Kitties and Cupcakes

The kids and I made lemonade cupcakes today, they were super super yummy! Of course, I had to let them clean my beater and my spoons when I was done. Emma made that exact face for about 5 pictures, I couldn't get her to smile for anything, I think she thought if she took the spoon out, I would take it from her!!


I went in about 9:30pm tonight to check on Emma. She has a weird habit lately (okay, not so lately, its been months now) of falling asleep in front of her door on the floor, so I usually go in after she's asleep and plop her back into her bed. Why the child would want to sleep on the floor when she has a beautiful bed full of loveys and stuffed animals is beyond me, but whatever, we already knew she was weird. Anyways, I go in and I found this...

Somehow, she'd commandeered Harry's kitty Snuggles and was giving him some lovin'. Normally the cats don't even come upstairs when she's awake, they're THAT terrified of her! This cat continues to amaze us with how loving he is towards the kids, he's nipped Jay a few times when playing, but never even bothered to walk away from the kids, let alone anything else, even when Emma was clearly mauling him and I witnessed a little tail chewing action. (Yes, she's weird) We debated changing the cat's name when we adopted him in March, but there really seems to be no other name that fits him as well. He LOVES to snuggle and, we realized recently, has actually been keeping Harry up at night by snuggling with him. So, now they get to go to bed together, but we have to go in and get him and close Harry's door after he's fallen asleep. The poor cat howls by his door for awhile and then just usually finds Jay. :)

Strawberry Picking

Yesterday we went up to Walter's Fruit Ranch at Green Bluff with some friends for the Strawberry Festival. We've done blackberries, blueberries, peaches, nectarines, apples, and pumpkins, but this was our first time picking strawberries. The kids did GREAT, especially being that these are their favorites. :)

Jay holding up a nice one!

Harry and Anna comparing

some sweet little girl we found in the plants...

...who took her shoes off and made her mommy hunt for them!

Harry pickin' away!

Emma mowing down on the FruitLoop Express :)

checkin' out the tractor

feeding the goats!

Harry playing in the pea pit

Riding the wiggle worm

Ems stealing my lemonade at the end... it was yummy!!

Tutu at the Park

Emma hates to dress up. As in, I'll wear the normal people clothes, preferably with Dora on them, but I'm NOT wearing frilly little dresses, let alone tutus. So, when she came out from her nap the other day begging to put this on, I happily obliged. Of course, we then wore it to the park and in the backyard, but whatever... I think the swing picture is my new favorite!

My little big girl...

Emma peed on the potty today!!! Whoo-hoo!!!

For weeks now she's been saying, "I pee!" whenever we ask Harry if he has to go, or if he goes himself. So, today, I figured, what the heck, I'll let her try. I sat in there for about 30 minutes with her, and sure enough, she peed! Half an hour later, she asked to go again, and she peed AGAIN! I'm fairly certain this is a fluke and I'm totally positive that she's not physically ready to be trained, but after fighting with Harry for over a year to use the damn potty, I"m completely elated that she's showing interest, not to mention excited herself! Jay and I have decided that when she asks, we'll put her on the potty, but I'm not going to push it yet. I don't want her to get discouraged and I'm not ready to deal with more accidents just yet. I feel like it was just last week that we were having to bribe Harry to use the potty. Oh, wait, it WAS last week! haha....

Father's Day... the actual post!

On Father's Day, we decided to take a trip to Coeur D'Alene and bum around downtown. I love the little shops and the kids love the park there. However, once we got there, we realized our mistake: it was the Ironman Triathalon weekend. Hence, we couldn't get within miles of downtown, let alone find something to do and avoid the crowds. SO, I had the bright idea of heading up to Silver Mountain and riding the gondolas, something I've wanted to do in the summertime since we moved here. I conned Jay into it by promising that he could check out the ski terrain while we were there. :) The kids were thrilled and had a blast- Emma kept saying, "I Ride??" with a big smile on her face.

When we finished on the gondolas and had eaten lunch at the top (so cool!), we realized we still had our swim stuff packed up from the Y the day before, so we thought we'd check out the waterpark as well. Turns out, its only for registered guests of the hotel (they said they're trying to keep the locals out!), but Jay gave them a sob story about his two sweet little kids who drove all the way from Spokane just to swim in the lazy river and they let us in for free. :) How about that? We all had a blast there, Harry swam laps and laps and laps around the lazy river and Emma rode waterslides until she couldn't hold her head up to stay above water anymore. She eventually crashed on Jay's lap on one of the tubes! LOL, apparently, 21 month olds really DO need naps every day! This was the first time we'd attempted delaying her nap, and she did really well surprisingly. Jay and I were just as exhausted as the kids, but they managed to stay awake until we got back through Coeur D'Alene, so we stopped at the MacKenzie River Pizza Company that just opened there. For all you who don't know, that's my FAVORITE place to eat, and they were only located in Montana up until about January when they opened one in Coeur D'Alene, so I've been dying to go since. And of course, it completely lived up to its reputation and we gorged ourselves on their delicious food. Needless to say, we all crashed when we got home and were still tired yesterday! The kids seem to have rallied nicely by today though, in case you were worried... :)

my beautiful kids getting ready to go up!

playing on the swings!

They had a bouncy castle at the top of the mountain! How cool is that?

so gorgeous!

Wipe-out!!

playing on the SNOW!

the sign said it was the "longest gondola ride in the world." I thought the ones at Whistler were longer, but Jay said time and not distance.... hmm....

Daddy on the Gondola

135 Pictures

as in, the KC-135, not 135 pictures. I mean, my kids are cute, but that would be outrageous!!

his t-shirt says "Real kids wear Navy and Blue"

"I Dir-dee?"

The full-plane shot

The 4 of us :)

Soooo excited to be with her Daddy :)

FOD! (That's Foreign Object Damage for all you non-flyers!)

so handsome

Lovin' the flightsuit!

Cuda and his mini-me

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day to my handsome hubby :) This is one that I took the other day at our "airplane photo shoot," more pictures of that to come. Happy Father's Day also to our Dad's and Papa!! (my Dad is fishing at our cabin in Alaska today, so I'm doubting he even knows what day is, but Happy Day to him nonetheless!)

We bought some big letters and did a cool photo shoot spelling out the word D-A-D and put it in a trifold frame.

Funny Pictures :)

Harry drew a car!!

I found them "hiding" this morning... note the pin curls on the top of Emma's head.. hehe...

my idiot cat begging for ice cream...

Ems cleaning the beater..

so cute!

Yup, I give my kids quarters to vacuum for me!!! :)