It's official...as of yesterday, Sparkly Larkily is a sitter! Yippee!!! She just turned 7 months and wanted to prove to us what a big girl she is!

You can't tell from this picture because I got some rugs, but I had Stanley Steemer come and clean and my carpet looks AMAZING!!! I am so pleased. It has never looked this good! I wouldn't mind having white carpet if I could afford to have it cleaned once a month!!
Lark is not crying here...she's just so excited that she can hardly keep from squealing!!
After we put the kids to bed last night we snuck into the girls' room and found Arwen and Larkin just playing together on the floor. So cute!

We went to the zoo on Friday. It was going to be a 75 degree day and we thought that sounded perfect zoo weather! Well, so did everyone else in Portland!! After driving around the zoo parking lot for half an hour and getting only one spot swiped from us, we made it in! The kids were all pretty grouchy from napping in the car, so we headed for the train first. I had hoped that Josh would LOVE it so much, but he wasn't all that impressed. I guess Joshua likes to appreciate trains from the sidelines! After the train we decided to get a treat...and a treat it was! Did you know they sell Ice Cream of the Future in individual packages now?? So yummy...probably not quite worth the price though! Then I took pictures of the kids running in the big grassy area. That's one reason I like the Oregon Zoo so much...the kids can run and play if they want to.

I finally got a cuter shot of Arwen's new grill. She is super proud of herself. She is going to town every time you look at her trying to get that second tooth out. It's been loose for about a month...but I guess it's not quite ready to come out!
EVERY shot I took of Noah, he was moping. You know...his life is so hard...his mean mom DRAGS him to the zoo, makes him eat ice cream, and then lets him play. You should probably call the child abuse police on me :) Anyways, I had a great time at the zoo!

Here's Arwen's new grin :) We pulled out her tooth on Sunday and the tooth fairy brought her a silver half dollar! I'm way excited because this was Arwen's dead tooth that has been dead for a couple of years! No more black tooth...get ready for huge, awkward grown-up teeth in a little body!!

Hooray! This is my 300th post!! To celebrate, we went to the beach...well not really, it was just a coincidence, but great fun anyways!! We headed off to the coast on Saturday...our first day in what seems like forever that we had NO obligations! We first drove to Canon Beach so we could stop by Bruce's Candy Shop. I was pleasantly delighted to see that they had expanded. If you gave me lots of money, I could be one happy girl in there! My favorite reason to go there is that they have the yummiest taffy ever!! They make it right there on location so it doesn't taste like trash and it is always fresh! It's amazing how much taffy you can get for $15!! Then we drove south a few minutes to Hug Point...one of our favorite spots. The kids had fun playing with the shovels and pails and basking in the sunshine!


Aaron dug a hole for Larkin under our blanket so she could sit and watch us while we played. Too bad it was too cold in the shade. Her little arms were ice cubes. She wasn't a happy camper anyways because she had shots the day before and was SOOO sick. She had a high fever and was super grouchy. Poor Larkin...it's so not like her!
Noah spent the entire time chasing waves and yelling things like, "Earthquake!!" He was so much fun to watch! When my back was turned and I would hear him scream, I was always certain that I would turn around and he would be drowning in the ocean...but nope, he was just so excited that he had to scream!!
Here is what Joshua spent the majority of his time doing...playing with the sand cars!
He ate LOTS of food with those sandy hands and it didn't even phase him! Oh to be a carefree child!
Arwen liked the little dot of sand she got on her ear when Noah kicked sand at her. She pretended it was an earring. Take a good look at that smile of hers...I will do a post later on of her new, maybe not improved :) smile!
Then we traveled South some more to the Tillamook Cheese Factory...another favorite!! We all got cones and I was pleased with the new flavor I tried...Cows in brownie batter! You need to try it! It was brownie flavored with some vanilla swirled in. Then it had little cow shaped chocolate peanut butter candies in it! So cute!! We let Lark try her round at her very first ice cream cone. She didn't let us down...she loved it as much as all the other kids have when they were babies!
I started out holding the cone and trying to keep her hands out of it. After about 3 seconds she shoved me out of the way, grabbed on, and dug in! We were both a sticky mess when it was done, but it was so worth it!! Then we went to out favorite beach in Tillamook and hunted agates. That was probably my favorite! Good old Arwen looks for about 5 minutes and ALWAYS spots the biggest and best agate! We always give a prize to the best and she hunts just long enough to find the best and then goes off and plays! The prize is always a Tillamook Beef Stick that we get at their factory store a few miles away from the Cheese Factory. It's 50 cents cheaper and way fresher than at the Factory! Fun times!!

