Will return momentarily...

Brian and I went on a 47 mile hike around Mt. Hood last weekend. We are recovering well, just tired and sore. I'm looking forward to doing a whole blog post about it but I'm slacking a little so until then, please enjoy random pictures of our cuties :)

Swimming at our friends' house

Painting boxes and rocks

Beach and family, doesn't get much better

My cousin, Tasha, and her family live in Boise and drove over to visit the Oregon coast and us :) We were thrilled to spend time with them, Payton and Bria are just a few months apart and are so sweet together. 

Reese playing with the big girls

The condo they let us crash at with them

Aspen and Reese, adorable babies!!

We did the Evergreen Waterpark on Saturday and then Sunday we did the outlets (back to school shopping, wahoo!) and the beach.

Eating her feet to keep herself entertained

 We walked down Depoe Bay and had a bite to eat at a little local dive.

LOVE

Saturday night after the kids went to bed we thoroughly enjoyed adult conversations until way too late. We knew we were tired when the conversation drifted to nose hair, so we decided to call it a night at that point.

 The 3 older kids (CJ, Payton, and Bria) slept on the hide-a-bed in the living room and it was so stinkin' cute. They all came in our room at 7:30 am and asked if they could get up, haha.

 Sunday it was cloudy and cold at the beach, exactly what I picture the Oregon coast to be like. The funny thing was that we drove about 36 seconds north and it was blue sky and gorgeous. Gotta love Oregon!!

 We are so grateful to be able to spend time with family and create memories for our kids that I had as a child. Lanie and Tasha and I have so many wonderful memories as kids and now our girls can have them too!

The upside to living next to an airport

Is that we have front row seats for the airshow.
Every year I am amazed when I watch the planes fly sideways, upside down, straight up, straight down, you name it.
This year our friends, Nate, Roxie and Gracie joined us. They were our neighbors when we lived down in Albany and they moved to Nevada a few years ago then just moved to Portland! Small world :)

Love Gracie's photobomb, classic!

These girls had a blast together

Gracie is 6 and even though she's older than Bria, she is so sweet and patient with her, and Reese too.

Our neighbors joined our little airshow tailgate :)

The kiddos

Good times

Locked out

This little contraption is courtesy of my smart self...because I locked myself out of the house after taking the girls to the park.
Brian was on a business trip (he didn't have his house key either anyway) and we haven't been smart enough to give an extra key to Heather or hide one around our house.
And of course, as luck would have it, the only unlocked window was on the second floor.
I actually consider myself lucky that a window was unlocked, that is very rare in our house. Our ladder was not tall enough (my 5 '3 status didn't help) even when I put it on top of the chairs. So I put the chairs on the step, and that was better.
I handed Bria my phone and told her to call 911 if I fell.
I made it in.
Brian wasn't sure whether to be proud or mad at me.

Diapers are OUTTA HERE!!!!

Stats:

Name: Reese Makena

Age: 22 months

Recent accomplishment: POTTY TRAINED!!!

I used the same method for Reese that I used for Bria and I am happy to report it was successful. A lot of people think I'm crazy because I'm super strict and rigid about it, meaning we don't leave the house for 3 solid days (the potty trainee and myself). But it works so it's more than worth it.

If you want to use the same method, it's Lora Jensen's 3 day method and it is awesome. I can offer my words of wisdom as well but I pretty much follow her step by step and don't stray.

By the second half of the first day Reese understood to go on the toilet. She would start in her underwear, stop and say Poop (not sure why it's poop and not potty but it works), then finish on the toilet. 

By the second half of the second day she had got the hang of it and by the third day she was a champ. She stays dry during naps, but nighttime she is still wetting. So even though Lora says no to pull-ups, I'm doing them at night. I gave it the old college try, but we did the same with Bria and she didn't regress at all. Plus, she told us when she wanted to stop using them and hasn't looked back. 

First day and we were already stir crazy

Sister hugs. The 2T underwear is a little big on her :)

She didn't poop the first day and ended up pooping at night (fortunately it was solid so it wasn't that bad to clean up). But then pooped the next two days in the toilet. She is still very hesitant about pooping in the toilet and it takes her a few times of going back and forth to actually go, and it's been in the upstairs bathroom every single time. So I think that will be ongoing for a little while, trying to get her comfortable pooping in it. I knew we got lucky with Bria not having an issue at all, she was pooping in public restrooms right away!

Big girl!

We are incredibly proud of Reese and so thrilled to be done with diapers, wahoo!!

Social butterflies

As a SAHM I think it's important to keep my kids socialized with other kiddos. There is a huge amount of learning that goes along when they play with other kids and although it can be tiring to continually teach them how to share, it's worth it.

Bria loves playing with her friends, especially her best friends: Bennett and Weston (her words, not mine...I had no idea the whole best friend thing started so soon ;)
They get along so well that the amount of "teaching" is very minimal and they all do a great job of using their imagination which is so fun to watch.

Sweet little Kenzie (Bria took this picture and I love it!)

We took them to Turbo and they really enjoyed it :)

After the movie the sun was out and it finally got hot out so we did the only thing you can do in the summer heat...

Slip 'n slide!!!!

We sure love our kids, they play hard together and I love it!