Bed Heads

Oh, this curly hair can be so darned cute, but the bed heads they get after their nap sure aren't! It becomes a matted, messy mess, that requires having to completely wet their hair down and spray it liberally with detangler, and then combing it out and letting it curl back into nice ringlets. A process that they don't really like much at all. But today I bribed them with cookies so they would sit

together for me and let me take their before and after pictures.

Waiting in the car for Dad

Papa loves his play time in the car with the girls, he always leaves a little early to meet Charb so they have plenty of this quality time together. He gets such a kick out of them pretending to drive and playing with all the knobs, mirrors, lights. He will tease them that every passing truck driver is "Papa Mike" or "Grandma Barb" or "Dad, Mom, Lexi or Luke". They yell and say "NO Papa, no it's not!" Their sense of humor is really getting good, and they will point out people and say the same thing.

Playing outside

We had to get outside today, even though it was drizzling a little. Papa had the house at 78 degrees and we were all lethargic and sleepy so the cool air felt good.. The girls took off for Laury's house first but she wasn't home, then they went to visit Alan & Vera but they weren't home either. They ended up at Alan's steps, chasing each other around and around and jumping off. They also did a little stump-jumping and kicked the balls around, too.
In the evening we went to watch the Rocket girls play Rainier, they got their first win in district play. Next opponent is Tenino on Sat.

Napping

The girls spent the night while Mom, Dad, Luke and Lexi went to the Blazers game. They were tired girls before bed. This morning Ava got up happy and went right to their little kitchen and started "cooking", but when Papa went in to wake up Harper so she could eat breakfast with Rielee, Harper said "no" and rolled over and went back to sleep. Then when she did get up she was out of sorts, usually it is the other way around, Harper is the happy waker and Ava wakes up slowly. I tried putting them down together for a nap today to see what they would do. I had to go in several times and tell them to stop talking, they would grin, then roll over real quick and hide their faces. Finally Papa went in and laid down between them and they all went right to sleep.
We met Barb and Mike at 4:00, and the girl's excited reaction to seeing Papa Mike was hilarious-it's like he's a rock star! So funny!
We then went to Elma to watch the Rocket boys in a district play-in game, they led the whole game until the last 10 seconds, then fell behind by 1 point, and with less than a second left, Cale inbounded to Will and he scored at the buzzer! Wow, exciting game! So proud of them!

Beans

A bag of beans kept the girls busy for about an hour this morning. It was very serious, quiet play, too, as they concentrated on filling and emptying the different containers.

Emmy's home

Emmy came home on Friday for her Dad's birthday and to go to a friend's wedding. Ava and Harper remembered her but a little shy around her.

Saturday we stopped by to see how Parker and Gabe were doing on their land clearing project for the new business. Parker was driving the tractor, wearing his new Stihl suspenders and having a great time. We went to Woodland to watch the boys basketball game, they lost to LaCenter and will have to play on the road next week.

Groundhogs Day

The best thing about having a birthday party the night before your birthday is that you can have leftover cake

as a morning snack, which Ava, Harper and I did this morning. Harper ate every bite of hers but Ava only ate the frosting. We had a great day with the girls. As we were taking them back to meet Grandma Barb and Great Grandma, Harper spotted her moon out the car window, then Ava saw her clouds, with much happy squealing. Papa got the grass to call his, and I have the trees.
On the way back from LaCenter, we stopped in Kelso to watch James' team play at Huntington. It was a close game but they lost. It was fun to see James' playing, he had a couple of nice assists.

Then we went to the CR girls game, we sat down and I glanced at the program and then Laury sat down behind me and she tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and she was pointing at something in the program and she says "did you see this?"
And this is what I read:


I was mortified, I had not noticed that in the program and I am thinking everybody in the stands was reading it and they were all going to stand up and sing to me!! Oh my gosh! They let me stew and fret for a little while and then Laury said "actually, that is the only program that has that in it..." This is how my siblings treat me, well, actually it was a payback from Cathy's 60th birthday lunch where I planned for all of us to wear t-shirts that said "Cathy is 60!" to surprise her.

That was 12 years ago.

She didn't forget it.

Then I look over at Cathy, who is sitting right next to me, and she is wearing this:

But this was mild compared to the original plan they had cooked up for me. They were all going to wear shirts with 1 letter on them, then, at halftime they were going to line up down on the court and spell out "Aunt is 60!" and then have the announcer say something also. Thankfully my nice sister Laury talked them out of that, since I would have probably been scarred for life by that much attention.

Both the girls and boys teams won beat Ilwaco, that was great.

And, all in all, it was a great 60th Groundhog's Day for me!

I love my family!

Parker is 12!

I got to share my upcoming birthday at a party with Parker tonight, he is 12 today. He is growing up so fast! He is a fun and caring guy, and has developed a great sense of humor. It was a wonderful party, lots of the family came and we both got lots of nice gifts. Cathy made up a trivia game about me and things that happened or the cost of different items in 1952 or in '68 when I was 16, that was interesting. I made up a game mostly about Parker, some of the answers he gave were questioned by Gabe and Des, especially the one where he answered that his favorite meal was "frozen pizza".

The other fun thing that happened today was how Ava mastered winking. Harper is working on it and can kind of do it but it's more of a squint. Ava was getting very frustrated with her and kept telling her "one eye, Harper, one eye!