My Little Crafter

Nicole started this all on her own and has been busy for hours now. I haven't helped her at all. She says she is making crowns for her friends to wear at her birthday party. It's hard to explain to her that her birthday is over a month away. She has been a busy, happy girl today!

August Birthdays

Angela and Ashley's birthdays are one day apart, so we celebrated together. Angela got breakfast in bed on her birthday. Emily got it ready all by herself, including buying the candy bar ahead of time and wrapping it up. What a lucky girl!

Clip on earrings!

Angela turned 8 this year, so she got her own scriptures in preparation for her baptism.

Yummy chocolate mousse cake! She has my love of chocolate!

I took some pictures of her outside.

Emily helped Ashley open her presents.

She got a pretend make up kit and she knew exactly what to do with everything.

My sister-in-law Ashley helped me make this cute flower out of fondant for my Ashley's cupcake. That way I didn't have to make two cakes. It worked perfectly.

Blowing out the candles.

When I told someone the other day that I have 4 girls, they smiled and said exclaimed, "You are so blessed!" and I thought, yes I am. I am so blessed to have 4 wonderful girls!

Cousins' Visit

Matthew's sister and her family came to visit for 10 days in August and we had so much fun with them! We were essentially on vacation, but still at home, the best of both worlds. Our girls had so much fun playing together and they had lots of time to!

Two Ashley's-aren't they both beautiful?

Chloe had her birthday party while here, a princess party. We were instructed to come "fancy", so we spent a lot of time getting ready at home. All the girls wanted their hair curled and make up done.

The primping continued at Nana's! Chloe got her wish of pink hair for her birthday.

All the girls

Ashley is an amazing cake decorator! She spent 3 days on this cake. She taught me how to make marshmallow fondant which was really fun and pretty easy. Maybe I'll try it myself sometime.

Children's Museum: Looking at this picture makes me realize how old Emily is, she had a great time there, but compared to the rest of the kids in the kitchen, she looks old!

The weather didn't get hot while they were here, but we finally got in the pool anyway. It was freezing! But the kids didn't seem to mind.

Ashley is really good at hair too and my girls were more than happy to let her do their hair. This was a pretty crazy hairdo, but the girls loved it!

We had a fun day at the beach, but it was much warmer back in Portland, so we didn't stay too long.

Summer at Home

One of my favorite things about summer is all the creative play my kids do at home. This was a common scene this summer. Emily likes to make lunch and she never just makes lunch, she turns it into a restaurant, complete with menu and personal ordering. It's great I don't have to make lunch, but then it's extra work cleaning it up!

Emily and Angela did a few lemonade stands this summer. Between us and the neighbor kids there was a week where there was a stand at the end of our street almost every day. Once one kid did it, everyone wanted to! Angela did one with her friend across the street.

They spent lots of time on the poster. I tried to let the kids do as much as possible on their own, including carrying everything down there and back.

Emily loves to bake! A babysitter let her borrow a little cupcake decorating cookbook and she was dying to do a bunch of them and wanted to have a cupcake sale to sell them. She started working on them at 9am and worked straight until 2pm when her sale started. She emailed and called some friends so there would be some customers since it wasn't a hot day. I am amazed at friends' and strangers' generosity.

Kites, basketballs, and m&m cupcakes

Strawberry and baseball

These ice cream cone ones were fun

Wahclella Falls 2011

We did this hike 3 years ago and I'm glad we were able to do it again this summer, it's such a perfect hike for kids. It was fun to see how much easier it was for the older girls. They all did great except Ashley didn't want to be in the backpack and Matthew carried her a lot of the way. Fortunately it's not too long of a hike. We invited some new friends to go with us and it was so fun to have them with us!

Exploring the cave

The Hughes Family

Kevin was daring the kids to put their faces in the icy cold water, it was pretty funny.