Life at the Beach

Yesterday, we went to this aquarium down in Newport that is run by students from OSU. It was actually pretty cool. There was no admission, but you could give donations at the door. There was this display where you could touch sea anemones. The kids loved it, except Mariah and Brinlee. They liked to look, but refused to touch. It was a really cool exhibit. They also got to watch them feed this octopus. It was really cool. They do a little show and talk about the facts about octopus'.
After that, we stopped in Depot Bay at this candy store called Depot Bay Candy Shoppe. I remember that we used to go in there every time we'd come when I was little. It has homemade salt water taffy and they are all divided into separate bins by flavor. You can stand in this little tiny shop and sample as many flavors as you want. It was SO GOOD! I love the peppermint and cinnamon flavors the best. We let the girls have $10 of their own money that they have been saving so they could buy whatever they wanted. They were thrilled!!! Of course, Mariah wanted to spend every last penny. Brinlee was very frugal and only spent a couple dollars. Asia did, too and Tatum only wanted a handful of Jelly Belly's from a 50 cent candy dispensing machine. LOL!
It was raining pretty hard yesterday and very cold, so we didn't even consider going down to the sand. At one point there was a little snow mixed with the rain and even hail later in the day. SO WILD at the beach!!

Roxelle was just taken by watching the fish.




The "touching" aquarium

Mariah "I don't WANT to touch it" hmmph!

Today we went to the Lincoln City Ward. I saw Ray Lunt, whose son (Evan) I graduated High School with. It was a total surprise to see him. Also, his other son, Paul, was there visiting. It was nice to see familiar faces! The guy sitting in front of us overheard us talking about visitors and he leaned back and said that from the 3rd row back from the front, there were only 2 regular members sitting there, all the rest (and the pews were nearly full) were visitors!! I thought that was so awesome! How cool is that, that we are on vacation and decide to go to church and that many other people decided the same thing?! There was also a couple there from Mary Lou's ward in Rainier. The guy conducting said that they love the "holiday" times because their normal number of around 120 swells up to 400. WOW! Our 8 primary kids nearly doubled their primary today. It was all a great experience!
After our turkey dinner, we decided to take advantage of the sun and go for a walk on the sand. It was freezing!!!! FREEZING COLD! The kids flew kites and touched the sand, but Tatum was totally FREAKING OUT! She was so scared, she didn't even want to look at the water.

Mariah and Roxelle

Brinlee flying a kite.

Asia digging her toes in.

Tatum freaking out!

BEACH FUN!

We are at the beach in Lincoln City, OR and it's raining, of course! We are staying until next Tuesday. The kids wanted to get into the hot tub, which is outside, not under cover and it was raining. They had fun, though. Uncle Bryan was the supervisor du joir. Here's a cute pic.

Poopie pants times two

I didn't have to work today so it was my turn to take Mariah, Brinlee, and Asia to gymnastics tonight. Tatum threw a fit as we were getting ready to leave because she wanted to go, so she got to go with us. To start out the trip, we got there right as Mariah and Brinlee's class was starting because they got home a little late from school. So they quickly changed and rushed into class, in the meantime Asia and Tatum were playing on the play structure and having a good time. At one point Tatum told me she had to go potty, so I took her. Not long after that Asia came running up to me and said she had to go potty, I told her to put her shoes on and go to the bathroom and she did. In the meantime Tatum came up to me and said that she had to go potty again. I took her to the bathroom and she had pooped a little bit in her panties, so I put her on the toilet and she finished her business. Her underwear was too dirty to put back on her so she had to go commando for the rest of the afternoon at the Kid's Club. This of course did not bother her. We get out of the bathroom and off she goes to find Asia. After about 5 minutes of not being able to find Asia, Tatum and I went to the girl's bathroom, opened the door a little bit and called "Asia," she answered me and I asked if she was o.k. and she said yes. A minute or so later she came out of the bathroom and informed me that she had pooped in her panties, I thought "Oh great, now what?" I was thinking that hopefully it will only be a little bit like Tatum's. So I asked her if she pooped a little or a lot in her panties...she said a lot. We all (Me, Tatum and Asia) went to the boy's bathroom and into the only stall there, we got Asia's clothes (one piece leotard that is not easy to get on or off of the kid) and let me just say, it definitely was not a little accident. That is also when I noticed that her leotard was wet around her mid-section. I asked her why she was wet and she informed me that she had tried to clean her panties out by rinsing them in the toilet when she was in the girls' bathroom. So, I put her on the toilet, cleaned her up as much as possible without any wipes (the wipes are in the diaper bag which was at home with Kristy and Roxelle). Then I realized that she got a little poop on her leotard, so I went out of the stall to wash it off as much as possible in the sink and some boy was waiting for the stall. So, there we are, me rinsing off Asia's leotard in the bathroom sink, Asia standing in the stall butt naked, Tatum trying to stand on her head to look underneath the stall wall, and some strange boy waiting for the stall who was probably wondering what kind of freak circus he just walked in to. I wrung Asia's leotard out as much as possible and went back into the stall and put it back on her soaking wet. She was also now going commando and she still had to go through her gymnastics class. She was a little pill throughout the class because she did not want to pay attention and the rest of the class had to wait for her to stop goofing off a few times before they could move on to the next task. After all was said and done I was glad for her class to end and go home. Oh, by the way, the first thing we did when we got home was give Asia a shower.

