New Swing Set

Our family was blessed with a new swing set.  Grandma Knight gave us some money for Jim to build it to add on to our existing play structure for both Elaine and Evan's birthdays.  We were all so excited!

Here is Jim in action putting it together.

The kids love it and are having so much fun!

 

We even hung up a baby swing for Elaine too!  It is hard to get her out of this thing at times.

Elaine is One!!!

These are some of our favorite pictures we got from Elaine's one year photo session with the amazing Melissa Babasin.  Elaine was not really wanting to give us a smile until we went to the park.  One of her favorite places to be!

 

 

  

Milestones for Elaine at one include:
-She is extremely mobile.  Loves exploring and trying new things.  Adventure and fun should be her middle name.
-She is a good eater and will consume most foods.  Tends to give almost everything at least a taste, but if she doesn't like it usually it gets spit right back out.  Her favorites are blueberries, strawberries, nectarines, watermelon, peaches, cheese, most types of crackers, rice, yogurt, waffles, mac and cheese to name a few. 
-She gets to sit in her big girl car seat in the car now too.

-She loves her family. Elaine especially loves playing with her brother and sister.  She also continues to be a Mommy's girl and doesn't love going to her class at church, but is slowly accepting it.  They tell me she stomps her feet and throws fits.  The other day she was in her class and was throwing a fit and they asked her if she was done and she shook her head no. :)
-This has been a fun new skill she can shake her head yes and no.
-She also can say cracker, hi, and up along with Momma and Dadda.
-She can be found climbing the stairs all by herself and the big kid's bunk beds.  We have to watch her like a hawk.
-She loves to laugh and go upside down.
-Elaine adores being outside and playing, especially swinging, going on bike rides, walks, swimming, etc.
-She likes to dance, give high fives, kisses (open mouth, they are hilarious), and blow kisses.
-She loves putting lids on containers too!

We love this little girl so much and couldn't imagine a single day without her!  Happy Birthday Elaine Grace!!!

Our Vacation to Monterey

Our family took a vacation to Monterey this year July 20-23.  It was awesome and so much fun. 

We stayed at the Embassy Suites in Seaside.  As always the hotel experience is always one of the highlights for our family.  This vacation was no different.

One big difference this trip was that we took full advantage of the pool.  With Evan swimming so well he couldn't get enough.  The girls were enjoying it a ton too!  Here we are after one of our pool times.

 

On Saturday, we dinned at Gianna's Pizza.  A local favorite.  We ordered way too much as you can see from he picture below, but enjoyed the leftovers at our hotel.

That evening we decided to go for a drive and explore the area.  On our drive we saw deer crossing the street.

We also got to see a cool Lighthouse.  It wasn't open to go inside, but just seeing it was pretty neat!  The kids were familiar with what a lighthouse was because of a recent episode of Jack and the Never Land Pirates. :)

 

Then we stopped at the beach.  We all had a blast climbing rocks, finding sea shells and hermit crabs.

I found this cool shell for Evie that was like a ring.

On Sunday, we visited the ever popular Monterey Aquarium.  It was great, but super crowded and kind of hot.  I think we dressed a little too warmly that day.  Overall, we had a decent time, but Elaine is at an age where she wants to be down exploring and this place was a little too crowded to let this happen safely.

We also were limited on the shows and experiences to watch, because she just wasn't patient.  I know we were asking a lot for our new little one year old.  Here we are attempting to see the Penguins get feed.

This is a fun picture that Evan actually took of Jim, me and Elaine outside.  Elaine was having a much needed nap at this point.

Here is Evie taking a much needed nap too!

After the aquarium we walked do Cannery Row.  Both big kids got to pick out a special toy.  Evan got one on Cannery Row (a little scuba people set) and Evie picked (stickers and a coloring book) at the Aquarium.

A fun fact about our trip, I ran into my OBGYN there and she recognized me and said hi.  She was there with her kids and some other Mommy friends during their stay in Santa Cruz.  So fun and such a small world sometimes!

That afternoon we went to this amazing park.

 

It had everything you could think of to play on.  It was so big I couldn't even get a picture of everything offered together.

Fun times in the hotel elevator.

On our final day we headed to Carmel.  It was super foggy when we got there.

However, during our visit cleared a bit.  This was a pretty lame beach experience for all of us because we were situated right by a ton of kelp and seaweed and Elaine kept face planting in the sand every few seconds.

We only stayed for a little bit.  The sand was also super hard to get off your skin and made for a miserable time of getting everyone situated and comfortable back in the car to continue our trip.

Luckily after some lunch at a local Safeway we were able to regroup and then headed back to Monterey to the rock beach area we liked so much during our first ocean visit on Saturday.

Overall, we had a wonderful time.  The trip went too fast as they always do, but so thankful for these amazing memories together!

Sisters

Berry Picking at Amber Oaks in Auburn

Our family had a great time Berry Picking with good friends the Wisners and Rhodes at Amber Oaks Farms in Auburn on Monday, August 5.  Natalie found the location and it was just perfect.  Here are the boys ready for picking!  Unfortunately, in both pictures I got of all three of them Tyler had his eyes closed.

Here is my big guy with some of his berries...so cute!

The little girls in action.  I love how Elaine is in the background too.

This is a picture of all the kids gathered around a crazy find...

this gigantic spider!

Here is a picture of Kristina taking a picture of it up close to show you how big it was.  It was certainly the biggest spider I have every seen in real life.  Apparently, it is there every year in about the same spot.  Kind of like a Charlotte's Web type of spider.

 Here are the ladies.

 Here are all of the littlest ladies, minus Kate who was in the stroller.

 Pushing through the blackberry bushes.  Good times!

 After the blackberries we moved over to the tomato crop.  Here is Evan picking away.

 All the kids did awesome, especially my kiddos.  I was a proud mama!  

 Here is what we ended up with.  Delicious!!!

The Rhodes, Wisners and Knights will be making this an annual tradition.  After all our hard work we headed over to Taco Tree for lunch! :)