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Since Nick has morning kindergarden his whole stop is kidergardeners. It was really cute to watch the heard of little reindeer come off the bus. They were all wearing their hats they made in Mrs.Udsteun's class. His first question off the bus was do we get to decorate the tree yet? Unfortunately he had to wait until daddy and Hailey were up from their nap, but then it was finally time. He wore it most of the time while decorating.
It's probably no surprise to anyone that we put a tree every year... But I thought I would blog about it more for the family memories than for our readers. Nicholas has been so excited about getting the decorations up this year. We usually put them up the day after Thanksgiving, which I've decided isn't really the best day to do it since I am one of those SHOPPERS... I love to hit the sales. This year I was able to get a few things for the house like a fireplace, and breakfast bar. Which by the way I am really excited about. We will have a warm cozy (electric) fireplace we can curl up in front of on those cold winter days. Which the past few days we have woke up to a thick layer of frost on everything you can see with the naked eye. BRRR!.JPG)
I have set a new date for decorating the tree... December 1st. It's a good day to get things started for the holidays. We did manage to get some of the other decorating done in the house previously, but that was the BIG day for decorating. The kids all enjoyed themselves. We decorated two tress. A miniture version for the loft and the one in the livingroom, where santa will most likely visit. Although SANTA still can't come down the chimney... or crawl out of the fireplace. But we will definately leave some cookies for the good man. SANTA do you have any requests?
I only had to move a few, since I am some what of a perfectionist... I am working on that. No, I am not perfect by anymeans, but I have a hard time when things don't look quite right. Although it was perfect with out me moving anything since the kids decorated it! I didn't move any on the one in the loft though... It was all the kids.
They worked together and not too much bickering occured. Now we have only a few finishing touches which we will post about later.
Hailey tried her hardest to hang those ordaments, but they just wouldn't stay...THANKSGIVING... Another first for Hailey! It was a busy day... As I rushed to get cooking and table decorations finished by 2:00p.m. I started to panic! Are Holidays always this stressful? As it grew closer and closer to 2:00p.m. I could feel my adrenaline kick in... My saving Grace was my wonderful husband, who stepped in to help me with the last minute things that needed to be taken over to the neighbors. He didn't get much sleep as he worked the night before and eating at 2:00p.m. didn't allow him much time to sleep. Thanks Hun, for your help. We traveled far this year... Two doors down to our friends the Mackenroth's. It was a Great time, once I realized that the rest of the day would be relatively stress free. 
My mom decided to spend her Birthday with us this year... Which also happens to be Halloween! It was a pretty packed day of getting costumes ready, shopping, trick or treating, and rollerskating. We were attempting to get as much in a weekend as one possibly can. But I wanted to make sure to include something special for her Birthday, after all she chose to spend it with us. So we headed to the spa... It wasn't actually on her birthday since the 31st was especially busy, but on her last day here before flying out we went to breakfast and had facials.
I had a great time, but realized that getting a facial was over rated... especially for the price! For those of you who know me well know that I am fairly money concious and don't like to spend money on things that I can't re-use, re-sell, or are of poor quality. I like getting a great deal, which we did... but would I do it again? Not so sure... My face felt a little on the oily side and I felt like my face wasn't really clean. Weird since they spent a whole hour getting it cleaner. It was nice and somewhat relaxing. My favorite part was the foot soak and parafin wax dip on the hands, so I would say that I will most likely stick with manicures and pedicures for now. It was a fun experience with one of my favorite people... Yes, mom I am admitting that you are infact one of my favorites. I love you and hope that you had a great time with us. Next time we'll have to go for the massages... 
Thank-you for being such a great mom and friend! I know that I haven't always shown it, but I appreciate you always being there for me. I'm glad that you are my mom. 
We went school shopping and bought the supplies on the list Nicholas needed for kindergarden. He was so excited that he wanted to sharpen all the pencils. It was so cute how excited he was. However, I don't feel ready to have a kindergardener.
This was our 2nd year celebrating the 4th of July in Auburn. We started by decorating Nicholas' bike and stroller for William. Hailey rode in the snuggly. I'm sure it was a sight to see... It's a lot of fun watching the kids getting so excited.
The kids wanted to go on the rides of coarse! They did the $5 bracelets again this year. I think that is a great price for the rides all day. They had mostly blowup slides and bounce house type rides. They had a petting zoo, but the kids didn't want to take part in that this year.
They did ride the barrel train... Which Hailey just enjoyed the sun and relaxed while the boys played. We were fortunate enough to see the Jantzen family and the Twiddy's. It's always great to see friends unexpectedly or planned.
This year the Macenroth's went with us... Shannon did a disappearing act and we couldn't find her. She had went to play Bingo, and then we were separated. It was fun trying to find eachother, at least until the kids started fussing. We decided to part ways and catch up later for dinner and fireworks.
Thanks for coming, we had a great time!
Hailey is growing fast... She weighs 14lbs 12 oz, and is 25 in long. She is still in the 75%. Dr. Grubb gave the okay for her to start eating babyfood/cereal. This was good news... We tried some just a few days later. She had winter squash for her first food. She did really well. She ate a little less than a quarter of the jar. Unfortunately she did get a little bit of a tummy ache, but it didn't stay around long. She started rolling from back to tummy in the middle of April. And her little wheels just keep turning. She is very aware and curios about everything around her.
