Happy Birthday Olyvia Renae!

Turning 6 has to be pretty amazing. What a great age to be. There is playing, food, cake, friends family and presents. However, after the blessed event we have decided not to combine Olyvia's birthday party with our summer bar-b-que again because she tends to get a big head. Her comment to us the morning of July 11th was, "when are all my people going to be here." The task of teaching humility and graciousness is upon us.

She was extra excited though and it was such a delight to watch her in her excitement each time a new friend arrived. She would go running up to them and attack them with the biggest hug ever and then lead them to show them everything there was to show them.

Robb did a great job at being host and I tried to remain focused to make sure everything went off without a hitch and that I took pictures to capture the day. A task in itself with kids running every direction and adults everywhere. It was great fun however and everyone seemed to have a nice time. Weather was wonderful right up until the thunder clapped and the rain poured around 7pm. By then, however, most of the party had dispersed.

The Cakes

My wonderful husband stayed up late with me helping me to make the cakes. He made all the frosting and then was my assistant in getting them decorated.

Fourth of July Fun!

Another year has past and 4th of July is here again. The weather was amazing as we found ourselves spending the entire day on Friday out on the boat on Lake Cushman. Saturday we decided to hang out at Lake Kokanee so the girls could more easily get in and out of the water. We all had a blast.

Looking up the lake at sunset from the boat.

Ellie making a silly face at the camera while out on the lake in the boat.

Leilah Grace caught for a quick picture while she was sitting on the back of the boat watching all the stuff going on. She was being so observant.

Leilah and Ellie went with Robb in the tube behind the boat for a slow pull. It was so cute to watch them. When Leilah was done Olyvia got into the tube and the girls went with dad on a fast ride. It was so great watching them. They were soooo excited right up until the tube flipped over and into the lake they went. I was a little freaked out until I saw all heads bob above the water line. When they got in the boat they were wide eyed, but soon recovered and thought it was cool that they had had their first "wipe out." Ellie was quick to let us know that she didn't want to do that again for a little while.

Olyvia trying out her new birthday present, a brand new bike with no training wheels.

Our little fisher. She was very serious about trying to catch something, even though she didn't have a hook or bait on her line. :)

Shower Police.

Have you ever been in the shower and gone to turn off the water only you missed getting it completely shut off? All of a sudden ice cold water is shooting out at you from the shower head and you are simultaeously trying to jump out of the shower while also reaching through the ice cold water to get it shut off all the way. For some reason this happens to me a lot. I am unsure why. Maybe the shower police don't realize that I don't want my shower to give me the same reaction as if I jumped into a lake filled by glacial meltoff.

Michael Jackson's 'Man In The Mirror'

Candy Disaster

Not sure what I was thinking but I decided to have a wonderful day with my two beautiful daughters shopping for the groceries and stuff that we are going to need for this weekends birthday party. Michaels was our first stop and it went rather well. Then to Gymboree to exchange something and you could tell they were getting a little more difficult. My mom was with me and thought of the awesome idea to bribe them with the fact that we would be going to Costco and they could snack on all the samples for lunch. They were excited about this and that managed to get us out of the store and back to the car without any huge arm flailing instances.

Once at Costco we discovered that there were no samples to be had anywhere. Great! So, to get through Costco we tell them we are going to Central Market next and they can have a tortilla when we get there. We manage to get out of Costco with minor disagreements and we are headed back to Poulsbo.

At Central, glad I had a list, we make our way through the store rather quickly except for the candy isle. We are on the bulk candy isle for over 20 minutes going through the different lists I have of the specific candies I need for the cakes, counting out the candies, labeling them and closing each of the bags. All the while fighting the girls from climbing on the bulk bins, pulling candy out of the bulk bins with their hands, pushing the cart into me, into grandma, and into strangers. By the time we were done and at the checkout I was ready to be home. We get the groceries paid for and head to the car. As I am unloading the groceries into the car I notice that there is no candy anywhere. I check all the bags two or three times and once assured that there are no candies anywhere leave my mom at the car with the girls while I run back into the store to recover my bag of candies. I get to the checkout to discover that there is a different bagger there. I ask about my candies and it is as if I am talking to a wall. The checker helps me by translating what I thought was a perfectly understandable question. "I just bought a bunch of bulk candy but it didn't get put into my grocery bags. Is it here?" After some assistance by others around him it is learned that he put it into the cart of the guy that was behind me thinking it was his candy. He is told to see if he can catch the guy in the parking lot so he heads outside. He then stands outside the door looking completely lost. I head back to the car to get my receipt. By this time I am livid, but trying to keep calm reminding myself that this is a learning experience for my girls. So I calmly explain that I am very frustrated because it turns out that the candy we spent almost a half hour picking out is gone. I take my receipt and head back into the store. I ask the checker what I am supposed to do since i paid for all this candy by weight and it is now gone, all while I am fighting back the tears that are welling up in my eyes. She says to just go and try to get what I thought I had and "we'll call it good."

And so I blaze back to the bulk bins, like going faster is going to make the process easier. So there I was crying in the bulk food candy section recounting all the candy. It was a pitiful site. I now have what I think is what I started with as best as I can determine from my receipt. I just hope I didn't forget anything. It sure would be interesting if the bunny cake had no eyes or the horse cake had no ears. I guess we will see on Saturday.

Lake Ozette

Yay! The summer is here and we can finally get out and do some hiking. Although I have to admit that we haven't gotten out as much as I wish we had. Our most recent hike took us way out west to Lake Ozette where we hiked out to the ocean. The girls did fabulous. They hiked the entire way without being held. Three miles out to the ocean, a couple hours of hiking around and eating lunch on the beach and a 3 mile hike back to the trailhead. Over 7 miles of hiking and they were great.

Grandma and Papa came with us which was a lot of fun and helped on the way home when Papa relieved Robb from some of the driving. Luckily we had gotten a hotel room on Friday night so didn't have to do the entire drive and hike in one day but it still made for a long day. The girls loved picking up shells as we walked along the rocks in the low tide. We still have all these shells in a dish in our garage. The girls want to find somewhere in our yard to put them. Possibly in one of the flowerbeds.

My little graduate.

The last few weeks have been so busy I finally realized that I haven't been keeping you all as up to date as I would hope. One of the most poignant moments in the last few weeks was when my oldest, Olyvia, received her diploma from Kindergarten.



I can hardly believe she is old enough, but old enough she is. Tomorrow will be her 6th birthday. She is so excited she has been counting each day since the 1st of July. This evening as I was tucking her into bed she says to me, "Mom, tomorrow is day 8! My birthday." A huge smile across her face, her hands in tight little fists and her whole body shaking with excitement. Then she continued "and then day 9, and then day 10 and then..." a squeal of glee, "day ELEVEN!" I asked her "what is day 11?" She exclaimed with astonishment, "Mom, my party." Oh yeah, that's right. I had almost forgotten.

Poulsbo Elementary did something that I really liked this year. Instead of having some sort of graduation ceremony where they all get into caps and gowns, they had a picnic and all family was invited. It was great. Here are some pics of the girls playing and enjoying an afternoon picnic to mark the end of Olyvia's first year of school.