Asia's Sing

This month's sing...cute stuff!

Flag Day

Today was Flag Day. Wear anything Red, White or Blue. I dug out the girls 4th of July outfit tops from last summer.

80's Day add

I totally forgot that on the morning the girls had 80's day, I was blowing Brinlee's hair dry and plugged in the crimper and the curling iron. She said "I don't want my hair curled like that", I said "Honey, this is the way we used to wear it" and she said "But I thought you didn't have electricity." HA HA HA HA HA HA!! I was dying laughing. I was laughing so hard that she got embarassed. I didn't mean to embarass her, but it was just so dang funny!

The birthday continues...

Grandma "E" came today and brought with her MORE PRESENTS!! Brinlee is definitely now all decked out with Hannah Montana paraphenalia (*SIGH*). LOL! I guess I'll just go with it...

She also took us to Denny's for dinner. The girls LOVE Denny's! ANNND it was Tuesday!! You know that means.....KIDS EAT FREE!!!! Thanks GRANDMA!!!

Sports Day

BOO! My girls are not really into sports and I don't really buy "sports themed" clothing. They each had these tops, so we went with that.

80's Day

This week is a spirit week at school. The students earned it by raising money for a former Truman Student that is fundraising for St. Jude's.
Anyway, today was 80's day and I had SO MUCH FUN dressing them up and doing their hair. Even Asia wanted in on the action!

(I could NOT get a picture of Mariah with her eyes open. So we had to do some side shots! LOL)

Brinlee's Birthday

She was absolutely giddy all day! Especially since I let her wear her "high heels" to church today. She has these brown high heeled wedge sandals from HI that she begs me to wear every week. I can't explain to her that she can't wear sandals in the snow! She just doesn't get it, so today when I said "yes", she squealed with delight!
Will and I had to speak in church today on the blessings of General Conference. I was grossly ill prepared, but Will did a fabulous job! Mine went alright, but I know I could have prepared better. Brinlee was on cloud 9 after Primary. She was clutching her goody bag they gave her when she came out of her class. She is so funny!
She opened her gifts before church and then requested German pancakes, bacon, sausage and toast for her b.day dinner. Then they decorated their own cakes. It was great!

The book that Mariah made for her.

The Temple

We are speaking in church tomorrow and in my preparation (yeah, I know it's late...), I found this video on the front page of the church's webiste www.lds.org.

Extreme Bedroom Makeover; Part 2

Since Brinlee's birthday is tomorrow (Sunday), I spent all day yesterday making over her bedroom while she was at school. She walked home with her friend, Annika Hamilton, after school to give me some more time. Will wasn't scheduled to work, but he got called in and we decided he should probably take it since he hasn't had an extra shift all week. So Mary Lou, Chelsea and Hannah, Monica and Rennick and my mom all came to help me out! They were AWESOME! They helped with the kids and lunch and some painting. They also helped me with the blanket project I bought off eBay for $1.99!! (Pics of that tomorrow =D) Thanks for all your help, ladies!!!

I forgot to get the "before" pics before I started. (LOL)

More views of the room on the video.
(The video is kinda dark at first, but gets brighter in the middle part)

The incredible shrinking woman

That's me! LOL

I went to the doctor about a month ago for a regular physical and I measured in at 5'3.75". I have always been 5'4" (maybe a smidge above the 4" line). ACK! I am shrinking. Man, I hate getting old. *SIGH*

6 months old and GOING GREEN!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

GREEEEN!
(Who's that grandma holding Roxelle??)

Roxelle is already 6 months old! Will and I still comment to each other once in a while how it still seems like we've had her in our family for years and not just months. 6 months has gone by quickly, but we think she has a very old "soul", LOL! She had her 6 month well check today with Dr. Fuchs (Few-Ks). She is 14 lbs. 3 oz. and 25 3/8's inches. So that is 25% for weight and 45% for height.
After that, a friend in the ward, Julie Tong, took her pictures. She has a studio at her house and she is FABULOUS! I will get to view the pics sometime next week. I can't wait!

"Christmas"

After Chandra's baptism (which was beautiful), we went to eat at Pietro's Pizza in Longview. It was really fun and the restaurant was practically empty. Then we all went back to Grandma's house for Christmas gifts. That's right, I said

Christmas!!

With all the crazy weather that we had over the holidays this past year, we never got to really have Christmas together. Mary Lou ended up coming down on New Years Day and gave our girls some gifts, but apparently she had some "co-cousin" gifts that she'd been hanging on to until we were all together at her house, which hasn't happened (surprisingly) until now. The kids were elated (sorry to spoil your b-day glory Chandra... =<). She got them all of these things to keep at her house. There was a cute little kitchen set complete with food, dishes, utensils, bakeware, a table, 8 chairs/stools, and a whole bunch of other accessories and things.

Will and Roxelle @ Pietros

Sorry the pics are so blurry. I didn't have my camera, so I had to use Mary Lou's. BOO!