Lauren's 6th Birthday

I promised Lauren that for her 6th birthday I would let her have a friends party.  I haven't really done one for her before so I decided 6 was a good age to start.  What started out as 5 or 6 friends turned into 12 kids (counting ours).  The girls have been super into animals lately and so Lauren really wanted a Wild Kratt's party, so with the help of pinterest I got a little bit carried away. We made everyone creature power discs and power suits out of felt and played lots of creature games outside.  Unfortunately it was over 90 degrees and nobody wanted to stay outside. It was a lot of fun though and Lauren loved it.

The Tortuga! (The Wild Kratt's turtle ship)

The whole crew!

Love is Doing the Dishes

Lauren's kindergarten teacher is getting married this summer.  As a surprise for her one of the mom's put together a book.  She asked all the kids what they thought love was and took pictures of them with a little chalkboard with their response. After school she told me that Lauren's answer was her favorite. She told me that Lauren was very thoughtful about it and then said "Love is helping do the dishes." Wisdom beyond her years. I'm so glad she is starting to recognize that love can be shown in ways other that hugs and kisses... doing the dishes is a pretty dang good way to show it. :)

Garden Space

Our landlord decided to cut down a bunch of trees in our backyard that were getting tangled in the power lines.  This was bittersweet because they shaded half our backyard in the afternoon, but it was good because it made a VERY sunny place off the back of the house.  I asked if we could dig up some of the grass and put in a bigger garden and our landlord gave us the okay, so we got to work.

Before:

Proposed spot for the garden

Layout idea.

Ryan build us another big grow box to go with the two we already had.

We decided to rip out a rotting stump so that we could put in another small grow box.

We also put in some edging to separate the grass from the garden area.

All four boxes set up and filled.

The next thing I'd like to do is put in a drip system to water everything.  But that is a project for another weekend. :)

  

  

Showers

Don't step in all the puddles you tell them.  Don't get too wet. And then you turn around and they gradually make their way into ALL the puddles... and they are soaked... but having a pretty dang good time. So you take pictures.

"It's raining! The sky is mixing it!"

Silly Kids

These kids are a riot. Period.

Especially this one.

"Look! We are dentistis!"

She's had enough and said she is driving to Grandma's!

Rachel drew this beautiful picture of our whole family.  I absolutely love it. :)

Especially the bellybuttons.

2014 Our Year in Pictures

Since I've been so crumby at blogging, here's a whole years worth of blog posts in one massive photo dump. Enjoy.

January:

Rachel turned 3

I finished my first quilt.

February:

Emily turned 1

We played at the park.

February:

We moved to a new place

March:

 

Spring break:  We went to play in snow and sand.

April:

We hunted for eggs.

Emily learned to walk

May:

 

We went to the county fair.

Lauren turned 5.

 June:

Lauren graduated from preschool.

We found out we were having a baby brother.

 We grew some big zucchinis

 July:

 Fourth of July bike parade and breakfast.

We played with Dad

Ryan went on a pioneer trek

The girls pretended to go on a pioneer trek

 We played in mud puddles

We went camping 3 times. Our favorite trip was 4 days by the beach in a redwood forest with my sister and her family.

August:

Lauren started Kindergarten

Rachel started preschool.

  September:

We played on tire swings

Lauren went on a field trip to a nature preserve.

 October: 

Lauren ran in her school jog-a-thon and totally rocked it,
running 11 laps and earning $55 for her school library.

I finished my second quilt.

The girls were dinosaurs for Halloween

Uncle Nathan came to visit and carve pumpkins

November:

Our baby brother, Spencer was born.

We went to Tahoe for a picnic. It was beautiful.

There actually isn't a lighthouse at Lake Tahoe, it's essentially
a big spotlight. We were kind of disappointed. 

 

 We went to Utah to visit family for Thanksgiving

December:

Acting out the Nativity on Christmas Eve.

Ryan took some time off and we all stayed home for Christmas break.  It was lovely.

 New Year's Eve we had some friends over, played games, made donuts, and went to bed by 9:30 pm, because that's how we roll.