Happy 7th Birthday Sydney!

I can't believe my little girl is already 7!!! One more year and she'll be baptized! CRAZY!!! Here is her hospital picture:

And now 7 years later! She's such a fun, loving, and pretty girl!

For her birthday she chose to go to a pottery/art place called "Wild @ Art" where she chose a deep heart plate to paint.

She wanted a big 7 for her cake this year. I think she is pretty proud to finally be 7!

Poor girl had to open up a picture of her boots, since they didn't arrive until the next day! She was still pretty stoked, as you can tell. Between that and the candy, she was pretty much set! ;)

Happy Birthday Sydney Ann. We love you!

New Family Additions

We have a few new additions to our family.

This was the truck that I was forced to drive in High School, which, believe it or not, was a step up from the old 1985 brown mini van with no seats! Weren't my parent mean? (you could have it WAY worse Aly!) I always parked in the dirt parking lot, because I was so embarrassed of it then, and that was 12 years ago!!! Mike heard that my dad was thinking about selling it and he got very excited about it, and bought it from him! I guess now we can haul crap to the dump, but I still make Mike park on the side or behind the house! ;)

Yes, another vehicle. This is another clunker! Mike's car is dying a slow death, so his new idea is to make 1 good car out of two (maybe 3) crappy cars, that are identical, except the color. I gotta give him props for his ambition. If it works it will save us lots of money, which is always good! In the meantime, we will be the white trash family on the street with all the old clunkers! Good luck honey! :)

Last, but not least.... meet Patrick. The girls were begging for a dog, thanks to Mike's parents who were trying to get rid of their last puppy. Dogs are fun, but I didn't want the responsibility of taking care of a dog right now with little Brooky, esp. a high maintenance one! So I told the girls they could get a cat. Way less work, although we do have to keep the spray bottle handy, for when he tries to play with the baby, get on the table, or jump up the screen door. Hopefully he catches on soon. At least the girls stopped asking for a dog!

11 Year Anniversary

Mike surprised me with a plane ride on our anniversary this year! His friend was nice enough to take us up for a ride. Mike originally planned to surprise me with breakfast in Spokane, but the clouds were too thick, so we couldn't go that way. But we still got to see lake Coeurd A'Lene and a few other close by areas. It was super pretty.

The rolling hills of the Palouse.

Dworshack Dam.

Aerial view of our house.

Mike wants to get his pilots licence now and get his own small plane. All in good time honey! :)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY BABE!!!! I had a great time flying with you. Here's to another 11 years!

County Fair

Livia made the San Diego Temple and entered it in the fair this year. She got a red ribbon for it. Good job Liv!

Mike submitted 2 pictures this year. This one with of the grass..

..and this one of Brookie still in the hospital.

The girls liked the animals, but they mostly just wanted to ride the rides the whole time! They had a good night.

Brooklyn

Here are a few random pictures of little Brookie! She is getting so big so fast! She is already 3 months old!

The first pic is showing her knew thing, sucking her thumb. It is SOOO dang cute. Although, it's prob. not the best thing for her when she gets teeth....

Now that she is 3 months old, she sleeps in her own room now! All by her little self! :) (now I just gotta figure out how to make her SLEEP all night long without feeding 2-3 times a night!)

This picture is showing her first pair of shoes, that finally fit her!!! (I can't wait until her Robeez shoes that I bought her forever ago fit her!)

I bought her a new 3-in-1 toy that changes as the baby grows. It's pretty cool. At this stage it lights up and sings with motion. But she is still getting used to it I think. (she could pass as a boy right now without any pink or purple on. Actually she reminds me of Matthew, huh Heather?!)

I found a Bumbo seat at a consignment shop for only 7 bucks!!! I love using it with her. Plus notice her cute little leggings! They didn't have cute stuff like this with Livia or Sydney, so I am loving all this fun stuff!!

She's getting better at keeping her head up, only for short periods of time still.

Mike & Livia are trying to teach her how to sit by herself already! :)

Okay, my bragging moment is over...... She is just so dang cute and so much fun!!!

Seattle Trip

It's been 3 more months, so we took Sydney to her next eye apt. This apt. didn't go as smooth as we hoped. She is pretty much the same as 6 months ago! UGH! Poor Sydney! The Dr. thinks there will be improvement if we keep patching and using eye drops for a little longer though, so we will; and hopefully her apt. in Dec. will have better news.

While we were in Seattle, we took the girls to this NW Trek & Wildlife place, where we rode an open bus and toured all the animals in their natural habitat. It was pretty cool I guess. We didn't see too many things that I haven't seen in my parents backyard in the country, but the girls liked it, and it was neat to see the animals so close up.

Here's a few pics of us on the way there. Of course we have to stop at the windmill rest area. They put a TON of new windmills up since last year! Some were pretty close to the road too. You can't tell by the picture, but each one is 300 feet tall! They are pretty massive.

Mike & I celebrated part of our anniversary early, since my sister, Tara was willing to babysit; since she lives in Seattle now. We ate at the Crab Pot, and I got King Crab, of course! It was so good. We ate outside and they brought it to me in a big bowl and then dumped everything on the table and put the bowl on the ground for me to put the shells into. Funny huh?! It was a fun experience.

I had to throw this picture in of my niece, Tamara. She is so beautiful! Her and Tara came with us to the Washington Coast. Mike talked everyone into driving another 2 1/2 hours to the "real" ocean (Ocean City Beach). I confess I dragged my feet and did not want to go, but it ended up being a really fun & beautiful day! Thanks honey! :)

We told the girls to only get up to their knees wet, which of course to them, meant up to their waist! They had a BLAST! It was fun watching them.

Brooklyn on the other hand..... I don't think she had a blast, but she was pretty good all day long. She spent a lot of it sleeping in her baby carrier.

We used the back of our van as a little kitchen, a bed to lay down in, and a beach cruiser as we drove around looking for seashells. It was fun to be at a beach where you could drive right up to the water!

We found tons of sand dollars, even ones that weren't broken yet, which is a rare thing!

The sand was perfect for building and playing in. Tara, Tamara, & Livia made a dolphin, while Sydney & I made Spongebob & Patrick. :)

Here's a few random landscape pics that Mike took. He's such a good photographer.