Lots of cheer...

Meet Nick and Lydia. Two amazing people that have captured the hearts of our two oldest girls. As you can see, they both used to do cheer before they had their own 2 kids -and can somehow still do it well. Lydia helped lead the cheer part of our "Mega Sports Camp" at our church last week. This picture was taken at the block party last Friday night. (And yes, he is holding her up with just one hand!)
It was so cute to come downstairs tonight to hear cheering and singing from Jadyn and Karina in the living room. They were pretending to be Nick and Lydia. Jadyn, of course, had to be Nick because she was the only one that could lift Lydia up safely so that she wouldn't be scared.

I wish these pictures could bring you all of the emotion and concentration that I got to witness. It was amazing! (Especially seeing Karina willing to jump into Jadyn's waiting arms!)

I love that our girls are best friends. I also love that they can't wait for little Makenzie to get big enough to join in the fun. They even changed some of the cheers to be just for her! A big thank you to Nick and Lydia for being so willing to share yourselves with our girls!

Light-Rail Trip to Downtown Seattle

Today was the opening day of the new light-rail transit system from the airport to downtown Seattle. To let people enjoy and experience it, today and tomorrow the trains are/were free. So we headed down to Tukwila, right next to SeaTac airport, and spent the day riding the train and hanging out in downtown Seattle. Here we are waiting in line to get on the train.

The girls were so excited as we waited for the train. The line was long, but trains came every seven minutes, so we didn't have to wait long at all. The ride was smooth, packed full of riders, and very exciting for our little ones. Here they are waiting for the train to leave the station.

Once we got to Seattle, we walked around and enjoyed the scenery and people downtown. We even found a cool waterfall sculpture where you can walk through the middle of the waterfall without getting too wet. Jadyn and I had a blast. Karina didn't think it looked like fun, so she just watched us and cheered us on.

After that, we headed into Westlake Mall and ate lunch at the food court, watching the monorail trains come by just on the other side of the glass windows from where we sat. It was a great day. We grabbed a cookie for dessert from Mrs Fields, and then headed back underground into the tunnels to catch the train back home.

It was a perfect, very fun and inexpensive day.

Check out more pictures on our family photo page~

Jadyn's funny comment

We were in the car on the way home from VBS late last night. It's great having a 6 year-old when you have a baby. Jadyn is such a great helper - always mothering Makenzie as she sits next to her in the car. She has great instincts and is very patient with Makenzie, often leaning over to help her little sister out well before we ask.

So as we're driving home last night, we hear Makenzie fussing in the back, and the following conversation ensues:

Mommy: Jadyn, did Makenzie's binky fall out?

Jadyn: Yes.

Mommy: Can you put it back in for us?

Jadyn: Well.... she's playing a game with me right now where she spits her binky out, screams at me, and then I put it back in. But it's not a happy 'kind' of scream.

Getting Bigger Every Day

The girls love to hold Makenzie and feed her.

She's getting so big that she's started eating rice cereal last week. Time flies by quickly~

Camping Fun

We had a super-fun time on our camping trip this week. We spent 3 days, 2 nights at Ocean Shores, camping at the state park and enjoying lots of fun times. The weather was perfect: sun, wind (of course. It's the beach, right?), and warm days. The nights, on the other hand, were absolutely freezing, with temperatures dipping into the low 40's. But we bundled up and kept warm by the fire.

We also:

built sand castles

ran in the ocean and on the beach

flew our kite

got sun-burned

dug a giant hole in the sand for the girls to climb into

roasted marshmallows over the fire and made s'mores

the girls helped chop wood for kindling

fought off 2 large racoons that wanted to take over our camp one night

went for hikes

threw a baseball around

ate lots of salt-water taffy and even ice cream

got eaten by mosquitos

played games in the tent and at the picnic table

hiked to the bathroom at 2 in the morning for an emergency potty run (and we saw the most beautiful stars in the sky on the way back to our tent)

saw a snake near the beach

saw a beautiful butterfly and some dragonfllies

and tried our best to knock the waves over in the ocean.

Check out our family photo page for some more pictures~

http://picasaweb.google.com/MForee/OceanShoresCamping#