Is she a little bit ripped, my mother would say riffed?

Probably asking politely for a fruit snack.





Baby girl also likes some color on those nails. Notice how she has one black toenail and the other has fallen off. Delicate, isn't she. On an unrelated side note, she started doing something that we all thought was hilarious. And now, as she has taken to doing it all the time, while still funny, it is starting to wear off. You know that sound you make with your voice when you're taunting someone? That ha ha ha ha sound? Baby girl makes this sound for almost any occasion.



"Time to get into the car kids," I say.



"Ha ha ha ha!" replies Lily.



"Dinner is ready, wash your hands," calls dad.



"Ha ha ha ha!" she cries.



"Yes, you're hilarious Lily," we all think.





Girl still likes her shoes.









Baby girl spends 99% of the time she is awake running, jumping, climbing, throwing, catching, or twirling herself about. Is it any wonder she looks like she lifts weights? Lily is quite coordinated, having a natural ability it seems to do just about anything physical. Chad and I just keep throwing balls at her, thinking that as long as she is destined to be quite tall, she might as well put it to use.



This seems to suit her just fine as she loves anything physical. Lily is complex though; she does much of her activities while in a princess costume or dress. She loves my makeup and has taken to painting her fingers and toes on every opportunity. I guess a passing joke that Chad made years ago is coming true. He was teasing (oh how he loves teasing) a female colleague of his for wanting to play on the firms basketball team and how women and men shouldn't play physical sports together (and he was probably only the tiniest bit teasing too as he doesn't like coed sports). She asked him what he would do if his daughter(only a couple of months old at the time) wanted to play in motor-cross sports.



To which he cleverly replied, "I wouldn't let her do that for fear that her dress would fly up in her face blocking her vision."



Words, are funny that way they do come back to you.

Rockaway beach; Part 2 of 4.

Me





In the water!

















THAT'S COLD!













The next day we woke up to a beautiful foggy morning. Luke, Lily and I went down to the beach and played fetch with our neighbors dogs. Let me tell you what, sixty five degrees in the morning is the perfect temperature. A couple of hours later the fog burned off and it was a glorious, sunny day. Rare for these parts.



We hung out on the beach and watched the children play. It was picturesque, the sun shining down, a perfectly comfortable temperature and contented children playing with each other. Any mother's dream. They even got in the ocean, all of them were a wee bit surprised being that the last ocean we were in was off the coast of Maui. Suffice to say, a couple of tears were shed. But! Being the resilient people we are we pressed on, there is fun to be had, people!



Lily's first words when she'd wake up each day were, "I wanna go to the beach!"



A saying that she continued weeks after we left the beach. It reached it's fever pitch though on the six hour car trip home. Imagine, her, repeating this line over and over again off and on for a couple of hours.



"I wanna go to the beach!"

"I wanna go to the beach!"

"I wanna go to the beach!"

"I wanna go to the beach!"

"I wanna go to the beach!"

"I wanna go to the beach!"

"I wanna go to the beach!"

"I wanna go to the beach!"



. . .get the picture?

Rockaway beach; part 1 of 4

Of course there was muscle flexing



















































Part of our adventure to Washington included a trip to the Oregon coast. We drove out to Portland and met up with my Aunt Vicky, my Cousin Lindsay and her sweet baby Maya. We spent the afternoon shopping in Portland and checking out all the wierdos (lots of em in downtown Portland!). We got on the road and drove the hour and a half to the coast through some very beautiful land. All of which was lost on the children.



We arrived, got settled in and then promptly ran out the back door to the beach. The house we stayed in was awesome! Right on the beach, so easy with the kids and quite nice to boot. The house was stocked with kites so we put them to good use that first day. The kids loved it, the wind was up so it was quite easy to get one airborne. Even Lily could do it. Luke got right to digging and even dug up some combination of a turtle and a crab. It stayed the night in his bucket outside our back door. The poor little guy was quite relieved the next morning when we set him free.

Slip N Slide action at grandmas!

With cheeks like these. . .

























We didn't only work at grandmas though! On one particularly lovely evening after dinner we sat, put our feet up and watched the children frolic. They ran, raced and did tricks on the slip-n-slide. It was one of those evenings were time seems to slow as a way to let your enjoyment of the moment last longer. We topped the night off with roasting some smores in mom's chimniea.

The pond. A small glimpse into my childhood (without the financial payout).

Oh the memories. Every time I go home I cannot believe how much everything has grown. I still have VIVID memories of planting that lawn. My brothers and I all manned with rakes and my dad riding around on our three wheeler cracking the proverbial whip on us. That along with the building of the the home we lived in. Be careful what ideas and books you let John Peterson get wind of. He read some book about building your own home. . .and so we did. Talk about a man with a plan.



That same man also has a passion for fire, one that has yet to be tamed. A few weeks ago he was burning some dead bushes in my parents lower pond when the fire, well, it got a wee bit out of control. The fire department came, an ER visit ensued, and letters were sent to clean out the entire lower pond or else! Enter. . .a perfectly (and previously planned) vacation to Washington to visit grandma. Owen and Luke were enlisted in the cause and I by default as now I had to be there to crack the literal whip on my own children (kidding, but sometimes, I admit I do fantasize).



By the time it was over, we had made five (I think, the memory is already fading as a cooping mechanism) trips to the dump. We were quite a sight too. One trip to the dump my mother and I were particularly disgusted with some able bodied men. They're was five of them right next to us, me-great with child, my lovely mother-very able but still sixty-one years old, and my boys. We were unloading a huge load of obviously burned quite large debris but did they offer to help us? No, not even on the gigantic stumps that once had belonged to trees well over thirty feet high. For shame.



We worked hard and got-er done though. Owen worked so hard, I can't remember hearing a single complaint from that boy. Luke, bless him worked hard too; not as hard as older brother but definitely hard for his age. Lily did nothing. Except get in the way on multiple occasions. The boys were so excited to be working for money that they could hardly sleep at night. It's the most money that either of them have earned and it is still burning a hole in their pockets.