pirates!

We recently had a day where we picked the theme "pirates" and did a whole morning where everything we did had to do with pirates.  It was so much FUN!

Reading some of our favorite pirate books:

Writing the word pirate for the first time! (It was the first "non-name" word that Ryder has ever written!

And then we colored paper to make pirate ship sails for our homemade banana bread:

What a great morning with these two!

play dough, spaghetti, and cheerios...

This was not a recipe for anything other than keeping my daughter busy while I made dinner the other night...  Pinterest is such an incredible resource!

 She was so delighted!

Gosh I love this baby girl...

something special came in the mail...

Kit's parents have been on a road trip in Yellowstone and they sent the kids postcards:

One had a picture of a bison, and the other had a picture of a moose:

They were so excited!

The postcards are currently hanging on the magnet boards on each of their rooms, and read OFTEN!  Thank you Grandi and Monkey Papa for thinking of us! 

the ALS ice bucket challenge

Yesterday, Kit was nominated for the ALS ice bucket challenge:

 Ryder was giving encouragement before we videoed the dousing...

 Kit nominated Eric Rae, Andrew Rae, and Mark Thrash...

 Even trying to explain it to the kids, they really didn't understand why we did it but were excited for the opportunity to soak their dad...

the weekend...

Being together is always such a treat and we had a weekend that created space for that to happen, which is always such a blessing...

On saturday, we headed down to San Juan to help our friends the Thrashes with some projects on their new house.  As helpful as the kids can be during house projects, we decided to take them to Costco to give the guys some productive project time:

 Blurry, but you get the idea...

 Our girls...

Then we headed home for naps and an evening of BBQ steaks with homemade horse radish sauce, and home made salsa recipes:

Can you tell how excited he was with that crazed look in his eyes?

This man can have as many BBQ's and BBQ accessories that he wants.

He rocks the grill EVERY time...

(Grill, smoker, outdoor oven, home made rubs and sauces... Seriously, anything he wants to buy, I am ok with, as long as he keeps that tasty food coming♥!)

Sunday we celebrated Eden's half birthday after church:

two years ago:

The guys took a nap together:

My heart melts every time I look at this picture...

We worked on a little house project and made turkey lettuce wraps in peanut sauce for dinner, while Eden kept me company and drew me pictures...

It was a great sunday afternoon!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kit is leaving this wednesday for Chicago for four days and we always miss him when he is gone, which makes days like these even more precious to us!  Life is made up of all these little moments and when you put them together, as hard as some days can be, you realize that it's a pretty incredible life that we get to live...

my swim lesson graduate...

We have been trying to go to our pool as much as we can...

Most of the time we have it all to ourselves...

 This little guy is just doing awesome!

 Jumping in is still not his favorite thing, but he does it.  He is brave to do something that makes him nervous, and I am so proud of him, and I can tell he is proud of himself when he conquers the jump.

(The other day, his sister pushed him in while she was waiting her turn to jump in. That was a pretty big set back, but this little guy swam to the side and did all that he knew he was supposed to do...)

I just love watching them try and learn new things and build their confidence... I am so PROUD!

Irvine Regional Park

Yesterday we met up with my Aunt Franny and my cousins girls for a playdate at Irvine Regional Park.  The last time we were there it was so windy that we didn't really even get out of the car, so this was a completely different and enjoyable experience!

We had the kids go on pony rides.  My Aunt competes in San Jaun Capistrano with her horse, so it was so special to see how much Ryder enjoyed going with her:

This photo just made me laugh:

 Don't worry, our kids won't pet or feed them, we are just going to strap our children on their backs...

 He held his ticket and waited so patiently in line for his turn:

Then we ate our picnic lunch and then rode on the train:

The kids had so much fun climbing the trees and watching the train make it's loop:

 And waving to the passengers, of course!

We had such a fun morning and we are so excited to get more outings and playdates with these very special people that we love SO MUCH!