This Past Week in Pictures

Sophie's Birthday Party

Yesterday, we had a party to celebrate Sophie's fist birthday! It has been raining all week and was supposed to rain all day yesterday too. We had planned a BBQ so rain would not have been good. It rained all morning and afternoon and I prayed for the sun to come out the whole time I was getting things ready! 5 o'clock rolled around and out came the SUN! God is good! At 10pm it started raining again! We had about 35 people here, lots of friends and family. Patrick BBQed hamburgers, hot dogs and sausages. I had made potato salad and couscous salad as well as lots of fresh fruit and veggies. Everyone seemed to have a great time. I don't think Sophie really understood what was going on but had a great time visiting with all the people! She was really interested in the flame of the candle on her cake and kept trying to grab it instead of blowing it out! She had no interest in presents and enjoyed playing in the dirt way more!

More Pictures and Our Trip to Bellingham

Here are some pictures that were too cute not to share. The first ones are from around home. We went on the train to visit Uncle Josh, at school in Bellingham, on Memorial Day. The second half are pictures from that trip. The kids had a great time on the train. Sophie had the best "train legs" of all of us and enjoyed walking back and forth between my seat and Gramma's seat. We spent most of the day walking around Bellingham. I hadn't really been there before so it was nice to see where Josh is going to school.

Pictures from May

I have not been very good about keeping this updated but here are some pictures from the last month.
Uncle Andrew and Michelle asked Pat and I too be Godparents for Annabelle. The Baptism was bilingual because there was a little Spanish-speaking boy who was baptized at the same time. This made it a little confusing but it was still really nice. I could tell Michelle was really happy.
We went over to Gramma Middendorf's for Gram Quinn's memorial service. It was really beautiful and it was so nice to hear people share things that they remembered about Gram. We will all miss her but we are so happy that she isn't suffering anymore and is happily awaiting us in heaven. Connor and Laura had a great time playing with all my cousins. It seems like we are a continuous family without any real definite break between generation. Mom is the 13 years older than her youngest brother, who is ten years older than I am but his wife is only a year older than I and I have cousins who are younger than my kids. No one, except maybe Andrea, can keep track of who are cousins, second cousins, first cousins once removed??? aunts or uncles!! it's all very confusing but it is great fun when we all get together.
Can you tell its late? I always ramble when I'm tired!
We've had a few days of beautiful weather and we all enjoyed being outside. I've got lots of gardening done and the yard is starting to look really tidy. Our veggie garden is starting to take off and I can't wait to be able to start harvesting! Veggies always taste better out of your own garden!

Mother's Day

We had a quiet day today. I mean we didn't do much, not that there was a great amount of silence! That NEVER happens around here. The kids and I went to Mass with Mike this morning. It was really nice. There was an adult who was baptized and confirmed. Father gave a really good homily about the Holy Spirit and how if we follow His guidance in our lives we will be more joyful and less burnt out than if we are just trying to do our own will. I got to take a nice hour and a half nap this afternoon with the 2 girls. I tried to get Connor to have a rest too but he wasn't tired so he went and played quietly for a while. Patrick came home around 5pm and had got a package of Dahlia tubers for each of the kids to give me for Mother's day. He had also got me a beautiful rose bush. Sophie wasn't feeling well. She is teething and was running a bit of a temperature and just wanted me to hold her. She was really miserable. Pat made BLT's for dinner. I love bacon and we don't have it very often but it sure was a nice treat. Now everyone is in bed but I'm not too tired, probably because of my nice nap!!!

Update

Things around here have been pretty quiet. Connor and Laura have been enjoying the warmer weather. We have had a few really nice days but most days are still cooler and at least partly overcast. They love to go outside and play. They climb "trees" (our bushes) and make beds out of leaves and grass. They also like to make "fires" to "cook" their "stone soup". These consist of piles of sand from the sand box topped with a pile of twigs that Connor carefully breaks into about 3in lengths. These "fires" turn up in the most unexpected places including the driveway, the grass and the garden. Cleaning up all the sand isn't much fun but they love to make them so who am I to complain!
Sophie is a full fledged walker now. She walks way more than she crawls and can even stand up in the middle of the room all by herself. She has also caught on to sign language really quickly. She signs "please" when ever she wants something. She signs "food" and will even occasionally combine the two. We are still working on "thank you" and she will only do it with prompting. Right now she is yelling "DAAAAD" and signing "please" to Patrick who is eating a bowl of ice cream.
Grampa let Sophie try a donut.
Christmas in May!
Somehow Sophie got into the tub by herself and didn't get her hair wet. Yes I know the water is pink!
Mmmmm! Whipped Cream!
Ah, the wonders of the air vent!
Giddy Up!

This Is Not A Hoax!

I don't know why this isn't working right now. If you slide the play button across the bar you can see the pictures. I'll see if I can fix it later. This was really at our house yesterday. We had 3 inches of snow this morning when we got up too. It is all gone except for the snow men. I hope my veggies survived! This has not been a good start to the gardening season!

Seattle Center

Yesterday we went to Seattle. I had read that there was a free cherry blossom festival at the Seattle Center and we thought we would check it out. Well that turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, there wasn't much going on. There were just a bunch if booths that we took in in about half an hour. Pat and I did do a chopstick contest which he won and got a free bottle of 100% fruit & veggie juice that is really good! We did discover that there is a very large and fun children's museum at the Center House. We spent at least two hours there and the kids didn't want to leave when it was time to go. There was lots to do for all ages. There were places where Sophie could play and places where Connor and Laura had lots of fun as well as things that older children and adults would appreciate.

This Past Week

We have been busy this past week. We planted our vegetable garden and played out side a lot. Connor and Laura have really enjoyed playing with play doh. Connor likes to make roads to drive his cars on and Laura likes to make "roley worms". I have done a bunch of sewing. I made two skirts for Laura, a pillow for Connor and am working on some curtains for our room to keep the sun out at 6am!

Sophie

Some how 10 months have gone by and Sophie's first birthday is only two months away! She is so much smaller than Connor or Laura were at this age that I sometimes forget how old she really is! She is just now outgrowing her infant car seat, something Connor did at 4 months. She is wearing clothes that Laura fit at 5 months and is such a feather weight that I have no problem carrying her around. Despite her small stature, she is working very hard to keep up with her older brother and sister. She is a pro at crawling and can walk almost anywhere she wants to get holding onto furniture and the walls! She will even take a few steps on her own with a little encouragement or the right goal (the swimming pool!). Neither Connor nor Laura braved their first steps until they were within a week or two of their
first birthdays! Sophie can say "Mama" and "Dada" or "Dad" and mean either me or Patrick. I just started giving her any solid food and so far, she seems to like it. She wasn't really interested earlier so I didn't push it.