He's 35!

Well, my N is 35! We had a fun little birthday party for him. The boys helped me bake a cake and we even made homemade pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants)--something N regularly tells me he misses from home. It took me 9 hours, but look how pretty they turned out in the second picture. I was very proud when N said they tasted like the ones from home! We even got a babysitter and got to go on a date that evening.

It's a little dark, but I love this picture of N. His smile is so happy and sweet.

Notice the little boys helping blow out the candles. Sadly, E missed the party as she was sleeping and couldn't stay awake any longer.

Fun Stuff

What could be more fun than blowing bubbles with Mom and having water gun fights with Papa?

You can see how excited E is about this toy! She's doing really good rotating herself around and pushing all the buttons to get the music to play. She is too cute!

B and S wanted to make "king hats. " They look more like the Pope (with Indian war paint,) but they're still so darn cute. B kept calling himself "My majesty." It was so cute!

Picnic at the Park

On one of our rare, sunny, somewhat warm days this month we went on a picnic with some friends. We had a great time! And the kids were sooo happy they went to bed without any objections that night.

Washing the Car

N let the kids wash the van with him. Even though it was cold, they sure enjoyed themselves!

When We Make It Ourselves

I'm glad that my boys like to cook. We've also discovered that when we let them help make dinner, they actually eat the dinner. I'm not sure if it's just pride in what they made themselves or knowing exactly what's in there or a little of both, but either way it works! The boys made this spinach quiche and the only thing I did is roll out the pie dough and cut the veggies. Other than that they put it all together themselves. And they ate an entire quiche before their papa even made it home from work! Good thing we made two!

Memorial Day

We found out that one of my great-grandmother's is buried in Blaine. I've never lived close enough to visit any grandparents grave on Memorial Day, so we decided to go see if we could find it. We couldn't. But at least we tried! After that we went out to Birch Bay. The boys had such fun at the beach last time we decided to take their papa since he hadn't been yet. It was another chilly, gray day at the beach, but it was really, really nice. B scooped a little crab up out of the ocean with his sand bucket. You can see by the look on his face that he was utterly thrilled. We're not entirely sure it wasn't already dead, but he didn't need to know that. S was understandably a little gun-shy from his last trip to the beach, and was afraid of cutting his legs on the rocks again. But as long as I held his hand or at least stayed close by, he was happy. And E was just as content as could be in her daddy's arms. It was a good day.

Can you see how thrilled he is?

Lynden

Lynden is this darling little town right on the border of Canada. We love going up there when we get a chance because they have an awesome park that the boys call "The Castle Park"which is seriously what it looks like. It's so cool. We went up one day last month and played at the park then took a stroller ride downtown. The windmill building is an old hotel. I thought it looked pretty cool. Apparently Lynden was originally settled by the Dutch.

Paddington Bear

I love both of these pictures of E. Her little outfit reminded me of Paddington Bear.

Patio Picnic

We thought summer had finally arrived (but it hasn't,) so the boys wanted to celebrate by having a picnic on the patio. It was warm enough even E got to come out. (Look at the last picture, doesn't this girl have the greatest hair?) I didn't have any sandwich fixings so we had stir fry and noodles! It was a great success!