Memorial Day Weekend

Ever since we went to Lewiston/Clarkston, I've been itching to go out again and explore our area. I'm realizing I love our short little day trips where we don't have to unpack suitcases of dirty clothes or clean the car out because we've lived in it for a week on our travels. These little day trips have been so fun for us. So on Friday, Rhett got work off a little early, and we headed out again. This time, we went to the Cataldo Mission in Idaho. Just an hour away from us. It is one of the oldest buildings in Idaho. We walked around the land for a bit--saw this hummingbird that hovered over us for about three minutes, and explored other beautiful scenery.

This is the old wheat grinder. 

 (As we were walking, Basil pulled out her play phone and made a phone call. This kid cracks me up.)

Summer found some moss and was very excited.

This was the old church bell.

A pretty view from the hill.

This is the church that was built to help bridge the gap between the white settlers and the Native Americans living in the area. Both peoples would gather and talk about God and religion.

Entering the church.

Claire feeling better after confession.

Pyper saying, "Guess what Claire just told me!!!"

This blue house was right next to the church. It was the office where they would host guests, meet, eat, etc.

Claire running to catch up with the other girls.

Another view from the top of the hill.

We drove with the windows rolled down for a bit on the way home. I love her face in this picture!

Grandpa Barney's visit and Basil's Birthday

As I was getting ready to post pictures from Memorial Day, I realized I'd forgotten to post about Grandpa's visit and Basil's birthday. So Memorial Day will have to wait . . .

In the beginning of April, Grandpa Barney came to visit. We had such a great time. We happened upon Earth Day downtown at the park, we visited Mount Spokane, and we attended Japanese Day at the museum--family free day! 

Here are a couple pictures from Mount Spokane. We didn't get to go to the spot we wanted to, but we did find a fun place to explore.

And in the mid-end of April, we celebrated Basil's SECOND birthday! It was so much fun. The girls are really getting into the whole gift-giving thing. They went with Rhett to pick some things out for Basil. I love that they are so excited about it, but I'm thinking we are going to have to set some price limits or something! haha.

We had strawberry shortcake cupcakes for the celebration.

 I don't know what this face is for, but I love it.

 This is what Claire picked out--a GIANT coloring book.

I think Pyper picked out the crayons?? I can't remember.

For our birthday parties, we always play a little family game that we don't do often. This time, we did sardines. It was the girls' first time playing it. It was WAY TOO fun! On the second to last round, we could not find Claire. Seriously. I was starting to worry. We searched for quite a while, and no one could find her. FINALLY, we found her! She was hiding in the windowsill behind the curtains in our bedroom. Since I had my big belly and my feet poked out the bottom, it was a little more obvious where we were hiding. As the rest of the girls joined us, we couldn't stop laughing. Rhett had the camera, and when he found us at the end, he threw the curtains open and got pictures.

Rhett had one more good hiding spot. So he headed out while we all counted. I knew where he was going because I'd checked there when I was looking for Claire, and I'd thought, "Now this is a good spot!"
But it was too tricky to climb in with him and hide, and I accidentally gave it away. The girls found him--and I was the one to take pictures this time.

It was such a fun birthday. I can't believe our sweet Basil is two years old now. She is getting so big and mature. She could count to thirteen before she turned two, she says her own prayers now ("Thank you daddy comes home soon" etc.), and she is just so much. She and Summer have a special connection because they get a little extra time together while the other two are at school. When Summer leaves, Basil misses her so much. A few days ago when Summer was at school, Basil got hurt and was crying. Claire said, "Basil, do you want me to hold you?" She said no. Claire asked, "Do you want mom?" Basil said no. Claire asked, "Who do you want?" And Basil said, "I want Summy." :) So sweet and tender. I love it.

One Year and Five Weeks

On Saturday, we celebrated our ONE YEAR anniversary for being in our home. We are so happy in our home. There is still a lot of progress to be made and work to be done, but we love how far we've come, and all the possibilities of what we can do.

Whenever we go out for "ice cream," we usually just go to the frozen yogurt shop called "Just Chillin'." But this time, we took the girls to Baskin Robbins. They'd never been before, and it was fun for them to see all the different kinds of ice cream.

I was looking for some old pictures of our house to post the then and now stuff, but I can't find any. So instead, I'll post pictures of the the girls eating ice cream. :)

The girls played with Rhett's phone and now he's stuck on this blue-tone setting. I think it makes the pictures look professional!

And we are FIVE WEEKS away from becoming a family of SEVEN! We are so excited to meet this new little addition--and to discover whether we are getting a little brother or sister. (Or triplets, as Claire is hoping for.) I think it's going to rock Basil's world, but she does have that genuine, happy love for other babies. Here she is holding our friend's daughter last night at their house. The baby is only four months, but almost as big as Basil! haha. She loved every minute of it, and was very fascinated with the baby. It was fun to watch.

I do think I'm carrying this baby differently, but I'm attributing it to all sorts of sagginess and stretched out skin and muscles. I'm hoping to take pictures in the next few days to document what I look like. I'm feeling well, and big, but I know there's still more growing to do. And no, no names yet. . .

Spring Break

We spent most of our spring break just hanging out at home. The weather was cold--it even snowed at the beginning of the week.
We did a few "fun" activities--like education worksheets. Here's Pyper's work. I told her the number on the left told her how many objects to circle. Then I told her what each number was, and she started circling on her own. I was pretty impressed.

And here's the back of the worksheet. I thought it was interesting that she circled each object one at a time, except for number ten. She did them all together. Kind of interesting . . .

We pay the girls a penny a dandelion, so when they are bored, they go out and pick dandelions for us. Pyper actually initiated it this day, and Basil noticed. She came into the kitchen, opened the dishwasher, got out a bowl, then went out and began picking. I'm not sure why Claire is still in her jammies--or why she's wearing her ear muffs (that she slept in!).

By Thursday, I knew we needed to get out and do something.

So Rhett worked a half day on Friday, we packed a cooler with food and goodies, and headed on the road. One of my favorite books is about a girl traveling across the country on a road trip with her grandparents to get to Lewiston, Idaho. So it's been on my bucket list to visit there someday. Well, Rhett knew that, and since it's only about two hours away, he suggested we go. I thought it was going to be some podunk little town, but surprisingly, it was beautiful--and we really enjoyed it! We found a couple parks to play at, ate our picnic, and explored the city a little.

 There is a tiny white dot on the path far ahead of Rhett. That's Pyper.

Watching the fish jump

The girls have a Fancy Nancy book about Sacajawea, so we went to see the Sacajawea monument.

 Everyone looks a little rough. We'd just been playing on toys at the park.

While there, we noticed a girl tap dancing in a dome shelter-type thing. Pyper had been carrying around this camera pretending to take pictures (the battery was dead). When she saw the girl dancing, she ran clear across the way to the girl, held it up as if she was videoing the girl, then ran back to us. It was quite funny. We made our way over to the dancing girl and asked her to do some steps for us. The girls enjoyed it. Pyper "videoed" it again.

We found some huge trees and tried climbing them.

And I got some close ups of the girls' faces. I try to do this every so often to capture what they look like now--and to see how much they've grown and changed from the last time.

Basil--chewing on a pistachio

We got home pretty late that night, but we had so much fun. It was totally worth it, and we look forward to another trip like this hopefully soon.

Lastly, the girls got new dresses. Not really for Easter, since we didn't even go to church on Easter Sunday, but I felt like it was time to get them new dresses. We've really been blessed in benefiting from generous neighbors and family who "donate" clothes to us. So I've never really had to buy clothes for the girls. But I wanted to get them something special.