Sassy and Sassy Jr :)

Eliza LOVES her "Monima"! Monica is full of personality and fun, and I think Eliza must have sensed that from the beginning because she adores Monica! I just loved these pictures of the two sassy girls together...

They also both LOVE candy and are the first two in line for any sweet treat! Eliza reminds me of Monica as a little girl in a lot of ways, always entertaining and a little hard to win over if they don't know you well. They also share a love of apple juice! I'm glad these two are such great friends :)

Road trip!

The kids and I headed to Bend last week for "birthday week" and Mother's Day. Their cousins, Monica and Darien, turned 12 and 14, and we wanted to celebrate with them! I tried something new for the drive that a friend of mine suggested-leaving at 4am....and it worked great!! All four kids slept for the first half of the drive, then we got out and ate breakfast (and I refueled on coffee!) and we made it the second half without stopping. Isaiah was well-entertained with a pile of toys...

Monica's birthday party was the day after we got there. She loves her friends and had 12 girls at her party! They split into teams for an Amazing Race-type scavenger hunt. Here is Monica's team:
And Boppa with his team, including Darien and her best friend, Paris:

The first Roadblock was a clothing relay at the park. Nana, Julie and our 3 girls were waiting at the park to watch the action. Clara got to hand the teams their next clue when they finished the relay:

Monica is a little bit competitive, and she bent the rules of "wearing" the clothes to just "carrying" some of the clothes to try to help her team catch up! Too bad she had Aunt Jenny driving the slow minivan, and we came in last!

Isaiah loved spending time in this walker all week, being upright and watching the busyness all around him...

Eliza and Hannah loved to pull him around the house, using the toys as a leash...

One of his favorite things was to lean forward and just chomp away on the rubber toy bar!

Great Papa spent two evenings playing with Isaiah and the girls...

Our evening entertainment..

Eliza made fast friends with her Boppa, and followed him all over the yard mowing the grass...

She's usually pretty slow to warm up to people, but just LOVES her Boppa!

Isaiah got LOTS of attention!!

He was very content to ride around the house on Nana's back and help her in the kitchen...

and even took some cozy naps in the backpack!

Darien and Monica skipped school one day to play with us! We did some painting and went out to lunch. These cousins are such special girls and are SO sweet to play with all the kids.

I was really surprised at how long Eliza spent painting her kitty. She worked so hard on it and painted for almost an hour!

We had some nice, warm days for the kids to explore outside...

Can you even spot Hannah and Eliza up on the hill?? They spent hours outside exploring under rocks and getting dirty!

We finished off the week with Darien's birthday dinner (look at how much Eliza LOVES her cousin-she is always climbing on her!)

Then Darien and five of her best friends went and got pedicures and their make-up done and had a sleepover!

My beautiful, sweet, incredibly special, Darien :)

We set the alarm for 4am, my amazing mom and dad woke up with us and made coffee and carried little, sleepy bodies out to the car, and we headed back home. What a fun, exhausting week!!

Just posting some of the recent pictures before we spend a week in Bend with family. Hannah fell asleep for a rare nap on the couch...

I love how she kept her sweet hands folded together, even when she leaned back against the pillows on the couch. I used to sleep with my hands tucked together under my head this same way!
One of my blue-eyed boy- He is just too kissable!

The look-alikes :) They have the same smile!

The gorgeous flowers that I have been enjoying since my birthday from my sweet husband, friends, and co-workers...

Clara and Austin, who have been such great friends since Clara was a baby...

And now his sister, Saleen, is one of Eliza's special friends too!

Our spunky Eliza, early in the morning playing with her toys...

She has developed such an imagination now and can add to the games that Clara and Hannah play with her. I was enjoying sitting near her, just listening to her talk to her dolls and animals, talking for them and planning where they were going on their trip!

Busy Saturday...

We pulled the baby toys out of storage, and the girls made sure that Isaiah had plenty to play with! I think he might have been a bit overstimulated!

We finally had a rain-free day, and the girls spent almost the entire day outside with their Daddy! They helped get the yard ready for summer by raking and pulling weeds, and also did lots of playing on the trampoline and swings and searching for "pets"...

Hannah's roly-poly bug named "Roly", of course ;)

Clara found a snail!

New homes for the "pets"

Clara can now start and stop on her bike and has gone on some longer bike rides. I have taken her with me on a couple of shorter runs, and I love having her along for conversation! She has even experienced her first sore muscles the day after her bike ride!

Eliza is our little monkey, and it's not uncommon for me to look out the back windows and see her climbing on or hanging from something, following right behind Hannah! She worked for over a half hour, pulling weeds out of the gravel with Daddy-he was impressed with how focused she was and how hard she worked to help him!

After dinner, we all got ready to go get Clara's ears pierced! She's been talking about it for months and counting down the days for weeks. Here's the "before"...

Nervous excitement....she got to hold the "Claire bear" while she was waiting...

Now she's just looking nervous...with her sisters watching very closely!

And, she did it!!! No tears and a happy smile as she checked out her new, blue flowers on her ears!

I love busy Saturdays spending time together!