Grand Coulee Dam

 A few weeks ago, my brother Paul and his wife Amanda and her sister and brother in-law came up to visit for a few days. This was the first time they have made the trip to visit us so we were very excited. While they were here we took the kids up to Grand Coulee and for a picnic up by Spring Canyon. I have such great memories of going to the laser light show with my family during the summer and swimming that I wanted to take our kids. This is the visitor center a the dam and it was very cool and kid oriented. There were quite a few interactive exhibits my kids could do and Isak was even very interested in the history movies they had playing upstairs about the lava flows and the building of the dam.

 The light show started to late for us so we left before it started. We saw 4 deer on the way home crossing the road! We were very lucky we didn't hit any. I think with the drought we've been seeing that the deer had been crossing to go to the reservoir and to drink.

 Before we went to the dam, we had a picnic and swam at Spring Canyon Park. This is along the Coulee Reservoir and is a really nice area. The beach has nice sand and a dock to swim out to. The picnic/swimming area is super shady so even though it was 80 plus degrees outside, we felt pretty cool.

 My kids particularly loved this hill that they kept rolling down over and over. Isak figured out how to roll properly, Lucy kind of would throw herself awkwardly hand over foot down the hill. It was quite entertaining.

 Lucy donned all her swimming safety gear to swim. She kept yelling, "I'm swimming!" "I'm swimming!", as she drank the gross water and partook of the sand that was on the beach. Somehow she never got sick. Quite the immune system that one is going to have.

                                                           Edyn and Aunt Amanda.

Isak and Lucy really loved swimming in the lake. I loved it wasn't rocky and algae infested and it was shallow for quite a ways.  We had so much fun. I'm excited for next summer when we can go again and maybe stay up late enough to see the light show!

Family Pictures

These are some family pictures we had taken recently. Lucy was in a horrible mood that day as we had to wake her up from her nap to take the pictures. So I was pretty happy she got any useable pictures.

                                                              I love all of her little chins.

                                                     Lucy in her very grumpy state.

 Kevin's mom was nice enough to follow us around and help with our kids and carry stuff. She was a lifesaver, especially since my children were being less then cooperative.

4th of July

On the 4th we had a great day just hanging out with family. It started out in the morning with a fun run that I did and the parade through town. The run was a 10k and it was just me and one other guy running it. I was ahead the whole time then he cut through the basketball court and cut me off at the end. Not that I'm bitter. Anyway, after that we had our little parade through town and the kids got way too much candy. Edyn and I were pretty tired by this time and took a nap while Kevin took the kids over to some games at the park and ate lunch. In the evening we went over to Kevin's parent's house and set off fireworks, most of then were 30 year old ones that we found in the basement as all we could find were the snap/pop it fireworks. The kids still thought they were awesome and they were pretty entertained.

We watched the city fireworks that night in our front yard, the display is set off across the street at the park. Its the perfect location to watch fireworks. Lucy was covering her ears at first and was a little scared but quickly got into the spirit of things and was yelling at us, "its my favorite color!!", and "they are so pretty!" over and over.

Isak and Lucy were sword fighting while we were waiting for the fireworks to start.

My parents came up and watched the fireworks with us and helped entertain the kids. It was a lot of fun. I always love the 4th of July every year in our little town.

Isak's New Digger

 My brother and his wife came to visit from Rexberg this weekend and Mark brought with him something for Isak he has been working on for a while. Mark is a mechanical engineering major and works in the engineering shop on campus. He got some scrap pieces of metal together and welded some things and made Isak the most awesome contraption for our backyard.

 Its a digger that he can sit on and pick up dirt and other stuff and move around. Mark made the box for it and painted it for Isak. It is so cool! Isak LOVES it and I think that Mark will now have to make one for any future children he will have someday...

 It took a little while to assemble but Isak was happy to lend any assistance he could.

 Isak has been practicing with it and is getting better and better at moving it around. It rotates 360 degrees and happens to be heavy enough that his little sister can't quite use it yet :).

This could be why my brother Mark is one of Isak's very favorite uncles. Isn't that thing awesome? I can't believe he made it. So cool.

Edyn Girl

 Edyn is 5 1/2 months. She has yet to roll over but she got two teeth at 4 months. She loves to play with toys and anything crinkly and is very good with her hands. She loves her standing bouncer and it will keep her occupied for long periods of time.  Her favorite people are still me, Kevin, and Isak and she refuses to take a bottle from anyone but Kevin. Even then it is touch and go and she will sometimes go on strike and just wait till I get home from work to eat. This is not very awesome when I work and someone else has to watch her and I have to wake up to feed her. Which is why we started her on solids recently!

