Teepee from Grandma Smith

When Grandma came in February for a visit, she had a fabulous art project for the kids to help her with (she is an art teacher at an inner city elementary school). She had a couple of panels to a teepee she was planning to design with Native American artifacts with her students. Our kids got to be the first to help with the designing by putting their hand prints on the panels, and grandma drew our Madrone trees, Luke the dog, a cougar paw, and named it the "Hut on the Hill". She mailed us the finished product and the kids were so excited. She put a ton of work into this. Isn't it cool?

First Day of School

We all couldn't believe how fast the summer flew by. Even the kids weren't quite ready for school to start, but it was time. We all had a super summer. The kids played so well together and never complained about being bored or not having friends to play with. Preston and Sylvia are as different as can be, so they complement each other well. Sylvia has her exciting games and imagination that she lures Preston into playing, while he brings her back down to earth. Ethan is just happy to tag along and be a big kid with them. Briana would venture out for a short time with them, then come back ready to be my sidekick for the majority of the day. Now off to school go Preston, in 3rd grade and Sylvia, excited to finally start Kindergarten. This year she was ready and not afraid to leave me at all. What a change from last year! Ethan was sad that the big kids had to leave and he was stuck with a "baby"for a playmate for half the day.

This is how Briana and Ethan decided to spend their morning the first day the older kids were at school. They really were happy, just being silly for the camera with mad faces. Ethan had tied up Briana's feet and stacked pillows and blankets on her, wither her making hardly a peep. She is so quiet when he does this sort of thing, I always have to be close by to make sure she doesn't suffocate under all that fun!

Bastendorff Beach

For our last fun trip of the summer, we went camping at a great place called Bastendorff. It was our first camping trip in about the last 7 that it didn't rain on us. The weather was perfect and the kids had a great time! I realize there are more pictures of Ethan...but I guess he was just the one staying closest to me as he is most aware of the dangers of the water for some reason (for the crazy kid that he is, he is the more fearful of our little group). Sylvia has always been our water girl and was somewhere getting wet the whole time and Preston loved jumping in the waves, while Briana was happy to sit in my lap or hold someones hand to run through the water. Luke the dog was just happy when he got to be off leash to run as fast as he could...which is super fast. Luckily he always came back. There was a huge sand pit that someone had worked hard to dig out, and our kids had a blast sliding, jumping and falling in it to the point where it was half-way filled in by the time we left. We love the tide pools and rock formations of the OR coast. Amazing!

This was the sunrise at our house just as we were leaving for our camping trip. Isn't it a beautiful view? We like it.

Sandbox and Goat Trap

The kids have gotten great use out of the sandbox this summer. We started out with a load of sand that was too much for the sandbox, now we are getting close to the bottom, even after emptying the extras in. Too bad most of that sand has ended up on my planter beds and on the rock pathways...nothing a little winter rain can't wash away (hopefully).

Filling up each others shirts with sands to make pregnant bellies like moms. So silly!

After Sylvia got a goat horn to her eyelid, we decided it was high time to do something about it. Cordell built this great goat stand/trap (thanks to instructions online) and we were able to take off the sharp points from our 2 goats with horns. This worked much better than us trying to flip them on their sides and me sitting on them while Cordell tried trimming their hooves. Preston was a great tester outer!

Sylvia was being nurturing while he was in the goat trap and even gave him a kiss on the head and their wasn't anything Preston could do about it.

Briana is Two!

I know I am a month late in posting this, but better late than never. We can't believe it has been 2 years since Briana was born. She has been such a fun addition to our family! She is petite, yet spunky, loving and outgoing, a tease, sensitive, and a picky eater. She sits on my lap or climbs on my back whenever she gets the chance. She is a good talker and also likes to sing and lead the music. Briana loves to wear a variety of boots and jackets and all things girly. She is very sad when she can't play with her brothers and sister and does not like sleeping...when she does sleep, it is on the floor next to her bed. At her 2 year check up, she weighed 25 pounds 8 ounces and was 33 1/4 inches tall. Since Briana has a birthday in August, we couldn't resist doing a dream peach pie for her dessert...we are not much of a cake family around here. Here are some fun picture of our cute little girl!

More CA Cousin Fun

We're so glad our cousins came to visit from CA! They were good sports to come all this way instead of us meeting them to go camping (we were all camped out). They were easy to entertain. We just stayed around here and played. We are lucky to have such a great place to live...hot tub, trampoline, hammock, goats, fire pit, tetherball and wheelbarrow rides to name some of the fun at our house. Their boys played so well with our kids so everyone was happy. Thanks for the visit!

River Forks Park

Thanks to our cousins coming to visit, I got to take some time away from canning peaches and have fun with the kids at a nearby park. It is right by the river and has a beach type feel, with fresh water Muscles and everything. We had a great morning just playing and enjoying some beautiful weather and great cousins.

Sun River

Cordell had a medical conference at this awesome resort in Sun River, OR. Poor guy had to be in meetings while we had all the fun. The kids favorite part was being able to ride their bikes all over the paved trails. We did a bike ride to the nature center there which was a lot of fun. We got to see some "raptors" (predatory birds) and check out the sun through a giant telescope. I loved the poses behind the space suit!