Elin Piggies and Painted Nails

Elin has a serious amount of fluff hair in the back, some would call it a mullet, I don’t know that it yet has that amount of amazing.  Regardless of what it is, it is hard to know what exactly to do with it let it rock its chaos or try to tame it with some piggies?!  The piggies are tiny and cute and guess who else thinks they are awesome, her big brother! 

Along that line Thomas and Elin have been loving having their toes painted.  Their super excellent and good spirited Daddy even rocked some “goblin green” nail polish! 

I love that my husband is confident enough to allow both himself and his son to rock nail polish.  We are doing our best to let our kids decide what they want to be and not try to do things that some might think are “more for girls” or “more for boys.”  Mike and I are confident that the rest of the world will allow for this hardship and therefore in our lives we want them to be confident and strong in any decision they make.  That being said we talked to Thomas about the fact that most of the time girls are the ones that wear piggies and have their toes/fingers painted, but sometimes boys do this too.  He still decided that he wanted to do that.  More so than anything, I am sure it is a phase, and if it isn’t oh well too. 

Storybook Camp

One of Thomas’ friends from his play group told us about Storybook Summer Camp at the Phinney Ridge Preschool Co Op….what a treat this camp was!  It was a 2 hour program in the dragon room based around a different story.  Thomas was able to jump in on Thursday and then he had soo much fun and the teachers liked him and his classroom behavior that they allowed him to be an “extra” in Friday’s class as well!  This was fantastic for me because I was at home scrambling to get the house ready for pictures and to go on the market. 

Smorgus Board Of Our Life

Packing and Packing and organizing and more packing…story of July!

The neighbor boys over for a movie

Dahlia and Thomas making a birthday cake in the sand box

Elin practicing her baby wearing mama skills in her very own ring sling Whitney made for her

Dress up with Dahlia

My two sleeping angels…watching them sleep is a little slice of heaven for me!

”I’d cry to if Thomas’ undies were stuck on my head.”

3 Naked babies

If it were only always like this…Thomas reading to Elin

Theme of the month-just keep drinking-apparently Elin caught on to that too.ha!

Tomatoes are a rockin’

Holding a snail, don’t’ tell him it wasn’t alive anymore

Clean babies

Sleepy baby girl

Friend hugs at Reier’s first birthday party

Who is walking who

How is this comfortable, Stell?

Babies in Buckets

Bouncing baby doll to sleep

Ducks and Sushi Date

There has been a lot of chaos going on around our house.  In that sometimes it feels like the kiddos have been getting a bit lost in the shuffle of the to do list.  Whenever that happens I make sure to take a day to do “no demands.”  I let them totally be in control and make sure to try to turn off my requirements. 

Thomas and Elin decided on this day that they wanted to go feed the ducks.  We headed over to Green Lake, fed the duck and then had a sushi lunch date.

Getting the house ready for the Market

Our home sale in Seattle was an adventure in the market for sure.  The start of it began after telling our friends that we were going to be moving/selling our house.  They said they wanted to buy it, so then we all went scrambling to get their house on the market.  That was the only glitch they had in buying our house, first they had to sell theirs.  Mike and I figured out with his job what the latest date was that we could wait for them to sell and that was the first week of August.  So we waited on their home sale and kept packing up our house.  As the “deadline” drew closer we realized that the odds were not falling in our favors.  So we started to prep our house for her big debut.   We had already touched up a lot of the paint and taken most of our wall hangings down, we stepped this up a final notch.  We also added mulch and painted the front step to improve “her” first impressions.  Thomas loved making art projects and you can see his box/rag mural on our kitchen floor below. 

