Bug Squad!

My girl had one fantastic party to celebrate turning three. Yes you read that right, my little sweetheart is three! Pinch me, I must be dreaming! 

Birthday pancakes are a must, and this girl has been talking about them for weeks now, so funny! She was really into planning her party this time around. All the way down to her chocolate cake with strawberries on top and more chocolate, ha ha! She was very insistent about that part. :)

 Lala loves the Ladybug Girl books, and so we decided to have a Ladybug girl party, which meant that every one needed to dress up as a bug, and of course Leiella was Ladybug girl! :)

 The boys also got to pick what they wanted to be, and we did a little research to figure it out... Bubu chose to be a Southern Black Widow Spider, ack!  Spike decided he wanted to be a Giant Dessert Centipede, the flashy colors caught his eye. :) And Atty wanted to be a Common Grey Moth. I was pressed for time, so I simply bought some cheap sweats and matching shirts and sewed the details onto those. Atty's was easy, just add wings and antennas. Spike I had to limit him to twenty legs... poor thing. With Bubu I just added the right amount of spider legs and the red hourglass mark, and done! That's my kind of costume making. ;) I hardly measured a thing. Use the good ol' eye ball. 

Guess what they will be this Halloween... :)

 Cute little bugs.

 Ahhhhhh! There is a giant spider in my house!

 Cutest centipede I've ever seen... He insisted that I add the pinchers on the back, apparently that was the coolest part.

There were some really cute bugs at her party, got some awesome pictures of her with her buggy friends. :)

 We played pin the spots on the ladybug. Everybody won kind of game. :)

 And of course we had to paint ladybug rocks, they turned out pretty stinkin' cute, wish I had snapped a picture of those before the kids took them home.

 I was a busy bee, as usual. ;)

 Lala and her little bee friend. Buzzzzzzz!

 We were blessed to have some amazing friends there, fun times! 

 Make a wish birthday girl!

 This right here is a coconut flour cake with home made chocolate frosting, it's a paleo recipe. There were a few other kids there that are gluten or dairy free or on the paleo diet {or GAPS diet} so I just made one cake for all. Ended up being barely enough to serve all the kids, sorry parents. The kids loved it! And all the parents that managed to nibble on a piece of their kids cake loved it too, so bonus! :)

 In all the excitement of the day I almost flunked big time... I totally forgot Lala's presents from us! So right before bed I scrambled to wrap them up {yes they weren't even wrapped yet, oops} and give them to her. Can you tell she was excited about that Strawberry Shortcake blanket I found for her bed. 

{Yes there is another redhead in the picture that is not Atty... she is an adorable little friend who happened to be spending the night, best birthday ever.}

She of course got some more Ladybug Girl books for her collection. :) And a ladybug game, and some clothes that fit. I can not believe how much she grew this summer!!!  And I love that she actually gets excited about her new clothes, not something I ever experienced with the boys, ha ha!

So happy birthday to my amazingly smart and sassy, not to mention absolutely adorable, not so little, little Ladybug Girl.

{Oh and by the way... the puppy is not really cutting it with stopping the baby cravings, and my littlest turning three isn't really helping either... when does it stop! I mean I have four already, good grief!}

I can really rock a mini van

So another birthday has gone by and I'm another year older... I wonder when I will feel grown up? Does it just creep up on you, or do you have a birthday at some point were it just hits you, I'm all grown up! Ha ha! Some times I look around at my house, my four kids, my hubby, my mini van and I think... Really!?! I'm old enough for all this? When did that happen? Speaking of that mini van, I can really rock a mini van, so I guess age is all in the attitude. ;) I do catch myself pondering at times about when I should break out those mommy jeans... but for now I will continue to dress as I did in my early 20 and dare someone to tell me otherwise.

Montana Road Trip!!!

All packed up and ready to go! Yes we managed to cram all six of us into the mini van with only a cargo hitch for a ten day vacation through a few states. We were packed in like sardines.

Very excited kids all ready to go on their much anticipated vacation to Montana!

First stop a cute little cabin at Lincoln Rock.

While the rest of use walked right by this snake, Atty spotted it immediately! The boy has super powers. ;) He also spotted all these little spotted lizards on the rocks that none of us would have noticed. 

Of course we had to go for a swim right when we got there. :)

Bathing beauty

Awesome scenery on the way to Spokane Valley.

Our second night stay was at a hotel in Spokane Valley, the kids had a blast in this pool, for hours, no kidding.

