hello, sunshine!

the past three days have been teasing us...

because it's almost been like summer,

yet we know it won't last

(as every Seattleite knows, summer in Seattle doesn't officially arrive until July 5th)

nevertheless

we took full advantage and rolled with it!

we had our inaugural beach day

with some of our favorite friends.

not that we don't already spend lots of time at the beach

but today,

we sported our swimming suits

and showed off our glowing white bodies

all with lots of pleasure and joy

basking in the warm, sunny weather

barefeet in the sand and water.

*************

oh, how we love our Matthews Beach!

i used to go night swimming here - all through college

(and well beyond)

and i used to bring my nanny kids

and now i bring my own. I LOVE IT!

two bathing little beauties...

Aspen and her bestie, Ruby

these girls are at such fun ages!

While us girls were hanging out,

their big brothers were running back and forth between

the beach

and

the brand spankin' new playground

we ended up staying 5 hours

and skipping naptime

(because on a day like this, all rules go out the window!)

we even drove the Mickie D's on our way home,

and I let Sawyer devour a fudge sunday in his carseat

while his sister passed out from our long day at the beach

(I devoured a fudge sunday in the driver's seat, just so you know)

okay...so...i know i shouldn't make a habit of posting nude pics on the web...but...

my friend, Allegra, and i BUSTED a GUT laughing

when we saw this naked boy running across the lawn,

pushing his dumptruck along,

just like it was totally normal to run around naked pushing dumptrucks across public beaches and playgrounds. no hesitation, peeps. (i am happy he's so comfortable in his own skin!)

apparently, he needed to pee...

so he shed his clothing, peed on the lawn

(who needs a bush when you have a huge, open lawn?)

and then ran on his merry way - leaving his clothes behind.

this happened not only once, but twice.

and i know i shouldn't encourage it, but

my-oh-my i am gonna hang onto these photos for the future

(doesn't every kid need a couple of embarassingly cute photos that their parents can use as blackmail at some point?)

yes, today was one of the best days of our lives.

i just LOVE these kinds of days!

hope ya'll had a good one, too!

Now, GO SEIZE THE WEEKEND!

Momma's Takin' Us To The Zoo...

We have a membership at the Woodland Park Zoo and we love to go. There are weeks in which we sometimes go at least twice, in fact! But for various reasons, we haven't been for a few weeks, so we were excited to be going today.

Almost every time we are in the car trekking the 3 miles up the street to get there...I can't help but sing a bit of Peter, Paul, and Mary because it makes me happy and gets the kids clapping and singing and excited to go.

Today, we were extra excited because Aunt Kaitlin, Alyssa, and baby Xannie came up and went to the zoo with us!

The weather was absolutely perfect...and we all had a blast!

It was cute to see Sawyer and Alyssa walk around the zoo holding hands and laughing at each other and having a great time.

We saw a lot of animals, but the only one I got a picture of was the peacock. He spread is feathers and shook them at us - quite a sight to see!

We also made a stop at Zoomazium just in time for "Shake, Rattle, and Roar" where they play fun music to move and groove to and provide shaking music makers for everyone to use. Sawyer and Alyssa decided they not only wanted to shake and dance - but they wanted to add some percussion as well!

They had fun pretending to "feed" the baby elephant (with dirt, nonetheless). Alyssa was so cute. When I asked her what animal she wanted to see the most (I may as well be a tour guide at the zoo by now, I have it down pat :) she said "the komodo dragon". And so we did! Personally, I thought the nearby Meerkats were much more cute than the big lizards, but who am I to judge? The kids quite enjoyed those big lizards!

And the cute baby sisters.

Aspen just wants to be a big girl now. She wants to walk and run everywhere. She says "ha" (hand) and holds out her little hand to grab yours and pull you along wherever she wants to go. She also loves to shake her head "yes" or "no" and has taken to saying "yeah!" as she shakes her head yes (as in "Aspen, would you like to share an ice-cream cone with Mommy and Sawyer?" --- shaking her head up and down in the cutest way imaginable "Yeah!"). She is saying quite a few words now and it's so fun!

