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!

Railroads Day Race

Grace ran in her first 1K race this morning! She has been quite the runner ever since she was very young, so this seemed like the perfect event for her. She did awesome and ran the whole way! I was so proud of my little runner (who clearly takes after her daddy in this area and NOT her mommy! )

All set for the race to start And they're off! Grace's good friend, Julia, ran with her.
Coming into the finish line!

She is quite proud of her metal...even if it doesn't really show in this picture. :)She had quite the cheering section. All 4 of her grandparents were there to root her on.
Finisher!

Goofing off with Julia...even after running that far, that both still had TONS of energy.

Visiting some random raccoon

After the race, we had close to 2 hours to wait for the parade to begin, so we walked to a near bye park for some playtime.
Walking back to the parade...these two cuties were still holding hands!

Our crew getting ready for the parade to start

Cheering for the parade participants

The parade was long but had a very small town feeling. The kids LOVED collecting all the candy that was thrown their way. (And eating it!)

What a fun day!! Grace is already asking when she can run her next race. Anyone up for the Salmon Days 1K??

Back to the Beach!

We had such a great time on our annual vacation to the Oregon Coast. We headed back to Neskowin, the little beach town that I have been visiting since I was Grace's age, with my parents and my brother and sister and their families. It was a lot of people and a lot of fun!!

We all had fun playing on the beach...even when the weather didn't quite cooperate.

I had never noticed how much Charlie sticks his tongue out until I was going through the pictures from the trip. I cracked up at how often his little tongue found it's way into the pictures!

We stayed in a beautiful beach house that we have been lucky enough to rent for 3 years now. It belongs to a friend of a friend, and it's a real privilege to get to stay in such plush accommodations! There are two red chairs in the upstairs family room that Kate and I named the "magic chairs." They were the perfect spot for taking pictures because they had amazing light AND they spin. It was pretty easy to bribe the kids into sitting still for a picture with the promise of a few spins in the chair. We made pretty much everyone sit in the "magic chairs" at some point...

It wasn't so magic for Hudson, I guess! :) (Although he did LOVE spinning in these!)

For the past 3 years, my mom has planned a game for the grown-ups to play in the evenings once the kids are in bed. The basic premise is she asks us questions about ourselves, and we get paid for answering them. At the end of the week, we have an auction and spend our hard earned play money on all kinds of good stuff!

It can get a little competitive...check out Kate eyeing Ryan's stash.

But mostly, it's just lots of fun bonding time!

A family picture of our little family...

and the big family...

It was such a fun week of not doing much other than spending time together. Sweet Grace cried for much of the first half hour of our trip home because she already missed everyone, especially Jacob. (Who she always calls "MY cousin Jacob.") I really treasured the time with all of our family and loved watching my kids grow closer to their aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents.

Thanks Mom and Dad for another amazing week of memories!!