Highlight...

The highlight of my month (and there were many great things to choose from) was getting to meet my sweet "niece" Eliana. Two of my very favorite people in the world - Kelsie and Alex - became parents this month. When we were planning our trip to California I knew that Kelsie was expecting, but I didn't know how perfectly the timing would work out. I flew in one day shy of Ellie's 2 week birthday. When your best friend lives a thousand miles away, getting to meet her baby within the first two weeks of life is a super special occasion. It was so great to get to spend the afternoon and evening with them, get to hold Eliana while she dozed and get to tell Kelsie, in person, about our new baby. Granted, I had to lie to her the week before when she flat out asked if I had any baby news to share, but I hope she forgave me for wanting to share our news in person rather than over the phone. 

Thanks for picking me up from the airport, letting me crash on your family time, feeding me,and buying dinner for Merrick and Gracie. It was great to see you guys!

Disneyland...

Well, today we are off to Disneyland with Merrick's parents and the Diefenbaughs. We've been talking about this trip for the past two years, and now that it's here, I can't believe it. We are really looking forward to going away for a week, spending time with family, visiting friends, and experience Disney with Gracie (now that she'll appreciate it a bit more).

We were commenting yesterday on how ironic it is that a year and a half ago when we went down it was right in the middle of fire season. There were travel advisories all over the place saying "don't fly south." "Stay home!" "The air is dangerous." We actually canceled our trip and went a few weeks later when things had cleared up. This time our trip is not cancelable, not refundable, and we're flying down in the midst of the swine flu... really? Give us a break! So, please pray for our health and safety while we are gone. We really don't want to get sick, but we just aren't going to cancel this trip. 

Here's a shot of Gracie in Disneyland from November 2007. If you ask her, she'll say she remembers Disneyland, but I'm not buying that... she was pretty tiny. 

We aren't taking a computer, and we don't have a fancy I-phone, so we'll post pictures and blog about our trip when we are home. Have a great week everyone!

Sunny days...

We have really been trying to take advantage of the warm, sunny days we've had lately. On Monday (the 20th), Sophia, Baylie and Kaleb came over to play. It was 80 degrees out, and there was no point even trying to keep these kids inside, so we parked it in our driveway and got out a ton of toys, the bubble machine, and sidewalk chalk. What did they end up doing? Dancing and squealing every time a plane flew over the house. Silly kids.
"Airplane. Up high!"
I'm not really sure what is happening here, but I love the expression on Gracie's face.
Sweet Kaleb was so content to lay in the grass and play with my camera and Gracie's sun hat. 
Safety first - even if your bike is only three inches off the ground. 
Driveway art. 
Merrick came home and since we were playing in the driveway, couldn't get his car in the garage, so he parked on the street. After everyone went home, Gracie got to help drive into the garage.

On Tuesday morning we headed up to Washington Park to play with our new friends Jenny and Julia. We don't get up to this playground too often, but it is so fun when we do go. 
Gracie on the big-girl swing... proof that her hair started in a somewhat acceptable style.

Julia is such a sweet girl. Sophia and Graice have had a lot of fun spending time with her lately. 

Three sets of sandy buns lined up in the sand pit... I think the sand (and lunch) were the highlights of our morning.
This is probably my current favorite picture of Graice. After I sunscreened her scalp, her hair rubber bands disintegrated leaving her hair a disaster of sand, sweat, and sunscreen. I love that the sand pouring out of the shoe just emphasizes the disheveled look.

Gracie loved the balance beam too.

Favorite friends, sharing a swing. 

Days like these make me really ready for spring and summer. I am looking forward to the upcoming months. The time with good friends. Picking fresh berries. A tan. Hours at the park. Trips to the zoo. Afternoons by a pool. I can't wait. Come back soon sun, my dear friend! We miss you.

Happy birthday, Emmett...

I know, I've been a bad blogger again. I have a ton of pictures from the past few weeks and am having a hard time finding time to sit and sort through them all. For now, we wanted to wish one of our favorite friends a very happy 2nd birthday. We love you and miss you and hope you had a great day. Hope to see you and your mommy and daddy soon!

Tulips...

On the one day it looked like we might stay dry, we packed up the girls and headed south to the tulip fields. Shannon and I carpooled, and the entire way down Grace and Sophia were talking/singing/screaming with (or at) each other. It was mostly funny, but at times got a little overwhelming.

Since we've had such cold spring weather, the tulips weren't out in full force yet, but it was hard to tell when looking at the red and yellow rows. We didn't see lots of pinks, purples or oranges, but what was there was beautiful. 

