Where do I even begin?!?!?!

This past month has been a complete whirlwind. 1 month ago today we moved into our new house. Promptly following unpacking all the boxes we left for camping at Hills Creek with the Kerner clan. Came home long enough to do laundry. Neal and I squeezed in a quick happy hour dinner to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary. Once again we packed up, headed camping in the gorge at Memaloose State Park. Laundry and cleaning again. Now as I sit here blogging, I'm making a mental list of all the things I need to get done tomorrow before we leave for our last camping trip of the year at the beach. PHEW!!!


So now for all the details in between. I'll mostly let the pictures tell the story. I apologize in advance for the random jumping around that is most likely to happen when trying to squeeze one busy month of photos into a single blog post.

Aubrey and Ella on the 1st day of swim lessons

Aubrey learning to kick

Free time at the end of the lesson!

Ella can now swim with her face in the water using her arms and legs!

Ella is a very quick learner!!

Today its officially ours!! 7/21/2011

Aubrey got a new rocking horse from Uncle Ryan and Auntie Allie for her new room.

Our new house has a perfect climbing tree out front =)

Nothing beats an early morning cup of hot chocolate by the lake.
(The girls felt a little left out as we were sipping our coffee ;-))

Aubrey is a camping animal. There isn't an aspect of camping this girl doesn't love.

Well, I guess I should clarify that caption. We did find 2 things she didn't like while camping. 1st of all, Aubrey loved riding on the "big ski" behind the boat. If you look closely in the picture, she is rocking herself back and forth faster that the boat is taking her. Apparently on one of her rides, she decided for whatever reason to let go---not hold onto the big ski--- while G-Daddy was still driving the boat. Centrifugal force took over and Aubrey was no longer on the big ski, but in the middle of the lake. Of course G-Daddy immediately turned around and Uncle Ryan dove in to rescue Aubrey from the lake. Although she was scared, she was doing great keeping herself upright in her life jacket. Afterwards, she reprimanded G-Daddy as if he was the reason she fell off "Don't knock me off the ski G-Daddy."

Example 2. G-Daddy has hidden in his attic for many years these Crest (yes like the toothpaste) pedal cars. These cars get hauled down to Hills Creek each year. A stick is found to be used as the "pusher" stick as the kids can't make them go. Since these are fully-functioning cars, the steering wheel works and is actually required to be used in order to keep the car on the road. Can anyone guess where this story is going???

Aubrey was game to try this out. She had seen Quin doing it and he is a maniac at it! G-Daddy gives Aubrey a little push and off she goes in between about 4 adults (we are all standing around watching). "Turn Aubrey" is yelled as she heads off the road...... Next thing we know, she has driven UNDER Uncle Ryan's truck and is stopped by running head-first into the mounted hitch of his truck!!! She ended up with a little cut on her lip, but overall fine. G-Daddy on the other hand felt HORRIBLE!! 

We are trying to coach Aubrey to tell G-Daddy "I forgive you G-Daddy." Instead, she looks him square in the eye and says "That's NOT VERY NICE G-Daddy. Don't push me into Uncle Ryan's truck!"

Having a blast on the big ski.

Ella had tons of fun camping with her cousins!

Blue-eyed marshmellow-faced girls! 

----to be continued----

A picture is worth a thousand words

But......

I tend to be forgetting to take said pictures =( Instead, you will be getting a thousand word synopsis of our most recent travels and adventures. [[[KIDDING!!!]]]

Really, though, we have even been sporadic in our adventures these past few weeks. Most of June, we forgot that the sun was even supposed to be in the sky. I think I may have forgotten to include this earlier, but at the beginning of June we began once again searching for a new home. Stan and Jeanie surprised us with a wonderful gift and we were presented with the opportunity to purchase a new home while keeping our current house as a rental for a few years until the market picks up a little bit. I forgot how time consuming and exhausting that process it!

The long and short of the house story is we will be moving into our new home on July 23rd!!! I will make sure to include a special blog about all the specifics once we actually get moved in. After the last go round, I'm a little more cautious this time and won't allow myself to get really excited until all our stuff is into the new house. Stay tuned for all the good details....

Onto the wee ones who fill our days with so much entertainment.

This summer Aubrey is notorious for going as hard as possible and then crashing as equally hard. She is determined not to miss out on any of the action ;-)

Enjoying some yummy Unger berries during the 4th of July parade

SO DARN CUTE!!!!
I have to say that there is something about the carefree, straight-forwardness about a 2-year old that can bring a smile to anyone's face.
While we were outside playing in the sprinklers, she decided to 'shake your body just like a crab.'
(its from an episode of Dora)

A rare moment....
In the car, Ella will fight until the last ounce of strength she has to keep her eye lids open is gone. She is always watching, listening, asking a million questions about everything around her. One day I asked her, "why do you ask so many questions?"
"Because Sid the Science Kid says 'Keep asking LOTS of questions.'"
Fair enough.

