My Baby is 4!

Matt turned 4 today. It's so crazy to think my little baby is 4. I'm quite sad about it. I wish I could freeze him, so he doesn't grow anymore. He still loves to come and snuggle with me and gives me big hugs. He is such a boy. He loves to play transformers, dinosaurs and cars. He loves to run around outside and pick on his big sister. He is starting to write some letters, but is not really interested in sitting down and doing school work. He has a great imagination and I love to just sit and listen to him play with his toys. He makes up the best stories for them. I just love this kid sooo much!

Here he is on his b-day with his new Woody doll and his cowboy costume. He also got some Transformers, which he loves.

For his b-day party he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese. So we invited 4 friends and headed to Chuck. E. Cheese. After they played for a while we came back and had lunch, and cake and ice cream.

He wanted a SpiderMan party, and SpiderMan cake. So I had Aaron draw a picture for me and then I attempted to put the picture on a cake. So here is the picture Aaron drew.


And here is the cake. It turned out ok. Not the best but it was the first time I had worked with fondant. I made some marshmallow fondant (and broke my Bosch in the process). It was pretty easy to work with, but took me forever. At least Matt loved it!

Soccer

Summer finally decided to come to Vancouver, so this week we've been hovering between 95-100 degrees. It's been great! We headed to the river on Wed. with a big group of friends. I forgot my camera, but the kids had a blast. We were there for 4 hours and I did well with the sunscreen. Aside from numerous mosquito bites, my kids came away fine. I however have some advice, when applying your sunscreen, don't forget the back of your legs. Suffice it to say that I've had to take a couple days off of running, and I've been wearing skirts that fall just to the knee.
On friday we went with some friends to Portland to a place called Peninsula Park. It's a pretty nice park with two big playgrounds that are completely shaded. They also have a little spray park and rose garden with a big fountain in the middle. The kids had a blast at the spray park and playing in the fountain.

On Thursday night Matt had his first soccer game. He was so excited. We got to the park and it was 98 degrees. It was sooo hot! They made all the kids get sprayed off from a hose before the game started, then they shortened each quarter to only 5 minutes. Then at half-time the kids had to get sprayed off again. It was so much fun seeing him play. All of the kids but 2 on our team are from our ward, so he has a lot of friends. Unfortunatly only about 4 of the kids would play, so Matt had to play a lot of the game. By the end he was so hot and tired but he did great. We lost by about 15-3. Our team was so funny, everytime one of the red team would come to get the ball, our players would pretty much just stand back and let them have it! I've included some great video so you can see Matt playing. He runs pretty well, now if he could just run while he has the ball, we'll be good! I was so proud of him though. Isn't he the cutest soccer player ever!?!

4th( or rather 3rd) of July, Vancouver Style

We failed once again to convince anyone how truly spectacular 4th of July in Vancouver is, so no one came to visit this year. Hopefully this post will convince you to come see us next year. We headed to our friends that Jackson's again this year. They outdid themselves with the party this year. I think the people totaled around 150 this year. They provided all the meat, and everyone else brought sides and desserts. It was great. Here is a pic of everyone eating. They had lost of activities around their yard to keep everyone entertained before the show, including a D.J. to keep the party going. There was volleyball, badmitten, and ping pong. We got a big round of around-the-world ping pong going with a bunch of the adults. It was a blast, but I'm sad to say that I was out almost first everytime. Not quick enough. . . They had plenty for the kids to do too. I don't think I saw Kaitlyn the whole night until the fireworks stared. They had a "fishing" pond with candy, face paiting, the bounce house (below), tree house(also below), a trampoline and of course the puppies (their dog Sadie had puppies 3 weeks ago).

A few of the men got together and bought all the fireworks for the show and then we all just contributed to the cost. I won't tell you how much they spent, but it was a ridiculous amount, which means it was a GREAT show. Here is the mortar table where they lit them off from.

And last but not least, the show. It was great again this year. I love that nothing is illegal in Washington. There are a couple of pics, and some video, although the video of the finale didn't come through. Too bad, but the rest will show you how great it is and hopefully intice someone to come spend it with us next year. . .
Amazing that we get to shoot those off in the backyard! (ignore my commentary in the background, I wish you could turn the sound off on the video)

Juneuary

The Pacific Northwest has not been kind to us this June. We've had something like 40 straight days of rain (starting to feel like Noah), then we were teased with like a week of warmer weather. And by warmer I mean we reached 80 like 2 days. But this week has been weak, with high 60's, low 70's. So when we hit 80 my kids begged to get wet, so we bought a new slip-n-slide and a new pool. They played in them for two days, and they have since sat on our patio. Hopefully summer will make it's appearance soon. We're getting anxious to go to the beach, but the river is so high there is no more beach!
Here's the pool:

Kaitlyn told me that she was cute this day and I just HAD to take a picture. . .

And here is what happens when all you play with is girls. He did tell me that it was a boy's color, so it's ok. His dad does NOT agree however!