Day of Shopping

What a day of shopping I had. We (Brandi, Jaime, the girls & I) headed to Southcenter Mall this morning around 9:30am and didn't get home until 7:30pm. I am absolutely pooped and tired tonight! Brandi needed to go to Macy's at Southcenter to buy a pair of jeans that apparently was only in Southcenter, Kennewick and Reno, Nevada (a really good deal I guess). We got there and shockingly they didn't have any (LOL), so she ended up having to order a pair from Reno (Kennewick wasn't answering their phones). That was the only plan we had, and by about 11am we were done!

We went and got lunch and then Jaime decided she wanted to get Madison some school clothes for when she starts preschool in the fall. We had a great time shopping for new clothes for Madison, we hit all the stores in the mall plus Target, Walmart, Osh-Kosh and Payless Shoes. Madison got a lot of new clothes that are super cute! She also found a backpack that was just Maddie sized at Osh-Kosh (opposed to the ones at Target that were almost as big as she is!).

We met Charity, Alex & Erin at Red Robin for dinner and dessert (thanks Charity!). After dinner I headed back to Monroe with Jaime and the girls. Madison was excited to have a 'fashion show' of all her new clothes for Zak & Jaime. Madison is super excited to start Preschool! What a big girl she is!

Farkle

I had another lazy day today, there is nothing nicer than the occasional day of laying in bed. I spent most of my day laying in bed watching game show network and playing farkle on facebook. I have to admit that I am addicted to it, it is such a fun game. It's a dice game where you try to roll three of a kind of numbers. Yesterday, I made "pro" where I now can play against other people, which is a lot more entertaining then just playing yourself. My record now is 15 wins and 14 losses, happy I finally have a winning record!! The triplets slept 3 hours yesterday and I spent the whole time playing this dumb game! Oh well, at least it is relaxing...sort of!

I have gotten Amy to play it and she's hooked too. She just needs to earn 10,000 chips (you get chips by playing the single version, and sending your chips). She's at 1,000+ now, so I'm waiting for her to hit the 10,000 points to become a pro! Hurry up Amy!!

Another weekend is upon us and next Saturday I leave for Salt Lake to visit Grandma and the rest of the Flemmer Family!

Mini-Golf & Lunch

Zak, Maddie & I went Mini-Golfing at Willows Run Golf Course. It was fun and I got a hole in 1, yes it's true I got a hole in 1. Make sure you ask Zak how many holes in 1 he got...hehehe! However, he did beat me, but still I was the one with the hole in 1! (Can you tell I am happy!). Maddie had never played before, so it was cute to watch her play! She did get one legitimate two, so that was impressive. We then ate lunch at the clubhouse, Maddie was really excited to eat there. We learned when we walked up to it that she thought we were going to Mickey Mouse's Clubhouse! Alex met up with us for lunch and hung out with us for awhile. That was about it for the day!

Still waiting on the Spokane pictures from Julia....oh Julia!!

Gondola Ride Over Spokane Falls

We got home last night, but before we left we stopped at Riverside Park to let the kids run around before we got in the car. While we were looking for parking I spotted a Gondola Ride, that I thought everyone might enjoy….and they did! So up we went!

We then headed home and began the 5 hour drive back to Seattle. The kids did really well in the car, to entertain myself I played with my camera on my phone and Julia’s. So here are a couple of pictures of MacKenzie that were cute! The boys were to far back to get a picture of!

A Girl After My Own Heart! All she needed was a Sprite to complete it!


L: MacKenzie actually took a 2 hour nap in the car!
R: She was being a goober and sticking her gummy worm to her face!

Still waiting on pictures from Julia, maybe tonight, but after they dropped me off last night they still had a 1hr15m drive home! So I’m sure they got home and crashed! Not to mention the fact that Julia had to work today!! So stay tuned!

Spokane Trip

I took an unexpected trip to Spokane with Julia & the kids on Thursday to visit Julia’s family and the kids’ birth families. We have been going going going since Thursday afternoon when we left. Lets see what have we done…

Thursday: Drove the 5 hours to Spokane arriving right around 8pm. The kids had never stayed at a hotel before so they were super excited, so that was fun! By the time Julia & I got everything organized, unpacked and kids in bed it was almost 11pm.

