Ballard Water Park

We had to go to Ballard for something, so I took the kids to the park just off Market street.  We didn't have swimsuits with us, and Parker had really wanted slides & swings, so they weren't too impressed.  But at least the weather was nice, and Cecily got to chase a pigeon, so it wasn't a total loss)

Cecily received a bag of "princess" dresses from a classmate of Parker's, she's pretty much been wearing them 24/7 since we got them.

Nap time

I put Cecily down for a nap, came back an hour later and found her sound asleep, with all my shoes perfectly lined up:

Today's Project ~ Entryway re-do

I have hated the carpet on our stairs since we bought the house.  I've been waiting until the kids are sure enough on their feet to not be constantly falling down the stairs.  So, a few weeks ago, when Keith's dad & brother were around, we ripped the carpet up.  

Before:

We weren't really sure what we'd find under the carpet, we were hoping for hardwoods, but no such luck.  

We pretty much found the worst-case scenario: bull-nose OSB.  OSB is like little shavings of wood pressed together into something vaguely resembling wood, but not really.  And the bull-nose means we have to find something to cover not just the top of the stair, but the part the points out as well.

We haven't figured out what we're going to do yet, so all our guests are still welcomed to this lovely site of contractor stairs in our entry way.  We've never really been a shoes-off house, but at this point in time, I'd highly recommend you keep your shoes on until you're at least up the stairs.

But, since the carpet was up, it seemed a reasonable time to paint the entry way...and if we're painting the entry way, we need to paint the landing, ...and if we're painting the landing, we need to do the hallway as well...and don't forget the ceiling. 

So, we sent the kids up to the cabin with Denise and painted our entry way/landing/hallway:

The entry way is a turquoise color, the wall at the end of the hallway is more of a seafoam blue, all the other walls are a light grey.

Have I mentioned how much I love our SolaTubes?  There's no lights on in this hallway, that's pure sunshine:

The turquoise is pretty bright, but I love it.  Combined with the grey, you actually get a ton of different looks, depending on how the sun it shining.  In this photo, the far wall & the near wall are actually both the same color, believe it or not:

Keith helped with all the up-high painting, which involved borrowing a 2nd ladder and building a scaffolding.  He even painted inside the skylight, which turned out to be the easiest part since he could use the extension ladder.

Now we have painted nearly every room in our house, with the exception of the downstairs hallway and our bedroom/bath.  I think we're done with painting for a while!

Memorial Day!

Denise took the kids up to the cabin for part of Memorial Day weekend.  So, Keith took the ferry ride as an opportunity to get some work done:

After we got the kids, we headed over to our friend's house for a small group BBQ.  Cecily was busy taking care of her baby:

Apparently this is what Mama's do.

Zoo Trip

My friend & I took the kids to the zoo.  The place was packed with field trip groups and our little ones were constantly being stepped on and shoved around by under-supervised elementary schoolers, but that aside, they had a great time.

We finally saw the new tiger exhibit, which was amazing/terrifying for the kids.

Parker's Motorcycle

My Dad got Parker this motorcycle for Christmas.  It hasn't seen much action since then, but now that it's nice out, Parker has been driving it around the front yard forever.

Ski Hockey!

Parker brought a book home from school about Ice Hockey, so now he's obsessed with it, and here he is wearing his "Ski Hockey" uniform.

Happy Mother's Day

We took the kids to brunch at Anthony's for Mother's Day.  I figured the place would be crawling with families out with Grandma to celebrate Mother's Day, but apparently we were too early for the "out with Grandma after Church" group, because they were the only kids in the place.

But they did well enough (except for Cecily's meltdown over the pepper on her Mac & Cheese) and I had a fantastic meal.

Parker's PreSchool had a Mother's Day party on Friday, Parker made this picture of me:

This is what happens when Daddy abandons us.

Keith had an engineering conference (yes, I'm sure it was just as exciting as it sounds) in Tulalip, so I took the kids up to "borrow" his hotel room and play in the pool.

Once they were clean, I sat them in front of the TV so I could take a luxury shower in the fancy hotel bathroom.  This might have been their first time watching regular TV (rather than Netflix), they couldn't seem to understand why they couldn't just watch "Thomas" when they wanted to.

You turn your back for 2 seconds...

..and you get two kids (plus a play house, a hand bag, and a whole bunch of carpet) covered in lipstick 

I'm 90% sure this is not where we put them to bed

Car Wash

Since I was driving my friends to the Women's Retreat this weekend, I thought it could use a little cleaning (actually, a little more than a little; amazing what's crusted under a car seat).  The kids helped me wash the windows & seats as well as vacuum out the car.  Then Cecily suggested we take it to the car wash.  Probably a good idea, so we stopped on our way to preschool.

Of course, by the time we got there, Cecily had forgotten that it was her idea and wasn't so excited about it.

But Parker held her hand through the whole thing and they both had a good time.