Visitors

A couple weekends ago my sis and her hubby came to visit.

We had so much hanging out and getting know Uncle Cory better.  I think he passed the test.  My kids loved him!

On Friday our awesome friend, Chris, took us all on a tour of the Nike Campus and then to the employee store.  We’re trying to talk Cory and Nat into living here and working for Nike when they are done with school.  lol.

Saturday we went to the Street of Dreams and looked at all the huge homes.  Luke keeps asking me if we’ve bought one of them yet.  lol.

After that we went out to dinner w/o the kids.  We made Natalie try Thai food. 

We had lots more fun talking, playing games, shooting baskets, and playing at the school. 

We had a great time with our visitors and hope it’s not too long before we see them again!

Living Life.

Jul 29-Aug 23  The past 4 weeks the boys have been taking swimming lessons.  Ella is obsessed with their goggles.

Everyone passed their classes.  Josh will be in Lobster, Andrew in Hammerhead, and Luke Catfish 3 next time we sign them up.

8/8--Gotta love when you make dinner at 2 in the afternoon because you’ll be a taxi driver at dinner time.  Love when I force myself to do this…then we get home and dinner is magically already made!

8/9—Luke, Ella, and I went for a run.  Luke went 1.4 miles before he got tired.

8/9—How many packets of oatmeal will Andrew ruin in his lifetime because he forgets to add the water and cooks it anyway??? I guess he thinks the water will magically appear in the microwave during cooking. lol.

8/12—I put Ella in her bed at 9:45 in the morning with a bunch of toys while I got in the shower. When I went back to get her 10-15 mins later she was asleep! Poor baby. Getting teeth is hard work.

8/15--Bought 2 of these from kids in the neighborhood a couple weeks ago. Later I found out I won the tickets to the Ducks game! lol.

8/13—My kids are cracking me up with the dress up clothes this summer! 

8/16—Ella unintentionally wrote on her hand with marker.  I showed her what her hand looked like and she keep shaking them to get the marker off. 

8/20—Boo.  I opened the fridge to find one of my darling children had drawn me a nice picture and hung it in there to surprise me.

8/21—Watching daddy play soccer.

8/24—Spent some alone time here on Sat.  Loved it and still feeling grateful.

Benefits from Intel

7-23  This summer Intel had its annual picnic where there’s always food, bouncy houses, unlimited snow cones and cotton candy, and games.  The kids look forward to it every year.  This year they had a face painter there.  Luke was the only brave one.

Ella really wanted a snow cone, so I got her one without the juice.  It didn’t take her long to realize hers was different than everyone else’s.  Then she didn’t want it anymore!  Smart girl.

8-5  We got free passes to Bullwinkle’s.  We had a great pizza dinner with salad, soda, and ice cream.  Then we hit the fun!  Most everything was free and the kids had the time of their lives.

Josh and Andrew rode the Soaring Eagle together.  That was the highlight for them!

So great to spend time together as a family!

Ella-14 months

This little girl is growing up and is getting more emotional every day.  I’m getting scared. If she does not get her way she kicks her feet as fast as she can, throws herself on the ground, and screams.  It’s quite funny.  She hates getting her diaper changed or getting dressed.  She cries and tries to get away.

But don’t get me wrong.  She is such a cutie.  Look at that face.

I do love her.

She loves accessories and everything is a necklace.  We have to watch her close because everything string like is a necklace and goes around her neck.  She likes her purse and puts it on her arm. 

Where does she learn this stuff??

We have a couple whistles around the house, and she’s figured out how to blow them.  She loves her babies and books.  She does like to play catch with a ball as well.

She eats just about anything.  She loves fruit and broccoli.  She takes 1 nap a day and sleeps about 12 hours at night.  She still loves her binky and blanket.  I keep vowing to take away the bink, but yeah, I haven’t wanted to subject myself to that kind of torture yet :)

This summer we’ve gone swimming several times, and she really loves that.  She’s getting to be a bit of a challenge in the shopping cart and in the stroller because she doesn’t want to ride in them, she wants to push them while I hold her.  And that’s just not that comfortable for that long.  When I tell her no and make her sit, she throws huge fit.

Love these cute feet. 

The other day, Ella helped me clean out my purse.  And bonus, she found a tootsie pop.  Too bad she couldn’t figure out how to get the paper off. 

I am surprised how little she gets into stuff.  She does her fair share, but there’s lots of stuff we haven’t had to put out of reach cause she doesn’t bother it.  So not like our boys.  And maybe it’s just the mobility thing.

Ella’s been in physical therapy for about 2 months.  It’s going pretty well, and we’re starting to see some progress now.  A lot of it is working with her at home. 

We’ve practiced crawling over things, up on the couch cushions, and then down. 

Sometimes it’s torturous.

We practice going up and down the stairs all. the. time.  When a baby goes up stairs they have to put weight on one of their feet and push up to the next step.  It wasn’t until last week and she started putting weight on her feet for super short periods of time.  Today she went up a couple stairs all by herself which is big for her.

In the past week she’s also started walking on her knees as long as she’s holding on to a push toy.

So yeah.  We’re making progress!!  The therapist thinks she’ll be walking by 20-24 months.  haha.  That’s so far away!

Love you Ella girl!  You are a bright spot in our home!  We just love watching you learn and grow.

Living Life.

Sorry for all the random posts right now.  But it is my life.

7/19—Our kids are obsessed with the computer game Plants vs. Zombies.  These are a few of Andrew and Luke’s latest zombies.  lol.

7/19—Our first zucchini’s from our garden.  Yum.

7/15-7/19—Josh went to Cub Scout camp.  He always has such a fun time there.  Darrin chaperoned on Monday of that week.  I think Josh’s favorite things at camp (in true boy fashion) are shooting bow and arrows and BB guns. 

7/20—Ella is getting very good at getting into cupboards and drawers.  She knows exactly which ones have a child lock and which ones don’t.  She likes to empty them and then play with their contents.  She makes quite the mess, but hey, at least she’s entertained for a bit.

7/23-7/25—Luke took a jr. soccer camp.  He loved being cool like his brothers and is very much looking forward to playing soccer in the fall.

7/23—She LOVES the bath.  And gets very upset when she can’t take one.

7/26—Sporting the pig tail look and totally owning it.  love her.

7/26—Was the airshow at our city airport.  We  went to a local park to watch the planes and then the fireworks after dark.  The kids had so much fun!!  Lucky for them their cousins were there too.

7/20—Learning how to use a spoon and so serious about it.  I love how she picks up her bowl.

7/28—We had our cousins over for some super yummy peach cobbler. 

The kids always have a blast playing together.  They thought this was just hilarious.  lol.

7/29—Ella finally sleeps on her tummy.  Funny to me that it’s taken this long.

7/29—Went school supply shopping.  Holy cow.  It’s expensive to send 3 kids to school.

7/29—Spaghetti for dinner. 

7/30—Andrew was eating cheese for a snack and he kept having to share. 

7/30—You know you’ve had a bad day when your hair looks like this at bedtime.

8/2—A little Friday night croquet. 

8/3—Luke. 

8/5—I’m trying to convince myself for the 23rd time that I like to run.  When I get done I plop myself in front of the air conditioner to cool off.  Only way to go.