Having some fun swimming with the kiddos. :)

Banden was excited that he was old enough to go all the way into the hot tub now, I ended up letting the other kids sit on the first step to warm up... It was unbelievably cool. ;)

Two queen beds = 3 to a bed. Fun. I actually traded with Ryder half way through the night because he was getting frustrated sharing a bed with Atty, it's no easy task. :) We decided for everyones sanity that the next hotel we would make a cozy bed on the floor for him. :)

This is the bed I'm suppose to fit into, yep... ha ha! I like Spike flipped up side down out of sheer necessity... ;)

Beautiful Lake Coeur d'Alene in ID. We simply drove through ID on the way there, no stops... we except to clean up puke from a car sick kid after going through the pass. Bummer. 

Snapping pictures on the road. :)

On my hubby's birthday we stayed at Jellystone Park in MT in another  cute little cabin... well actually the first cabin they put us in had a skunk living under it, seriously. My hubby kept swearing it smelled like skunk and I kept saying it smelled like coffee... haha! Then the kids spotted it under the cabin and wow were they excited. Long story short, we moved to another cabin. Thank goodness!

Really cheesy place, but the kids thought it was fantastic. Sadly the pool was closed because of the time of year that we went... but they still had fun on the playground.

Cuteness. My girl adores her oldest brother and he is just the sweetest to her. It melts my heart. :)

Love these silly kids! 

Finally made it to our destination! So wonderful to see Atty and E {his bio-brother} together!

They had so much fun riding in the car together to Yellowstone.

Two families brought together by brothers. ;)

Stopped at a beautiful spot in Yellowstone to have lunch and do a little exploring.

Hot springs and geysers!  Beautiful but stinky...

They wouldn't even humor me in this picture, but at least I got all of them in one picture at last. :)

Such a beautiful place.

Saw this fantastic sign and made my hubby stop, wanted to prove that we were also in Wyoming, if only for an hour or two. :)

Multi purpose sign, see we really are in Montana! :)

We went to an awesome hot springs spa place, but my stinkin' camera was on the wrong setting so I didn't get any pictures until we were outside. I also didn't start to get home sick until these beautiful flowers made me think of my garden back in lovely green Washington. :) Montana, Idaho and Eastern Washington were all super dry when we were there, wild fires and all. Smoke and chard stuff everywhere. That was about the only down side of our whole vacation though.

The view from there house, amazing or what!!!

Going on a walk, it's like angels are singing. :)

Giving snuggle love to the brother/cousin. :)

Super involved game of blocks. :)

Taking goodbye pictures. It was really hard to say goodbye. :( But we had to pack up and hit the road again, this time headed for home. 

We stayed in an really cute and cozy cabin on my birthday. :) This was my favorite stop. I could live in one of these...

We turned the heat down on the hot tub and the boys had a blast. :)

Relaxing...

...and more relaxing.

If every you are anywhere near Missoula MT, I strongly suggest you stay here,  it was by far my favorite stay of all. :)

Random family photo at a rest stop, gotta have those, haha! 

Proof we were in Idaho... we actually stayed over night this time. :)

Right when we got to our destination in Idaho, right by Coeur d'Alene, we saw that they had paddle boat rentals and just had to go out... well I think my husband could have done with out, but good ol' me forced him alone... it's what I'm good at. ;) Poor man.

Absolutely beautiful and so peaceful. There was not another person out there. I could have floated all day.

I don't know if you can spot the turtle, but that turtle made my kids day. There were so unbelievably excited to spot one! I wasn't expecting it truthfully so I was pretty excited myself. :) I was super cute.

Deep Breath.

And exhale... :)

Can you tell how pleased my husband is to be out on a paddle boat, ha ha! 

Some people just know how to have fun... ;)

Of all the playgrounds I think my kids enjoyed this one the most, so funny. Probably because they think they are monkeys. 

Atty was such a sweet big brother and got his little sister giggling on the swing. :)

Our second and last camp fire of the trip. The one and only marshmallow feast... I think Banden ate 6... ack! Atty likes to roast banana pieces and dip them in sweetened almond butter. :)

Our last cabin stay, another cute one.

A stop at Moses Lake.

Snuggle bugs. :) Our very last over night stay was at another hotel. This one was a bit of a disappointment because the pool was so cold that the kids were shivering and miserable. They didn't last long. So we went back to the room and snuggled and watched some good ol' Little House on the Prairie... :)

The sleeping arrangements worked better too because a certain someone got a snuggly bed on the floor. :)

Our very last stop for lunch at Snoqualmie Falls in Washington, on our side, nice and green. So good to be home! :)

Amazingly, wonderful, fantastic, vacation was had by all! Surprisingly carried out without a hitch.  For the most part everything went really smoothly and according to plan. Just the way I like it. :)

And as per usual this is barely a fraction of my photos... sickening I know.