honey

The cousins have a brand new dog, Honey, and the boys, particularly Parker, were smitten with her!  Since returning home Parker has talked about Honey each day and whenever he hears a dog barking in the neighborhood he points in their direction and says questioningly, "Honey? Honey? Honey?".  I do believe he would have brought Honey home with us given the chance.

A highlight when visiting Frank's family is feeding Great-Grandma Billie's fish, the boys just love it!

I am always envious of Billie's beautiful begonia baskets and couldn't resist taking a few photos this time, their colors were so vivid.

Another highlight seems to have become riding (illegally) in the farm truck.  Poor Grandpa R just can't seem to escape all of his Grandchildren!

I can't decide if Parker looks a bit guilty or like he's about to jump ship!

Happy Independence Day

Yes, seriously, Grandpa R means business on the 4th of July, no wimpy fireworks allowed here!

We made the annual trek to Grandpa and Grandma R's for their wonderful Independence Day celebration.  There always seems to be something...this year, a swarm of bees.  Uncle Scott came to the rescue and removed them a few hours before guests started arriving!

Sweet Parker had a grand time! 

Grant, too, had a wonderful day and received a few handshakes from the crowd, haha!

Grant wanted nothing to do with the sparklers this year but our little Bear couldn't wait to get his paws on one.  I think Frank was as happy as Parker here!

We were so blessed to have a number of our friends travel from Portland to spend this day and evening with us!  Thank you all for making the trip and for making our 4th that much more memorable!

update

The week before last Grant completed his first official week of vacation bible school.  I taught his 4 year old class and we had a blast, in an exhausting kind of way!  The boys and I had to be out the door by 8 each morning, which was nothing short of a miracle, but we did it (thanks Frank for all of your help!) and are so thankful to have had such an awesome time learning about Jesus!  Grant had his friend Taius in his class as well as his friend Sophia so he was quite happy playing with them each day.


Parker has a LOT of words as we approach his second birthday, YIKES!  I cannot believe our baby is going to be 2 in less than a couple of weeks.  Grant likes to remind me that Parker is NOT a baby anymore, "MOM, he's already 1 and going to be 2!"  There is so much to say about our little Bear but I will wait to post more as we approach his special day.


In the meantime...a camping we will go, a camping we will go!

Happy Father's Day!

I'm not sure who had more fun, Grant, Frank or Grandpa O?  We slipped away for an hour, during Parker's nap (thanks Grandma O!), to go fishing at a small pond where Grant caught his first fish EVER!

So excited yet very cautious not to touch the fish!

Grant not so sure he wants to touch the fish...

but finally, Grandpa managed to talk him into it, I was shocked to say the least!

I still can't really believe he did it, he won't pick up a worm without his "work" gloves on but he managed to throw a fish back into the pond?!  Way to go Bud, I'm proud of you!

He really loved this entire experience and was so cute patiently watching the bobber in the water!

And a few last photos...bedtime books with Grandpa O

There were a LOT of golf cart rides over the course of our stay, the boys LOVED it!

Both boys were running around the driveway like crazy on our last evening, and Grandpa and Grandma O had captured them here!

Happy Father's Day!  We love you Grandpa O and Daddy Frank!  We can't wait until next year!

xoxo

great friends

So many of our great friends made long drives and big efforts to see us while we were in Iowa.  It never fails, we always seem to have a yard full of kiddos running around during our stay and we wouldn't have it any other way!

Jen and her adorable little Maggie and Max came for a fun visit!

Grant playing at the pool with his friend, Abbie

Kate the Great and her two little guys also paid a visit, Daniel and Jude!

This just makes me laugh, love you Bear...and thanks Frank for being willing to get really, really sticky each night ;)

 The Guild and Lien families came and it wouldn't be the same without a few park adventures with all six of our boys!

L to R: Jonathan, Parker, Caleb, Grant, Jacob and Josh

Sarah, Carla and I with our sweet little guys!

We love you all and can't thank you enough!

xoxo

June, you have been a blur!

We had a grand time visiting Grandpa and Grandma O in Iowa this month!  It was a wonderful trip with a lot of family time and time spent with friends.  We especially loved that it is Summer in the Midwest right now and we are still waiting for it to arrive in the Pacific Northwest!

Thanks, Mom and Dad, for a wonderful time in the old GC!

The boys always love the days Uncle Mark is visiting too!

Grant LOVED playing with Abbie, next door neighbor to Gpa and Gma O!  She was a really great sport and played with Grant endlessly while we were there.  He wanted to play hide-n-seek over and over and over again and she obliged, what a very kind and sweet little girl!

Two tan little bears, watching a movie together and eating popcorn and M&M's, I think Grant was in love at this point, haha!

We all had a lot of fun visiting a local dairy and the boys seemed pretty taken with it all.  The ice cream and homemade butter with crackers at the end of the tour were definite highlights for them!

I love this picture of Parker, he was so tickled to be sticking his head here all by himself, haha!

Kind of random but their mascot at the dairy is the Wallaby.  Grant enjoyed getting to feed one of them with the owner!

Yes, we all "got" to milk a cow.  This experience turned out to be quite memorable for Grant because for the remainder of our trip he wouldn't drink any milk.  He kept asking if it was dairy milk or from the store...pretty sure he thought the cows were peeing milk and he decided it was a bad idea to drink it anymore!  Thankfully, he's back to drinking milk again ;)

This is a four hour old calf, Grant loved it while Parker thought otherwise and kept his distance...too big to be a dog so he wasn't too keen!

My dear friend, Jamie, came with her adorable little ones, Aly and Evan, for a fun morning visit.  Thanks Jamie for taking the time and making the trip to see us, I loved catching up with you again!! 

the boys

Parker decided for a few weeks to go on strike, he decided he would not sit in a shopping cart and it didn't matter what a person did to entice him, he would scream, yes, scream at the top of his lungs in protest and would not stop until he was comfortably placed on your hip.  He would also not walk along, but rather all 25 pounds of him insisted on being carried, yes, even through Costco.  He may have won a few of the battles (or all of them) but I have finally won the war.  Here is our first successful outing to the grocery store, in a very long time, so I snapped a quick photo.

(Grant, for the thousandth time, will you PLEASE stop chewing on dog-dog!)

Any glimpse of the sun shining and we frequently head to the park, yes, it STILL rains here in June (a lot!)!

Free slushy day at 7Eleven, the boys were in heaven!

A few friends roasting marshmallows on Memorial Day

Lastly, our friend, Rossi, enjoyed a morning at the zoo with us this week, the boys had a blast!