best impulse buy yet!

Last Wednesday the kids and I had a date to the movies in the morning and then we headed to Target afterwards to take a look around just for fun. I knew it was going to be a hot day and I wanted something fun for the kids to do in the afternoon in our backyard, so we headed to the summer toys aisle. I spotted the Lightning McQueen double slip n slide and just knew it was "the one" (even though it wasn't on sale...gasp!)

Daddy even came home to set it up for them during a quick afternoon break (I know, I know...I probably could have done it, but it was a real treat for DADDY to do it and for him to see their new toy!) They had the best 3+ hours of fun with it that afternoon! They played so hard that even one of the "inflatable body boards" got a hole in it. (It's currently waiting to get repaired, but it's fixable.) I thoroughly enjoyed watching the kids have such a great time that I forgot that the reason I wanted to find something they could do in the backyard was so that I could get some things done inside! I guess that's the bliss of summer...the "to do" list can wait!

Who wants to come slip n slide with us?!

beauty shop

The kids decided to play a little beauty shop (back in May...yes, still catching up!) and lucky Austin got to be the one in the chair.

He requested "poky hair" (I love that boy).

{not sure Austin's face shows full confidence in his big sister's expertise}

a little hair styling product might do the trick
"Hmmm...how does it look?"
"Let's try it from this angle."

I don't think it was quite the "poky hair" look he was going for, but he's a handsome boy nonetheless.

the bug trap

I love my children's imaginations!!

memories made in the snow

The Pacific Northwest got a random blast of cold weather last week, which turned into snow!! Our last snow (if you can even call it that) was on November 23, 2010. It was a light dusting...but they still canceled school. Gotta love Oregon!

We were prepared for this "Winter Blast" and decided to pack an overnight bag and head out to Grammy & Papa's where my sister and her family are currently staying with my parents. We spent the day there on Wednesday and we thought it would hit by Wednesday night, but by 8:00 when it was time to head home...nothing. However, I figured that since we already had our bags packed, we might as well stay. And I'm so glad we did!!

Thursday morning we woke up to a world of white...it was so peaceful and serene! My parents live "in the woods", so it was fun to see so much snow covering the wooded area around us. After pancakes for breakfast, we bundled up all of the kids to head outside. My brother had brought over his 2 kids to play, as well. He has a pretty heavy duty truck, so he had no problem coming up the snow-covered, steep driveway. After at least 15 minutes of fiddling with zippers, and putting on hats, mittens, coats, and boots...the cousins were finally out the door!

All the cousins (minus baby Hannah, 11 months old, who was taking a nap)!
Mikayla (5 years), Hailey (2 1/2 years), Jacob (10 1/2 years), Noah (5 years), Austin (3 1/2 years), Hunter (3 1/2 years)

First...check out the snow!

Then...time for sledding!!
Getting ready at the top of the hill...

Noah & Hailey

Jacob & Hailey

Doesn't this look like they're bobsledding?

Trying to steer...
What a blast!!

After playing in the snow for at least an hour, the snow started melting away. Yep, that's Oregon for you!! The kids decided to come in for some hot cocoa...sipped through a straw, of course!


Hunter, Jacob, & Noah
And, then two hours later, it started to snow again...huge, white flakes. Another two hours later? Melting. It was fun while it lasted.

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Speaking of memories...I've been doing a lot of thinking about where I want this blog to go. I realize that I can only get out of this blog what I put into it. So, how much time do I have to put into it? Not as much as I would hope to! But...after looking through some older posts from when the kids were younger, I am SO VERY THANKFUL for the memories I was able to document, so why would I give that up? For now, I'll keep doing what I can do and documenting the memories. It's not about the number of comments I get or the number of people who visit my site, but it's about sharing the memories and helping to inspire when I can.

something about those shoes

I'm thinking it's about time we get rid of these shoes...

You think!?

Oh my goodness, this is embarrassing. For some reason Austin has this strange attachment to these shoes. He loves them and wants to wear them ALL THE TIME. The other night, he even wanted to wear them to bed. Really?

On Sunday, we were forced to let him wear these to a birthday lunch for my brother because it would have been a nightmare of a time if we didn't! I just wanted to keep the peace, and so he wore the shoes.

On the way home, Ryan and I devised a plan to get him to start wearing his other shoes. I never thought we would have to do a shoe intervention on a 2-year old...on a boy for that matter!

I knew at least a week or so ago that it was about time for new shoes and since it's still sandal weather here in Oregon, I took him to Payless Shoe Source and we found a cool new pair of Cars shoes. Was he excited about them? Not even in the slightest. Hello!? They even light up in the back! I never buy shoes that light up! But I thought maybe he actually would wear them because of that. The only thing he liked to do with them was hit them on the ground to watch them light up.

So, we took them back.


Just on Saturday, while out hitting up some garage sales with Mikayla, I found a pair of green Crocs for $1.00! His size, great condition, and so I thought to myself, "score!"


Nope. Wants nothing to do with them.

