Summer

I can't believe Summer is half-way over.  I knew this summer would be tougher and we wouldn't be able to do as much as I/kids wanted because of Norah, but I still feel bad for the older kiddos.    I'm trying to make our house as entertaining as possible, and Caleb is definitely helping with the laughs

 Michael took Savvy on her first backpacking trip.  They went with another dad/daughter friend and had a great time.  The older she gets the closer she is getting to Michael... like adores him.  He can make her smile and laugh in a way no other person can

Caleb has found an easy way to get out of going to bed every night, asking to go potty.  I'm not even trying to start but he asks and sits on it for a good 30-40 minutes at night.  The other night he came out of the bathroom and said "eww gross"... that quote in itself made me laugh.  But when I went in there he had gone to the bathroom....like REALLY gone to the bathroom :)  We had a marshmallow party

He also likes to use the potty cushion as a hat

                                           

 The kids went crazy with tattoos and during bath time I found 6 on Cohen's rump....boys.  I think Cohen looks just like Jay Leno in this picture

Crater Lake

Monday we drove to Crater Lake, and it was stunning.  It's the deepest lake in the US and was formed by the collapse of a volcano.  So there are no rivers going in or out and it was filled by rain and snowfall...pretty cool

This picture is looking down, so thats water not the sky :)

 We stopped and had lunch at another state park and gave my poor frog baby a break

 Norah turned 2 months and is growing so fast.  She reminds me of Cohen in how she loves the carrier and would never make a peep if I carried her around all day.  But this baby's will is so much like Savvy's.  She does not give up, and lets you know that she is not happy being put down.  She is smiling and cooing and it's so soft and sweet and then if I put her down her cry is angry and goes on and on and on ;)  Even so she has put a spell on all of us and we can't get enough

On Tuesday we made it back home and we all slept like the dead that night.  It was so much fun and the kids had a blast.  My favorite part is just us all being together uninterrupted by work and schedules.  I asked Savvy and Cohen what there favorite part of the trip was and they both said "staying in a rotel"

Sunday

Sunday we turned around and started back home.  Caleb's language is just exploding and he is hilarious.  On the trip he came up with a new phrase "I can't breave "breathe"".  Caleb lets get buckled, I can't breave...Caleb come get dressed, I can't breave...Caleb get in the bath... I can't breave

 We had lunch on a beach in California, we caught it during low tide and I turned into the starfish whisperer.  I found 2 starfish and both were dead, this one was dried and stiff

               And bless this one, I'm not sure what was wrong with him

 Norah slept the entire time we were on the beach.  By today she had cried so much in the car that she lost her voice.  She sounded like a frog crying, it broke my heart.  I cannot figure out why she hates riding in the car

Coming out of Redwood we drove along the Smith river.  It is one of California's last wild rivers.  It was gorgeous and the pictures did no justice to how beautiful the water was.   It was so incredibly hot that we only stopped for about 30 minutes

Redwood

Saturday we made it to California and got to see the tallest tree's in the world.  It was so amazing, the only thing we didn't like were the mosquitos.  The kids loved it and ran around like crazy

Caleb was hiding in the trees.... if he is hiding he is doing his business.... at least it made it in a diaper this time :)

There are a couple of Elk sight seeing stations and we were lucky enough to find some.  We also saw a bald eagle but my picture didn't turn out

Friday

Our bed time this week was at the earliest 10 and that made our wake time around 9 which was fabulous!  We headed out close to 11 and drove down the Pacific Coast highway.  Sweet precious Norah hates the car, actually if there is a word stronger than hate that is what she feels about riding in the car.  We stopped about every 2 hours to see a total of 3 beaches which was perfect for her.  She screamed in the car and then slept when we stopped.  The older kids were troopers and LOVE the beach.

The water feels like ice water, I could barely keep my feet in the water but it didn't stop the kids at all

We had to make this trip as affordable as possible so that meant packing a huge cooler for lunch and snack's for the week.  So we had a picnic everyday with PBJ sandwiches for lunch, then for dinner we did $5 pizza's and subway and tacos and any and every cheap dinner we could find... again totally worth it

I LOVE the beach and what I love even more is watching the kids play here.  It's God's playground and the imagination and giggles that happened just made me so thankful.  Completely worth my screaming, car-hating Norah :)

These were the Oregon sand dunes and unfortunately our pictures did no justice to how big they were.  We had the beach to ourselves

Road Trip 2013

Michael had a conference in Corvallis, Oregon which is halfway to the Redwoods so we made the brave decision to turn it into a road trip.  It was hard, but it was oh so good!  Caleb pooped in the pool and hot tub, got stung by a bee, Michael and I got in a fight over ice cream, Norah screamed so hard in the car that she went hoarse, we had 3 of us in one full size bed sleeping it was stressful but it was fun and memorable and magical and I sure do love my family.

We drove down on Monday and he was done Thursday night. So Tuesday-Thursday it was just the kids and I from sun up to sun down.  I maintained my sanity by going to the pool several times a day, 2 movies (thank you M.A. who funded our movies), puppet show at the library and at one point I just loaded us up in the car drove for an hour.

His eyelashes...

 These two swam and swam and swam.  They loved the pool and we had it to ourselves every day

 On Tuesday we had been in the pool for about 20 minutes when Savvy yelled what does Caleb have... oh... I didn't put a diaper on him because we were going after lunch to get swim diapers and I really thought he would be fine... He had pooped by the hot tub and there was a poop trail around more than half of the pool AND a baby ruth sitting at the bottom of the pool.  I cleaned up all around the pool and seriously thought I'm going to leave and not tell anyone.  But my conscience got the best of me and I put the kids in our room and ran to the front desk and confessed that my son pooped in the pool.  I got all 3 bathed (while Norah was screaming on the bed).  And then I went for my hour drive :)
That night we went back to check the pool and it was clean and smelled so strongly of chlorine.  I let the kids get back in and then maintenance came in to check the chemicals... and I was praying that the kids wouldn't tell him it was us who had tainted the pool.
The kids were creepers and I think it made him very uncomfortable.  He never acknowledged them..ha

     While the kids were swimming Norah usually slept on me, here was the rare time she was awake

Corvallis was a really pretty town but I was ready to go by Friday and SO CRAZY thankful to have Michael back