We had so much fun on our latest vacation. Me and the kids drove to Salt Lake and picked my brother and his fiancee up to drive with us to Denver to visit my Mom and Dad. We had so much fun there! My parents watched the kids EVERY night and I got to hang out with Scott and Danielle and my sister Kelly and her new husband, Jonathan. It was so great meeting both Danielle and Jonathan. We love them both lots!! I was a slacker and missed out on a lot of good photo opportunities, but we had fun anyways!! We played lots, watched lots of movies, had yummy food, and went to lots of fun kid places. Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa and everyone else for lots of fun!! Then we drove back to Utah and I stayed with my friend Jen for a few days. We had tons of fun...and I took NO pictures! Lame, I know! Jen did a photo shoot of my kids and I can't wait to get those pictures and post them! They are AMAZINGLY cute...Jen is the best photographer ever! Thanks Jen for letting us crash your place and hang out with you guys!!

July 3rd was my birthday! Jen took me out for lunch at the Olive Garden and then out for pedicures! It was sooo much fun!! We got back and Noah was dead asleep on the floor amidst a million other kids running around him. I should have figured something was up. We got in the van to go and visit Aunt Whitney and Meghan when Noah threw up ALL over. Happy Birthday to me!! Anyways, after so much vomit, we made it to play with Meg and Whit...which really wasn't too much playing and more cleaning up vomit and buying new clothes and a car seat...you know, what everyone wants to buy on their birthdays! Good old Noah!!!

It was so fun to see them though!! I LOVED Meg's new hair color and was so excited to hear about how much Whitney was loving BYU! We can't wait to see you girls at Christmas...or earlier maybe :)

We stopped to see Aaron's Grandma and Grandpa Green while we were in Utah. I know, I know, these are horrible pictures, but it was the best I could do with grumpy kids!!

The kids with their Great Grandparents!
I thought this picture was pretty cute with the girls and Grandma Green.

We found the coolest park ever in Denver! It was crazy! I read a story about it in the paper and how some parents didn't approve of the park because their kids couldn't figure out what to do on it since it was not like a normal park. They said they didn't like that the kids had to use their imaginations! Anyways my kids LOVED it!!

These thing spun in circles and the kids had fun getting dizzy!

This was Josha's favorite. He had fun spinning all the kids and making them fall down when they got out because they were so dizzy!
Go, Noe, Go!!
Here's my brother Scott and his fiancee, Danielle! We had lots of fun with them. Like I said, I totally slacked with taking pictures and didn't even get a picture of my sister Kelly, and her new husband, Jonathan. We had tons of fun with all of them!
Here's Larkily being a spinning madman!
Here's Josh trying to make Larkin sick!
There was a really awesome rock wall for the kids to boulder on. There were all kinds of other crazy stuff and misters for if it was hot and the kids wanted to play in the water. There was a sand area which made Noah SOOO happy!

My mom found really cute things at the dollar store for the kids to play with. We had hours of fun being pirates. I had to be Peter Pan and the naughty pirates killed me time after time!!

Argh, ye scurvy pirates!
This pirate be hanged!!
Be good or you'll walk the plank!
We went to the Denver Zoo, which is always fun, if you can get over how hot it always is in the summer!!
We HAD to ride the train upon Joshua's orders! Josh spent the first half of the ride yelling, "No like-a the train!" Then the second half, he yelled, "Like-a the train!"
"The train, the train!!"
It wouldn't be a trip to the zoo without a hot dog!!
Here's my brother Scott, whom the kids call Uncle Milo for some unknown reason. Good job at putting Larkin to sleep!

Happy Fourth of July!! I have a lot of cute photos to post from my vacation, but I will get to that later...when I have more time ;) Me and the kids ended up getting home from our 2 week vacation with friends and family on the afternoon of the 4th. All but Larkin had super high fevers, but we still went and bought some fireworks to celebrate! It's amazing what a little Tylenol can do for kids' temperaments!!

Noah was pretty scared of anything that made loud noises. He would try and run in the house and hide. I was super impressed when he held a sparkler without being afraid.
Good old Arwen would ALWAYS hold her sparkler right in front of her face when I was taking pictures! I like this one, though.
The smokey one was everyone's favorite! Too bad we only bought one.
Josh had a great time! He is really into being involved in WHATEVER the two big kids are doing lately. He's growing up too fast!!