This past Tuesday we headed to Skagit County for the Tulip Festival. I heard the weather was supposed to be nasty and I almost cancelled the trip, but I had put so much effort in to packing everything and deciding where we would go on our day hike/picnic after we saw the Tulips, I just couldn't do it. I was also looking forward to getting some bulbs for the yard...
Just as before the Tulips were beautiful! All day I struggled to get a few good pictures. The boys were more interested in eating popcorn, and playing with the rocks than they were with the flowers. Boys will be boys, I guess. At the end they started to cooperate a little...
William would go stand by the flower and bend down like he was getting ready for us to take his picture. Of coarse we didn't take his picture everytime he did this. He also liked to touch the flowers. Although we were supposed to stay on the paths, no one was.
Hailey even seemed to enjoy herself, at least as much as a baby can. A few times, I thought we were going to have to pack it in early, but we made it through. We browsed the gift shops, hunted for the bulbs we wanted, but in the end came out empty handed. At least in the sense of bulbs.
Nicholas' favorite part was the Purple Tulips. Don't ask why? Cuz I don't know. He fought me with the pictures, but at the end of the day he said, "That was so much fun!" We visited the same place we did last year with the Highfields. "Tulip Town" has over 66 varieties of tulips and even more other bulbs as well. It was fun, but not as fun as it was with the Highfields. We rode the tractor this year which both the boys enjoyed. It was pretty bumpy! Next time we go, we will hopefully have some friends to go along with us. I think we may skip a few years before we go again, after all they are just Tulips... But if you have never gone, it is a fun day trip and a beautiful view..JPG)
As I said a little bit ago the boys started to cooperate, and I got some great pictures only... We had a corrupted card from china and it deleted them. This was after we were already in the car and ready to go I realized this. I made the kids get back out and we did a shortened version of the photos. The pictures didn't turn out as cute, but at least we were able to get a few. I'm glad the kids were such great sports.
Then we headed off to a picnic. I had originally planned to hike down on the deception pass, but decided we were to hungry to wait. So we found a small state park thanks to GARMIN, and we had ourselves a little picnic.
The birds kept flying above the table. They were starting to get a little close for comfort. I didn't want them to dive for our food or poo on us, so I threw some crackers away from the table...
They all swooped down at the same time and all I could here was Flapping. And then a few fights, you know where nature says who eats and who doesn't. Then I knew our food was safe, at least for a few minutes.
Whenever I felt like they were starting to fly too close I would toss a couple more crackers...Then the boys started throwing their crackers. Oops! I didn't even think about how I was setting a bad example. I just wanted our food to be safe. We then decided that we shouldn't feed the birds anymore. And Nicholas kept sneeking crackers to throw to them.
It was quite exciting to watch, but a little scary too. Here are some of the birds flying down for the crackers.
After our picnic, we met up with my cousin Katie. She is stationed at Whidbey Island. It was her birthday and we wanted to take her out. Unfortunately, she is on a diet because she has weigh in's this next Monday for her Physical Fitness test. So we just went for Desert. We had Ice Cream and she had a fruit and yogart parfait.
Then we headed home. A long day full of fun and the boys fell asleep on the way....JPG)
We visited the Easter Bunny at the Old Canery Furniture store. They had a straw easter egg hunt, a petting zoo, and a train ride. The store itself was pretty fun too. It had trains running on tracks across the ceiling, a big train set in the kids area, a fudge shope, and other fun little displays. My favorite the free pin ball machine... Not bad for a furniture store event.
Hailey and her first easter bunny. 
Brothers showing their love for eachother. Notice the carrot egg in Nick's hand... He couldn't let go even for a minute.
Easter breakfast! Yumm!
Grandma and Grandpa Smith came to visit (Greg's parents). It was nice to have them here for Easter. We were glad to share this special time of year with them.
Easter was a great celebration! We celebrated with friends and family. We had our easter dinner on Saturday as well as a Glow in the dark easter egg hunt. With a combined effort of The Macenroths, and ourselves we had a yummy dinner with a easter pie, creme corn (thanks Julie-this is my most favorite holiday food), fancy potatoes, and home made rolls. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you don't really need to know everything we ate... It was also our first meal at our new dinning room table which was special to us. Those of you who know us know that our table for the past few years our table has been a card table (a nice wood one, but still). It was perfect for the apartment because I could fold it down to have room for the kids to play when we weren't eating... Thankfully those days are over! Last week it reached a whopping 75 degrees. I set the sprinkler out to water the lawn and the boys decided it would be a good time to play in the water. At first I didn't want them playing in it.
William thought it would be a good idea to run around in his diaper. He watched his brother closely as he ran through the sprinkler. He was a little nervous at first, but became more confident and comfortable with the water each time he passed through.
It was fun to watch them enjoying the water and our backyard. Nick started it all. I moved the sprinkler and Nick thought it would be a good idea to run just around the boarder of where the spray was. Then he slowly got closer and closer until he was actually running straight into the water. What a kid!
They played in the water for about a half an hour... The funny thing is about ten minutes after they stopped playing the sun went behind the clouds and rain started to come down. They got their sunshine for the day. 
