Photo Shoot Continued

Here are a few more pics from the photo shoot. Just too cute not to share.

Photo shoot

Last month I cashed in a coupon for a photo shoot not expecting anything fabulous, but at least hoping to get 1 good shot of the 2 kids together that we could put on display. I was thrilled when I saw how many cute shots there were of the kids. Addy was like a professional with how well she turned on the charm and smiled on cue for each shot. And even Cameron behaved perfectly and smiled for the camera. I was one proud mama with two adorable kiddos.

A Day at the Beach

Last weekend we headed down south to see Chuck and Robin at their beach cabin. Even though we were only there for about 24 hours, we did a lot of different things and had a wonderful time! We realized it was Cameron's first overnight trip and all in all he did pretty well. Addy and Brian went in a boat together, Chuck and Brian went kayaking, we saw starfish, crabs, sand dollars and a geoduck farm. It was a wonderful weekend and I just can't believe that my kids will grow up with mountains and beaches as a staple in their childhood. Funny enough Addy's favorite memory of the weekend was strawberry ice cream and bubbles! She clearly had a good time though.  She was asleep in her car seat before we even got out of the driveway on the way home.

7 months

Cameron is 7 months old today and just got another tooth yesterday! One of his top teeth is coming in now as well and of course he's been fussier. It feels like just when he got over his last runny nose, now he has a new one and a cough. Poor guy. He is getting so much more active now. He scoots all over the floor, he's into everything (especially pulling hair) and he's eating lots of solids. He still is not sleeping through the night the way I wish he was, but oh well. He's also a short napper just like big sister, but he seems to do better with naps at school then he does at home. Our best luck is always in the stroller. He makes a lot of sounds, "babababa" and "gagagaga" but no words yet.

Say My Name

Baylee, who is 5, was very excited to see Addy, but Erin told me several times to not take it personally if she couldn't remember her name. Apparently it is not one of her strengths. During the time she was here she called Adelyn the following: Abby, Madelyn, Victoria, and Kate. Eventually she finally gave up and just called her friend, cousin or "you". It was hilarious because she did the same thing with all of us. She called Cameron Mike and Ben and then just settled on "little baby." Finally on the very last day as they were leaving Baylee declared, "I've got good news and sad news. The sad news is that I'm going to miss her, the good news is that I remembered her name." But of course, 3 minutes later when I quizzed her she forgot.

This was our attempt to get a photo of all of the kids together. It didn't quite work out but was the only time they were all sitting at the same time.
The trip ended just as crazy as it began. I dropped everyone off at the airport and then got a call from Erin that their flight was canceled since they had a connection through San Francisco and the airport was closed. They discussed all of their options and the soonest they could get out on the same airline with no extra charges was Wednesday, so crazy at it sounds they decided to rent a car and drive back to San Diego which is 1200 miles. Mapquest quoted 20 hours...they made it in 20 hours, with 2 kids and drove all night. I'm still amazed and just hope and pray that they will still be brave enough to come visit us again.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

Since Erin and Jason have a pool in their backyard and are right next to the ocean, we wanted to come up with something cool to do with them. Especially since this was their first trip visiting us in the summer. We decided to take them on a ferry and then go for a short, easy, kid-friendly, hike in the mountains. It was one of those ideas that sounded perfect and then there was the reality. In my head it went like this: Get up, grab a quick breakfast, hop on the ferry, drive an hour and a half to the mountains, go for a short hike, enjoy the view and then back on the road again, maybe home in time to eat dinner at our house. Reality went something like this: Wrangle the kids to eat breakfast and get dressed, realize first ferry time has come and gone, shoot for the next ferry, cross our fingers and make it on as the 3rd to last car, stop for bathroom breaks, have a screaming baby in the car, stop at store to buy shoes and long sleeve shirts that were forgotten, stop for lunch, have several timeouts during lunch, get back in car, head to mountains, have screaming baby in car, finally make it to trails by 3:30, spend a few hours on the trail and at the park, stop for dinner, back in car with screaming baby, wait for ferry, make it on 9:10 ferry, home by 10:00, kids are crabby, parents are crabby. One. Very. Long. Day.
So, maybe it was too much to tackle for one day. At least the views were amazing and the kids were wonderful while we were on the hike. We saw deer, a marmut, snow and of course the amazing scenery. I'm sure soon I'll think it was worth it, but right now the sound of Cameron screaming is still ringing in my ears.

Happy 4th of July!

What a wonderful 4th of July we had! Perfect weather, a wonderful parade, and our friends Erin and Jason and their kids Baylee and Noah visiting us from San Diego. We had a wonderful 4th and discovered we can see the fireworks from our upstairs window in our house. That was as far as we were willing to go to watch them because spending the day with 4 kids is quite simply exhausting.