McKinley's Birthday!!!

McKinley's 5th Birthday Party

He's not quite five, but he's celebrated a LOT the past four days!

Today was his swimming party at the YMCA.  He told me "it was exactly what I wanted!"

 The kids and I decorated his cake this morning.  It was certainly a group effort with lots of baths for the scuba divers since the kids kept playing with them and I wanted them to be clean before putting them on the cake.  It turned out cute.  Mac's tradition is to always have a "mountain" as part of his cake.  So here's his underwater mountain.

 Swimming at the YMCA.  We did the slide 100 times.  It's fun for the kids because they can go down the slide on our laps.

 Hotdogs in the party room after swimming.

 Opening presents.

 Blowing out the candles.  Thankfully, the YMCA had a bag of candles - I forgot to bring some!

 Happy Birthday McKinley!

 The crew... (from left to right)  Adeline, Kolby, Norah, Kaya, Lucy, Josie, Mac, Liam, Garen.

Cousins pic:  Adeline (2), Norah (6), Josie (4), Mac (5)

McKinley had his first basketball practice this morning!  A few weeks ago, out of the blue, he told Becky and I he really wanted to play basketball.  I have never really played, or watched basketball with him so we were both surprised. We later found out the reson he did is because he gets a free ticket to a Trailblazer game.

With all that said, I was impressed that he did so well.  He doesn't have the genes for ballin' at all, but if you're in Sherwood and four years old....look out!  The Raptors are comin'!

If you remeber, MJ also scratched his butt after scoring.

Here is Mac during open shoot-around.  Notice the one-handed dribbling, the boy's got skills eh?

Happy Halloween!

We've had a seriously good Halloween:

Trick or Treating in the neighborhood.

Trunk or Treat at the YMCA.

Our little purple cat and red robot...

Freeze dance to "Thriller" at school.

Swinging at Stella Olsen after school on a beautiful fall day.

Kids checking out Mac's robot costume.  They all loved it!

Waiting for a game at Lucy's Halloween party.

A little costume swap.

Halloween jammies from Grandma Mary were the perfect thing for them to wear under their costumes!

Trick or Treating at Aimee and Lucy's during playgroup.

At Lucy's.

Until next year...

Texas "boy trip"

The boys headed to Texas to visit Great Grandma, Paula, Shelley, Kim, Trey, Blue, Porkchop, Chubsie and Mia. Mia is still not thrilled to have kids come visit, but apparently Blue and Chubsie were fine. Porkchop didn't mind but didn't really come around much. Anyway. Bet you can guess who was behind the camera of the dog pic - MAC! That kids loves animals. I'm surprised he didn't bring home a dog in his suitcase. They had a fun trip, depsite lots of travel. Chubsie, Kim's new dog. He's maybe five pounds!
Wading in the lake

Learning from Trey. There's Blue.

Seeing the longhorns.

Is this awesome or what?

Addie and Daddy

Adeline and I snuck downtown a few weeks ago while Mac was at school and met Curt for lunch. She was so delighted! She kept hugging him, kissing him and saying "Daddy! Lunch!" I love these two...

Kid's Gym

The kids and I have fallen back into our Monday morning routine, after all of the summer fun activities have ended. We go to the YMCA every Monday at 9. Mac goes to Kids In Motion (a little class where they do an art project then some sort of movement activity), Adeline goes to Child Watch and usually just watches the babies or sits and eats her snack, and I exercise. It is a fabulous way to begin the week. At 10, Addie and I join Mac in his classroom, and there is 'open gym' time for the kids. They love it! Adeline spends almost all her time on the trampoline or walking on the foam abstacle course (different every week). Mac likes to jump off the big stack of cushions onto the big foam cushion. They are sweaty and happy, and I feel so much better having gotten some exercise.

Enjoy the videos!

Happy August! We have been so busy all summer, that I have completely forgotten about our blog. So, here's what we've been up to in August (minus pics from the week in Idaho, which deserves it's own post at some point!)Our big two-year-old!
Harris, Mac and Adeline at Harris' birthday party.

Kids on top of the half pipe at Garen's brithday party.

Adeline, Garen and McKinley pausing long enough from the half pipe to have some lunch.

Playing at Sauvie Island beach with Lucy.

Mac is into taking pictures, but hadn't really discovered the art of composition, and would just snap pictures of whatever he could find. Then I found this one. Awesome self photo eh?

Sherwood Family Triathlon - Mac and I in the bike transition.





swim portion - down and back.

he used a life jacket and a kickboard.

He'd never swam in this part of the pool, so he was really nervous, but he did great!

The Finish! He ran the whole half mile!

Adeline, Lucy and McKinley having lunch at the Oregon Zoo on Samudra the baby elephant's 2nd birthday.

The airplanes at Oaks Park on the reduced ride bracelet Summer Reading day.

The motorcycles.

The cars.

our girl

Adeline loves to dump and fill. These beads are a daily source of comfort and joy for her. She sorts through the beads, picks them up, puts them very carefully in whatever little container she has: little jars and an empty TicTac container are her favorites. I love watching her do this. The concentration and attention are delightful to witness. She does the same thing in the sand box. Oh, to be almost two!

Strawberry picking!

Summer has finally decided to show it's face here in the Northwest, and we headed out to French Prairie Starwberry Fest to pick berries. Quite yummy, but a lot of stopping over.

The kids had a blast and were very good at picking.

Mac and Garen took turns being "bucket boy".

Addie was thrilled, and actually did a decent job of finding and picking (and immediately eating) the red ones.

Yeah for the arrival of summer and the rotation of ripe berries!

(I think visiting various berry fields might be our Friday field trips for the summer!)