Isabella is dying to add a dog to the family. After watching one of her favorite morning shows "Martha Speaks" she wrote down a few things that we need to keep in mind when we get a dog. It says: Dog Poison

Coffee, chocolate, onions and garlic, cleaning supplies, and antifreeze-deadly, pets think it tastes like sugar. Think she's ready for a dog?!

We spent an afternoon at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle. The kids stopped to get a little snack.

The lions came out for a visit and even made some noise for us.

It's so cool getting to see the animals up close!

I have a little bit of a fear of birds, but the kids loved feeding these little guys and having them land on them.

The kids going back to their Indiana roots

Last week I took the younger two kids to the Olympia Children's museum with my friend Susan and her kids Shea and Erin. It's such a fun museum, but it has nothing on the Indy Children's museum.
The kids had a lot of fun using their imagination and doing lots of pretend play.

With temperatures this weekend hitting well into the 90's we spent Saturday and Sunday out on the boat.

Owen loves to innertube. He just talks and cackles the whole time!

Mike went wakeboarding and did some great jumps, I just didn't get any pictures of them! This is him landing one.

We towed Owen on the tube to a warmer spot in the sound. We found 69 degree water instead of 60 degree water closer to the grandparents house. Isn't Mt. Rainier beautiful?

Owen really wanted to try to ski, we just don't have skii's that will fit him, so he decided to try knee boarding.

He stayed on his tummy for a long time just trying to get a feel for it. When he tried to pop up on his knees he fell into the water.

Brrr....he snuggled in close to warm up.

Sunday brought more tubing

boat driving

and Isabella trying to knee board.

This was her attempt at pulling herself up to her knees. She really prefered to just body surf on it.

And day two had Owen pulling himself up on the knee board and looking like a real pro!

Owen wanted to try wakeboarding but we don't have a board with bindings that will fit him. So we put him in his Keens, and had him stand between Mike's legs.

He was super excited to give it a try!

And they made it up on the first attempt!

Owen loved it!

Grandpa even got out there on the wakeboard.

We spent this past week celebrating Owen's 5th birthday. It is so hard for me to believe that my baby just turned 5. It really does just seem like yesterday that we were expecting his arrival. In celebration of his birthday we had a Lego themed party. Isabella heard the theme and set immediately to work on this birthday cake made completely of legos. Isn't it awesome!

It took her a few hours everyday over the course of a few weeks to finish. As Aidan prepared to leave for camp (more on that later) he made a flippant comment to her about how she wasn't going to be able to finish it for O's party. Guess who wanted to prove him wrong?


I also found these really cool lego candies that are like sweet tarts and they actually stack. Aren't they cool? Probably the most expensive part of the party but worth it!

We also played some really fun games with the kids like put the spot on the lego.

Some of the kids got closer than others!

We also had a pinata full of lego bricks and candy.

All of the kids were really excited about the cake. Mostly because each of the little dots is actually a frosted marshmallow. Thankfully I had enough so each of them could have a piece with a marshmallow.

Here's the set up as the kids entered the house.

A closer look at the cakes. Definitely not professional, but enough to impress some 5 year olds.

We spent the first part of the party building legos and playing with some of the sets that Owen already has put together.

Owen has a really cool airplane lego that was halfway put together and with the help of our lego expert friend Dylan (he's in Mike's Sunday school class at church), he was able to put it together for the party. But like all legos do, they sometimes break. The kids got pretty excited when Mike offered to fix it. Look at them all gathered around.

Julian and Isabella worked hard during the tower building contest.

And here's a better look at our lego expert Dylan

The whole gang of kids

I had every intention of making a lego pinata for O's party. I started to get overwhelmed with the projects to do (I also had to prepare some items for a craft fair at the Salmon Bake in Brown's Point), I decided that since Owen didn't really care what kind of pinata he had, that he could get one that didn't really fit with the theme. I didn't hear one single kid complain that the burro didn't fit with the theme, so I think it was the right choice...and it saved me hours!

I couldn't believe how they all just descended on the broken pinata. It was full of lego bricks and candy. So fun!

The day before Owen's party, Mike and I headed out to Whidbey Island to pick up Aidan and four of his friends from Lakeside Bible Camp. We barely missed the ferry across but when we did get on, we got front row. Pretty awesome view if you ask me.

The boys had a great week and for hours they talked and talked about their experience at camp that week. Aidan had a major bmx crash the first day there so the first stop was seeing the hill that he crashed on.

Right about here. He spent the week in the care of the camp nurse and not able to go swimming.

The boys showed us forts that they built

They learned stick fighting skills...

And bow fighting skills and are now ready to conquer the world!

You can see more here
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fuser%2Flakesidebiblecamp%23p%2Fu%2F0%2F27zTgYP3I6M&h=761d6

Isabella and Owen have spent a lot of time hanging out without Aidan around. They are even swapping jammies!