4 Years

Wow! What a crazy weekend we've had. It's hard to believe that only 4 years ago our beautiful little Gracie pants came into our family. She is the sweetest, yet most stubborn child at times. She makes the most remarkable facial expressions. It's amazing to see how smart she is and how fast she is learning new things. Grace is loving going to preschool, and she is quickly mastering writing her own name. I am so proud of her. So, back to our weekend....

Friday: We took Grace and a friend to Chuck E. Cheese's. It was a Friday night, so you would think pure chaos right? Not so. It was awesome. We all had a really good time! There were hardly any people there. The girls got to run around and be silly and do all the rides. They could have cared less about the games that actually give you tickets. They just wanted to ride. Chris and I got to relax and watch them have fun without stressing about keeping track of them. It was perfect.

Saturday..... So this was Grace's actual birthday. We celebrated by carving our pumpkins. It was quite a chore. Cleaning out pumpkins in a house of girls is a bit of a chore. We heard a lot of "ewww", "gross", "I don't want to touch that yucky stuff", and "I don't want to do it anymore". Tobe honest, I was thinking the same things. If it hadn't been for Chris giving them a hard time, I probably would have been complaining too. I was brave for them. They did enjoy making their pumpkin faces and cutting out the pieces. They also helped me collect all the seeds to bake. We enjoyed that yummy snack in the afternoon.

After nap time, we headed to Costco. We ended up with a nice new couch for the downstairs. So we spent a lot of the afternoon taking out the old couch, vacuuming, and putting in the new one. Phew! I love it!

While we set this up, I was also making chili to take to our ward Halloween party. We ate chili and cornbread and had a costume parade along with costumes and games galore. The kids had a great time! It was a busy day!

Whew. Sunday....after 3 hours of Church, including the greatly anticipated primary program, we came home to get ready for Grace's other birthday party. We made tacos for our families. We had about 20 people in our house, and it turned out great! The food was good, Grace loved her presents, and the cake was a hit. I think everyone had a good time. The only exception was Neil. He was so tired, that during dinner we looked over and he was asleep in the high chair. Poor baby. It was pretty cute though. To top off the evening, Claire lost her first tooth just before bedtime. I will post more about that later. Now, the kids are all in bed, and we are relaxing after such a crazy weekend. The really crazy part is that things aren't over yet. Halloween is tomorrow. This time tomorrow night, I will be "inspecting" the night's loot. Can't wait!

Going to the Lodge...

We have heard so many great reviews from friends who have made the trek up to Grand Mound, WA for the famous Great Wolf Lodge. So, we decided that we needed to check it out ourselves. It lived up to the hype. Our girls were at a great age for the water park. They were both tall enough to ride the slides with us. We were lucky enough to be able to leave Neil with Grandma for the night while we played. It would have been much crazier trying to entertain him the whole time.
Unfortunately, I didn't get many pictures (Water parks aren't great for cameras), but I did snap a few of the cool lobby that was all decorated for Halloween. Check out the giant spider. It's made out of balloons! There was also a trick or treat trail where the kids could dress up and hit up certain places for some candy. The kids liked getting the candy, but it was a little lame since there were only 4 "stops". We played in the water for hours and the girls really liked the wave pool. There was a great tube slide that all 4 of us could ride together. It was pretty fun. The room was pretty spacious and nice, and even though the food was pretty expensive, we all had a great time! I think we will be going back perhaps when the baby is a bit older.

Day off

What do you do when school is out for the day?? We decided to live it up and sleep in, bake some cookies, enjoy the sunshine at the park, and then hang out with grandma for a bit. What better way to spend a Friday? It was pretty perfect.

Pumpkins and Sun

We were very lucky with great weather on a Saturday, so we capitalized and took the kids to the pumpkin patch. We've gone to Lakeview Farms every year since we moved back to Oregon, and it continues to be a hit!

This year we brought along my parents who had a great time helping and watching the kids have fun. There were lots of people, which made some of the lines long, but there were still plenty of great pumpkins to choose from. The girls had their faces painted and had a great time running around the hay bales. Of course the dragon and shark in the lake were highlights. Another successful year at the pumpkin patch!

Field Trip Time

Last week Grace's preschool group had their first field trip. It was a trip to the fire station. I was actually pretty excited to see what their set up was like inside their little "house". Grace, however, really didn't want to go. I had to drag her out the door, and bribe her with bringing a toy along in order to manage a peaceful arrival.

Our tour started out great. We got to see the truck up close and listen to the firemen talk about what they do. The boys especially had a great time. Grace wanted to see, just from a distance. The firemen let the kids shoot an extinguisher with water in it across the lawn. Of course, Grace didn't want to participate. Then came the excitement. They got a call on their radio. We all scampered over to the predesignated meeting area, and watched as they loaded up and rolled out with sirens and lights going. Afterwards, we all just sort of stood around and tried to corral the kids for a photo. At that point Grace was like, "why did they have to leave? I don't want them to leave. I want to shoot the water. Will they come back now?" It just figures.

I was secretly hoping that our tour would end this way. It was quite the send off....I just wish we would have had a few more minutes there first.