My front porch

Well this is my front porch this year. Think the bats need to be closer together but I am to lazy to do it over so this will have to do this year. The cat is for Kate She wanted to have a cat so bad but I think it doesn't look to bad.

 This is what you see when you walk up to our door. We were thinking of going alittle scarier this year but there are a lot of little kids in our neighborhood so no skeletons. There is a haunted house just up the street so if we need scary we can just go there.

This is an amazing wreath you say...I agree. I made the wreath. The girls helped me pick out the fabric and the letters. I did everything else and I have to say that after I used spray glitter on the letters I want to use spray glitter on everything!!! I love spray glitter!!!

Natalie turned 7

 I still can't believe that I have a 7 year old daughter. My kids are consistently changing and growing up. Natalie got a bigger bike for her b-day but the most amazing thing is that her favorite color isn't pink anymore. She likes the color blue now......what a sad day that my princess doesn't like pink anymore!

 The party was really small just some neighborhood kids came over for McDonalds and a movie. I told Natalie if she did a small party this year next year we will do a school party. The rules at this school is that if you have a party and give out invitations at school then you have to invite everyone. So next year we will be inviting about 25 kids to a halloween themed party. So I am grateful this year was small.

 Natalie didn't want cake this year she wanted to have doughnuts which is awesome. I love doughnuts but with trying to get healthier they aren't welcome in our house very often.

After the party was over I saw this idea on the Internet. It is a glow stick bath. So I turned off all the lights in my bathroom and let the girls hang out in their glow stick bath for awhile. They thought that was amazing!

growing up

Brooke is growing up so fast! She can now sit up all on her own. We had a week of her sitting up and thinking everything was OK and then she would lose her balance and fall straight back. I think after a few times of it hurting herself she got the hang of it and now is a pro.

 After the girl's shower and it is time to get pjs on all I ever hear is I don't have any can I wear one of your shirts. Most of the time I have to admit there is a good chance I haven't done laundry and they don't have any pjs but this time I just finished all the laundry in the house (and folded it too). So now I know they just prefer to look like slobs. I need to stop wasting money on pjs. haha

 Brooke now can sit up in her crib so this weekend we will be moving the bed lower. She is not a baby anymore! As you can notice her hair is still out of control. It almost looks like wig....it does look better when I pull it up into a ponytail.

 The cutie loves her baths now that she can roll over and sit up in there she has all kinds of fun. I just love the little naked bum. OK maybe not so little but that just makes it more adorable.

Portland to Coast

The Hood to Coast was this weekend and I was really missing it. Since I was 19 or 20 I have tried to do the Portland to Coast every year. The difference is H2C is a run and P2C is a walk but not just a stroll a motivated walk. So while I haven't been able to do it every year I have done it 11 times. As of yesterday I have signed up for next year. I am really looking forward to sleeping in random fields on the sides of the roads, cramming myself into a van with 7 other people and all of our stuff, no sleep and no shower for the better part of two days and when we finally get to the coast wait in line for an hour and a half just so we can eat breakfast at the Pig n' Pancake. I know this sounds like a list of negatives but its not....after it is all said and done I am always excited to do it again. Next year will be a blast for me because a lot of my friends that I do this with I will not have seen for almost two years! The only downside  now is I will have to make the trip all the way back home to West Richland after we are done...but I think it is still totally worth it. So with both the older girls in school this year Brooke and I can start training. I will finally get a lot of use out of my stroller.

Random

 Katelyn got cold but was to lazy to get up and get a blanket so she grabbed a pair of Paul's pj pants out of the laundry basket. I know that everyone who knows Katelyn is surprised that she was to lazy to move more then 2 feet....haha doesn't sounds like Kate at all!

 The girls wanted to have a tea party with Brooke and spend some girl time together....so cute. I love that my girls are so different but they are great sisters. Funny thing (or at least I thinks its funny) all of my girls have different colored eyes. Natalie - ice blue, Katelyn - brown, Brooke - grey (with a hint of blue). I do bet (and I am putting it in writing so I can look back) that when they grow up that they look more alike then they do now.

