Addie's first concert

I took Addie to a Zootunes concert with me and my long-time (think since elementary school) friend Becky. 

I pointed out to Becky that Addie was going to her first concert before 

she has watched her first full-length movie :)

Addie had a lot of fun. We brought yummy picnic food, there were lots of people to watch, there was a hill for jumping or rolling down with lots of kids. Oh, plus there was music and Aunty Becky! 

We discovered that the free photo-booth was not quite made to fit three people :)

Marston family reunion in Bellingham

Here is the synopsis:
We had a family-filled weekend! On Friday night Mike, Becka & Ellie drove in from Boise and stayed the night with us. On Saturday morning we drove to Bellingham for a Marston family reunion (complete with photo albums and an organized sharing time). We stayed the night up there, spent a little time in Bellingham Sunday morning, then drove to Kent. In Kent we celebrated all the summer birthdays of the "Kent Marstons". Matt continued the family time by doing an overnight hike with Mike & his dad.

Here are some stories:
*We decided to stay in a hotel in Bellingham Saturday night so we would not feel too rushed about when we had to leave to drive back and so we could make a little more of a weekend vacation of it. Originally we wanted to book a "suit style" room so we could put the girls down in one room while we were in the other so we did not have to turn out the lights at 8pm for all of us. It was basically impossible to find a suite. So instead Matt decided to book two adjoining rooms. Except for that after calling numerous hotels he found out that no hotels would guarantee us an adjoined room. So he booked two rooms with the hotel that had the highest proportion of adjoined rooms and who over the phone seemed pretty confident that they could meet our request. But when we checked in on Sat, not only did they not have adjoined rooms for us, they had us on 2 different floors. If we had booked directly through them, we could have tried cancelling one of the rooms, but since we used priceline we were stuck. Each room had two double beds so Matt & the girls were in one, and I was in the other. I knew it would be tricky to get Etta to sleep in the pack & play if lights were still on or she could still see or hear Matt & Addie, but ti is not like we could leave her alone in there either. It ended up that Matt shared one bed with both girls and it was not exactly a rest-full nights sleep. Matt asumed that at least I was relaxing and enjoying a hotel room all to myself. I thought I would be able to. I had grand hopes of falling asleep early, sleeping un-interupted, etc. But alas, it was not to be! My door latched well but I still heard every little noise from the hallway - and there were lots of them due to the indoor pool being open until 10pm and what sounded like numerous loud adolescent boys going back and forth between rooms. So it took me quite a while to fall asleep and I was annoyed at myself for not packing earplugs. Oh, and did I mention that the room I was in had an adjoined room? Yeah, their system sucks!

* Sunday morning we ate breakfast at the hotel, played in the pool, then went to a local park. On the drive between the park and the restaurant we were going to for lunch Addie said she was hot and wanted the window down. This is highly unusual for her, usually she wants the window up the second the car is in motion. So I was slightly concerned but she seemed fine. She ate a good lunch and was in good spirits. Then we got in the car to drive from Bellingham to Kent. Etta was asleep within about 2 minutes. Addie closed her eyes a few minutes later but then started making some moaning noises. When she opened her eyes we asked what was wrong and she said her stomach hurt. Within about 3 minutes she was throwing up. We pulled over at the nearest exit and Matt & I executed a pretty impressive clean-up effort. All the while Etta slept - thank goodness for that. Addie seemed a bit better after that and took a good nap in the car. She woke up a few minutes before we reached Matt's parents house and we could tell she was still a little off. She threw up almost immediately after we walked in the door. But then she perked up and was chatty and wanted to play and eat and that was basically the end of that. We are so thankful nobody else got sick from her and Addie's sickness did not linger.

Here are some snapshots:

It is 9pm

Etta is still awake. She has been screaming and crying for the last hour. At first she tried stall tactics (she needs a clean diaper, she needs to go poop in the potty) but now her tired little brain is beyond that. She is in the full-on trying to guilt momma mode:
"Dadda, where are you? Dadda, where are you? Addie, where are you? Momma, where are you?
Me. Etta. Where are you?"
One the one hand it makes me chuckle because it is really cute and intelligent of her. On the other hand it is hard not to feel like I am a bad parent who is abandoning her lonely child.

Last night it took her about an hour of on-and-off screaming to fall asleep as well. I attribute this to two things:
-Matt is gone on a hike. He is always the one who does bedtime with her, so she misses him. Last night she was asking/crying for him a lot.
-Also, we had an unfortunate incident over the weekend where she ended up sharing a hotel bed with Matt. As some of you may recall, we had some seriously frustrating sleep issues with her for quite a while. No matter how desperate things got, though, we never brought her to bed with us. So this weekend was an unprecedented event. But I think she now wants others in the same bedroom as her, and even in the same bed.

9:20 - she quieted down for over 60 seconds. I was hopeful she had worn herself down. I am trying to decide how much longer it will take her to scream herself down. I could go in there, but then at some point I have to leave and then the screams will get worse again. I could rock her to sleep or something, but that is not a good long term solution because she will just want that on other nights. Am I a pushover or am I a hard-ass? My skin has gotten thicker over time and my tolerance to the screams has increased. Especially for a kid this age who I know is perfectly capable of falling asleep on her own. But of course it tugs on my heart-strings.

9:30 - all has been quiet for a few minutes now. I had been planning on watching a chick-flick since Matt is gone and last night I was too busy unpacking. If only there was a guarantee that a child who stays awake an hour late at night will sleep in an extra hour in the morning!

