OooLaLa

Bella Butterfly

Blue Butterfly

Princesses of course!

All of us girls looking so much more glamorous than usual.

Spider boy Zeke

Jo has been impressing us all with his face painting skills. I know that some people may consider Joy and I a little old for such things, but I think we had as much fun with it as the kiddos did. 

Sweet Visitors

Sweet cousins

We are so happy to have Isabella, Gabrielle, Peter and Joy visiting for a few days! 

Thank you for driving so far to spend time with us.

BUNNY

Breakfast for two

Much to our relief Pepper was acting quite excited about sleeping in her own room, in her new bed. So we decided to go for it and get rid of the pacifiers at the same time. We thought that giving up the pacis might be less challenging if she had something else to replace them with, so we headed to the best toy store around, Inland Octopus. The staff at the store were awesome! Pepper chose a cute stuffed bunny and "traded" her bag of pacis for it. There were a few tears as she headed to the car, but after talking about it a bit, she seemed quite content with Bunny. Her first night without pacis, in her own bed, went surprisingly well. Now I have to admit that I am a little sad to see her growing up so quickly...

New BIG Bed

Since Pepper and the new little one will be sharing a room, we purchased bunk beds. They are cool because they can be set up as bundbeds or as seperate beds. We decided to only set Pepper's bed up for now since baby will be in a crib for a while. Pepper had so much fun helping Daddy put the bed together. We are hoping that she is excited enough about this new bed that she will transition smoothly to her own room.

DAMBAID

Pepper has just recently started to capitalize on the healing power of bandaids. She insists on placing a "DAMBAID" on any "owie", real or perceived. It is amazing how fast she calms down once that dambaid is in place. I wish that they would always work that well to soothe her pain.

Hike Before Good-Bye

After we packed up on Sunday, Sherisa, Broc and Emmarie did a mini hike with us up to the first bridge on the Two Pan trail. It was all up and pregnancy plus walking pneumonia had me breathing a bit hard but it was worth it! I never get tired of the trails in the Wallowas. I just wish we could have made it up high enough to see Eagle Cap. Regardless it was a nice time to visit and it helped us feel a little better about sitting in the car for a few hours heading home.

These last two pictures was our attempt to get a nice mother daughter picture before heading out. We were soon reminded that two year olds, especially past nap time, are not the most cooperative.  Those girls are so funny!

Camp Swing

Much to their delight, my creative husband rigged up a fun little swing for the kiddos. It was quite a hit for all three of the older kids. Lincoln stayed safely in Mommy's lap.

Camp Relaxation

There are endless treasures to be found

Zeke teaching Pepper about headlamps

On our short lived hike

On Sabbath the weather was nice with the sun coming out and warming us up a bit. The kids had so much fun collecting treasures and exploring our camp sites. We relaxed a lot around the fire and finally attempted a hike. Unfortunately, we did not get far before we ran into a treacherous creek. Regardless, it was beautiful and nice to stretch our legs a bit.

First Camping Trip of the Year

This weekend we were so excited to head to the Wallowas to camp with friends/family, the Coffees and Finkbiners. We had a new tent we were wanting to try out and were ready for some time away from the valley.  When we arrived it was raining so Jo quickly put up the tent so could hide out until the weather improved. I love how cozy the tent is! Soon the rain had stopped and we could venture out for a yummy dinner provided by Sherisa and Broc. Why does everything taste so much better when you're camping?

The evening was  a little cool, but all the more reason to crowd around the warm fire. 

Congratulations Auntie Mindy!

Carl is so proud!

WWU WOLF

Aaron, Nikki and Micah

Grumpy Bug

Auntie Mindy cheered her up.

Carl and Mindy had planned a trip up to Walla Walla for a friend's wedding before they knew that Mindy was going to be graduating that same weekend, from LaSierra University. Thankfully, she was able to march here at WWU so that we could all be there to cheer her on. She now has a Master's in Education! Way to go Mindy!

Wedding Fun

We enjoyed Greg and Hailee Roger's wedding very much. Beautiful and sweet, with great food. What could be better? Pepper thought it was pretty cool to hang with Auntie Mindy. Their photographer, amazingly talented Melissa McFadden, captured some very cute pictures.

Gumby's Hip

Late in the night I recieved a call from Gumby's LifeAlert company. It is the type of call that I always hope is a false alarm, but unfortunately this one was real. Gumby had fallen onto her right hip and fractured it. It was hard to see her in so much pain but the ER kept her relatively comfortable while they confirmed the fracture by xray. She was admitted to Providence St. Mary and had surgery the next day. She breezed through surgery and is now on the way to mending, with a smile on her face!