too long and a beautiful week

It really has been too long since my last post.  Life has been busy.  Tiring, happy, overwhelming, wonderful and a little bit of everything in between.  

We have been taking advantage of some beautiful weather here in the northwest.  There are still quite a few rainy days, and I hear it will be like that until after the fourth of july (yuck!). However, we have also had many warm and sunny days.  Praise God!  I have been craving some sunshine lately.  

Over Mother's Day weekend we had some last minute visitors.  Matt's sister, Hanni,  and her two little boys flew out from Michigan to see us!  Hanni is an amazing woman flying across country with a three and one year old on a whim.  

It was so good to have family here.  

Matt's siblings have not been able to come and see us as much as we would like these past few years. It was such a blessing having Hanni and the boys come and visit and simply get to live life with us for a few days.  It felt very natural having them stay with us.  I think Grafton and his cousin thought they were siblings.  Well, at least they bickered like they were.  I really enjoyed getting to see the kids play together and just be kids together for a few days.  We don't get to do that often enough with our cousins. 

 Here are a few pictures of their trip...

It was quite a feat trying to fit four little ones into our three bedrooms.  Grafton ended up sleeping in a pack and play in the kitchen.  He actually slept surprisingly well. 

 Maybe we should keep him there.

Grafton found a very large, slimy slug on a hike.  He held on tight to that little guy the whole time we were in the woods.

These two were precious together.  It was so sweet getting to see them interact.  

 

 We spent our last day together at the Seattle zoo.  Those boys had a blast.

Looking back at these pictures makes me tear up a little bit.  It is hard seeing these kids grow up so far away from each other.  However, it makes trips like this one even more special.

We love you guys.

our visit...

Our visit with family was filled with a lot of relaxing and a lot of adventure.  These are a few pictures of our time with my parents.  We went to the Seattle aquarium, hikes in the park, a couple of ferry rides, a trip to Friday Harbor and a whole lot of wandering around our island.

One of my favorite outings was going to the aquarium.  It is not a very big aquarium and part of it was under construction, but Grafton loved it.

We watched Finding Nemo a few weeks ago and the scuba diver scared him a little (he calls them "scuba drivers").  While we were at the aquarium they had a scuba diver in one of the tanks.  Grafton was pretty scared of her at first, but by the time we left he was fist bumping through the glass and saying "He's not scary!".

Grafton is still not sure about "scuba drivers"  and has no desire to watch Finding Nemo any time soon, but he loves talking about our trip to the aquarium.

wordless wednesday

birthday girl

It has been a while since I have been on here.  We had my parents in town the last few weeks and have simply been enjoying their company.  Having family come to visit always helps us to feel like we are not so far away (even though we really are).  Grafton especially enjoyed having his grandparents here.  He always loves having them here, but I feel like he connected with them more this time than ever before.  Part of it is that he is growing older and can communicate with them better than in the past.  It was really hard to see them leave today.  It always feels empty around here when family leaves, but this time Grafton had a hard time saying goodbye.  He cried off and on for about an hour after they left asking for them to come back.  

It broke my heart. 

By the end of the day though, he was happily planning our trip to see them this summer.

...

One exciting thing we did this past weekend was celebrate our little girl's birthday.  

Laken Rae turned one on Saturday!  

We had a very low key party with my parents and our neighbor.  It was my favorite kind of celebration.  She was just too cute...

The night before her birthday I decided it was finally time to make the teepee I had been planning to make for months now.

Matt made her cake and it was wonderful.  Laken loved the frosting and couldn't eat it fast enough.  However, she skipped eating the cake and devoured strawberries instead.  

She is definitely my girl.

Grafton learned to lick his plate from his dad.

This one year old girly steals our heart every day.  She is adventurous and determined.  She is also "100 percent sweet" as her dad always says.

We love you Laken "Bacon"

wordless wednesday...with a few words

We have been really busy around here preparing for family to come in town.  Here are a few pictures from last week.  

Happy Wednesday

wordless wednesday

Happy Wednesday

the weekend

Oh how I love weekends.  Our weekend starts on Thursday night.  My husband is a minister so Friday and Saturday have become our family days.  We are always looking for a new adventure, even if it is a family outing to Costco.  

We live on an island.  Although we can drive off the island, rather than take a ferry, it is still a forty-five minute drive to the "big" city.  I have a love/hate relationship with the drive.    I don't like that there are so few restaurants and stores here on the island.  I am definitely an avid online shopper since I can rarely find what I am looking for on the island.  However, I love that living on the island means that I am becoming less of a consumer and more of a maker.  I like to sew, can, garden, paint, and just plain old create and I am able to do those things here more than ever.  I am learning to appreciate a slower pace of life and  how to live more simply.  These are things I have thought to be very important for our family for a long time.  Now I am finding inspiration (sometimes out of necessity)  to motivate me to live more simply. 

 I love slow weekends when we can enjoy each other's company and soak in these moments when our babies are still babies.

Here are a few pictures of how we spent the weekend...