Becca & Nolan visit WA

Oh Happy day! Becca and Nolan flew in Tuesday late afternoon.

The kids blended in like pros. It was great having Nolan with the crew.

charlie was so happy to have a little brother.

teaching him things about Dinos.

piano playing

we headed to Manito park on Wednesday and it was glorious. Julia met us there too with Reed.

Love these two bellies! Due 4 weeks apart.

Ellie

Reed.

my clan snacking. as always.

charlie did awesome playing with all the younger kids. He has had to be at many playdates lately without older kids and is doing awesome.

Nolan’s cheese inside Rockwood bakery.

yum! love this place!

I’m not sure we will be getting family photos done this year since these are the sort of smiles we are busting out these days.

Missing Julia’s oldest – Zane (4) who was at preschool, but this line up is awesome. Reed, Charlie, Nolan, Claire, Ellie. Please note Ellie’s outfit – just amazing.

one afternoon we took the big box and moved it outside and chalk colored in it. Love the many uses of a big box!

the kids bribed lily in with dog food.

ellie loves lily.

Becca’s belly was a BIG topic of conversations throughout the couple of days she was here. The kids loved to feel the baby kick and then decided we should pray and decide to have another baby too. ha!

one day we headed out to Julia’s house in Liberty Lake. It is so fun to see friend’s homes and be able to picture them there.

the 3 of us!

Friday morning – I was teaching my rowfit class and Becca came and snapped this photo without me knowing! So fun to have her there!

Saying good bye to Nolan! What a blessing it was to have you guys come visit and fill me up. I can’t wait until we can visit you in Scottsdale (hopefully just me and Bill – ha).

you are always welcome to come visit Spokane where our weather is sure to be gorgeous!

end of summer…

It seems that we should have started school by now (9/12), but we HAVEN’T! I am thankful for the extra slow mornings and more time together, but we need to start soon!

The last few weeks of August the kids would wake up and play legos for HOURS before wanting breakfast. This was awesome! Soon we will all need to be leaving the house by 7:20am so things are going to be changing.

I’ve found the older the kids get the harder it is to keep a house under control. I’m afraid this won’t be changing anytime soon.

Charlie tried EXTREMELY hard to teach E&C how to play chess to no avail. It was a great attempt – but the girls kept wanting to turn the chess pieces into people and had conversations with them.

We received a big box in the mail and they played in it for a day. This age is fantastic for pretending!

Ellie.

I decided to put the white covers on our IKEA couches for a change. We will see how long the white stays, but I do love white furniture.

Labor day weekend, was unseasonably cold – like 52 degrees with scattered rain (which we haven’t had in a month) and it was so helpful because it helped contain the fires consuming WA. We had a delicious chili dinner at Erin & Andy’s house. The kid line up is great.

We headed to Schweitzer’s Fall Fest on Sunday and it was crazy to bust out our ski gear! Standing in line for the best grill cheese known to man. 

a full sized chess game!

kids’ soda line – it was disgusting!

Ellie got to go climbing (as did Charlie – just don’t have a pic). Claire opted out.

and then we had some visitors! Becca came (separate post) and Pappy arrived yesterday to head up to CA with Bill and Charlie fishing in Fernie. Pappy arrived bearing gifts from Bubba and Pappy. The kids were thrilled!

the girls were in love with their little goodie girly bags.

thank you bubba for such gorgeous tights.

showing pappy how they can paint their OWN nails!

how long until they spill it on the carpet?

what a wonderful summer we have had!