Learning to Ride a bike

By Golly I think he has GOT IT!!!






Of course with learning to ride a bike comes the first bike wreck!! I am proud to report that he got right back up and tried again.

Look out she can RUN!!

While daddy was teaching Gabriel to ride his bike Abby figured out that she could really move!!



Of course then she wanted to test the limits and see how FAR she could go!!!

Forts at the Fort

We had a wonderful time at Fort Ebey last weekend. I packed a picnic lunch and we drove up to the top of the bluff trail and ate our picnic there. Then we hiked down. The hike is always beautiful there and this time we found some wild raspberries along the way, yum! When we got down to the beach the boys were so excited to see that there were forts made out of driftwood all along the beach. They played and played in the forts, Abby did too. We finally dragged them away from it realizing too late that they had not rested at the beach at all, so on the hike back up the boys were sooooo tired. I ended up taking Noah by the hand mid trail and basically dragging him the rest of the way. We were all tuckered by the time we got to the top. But it was such an enjoyable day!!! I think that next time we go to Fort Ebey we might just go to the beach and build our own fort.

July 4th 2009

Playing in the Sprinklers and watching the parade, what a great way to spend the 4th!! It was such a beautiful weekend we couldn't have asked for a better holiday!

Helping Daddy wash the Jeep

What could be more fun than helping daddy wash the Jeep??? As you can see by their faces the boys will be more than willing to do this chore anytime!!

Move over Holly Hobbie

I needed a good sun hat for Abigail and I had seen this cute little prairie hat tutorial that a friend did. So I decided to give it a try. I did alter it a little. I decided I wanted to be able to use it as a nursing bonnet as well so I squared of the brim and made it wide enough to fold back. That way when we are nursing in the summer sun instead of throwing a blanket over us I can just straighten the brim out. I love how it turned out. After I was done I had extra fabric and couldn't resist making a little "holly hobbie" apron to go with the hat.

It's time they learned

Well I have two school-aged kiddos now and I decided that it is time they learned some responsibility. We decided to invest in the accountable kids program (www.accountablekids.com). I just love this program!! It keeps them focused and they are learning that they can take care of their things without mommy's constant nagging. The bonus is that besides just reminding them to do the day to day, it also encourages them to do chores. Woohoo!

And a few more things momma is doing to get our household running smoother.

I put together a household notebook... got the suggestion from a great mom friend of mine, and used a lot of the suggestions at www.organizedhome.com

And I bought a new calender specifically for families. With a section for each person in the household :) These things may not seem like a big deal but they are really doing us a world of good.

Getting Organized and Summertime Fun

I am just determined to be an organized momma... but if you know me you know that is a hard thing for me. I am naturally very disorganized and scatter brained!! But I am giving it a good go in this house. Here are some things I have been working on.

Our coat closet. I bought a shoe rack for our gobs of shoes and put a little basket in there for abby shoes. And at the top of the closet is two baskets one for summer accessories and one for winter.

This is our Launch Pad. It holds the jackets we use the most and the kids backpacks. On Abby's hook is an on the go pack just for things to do in the car if we have a long drive. And the last hook is for Ferdinand's leash and my camera bag.

And our summer activities:

I bought a new sling bookshelf to display our library books. We tend to forget about them during the week, so this keeps them out where the kids can see them. And the basket at the bottom is where we put them when they have been read and are ready to go back to the Library. We started a paper chain to help us count how many books we can read this summer. Our goal for the summer being 100 books. I am happy to say that we are at about 20 right now. I don't know if we will make our goal of 100 but it is definitely gotten us reading a whole lot. And the kids are pretty impressed at how long our chain is getting.

And this is our Window into summer :) We wrote summer fun activities on little dots and put them on the wall, when we do them we move them to another wall. So far we have done about 10 of them. And it has really kept us from being couch potatoes this summer!!

Noah's 5th Birthday!!

For Noah's Birthday this year we did a Star Wars Theme. It was just us this year. That is the downside of moving a lot, sometimes birthdays come at a time when you are new to the area so we don't know enough people to have a big party. But we had fun JUST US!! Mommy did the cake, no laughing :) I am not a cake decorator. But I think I did pretty good making a gluten free star wars cake. I last minute decided to do the lightsabers and didn't have any food coloring so I used sprinkles, and cocoa. The icing is marshmallow fondant, it was not easy to make and I don't think I will ever do that again. Next time I will order some icing for him ahead of time. It was daddy's AWESOME idea to do a picture cake. And yes the picture is edible and gluten free!! I photoshopped a star wars poster and put Jedi Noah into it. The boys spent the day and evening watching star wars movies and playing lego star wars. We made Noah's crown that morning and when I put a big 5 on it he exclaimed, "Mommy, am I 5 years old now??" It was precious! And they both got to stay up WAAAAAAY past their bedtime so that they could try out the light up lightsabers in the dark outside. The last video is of Noah and Daddy fighting in the dark.

Port Townsend Ferry

Well hang in there with me I still have a TON of pictures from my parents trip here and I want to share them all with you. I am just a little behind in getting them up.

Mom read this great article in one of her (MANY, haha) magazines about Port Townsend. We decided that she couldn't miss out on seeing that this trip so we made reservations for the ferry and went over on a tuesday. The Ferry was fun, I had never been on the ferry so it was a new experience for me and the boys. Port Townsend was such a neat town. Very old, I think we figured out that it was established around the 1850's. The buildings were so pretty. Gabriel took that picture, by the way. And Noah found a PUZZLE STORE that we will be sure to visit again. We also had a great time at the beach at Fort Worden. That shot of Ferdy digging in the last post was taken there.