Love is in the Air

Last weekend Kenton and I had the honor of attending a beautiful beach wedding outside of Seaside. Many of our old college group friends were there and we had a ton of fun. We also took advantage of this invitation (and a gift of provision from the Lord) to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary with a weekend away without The Bean. My mom was gracious enough to come down and watch Jillian while we were gone.
Our accommodations were not the greatest but the weather was amazing but we made the best of it with some help from Fred Meyer (a reed diffuser for the musty smell, a mini rose bush to add some much needed color and some good munchies). We took multiple walks on the beach and Kenton FINALLY convinced me to play Risk with him . . . Star Wars Risk of all things. After a slow start, I finally won and I was forced to admit that I enjoyed myself much more than I expected (but please don't remind him of that). :)

Miss Jilly, How does your garden grow??

Kenton was re potting a strawberry plant that we had and Jilly had to help.

Home Sweet Home

Early this year, Jillian received the most amazing cedar playhouse as a gift. It sat in the garage for many months waiting for some finishing touches to take place in our back yard. A couple weeks ago, Kenton and his friend Casey got to work. Before the house was even done, Jillian was ready and rearing to go, looking through all of the windows, and cooking up a storm. First she made bacon, then quesadillas, then soup. It has been so much fun watching her imagination flourish.

There are few better ways to spend a Saturday morning. . .

. . . . than with good friends, good food, sunshine and laughter.
Saturday we met the Rats (including g-ma Rat) at the Hillsboro Farmer's Market. We had wanted the girls to get to play together in the fountain when the weather was nice. We grabbed some fresh berries first, than some lunch and then some rays (along with some unwanted splashing). It took Jilly a little while to warm up to the water, she needed some help from daddy but once she got in, she had a great time!!! And the berries . . . . well, uh, they didn't last very long!! DELICIOUS!

Stickers . . . Stickers . . . and MORE stickers . . . .

Most of you know, I LOVE to scrapbook. I don't get as much time to do it as I would like sometimes but when I do, I really enjoy it. Well, it has been an honor over the last year or so, to share my desire and talent with my daughter. :)

Lately, she has been absolutely obsessed with stickers, as I can remember myself once being. Though I was a few years older than her when I remember my obsession beginning. Obviously, my obsession hasn't ended, now I can just use scrapbooking as my excuse to feed it. :)

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures of Jilly "scrapbooking" with mommy the other night.

The Final Product

Somehow, this whole sticker thing started by Jilly putting stickers on her belly. She continues that tradition even now as evidenced by some left over garage sale stickers that mommy so kindly put in Jilly's scrapbooking box, not knowing they would ALL be used at once to decorate Jilly's belly AND THEN the ottoman! :)

I'm afraid we've created some monsters

After the parade on the 4th of July, we headed to Starbucks for a little pick-me-up. Miss Jilly made a bee-line for the table in the very back by the window. I took a picture of her right underneath the Starbucks sign because I thought it would make a cute ad for the company!

We decided to give the girls a treat, their own hot chocolates. They obviously enjoyed them!! Here's to many more coffee breaks for these girlfriends in the future! God knows their mother's have had a few over the years!!

Independence Day

Last year, a tradition began for our family . . . attending the annual Hillsboro 4th of July Parade, accompanied by breakfast with our friends, the Rats. I was a little worried about the parade this year because this year, both of our girls are mobile, last year the really weren't. But I am happy to report that aside from a very not nice parade attendant that we sat behind, all parties thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The girls (and their daddies) enjoyed catching (and eating) the candy that was being thrown by the parade participants, the horses were a big hit and so were the fire trucks. Of course, Kenton's favorite part was the Star Wars themed truck, complete with Storm Troopers! Do they ever grow up!?!?!?
So, here is a slideshow with some off the highlights from our day at the parade. ENJOY!!!

Priceless

Tammi by some amazing twist of fate (or she's just unbelievably talented) managed to get Jillian's hair in pig tails today. I almost died when I came to pick her up and she came running out of Tori's room with the most adorable pig tails. Then Tammi gave Tori pig tails too. The girls were so cute with their hair all done and pulled up. It's amazing to me how much older it makes them look. :)

Anyway, I was able to snap this shot which I find absolutely priceless. Of course, I'm probably a little biased. :) Enjoy!

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa

This past weekend, Jillian and I took a long overdue trip to visit her Grandma and Grandpa Kennish is Olympia. Grandpa had to work most of the weekend so we spent most of our time with just grandma. We went to the Farmer's Market and shopping at the mall. Here are some pictures from our trip.

Helping Grandpa water the flowers. :)