Emery's First Birthday

   Yesterday Emery turned one year old.  She is such a joy, and our family wouldn't be complete without her.  Emery's birthday happened to be the day of the early Seafair celebrations here on Alki that included pirates invading our beach to hand out goodies to the kids.  Since we are moving soon we thought we should make sure we do this once while we actually live here in walking distance.  Aimee, Karl, and Tyler joined us for pirate and birthday fun.  Avery was excited to tell Tyler that she loved his "heartbeat."  The kids enjoyed the "dubloons" and the necklaces that we got from the pirates.   They also were having a pole vaulting competition on the beach that we watched for a bit. We got rained on more than a little bit on the way home, but we all survived.

   When we made it back home and dried off we had a birthday supper and some cake.  Avery and Harper had helped me make a chocolate cake for Emery in the morning.  Emery enjoyed her slice of cake in marked contrast to Harper who hadn't discovered the joy of eating by a year old.  Avery though definitely has been the messiest cake eater of them all on the first birthday.  Emery was a tad daintier about eating than Avery.   

  Here's a few things about Emery.  She's not walking quite yet, but she loves to walk around with someone holding onto both her hands.  In fact when she's not busy eating or napping she wants to walk all over with your help.  I've been trying to get her to use her walker, but she thinks that's a terrible idea.  When Daryl helps her walk she will let him only hold one hand; something she won't let anyone else do.  Right now Emery will say "yeah," "uh oh," "ma ma ma," and "da da da."  Emery also will walk on her knees.  She's such a silly girl.  She has two teeth on her top guns that are just showing now.  When they come all the way in she's going to look a little like a vampire.  We just love this girl!

Tyler was going to pull Avery and Harper to Alki in their wagon.  Everyone looks real good.

Tyler getting some Emery love.

The kids watched the pole vaulting for a good ten minutes.  

Here comes the pirates!

The last monkey picture.  Emery's laying on the quilt that her Aunt Aimee made her for her birthday.  It turned out really cute!

I just had to include this picture of Emery on the couch. She sits like this quite often like a tiny couch potato.  I love it.

Alki Lighthouse

  Since we are moving soon we are trying to do the few things in West Seattle we haven't gotten to yet.  One of them was seeing the lighthouse just down the road from us.  It's only open for tours June through August on the weekends from one to four, so we needed to go soon.  Avery was really funny.  She kept saying that she wanted to go to work with Daryl at the white house, or so we thought.  We finally figured out that she was talking about our upcoming trip to the lighthouse.  That made a lot more sense.

   The lighthouse is run by the Coast Guard Auxiliary which was having it's 75th anniversary that Saturday we visited.  It started in 1939 when the government started arming anyone with a bigger boat than 40 feet with depth charges and machine guns on the east coast to deter German submarines.  They never did sink a sub, but they successfully guarded our eastern seaboard during World War II.  

   Today the lighthouse is still in operation from when it was first in service in 1913.  It is automated now, but the commander of the local Coast Guard lives on the grounds, which is why the visiting hours are so short and few.  The lighthouse is not very tall, but there is a steep ladder up at the top.  Young children aren't allowed up, and this was not pleasing to Avery and Harper.  Especially Avery who had been excited to go with her Daddy.  Daryl and I took turns going up instead, and thankfully since the lighthouse is quite small the tour wasn't very long.  Avery and Harper were annoyed until we took them to lunch at McDonald's, and then they liked us again.

I feel like both my Dad and my Aunt Joanne wanted me to take this picture of the door mat on one of the buildings on the lighthouse grounds.

The stairs going up.

The ladder to the very top.  It's a good thing they don't allow kids up there.

We got lucky and Mount Rainier was out.

There's downtown Seattle including the Space Needle.

The Olympics and Bainbridge Island.

I went up to the lighthouse last, so Daryl started to take our restless children out just in time for me to snag a picture from the top.  Do you see how Avery's arms were crossed?  She was a little grumpy about not going up.

Daryl and Emery let me take a picture of them, but you can see Avery hiding behind Daryl still grumpy.  Harper didn't even make it in the picture.  She was busy tying to fake a bathroom trip to get out of there faster.

We're Moving

     Having another baby wasn't life change enough for us, so we threw in moving to the mix.  Around the end of March Daryl took a job in Bellevue doing computer stuff for a financial company, and he was ready to move within the week.  I reminded him that we should probably wait until Avery is done with school, and we began to contemplate making the big move from West Seattle to Bellevue.  Feeling that we weren't quite ready to buy we looked into the rental market, and found this house literally up the block from Daryl's work. It was the right size and price, so we took it.  We are going to move in about three weeks.  Everyone is really excited about the move.  It will be nice for Daryl to virtually have no commute.  As always it was an easy decision and a hard one at the same time, but we knew if we were going to move we needed to do it before the school year began to get Avery registered for Kindergarten and settled.  So this is home for the next year, and then we'll see where we end up.

