The last half of July

Hiking Twin Falls
   We decided that we need to get out and hike all the wonderful trails all within half an hour of our house.  Truly we feel blessed to live in an area with so much beauty.  We have mountains surrounding us with waterfalls.  We see people para gliding over us all the time and perhaps one of these days we will feel brave enough to do that.  Of all women I feel truly blessed to have such easy pregnancies as to allow me to hike and do activities that many women dream of being able to do.  I feel that if I don't show my gratitude that I'm truly ungrateful but I do recognize it is God's blessing, not just genetics that I'm able to feel as well as I do while growing a baby.  I am 30 now and 35 is only 5 years away.  We definitely feel like there are more kids coming into our sweet family.  Dan's patriarchal blessing says that if he is faithful, he will be blessed with sons and daughters.  We're grateful a son is coming to our family.  He is an active little guy and hiking and being active is what he likes best, otherwise when I sit for a long time, he kicks and moves like a karate kid. 

 Yep, I was underneath wondering what in the world I'm doing 7 months pregnant and going on a steep hike.  I eventually took the risk and climbed up as well to get a gorgeous view of the Fall.

We harvested a lot of vegetables.  As I'm writing this we've shared about 15 lbs of tomatoes with our neighbors.  The rest we'll probably turn into salsa.

 Cousin MeLynn's Baptism
       Up in the Northwest what we've got are cousins!  We are very lucky to have 2 sets of cousins, soon to be 3 sets with kids our kids age.  MeLynn is the first to get baptized of the girl cousins and then it will be Ellie and then our Reena.  We were able to attend the baptism and brought her flowers from our garden and we had a great afternoon eating and chatting with Dan's cousins, aunt and uncle.  The kids could never get enough of each other.

 After the baptism we invited everyone over to our house for a bbq the next day.  We obviously love these guys and love all the family time we get with them.

 Two Sets of Aunts and Uncles in a Week!
We also got to see these guys and had a yummy dinner at Matt and Shelly's and tried Shelly's yummy cheesecake.  We adore her parents.  Such amazing warm people and so fun to talk to.

Gymnastics for the energetic kids

Girls Night Out With My Girls

 The girls and I had a girls night out.  We went and saw Despicable Me 2 at the theater (they liked it, I wasn't as impressed). We also ate out and went shopping at Bass, Gap,ToysRus, Rue 21, Van Heusen. We had a great time.  Most of the time I'm having to tell them it's time to go.  It's going to be good to have a boy for a break for Dan. $600. One of the most expensive dates but back to school shopping is done!

 Other events of our month included pool hopping, picnicking by the lakes, and lots of outdoor activities.  My kids are very tanned.  You can see their swimming suit lines.

Dan and I are trying to go on more dates with each other before the baby comes.  We've gone and seen movies and just simple dates like picnic by the lake.  It's quite easy to get so carried away taking care of kids and not continue to go on dates with each other.  We set aside money that we can spend on dates with each other.  It helps that we found a babysitter the kids absolutely adore.

Summer School Field Trip
   The field trip this time was to the Issaquah Zoo.  We are lucky to have a zoo so close to home.  This zoo is 10 minutes from our house. 

 We had a fun Kidney Party with 2 friends who saved each other's lives with kidney transplant.  Actually it's more that he saved her life.  She had a kidney failure and he happened to be the right donor.  They were meant to be each other's soul mate.

I got excited and went to JoAnn's for a bunch of fabric.  I have to keep up with the puppy baby blanket since that is a tradition now.  But since I was there I decided to add a few extra to make skirts and dresses for the girls.  Here they are modeling in the 2 skirts I made for them.

The last part of July the kids had their yearly check up.  Reena is 75% for height but only 25% for weight which was slightly better than last year.  Last year I was putting everyone on too healthy of a diet.  I wanted to be fit for the ultramarathon I did in June and made everyone ate what I ate.  But this year we are back to all the unhealthy food that Americans eat, the corn dogs and nuggets :)
 
I usually just have Brie wait 'til Reena's birthday to do hers as well.  Brie got her Kindergarten shots even though she could wait another year.  She wanted to show how brave she was. 

 She's a doll.  We love her.  She's also a bit of a fashionista.  She dresses herself everyday and is very picky about what she wears but she always come out looking so dang cute!