And as a side note, she had her 15 month check up this week and is a whopping 19 lbs! (10th% for weight, and 25% for height). She is quite petite. But she sure has a big grin!

Thanks to my sister and her two cute girls for spending the day with us as the zoo.

We really did stay all day!

Running Through Fields of Flowers

Saturday, I have to admit, started out a little bit "gray". We were originally going to go to the zoo with my sister and her sweet little family, but it didn't work out due to illness. And then we found out Jacob had to work all day Saturday to meet a big project deadline coming up next week. Oh yeah, and we forgot it was our turn to clean our church building - so getting out of the house took longer than anticipated. I was a little grumpy I was feeling sad that all of our plans seemed to fall through and also that Jacob, who works so hard for our family, had to go spend another Saturday at work. Instead, I should be grateful he has such a good job - but, everything else aside, I was just bummed.

I decided I wanted to go have fun even if it was just going to be me and the kids so I decided to take a little road trip up north to see the last day of the Tulip Festival. Last year, they had topped off the flowers by the time we made it to the festival. This year, however, they had a late bloom so the fields were all in full bloom! It was a little bit cloudy when we got there but the sun came out and we ended up staying 3 whole perfect hours out in the fields of Tulips!

The kids had a BLAST (as did I).

Sawyer ran up and down rows of Tulips (I tried to keep him on the path...) and Aspen wanted to walk even though she tripped through half of the trenches and the uneven ground (good thing our BOB stroller has shocks, I tell ya!) And I pretty much just struggled to keep them both within arms reach while juggling the stroller and my big ole' camera. I so badly wanted a "perfect" picture of my two children in the fields of flowers...but it just wasn't happening! Especially with Aspen, who just wanted to walk walk walk or grab onto my legs or hand to steady herself as we went along.

At one point, Sawyer decided he would hold her hand and walk along with her. How darling is that?

We found a little spot right across the path by the field, sort of wild grass/weeds and we laid down our picnic blanket. I didn't even care about naps at this point - the kids were having a great time and I figured they would sleep in the car on the way home. They love having picnics, so they were really excited. I never really asked anyone if it was okay to have a picnic and didn't even really think about it until we were the only ones in there, with an awesome view, eating out pb&j's in front of hundreds of people and millions of Tulips. No one seemed to mind. If anything - we became another sight to see! Sawyer and Aspen would get up and dance around and eat and passers-by would gush "oh my goodness, they are soooo cute!"

I agree.

I love this image below. These 3 cute teenage girls kept trying to get all these different pictures with fun poses of themselves in the flowers. We had fun watching them. And their little point and shoot just wasn't quite fast enough to get them in the air...so what did I do (could I even help myself?) I offered to take some of the three of them. They were very happy about it!

...and then...there were bubbles!

We also brought the bubbles the kids got for Easter.

Can you say heaven?

I mean, honestly, a picnic amongst the Tulips, sunshine, relaxing with absolutely nothing rushing us, and bubbles.

Okay, this is random but Sawyer hadn't used the potty since 10:30 that morning...and when I took him to the honey bucket he was like "gross no way!" (can you blame him?) so he held it all the way until 4pm when we made a pit stop on the way home. I think it's safe to say the kid has good bladder control! (thank goodness - I was wondering if I was going to have to sneakily take him out in the fields somewhere if he couldn't hold it any longer...)

These last few of Aspen made up for her not wanting to sit by the Tulips for a photograph. Tulips or Weeds? Well, it was really the bubbles and her brother that got her grinning...

and I just love these sweet photos of my girl.

Perhaps next year Daddy will be able to join us and we can finally get the "perfect" picture amongst the flowers - with all of us. Then again - what is perfect anyway?

Our day was!

It ended even more perfectly -

We had a date night out.

So, even if some days start off a little gray - isn't it nice to know they can turn to sunshine and end up being perfectly bright?

I hope you all had a sunny weekend, too! Here's to a new week!