San Juan Island Getaway

We escaped to the San Juan Islands without too much of a plan for a Pacific Northwest adventure.  We headed out on Thursday night and went up to Arlington to stay at a motel.  The ferry from the “mainland” always fills up fast and we were warned to get there very early, we were glad we did.  We put our car in line and found out our first island was going to be Orcas Island. Once on Orcas Island we took a much detoured route to a beautiful lunch stop.  The islands do not lack beauty and we lucked out with a gorgeous 1st day to our trip.  After lunch we headed over to the beach to run around and explore.  We stumbled upon the Judd Cove Oyster operation and I headed out at low tide to ask a few questions.  They told me that although the oysters don’t naturally reproduce in the waters because they it is too cold, it is a perfect place to place them and let them grow into maturity.  After our play time we headed back over to the ferry line to head to the main island, San Juan Island, as it was our final stop on the trip. The ferry ride again was gorgeous and when we pulled up to Friday Harbor we had 2 sleeping kiddos.  We drove to the far side of the island to look for whales.  We would later find out that as we drove past people did see some Minke Whales swimming by.  It was the only whale sighting the entire time we were there, sigh, maybe next time!  After trying our luck at spotting a whale we went to our camping spot for the night, at the Lakedale Resort. We had a canvas tent reserved for some “glamping.”  It was nice to pull up to the campsight and see that we didn’t have to set up the tent!  After unloading the guys tried their hand at fishing while Elin and I watched and played in the grass.  Mike and Thomas caught several small mouth bass and Thomas held a fish for the first time!  Watching the boys and their smiles was priceless.  After fishing we had a fire for dinner and s’mores before crawling into bed. When we woke up we again went fishing and then headed out for the day.  We first stopped at the Krystal Acres Alpaca farm to see the Alpacas.  It was anticlamatic and then we were on our way.  We then stumbled upon the Pelinda Lavendar farm.  I hopped out of the car quick to enjoy the smells and take a few pictures. We then continued on to Lime Kiln Park where we spent the rest of the morning exploring and hoping we would see some whales.   We never did spot the whales but we did see a harbor seal, hermit crabs, and many other little critters as we hopped the rocks and explored the tide pools.  After I gave up on seeing the whales we headed back to Friday Harbor for a yummy lunch overlooking the marina and ferry terminal.  After lunch we went to the Whale Museum to learn more about the Southern Resident Orca Whales.  Too quickly we were headed out on the ferry back to Seattle.  The San Juan Islands were stunningly beautiful and it was a great little getaway for our family.

Soccer Camp

Thomas had a 2 hour every morning soccer camp at the field by our house.  They practiced ball control and the basic mechanics of the game.  Each morning he and Grandpa walked over and Mike took the day off work one day as well to be there.  When they asked for volunteers Dad and Grandpa were perfect goal keepers.  Elin, Stella, Grandma and myself were the support crew.  Elin was still a bit confused about why she couldn’t play too.  Thankfully we had extra hands around to keep her wandering, climbing self occupied.

Busy Grandpa and Grandma McConachie Visit…

Since the move was official, my parents decided to make one last trip to Seattle to help us get stuff ready and to play tourists once more!  They flew in late on Friday night and we were up the next morning with a pork rump on the smoker and all of our shit stuff we didn’t want any longer on our front lawn.  We had a total bust of a yard sale, I am talking, our neighbor bought the most stuff.  Regardless it got the stuff out of our house and once on the lawn it went directly to the clothing donation drop box or good will.  Looking at that yard, I am so glad we didn’t move with all that stuff too! We also went on an adventure to the Space Needle.  My mom said it was a must see/do on her list so we went.  We have always heard about the horrible lines and the wait and I must say we experienced none of that.  We got our tickets and headed to the top we were able to see a lot of things and it was a cool experience.  After getting it checked off we headed to lunch across the street.  Which as a fun fact is the building that they use as the “front of grey’s anatomy.”   Here is our best attempt at a family picture with two tired and hungry kiddos!

While Grandpa and Grandma were here we also make a trip to the beach for low tide, to sunset park to watch the sunset over Puget Sound and to the Locks.  I had tried to take my parents to a “low tide” before but it was never this low.  My mom and dad were amazed at just how far out the water went.  The kiddos had a blast running around in the very cold but slightly warmed by the sun water.  We again saw a lot of creatures we checked a hermit crab, several sea stars, and a Lion’s mane jellyfish.  Other than that we kept ourselves busy around the house getting things packed and together and ready for our move to Texas.

A Couple Zoo Trips

In July we had a couple of zoo trips with some not so normal adventures involved.  The first zoo trip was a trip to get out of the house and enjoy the animals.  We had Dahlia and Reier along and the kiddos ran their show.  After some energy expenditure at the zoo we grabbed sushi for lunch.  On our way home the kids and I then saw a crazy situation.  There was a tiny kitten on the side of the road and a man with a dog who was trying his hardest to keep the kitten from becoming lunch.  There was also a woman there and I thought the kitten was hers.  After watching at the stop light, I quickly realized that after the danger of the dog had passed, the woman just kept walking.  The kids and I circled around and stopped, here was a tiny kitten laying on the sidewalk next to a very busy road.  A construction worker said that the kitten had been around, but that if I could do something it would have a much better life.  I agreed, so we scooped up the kitten and off we went.  We made a few calls and took it to the vet to see if it was microchipped and healthy.  We then took this 24 toed beauty to an all cat rescue in West Seattle.  The woman who  rescued the kitty said that he would be rescued quickly.  Our next zoo adventure was for Reier’s 1st birthday.  The birthday boy slept most of the trip, but his friends and sister had a great time running around and seeing the animals.   Happy Birthday Mr. Reier! 

Moon Sand and Watermelon