Friday: Even after going to bed at 11pm, the kids were all up at 5:45am (omg that’s early!). We went out to breakfast at the hotel resteruant around 9am then I hung out with the kids while Julia went out to visit some “friends”. During that time the boys played on my laptop, we wandered around the hotel and then had naptime. Poor Mackenzie had to nap in the bathroom (where I am currently hanging out!). There was just barely enough room to open the pack ‘n play. I had about 3” to squeeze out and then shove Mackenzie in! But that was the only place where we could put her where she’d actually sleep. And she did, for a good 2+ hours.

Julia got home around 1ish, and then we made plans to go visit Ashli (Mackenzie’s birth-mom), Stacie (Mackenzie’s birth-grandmother) and Jackie (Mackenzie’s birth-great grandmother) at Chuck E Cheese. We also met up with Julia’s cousin Dana and her three kids Kaden, Caleb & Kaylynn (try to say those names 3x fast!). Chuck E Cheese was fun, the kids got 1500 tickets, so they actually each got a good prize so that was fun! We really just played games, ate pizza, climbed through the tubes (I had to go rescue Mackenzie) and talked.

We got home around 7pm, and we were all out (me included by about 815pm!

Today (Saturday): Today started off later, the kids didn’t get up until almost 7am, granted I laid around until about 9am! We had breakfast this morning with the twins’ birthfamily, Britney (birth-mom), Charlotte (birth grandma) and then Britney’s kids Ashton, Caydence & Alexander. We had a delicious breakfast and the boys were introduced to the WII and are now hooked I think!! Mackenzie had fun playing with Alexander, they spent a good hour removing, stacking and putting back dvd’s! Naptime followed, once again Mackenzie was shoved in the bathroom, and the rest of us slept (okay I sort of did, Aiden fell asleep but only maybe 30mintues before he was woke up, Julia claims she didn’t sleep, but I think she did and I’m not sure about Connor he was on Julia’s side of the room).

This afternoon we went to Julia’s Aunt Deanna and Uncle David’s house to visit Julia’s family. The have a huge swimming pool with a waterslide!! OMG it was so fun! I went down it a half-dozen times by myself and then took little Mackenzie down it with me twice! The little daredevil loved it … well sort of! We had a yummy bbq and then headed back to the hotel.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m writing this post from the bathroom, sitting on the toilet (no Im NOT using it!) with my laptop on the sink….oh and Julia turned the light off too – so it’s dark! I just went out and checked and everyone is asleep, but Julia – so I’m off to go crawl in bed and watch tv with her.

We’ve taken tons of pictures but they are all on Julia’s camera and her memory card doesn’t fit in my computer, so I have to wait until she gets home and uploads them! So hopefully early next week I’ll be able to post some! But in the meantime, here is a cute video from Chuck E Cheese where she was playing SkeetBall, and cheating just a little bit ;)

Have a great weekend!

Wild Waves!

Zak, Alex, Maddie & I ventured down to Wild Waves today and spent the whole day there!  We had so much fun!!  We arrived at about 10:15am and left at 5:30pm!  We road all the rides and played for many hours in the water, even though it was pretty darn cold out!

We started out with the rides as soon as we arrived, we took turns hanging with Maddie while the other two would go ride ‘big’ rides!

The Maddie Rides

The BiG(GER) Rides

Zak & Alex after riding The Wild Thing rollercoaster back to back!

Madison was scared to ride the Ferris Wheel, so I bribed her with cotton candy to go on it with me.  Turned out to be her favorite ride, and she went on to ride it three times!!
 
Beautiful self portrait of myself & Maddie ;)

 
Alex getting her chance to go round and round! 

We also played in the water, but for fear of dropping the camera in the water we didn’t take any pictures!  We plan on going back again before the summer is over and hopefully bringing along a photographer (ahem…Brandi?   Jaime?) who wouldn’t want to go down the water slides. 

