We have the prettiest tree out in our back yard. It's called a Wisteria Vine...thanks Michelle!! It is really cool looking. It's all braided up along the fence. Some of the vines are so long that they are all tangled up in our Willow Tree.
Silly Larkin in her purple bow to match the blossoms!
What a little silly goose! She is 5 months old now...how time flies!!

We like to have waffles and whipped cream for breakfast every so often. Joshua has gotten to where he only eats the cream...he sure is his Daddy's boy.

I have one word for you...KARMA. I was talking to Jen two days ago...whining about how my house just kind of always stinks because of my sweet little boys...they are always dirty, make my bathrooms smell like pee...and all kinds of other nasty smells! I then got motivated and mopped all the floors downstairs! Yea...gotta love the smell of Pinesol! Well, that night, Aaron went into the boys' room to check on them before we got into bed. He told me to come here, because their room stank..."yeah, yeah, Aaron...their room always stinks...they are smelly little boys!" Anyways, I went and smelled it, and yup, it was stinky. I thought maybe Joshua needed a new diaper, but that wasn't it. We sniffed around and couldn't figure it out. So, Aaron left their door open so the room could air out.
Well, the next morning, it was stinky...even stinkier, in fact. After Aaron went to work, I scavenged the room, trying to figure out what was rotting up there. It didn't take long, because, if you will remember from a previous post, they do not have any more toys up there. I took all the clothes out of drawers and smelled them. I checked on the 3 toys in the toy box...nothing. The longer I was in there, the more familiar the smell was...it smelled like dead mouse. I grew up by a field, and so every winter, we had mice...so I am pretty familiar with the scent of dead mouse. I then noticed the box of legoes up in the closet...I remembered we had brought them to play group and then I sat them in the garage for a while...maybe a mouse had crawled in there and died. EWWWW GROSS!! So, I bravely dumped all the legoes out, and....NOTHING!! Then I crawled under the bunk beds and checked in the heating duct, so see if anything was there. The only thing I smelled in there was fresh air blowing out...Oh yeah, I didn't mention...yesterday was the first day of our big heat wave! So we had the air con on. Anyways, the hotter it got, the stinkier it became in the room. After checking everything six or seven times, I closed the door, locked it, and put a towel by the bottom, so no yucky smells could leak out.



Aaron came home and had me convinced that it was Noah's mattress...I have water proof sheets...well, water resistant anyways. Aaron thought that since it was hot, the pee smell in the mattress baked and made it smell gross in there. We took the mattress out and brought it downstairs. I rubbed my nose all over it, and NOTHING! And then...Aaron realized what must be going on...A few weeks ago, a mama bird had built her nest up in the eave of the house, right by the boys' room. Every time we went in the room, the babies would start chirping. It was really sweet sounding. Aaron would tell the boys that the babies were singing them to bed every night. It didn't dawn on us that we hadn't heard the babies in a few days. So....Aaron went and got the ladder and climbed into our attic...right over the boys' room. After a couple of minutes, he yelled, "Oh this is sad...get the camera."


Well, after spending TWO HOURS up in an attic that must have been 100 degrees, with the worst stench in the universe, Aaron successfully removed 3 dead baby birds...and when I say babies, I mean BIG baby birds. Here's what happened...Mama bird climbed in and out of a tiny hole to make a nest in out attic. She laid her eggs, they hatched, she fed her babies every day, and they grew. One day, not too long ago, poor mama bird must have had a large meal or something. When she came back in to feed the HUGE babies,she got STUCK in her little hole. Poor mama died there and so did her babies. I got to go outside and get our 15 foot stick and whack mama bird free from the house...you could totally see her hanging out. It was so NASTY! Listen to me whine...poor Aaron was up in the attic digging through insulation trying to make sure he got all the babies out. He's pretty sure he's gonna die of the bird flu! He looked so sick and was so SWEATY when he finally was done. Earlier in the day, I promised the kids the greatest treasure ever to whomever could figure out where the smell was coming from...Aaron wins it! What in the world would be treasure enough for the nastiness that he had to endure...any suggestions??

There's mama bird stuck up in her little hole and there's one of the babies in the nest. Check out the nails on the ceiling...Poor Aaron was complaining that his head was bleeding from the ceiling...holy cow!! Stupid, stupid birds!!


The moral of my tale...my stinky little boys smell like roses...no more complaining!!

Friday night, I got to go out on a girl's night with a few friends from church. Aaron set our tent up and had the ultimate "date" with the kids. They started out with tin foil dinners. Then they roasted marshmallows for s'mores over the fire pit Aaron built (which looks awesome!!). Aaron let Arwen and Noah roast their own marshmallows, so now, they are pretty much professional! Then, they all cozied up in the tent and went to sleep!

Check out that nice fire! They didn't have any casualties...you're shocked, I'm sure!
The best thing is, the fire pit is where the trampoline goes, so that will help to keep the kids from messing around in it...(I hope!)
Arwen is the messiest eater of all my kids! But she sure enjoys her treats!
"This is so yuuuummmmy!"...Noah's most used phrase!
Aaron said that Joshua didn't like how messy the s'mores were and really didn't enjoy his too much.
Here are the kids self-roasted mallows!
Good Night, Sleep Tight! Thanks Aaron for being the most amazing Dad ever! I had a wonderful night and so did the kids! You are the greatest...Love you lots!

