It's all about B!!

Last weekend while we were driving through our neighborhood, Kent spotted two bikes in our neighbors yard with a "free" sign. SCORE! I jumped out of the van and hauled them back to our house. They will be perfect for the girls in a while! However, Brayden decided he wanted to try them out now. Kent pumped up the tires and B hopped on. After a few circles in the driveway Kent decided to flip the training wheels up. (These are so cool, I've never seen anything like it). It was amazing, Kent held Brayden's seat for 10 seconds, then he was off on his own! It didn't take him long to master it. We couldn't have been more proud. Through all of this he had to maneuver around his sisters who were dashing in front of him. He did great!

It made both of us feel like horrible parents because we waited so long to try this! Now he is off and riding and loving it!

A little crash, but he got right back on. I couldn't believe it!

Over the past few days Brayden has come up with some hilarious statements/questions.

Me: "Brayden can you please watch out, I don't want to step on you."

Brayden: "But don't your feet not go that high?"

We went to a friend's house in Hayden, ID. While we were all eating lunch, Annika asked Brayden, "Where is your house?"

Brayden said, "It's at the bottom of the weeee hill."

For those of you who don't know, we have to go down a huge hill to get to our house. Grandma Phillips started to say, "Weeee" every time we rode down it. Thus, it is now the "weee hill."

When I followed up by asking Brayden what city we lived in, he said, "Washington, Spokane, Greenacres." We're getting there.....

Last night as I was putting Brayden to bed, he became very anxious. He said, "We have family that lives in a different country."

I said, "Yes, Auntie Lyse, Uncle Dale and Uncle Wayne live in England."

He said, "Yeah and Eli lives far away too, is he on a different planet?"

I said, "No, Eli lives far away in a different country, but he lives on the same planet we do."

B: "Are lions going to eat Eli?"

(Elijah lives in Uganda, my friend Kym's son. I don't know where B is getting all these ideas/thoughts right now, it may be from Dora's world adventure where she visits Africa. But he was almost near tears worried about lions eating him).

B: "Why did God make lions to eat people? Does Eli feed the monkeys in his backyard? Does he have fruit trees in his backyard that the monkeys like? Does he play with the monkeys.....?"

Kym if you are reading this, I would love to know all of these things. I told B we would write to E and ask him all these ???s, so be prepared on Facebook.

Yay for Grandma!

Yay! My mom is in town for the weekend! We love it when Grandma comes to visit, we've been counting down the days for over a week. I just snapped this pic. of my mom last night while she was reading to the girls. Brayden was at VBS (vacation bible school), he has been missing in the last few posts, he has been busy. Side note: Brayden was so proud last night when he won the "most Christ like award." This means he was nice to his friends and did a good job at camp. My mom and I just laughed because he almost didn't get to go the last night because he has been SO tired and crabby. The camp was from 6-8:30. His bedtime is 8 and this week has caught up with him. Anyway, he got the award and I was shocked, but I think he used all of his "niceness" and "goodness" at camp. :)

The girls were showing Grandma their fancy tricks. Kent thinks this is the funniest thing, so the girls do it quite often to get Dad to laugh! I know most kids can do this, but it does look funny.

This morning the girls got a shower! Yay! I actually took the time to put their hair in pig-tails! I know all of you moms out there who have girls don't think this is a big deal, BUT my girls are almost 2 1/2 and their hair is FINALLY long enough for this! It didn't last long though, they yanked them out within an hour. Any suggestions for this??

Ellie sitting pretty.

Dani and Ellie

They were pretty proud of their two "pretties."

With their beloved baby dolls.

Really?!?....hhhmm, I'm not surprised!

Tonight after dinner, I was a little bit grumpy, which may have been due to the fact that it is so freakin' hot here, I don't want to venture outside of the AC. (I know I shouldn't complain, we are lucky to have AC). But I was lying on the couch and Kent screamed, "No way!" He then proceeded to yank out a nice long white/gray hair from my head. I started to feel a little sad/bad, but then I thought, 'I should have way more than that!' Just from the past few days, my whole head should be full of them, maybe I need to dye my hair red again......moving on....

I decided to snap a few updated pics. of the girls brushing their teeth tonight. They happened to be wearing matching pajamas, and they were in good moods! After looking at these pics. I am realizing more and more that they are such GIRLS!! They admired themselves and each other in the mirror for quite some time. The teen age years are fast approaching, I will be lucky to have ANY hair by then, let alone gray or red or brown.

More mommy moments for the list...

A few mommy moments...I forgot to write about this one in my beach posting. During nap time one day we decided we wanted to go on a bike ride. The house had tons of bikes and it looked like fun. The kid bike was just a little too big for Brayden as were all of the helmets. (He has a peanut head, he has been in the 10th percentile his whole life, I'm not complaining, it worked out well for me). Anyway..... We figured he could hold on for dear life while Kent peddled. I was riding next to them and B looks over and says, "Mom, do you know that we are riding fast and I'm not wearing a helmet?" I was thinking, 'Yeah, sorry little boy, hopefully you don't sway to one side and get a major head injury. I just really wanted to get some exercise and ride bikes.' What I said was, "Yes, isn't this silly? Make sure you hold on really tight and don't move." All ended well and there were no crashes. Notice how far he has to lean over and stretch to reach the handle bars. What?!? Are you saying we're bad parents? He was totally fine. :)

I have to make a note of this from last night to add to the list of naughty things my kids do.....

