38.5 Weeks!

Dear baby #4,

We love you and can't wait to meet you. Although we have not yet held you, you are occupying a large place in all of our hearts. Your sisters can't wait to hold you and are trying to convince me to buy them a mini-rocking chair so they can rock you to sleep for your naps. I always get asked if we are hoping for a boy and my honest answer is "no". I am hoping for you. We love you baby #4 and we are ready to meet you whenever you are ready to arrive.

Nature Walks

This year we are going to start keeping nature notebooks. So when we go on our walks, we will take clipboards and draw sketches of things we observe in nature. We will then go home and look in encyclopedias, etc to answer any questions that may have been left unanswered.

The girls were very excited about their clipboards.

We made several stops to sketch trees, birds, rocks...

Juliette was very interested in a potato bug she saw along the path.

And of course she had to pick it up with a leaf.

We will start our homeschool year tomorrow by having a "back to school party" and by showing the girls all of the things we will be learning about. Blog post coming soon!

Juliette's 4th Birthday Party

To be sure that we weren't in the hospital on Juliette's party day, we celebrated a little early this year. Yesterday we spent a beautiful day at Crescent Beach celebrating our sweet Juju's 4th Birthday. We had a great time flying kites, collecting shells, building castles, and eating pizza and cupcakes.

After the party Juliette kept saying "All of my friends said happy birthday to me. All of them!" She felt so loved and cared for. And when we asked her what her favorite part of the party was she answered "I loved it when they all said happy birthday - except the babies because they can't talk."

These girls know how to party.

The dollar store kites worked incredibly well.

The party guests: Natalie, Moriah, Ella, Karis, Ethan, Hudson, Juliette. Most little siblings not pictured, except of course Karis who thinks she is one of the big kids.

Instead of having a sand castle contest, Juliette wanted everybody to build a huge castle together. After the castle was built she thought it would be fun for the babies to knock it down.

We put together a birthday book for Juliette. Each family made a special page to put into her book.

When we asked Karis what her favorite part of the party was, she answered "snuggling Ms Moo."

Shower Messages

Ella loves to shower instead of take baths. She is very independent while she showers and I usually just come in and out to make sure the soap is all rinsed out of her hair, etc. She often writes me shower messages on the foggy door and surprises me with them when I come in. And they are often just the words of encouragement that I need at the end of the day.

"Ella loves her mom"

"I love my mom so much"

Little Artists

Our girls love to paint. We have been reading books about the masters. There is a series by Laurence Anholt that Ella and Juliette love. After reading one of the books, Ella said she'd like to paint a portrait of Spencer. 

She asked him to sit very still and appropriately picked the colors.

She took time to get the hair to look "just like Dadda's really looks". It was really cute to see her eyes go from the page, to Spencer, and back again.

The finished product.

Swimming Lessons

Last week Ella, Juliette, and Ethan were in swimming lessons. The kids did great and loved being there each day.

Riley and Karis were great spectators. Next summer, Karis will be old enough to be in lessons as well!

Blueberry Picking

Last week we went for a visit at Great Grandpa's. He was kind enough to let us pick blueberries from his backyard. The girls love picking blueberries at his house - he even has little buckets for them to put around their necks. We had a great visit! Thank-you Great Grandpa.

Today we went to Wagner Hills to pick even more blueberries.

Karis definitely ate more than she picked. I kept trying to help her fill her bucket, but she was eating them faster than I could pick. She kept saying "I'm having mouthfuls."

Ella and Juliette were great pickers!

36 weeks pregnant! I have been feeling great and am thankful for a few cooler days this week. We are very excited to meet our new baby. The girls have loved feeling our baby move around and have been able to see him / her kick even through my clothing.

And here's a picture taken 4 years ago. Ella - 14 months old, and me at about the same point in pregnancy with Juliette in my tummy.

"The Boy and the ..."

The other morning Ella said "I'm going to write 7 books today." So she spent most of her free time creating a mini-series about a boy and various different animals. The series of books includes:

The Boy and the Dog

The Boy and the Cat

The Boy and the Mouse

The Boy and the Fox

The Boy and the Elephant (my favorite)

The Boy and the Monkey (Juju's favorite)

The Boy and the Turtle (Spencer's favorite)

She illustrated all of them and on the back of one of the books she wrote "now available in large print." Her new favorite activity is making books and she often gives them away to her friends.

Thankfully Spencer convinced her to make "mini-books" because before she was making full-sized books and it was hard to keep paper stocked around our house!

Cultus Lake Amusement Park

On Tuesday we went to the amusement park at Cultus Lake. We promised we would take Ella to the Ferris wheel this summer and this amusement park had a perfect ferris wheel for little girls. We got in the car after quiet time and told them we were going on a surprise adventure. There were even more questions than usual on our car-ride! They were very excited when we pulled into the lot and saw all of the rides.

We started on the hot air balloon ride

Then we did the bumper boats.

And then the highly anticipated ferris wheel, which was everything Ella had hoped it would be. She was beaming.

Juliette's favorite ride was the swings.

Judging by this picture, it must have been my favorite ride as well.

The carousel was also a big hit!

And Ella was the only one tall enough to go on the windmill drop - which she loved.

It was a great day!