A few photos...

Here's a photo of our little booth

This picture just gives you an idea of the awesome entertainment that we had at the fair. Read more below about our fair experience.

You live, you learn

Is it physically possible to die from boredom? I asked myself this question a dozen times today. This our weekend at the marion county fair. Otherwise known as the Marion lamest place in the world fair. Holy Cow, i've learned i need to do more research before I sign us up for a fair. The fair lasts four days (12 hour days) We have been open 2 days and sold about 8 things. There is no way that we will be making any money on this deal. In fact we'll be losing some. But i'll have to chalk it up as a "learning experience." Just so you understand how lame this fair is, our booth is surrounded by, "Brink's home security", "a united way booth" "3 grange booths" and some guy selling tools. Hardly anyone walks by all day and I am going completely insane. I've read national geographic, parents, family circle, Ok, Canadian living, The friend, readers digest and a few others, twice! I've mastered Sudoku, and inspected my hair for every split end possible. :)
We plan on enduring another day and then bailing on the whole show (against the rules..but who cares!) so we don't have to work Sunday. It was just not the right venue for our stuff. Oh well, you live you learn.

Smarty pants

Cole's reply to everything I say is "I know." So here's a recap of a conversation we just had.
"Cole you have to fill out your whole chart before you get a prize."
"I know."
"How come you know everything?"
"Because I'm four and four year olds know things."

And that pretty much sums of the thinking of every four year old in the world.

Sunriver

Every year my family takes a trip to Sunriver. This is one of the few times when we are all together. I look forward to this trip every year. Sunriver is one of my favorite places to be, and this year was no exception. We were there five days and managed to get about....oh, 5 pictures. So i've included most of them. We did get some video, but we are lame at taking pictures.
The week went by so fast. We went for long bike rides, Played tennis, went swimming, played the Wii, Relaxed, and soaked in the hot tub. We also celebrated my mom's birthday with a flaming cake! (literally) Brent ran in a 5 mile race and came in 5th overall (about 30 people participated) and 2nd in his age bracket. I did the 3 mile walk with my sisters.
One night Brent and I and my sister Kelly, rode our bikes down to the "village" to watch a concert. Well we stayed a little too long and the sun went down. You have to understand that in Sunriver, they don't have lit bike paths. It is very dark and you can't ride on the roads. So we had an exciting bike ride home (maybe 2-3miles?) in the (almost) pitch dark. We could see about 5 feet in front of us at all times. We had fun laughing as we prayed we wouldn't crash into any trees....or deer.
Brent had a great time golfing with his "Brothers" early one morning. What a handsome guy!

My brother Stephen and Brother-in-law Garrick.
Malia with her cousins Becca, Emma and Evan. They had a great time playing together. Malia has been a little bit Sassy lately, so I have to thank her cousins for putting up with her. Any advice on sassy seven year olds? This is my first time and i'm pretty inexperienced in this area (parenting that is)

The girls put on a "show" for everyone on the fourth of July. The sang some songs and read some facts about independence day. They were so excited and had chairs set up for all of the adults. It was really cute!

It was a fabulous trip and we are now home. The house is a disaster and we have 3 days to get ready for the county fair, which starts on Thursday and which i'm absolutely dreading. I'm wondering why I signed us up for this thing...we'll see if it's worth all the work?? Wish us luck.

Happy Birthday Cole!

Cole turned four yesterday and we had a fun day celebrating. He was so excited for his birthday and has promised that he'll stop sucking his thumb when he turned four. I have a feeling that will be a hard bargain to keep.
Cole had "batman brownies" for his b-day. Although when it came down to it all he wanted was the ice cream.

We spent the afternoon at the Gilbert house with his cousins. (A children's interactive museum) The kids had a great time. Cole is such a good boy and i've loved having him around. I'm looking forward to more one-on-one time with him as Jacob starts school in the fall. Cole is always quick to say, i'm sorry and give me a hug, when he's made me mad. He is definately my most mischevious child, but in an innocent way. He is always breaking, spilling, getting into something. He is just curious. He loves to be in the garage with Brent, playing with his tools. He will be Brent's right hand man someday as they fix things together. He's a great boy and i feel blessed to have him!

