School Days!

This past week has been filled with first days of school for our family. It started last week with Georgia. She is now a big first grader, going to school all day long and riding the bus. She seems to be doing great and enjoying her class, tonight she told me she was picked as team leader...nice!

Georgia

Natalie started Pre-K today. She has been telling me for the last month that she is not attending Pre-K. She says she already goes to school so she doesn't need to go to Pre-K. With that, I was a little frightened that my shy girl would not walk nicely into the classroom, however she did! Andy took her to school instead of me which probably helped a great deal, but there is the small chance that she was just ready to take on a new adventure.

Natalie

Speaking of new adventures, I have gone back to school too. I am taking a NonProfit Leadership Certification course through a local community college. Classes are one day a month from now until May. So far I have learned my Meyers Briggs personality INFJ, and had a class on Ethics. You know what, it is really fun to learn when you want to! I am looking forward the rest of my classes throughout the school year.

Family, Friends and the Fourth of July

What a gorgeous weekend we had here in the PNW. And what a rarity that it was sunny and warm on the 4th of July. We had a wonderful 4th of July BBQ with our friends and family as we do every year. We had tank wars, and new this year car races and boat races as well as a stretch hummer limousine (they were all fireworks, we don't have THAT much fun at our BBQ). The girls decorated themselves with tattoos, we filled our tummys with shrimp, salmon and pulled pork, and topped the night off with cake balls and strawberry shortcake. By 10:30 the finale was over I was ready for bed. What a wonderful night.

The Gang

Andy & Tony having tank wars.

Smile Tony!

1/2 of the Bennett Family

All the girls waiting to play tank wars!

Bennett Kiddos

Natalie lighting her tank.

Natalie showing off her sleeve tattoo.

Could he BE and cuter?

Georgia & Morgen, cousins & BFFs

Lily and Hannah, sparkler time!

Spring Is Blooming!

I love tulips! Last year Andy bought bags and bags of tulip bulbs for us to plant around the house. As things go around our house I completely forgot about them until about March of this year. So the girls and I planted some in the flower beds but we still had oodles and oodles of tulip bulbs left over. Well, and this is when I love the fact that my husband is a farmer and loves to plant things and play in the dirt, Andy planted all of our hanging baskets and all of our planters with the remaining bulbs. Our yard and deck look fabulous!!!



Hanging tulip basket



Besides the tulips blooming our fruit trees have begun to bloom too. The we have two cherry trees, one Rainier Cherry and one Bing Cherry. They are both in full bloom and I love looking out my kitchen window at them. Our apple trees have started to bloom as well, they aren't quite as loaded as the cherry trees but their pretty pink blossoms are the perfect touch of spring.

Apple Blossom

Cherry Blossom

I Need A Party to Plan!

I have a new favorite blog and a new favorite obsession...One Charming Party. It is the most adorable blog about children's parties, there is a DIY section,a place to order their party plans, and they show you adorable ideas for party favors.

I can't get enough. Poor Georgia, she just wants to go to Charlie Safari for her birthday and I am trying to throw her an over the top adorable party at home.

Lynch Creek Farm is Blogging

Lynch Creek Farm (my husband's blood, sweat and tears) has a blog!!! A big thanks to Carolyn Maddux who is taking on this endeavor for the farm. Check it out! http://blog.lynchcreekdahlias.com/

"Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree"

On Sunday afternoon I wrangled my husband away from the wreath business for all of about 1 hour to search for our perfect Christmas tree. We headed down to Brewer's Christmas Tree Farm as we have the past few years. They close at 4pm on Sunday and of course we pulled in right at 3:45pm. Luckily for us we have been going there for years and know the sweet spot on the farm for the perfect tree.


The Long Walk Out to the Sweet Spot

We found the tree in about 5 minutes and it only took that long because Georgia and I were actually looking at all the trees. Andy started calling over to us that he had found the perfect tree and while his was pretty perfect, I turned around and found the ONE.



Nat and the ONE





                          

                                         Too bad the Christmas cards were already done...this would have been a great picture.



