4th of July

For the 3rd year in a row we headed up to Portland for 4th of July weekend. We got smart this year and flew to avoid the long drive and got to stay for a long weekend. My whole family was able to come for the weekend. So of course that means family picture time!

Here's the whole gang. Maddy broke her arm the week before on her razor scooter. Fortunately for the family picture, she didn't get her purple cast until the next week.


Just our little family.


Here is a rare picture of Owen actually posing for the camera. He usually refuses to join in any serious pictures.


Jack, on the other hand, has no problems with the camera. He loves to ham it up and yell, "cheese!"

The whole weekend was crazy! With 11 adults and 10 kids it was nuts. Luckily, my parents live down the street from my brother Jeff and my other brother Scott lives about a mile away so at least everyone didn't have to sleep in the same house. We stayed at Jeff's house, so every night and morning we would walk back and forth to my parents house.


Owen discovered he could pull Jack on the back of the tricycle and couldn't wait to do it every night and morning.

And of course it wouldn't be 4th of July without a parade. We went the afternoon before and staked out a great spot to watch the Hillsboro parade. We were lucky enough to have a nice shady spot. The kids had a blast filling their bags with all of the candy that the people threw from the floats. I think they enjoyed collecting all the candy more than actually eating it.


Here's everyone watching the parade from our awesome spot.


I made all of the grandkids matching shirts to wear to the parade. We numbered them from oldest to youngest. It made it easy to figure out who was missing at times.


Front view of the kids in their matching shirts.


The kids spent most of their time playing in my parents backyard with water balloons, water guns, buckets and hoses.

My nephew Zack told my sister he couldn't wait to get to my parents' house so he could feed the ducks with them. We have no idea where he got this idea but of course we had to go feed the ducks as a result.


Okay, so we actually fed geese not ducks but I don't think the kids realized. And no one fell in so it was a good day.


Here is Jack saying "two." This is his word that means whatever he wants it to. Either he wants to do something too or he wants more of something.


My dad had a fabulous idea to take a picture of the kids on this bridge. It looks pleasant enough but I think it took 30 minutes and 100 pictures before we actually got all the kids to stay still and face the camera. (This is the kids minus 1. Poor Harrison missed the photo shoot.)

All in all it was a fun, but crazy weekend. We had fun and it was great to see everyone but is nice to be back home in our relatively quiet house.

Eppies Great Race

Robby competed in the Eppies for the third year today. Two years ago he participated with a team and just did the bike part. Last year and this year he did the whole race by himself. Eppies consists of a 6-mile run, a 13-mile bike, and 6-mile kayak. Last year he finished in 2 hours and 16 minutes and his unofficial time for this year is 2 hours 8 minutes. Robby's parents took me and the boys to go watch him finish. We didn't get to see him run or bike but we got to see him finish up in the kayak.


Robby coming into the finish. Owen and Robby's parents found a great spot on the bank of the river and watched all the kayakers as they came in (and played in the water).



Robby right after he finished.



Owen and Grandpa watching the kayakers as they came into the finish.



The whole family after the race. The boys had a lot of fun after the race because there was a bounce house, cotton candy, hot dogs and popcorn. Luckily, there was a lot of shade since it was almost 100° by the time we left.

We are so proud of Robby. He worked really hard for this race and did really well. I am so grateful for a husband that likes to be active and that keeps me active as well.

That's one way to do it

Whenever we go to the park I feel like I spend most of my time lifting my kids up to get a drink of water out of the drinking fountain. I finally got sick of it one day and this is how Owen figured out to do it himself. Pretty creative I think. (Sorry for the weird crooked photo, I took it on my phone.)

Sno Cones

On Friday I had a Primary activity. We had a water day at the park and we rented a sno cone machine. The kids all had lots of fun and even Jack got in on the action. About 15 minutes after getting to the park to set up for the activity Jack had already climbed into a bucket of water. I hadn't planned on him getting wet since he wasn't staying for the actual activity. So he ended up in just his diaper. Long story short, Jack ended up staying for most of the activity and got to have sno cones with the rest of the Primary kids. I am pretty sure he ate at least three. And lets just say sno cone favoring stains, even skin. He was red for the rest of the day. (I was too though after making about 100 sno cones.)

Pictures

Here are some pictures I finally uploaded off my camera. Just stuff the boys have been doing lately.



We were slackers and didn't get a card in the mail on time for Mother's Day. So the boys made Grandma Jane an e-card that we emailed to her. Luckily, Grandma Walker lives here so we got her a real card on time for Mother's Day.




Jack loves to try on shoes. He doesn't discriminate. Men's or women's, doesn't matter to him. Here he is my church black church shoes. I sometimes have a hard time choosing between the two as well.




I'm surprised Jack could even stand up wearing Robby's backpack. He wore it around until Robby had to go to Scouts and wasn't happy when it got taken away.




My kids love watering the flowers. Fortunately, they can't turn on the water themselves or my flowers would be drowning. I'm not good at remembering to water the flowers though, so it is nice that the boys remind me.




I made this apron for Owen since he loves to cook so much (mostly cookies). But when Jack gets a chance he likes to wear it too.




Owen's cousins got him this awesome sucker at Disneyland. Unfortunately, it kept getting dropped and broken. Eventually, the sucker that was left mysteriously "disappeared" into the garbage. Thanks Payton, Fallyn and Mayce!




Owen got soccer goals for his birthday. Now that the weather is nice he is outside playing whenever he can find an opponent. You probably can't see but he is also wearing his shin guards. The shin guards are used for everything these days: soccer, running, bike riding, etc.

Easter, Finally

I know Easter was over a month ago, but here are some pictures. We hadn't a pretty low key Easter weekend. Robby was lucky enough to be able to take Saturday off so we went to my friend Melanie's parent's house for an awesome Easter egg hunt. Later that day we dyed eggs with Robby's sister's family. On Sunday we had dinner with Robby's parents and the kids did another small Easter egg hunt with their cousins. It was nice to have a weekend with Robby for the first time since tax season began.



Here are the kids after the Easter Egg hunt. Owen wouldn't look at the camera because the sun was too bright and Jack was too busy transferring eggs from his basket to Owen's for some reason. So this is the best picture we got.




The boys with their baskets before getting everything out.




The boys after they emptied their baskets. Since we have early church they didn't get much time to look at them. Last year Robby got up with the boys on Easter and they ate their chocolate bunnies before I even woke up.

Changing Up the Blog

So I have been resisting changing my blog. Then tonight (since Robby is working at home and I'm bored) I decided it was time to make it look a little cuter than the basic layout I got when I first started this thing. After way too much time (I won't admit how much time) I finally picked a layout and at the same time realized why I don't usually do this kind of stuff. I have issues. I can't for the life of me just pick something and be happy with it. I have to make sure I have seen everything and then I have to try most of them. It's exhausting. Robby makes fun of me because I do the same thing even when I am making a Primary handout or something. I have to download a new font and that in itself takes way too long to pick out. In the end I know all the kids probably don't even make it home with the handout I have spent hours on, but for some reason I can't help myself. I blame it on my mother. I got all my OCD-ness from her and my son is now inheriting the OCD gene. For example, he won't touch finger paint (too messy), his blankets have to be perfectly tucked in at night and for awhile his blankie even had to be folded in a square, until I stopped this because I got sick of waking up in the middle of the night to refold the blankie in a square. This is only the start of it. His preschool teacher even told me Owen is one of her most 'meticulous" students. I guess this is a nice way of saying obsessive-compulsive. Poor Owen, it's not his fault. It's just in his genes.

By the way, the "cub scout badge" blog layout was a close second to the one I finally chose. Maybe next time.