In fact, he would rather wear his water shoes than wear a perfectly brand new pair of every day shoes. And, as you can tell, pretty soon we'll be seeing his toes pop through on these, too.


And, then there's the time I mistakenly let Austin play outside in an almost brand new pair of shoes, and a couple of days later found this...


It still hurts me just to look at these! Good thing I only paid $3.74 on clearance back in January. Although, I kind of thought they would last longer than oh, let's see...2 days!!

After some smart thinking (and a couple pairs of ruined shoes), I finally thought to make an "outside shoes only" basket to keep in the garage.

Could have used that A LITTLE EARLIER in the summer!!


What's the culprit to all this madness?

Just watch and you will see...



Curious on where those shoes in the first picture are?

In the garbage.

Pray for us.

boy meets dog

This boy is going to have to do some pretty
persuasive talking to get himself one of these.
I must admit...this makes it pretty tempting to give in.

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

simple thoughts

It's H-O-T today!!

While hanging out in the garage, Mikayla found the directions to our "shark pool" (as she calls it).

Which, I find funny that there are even directions to read, but anyway...

She began reading them out loud.

Put in water.
Then hop in the pool.

Oh, if only life really was this simple.

catching you up to speed

I'm so behind.

There's no beating around the bush on that one.

We have had some fun times over this last month, so I thought it would be fun to share some collages all in one post (thanks to my friend, Leanna, who shared with me awhile back how to make the collages using Picasa from Google). It's kind of like killing 5 birds with 1 stone. Although I would never actually do that... (Click on each collage if you would like to view it larger.)

So, if you've been wondering what we have been up to, here you go...

Summer Birthdays!!

~Kenneth Caldwell turned 3 years old celebrating with a firefighter themed party!
~Cousin Riley turned 4 years old & Cousin Parker turned 2 years old celebrating with a carnival themed party!
~Allie Edinger turned 3 years old celebrating at the Wilsonville Murase Plaza splashing around with water.
~Cousin Hailey turned 1 year old on the 4th of July and the cousins were all able to be together when they came down from Washington for a visit.
~Jilian Sommerville turned 2 years old with a fun Elmo party!
~Ryan celebrated his 29th birthday on July 22.
~And coming up on Sunday we'll be celebrating Cousin Hunter's 2nd birthday with a farm animal party!

Tis the season of birthdays!!

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Water Fountain Fun!

My sister and family came down for a visit over the 4th of July, and it was also cousin Hailey's birthday. We decided to hit the water park and let the kids beat the heat on Friday, the 3rd. Later that night, we celebrated Hailey's birthday with pizza and cupcakes.

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4th of July

Like I had mentioned in an earlier post a couple of weeks ago, our 4th of July was a little low key this year. In the afternoon after our pool time extravaganza and dinner at Buster's Barbecue, we let the kids play with "pop-its". Then later in the evening, after PJs, we pulled out the sparklers and let the kids have a little fun...in the light. Then 8:00 rolled around and the kids headed to bed. Yes, that is it. That was our 4th of July. Maybe next year we'll attempt letting the kids stay up until 8:30. I know. I walk on the wild side sometimes. If nothing else, I will at least dress my kids in patriotic gear. I was so jealous seeing pictures of little ones in red, white, and blue. Not sure why I was such a scrooge this year.

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Robin Hood Festival Parade

Just last weekend, we met up with our good friends, the Newtons, and watched our town's annual parade. Mikayla and her best friend, Ellie, enjoyed the parade and picking up candy while Austin and baby Claire (4 months old) were content in the arms of their daddy and mommy. Austin did like yelling "truck!" with almost every passing vehicle and after the parade the girls got their faces painted with matching butterflies.

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Ryan's Birthday

Last Sunday we celebrated Ryan's birthday a little early with family by meeting up at his favorite dinner spot...Buster's Barbecue. On his actual birthday (Wednesday), we surprised Ryan at work with cupcakes we made for him and his work buddies. Later that evening we headed to Red Robin for a free burger and then afterwords sang him happy birthday, ate more cupcakes, and gave him his presents.

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So, there you go! Fun times in a nut shell. There are lots of other things that have been keeping us busy like park play dates, backyard water fun, playing in the yard, and anything we can do to enjoy the awesome weather we're having! I've been pretty much succeeding at avoiding any form of responsibility. I guess you could say I'm kind of in the rebellious phase of keeping everything organized and running smoothly. (Which, I suppose some of my friends are laughing at me right now because you know I would actually never be able to do this for an extended period of time.)

Today, we met up with Ryan and his work at lunch time for their annual company picnic. The kids each got to take a whack at a pinata. I was this close to taking the stick myself and enjoying a little stress relief of my own. But I refrained after I realized I have nothing to be that stressed about!



Seriously, I think I'm in love with these carefree, summer days. That's probably why you haven't really been seeing much craftiness or creativity coming from me. But, just you wait, I know it's in there somewhere and it will start exploding soon!

In the meantime, leave me a comment letting me know what crafty creations you've been up to! I think I need a little inspiration. I bet there are some good ones I'm missing out on in my lack of making my rounds in blog land!