But the inner tube ride was the favorite of the three of us.  We road it many times!  I flipped Zak & I once, but apparently Alex & him flipped even worse!  I can’t imagine!  I also jumped off the ‘cliff’ (aka a 10ft rock), and surprised Zak who said I’d never do it!!  I’m sure I looked goofy jumping!!  We played in the wave pool, where Madison would “catch the waves”.  Because it wasn’t to warm out the hot tubs also felt really good!!  So we spent a lot of time in those too!  For some reason the kiddie area of the water park isn’t heated and the water felt like ice cubes should be floating around.  It was FREEZING!  After hanging out in that for awhile the rest of the pools felt really nice!!

What a fun day!  I’m already ready to go back!  Maybe next week!!

Little Mermaid Maddie & Happy Birthday Daddy!!

Zak has the week off this week so he and Madison came over to swim during nap time today. Maddie has grown so much when it comes to swimming and playing in the pool. It's amazing that at Sophia's Birthday Party back at the end of June she was petrified to even go in the big pool and today she will swim around the big pool (deep end and all) all by herself in her floaty swimsuit!! Anyway....

Today when the babies went down it was just myself, Zak & Maddie swimming. Maddie wanted to play pretend with us, so we played Little Mermaid (she was Ariel *shocker*, Zak was Flounder, and I was "Ariel's Dad" lol). She was really into pretending that we were these characters. She also wanted to play dolphins! It's really interesting to see the pretend play becoming a favorite pastime of hers!

Weather is cooling off dramatically, today's high was about 80*. Much different from last week when we hit 103*+! It's also supposed to rain on Thursday, the first time we'll have had really any rain in 77 days! I'm happy the hot-hot is gone, but I don't want it to so drastically flip to cold weather now! So I hope it stays in the 80's for awhile!!

Today is also my Daddy's Birthday!! HaPpY bIrThDaY dAd!!

Sleep Game

Wish I knew the secret to win this game! I'm so tired the last couple of days but just can't fall asleep! I've gotten used to falling asleep with the tv on or listening to the Mariners game, so nights when I don't do either are so hard. But tonight someone gave me an idea that I haven't tried before - counting backwards from 300 by 3's. It's supposed to be hard enough that you'll fall asleep (probably from boredom!). I'm just not the type of person to be able to fall asleep by just laying in bed. My brain and mind start spinning and I have trouble turning it off. In the past I've read myself to sleep or played other mind games (abc's of animals, foods, celebrities, games, etc.). But I think I'm gonna give this a try tonight, we'll see how it goes!

Testimony & Adoption

This morning it was just me from my family at church (Alex went to the Big Rock Ward, where her friend was getting confirmed and my parents are out of town), so I happily was seated just listening and thinking about my pending lesson when I felt the need to bear my testimony. It had been awhile, and I tried to ignore the feeling - but the more I tried the harder it was. I knew I had to get up and say something about what is going on up in Camano with the baby and adoption. (I don't feel comfortable going into detail here right now...maybe later).

I finally got the courage to get up (luckily the new ward is much smaller so it was so intimidating!) and do it. I told the sped up version of the last 2 years and what's going on now, how thankful I am for families, my family, prayer and hope. Felt like I just babbled, but I hope I didn't! When I was done, I sat down and felt much better! Immediately after me someone got up and said "I was that baby". She had been adopted when she was a baby and went onto bear her testimony on adoption and family. It was concluded by one more lady getting up who is trying to adopt right now. The theme for me turned out to be "hope and miracles" - it was a beautiful testimony meeting and I felt the spirit so strongly.

I continue to just pray and send good vibes both to Eastern Washington and up north that what's meant to happen will - that everyone will have peace, and will keep the baby in mind. Rational thoughts and choices will be made and not led by being scared. I hope she can make that choice and do what she knows she needs to do.

Crabbin’

This morning after breakfast we headed down to the beach where the kids went looking for baby crabs! It was a beautiful morning and the ocean was very calm!! What fun!

We’re heading back to Seattle in a few minutes, gotta get Abby, Charlie & Kjell home for a good night sleep before their parents get home in the morning! It was another fun trip up to Camano! Hopefully I’ll be back later this week :)