I wish I could tell you that Gracie was singing, or saying, "I love you mama." In reality, I think she is doing her high-pitched, very loud, very happy and excited scream.

I loved this little red soldier, all alone amongst the yellow army. 

Sweet friends.
After Shannon and I had been there for about 30 minutes, Kim, Stacey and their kiddos came to join us. We were on the other side of the fields yelling to Baylie, and it was so cute to watch as she figured out that her friends were there too.
One of the wooden shoes.
I like this picture because it shows all three girls being very obedient all at once. We had told them they couldn't touch the flowers with their hands, so they each had their hands in pockets. 
Watching the "cow train" zoom by.
They loved smelling the flowers, but after every sniff Baylie would stand up and with the funniest expression say "Eewww, stinky!" 
Do you know how impossible it is to get three little faces to look through three little holes, smile and hold still? 
Gracie, the queen of swings, loved these horses. She is still talking about them.
Marisa and her mom also met us in Woodburn, and we had time for another quick trip out to the flowers before the major melt downs started. I love this picture of Sydney being such a sweet big sister to baby Elijah.
The gang, plus Elijah, one year later. It is hard to believe how much these three girls have grown and changed in 12 short months. 

It was a fun day, but we were ready to crash when we got back in the car. We stopped for lunch, and maybe ice cream too (shocking, I know) before heading home. Gracie was asleep by the time we were on the freeway, but Sophia kept shaking her arm and saying, "mom, wake Grace up!" We tried, but no such luck. Sophie held out til the Cornell exit, and was easily transferred up to her crib. Grace, on the other hand, thought her cat nap in the car was plenty and didn't sleep for the rest of the day. Oh joy.

Happy Easter...

Our Easter weekend was full and fun. 

We started a tradition last year with Gracie of opening Easter baskets on Saturday. Easter is such a meaningful and important holiday to me that I'm a little torn about the whole basket/bunny/egg thing, so this seems to be a good compromise. We sat down with Gracie and talked about why we celebrate Easter, who Jesus is, why he died for us, and how that's the most important part of our lives. She doesn't get it yet, but our hope is that over time she will grow to understand the importance and impact in her own life. 

Her little bunny basket was full of goodies including a bath tub alphabet, water color paints, Trader Joe's fruit leather "candy," (why give her the real candy if she doesn't know the difference?) and a new bubble blowing kit. Merrick's Easter basket came with Mario Kart for the Wii! 
After looking through her basket, we dyed eggs. 
Notice how far away the dye cups are from her hands... After the 14 time of her reaching into the cup with her hand to check on the egg, we scooted them away. I didn't think she would be really into this yet, but she seemed to love the process. We kept hearing, "I check it!" 
On Sunday, we bundled up and headed to the Hillsboro Stadium for our church service. A few times a year Athey tries to get everyone in the church body together for one service. It is fun to see how big our church really is. The service was great - short, simple, sweet, and to the all-important point. Kutless lead worship, so it was loud and crazy, but fun to rock out and praise Jesus at the same time. My only complaint was that I wasn't wearing one more layer of clothing... I needed that hat and gloves I'd left behind. 

After church we hosted Easter dinner in our home. My mom, dad, brother and grandparents came. Merrick's folks and the Diefenbaughs came. And my no-family-for-the-day friend, Mandy, came. It was great to have everyone over, to share yummy food, and enjoy good conversation. It really makes us appreciate the family we have near by, and makes us wish that the rest of our family wasn't so far away. 

We hope you all had a blessed Easter as well!

Uh-oh, mess...

Those are never the words you want to hear your almost two-year-old saying in the other room.

I had a container of powder sitting by the front door. I thought it was closed, it wasn't. I don't usually pay attention to the little banging noises that are a part of my day-to-day life. I just figured she was doing something with our shoes that were also sitting by the front door. It wasn't until she had gotten a towel to clean up that she started saying "mess." 

I had to stop her "clean up" once she started rubbing the towel on her head. The smell of the powder was over taking the entry way, and I can only imagine that we were sucking a lot of it into our lungs. 

I'm not sure whether or not to be proud that she knew she had made a mess and was trying to clean it up, or mad that she was playing with the powder that had been taken away on other occasions. 

Zoo with Motherwise...

