Eric's Salon

Eric decided to paint little girl nails today. They were both so excited! The whole thing was his idea too.

Lucy had a long think over which color pink she wanted on her nails. She finally chose a pink with no sparkles. She also chatted his ear off the entire time. It was like a real spa treatment!

Gwen patiently waited for her turn.

She was very serious about her nails getting painted. I don't think she said two words the entire time. Two girls, so very different.

Gwen ended up with sparkly pink fingers and toes. I imagine all the polish will be off by tomorrow. She really likes to pick at it.

A Slumber Party

Andrew has been to several slumber birthday parties this year. Apparently nine is the year to start this insanity. Andrew of course wanted to follow suit and invited several friends from school.

Andrew also wanted a soccer themed party which was easy enough. A soccer themed cake and some invites with sports equipment and we are ready to go.

Dinner of pizza, strawberries, cherries and pop. Add some cake, ice cream, presents and s'mores to the mix and it was enough to send this boy into the crazy zone!

Happy Birthday Andrew!

No Slackers Here

One of the suggestions we were given by Zane's kindergarten teacher for the summer was to encourage him to write and draw. He has great ideas and is a fairly good writer. It just takes him longer than he wants to spend on the project to get it done. Frankly Andrew can also use work on this. He is a fantastic writer but does not enjoy doing it. So he got roped in on the assignment as well.

The girls wanted to do the assignment as well. I had no problem encouraging them to write either. The prompt for today was, "What was your favorite thing about Cannon Beach?" After they thought for a few moments they managed to get some nice stuff written down. I am planning on doing this at least once a week this summer. Hopefully they will all be ready to go by the time September rolls around!

Cannon Beach 2012- Part 4

Due to some seriously nasty snowfall this winter, Zane ended up missing his kindergarten graduation ceremony at school. It was a really tough decision for our family to make. Miss the ceremony or miss our vacation in Cannon Beach.

After a lot of thought we decided to miss Zane's ceremony and continue on with our vacation as planned.

Because he missed his school ceremony we decided to throw him a little party while we were in Cannon Beach. Zane brought his cap home from school the day we left for the beach so we just took it with us to add to the party.

We surprised Zane with a cake on Friday afternoon. Eric and I ran to the grocery store on Thursday night and bought a cake and told all our friends that we were having a small party. Zane was very pleasantly surprised. I think it may even have made up for missing his school party.

Cannon Beach 2012- Part 3

A bounce house obstacle course...

complete with a giant slide finish.

Lots of games and prizes.

Strategy to win the best prize!

Cannon Beach 2012- Part 2

Wednesday night is always S'mores night in Cannon Beach! I think it is Eric and Andrew's most favorite activity of the entire week.

Reid and I got all snuggled up to enjoy the time on the beach and hang out with the family.

Lucy really enjoyed the s'mores but she did not enjoy the sand in her sandals.

Lovely sunset

Zane had a huge revelation this year. Always before he has insisted that he did not enjoy s'mores. This year (since they were only awarding chocolate and graham crackers to those who roasted marshmallows) he decided to actually TRY a s'more. Shockingly he loved them! Now he will never have the same problem again.

DELICIOUS!

Miss Gwen had a very exciting Wednesday morning. While we were getting ready to go on a trip to the Tillamook Cheese Factory the kids were playing in the hallway. One of the big girls picked her up to give her a piggyback ride and didn't realize that Gwen wasn't holding on. Gwen ended up falling backward and smacking her head on the floor. (concrete covered with carpet, not terribly soft) She started crying instantly and then suddenly stopped and I laid her down on the bed. Her eyes rolled back and she was out cold for about a minute. She finally came too and started crying again. Eric took off to call 911 as soon as she passed out and in no time at all the medics and first responders were all in our room checking her out and making sure she was doing alright. We ended up going to the hospital just as a precaution and got discharged right away. She was doing great and none of us really felt like a CT was necessary. She bounced right back and we made it to the cheese factory eventually. Ice cream and cheese fixes everything.

I really do love this place!

Andrew LOVES himself some s'mores!

Deliciousness!

Cannon Beach 2012- Part 1

Nothing says "trip to the beach!" like a sand castle contest.

Gwen and her best buddy Toby.

Gwen was not entirely sure about the water and the waves. She got tossed by a sneaker wave and it shook her up quite a bit. She didn't let it keep her from having a good time though!

Andrew barely paused in all his building endeavors to let me take this photo...

Mr. Reid had a great time playing Godzilla baby with the sand castle. He really was thrilled with the whole experience!

Zane could barely contain his excitement that we were FINALLY in Cannon Beach!

Lucy was apparently practicing her Japanese garden creation skills.

Reid was really mad that we wouldn't let him play in the water. The section of beach we were on had a little ledge where the water would drop off into about 8 inches of water. Too much for a baby boy to overcome. You really would have thought we were murdering him with the way he was carrying on!