Our 4th of July

Another summer recap...Once again we went to Blue Lake for the Fourth of July. We went with our friends the Engstroms.

It was fun...But also terrifying because we lost several of our children.

First we were walking back from the lake and went through the sprinkler park. Jennedy was holding my hand and let go to walk behind me so she did not get as wet.
We go to the other side. It was here that Joe stopped in front of us with the other kids and I turned around to find Jennedy and she was gone.

We started searching for her, running around the whole sprinkler park yelling. Then Joe decided to run to our site and see if she went there.

We continued to yell for her and search. I clung to Trenton, that is when a man with a huge camera came up and said hi, are you OK. I said no, that we had lost our two year old. He said he was from Chanel 2 news and was doing a segment on how parents keep track of their kids when there are so many around and so much activity. So he started to help me look for Jennedy. I told him what she looked like and he started searching too.

By this time Joe came back and said Jennedy was not at our site nor did he see her on the way there. Now I was getting very panicked. It had only been a few seconds of not having her and then she was gone. We continue yelling and looking.
Suddenly the reporter said "Is that her" and pointed about 300 yards away. She was with a woman who was holding her hand and dragging her across the parking lot. Jennedy was screaming and crying. I pointed to where she was and Joe ran after them. The reporter followed and started filming the reunion. Joe brought her back to me and she clung to me.Jennedy then told us she had walked to our site and changed her shoes, then since we were not there she went to the parking lot to find our car (there were thousands of car in the lot) It was then she started crying and the Lady found her and was bringing her to the lost children site. Scary huh?!?
The reporter ask me some questions and filmed them. It was on the news that night. I did not see it, but many people commented that they saw me on the news and was Jennedy all right. How embarrassing. I was in a swimsuit and my hair was soaked as we had just went swimming. Just another day in my crazy life.

Well during the fireworks we lost Trenton, my one year old. We realized he was gone and got up to find him, and some lady brought him too us. She had seen him with our group and said that he had wandered into the parking lot and she grabbed him and brought him back. I held onto him for dear life after that, well when the show ended we started packing up and I had to carry stuff so I let go of his hand and he was gone again. I started searching and yelling then saw him in the road being grabbed up by some man who was rescuing him from being hit by the cars. He brought him over to us, he had seen him with us too. Luckily, with Trenton, people knew he was ours. But still, it was a panic filled fourth for me.

Other than losing our kids we had a great time.

Jennedy turned 3 this summer

So since I was not here for the summer, I missed posting about Jennedy's birthday. So here it is.
We had a fun party at her birth mothers house and had cute princess cupcakes. We also had a party with family on moms birthday too.
We love Jennedy to pieces. We are thrilled that she got to come to our family. We think of her as our ray of sunshine. She brings such joy and excitement to our lives. We feel blessed everyday that we got to adopt her and have her sealed to us. She is pure fun and sweetness. "Me love you too Jennedy"

Clearly I have a lot to say...

Jerika started 1st grade and she is gone from me all day long. I miss her, she seems so tired when she gets home from school and does not want to play with me. She says she has three recesses and even had PE yesterday so she is just too tired from schooling and recessing to have fun with her mom. She just wants to sit around watching I-Carly after school instead of being my buddy. Ugh, I don't want her growing up anymore. I miss my baby girl.

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I had such a fun time on my birthday weekend slash Party with my friends.

We did a "progressive restaurant dinner party" since we had so much fun the last time we did it for Joes Birthday.
We started out at 5 o-clock. We did not get home until 10 or somewhere around there. Five hours of party slash restaurant hopping was so fun.

Our first eating establishment was La Hala, a Lebanese restaurant where we at to die for humus and pitas, that are warm an puffed up balls right out of the oven. It was delicious.

Then we headed off to a Vietnamese place called Pho Thein and had the yummiest, biggest full of shrimp and chicken and mint Salad Rolls. It is in a very tacky pink building but hey if the food is tasty, I am happy.


Then we went over to a German Restaurant "The Rienlander" and had Fondue. It was the yummiest ever. I love Fondue!!!! We we so busy eating we did not even take a picture, which is sad because it has great ambiance.

My husband is always comparing any Pad Thai we eat to one that is perfection according to him so we headed of for Thai food at Chabba Thai. And we all agreed it was the best Pad Thai we had ever eaten. We always order one serving and split it at each restaurant. Well after we ate this pad Thai the guys wanted to order themselves a whole plate, that was how good it was. Well we did not let them, after all we had more places to go.

Then we went to a place on Hawthorne that boasts of the "Best Fish and Chips in Portland." They were good but clearly we would not have given them that title.

Then we headed to JaCiva's a chocolateering place that does amazing deserts. We had a chocolate and strawberry moose inside of a chocolate tulip.


After that we headed over to a Mexican restaurant called El Indio and had fried Ice Cream. They make you wear a Mexican sombrero if it your birthday, which I thought was pretty cool. The guys wanted to break the rule of sharing one dish and so we let them get their own fried Ice cream. Dawn and I were so full that we shared one but didn't finish it all.


It was such a fun night with friends on my birthday. We only started taking pictures of the food when we got to dessert. Next time we will take them earlier in the meal. We ate so many different cuisines from around the world that it felt like a whirlwind world culinary adventure.

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We took the kids to Oaks park on Saturday and it was so much fun. Trenton was scared of the rides but wanted to go on every one and squealed with delight when they were over.


Jennedy did not want to be on an animal on the Carousel because she was too scared. I sat with her on the bench.







We also went skating there and it was so cute to watch Jerika try so hard to be a great skater. Jennedy mostly complained and fell a lot. Jacqueline fell a ton too, but did not want us to hold her hand much, she was just so determined to do it on her own. Trenton has such cool skates that he never fell and actually skated better than any of the kids. Since he is only two I am thinking that it had to be the skates.

Photoshopping.

So yesterday I was learning some new tutorials for photoshop and my kids wanted me to play with some pictures of them to practice what I was learning.
Here are some before and after shots of what we did. We were laughing so hard. Jerika was all about having pink eyes and hair. We changes their dress colors and put on lipstick, eyeshadow and blush. I also did some work with beauty editing.






Super fun.

Trenton is 2

My baby is 2. I can't believe it has been two years, it seems like a short time, but it seems like so much has happened during that time too.
We had a fun family birthday on Sunday and I made a blue and brown cake with a race track on top. Trenton loved the cars racing around the cake.
I love my little guy. Happy birthday Trenton!!!!

Trenton Prays.

Holy Cow I am sick. I am thinking it is Giardia. (Giardiasis is an infection of the small intestine caused by a microscopic organism (protozoa).
I am a bit over dramatic right.
Can we say Hypochondria.
Well I called the Doctor this morning and am waiting for a call back. I have had this for 4 days now and am dehydrated so we will see if I am right on my diagnosis.


Now onto something super cute....
Trenton

That is a picture of Trenton when we are saying family prayer. I had to take a picture because the way he folds his arms cracks me up. So precious. I am sure that he will shortly figure out how to do it and I had to document in picture this adorable way he prays. I never want to forget it. They grow up way to fast.