**Please excuse the smudge on the lens right over her eye**

Not sure which was more fun, running through the sprinklers or wearing flip flops?!
I know, of all the battles in this world, flip flops seem to be an odd one. If you ever saw this child'd toes or ends of her shoes it would make more sense. ;-)

Such a poser! She is getting better, half the time I get this smile and half the time I get the kind of smile I'm looking for =)

Hillsboro 4th of July parade

Last week, our entire family went to Generation camp with our church. Its the youth camp and I'm the camp nurse. Ella is my nurse helper. Aubrey is just a ham. And Neal is the wrangler of these 2 young-ins while I try to actually take care of the kids ;-) I'm super bummed that we forgot to take our nice waterproof camera with us. It had been in the car the day we left for camp, but when we stopped home to empty out our gigantic bag of candy it was left behind.

Camp was up on Mt. Hood at a place called Camp Arrah Wanna. It has a great set-up including a pool (that is heated up like a hot tub) with 2 water slides. Here is where a camera would have been great. Aubrey was fearless. She loved going down the slide. She did not, however, like the water in her eyes. After the second slide down, she told me "I close my eyes." Great idea. Over to the slide she runs. She grabs onto the ladder of the slide, steps onto the first step, closes her eyes and proceeds to climb the rest of the way up the ladder!!! Frantically we are yelling for her to OPEN her eyes until she reaches the top, then close them for the slide down. HAHAHAHA!!! She is always good for a laugh.

While at camp, we also got to go up to Skibowl to the summer adventure park. There are 20-some activities to do up there and a surprising number of them the girls could do. They had kiddy carts (1-seater go-carts that had hand-break levers for stop and go), trampoline with the bungee jump, pony rides (I think you are safe to buy the pony now Aunt Kathy. The girls LOVED the ponies. I would guess we rode them at least 3 separate times ;-)), rock climbing wall, super fun house and more.

Ella is old enough to actually be able to follow the instructions and had a blast doing the activities. Aubrey on the other hand needed a little help. Aubrey wasn't about to be left out, however, of all the fun she saw the older kids having. She flipped on the bungee trampoline, she loved on the ponies and learned a valuable lesson...don't sneak up on the ponies or they get scared, even if you just want to give the pony a hug ;-) Aubrey also drove the kiddy cart by herself. Apparently on her second trip in the kiddy cart, she decided halfway through the drive that she had had enough. Out she climbed with the help of the worker manning the cars. Then once the worker turned his back on Aubrey to help Ella, Aubrey promptly climbed back into her kiddy cart, stood on the seat and pulled down completely on the "go lever"! I'm not sure who was more scared, the worker or all the people from camp watching Aubrey drive fearlessly into the edge of the race track!!!

Alas I think I may have exceeded my thousand words. I vow to try harder to take more pictures for the rest of the summer ;-)

I'll leave you with one last Aubrey quote that sums up her personality at the present time.

Aubrey was blatantly disobeying one afternoon, repeatedly doing what she was told not to. I told her, "Aubrey, if you do that again, mommy is going to spank your hiney."

She straight-faced, exasperated reply was, "AGAIN???" =] 

{{{{--Beautiful ballerina--}}}}

Someone in the great big marketing world has found their niche when it comes to little girls....put them in a cute lil' costume, have them dance around a stage semi-in sync and the parents will just throw money, all for 3 precious minutes on the big stage with bright lights =) I'll admit, I had no idea what I was signing up for back in August. Never being a part of dance before, I had no idea what recitals entailed! Ella loved every minute of it. She especially loved the instructions she received before the dance rehearsal.
"Miss Lynn says you HAVE to put makeup on me! Real makeup."

Ella's class performed a ballet to the song "Up Up and Away (in my beautiful balloon)". click here to listen
Ella was the oldest girl in her class, there was 1 other 4 year old and the rest are 3 years old. She is almost a full head taller than the rest of the girls =)

Our class was very fortunate to have a professional photographer mama in our class. She very graciously offered to take individual and group pictures of our girlies before the big show. Thanks Randi!

Ava, Joren, Ella J, Clara, Holly, Mia, Ella K

Ava, Joren, Ella J, Clara, Holly, Mia, Ella K

Back: Ella J, Clara, Mia, Ella K
Front: Joren, Ava, Holly

Joren, Clara, Ava, Ella J, Mia, Holly, Ella K

The pictures from the actual recital are a little dark, but you can get the general cuteness factor out of them!

The balloon tied in the bun made this lil' ballerina over-the-top  ADORABLE!!!

Would you like to fly in my beautiful balloon?!

If you hold my hand we'll sail away across the sky...

Or we can fly!!!

