Gram and Grandpa Visit

My parents just spent a few days with us. It's always fun to have grandparents around. Grandpa protecting his cake.

A nice family game of BINGO!

Sadly, the weather was a bit chilly during their visit, but they were good sports and took the boys fishing anyway.

A bit of a motley crew! No, mom was not overdressed in my insulated coveralls from Savoonga! We had good fun fishing (The boys got their first bites. Logan said, "Look, I got one! I got one!" Apparently, he has no need of seeing the fish out of the water...the nibble was sufficient excitement!)and watching all the wind/kite surfers while we ate.

Kiki interupting Gram's reading to the boys:)

We had a great visit!

Family Fun Day

Yakima has a program designed to encourage families to enjoy the outdoors together. They put on fun, free events throughout the year. We had so much fun at the family fun day. They had a whole bunch of stations set up for the kids to try different sports. First, they kayaked...

Then, a little outdoor drumming...

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Annika...enjoying the day:) Notice her new tooth!

Owen and Jacob finishing up the obstacle course.

But of all the events they had out for the kids to try, they seemed to get the most excited about the hula hoops(next to kayaking!)! You gotta love our boys!:) Logan tries it around the neck...

"I got it this time!"

"Hmmm...maybe around the arm would be easier."

"I just don't get it, Logan."

A fun day had by all!

Happy Bday Jacob and More

We celebrated Jacob's bday at the beginning of this month.

We're sooo excited for warmer weather. Our first backyard picnic(several weeks ago) of the season.

They decided to start farming the field across from us. I caught the boys watching the tractors:)

I've always said that we don't comb our hair in this family...who, really, wants to make time for that?:) But, since the boys will be starting Kindergarten in the fall, I thought it might be time to start them brushing their hair. So, one day, I said, "You guys need to comb your hair before breakfast." This is how they proudly returned:) This morning I heard Logan say, "I wish we had some gel or something to keep our mohawks up." Owen replied, "Ya, or maybe some glue. Glue would work, Logan!" And this is when I intervened!

Housekeeping

I've never claimed to be the best housekeeper and having a third child certainly hasn't helped me much in this area! Last night, I stayed up and cleaned the entire house(meaning I put everything away, not that I got to the scrubbing part!) Nobody seemed to notice, so at lunch, I felt the need to point out to the family that I cleaned the house last night. After staring at a spot on the floor for awhile, Owen finally said, "Mama...for cleaning the house...it doesn't look very clean." Thank you very much, Owen! :)

BINGO

We were playing a rollicking game of bingo with my parents and the boys tonight. The boys were taking turns spinning the balls around in the cage and reading the numbers. They are still learning to recognize anything over 10 or so, but I think they figured it out tonight. "I tooty-six"(I26) and "B onesy-four"(B14).

Big Brothers

You can see from the following pictures how much Logan and Owen love their little sister and vice-versa!

Owen and Annika

Owen and Annika?

Logan and Kiki

Logan and Kiki?

Helpful big brothers:)

And one last photo suggesting that perhaps we should consider feeding Annika solids:)

Annika in Church

I haven't braved church with the three children for awhile. We usually listen via a speaker in the nursery because our church is SUPER quiet and our children account for the youngest attendees by a long shot. People assure me that they enjoy having the kids in the service, but they also seem to spend an awful lot of time staring at us when sounds are made! Annika, overall, is very happy during the service, but she likes to talk and when she talks, she likes to be heard. There was that one time that Jacob actually stopped preaching until I ushered us out the door because, even though he was mic'd, he could not be heard over Annika! But today, I had good reason to believe that she would sleep through the service. We came in only to find all of the back pews already filled, as they would be in any good reformed church! So, up we went to join Jacob in the front pew (it's in the front, yes, but there's also a side door not too far away). Annika slept the first part of the service and then she felt the need to practice her new word over and over and over. "Mamamama...mamamamamama....mama." Each time, Owen and Logan would giggle, I would tell them to be quiet, then I would try to move Kiki to distract her, then she would spot Jacob and start smiling and laughing, and soon resume her "Mama...mamamama..." I think that we weren't really quite as distracting as I felt that we were being, but somehow, I feel that I get more out of the service when I'm in the nursery!