Family

My heart is full. My girls are awesome. My family is a blessing. It was a WONDERFUL weekend. Amber was here, Angela's family was here, Seth's family was here and we were only missing Jason's family. then.....who comes walking in the front door but Jackson, Noah and Ellie!!! With Jason, Jana, Carson and Kate following close behind!!!! All five of us kids here in this house with all of our kids---amazing! the only two missing were Spencer and Rob. and they were definitely missed, but we had a great time.
Drew and Autumn are 14 and 12, then the next oldest is Jackson who is 6. then younger than him is Noah, Ellie, Carson, Kate, Addison, Allie, Jimmy, and Owen, with Evelyn on the way! Whew! ya, that's a LOT of cousins!! My girls were in heaven. We took a family picture and I will definitely be posting it and many other pictures of all the kids. They were all so cute together.
I am thankful to have a family that I truly enjoy. My siblings are all super fun and I love their kids. Everyone coming home is rare and precious and I am thankful everyone always makes the effort. We came from Valdez. Alaska, Sacramento. CA, Tigard. OR, and Salt Lake City. UT and ofcourse us from Lancaster.CA. That's some serious mileage!! It was wonderful.
I am thankful. My girls are awesome and my heart is happy just watching them be themselves. They make me proud every minute. My heart is full.

Trip to Leavenworth WA

I love Leavenworth!!!

Drew pushing the stroller for Allie. Thanks cuz! Some of my favorite girls...

Kissing outside Kris Kringle Allie clinging to Grandpa. They are so besties. Also, Amber and Drew.

Mom with the girls outside the taffy shop.

The whole Group...

Addison being adorable and happy....as always!!

Okay, so every year of my life, at least once a year, we go to Leavenworth, WA. It is a BEAUTIFUL Bavarian town in eastern WA. This time, Angela's fam and my mom flew down from Anchorage to Seattle and met me and the girls and my dad and Grandma Smythe there. It was the most beautiful day of the year I have no doubt. Leavenworth never disappoints me when I spend time there with my family. I love that I have so many memories of everything. The same steps that Addison was playing on were the steps we took our Christmas card picture on when I was six years old. There are so many memories attached to that place, it will always be special to me.

Summer Fun

Addison looking adorable in her jammies after swimming. I love her hair like this. Allie just chomping away...

Dad and Allie are absolute BESTIES. She was kicking her legs like a champ and kept trying to get Grandpa to let go of her!!! crazy baby!

Me and my Addison. She was NOT having the floaty at first but then Auntie Amber worked her magic and the next thing I knew there was Addison in the floaty swimming around the pool BY HERSELF!! with us just floating around her! Thank you AMBER!!!!!

Allie on the balance beam...I mean the pool. lol. Chomping away on her watermelon. This child will eat anything!!! Today for instance she had banana, pear, cereal, broccoli gnocchi soup for lunch with pizza, (she loved the olives the best, then she came home and ate a full dinner of the turkey Dad smoked!!! She is so funny!

Grandpa and Grandma's house is NON STOP FUN! Seriously these people are running us ragged and we love it! I don't think I have sat still the entire time we have been here! There has been too much swimming and swinging and bbq-ing and campfires and long walks and blowing bubbles.....too much to name, this place is exactly what the little girls dreams are made of! oh and Drew's too since he told me today as he was laying in the pool that he was feeling "euphoric". Loved it!

Drew and Autumn are awesome, and awesome with my kids. If I can't find one of them, they are definitely outside swinging with Drew or Autumn or both. and Addison spent a good 30 minutes sitting on the floor with Drew drawing "rainbows" for which he was a willing participant. She willl have great memories of her cousins and that makes me veryyy happy.

We love to fly!!

This is us at the airport getting ready to board. The girls were super excited and so was I. But I was sad too. This is SO long to be away from Robbie. What was I thinking?!?!?!? lol

Then all too quickly, they were boarding us and we had to say goodbye to Daddy.

Thank heavens for Skype. seriously. It has been saving our lives. Every time Allie gets up now, (she sleeps in the office), she points at the computer, says "Dada" and waves hello to the monitor. It's adorable and sweet.

My husband is SO delicious. I am so lucky.

Sweet Oregon

We are here and it is beautiful and wonderful and everything I dreamt of. It is drizzly driving down the gorge and that brings joy to my heart. I am now one of those people that sees trees like this and is in awe. I didn't realize how much I miss trees. I LOVE IT HEREREREREREREE!!!!

Catalina Island

Last Monday we took the girls and went out to Catalina Island.

This was us on our pedal boating zooming around the harbor. Addison wanted to swim so Rob held her over the edge to see how cold it was. She quickly changed her mind. =)

Sassy little pose!

On the paddle boat. One happppy girl!

The girls showing off the life vests. Allie's was in her face, but she didn't care. She loved that thing!

In the golf cart as we got started on our drive.

At lunch, having fish and chips of course. The bigger man behind us started talking to Addison and she called him cupcake. Lol. oops. He thought her hilarious though and everyone was cracking up over her glasses which she wore most of the day.

We got up at 4:45am, left at 5:30. Drove down to Newport Beach and went out of their port. The boat ride was about an hour out there which was perfect. We all got a little queasy, (yes I barfed, of course I did) but I am attributing most of our sickness to pigging out right before we got on the boat. Biiig Mistake! Once we went out on the back deck, we were all fine.

Anyway, Addison could NOT have been happier and more ecstatic. She kept saying "This is soooo Exciting!". She knows about dolphins and was really blown away when we saw about fifty on the way out there. Very cool for her.

The weather was perfect, nice and cool and we had a great time out there. We rented a golf cart and drove that all the way around the island and then rented a pedal boat thing and we all piled in that as well. The girls were SO excited to wear their life jackets. Allie didn't want to give hers back! We had a great day and then boarded the boat at 4:30 for our ride back. We sat on the second story of the boat on the way back, (it had 3 levels) and that was muuuuch better for all of us. No one was queasy. yay! and on that trip, we saw probably over 60 dolphins all at once on our side of the boat. Addison was beside herself when there were so many. Very exciting day for her for sure. And Allie was all about it too, she is getting to be a crazy adventure girl herself, it's super fun.

I would give a hundred bucks to know exactly what she was thinking...

Daddy with the munchkins.

Both of us queasy on the way out. Glad I was the only one who got sick. and glad the queasiness ended as soon as I did! lol

Mesmerized...This was right afer we boarded the boat in Newport. Very exciting to be on such a big boat.

"Did you think to pray?"

"I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go"

-Abraham Lincoln

Evelyn!!

YES its 4:44 AM and I AM AWAKE. EVELYN GO TO SLEEP!!!

5 months pregnant with Evelyn Macey

Yay Evelyn!!!!

I so totally feel like I should be decorating a nursery.

I have the plan I think and have gotten her a couple things. I really won't need anything for her room though, I have girl stuff coming out my ears! Just a dresser and she is going to use Addison's old crib and ofcourse I have the rocker that matches that crib already. Should be great. Now I just need a room! I can't decide where to put her....in the office, in Allie's room and put Allie with Addison? I don't know. The idea of the girls sharing is scaring me to death considering Allie sleeps so good, and Addison sleeps so good, but Addison yells in her sleep. Like all out, YELLING. Once a night I think. I rarely, (never, lol) go in there, but she yells just the same and I DO NOT want to mess with Allie's wonderful habits....so we'll see. Plus, they just seem small to share. Allie already wants to sleep in a big girl bed. She takes her bottle and gets in the bed and pulls the covers up to her chin. It's adorable. Agh, I have a lot to figure out in the next few months! =))