The kids like to hide everyday when Aaron gets home from work so he can find them. Aaron walks in and Arwen yells, "Mom, say you lost the kids..."so I say, "Daddy, I lost the kids!" This is how he found Noah one day..."Tapey Monster" is what Arwen called him.

Pretty much he couldn't see or breathe. Aaron said he was kind of snorting and struggling for breath...luckily there was a microscopic hole allowing him enough oxygen not to die before Aaron found him! ;)

What a slacker I am!! I have been meaning to tell the cutest story ever...I took Noah to the Dentist last Thursday. I was WORRIED beyond belief. First, because Arwen has had EIGHT cavities since I took her when she was 3 and still feel like the world's worst mother. And second, because ever since Noah had his little thumb cut off, he is a scardy cat of doctors of any sort...hmmmm....go figure. Anyways, we got there and he was scheduled to see my dentist...not the pedidontist they have there, whom I really like. My dentist...pretty much she does a hack job on my mouth every time I have to go and get another tooth fixed (yes, Arwen has inherited my teeth!!). We got there and the hygienist took him to show him the x-ray machine. She said that they have never really been able to get good x-rays of a 3 year olds teeth before, but she likes to show them how they work. Noah asked her if she had treasure chest (he is SOOO envious when Arwen comes home from the dentist with a treasure) and she told him she did. He opened up big and took the two best x-rays she's ever gotten on a 3 year old! Yea Noah! Then she took him back to clean his teeth. She started out by showing him all the tools she would be using. Noah was in HEAVEN. He L-O-V-E-S little sharp things of any sort! He was trying his hardest to grab everything! I was trying hard not to laugh. He about jumped out of the chair when she showed him the water sprayer to rinse his mouth. He kept grabbing for it and saying, "I need to hold that. I need to spray the water." The crazy hygienist let him spray the water. Only, Noah didn't just do a little spray, he sprayed for a long time until she had to swipe it back from him! It was so funny. I was laughing so hard at this point. He had completely taken over the office. The floor was all wet and took lots of paper towels to clean up. Then she wanted to start cleaning his teeth. He had a stain on his bottom teeth and the hygienist told him that this is normal and that moms and dads get this a lot because they drink lots of coffee and tea. Noah got real excited and yelled, "Not my mom and dad. They don't drink tea or coffee." It of course came out more like this because she had her hands in his mouth, "jdfkladfjkldhfkaldhf." He then picked orange flavor for his polish and tried to take that away from her too because it was in a cute little container that sat on your finger like a ring. She kept trying to ignore him and clean his teeth, but he just kept grabbing away! AND, he kept begging her to let him shoot the water in his mouth. Whenever the hygienist would suck the water out, he would keep that straw in his mouth and would not open it up for anything...had to make sure it was dry! After everything was all said and done, Noah took perfect x-rays, soaked the office, tried to steal all of the dangerous sharp dentist tools, got his teeth cleaned, and had NO CAVITIES!! I felt a little bit better about my mom-hood when I heard that! And, I had the best laugh I have had in a while regarding little Noah. The hygienist just kept saying over and over and over to EVERYONE that Noah was the best 3 year old patient she had ever seen in all her years and years of cleaning people's teeth. You can imagine my shock as I am sure quite a few of you are shocked as well! Happy Day! Noah got to choose from her treasure chest and took two instead of the one treasure he was allowed...I guess he figured she owed it to him since she never did let him spray the water in his mouth! This is the grossest picture ever...Noah wrapped his fruit by the foot on his finger to eat it that way! Don't worry...this was the one and ONLY time I will ever buy these things again!

I LOVE Oregon in the springtime! It is so beautiful...blossoms of all kinds all around! How blessed we are to live in such a pretty place! After enjoying Church, we came home and had a picnic while Aaron set up the new hammock we bought on our 7th Anniversary date last night.

Here are my beauties with their wonderful Daddy. I just love them all so much!
I love this picture. Josh and Ar just hanging out being best buddies. I love the bond Arwen has with each of her brothers. She loves to play and use her imagination with Noe. She is very motherly to Joshua which just makes a mom's heart happy.
Hee Hee! I finally talked Aaron into letting me buy a Bumbo chair because I told him that it be so cute holding Larkin in pictures...I was right! Aren't "leggings" so cute on a fat little baby?
You see!!!! Noah doesn't have that goofy look on his face like usual!! He really can be quite handsome when he wants to be...especially since we FINALLY cut his hair.
We have three blossoming trees in our backyard. We love when there is a breeze and we can dance in the blossoms. Thanks Daddy for being our "breeze" today!
Sweet Josh...just after a nap. He is such my tender hearted little boy. I love him to pieces!
Larkin almost looks fat in this picture! Aaron, Josh, and Larkin took a nap in the hammock together. I napped on the trampoline until I got too hot and joined Arwen and Noah on their bed beneath the blossoms. What a wonderful day! After dinner, we are going to enjoy a treat of chocolate covered strawberries. It just doesn't get much better, does it?

Arwen has ballet lessons with the cutest little girl named Grace! We decided to invite Grace and her mom over for a tea party...you know us...any excuse to have treats!!

Arwen picked the menu. After sandwiches and juice for lunch, we had baby cupcakes, swirl cookies, and chocolate covered strawberries. Yummy yummy!
Look at those blue-eyed-beauties on the trampoline! They had so much fun doing "girly" things all afternoon! Arwen even had me help her put a skirt on because, "Grace is wearing one!" What a fun treat for her to play with a little girl her age! Arwen can't wait to play with Grace again!