Preschool Party!

  Avery ended her two year preschool odyssey last Thursday, and the Tuesday before that had an end of year preschool celebration.  Avery kept referring to it as her party though and was super stoked about it.  She was so excited she invited Grandma and Grandpa to it.  It was just a cute little program where the preschool class sang us a couple songs, and then their teacher Ms. Barbara handed out a certificate for each child highlighting one of their strengths in class.  We also had a potluck too.  Avery so enjoyed preschool and was excited for her teachers to meet us and Grandma and Grandpa. We are proud of Avery, and are really excited for her to go to Kindergarten next year.

Unlike last year Avery was really excited to perform for us.  Ms. Barbara is standing in the back helping to keep order.

Last Weekend

   So last weekend we stayed in a cute little vacation home in Oregon's wine country with family to celebrate Ashlyn's graduation.  Here's a little of what we did besides the main event of graduation.  We went and visited the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, and saw a ridiculous amount of aircraft.  It was a really nice place to bring the kids because they couldn't get into too much trouble, and they had a nice park for them too.  The museum is home to the Spruce Goose too.  We had a great time seeing family and staying up way too late.  When we got home Sunday we all crashed pretty early at our house because we had too much fun.

Emery and I hanging out in the safely not too warm hot tub.  Emery was a little water baby and really enjoyed the hot tub.

The house had its own garden that we could feel free to eat of its offerings.  The first day we were there we saw a deer helping itself to the garden.

Adam and Angie with Ashlyn.

Aunt Joanne and Aunt Dianne bought all the little girls cute clothes and giant cookies.  They were enjoyed by all the girls.

Ashlyn working at the Dairy Queen.

Here's as much of the Spruce Goose as could fit in one picture.

Having lunch at the museum with a great view of Paul's arms up front.

They had a little plane ride at the museum that Avery didn't want to ride for some reason, but Harper was excited about.  Reagan was put on it and quickly changed her mind.  She covered her eyes most of the time, and you can see that she is signing all done at the end.  

Avery was more than happy to pose for a picture after going down the slide.

Reagan on something a little more her speed.

Daryl hanging out with one cute Emery.  

Ashlyn Graduates!

  Last Friday my oldest niece Ashlyn graduated from high school.  We went down to the Portland area last weekend to help celebrate along with my sisters Nellie and DeAnna, my brother Adam and his wife Angie, my Aunt Joanne, and my parents of course.  Avery and Harper were very excited for the trip because they would see their cousin Reagan, and because they thought we were having Ashlyn's birthday party.  They never quite got what graduation was.  We didn't actually go to graduation.  Instead we stayed behind with our kids and babysat Reagan, who at two wasn't quite ready for her big sister's high school graduation.

Avery really wanted to take a picture with Ashlyn.  Avery also was incredibly upset that she didn't get to go to graduation.  She was pretty mad at us.

Nellie, Reagan, and Ashlyn.  Reagan was actually looking and smiling at the camera for this picture.  

Nellie, Ashlyn, and Paul holding Reagan

Nellie, myself, Ashlyn, and DeAnna, and looking great as usual.

Ashlyn marching in for graduation, and probably so glad that my dad got front row seats for everyone who went for some good picture taking.

My parents with Ashlyn.  They held graduation at seven at night, so it's almost nine right now.  

Ashlyn and Aunt Joanne.  My Aunt Joanne loves a good graduation.  She has supported all of us at our many high school and college graduations through out the years.  She's pretty awesome.

Ashlyn decorated her cap. She is of course going to Arizona State in the Fall.

It's a Boy!

  My second diagnostic ultrasound through the doctor wasn't until June 20th, and I decided that was too long to find out we were having another girl as Daryl and I liked to joke.  Another Internet search pulled up a new elective ultrasound place in Tacoma that will do gender checks starting at 16 weeks (our usually place in Bellevue won't do them until 20), so I was able to get in this last Saturday.  

  You've already read the title;  it's a boy!  We're pretty happy.  We would have been too if it was a girl, but I always had hard time imagining a family all of one gender since I came from a family of boys and girls.  Now Daryl and I must attempt to name are only son because this is probably the end of the line for us.  Avery and Harper are pretty happy about a brother.  Harper has always said she wanted a brother.  Even though Avery said she wanted a sister she is fine with a brother, and has been making up songs about her brother.  She told me that she likes this boy baby, and that Emery does too.