The Gator

These boys still can't get enough of this!  They ride it almost everyday, rain or shine.

Extra Pictures of Linnea

 I didn't have my camera with me in the hospital when Linnea was born, so my sister Erica took a few pictures for me with her phone.  I had forgotten about those for a long time, but recently received them.  Each picture is so special to me since I have so few. 

These pictures are the kids meeting and holding Linnea.  We were advised by the grief counselor to let the kids do so, as it will give them understanding and closure.  She says that what the children imagine in their mind is often scarier than real life.  Instead of a traumatic event, it became a special event.

Independence Day 2013

 

 Every year I have pictures of the kids with fireworks.  Somehow I never get tired of them.

 

 

But this year the highlight of our day was running into a civil war reenactment.  We knew the reenactment happens every year at a park nearby, but we had little interest in watching.  What we planned on was a nice hike through a different part of the park to pass the time, so we could hurry up and get to the fireworks time!  We hiked until we came out of the trees into a clearing where a crowd had gathered to watch, and we just happed to be right on time.  The battle was about to begin!  We stayed to watch it, and everyone enjoyed it.  There were cannons and guns for the boys, big pretty dresses for Sydney, and horses for mom!  As for dad, well, he's just happy if  the rest of us are happy :)

 

 

The Reptile Man

Earlier this summer we visited the Reptile Man at the library.  It turns out Carson loves snakes!  He wanted to touch it so bad.  Luckily the kids were allowed to touch one of them at the end. 

 

We recently found a snake in our back yard, and Carson kept trying to grab it while Lance was trying to remove it.  We ended up putting it in a big brown paper bag, loading it onto the back of the john deere gator powerwheel, and driving it down the street to some empty lots and releasing it.

Father's Day 2013

 The kids worked hard on a big poster for dad.  First we had fun painting the signs,  then we took pictures of the kids with the signs.  Next we picked the best pictures and made a digital scrapbook page, printed it at Costco, and then framed it for dad to take to work.  Here are some of the pictures we took.

Mother's Day at the Iris Gardens

 For Mother's Day I wanted to walk around the Iris Gardens. 

 

 

 Several years ago I took pictures of the kids running at this same garden. I decided to have the kids reinact the picture.  Sydney didn't want to participate, she was in a bad mood.  That's why you'll notice she's not in many pictures.

 After so many good smiles, the boys just had to get crazy and do silly faces.

 To lift Sydney's mood I let her have the camera to take a few pictures.  It was her first time using the camera and these were some of the pictures she took. Pretty good I think!

 

 

 

 

 

Camping Silver Falls

 The weather has been unusually good this spring, and we just happened to have no baseball games on Saturday, so we decided to plan a "last minute" camping trip to Silver Falls!

 

We called several other families and invited them to come along, and most of them did.

We were only able to go for one night.  That's a lot of packing and unpacking for such a short trip, but still worth it.  We went up early before we could get into our site and played in the day use area.

 Our camp site was the best one in the whole campground (I think so anyway).  It backs right up to this!  Giant logs crossing the creek.  All the kids spend 90% of their time playing in this area, which left all the adult hanging out by the fire, and still able to see the kids.

Our kids brought the brand new fishing poles they got for Christmas.  Of course we didn't catch anything.

 Some of the favorite things about camping are sleeping in a tent, and playing with the fire.