I had to add this picture. Until recently we had no markers in the house, and this is why. Claire has just discovered the joy of markers. I was actually just glad she got it on herself and not on my carpet. :)

Weekend update

My brother became a married man over the weekend. We enjoyed a nice, quiet wedding in
my parents backyard. The weather was perfect and the food was great. Stephen and Oksana were glowing the whole night. I'm excited to see him so happy and i can't wait to get to know Oksana better. Welcome to the family!


Stephen and Oksana cutting the cake.



On another note: Jacob recently outgrew his bike, so we bought him a new one and Cole inherited Jacob's old bike. We told Cole that he would be getting a bike for his birthday. So Brent took the bike apart and painted it red and applied some vinyl decals. The decal on the side says "cole" with flames. On the front is a small dragon. (he requested a dragon?) Cole is in LOVE with his bike and I love that he is so happy and excited about a hand-me-down. He asks every day if we can go for a bike ride. He is getting better and faster at riding every day. He's such a fun boy.

Finally an update

I haven't been too great about updating lately. I've been so busy. Brent and I are doing a booth at the Marion County fair, July 10th and it's really sneaking up on us. We have a lot of work to do and not much time. We will be heading to Sunriver soon and so that's one week less to get stuff done (although there is no place i'd rather be!) So my "spare" time is filled with signage...:)
Here's a few pics of some i've done. I've really enjoyed making some for kids rooms. Hopefully some of them sell.



Jacob just had his last t-ball game of the season. He loved it and told me that he wanted to play forever. He was a great fielder, he rarely let a ball by him. The funny thing is that his hitting seemed to get worse over the season. He had so many "coaches" constantly telling him what to do, that I think it may have overwhelmed him. The good thing is that he loved playing and had fun.

The boys went to a father/son campout over the weekend. They were so excited and talked about it all week. Malia was pretty upset that she didn't get to go. We stayed home and watched a movie together, then went to Shari's and to garage sales in the morning. The boys had a great time. Brent said they didn't get to bed until midnight, because of some other loud campers. So when they got home Cole crashed on his bedroom floor for about 4 1/2 hours. He slept until 2:00 in the afternoon. Their favorite thing was roasting marshmallows.

We were up in Seattle a few weekends ago to celebrate my BIL Logan's graduation from dental school. It was a short trip, but we had a great time and were glad we could be there to celebrate.

The only downside is that Brent got sick over the weekend and passed it on to all of Logan and Julia's family.....SORRY! It's always kind of annoying when visitors come and bring there sickness with them. Malia had thrown up two days prior to leaving, but everyone seemed fine the day we left. So we feel bad about that. This is a picture of Claire at Logan's. I realized we had no pictures of Logan at his graduation because we were using his camera to take pics.

This is the first summer that I've really felt like i've needed to be organized and plan stuff for the kids. They are at the age where they start to get bored easily (mostly Malia). So thanks to my SIL Sara for sharing a great website with me. http://www.sugardoodle.net/Educational%20Lesson%20Plans/index.shtml. I have the whole month of June planned. We do "school" time every morning, using ideas and worksheets from the website. The kids have absolutely loved it. So far we have made prayer pretzels, made jonah and the whale in a bottle, and worked on math and vocabulary. This morning we paper mache'd "planets" that we'll paint later in the week. It's been a lot of work for me to be organized and have everything ready, but it's worth it because the kids love it. We've also planned "field trips" to the park, gilbert house, strawberry picking, etc. So my only hope is that it will be a great summer for them. This summer we are also

*Going to sunriver

*taking tennis lessons (malia)

*Swim lessons

*Going to Lake Cavanaugh

*Camping at Silver Creek falls

*Going to bible school

So it should be a fabulous summer that I just know is going to fly by. We can't wait for all of these fun activities. Summer is the best!