Lexi's 18th birthday

Lexi had her 18th birthday dinner party at the Old Spaghetti Factory.  I gave my camera first to Ava to take some pictures of Lexi since we were sitting down the table where I couldn't get one.  She came back with a close-up, she likes to zoom, she said, and did very well, I thought.

Next time I asked her not to zoom so we could see other people in the picture,  Lexi with Alyssa and Becky.

Next was Harper's turn and she took pictures down the table.

I'm not sure who got this shot of Dale.

I liked all their candid pictures.   It was a nice party.

Looking for turtles

One of Ava's garage sale finds today was a book "The Box Turtle Manual", which she studied all the way home.  Later she and Harper were riding around in the Jeep, with the manual, just in case they found a stray turtle.  They also bought some stuffed animals, binoculars, a music box, and a cash register to replace their old broken one.  Harper got to use her new wallet and pay for stuff so she loved that.  They had such a good day until after dinner when we were roasting marshmallows and Harper touched the end of the hot metal stick and burned her fingers.  I was giving her cool wash rags to hold but it wasn't till she talked to Mommy and got some advice from Nurse Becky that she really started to calm down.  It was cute, she got off the phone and said "Grandma, Becky is a really a real nurse now and she said it's okay to use ice, too!" 

Aprons by Rielee

The girls had just gotten out of the tub tonight when Rielee came over with a surprise for them-aprons she made in her sewing class.   She was really proud of them, they were both supposed to have pockets, she said, but she forgot Ava's so she put a "yo-yo" on it instead.   She was just finishing them up when we picked her up from her class last night.  It's funny, she was sewing standing up, her teacher said she had a couple other kids that did that, too.  Rielee was sad that sewing was over for the year and is hoping the teacher will have a couple of special sewing days this summer. It's such a happy place to sew, I love the signs on the walls - "Finished is better than perfect" and "Keep calm and sew on".  Ava and Harper will get lots of use out of their special aprons.

James grad party, Dollar store, water color painting

We went to James' graduation party yesterday at the Theatre Pub, he and Parker posed for me.  They were cracking up as James was telling stories, stories I didn't need to hear, yikes, teenagers!  Alan had made a slide show of pictures of James growing up, Ava let me know she wasn't happy with it since she was only in 2 of them. 

After the party I promised the girls a trip to the Dollar Store, Ava was excited to find a bell to use when they play restaurant.

They also found lots of art supplies.

Harper reminded me this morning that I also promised them they could paint this weekend, they had brought some watercolors, fortunately they had gotten up early enough to do it.  Ava messed up her first picture of flowers, but then surprised me with a picture to show what the ground is made up of- "grass, soil, rocks, pebbles, water, and something water can't get through", she couldn't recall, but Harper remembered it- "basalt".   They learned it on their field trip last week to the Water Resource Center.  We were impressed.

Macee grad party

 Macee with Gonzaga friends Janelle and Savannah at her graduation party Saturday.

Lots of friends and family came by to congratulate Macee and wish her luck at UW in the fall.

I heard Lucy up playing in the middle of the night and found her in bed with the girls.  I know she would loved sleeping with them, but also might have woke them up at the crack of dawn, so she went back to her blanket on the couch and I shut the door to the playroom.  We all slept well until Harper's internal alarm clock went off at 7 a.m..

Playing with Jillian & Bridget

 Jillian and Bridget came to play after school yesterday, Tor wasn't feeling too well and stayed with Grannie.  Rielee and Jillian were jumping off the swing, they kept going higher and higher until I finally stopped them-they have no fear!  I was fearing a broken leg.

Harper fell off the monkey bars, scraping and bruising her elbow so she missed out on the fun for awhile.

She's showing her bandaid in this picture.  The girls all got along really well.

Lucky Lucy, Papa Mike's truck

Harper was thrilled this morning when Lucy fell asleep in her arms.  Lucy got lots of attention this weekend.

