My Beautiful 4 Year Old!

My baby is 4! She is growing into such an amazing little girl! There is the occasional attitude, but she is such a lover that those moments pass quickly. I don't know what I will ever do when she decides to stop being my cuddle bug! Happy Birthday Princess Ally! You are such a light in our lives and we love you, I can't wait to see how much more the next year brings you!

Christmas Tree!

We went and got our Christmas tree tonight. We always go to the BiMart parking lot to get it. The one year we went and actually cut our own tree down it fell down 3 times. So we stick with what works now. This year we got a 6 foot Noble. Here are some pictures of decorating and my little elves.

Sunny Fun in September at the Beach??

Yes I tell you it is possible! While Darrin and Nate headed off to a rainy Duck game we headed down to the beach. It was sunny, warm, light breeze, one of those rare Oregon Coast beach days where a long sleeve shirt is to heavy. We had a blast letting the kids run around, dig in the sand,

get their feet wet,

and even attempt to fly a kite. Poppa, Grandma, Uncle Eric and Aunt Cagney came along and it was fabulous to have 4 other people willing to run, play, and get their feet wet! Here are some pictures from the fun we had!

Hot Air Balloons!

Tonight we headed over to the Art and Air Festival for some good old fashioned family fun! Poppa, Grandma, Uncle Eric, and Aunt Cagney came down to join us. The kids LOVE the kids craft area and talked about it in the car all the way there. So that is the first thing we did. They made bracelets, crazy headbands, and picture frames!

After that they climbed around on a really BIG gun.

We then decided to go put our extra stuff on our blanket and the kids caught sight of the playground and they were off! Grandma went and bought them(me) an elephant ear and after it cooled a little they came and gobbled it down. Off to the playground they went again. After playing for awhile longer we decided to go check out the booths. There were so many cool photos/paintings that I would have loved to have gotten, some though gave me inspiration of things I could photograph! After browsing for a little while we decided it was time to go claim our spot on our blanket and watch as they set up for the Night Glow.

The night glow is THE BEST part in my opinion, they blow up 6 hot air balloons and when it gets dark they light them up.

They do fun things like the wave and popcorn, but my favorite is full burn, when they light all the balloons up at once!

I am hoping that this will be an annual event for our family, we have gone the last two years and LOVED it!

The Man, The Myth, The Booger.

Relaxing at the Beach

Today we headed over to Newport to South Beach State Park, our "usual beach." It was a bright sunny day, with the exception being right over the water. There was a HUGE fog cloud sitting right over the ocean. It was a bit windy but as the day went on the sun made the wind a little less of a nuisance. After eating lunch the kids played in the sand, tried to fly the kite, and relaxed.

After a little while we decided to walk down to the jetty and set off.

On the way to the jetty we were walking into the wind and so it was a little hard, but the kids were troopers and marched on,

although Ally did manage to finagle a ride from Daddy for the last stretch.

Once down there the kids decided to walk down the jetty with Daddy while I explored the rocks.

Imagine my surprise and joy as I peeked in between the rocks and was greeted with the sight of a half a dozen little crabs! They were so very cool! I took a million more pictures of them than any one person needs of crabs. The kids came back down and introduced them to the crabs, they were pretty excited about them like I was! On the way back down the beach we split up, the boys took the high road and we took the low road.

We met back up at our staked place on the dune and the kids played, played, and played some more. Then they met a new friend and spent some time running up and down the dune completely wearing each other out.

Now...the real question is: Will they sleep in tomorrow??