I was standing in the kitchen trying to have a conversation with Kent that lasted more than 30 seconds.....we did (maybe 2 minutes tops) when I realized there were no girls running around the house. I took four steps and saw them in the bathroom, NEVER a good thing. Ellie quickly scurried out when she saw me walking down the hall. Dani stood on the stool, frozen, with a worried look on her face. GREAT.... I walked in and both of her hands were covered in goo. She somehow managed to find squeezable vaseline (I am thinking it came from the hospital when they were born, I didn't even know it was in the drawer). She managed to squeeze over half of the tube out onto herself and the rest into a bottle of baby lotion that she had taken the lid off of. WTH??? How does she come up with these things? Kent walked in, looked, and turned around and went downstairs, leaving the two other kids to bounce around me and give me some great cleaning and parenting advice. Dani just stood there, silent, she knew she was busted. Ahhh, another peaceful evening with the Phillips.

Rockaway Beach

For weeks before we left for the beach, the kids talked to my parents on the phone and made plans for what we were going to do at the beach. One day, my mom and B were talking about roasting hot dogs and marshmallows. B told my mom that we were bringing marshmallows, but who had the sticks? He said, "I can bring the sticks, I save my corn dog sticks (doesn't everyone? He seriously does, not kidding, he uses them for his art projects). My mom sustained her laughter long enough to let him know that they might not be long enough. She let him know that they had long roasting sticks at the house we were renting. Too cute! B so excited to finally be roasting!!

Proud boy, and he let me know his hot dog was, "DEEElicious!"

Princess Ellie.

We went to Cannon beach one day and had lunch at Mo's. Across the parking lot was this cool little park. We played there for a while and let the kids burn off some energy. I think Kent had as much fun as the kids. They had this cool contraption that you could spin on. It made me sick just watching, but Kent and the kids loved it!

Monkey girls.

Spinning and spinning.

How many people can fit on a tiny spinner?

This pic. is out of order, but I had to sneak it in because it is so dang funny. You can't tell very well (thank goodness), but Ellie has a bare bum. Every time we went down to the beach the kids got soaked! Finally on the last day I thought it would be a good idea to put their suits on. However, before that, their clothes were soaked! The girls ended up getting rashes from their diapers and legs rubbing together and chafing. On the walk back to the beach house I thought it would be more comfy if they were buck. They thought I was crazy, but it was a lot better for all of us, then I didn't have to carry them!

Working and working.

Every time Dani stepped onto the sand she would break out into giggles. It was the cutest thing, I think she thought the squishy sand felt funny.

Dani working and working, that bucket of water probably weighed more than her.

Ellie getting ready to load her bucket up with water. I think Brayden was in charge (surprise) and he had the girls hauling the water while he manned the sandcastle and dug the hole.

After seeing these pics. I know why B decided to stay near the hole and keep it safe. The girls thought it was great fun to destroy it and knock all the sand back into it. As you can imagine, B was not pleased after his trip back from the ocean with his water.

Ooooh, not so happy about his "naughty sisters!"

Hhmm, working together?? That's a new concept!

We had a great trip to the beach with Grandma and Grandpa we can't wait for next time!

I also was lucky enough to see almost all of the 'couve girls. I had a great, relaxing lunch with Lins, Kathy and Connor. AND a nice, long, relaxing dinner with Jocey and Sarah. Thanks for sharing all of your Uganda pics. Jocey. I loved catching up with you girls! I can't wait for our next trip to the 'couve! Sarah thank you so much for our special trip to OMSI, the kids LOVED it, and so did we!

Great-Grandma Wagener's house

On the way to the beach (not really on the way, since G-ma's is South of the beach) we stopped to visit my Grandma. She was thrilled to see the kids, since we hadn't seen her since Christmas. It was fun to watch the kids play with all the toys I remember having as a kid. It is amazing what great shape they are in, considering they went through my siblings and my cousins too! Dani was so snugly with Grandma, which is so unusual for her, it was really cute.

Big smiles from Dani and G-ma.

I even got snuggles from Dani.....

....and Brayden.

I love this pic! Brayden looks so old though.

Ellie wasn't being too cooperative, so this is the best pic. we got.

The whole gang with Great-Grandma!

G & G's House

After an almost 8 hour drive, we arrived and G & G's! Everyone was very excited, we had been counting down the days for weeks! One of the first things they did was hunt for "polliwogs" as my mom says (tadpoles). I thought this was the funniest thing, I never would have thought my mom would like to do this, but she was way more excited than the kids. YAY GRANDMA! They headed out to the little pond at my parent's house and Brayden swatted the net around in the water. This made the polliwogs dive for cover, and B couldn't understand where they all went. After lots of patience and more waiting, they finally caught quite a few. Some just had tails and some had two legs. The kids were fascinated! The plan was to watch them over the week to see how they changed, but we left for the beach and the jar was still sitting on the counter.....

For dinner the first night Mom grilled and we had corn on the cob. For some reason my kids have never had corn on the cob. I think it's because Kent won't eat it, because it gets stuck in his teeth and it drives him crazy.....I thought watching the kids gnaw on the corn was hilarious, they were chewing on the end for a while before they figured out how to eat it right. Here are a bunch of pics. I am such a dork, sitting at the dinner table, taking pics. of my kids eating. Who does that???

Brayden went to town on his.

Ellie was all about digging in!

Danielle thought it was pretty tasty and she felt like such a big kid!