbey"

ellie wrote a letter to belle.  she drew a picture of all three of the kids and a picture of belle, too.  you can see she was very proud of herself!

we can't wait until they write back!

happy 4th of july...yesterday!
we got home so late last night (after 12) that there was just no way i was going to blog.

how was everyone's 4th?  good?  ours was a-mazing!  the most fun we've had on the 4th, ever!

we usually stay at home and dan bbqs a ridiculous amount of food and we light some sparklers.
this year we went to see the fireworks at pearson air field (for those of you not from the pnw, it's a pretty big fireworks show.) where dan bbq'd a ridiculous amount of food and we watched some other people light some really big "sparklers".  AND sarah and thomas got to come with us!  it was pretty epic.

we only had one ticket to the air field, which meant we could only get one car in.  and ours was really full of babies and food, so there was no room for sarah and thomas to come with us, even though we really wanted them to come.  solution?

shhh. don't tell.

hide them in the trunk, of course!  we were kind of worried that they were going to suffocate back there, but they made it out only slightly traumatized...(you can't see him, but thomas is squished in there, too.)

once we got the car parked in the hanger there was plenty of room ;D  we even had our own private patch of grass for a bbq picnic!

look at all those bags of food behind dan! that wasn't even all we brought!

henry fell asleep before we got there and slept until we were finished eating!

danny grilled hot dogs and hamburgers for dinner.  we had chips, dip, 2 kinds of potato salad, soda, and, of course...

these were the girls first smores! (that they made themselves)

she couldn't eat that huge thing, but she loved the little bit she did eat.

henry wasn't so sure about all the loud noise from the fireworks when he first woke up.

sometimes i let my kids have chocolate pudding.

one summer day down and already two things on our list done!

yesterday we took a trip to the library and signed up for their summer reading program!  i think that the reading program is one of my favorite things to do in the summer with my kids, it was certainly one of my favorite summer activities when i was little!

we've already logged 45 minutes!

after we signed up we grabbed 6 books as fast as we could and checked them out because we were on our way to grandmama's house...


...to make strawberry jam!

my mom has made great the best strawberry freezer jam every summer for as long as i can remember.  this stuff is seriously delicious!  i absolutely refuse to eat a pb&j with anything but this jam.  my kids have only eaten store bought jam a few times, in emergencies (ie, when we lived in idaho and ran out in the middle of winter), this is their jam of choice.  in fact, abbey ate an entire jar of this stuff with a spoon for breakfast the other day.  it's that good.  note: i do not feed my children jars of jam for breakfast, she "fixed her own breakfast" while i was still asleep.


since it's strawberry season here in the northwest, we bought a bunch of flats from a farmer (sooo much yummier than store bought strawberries, seriously. stop buying your berries at wal-mart!  those things are gross.) and went to work.  the girls are old enough now that they got to help, too!  what an awesome memory to have.

washing the berries

ellie & grandmama smooshing the berries

abbey & grandmama smooshing more berries

henry sat very patiently in his highchair, munching on rice cakes, while all this smooshing was  going on.

measuring the strawberries & adding (a lot) of sugar!

making silly faces and stirring in the pectin.

henry took care of the extra smooshed strawberries that we had.

jam.

 we all had so much fun listening to oldies and dancing in the kitchen while we made strawberry jam with grandmama.  i can't wait to spread this all over a piece of toast!

first day of summer! yay!  we slept in until 9:00!

after breakfast this morning, we all sat down at the table and made our summer bucket list!  we're going to try and do everything on our list and then squeeze in as many other fun things as we can!

kinda hard to see. my black marker got lost in the move. i also waited too long to take our last list off, so there's a little winter to-do on there still...

on our list of summer to-dos:
go for a walk
write letters
eat smores
play in the water
make ice cream
have a picnic
sign up for summer reading program
go to the beach
blow bubbles
make sidewalk paint
go to the cupcake store
go to the zoo
make a summer treat
camp out in the living room
have a movie night
go to the farmers market
do a summer craft
stay up late
make jam
put on a puppet show
watch fireworks
build a fort
get ice cream cones
make popsicles
have a tea party

what should we do first???

look at my big girl! first and last day of kindergarten!

today was abbey's very last day of kindergarten!  i can't believe that she's done already!  this year has gone by way too quickly.

abbey had a lot of fun on her last day.  her class made "all about me" books with all of their favorite things written down in them.  abbey's turned out pretty cute.  she said her least favorite food was "dirt".  that's my least favorite food too!

all the kindergartner's had a "field day", too.  since it was raining (surprise) their field day was more of a glorified p.e. class, but all the kids got otter pops, and really, you can't beat otter pops.

after school, the secretary (a very sweet southern grandma) turned on a bubble machine by the front doors for all of the almost-first-graders to walk through.  i don't care how you are, walking through a tunnel of bubbles is fun!

