Happy 9th Birthday to Cousins Kaylin and Kali!

Emily and Lauren were SO excited to attend Kaylin and Kali's birthday party at the Bliss Cupcake shop!

 Everyone got to decorate their own cupcake.

Emily simultaneously ate and decorated her cupcake while Lauren tried to pile on as many decorations as she could.

 Clapping as Kaylin and Kali blow out their candles.

 Lauren (left) with DD and Emily (right) with MAWS!

Posing with the birthday girls! From left to right: Emily, Kaylin, Kali, and Lauren.

Silly Faces

Here are a couple of photo collages of the girls being silly in their gymnastics suits.  They started a new gymnastics class this fall with teacher Jane and are really enjoying it!

Lauren particularly loves to make silly faces!

Oliver's Birthday Party

The girls went to a birthday party for their friend Oliver at the always fun and exhausting Pump It Up!  

Emily (left) and Lauren (right) going down a slide.

Emily playing with a giant inflated basketball. 

Lauren enjoyed throwing herself head first over the basketball to do somersaults!

The girls always like to go in the exciting but slightly frightening cyclone tunnel.

Back to School Night

This past week was back to school night at Bull Mountain Montessori School, the girls' new preschool! Their teacher Denise is really wonderful and planned a great evening for everyone. After showing the parents what they do during circle time, she had each of the kids show their parents examples of different types of "jobs" they do during morning work time... 

Lauren carefully polishing a tarnished silver cup with toothpaste. 

Emily systematically going through a counting game with strands of beads. 

The evening even included a delicious snack of grapes and cookies.  We had a lot of fun and are so glad that the girls will be in teacher Denise's class for their pre-kindergarten year!

Wings and Waves Waterpark

After a morning of tandem bike riding and a delicious Thai lunch, we decided to drive to McMinnville to check out the Wings and Waves Waterpark!

Emily playing in a fountain. 

The wave pool has a huge screen playing movies of flames and other bright/colorful objects with 80's rock music playing in the background... WOW!

Fun water play area with small slides, spouts, and fountains. 

Pool basketball!

The girls enjoyed riding down the tube slides... they went together using a two-person tube, and Emily even went down the slightly scary blue tube slide all by herself! 

The girls had a fabulous time!  

The Greatest Show On Earth

We went to see the Barnum and Bailey circus this week!  Here is Lauren (wearing the blue tank top) and Emily (wearing the white tank top) anxiously waiting for the show to start.

The lights dimmed and the show began... the girls loved it!

The elephants were definitely one of the girls' favorite parts of the show.

Enjoying rainbow snow cones in elephant-shaped mugs during the intermission.

Crazy hats! The hats contained huge bags of cotton candy... it was a sugary and fun evening!

Apple Cupcakes

This week we made vanilla cupcakes and decorated them to look like apples using glittery red sprinkles, pretzel sticks, and sour apple gummy tape.

Cousins Kali and Kay and Aunty Kimberly came over in the evening to decorate and eat cupcakes with us!

This photo is blurry, but too cute not to include! From left to right: Emily, Kali, Lauren, and Kay. As you can see from the grins on Emily and Lauren's faces, they LOVE to spend time with their cousins!

Weekend Playtime at Deer Creek Elementary

Lauren (left) and Emily (right) are always excited to go to the playground!

Lauren climbing through a tube. 

Emily climbing through a tube.

Lauren hanging from a bar and Emily picking some flowers. (These photos were edited with new software that I have been experimenting with!)

Last Day of Preschool

The girls had their last day of preschool at the Children's Village Day School this week.  Here is Emily (left) and Lauren (right) with their incredibly kind and patient teacher Susan.  When we said goodbye, Susan said that Emily and Lauren were two of the sweetest girls she's ever met and that she would never forget them! 

The weather here has been perfect for playing at the park!

Me and Emily.

Me and Lauren.