The same, but different

Every once in a while I can't resist getting the girls into coordinating outfits. I just can't resist seeing how much they can look like each other but still be their own unique personality. So the big sister/little sisters shirts came out again. And they both condescended to let me do their hair. They both wore skirts. Then I was delighted to find out that they both have purple shoes of the exact same shade, and even better the shoes actually fit them!

So here are their ensembles and although they look like the best of friends, keep in mind I do not take the time to snap photos when they are fighting, yelling at each other, pushing, biting, etc.

 (Addie was trying to help show off the matching shoes, Etta was wanting to show off some pine-cones)

Cousin Coen got baptized

Matt took a video of it, but we did not get any stills. He was looking very dapper in a plaid shirt, baby sandals, and khaki shorts.

We decided since we were going to their church on Capital Hill, we might as well make an outing of it and do some things before the service. So we stopped at Top Pot for doughnuts then went to Volunteer Park. (I mentioned to Matt that Sunday mornings seem like a great time to visit parks that are farther away because there is practically nobody on the freeway!) So we sat at the park and ate yummy doughnuts while Addie asked questions about the water reservoir and mole hills and sculptures while Etta was on the lookout for squirrels and dogs and animals that go. We had a great view of the space needle. Too bad it did not show up in the pictures.

It started to drizzle while we were at the park. By the time the church service was over the rain was coming down for real. Grumble, grumble rain in July. Grumble, grumble how am I supposed to enjoy a summer vacation when we don't get above 70 degrees most days.

Hey You!

On Monday we went to Carkeek park for a playdate with some friends from Etta's co-op class. (As a side note, it is interesting how much older kids this age can look when it has been one month since you have seen them. They are becoming full-size toddlers.)

So Etta had four friends her age there at the park who she knows well. But who she wants to play with is a blond 6 year old boy who catches her eye. I am not sure why she become fixated on him, but she sure did. It started with her looking at him and yelling "hey you! hey you!" Then she climbed up to be by him. Since it was very clear to me at this point that she was watching him and wanting to get his attention, I let him know that she wanted to say hi. She pointed to her chest and said "Etta", so I helped the introduction process along a bit. Thankfully the boy had 2 younger sisters so he was patient and kind to her. He let Etta sit by him and then smilingly tolerated it when she followed him around yelling "Hey you!" He then proceeded to gather a bunch of sticks, some long and some short, and yelled that he had weapons for sale. Etta, of course, wanted some. So he was walking around with one long stick in one hand, a handful of short in the other. Miss wants-to-be-a-big-girl was doing the exact same thing. Where he went, she went. Even if she fell on her bum halfway up because it was a steep dirt trail. At one point he clambered over a bunch of big rocks. So she leaned over a big rock, dropped her sticks over, then attempted to find a way around. He sat & waited for her & held her sticks so that other kids would not take them.  It was pretty funny to watch. I made sure to thank him at the end for playing so nice with her.  And Etta gave him a loud "Dye" ("bye") and a wave.

Addie, meanwhile, was enjoying going down the salmon slide. It is a big sculpture of a salmon with a tunnel slide through the middle of it. You enter through its open mouth and exit through its rear. Addie was having a lot of fun announcing that the fish was eating her then she was coming out in its poop.

These two keep a smile on my face :)

Peanut Butter Pie Cravings

Last night I went out to dinner with some friends. We went to Wild Mountain Cafe, a local favorite of Matt & I's.  The food was good. The dessert was REALLY good. They called it Chocolate Peanut Butter Mud Pie. It had a chocolate cookie crust, fluffy peanut butter layer, topped by a fluffy/mousse-style chocolate layer. SO GOOD!  I have made regular peanut butter refrigerator pie a number of times before, but this was light years beyond them. I did some looking online to try to find a similar recipe but did not come across one, plus the more I looked the more I craved it. So I am seriously considering calling & asking if they would share the recipe. A couple at a table near us had it too and she liked it so much she asked if she could purchase an entire pie. I would be happy to make it myself, I just do not want to settle for a possibly mediocre recipe I find online.

This sweet tooth of mine could very well be the death of me. My teeth do fine, but my waist-line would benefit from a strong craving for leafy green vegetables :)

Slip & Slide

So I am about a week behind on this, but we had a great fourth of July weekend! Saturday night was my bookclub, so of course there was yummy food, good conversation and lots of laughter.

Then we spent the 4th down in Kent with Matt's folks. Myron and Lori were there with cousin Coen and Maya doggy of course, plus Lori's parents were in town. The weather was nice so I packed the girls swimsuits so they could have some water play time. Matt decided that a sprinkler was fun, but a slip & slide was even more fun. He pulled out a tarp, hosed it down and slid across it. Etta avoided it, Addie enjoyed it, but Matt clearly had the most fun. Too bad we did not get any good action pictures of him :)

The only fireworks we attempted to do were some sparklers. They would have been a lot more visible & dramatic if it were actually dark out at the time but since I had no intention of keeping the girls up past 9:30pm, we made do.

                                           (Addie was excited to show people her purple PJ's.)

                                           So that was our fourth of July: family, food & fun!

By the way, there are currently some sporadic fireworks going off in our neighborhood from people who wanted to prolong the excitement...

In the garden this week

Fresh from our garden this week:
-broccoli
-strawberries*
-raspberries*

Fresh from the farmers market:
-rainier cherries!!!!
-apriums


*These berries are just starting to be ripe enough. There are basically enough for each girl to get a few ripe ones each day. Etta does not like to search and wait for the ripe ones though. I have seen her eat more than one totally green strawberry, and she surprised me by actually swallowing the green berries instead of just spitting them out.