After such a darling performance, we made sure to have flowers ready to give our ballerina. She, on the other hand, had no idea about the flowers or that people even got flowers after the recital. On our way out to the rest of the family, she asked why the other girls all had flowers. I explained that their families just brought the flowers for them. After she got her flowers, she said "I can't believe my family brought me flowers!!"

All in all it was a great night. Ella did a great job performing, she had a huge crowd of family come watch her and in her own words "I just can't stop smiling!"

Hope this makes you all smile too =]

Off to the zoo

This post has been hiding out of my computer for over a month now =) I wanted to keep the pictures a surprise for my dad for Father's day, but now alas I can share with the world!

Last month, my sisters Penny and Shannon came to Portland for a trip to the zoo. 3 adults, 5 kids and a crowded zoo made for an eventful afternoon =) We all had a blast and it was so fun to see how the kids all clung together and got some good cousin time.

Zoey, Ella, Aubrey and Porter (Wyatt had just slipped on the wet wood)

Zoey, Ella, Wyatt, Porter and Aubrey on a dinosaur.

Ella, Zoey, Aubrey, Porter and Wyatt--who is as big as a bear?

Wyatt, Porter, Zoey, Ella and Aubrey as we left the zoo.

Me, Aubrey, Ella, Zoey, Penny, Wyatt, Shannon and Porter
Great picture man who happened to be standing right next to us =)

Porter, Wyatt and Shannon

Zoey and Ella love each other very much!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Father's Day!

Is it summer today?

Our daily debating start with getting dressed. Both girls got a dresser full of cute sundresses in preparation for summer. Well....apparently we were a bit premature in these purchases! This late into spring, we should be wearing our dresses at least most days (even if the mornings require a light jacket). No such luck!!

On those rare days when we have had a break in the clouds, we have made sure to take full advantage of those moments!

*Due to my lack of frequent blogging, I will now jump straight to the pictures of all our fun!*

Aubrey LOVES to go up-up-up!

I'm convinced that she is part monkey!

This is an example of the day mom dressed everyone a little too optimistic! 

Aubrey walked around surprisingly well in my high heels!

Ella loves that crazy mutt more than he can stand it!!

We're at the beach!!

Beautiful Ella in front of a beautiful blue sky.
(What you can't see are the dark, low clouds over my shoulder!)

Sand angel time! And after playing in the surf, this was loads of fun to clean up...

2 very happy sisters to be at the beach =]

Its become our yearly tradition, names in the sand.

We had been at the beach all of about 5 nanoseconds before these three were wet up to their knees!!

We had one day warm enough to break out the swimsuits and sprinkler!!!
(But because of planting new grass, the girls had to make due with running through the sprinkler on the easement)

Planting our own "square-foot garden." Ella was a great helper!

Its been a short trip through a warm weather memories. We are praying that this weather breaks soon. We still have 2 weeks before our 1st summer trip!!

Aubrey, our BIG GIRL now!!!!

Aubrey, since the day we were waiting for her to be born, has always done things on her own timetable. No amount of persuading/convincing/bribing will do the trick, unless she says "I do it my own self" then odds are she won't do it! This last month has brought us to many big ticket milestones in her little life.

She is now completely potty trained. Aubrey thought that the week before Neal and I left for Cancun was the prime time to really get gung-hoe about this process. Occasionally we have an accident, but all in all we are very proud of her and she is proud of herself. She will tell us "Yay, I pottied in big potty like you(me)/Ella/Amah/(insert whoever she has seen that day.)" On those occasions when she doesn't make it to the potty, we try to be firm with her but also understanding that she is trying to avoid accidents. Her latest phrase makes it hard to laugh when she has an accident just because she is so darn cute; she will say "I SOO SORRRY mommy for potty on you floor." ---Forgiven!

Last week she also decided that she is now done with the crib. We had offered in the past weeks/months to let her sleep in the twin bed in her room, but she wanted nothing to do with it. "I sleep in my crib." No debating, that is that. Then for nap she suddenly wanted to sleep in the twin bed and hasn't been back in her crib since then. We haven't had nearly the battle with her that we did with Ella; no need for locks on the inside of the door, or spankings for continuously getting out of bed. On Saturday night, she did test the limits just a little bit after bedtime. She was all tucked in, I closed the door and barely get into our room when I heard her open her door. "I gotta tell you sumthin. I gotta tell you sumthin." I lead her back to bed, get her tucked in again and she tells me the all-important news "Nemo touched the boat." My night is now complete, I can go to sleep now that Aubrey has filled me in on this news (despite the fact that I too, have watched this movie 10 times in the last week along with her!). She tries this game one more time that night, but other than that...she is all moved into her big girl bed.

Definitely bitter-sweet to have her 'all grown up' but we know that now the real fun is just beginning =)