 She has had bananas, pears, carrots, sweet potatoes and peaches and loves all of them. I think bananas are her favorite so far. I fed her the ENTIRE container of sweet potatoes the other night and she was so mad at me that there weren't anymore.  I was afraid she would throw it up but I underestimated this girl's stomach capacity. She has no problem eating and keeping it down.

 If the food has been in the fridge and is cold, she will do this little body shake with each bite like she is shivering. Its pretty funny. Her hair is starting to grow more and is sticking out on the sides, very cute.  She is very skilled and grabbing her feet and will pick things up that are next to her on the floor so we have to watch out.

 Her sleeping habits are not the best but we are working on them. I am okay with it and Kevin helps me a lot so we are doing fine. She is obviously not starving, just look at those chins.  She is such a sweet girl and really loves her mama. I love it when she talks/coos at us and tries to eat my face. I just need her to slow down a bit and stay little a while longer...

Dress Up!

 My kids love to dress up. We have quite a collection of costumes, thanks to my super talented sister and her wonderful sewing skills and my yard saleing abilities.I counted the other day and they have about 20 outfits to choose from. Its pretty awesome and their friends all love it when they come over, this doesn't include our super hero masks or Lucy's random dress up pieces that we have also collected.

Lucy wore her snow white dress to the park a few weeks ago, may I mention I paid a whooping $1 for this?

 The bird costumes my sister made them for Christmas last year.

The $1 spiderman costumes I found at a yard sale last week that they wear ALL the time.

One of my very favorites, 1 of 2 chicken costumes we own. Yes, those are talons that she has for feet. 

Isak's Captain America costume I found at a post Halloween clearance sale. My kids really love these and someday when they outgrow them I hope to pass them on to someone else's kids who will use them just as much.

More pics from beginning of June

 Lucy dressed up in a scarf and wore her goggles around.

 Conner and Isak played the fishing game. It became a favorite over the next few days.

Lucy tried to feed all the baby cows hay at the dairy.

                                      Isak was licked by a baby calf which he thought was hilarious.

Lucy watched cartoons in a scuba mask, because well, she's Lucy.

Beginning of June

 WOW. I am so behind on my blog. I blame it on a giant kitchen renovation that left me internetless for a while and Kevin being gone for 8 days in the middle of June. So I will try to recap as much as I can remember. Kevin left to Anaheim for 8 days for work and his brother Nathan and his wife Stephanie were up here for part of that time. Nathan happened to have some work in Spokane that overlapped Kevin being gone so for a few days, Steph and I hung out together husbandless and tried to survive. Did I mention that I rely on Kevin quite a bit so having him gone was kind of a big deal? I'll freely admit that he helps me a lot a ton with our kids so when I have to do everything by myself, I am exhausted. Anyway, while Steph was here, Kevin's mom was gone helping with a new baby so we took over her house and did meals and all that as well. We made some delicious pumpkin bread, pictured above, that was way yummy even if my pic doesn't do it justice.

 We made a few batches of kool-aid playdough that the kids loved to play with and jab random kitchen utensils into.

 Steph, Lucy and I all got our haircuts although Lucy's was by far the most traumatic. She has lovely thick blonde hair but she really doesn't like it combed and its a very big deal everyday when I have to fight her to brush her hair. So I decided to chop it for the summer and its been great every since. Right after she got it cut, while she was still screaming, she picked her hair up the ground and started yelling, "Why can't you fix it?!" over and over. Very sad. I think she was more disturbed that she could find her hair separated from her more than anything. Luckily she got over it pretty quick and really loves how her new hair can swish back and forth :).

 Sadly it was cold and rainy almost everyday Stephanie and her kids were here. But they did have fun one night going out and playing in the puddles.

 Edyn got to hang out in her bumbo alot and she was pretty darn excited.

 I was trying to get some pictures of Jayden for Stephanie and that kid is wiggly! A lot like another certain daughter of mine which explains the lack of pictures of her smiling at the camera...

 The one warm day we had, we got out the wading pools and the kids had a blast.

 Jayden and Edyn all ready for our walk. We took Nathan and Steph for a walk around where we live, I keep trying to convince Stephanie what a lovely town we have and all the nice houses that are for sale...

 Grandma Grimmett came and visited one day and brought us all lunch. The kids had a picnic outside and were pretty excited that they all got their own bags of chips.

There are 2 litters of farm kittens out at the shop right now and my kids love to go down and pick them up and play with them. I believe they may have convinced their Nana to get another kitty. We definitely cannot have a pet right now so I'm so glad they can have kitty access through their Nana. It was so fun having Steph and Nathan visit and my kids loved seeing their cousins. I am so lucky to live near so much family, when they left I went and stayed with my parents for a few days before Kevin came back. I was so happy to see him, even with all the help I had, 8 days is a long time and we really missed him!