Today we met the ladies from the moms Bible study I am in at the zoo. Gracie has been talking about the zoo since she got home from her trip with daddy on Saturday. I was trying to figure out how to explain that she would be going on Tuesday, so I said "you have to sleep, wake up, sleep, wake up, and then it will be time to go to the zoo." She didn't quite get it, and mistook me saying "wake up" for "leg up." So, for the past two days she's been throwing one leg high into the air saying "Leg up! Zoo!" Hmmm...

Well, the day came, and it was one of our few and far between "off" mornings. I felt like everything I asked her to do, she did the opposite. I asked her to get her shoes on, she threw them down the stairs. I asked her to get a clean diaper, she dumped out a box of q-tips. I asked her to come right now, she ran to the far corner of the bonus room. If she was older I would have been able to take away our zoo trip as punishment, but I don't know if she would have connected that punishment to those actions, so she had a spanking, and many time outs. Finally, 6 minutes after we were supposed to be meeting at the zoo, we drove out of our neighborhood. Ugh!

Once we got there, all was forgiven, and she was back to her sweet self. We met up with Devyn and Shannon and walked through parts of the zoo together. We saw the sea lions, the otter, the polar bears and the elephants before it was time to meet for lunch.
Katie and Gracie watching the polar bears.
There was a big sign out that said the baby elephant would be doing training and might not be available for viewing. Well, we lucked out when we were up top and they brought the baby out as we were watching. Then, the trainers had all the elephants do some tricks before getting a snack. It was so cool to see.

Gracie and I again shared Subway for lunch, though she is a bit of a pig, so she got her own sandwich. I don't often think about what a good eater she is until people were laughing about all the things she was eating on her sandwich - lettuce, tomato, cucumber, spicy peppers, onions, olives, pickles... I guess everything except mayo and mustard.  It was pretty funny to watch her try to maneuver a huge sandwich, but she did great and ate almost the whole thing.
The kids had such a great time eating together, playing Simon Says, and running in the big field. 

The little girls played ring around the rosies, then happily cleaned up the left overs from other people's lunches.

After we had eaten, most of the ladies headed home. Shannon, Marisa and I hadn't seen much of the zoo before lunch, so we walked a bit more to see what we had missed. 

The girls were quite happy to spend time in the big red barn riding these horses, petting the goats and listening to the noisy sheep.
They did such a good job keeping up, even though they refused to sit in the strollers most of the time.
Sydney, on the other hand, seemed perfectly happy to be in the stroller. Maybe she knew that if she got up baby Elijah might confiscate her seat. 
We had another great day out in the sun. It is nice to spend time with those ladies, to get to know them, and to get to chat without a time limit. I'm looking forward to the next time we can all get together... hopefully soon.

Can't get enough...

I can't get enough of this weather, or this park. Today we met Shannon, Sophia, Kim, Baylie and Kaleb at Magnolia Park. It is a bit of a drive (about 10 minutes) from our house. Yes, we do have multiple parks within walking distance, but this park is just superior. Plus, it is right by Whole Foods, Peets Coffee, Starbucks, Chipotle, Trader Joes, Merrick's office... it's very convenient.

I picked up Sub sandwiches on the way, so we sat and ate when we first got there. Gracie then took off to play, though it was so warm out that some of the equipment was too hot to use - mainly the slides. There was a family at the park with these really neat skateboard/scooters that they shared with our girls. Gracie threw a fit when the little boy wanted his scooter back, so we've been talking about that. It is hard to teach them sharing - especially when you don't know the people they are sharing with. 
Anyway, she loved this scooter. She has been walking around home now saying, "scooter, boy take it... scooter, Gaycie get one... scooter, NEED one." Yeah, we'll see about that. 
The other new trick the girls are learning is the monkey bars. 

Baylie came and played with her daddy, and now she is a pro. She's just enough taller than Sophia and Gracie that she can reach the bars by herself. 

We spent a little over two hours at the park before heading to Costco and then home for naps. It was hard to pull ourselves away since the warm sun felt so nice on our Oregon skin.

Our friend, Karen, was in town that afternoon, and we had planned to spend the afternoon together and then meet Sarah and Charles for dinner. Since it was still gorgeous outside, I picked her up and we went back to the park. We ran into our cousins, Jen, Pete and their two kiddos, so it was fun to chat with them for a bit. Merrick took off from work a little early and came over to play. Once daddy was there, Karen and I were old news. Gracie now had someone new to show off her tricks. 

After another almost two hours at the park, we headed to On the Border for a yummy enchilada dinner. I way over stuffed myself - big surprise - but the food was delicious. It was a fun afternoon with friends. I am really going to miss the sun when it disappears this week.