of park trips and things

This is a great sign that winter is leaving us and Spring is in the air :) 

This is the park, right behind our house. Super nice to have so close on these sunnier days. 

Our old house was below it, our new house is right above it. 

And there are BBQ's with a covered picnic table area, so I'm envisioning lots of park 

BBQ's here this spring/summer/fall! 

The girls love the swings. Rachel is learning how to swing really high, just like Kara. 

Up until now, Rachel liked to just 'sway' on the swing. 

But on this day, she decided she was going to try and be brave, like her little sister. 

Kara likes to swing high. So high that it scares me. She says "weee!" the whole time and laughs. 

I still like swings too. I love the way they make me feel young again. I love swinging super high 

and at some point, feeling like I'm gonna go so high, I land in outer space. 

I'm afraid I act more like a kid at the park than my kids do. 

The other day Ethan said "mommy, it looks like you miss being a kid like us." 

Yes. I do. 

She was very scared when I took this picture.

I asked her to smile and apparently smiling makes you swing super high. 

When I told the kids we were going to walk to the park, Rachel realized she needed 

to get warmer clothes on. She was wearing just the white skirt and a t-shirt. 

so she said "I'll be right back! I'm gonna change my clothes." 

She came downstairs and had this ensemble on ;-) 

This little missy is getting so big these days.

She wants to do everything "all-ba-ma-self" - she has a hard time accepting help. 

Her newest thing is pretending she can read. She's been watching Ethan learn how to read and 

so we catch her with a book, pointing to the words with her finger, making up stories to fill the pages. 

The other day she was reading about how Hello Kitty and Buzz Lightyear got married.

She likes to watch other kids on the swings. 

Showing me her "church shoes" here. 

They make clock-clock noises when she walks. 

I think he's dreamy... especially in bright sun light. 

**random subject here**

I've decided I would officially like to begin sewing. 

There are so many DIY projects I see on creative websites, so many fun gifts to make for people. 

My Mom said I can have her machine - thank you Mom!! I'm over-the-top excited about this. Its been something I've wanted to get better at and if I have a machine and start finding good deals on fabric, I can make some fun things. 

I've been collecting tutorials for online sewing projects and now I'm excited to try a few! 

I participated in a FB 'game', where we have to make gifts for 5 people and send it before the year is over. So I need to get more more creative than I currently am. I'm awfully good at stick figured drawings and snow flake cut outs ;-) 

that's our house :-) 

I had some fun taking pictures directly into the sunlight. I've never done that before and didn't think they'd turn out as well as they did. I'm working on a collage of sunset pictures in the NW and I think a couple of these will make it into the collage. I think the frame I'm getting has 14 slots, so I'll have lots of options. We still haven't bought the new camera lens either. I have a feeling once we get that, I won't be able to put this camera down :) 

these pictures were all taken last week, before Kara's cough got worse.
this was our weather all last week. Sunny, blue and crystal clear.
Then, out of nowhere, a bad storm hit.
Today is the first day its let up and we're back to nice, sunny weather.

The guys played some football. Ethan kept score, but you should know, when Ethan keeps sore, it always seems to be, his team wins by quite a lot of points ;-) We tease him a lot and tell him he's lucky he doesn't have a brother, because he'd get called on this stuff quite a bit. Lately when he has friends over, we practice learning to give up on some of our ways and ideas, to make sure everyone is having a good time. Because his sisters don't get into sports the way he does, he often gets to make up rules, points and ideas all on his own. Although the other day when I told him "someday you might have a brother to play with and you don't want him feeling like its awful playing by your rules all the time." he replied with "by the time I have a brother and he's old enough to play with me, won't I be in college?!" 

Ha! I hope not. 

We loved having the Super Bowl ON our birthday and even more enjoyed our team winning. Icing on the cake for sure.

We had a great time at the park and it reminded me that long park days are just around the corner. Funny how long winter can seem - then when it ends, it feels like it wasn't long enough. Maybe its just my opinion though... I'm a fan of both winter and summer'ish months. I like my fill of both :) 

good bye sun. 

good bye park. 

good bye fun day.