Playing with cousins...

This past week was Spring Break for Oregon schools, and we got fun visits from all our Oregon cousins!!! Aunt Heidi, Darien and Monica stayed with us for 3 days, and we went to 3 different malls (boy, those pre-teen girls can shop!). We also played at Pump It Up on the bouncy houses, went swimming at the Mountlake Terrace rec. center, and made two trips to Frost for amazing doughnuts!! We stayed up late and woke up early to fit in all the fun!

This weekend, we had a fun time with Uncle Danny, Aunt Heathyr, Jaime, Dylan and Mercer. Grandma came over to play, too, and brought movies, chocolate, and kites! The kids had a blast running around the field at the park with the kite and jumping on the trampoline in the backyard.

They were exhausted by dinnertime!
But they still had enough energy to dip fruit in chocolate for dessert...

The older 5 had a slumber party on the floor of the playroom, and after just a few reminders to go to sleep ;o), they all slept soundly together, and woke up in the morning ready to watch some Tom and Jerry...

We LOVE spending time with cousins!!!

The best part of making cookies...

Dressing alike (and a VERY rare moment in jeans! These two are always in skirts or dresses)...

Hotel Nance...

We had a fun visit last week from Uncle Joey and his fiance, Cara. They explored Seattle (many places I have never even been to!), and Cara let us tag along for some fun wedding dress shopping one afternoon. Here is the beautiful bride-to-be (just having fun trying dresses on, not the one she will wear!)...

When we got home, I pulled my wedding dress out from the garage. Clara has been asking me for months to show it to her! I made the mistake of trying it on, though, and realized 3 children really DOES change things!! I guess I should say that I "tried to try it on"! :) There was a big piece of fabric in the box that had come with the dress, but I hadn't used, and it was perfect to make Clara and Hannah their own dress-up wedding dresses with....

I can just imagine them actually doing this someday in the future...

Aunt Molly came up from Portland with her friend, Megan, to have fun with us too! Molly brought cute outfits for the girls for spring...

Boxes make the best playhouses...

This house even had its own TV!

I'm not sure what Hannah's idea was here, but she worked really hard to set this up...

Daddy and Hannah goofing around...

and snuggling

cute girl...

Imaginations and art work...

I keep finding drawings and notes taped all over our house these days. Clara draws pictures for each person in the family and then hangs the pictures by their bed :) She also writes "clues" (that don't usually lead to anything) and leaves them on sticky notes around the house. I love this picture of Mickey and Minnie...

The girls set up the entire nativity scene the other day....
and then sat in front of it, singing along to "Away in a Manger" (with their Zhou Zhou pets, of course!)

While the younger two were napping, Clara set up Aladdin and Jasmine's wedding...

This is when Jasmine's dad gives her away-she chose Mr. Smee from Peter Pan as Jasmine's dad!

Even Eliza has been getting in on the pretend play, she loves the pretend food from the kitchen...

and even tries to feed her animals!

The girls like to set up a picnic together-and Clara always adds the flowers in the middle!!

So fancy!!

Having fun...

Joe has a big test coming up this weekend, so he has spent many hours over the past few weeks studying. The girls and I took off last weekend to give him some quiet time at home and visited one of our favorite restaurants, the Rainforest Cafe.....

We haven't been there on a weekend before, and I was surprised at the long wait and crowds to get in! The gift shop is basically a big toy store, though, so we had no problem keeping occupied while we waited....

By the time we had waited for our table, ate our dinner, had our server run the check a second time because I had forgotten to give her my coupon, waited for the server to track down a manager because she accidentally gave our coupon to a different table, walked halfway to the car and then turned around because I realized I forgot to get my credit card, and walked a second time to the car, our little outing lasted past bedtime, and I drove home with 3 very worn out little ones, and a somewhat frazzled mom!

Hannah LOVES these elephants!!
Squeezing into the chair together

Snuggling for a movie...

Monkey see, monkey do...

Growing up so fast....

It goes by faster with each little one, and this little one has grown up way too fast!! She is amazing us daily with what she has to say and how she wants to be a part of everything going on. There is no more sitting and watching for Eliza....no, she wants to be right in the center of the action!! I was putting her to bed last night, and she kept saying something that I couldn't quite understand. I asked her to "show me" what she wanted, and she pointed out the door. I walked out with her (hoping it was for a good reason, and not just to stall out bedtime a little longer!) and she pointed into the bathroom and then said the same word again, while pointing at the toothbrushes. We had skipped brushing her teeth, and she was not going to let it slide!! We have only recently been giving her a toothbrush when Clara and Hannah are brushing, and she loves being part of this activity!

Here she is with a very rare hair accessory...so cute!

And within seconds....it's out! But she loves trying to put it back in her hair....
Getting to wear some cute dresses now that we don't have to bother with crawling around and getting her knees stuck....

Being silly for the camera...

Eliza is loving her baby dolls, and I couldn't be happier!! We have quite a few adorable dolls that the girls have been given, and so far the older two have not been very into dolls. It's funny, though, now that Eliza is playing with dolls, Hannah has actually started to play with her, and they each have a favorite "baby".

Eliza with her "maamee". She is beginning to get some new sounds since her surgery, but a lot of words still start with an "m" sound.

Yesterday Clara came and found me yelling, "Eliza is in the dryer!!!" I had just taken a load out of the dryer and walked it back to the bedrooms, and within the 10 seconds I had been gone, someone climbed right into the empty dryer!

She was pretty proud of herself, and awfully cute (but I did have a talk with the 2 older girls about why it is not safe to climb into a dryer)