8 years.

Today we celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary. 

We celebrated by taking the kids on a 'donut date' to Donut Parade. 

Next stop, Riverfront Park. 

 Preston is such  a little worry wort. He is so cautious and worries about Grace. I think it's a first born trait. He did not want her anywhere near the water. You can see Dave holding on the both of their shirts in the picture above:)

Once again, my little worrier was worried he was going to get dizzy. He did fine.

Grace did ok. They had to stop the carousel for her but once she was on a bench seat being held she was fine. By the second time around she was asking for more. 

This stinker will not smile for pictures! 

dirt.

Here is the state of our backyard. It's all dirt.  What started out as a little project turned into a big project!

Isn't that the way it goes?

  

 I love this picture of Dave. It looks like he's crying. He's not, but he should be! 

Digging the hole for the trampoline turned out to be too huge a project to tackle alone, so after a couple of days of going at it with a shovel he called in a mini-excavator. 

 This is where our garden will be. We are going to do a raised garden just because we have so much dirt!

Here's the hole. The first day the excavator dug it I hadn't seen Preston in a while. I eventually found him in the hole. It's quite a popular spot. He was upset today because he didn't want us to put the trampoline back up. He just wanted the hole.

Grace LOVES the dirt. She rolls in it, slides down the mounds, puts it in her hair and tries to eat it.

 Showing off her worm.

Next we have to level the yard then get the sod. I can't wait to have a finished yard!

How do you like to go up in a swing,

Up in the air so blue?

Oh, I do think it is the pleasantest thing

Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall, 

Till I can see so wide,

Rivers and trees and cattle and all

Over the countryside-

Till I look down on the garden green, 

Down on the roof so brown, 

Up in the air I go flying again,

Up in the air and down!

-Robert Louis Stevenson

{thursday}

 Not a lot has happened to report and I don't have pictures to post.  Last week was pretty rainy and ugly. When I say ugly, I mean our attitudes.  I don't know what it was but just about every one of us was in a cranky mood! We tried to get out and do some fun things. One night we went to Franks Diner for dinner. That was really fun, it's an old train car converted into a diner. Luckily, the really noisy family with naughty, whiny kids and a mom that was constantly yelling in a loud voice for her kids to get out of the aisle made our kids look really good!
Saturday we bought a trampoline! Something my mom thought I would NEVER do! (due to a horrible broken leg, growth plate, torn cartilege etc.when I was 14 years old and fell off of the neighbors trampoline) but....we are constantly looking for ways that Preston can get energy out and alas, this seemed like a good idea. Time will tell. We have fun on it-he said his favorite thing is to jump with me by ourselves and that he wants just the two of us to jump at least once every day:)
We've been doing a lot of work in our backyard, getting prepared to spend a lot of time in it this summer! Yesterday we sold the chicken coop, now there is no evidence that we ever had any blasted chickens. I'm getting excited to start gardening and making everything look pretty! Unfortunately, the yard never gets that much time or money spent on it, years past it always seems like there has been more pressing areas to put our time and money into.
Lets see, what else have we been doing?
Dave should hear from his work any day about being re-hired. They have quite a few jobs coming up. He is so ready to go back to work! Last week at dinner, it was quite and Preston blurts out of the blue, "So Dad, are you like ever going to get a job again or what?" We just looked at each other and started laughing.
I've also been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what next year is going to look like for Preston. We know that we will homeschool, but we want to do some sort of homeschool program (one day a week) where he goes to class. We have so many option here in Spokane so we really just need to go and visit some to see what we like.

Easter

Phew-It's been a busy weekend! Yesterday we celebrated my nephews 10th birthday and today we celebrated Easter and the weather has been phenomenal so needless to say, we've spent a lot of time outdoors celebrating in the glorious sun!

We've kind of had a lot going on at our house this past week. We've been playing 'musical bedrooms.'  Dave finished a room downstairs that we moved the kids into. We turned Graces old room in the playroom and Prestons old room into a storage room/work space for me. I have lots of organizing to do this week! I think the kids are finally getting settled into their rooms, Grace seems a little restless and Preston never does well with change but I think he's finally OK now. The first night was pretty brutal, none of us got much sleep. It's peace of mind for Dave and I to have us all on the same floor though, so it's worth it.

Yesterday we dyed eggs and today we went to my Mom and Dads after church. Here are some pics of our Easter.

Preston being goofy and excited to color the eggs!

Grace got to be the 'observer' she's so crazy messy, there was no way I was letting her near the food coloring. I'm usually not 'that mom' but I knew she would just smash all the eggs and spill the liquid. That's just Grace, or maybe it's just being one;)

Sporty Grace, wearing a hat like Daddy.

I accidentally gave him the wrong carton of eggs and we dyed all the ones that weren't hard boiled. Oops!

He didn't mind though, it was just more eggs that he got to dye.

We learned that she loves hard boiled eggs!

Hunting for eggs.

Grace and my nephew Ben.

My guys.

Action shot. Grace loves, loves, loves running and playing with the kids!

And last but not least, I leave you with this picture of a rowdy bunch of hooligans! You better not get on their bad side. The pumped full of sugar and have nerf guns! Craziness I tell you!

Pictures

I Love my Goosie Goose-she is loving all this sunshine and playing outside. 

Mamma and Grace wearing our shades-bring on the sun!

A rare moment, when he lets her kiss him. She is so in love with her brother or bru-bu as she calls him. I think he is realizing how much she loves him and he kind of likes being adored by her. So he lets her snuggle with him more, he'll stroke her hair as she lays by him it's so sweet.

We went to Northwest Seed & Pet. We love looking at the animals!

Daddy time, is the best time of the day!

Puppies!

We went to the park with our friends this week-I anticipate doing this a lot more! I hope the weather stays nice and we don't get a string of weeks where it rains, but it is Spring so it wouldn't be surprising!

Busy Grace-19 months

Oh sweet Grace. Sweet, sweet little tornado Grace.  You were a busy girl today, well everyday really.  I left you for a minute or two. I didn't even leave you alone, I was just uploading some pictures onto Facebook about 20 feet away and you were buckled in your chair-you still managed to get to the container of markers color on yourself and the table and your shirt, eat/lick the watercolor paints, and I also found chewed up yellow crayon in your mouth and I was wiping the paint off your tongue.  When I looked at you you were licking the paints, which is why your mouth  is so colorful, hopefully they're non-toxic. I don't imagine you're the only little one out there who has licked paints.  I'm just going to chalk it up to the fact that you are going to be an artist! You obviously have a creative side. ;) Not five minutes later I found you eating glue. I'm obviously not going to win any mother of the year awards! This is just an average day with Grace.

If you were a fly on our wall you would also hear us say things like:

• Grace get off the table!
• Grace NO MOUTH!! (this is probably the most common)
• Grace we don't put things in our nose!
• Grace, we also don't put things in our ears!
• Grace, don't chase the cat, leave the cat alone Grace!
• Grace don't hit the dog!
• No bathroom Grace!
• Grace I said no bathroom, Grace, get out of the toilet! Followed by...Who left the toilet seat open! 
• Grace, no stool, you can't climb on the stool.
• Grace get off the coffee table!

Grace, where are your babies? Don't you want to play babies?

I feel like she's the girl version of the 'No David' books! As busy as she is, we love our Grace!