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 2010: Swimming

We had lots of opportunities to swim this summer and tried to take advantage of them. My in-laws have an unheated pool, so that means in Oregon, we have to wait for the heat waves (which there weren't many of this year) and head over. The girls all made a lot of progress in their swimming skills this year, partly because Emily and Angela took 4 weeks of swim lessons. Ashley enjoyed the water too.

We had friends come with us a few times which made it so much more fun for everyone.

At the beginning of the summer, Angela would only jump off the diving board in her lifejacket, but she stopped using it shortly after.

The girls love it when Matthew is able to come to and play with them.

We also went to a swim party with my cousins and their kids at the pool where my Grandparents live.

My cousin Kim

One of the ladies I visit teach has a pool in her backyard and invited us to swim one day. Until then, Nicole wouldn't swim on her own, even with flotation, but she finally got comfortable swimming around on her own with a lifejacket and a noodle. Yay, now I could actually go to a public pool since I will only have 1 kid to hold.

Family Reunion: Swimming

Last week all of Matthew's siblings and their kids were in town for a few days and we had so much fun together. The whole family hadn't been together at the same time for over 6 years, so it was a big deal. Portland was also in the middle of a record heat wave, so we have been over there swimming every day for the last week and a half. It is an unheated pool, so it has been fun to have hot enough weather that the pool isn't freezing.The peer pressure was good for Angela. After a few days, she was running down the diving board and jumping in without anyone there to catch her. Before this, she wouldn't even jump in in the shallow end by herself. There was a constant line of kids at the diving board waiting to jump in.

One game included trying to hit the person diving in with a ball.
This is my crazy brother-in-law jumping in head first.

Emily learned to do a handstand on the bottom of the pool and was so proud of herself.

Fourth of July Weekend

We had really hot weather 4th of July weekend, so we played in the water a lot. On Friday we went out on the boat in the morning with my family. The girls had fun tubing and swimming.

Angela liked pulling the rope in.

Later that afternoon we went swimming at Matthew's parent's house.

Angela got brave enough to jump off the diving board!

On Saturday we went to our annual ward/community breakfast/parade/carnival. It was hot so we didn't last as long, but it was a lot of fun.

We ended the day with a BBQ at my parents and then our own fireworks in our culdesac.