Getting Ready For School

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.

4th of July

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.

We invited the Twiddy's and Macenroth's over for dinner. We had BBQ Ribs and chicken. The kids played outside. Adam and Shannon brought over their bounce house which was a great hit with the kids. Then we waited for it to get dark... It was great fun to be able to light fireworks off with out having to go anywhere. Our neighbors down the street had a great show too, we didn't even have to do our own they had so many.

Thanks for coming, we had a great time!

4 Month Milestones

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.

Tulip Festival And...

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.

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...

Really Late, but Posted... Easter

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!

Feels Like SuMmEr!

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.

Signs of Spring!

To celebrate spring and the nice weather, we took a trip to Sumner to watch the Daffodile Parade.

This is the 76th year of the daffodile festival. It is a week long celebration. I was glad to get the kids out. I attempted this outing myself with the three kids. It actually went rather well.

We found a parking spot a half a block from the start of the parade. I thought it would be good to find a spot near the begining of the parade so that we could get out with out a large traffic jam. It turned out to be a great plan...

It was fun to see all the creative floats covered with daffodiles. I didn't get very many pictures of the floats because people kept walking in front of us right as I was getting ready to take a picture. I guess people just don't think that walking in front of little kids during a parade is rude... I am always concious of the people around me, it is strange to me that some people don't. Over all the outing was great. The kids enjoyed the parade and lasted about an hour before they were ready to go. So we slipped away quitely and with out a crowd or traffic jam.