OK, Just a Few More

It has been so hard deciding on my favorites, but this first one is my fav. of all the girls.

This really is the story of Brian's life. Running from girls, but loving every second of it.

Fun

These pictures are so fun! I love this one of Brian holding SM.

Brian insists that SM is laughing in this picture.

Thanks again Shelly!!

Beautiful Girls

My friend Shelly was here in Seattle visiting for a month and while here she took some family photos for us. There are so many more that I love, but here's a few of my favorites of each girl.

Olympic Peninsula

This post is a bit late, but I know you're all dyin to hear about our trip to the coast. The kids had a long weekend on Oct. 8-10, so we decided to surprise the kids and took them out of school a few hours early on Thursday. SG was upset that she was going to miss music class. On the way to the car she asked, "Hey, why are you picking me up early anyway?" We headed to Edmonds and got in a long line. We didn't tell the kids we were going on a ferry. They didn't realize what we were doing until the ferry started moving. It was fun to watch their reactions as they realized the car was moving, but the car was turned off. We decided to stay in Forks. Amazingly I have never read any of the Twilight books. Many of the tourists we saw in town were fans, although we didn't take any pictures in town, because honestly it wasn't worth photographing. Maybe I have to read the books to appreciate the town. Anyway, we got into town and had dinner at a restaurant called "Restaurant." Afterwards, we decided we'd like to watch the sunset and just barely missed it by a few minutes. The next day we headed to the Hoh Rain Forest. This is really an amazing place!! They get over 130 inches of rain a year. The forest has a very eerie feel to it, but the day that we were there it was sunny and mild. We then headed to Second Beach to try once again to watch the sunset, but this time we were too early and got there 2 hours early and the kids were not going to last much longer. Oh well, we tried. Saturday, we got up and checked out of our hotel and headed to do a hike on Lake Crescent. This is one of the most gorgeous lakes I've ever seen. The water was the darkest shade of blue. It didn't look real. Next, we headed to another waterfall and the name escapes me. Last, we went to Hurricane Ridge. We took an 18 mile road straight up the mountain. The views up there are truly amazing!! The kids were so excited to take the ferry back. It was only about a 25 minute voyage, so we're looking for a longer ferry ride to do sometime. These pictures are totally out of order, sorry:)Day 2 at Second Beach
Ferry ride home.
Waiting for the ferry to come.
Day 3 at Hurricane Ridge
Pretty waterfall that I can't remember the name of.
Day 3 waterfall #1


Day 2 at Second Beach
Hoh Rain Forest
Hoh Rain Forest
Dumb guy getting way too close to the elk.
Hoh Rain Forest
Hoh Rain Forest
Hoh Rain Forest
Missed sunset on Day 1
Ferry ride on Day 1
More ferry

The Party

We survived the party!! Thankfully, (oh I mean sadly) about 5 kids were not able to come to the party, so we had about 13 of SG's friends over to celebrate her 6th. Brian made a cool jack-o-lantern bean bag toss and tape the leaf on the tree game.

I found an idea on Family Fun to make Decoupage pumpkins. Most of the kids really seemed to enjoy the games and activity.

SG wanted brownies instead of a cake, which was fine with me. I was out shopping for nearly 5 hours on the day of the party and I have no idea what I would have had time to make and decorate a cake.

All the guests have gone. Time for clean up.

SG turns 6!

SG officially turned 6 on the 7th. We are celebrating her birthday this Friday with 18 of her closest friends!! Yes, we are crazy. Anyway, I wanted to make one of her favorite foods for dinner. Our choices were: hot dog buns, macaroni and cheese or French toast. I opted for French toast.

I stole the picture wall idea from my friend Cailean. SG loved it! She sat staring and remenessing at all the pictures. She has grown up so much from that baby with the magical head. This girl makes me laugh so hard and she is still the queen of a million expressions. We love you SG!

Before and After and After

First of all, who wall-papers their bathroom? Why would you want to do this? Seriously. Our bathroom had this lovely border as you can see. I dreaded pulling off more wall-paper especially after doing our kitchen, but luckily our bathroom does not have a fan and after decades of showers the wall-paper came off easily.

I thought I'd do a lovely shade of yellow. As the first coat of paint went on I thought it looked awfully bright, but after it dries it will calm down a bit, right? Wrong. The paint mixer dude at Fred Meyer (yep, there's my first mistake) made the bright color on the card I gave him instead of the softer yellow. Back I go to Freddy's to find a better color.

Hooray! I am finally done. It is truly amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do for a room!!

This color is hard to see in the photo, but it is a very light sage green color.