Since Charb's truck was in the shop he was driving Papa Mike's when he picked up Ava and Harper.  Riding in the back in the little side seats was quite an adventure for the girls, but Daddy assured them he would be driving very carefully!

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Lucy, balloon hats and helmets

Rielee came over Friday night and they all begged to take Lucy outside.  They promised to take good care of her and they did for the most part.  But when I left for a couple of minutes, I came back to see Lucy going  down the little slide, and she didn't look like she was enjoying it.   Lucy woke Harper  up at 4 in the morning by playing with her feet.  The girls had been camped out on the living room floor-Lucy had to go to sleep by herself in the bedroom after that.

This morning when I told the girls we were going to garage sales Ava was disappointed because she left her wallet home and it had $5 in it.  But then I overheard her ask Papa if he had $10, she said 2 fives would do, he asked her why and she said "to go garage sale-ing with, of course!"  They found many treasures, diaries and wallets, "Best Friend" pens, Ava even found a book on planets.  After the garage sales we went to the Farmer's Market where they saw a man making balloon animals and hats.  They both wanted hats but then Ava didn't like hers, she had hoped for one with a flower on it.  So she re-worked it when we got home, they played with those balloons all day until they were down to nothing. 

We also went to Walmart and found these growing girls bigger helmets.

 

Illahee Pride Night

Ava and Harper looked so cute for Pride Night at their school.  Kelly said when they were getting dressed they wished they had prom dresses to wear!

Harper showing Dad some of her writing and math papers. She wrote a story about sisters.

Ava showing Mom and Lexi a story she wrote about ponies.

They posed with Mrs. Miller and showed us all around their room, we also got a tour of the library.

The first grade put on a concert outside in the covered area, singing several songs.

Ava was a little nervous at first, but after a couple of songs, she relaxed.

The last song included some dancing and they had fun with that.  The best part was when they sang a song to their Mom-the look on their faces was pure joy.

Afterwards, we went to their house for coffee and dessert and the girls showed us Oliver's new doghouse and yard, which is connected to their playhouse.  Very cute.

Lexi's softball senior night

 There was lots of love for Lexi and the rest of the seniors at their last home game against Heritage.

Lexi played great and they won 12-6.

 The 6 seniors.

One happy, proud family, and a little hot and sweaty, too,  it was a very warm afternoon of softball!

Macee's graduation

 

Gonzaga's graduation was held at the Spokane Arena.  Of course we sat on the wrong side of it and could barely see Macee as she walked in and sat down.  She spotted us though.

There were 1,200 graduates and the place was packed.

Fortunately they had a big screen and showed each graduate as they were on the stage.

Macee shaking hands with the University President after receiving her diploma.

Papa went to the other side of the arena and got this picture of her in her seat. 

Handing out all those diplomas was a long process, the ceremony took over 3 hours.

We were one happy and proud family afterwards,

and celebrated with pizza and cake at Pete's Pizza, a little place near Macee's house.

After pizza, they loaded up all Macee's stuff to move her to Seattle

for law school next fall. 

 

Ava & Harper meet Lucy/Em's room

 Ava and Harper were so surprised at how little Lucy is.  She likes to be wrapped up in her blanket to cuddle, and there was lots of discussion over who's turn it was to hold her.

 This morning they wanted "selfies" with her-

And we got a picture of Lucy with her 3 Moms.

This afternoon I went to help in Emmy's classroom.  The kids planted flowers in the pots they painted for Mother's Day presents and finished up their cards.  Aryann was proud of her card and asked me to take a picture of it. 



New kitty

Rielee convinced us that we needed a kitten in our lives, and today we found one.  Des found

her on a Longview Classified Facebook page. 

We tried out several names, Papa liked Biscuit, Rielee liked Muffin or Muffy,

Ava and Harper suggested Sara or Sally, and then we thought of Lucy.

Lucy is pretty darned cute.

Auna's 16th

We went to Auna's birthday party tonight.  One again, I can't believe she's 16! These kids are all growing up

way too fast.  It seemed so strange to see her driving by on her way home from school.

16 year old cousins/neighbors