Natalie got her new glasses and she loves them. Now Kate is walking around the house saying "mom I can't see small words, or my eyes hurt I think I need glasses". Oh my sweet Kate can't be left out of anything. She couldn't even bare to be left out of this picture. haha I feel a little bad for Natalie because she got the bad eye sight from me but she looks really cute in them. Actually she looks really grown up to me and I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand I am very excited to see the woman she turns out to be.....but that is my baby! Anyways we got the glasses just in time for school.

6 months

 Brooke is 6 months old!!! She is a very happy baby and already learning how to play the DS. She is 19 pounds and surprisingly she is in the 75% for her height. I guess that would be why she is getting all kinds of chub-rub. This is a little unfamiliar territory just because my kids thus far have never been below 85%-90% on any of their stats.

She loves her baths!!! Notice the red rash on her chest....awesome! We have had to change her soap and lotion to all fragrance free and our laundry soap as well. Also the dogs are visiting friends for the week to see if crawling around on the floor in the pet dander is getting to her. If so the dogs are outside dogs until she is walking. I love it when she is in the bath because her head looks so round. When the out-of-control hair is all wet I think she looks a lot more like Kate.

We have moved on to baby food and the first couple of days she wasn't so sure about it. Now she is a champion eater and inhales the food. She still sleeps through the night and is up on all four rocking back and forth. It should be anytime now and she will be crawling all over the place.

The big debate....

I was having this big debate with myself trying to decided if I was done blogging or should I continue. Well as you can see I have decided to keep going. I really enjoy looking back on the past years and the older post to see the kids when they were little and some of the things that we have gone through and done over the years. Plus I didn't think it would be fair to Brooke if I quit. I don't want her to see this and noticed how it stopped after she came. So I will be knuckling down and trying to post on a weekly basis. (I hope)

So this post has the pictures that we had taken at the beginning of the summer. I love the lady I found and she did a great job. I got over 400 pictures on CD's to have....which is what I wanted but it is a blessing and a curse. I have always wanted to be able to get all the pictures taken during our photo shoots because there could be pictures that I like but the photographer didn't so I never get to see them. Well now that I got them all it takes a lot of time to go through them and sort the ones I do like. We are really pleased with what we got and now I just have to get them up in my house.....a project for another day. Enjoy!!!

So this is our finished backyard!! It is nothing special but it is done. We did the basic grass and rock but next year we are going to work on an outdoor living space.

This is proof that Paul and I (plus a couple of friends) actually did yard work we hate doing it so that is why our yard is simple and easy to maintain.

This is the before pictures except we already did the rock two weekends before. So overall it took 3 days to transform our yard. 2 days for the rock and 1 day for the grass. I am thankful for our friends that helped and I am glad it is over.

My sleeping baby

Brooke is such a good sleeper she can fall asleep anywhere unfortunately she like to take a lot of 15 min cat naps. This week I have increased how much I am feeding Brooke at each feeding and it seems to help a little. She is finally starting to take longer naps in the afternoon. That means I have a little of free time to clean the house.....or go shopping....that is a tough choice.

Easter

Grandpa got to spend some quality time with Brooke while we did the Easter egg hunt. She loves to talk with anyone who will take the time to talk to her. It takes her a min to warm up but then she will talk forever.

I love how I don't have to put the girls in sweaters with their Easter dresses. It is warm enough that it is an option but I don't have to.

Natalie was a little irritated that I made her wear a dress. As you can see she tried do the best she could in it. After the egg hunt she asked if she could take it off.

Grandpa and Sherry came over for Easter and Amos and Michelle came later for the meal. So it was a small get together that we didn't actually plan on and we just threw it together the day before but it turned out well.

These are the finished egg. We went simple but the girls loved the glitter they got to coat them in.

Yes that is my family all in their pj's. We were really busy that week and everything kind of got pushed to the last min. We woke up Easter morning and before their shower we quickly decorated eggs. Easter was fun and very low key which is good for me because time seems to be flying by lately and I am doing so many things last min.