Remlinger Farm

This afternoon we headed to Remlinger Farms to join in our neighborhood picnic and fall celebration. We had never been to the "farm" before, and while I'm sure there actually is a pumpkin patch somewhere, we never saw it. Instead, we had a blast going on all the kid friendly rides and spending time with friends and neighbors.

Grace totally surprised me. A year ago she was afraid of those little rides outside of stores that you put quarters in. Today she ran from ride to ride and LOVED every one! Charlie was a little more timid, and with all of his recent throwing up issues, we certainly didn't encourage him to go on anything that moved too fast or spun too much.

Grace and Jeff on the pumpkin ride

Grace and her friend Jayden waiting to go on a ride...I think this is so sweet!
Merry-go-Round!

On the train ride after lunch with Julia and Reese

This handsome little guy drove me around in his antique car.

Grace and Julia took Julia's mom and sister for a ride, too!

Grace's face cracks me up in this picture. I think it's the perfect expression for this cut out!

Grace and Julia loving the thrill of the roller coaster. (Grace says this was her favorite ride.)

Charlie was totally terrified the whole time he rode the roller coaster but didn't cry until it was over. Jeff took him on the ride and as soon as they got off, I could hear Charlie crying and saying, "I need Mommy."

It was such a fun day and a tradition we hope to continue. I have to say though, we're still going to need a "real" pumpkin patch excursion this month!

Salmon Days Race

As soon as Grace finished her last 1k race, she asked when she could run another one. She has been very excited to run in the Salmon Days race, and Jeff decided to run the 5k as well. She definitely takes after her daddy in her love of running.

Here are the runners pre-race Jeff coming into the finish line. He did an awesome job!
Grace and some of her friends before the kids race

Coming into the finish line! (There were SO many kids running that it was next to impossible to get any good shots of her during the race.) She ran the whole way again! You can see her friends Julia and Eli finishing the race with her.

The cheering section...

Grace with Grandma and Boppo after the race

Charlie really wanted to run through the finish line after seeing Grace come through, so he did it...several times! He even got a metal with all of the other kids who finished. Maybe next year he and I will do the 1k together. I'm pretty sure we run at about the same pace. :)

Silly Faces

Trying to catch a good picture of Grace is usually a long process...

But sometimes, if you can distract her enough, she eventually cooperates...
Charlie, on the other hand, just has to get past kissing the trees...

then he just might look your way, but you have to be quick enough to catch it!

Surprise!

Here's a fact about me: I don't like surprises. Never have. I almost always new what I was getting for Christmas before Christmas came. I peeked in shopping bags, I found shopping lists, I even unwrapped presents and rewrapped when necessary. (Sorry, Mom!)

So, why on earth did I think I would think it would be fun to not find out the sex of our next baby?!?!

It seemed like it would be such a great moment...giving birth and having the doctor announce, "It's a....!!" It made sense practically, too. We've had a girl baby, so we have girl stuff. We've had a boy baby, so we have boy stuff. The planner in me was okay with the situation.

So when the ultrasound came, even thought I realllllllly wanted to know what we were having, I held strong. I knew that if I could just make it through, I would be so glad and excited once again that we were waiting to find out.

But then I got home, and I didn't feel excited. I felt disappointed. I thought it would wear off. It didn't. I began to realize that knowing the sex of the baby is really part of the bonding process for me. I wanted to get the room ready. I wanted to pick out some new special outfits. I wanted to start imagining our family with it's newest member. I wanted to stop calling the baby "it".

And luckily, in what I truly believe was completely God's provision, when I went to see my doctor a few days after my ultrasound, she told me that they had not been able to get all the measurements they needed and I would have to go in for a second ultrasound. A DO OVER!!!

Jeff, being the always supportive and compassionate husband that he is, agreed that we should go ahead and take advantage of the second ultrasound to find out the sex of the baby. (I love that guy!!)

We didn't find out at the appointment. Instead, we had the tech write "BOY" or "GIRL" and place it in an envelope. Tonight we had our families over, and let Grace open the envelope and reveal to all of us that we are having a...

We are thrilled with the news (especially Grace), but truthfully would have been either way. This little girl will have 3 girl cousins very close in age to play with...so fun!!

As always, we asked everyone to come dressed according to their guess.

Team Blue:Team Pink

Seabrook

We spent last weekend at Seabrook on the Washington Coast. It was so fun exploring this quaint little town and spending time together as a family. It rained almost the entire time we were there, but the skies cleared up for a few hours Saturday morning, so we still got some good beach time. Even though it was a wet weekend, we still made memories playing games, snuggling up with movies, and even playing in the rain. One extra fun part of the trip was that some of our good friends ended up staying just one cottage away from us. We all had fun spending time with them, but Grace was especially excited to get to play with one of her very favorite friends, Julia.

Friday night our friends shared their s'mores supplies with us. A little rain wasn't going keep us away from that!

Grace's post-s'more face and drenched look from the rain

Funny girls loving the rain!
The next day the sun came out! But we were up so early we spent some time playing in pajamas before hitting the beach.

Beach time!! It was a really beautiful beach...

Grace showing off her shell collection. We renamed the beach "Sand Dollar Beach" because we found SO MANY sand dollars!

There is a hole just to the right of Grace which she fell into and got soaked from the chest down. It didn't even phase her!

Such good friends!

Trying to catch the birds...

My handsome boys!

The rain set in after lunch on Saturday, so we spent a lot of time playing games in our cottage. This set of dominoes entertained the kids for hours!

Sunday morning was dry. We knew there was a chance it might start raining, but we wanted to sneak in a little more beach time before heading home. We were the only people on the beach (it was about 8:30 in the morning!), and we had only been there about 10 minutes before the rain started and the kids asked to go back. My favorite part of the rain is the curls it brings to Grace's hair!

We LOVED Seabrook and look forward to going back many more times. Maybe we'll even go when it's sunny and really get to take advantage of all there is to do there!

Park Playtime

We had a fun day last week playing with Jacob and Hudson. We went to a park near their house for a while and had so much fun exploring.

There is a graffiti wall in the park that I thought would make fun pictures. Grace was pretty uncooperative but gave me a few "poses".

The kids played "Starbucks Drive-Thru" and made us some pretty yummy mochas! (I can't imagine where they'd ever get the idea to play that!)

Cute boys!

We love, love, love our cousins (and of course, their mom Auntie Kate!), and had such a great time spending the day with them!

Pretool!!

This morning I dropped my little baby girl off at "pretool" for the first time. I still can't believe we're entering this phase...and we're doing it a year later than most! She was BEYOND excited to start which helped this sentimental mama comes to grips with reality a little easier. :)

Just before we left...I promise she put shoes on before we actually got in the car! Heading in! I was pretty surprised when she took off ahead of me and started to walk in like she'd done it a hundred times before.
When we got inside, she stayed much closer to my side but started to warm up when she saw Miss Amy who she met and fell in love with at the open house last week.

Then her other teacher, Miss Jen, introduced her to a new friend named Kate. Kate and Grace both were wearing shoes that light up when they walk, so it was an instant connection. :) I heard from the teachers and from Grace that they never left each other's side the whole morning.

Off to play with her new friends!
She had LOTS to tell me when I picked her up, and it sounds like she had a great morning! I am so proud of her and so thankful for such an amazing school!