Decorating the tree



Natalie

Here's something you may notice in the above picture...LED lights are horribly bright and with a blue tint. The old fashioned lights are on the bottom...I will be redoing the tree with the old lights.

Pumpkin Carving

It's that time of year. Although we missed our pumpkin patch outing with the Bennetts this year we were still able to get pumpkins. Thank goodness for Wal-mart (never thought I would utter those words in my life). I picked the girls up each a pumpkin and told them we would go online to find some stencils the designs. The girls selected Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, and Tinkerbell. Note to everyone: triangle eyes, square nose and a big mouth with random teeth are much easy to cut out than the Disney stencils.



Natalie scooping the seeds out.



Andy carving and Georgia putting on her stencil outline.



I think they turned out ok, and the girls had a blast helping.

Natalie's Maleficent pumpkin.

Georgia's Tinkerbell pumpkin.

Andy's design from scratch...took the least amount of time and looks awesome.

Ahhh Vacation

Finally a vacation. At home. This is the first time in two years that I have taken a week off of work and stayed in Washington. Granted we were still busy but it is just more relaxing when you are not flying off some where, trying to cram all the sights of your vacation destination into one week.

On Sunday we headed over to Lincoln Rock State Park in Wenatchee and went camping with my parents and sister and brother in law. It was wonderful. That is a wonderful state park with a huge play area for the kids and nice swimming area too. On Tuesday we went river rafting down the Wenatchee River. And on Wednesday headed back home.

Painting and playing bubbles...waiting for Grammy & Grampy to arrive.

Soccer star

Auntie and her girls "driving" to the play area

Nat hanging out with Grampy in the tent.

Friday Georgia's friend Katie came over and we went to see a movie, play at the water fountain in Olympia and then back to our house for some play time.

Natalie and Katie

Georgia on the slip 'n slide

On Saturday morning after a nice 9 mile walk with my sister, Julie called and asked what we were doing? What a nice surprise...she drove down with her kiddos and had dinner with us.

Baby Kenyon...so cute.

We made ice cream sandwiches for dessert...thanks Auntie Julie!

Nat and Liv, best friends.

Ahhh what a great vacation.

Nordstrom's Anniversary Sale

There was a time when I was just out of college, working in downtown Seattle, when I shopped frequently at Nordstrom. However the last 8 years I have been in Shelton. Now I know this may shock some of you, but there is no Nordstrom in Shelton...or Olympia.

I am also a wife and a mother and own a home and have a car payment, so needless to say I do not get to spend my money on my clothing anymore. This is why I end up shopping at Target. I do however like for my girls to dress adorable so today when I read several people on Facebook talk about the Nordstrom's Anniversary Sale I decided to get online (remember I live at least an hour from a Nordstrom). I found the cutest coat and boots for my soon to be kindergartener!!!

 

$100 dollars later I still have nothing from Nordstrom, but my 5 year old will look adorable for her first day of Kindergarten.

California Here We Come...California!!!

For the second time this year Andy and I headed down to California, this time we brought the girls with us. Disneyland here we come! The girls were very excited to go to Disney, they really wanted to meet Tink and Mickey Mouse, both dreams came true.

Tink asked Georgia about the Tooth Fairy...it made her day!

Christmas card photo...get ready.

Minnie, me and Nat

We flew down on Thursday, did Disney on Friday, California Adventure on Saturday and headed down San Diego for a relaxing beach day on Sunday.

Disney proved to be a bit too much for the girls, by 1:00pm each afternoon the girls were begging to go back to the motel and go swimming. But they were troopers and after a swim and some what of a nap we were back at the theme parks.

Natalie was determined to get the sword out...we went back several times.

Georgia tried her hardest, but showed up empty.

Day one at disney = exhausted Natalie

Rocket launch at California Adventure

Best day over all was Sunday visiting with Andy's good friend Mike and his lovely/adorable girlfriend Michelle. A picnic was packed and off to Coronado we went. I have two beach girls. They loved San Diego, as did we.

My beach girls.

The group enjoying ice cream.