abbey was excited to be done with kindergarten and on her way to first grade, but really disappointed that she has to wait almost three months.  i'm sure when summer starts tomorrow she'll be a little less disappointed ;D

this morning the kindergarten had a short musical program to celebrate the end of the year and moving on to the first grade. (in loo of a graduation) they called it: kindergarten celebration!

abbey's in the front row, just right of the center

all the kids did such a good job!  they sang a silly song with silly words, recited a poem with musical accompaniment, and sang a raffi song with sign language.  they also all wore cute little shirts that they made.  it was so much fun to get to watch abbey perform, we're so proud of our little girl!

abbey was chosen to play music while the kids recited their poem

signing while they sang

after their program we went back to abbey's classroom to look at some of the word they've been doing in class and have a cupcake.  

sitting at her desk

we didn't get to take very many pictures in the classroom.  there were SO many people in there!

abbey with her new teacher

it was such a fun day!  we were especially lucky to be able to share it with grandmama and aunt sarah!  (a special thank you to grandmama for holding the babies and to sarah for taking pictures!)


we'll leave you with some clips of the program, enjoy!

yesterday was spirit day at school for abbey.  it was mustache day!  everyone got to wear a silly mustache.  we made abbey's out of black cardstock and stuck it to her face with bandaids.  (it stuck on all day, too!)
it was a lot of fun for all the kids (and teachers, too!).


abbey wanted to share her silly smile with you :D

last night the girls decided that they were old enough to do the dishes.  well, abbey decided she was old enough and ellie decided she didn't want to be left out.  abbey has been asking to do the dishes for weeks.  i don't know what's so appealing to her about doing the dishes, maybe it's getting to play in the water.  at any rate, i finally gave in last night
.


i loaded up the glass dishes first and left the plastic dishes (there are always TONS of those) and pots and pans for the girls.  abbey was in charge or scrubbing and ellie was in charge of loading.



they had so much fun!  and they did a pretty good job, too.  if only i could get them this excited about cleaning their room...

sometimes i have a lot of things to do and i can't watch the kids.  this is usually when they get to watch a show (or get baby-gated into a bedroom to play...).  even though i check on them a lot, sometimes things get a little busy and a little silly...



henry recently figured out how zippers work.  his favorite zippers for play with?  they ones on our couch pillows of course!  even though he was in his swing, somehow he got a hold of a pillow and unstuffed it for me.  that was fun.




ellie and henry were playing in henry's room while i helped abbey finish her homework.  this was waaay more fun than building a tower out of blocks!

today was run for the arts.  and i missed it!  danny and i were going to go to abbey's school to watch her run, and we forgot.  i'm pretty upset.  lesson learned?  put e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g on the calendar.  always.  

abbey's graduation pictures from her old school came in the mail today!  yay!  i am so excited about how they turned out!  i can't believe that she's almost done with kindergarten.  this week is her last full week of school.

i'm so happy to have these pictures.  at her new school they don't have a kindergarten graduation, which i am pretty bummed out about.  what kind of school doesn't have kindergarten graduation?  at least now we can pretend that she had one.

i can't wait to frame this picture and put it up!

yep.  it's been a while.  that last year was extraordinarily busy for our family.  so, instead of updated the blog with all our exciting adventures...i didn't update at all.  sorry.  here are a few highlights from the last year, sans pictures (because the kids may have crashed the computer the pictures are on...):

july:
abbey turned 5!
dan turned 30!

august:
we moved to reno (boo)

september:
abbey started kindergarten!

october:
henry turned 1! (i made him a rocket ship cake!)
the kids dressed up at tinkerbell, aundrey hepburn, and a bat for halloween. they were adorable.

november:
we had thanksgiving in california!

december:
christmas in california, too!

february:
ellie turned 3!
the girls discovered la la loopsy dolls (these are a very big deal at our house right now)

march:
stephanie had a birthday

april:
we moved back to washington (yay!)
abbey started her new school

may:
went by really quickly...
i think we bought a bookshelf

now i'll just resume the blog with what we're doing now.  and i'll try to keep it updated!

happy independence day, everyone! i hope you all had an amazing day! we certainly did!

we took the girls to the playground this afternoon and had a fourth of july picnic. we had a very all american meal (sans the apple pie, which was really too bad); fried chicken, biscuits, coleslaw and mac and cheese. ooh, it was yummy!

after we ate, danny took the girls to play and i took henry for a walk.

poor henry spent most of the afternoon in his stroller, in the shade. couldn't let all that soft, pink, fair skin fry in the sunshine. he did pretty well, though.


we had the kids sit in the car while danny set off the fireworks so no one (namely ellie) would get too curious. it worked out surprisingly well. since our kids are so little, and they have attention spans like goldfish, we didn't put on a very long show. we burned a couple of sparklers, set off a saturn whistle (i hate those), and lit abbey log looking explosive (see picture) that sparkled for about 6 seconds. it was just long enough and a huge hit.

well, with everyone except henry. poor little boy did not enjoy one second of our lovely, patriotic display.