This Little Tillie Rides a Bike Now!

A few days ago Tillie figured out how to ride her bike without training wheels, yay Tillie!
The girl behind her in this picture is our neighbor and will be starting first grade next week.
She's the one who taught Tillie to ride, she told me that she made it her work for that day.
Well she did a great job, and now Tillie loves nothing more than to ride ride ride her bike all the day long. Sometimes she'll just run into the house and say "I LOVE riding a two wheeler!" And then run back outside to ride.
Good times, and good job Tillie!


Oh, see those chalk drawings all over the place? I'm sure our neighbors loooooove us. We bought the girls a big box of sidewalk chalk, and it lasted for maybe two days, all the kids in the complex had fun creating art ALL over the place. Oops. At least they had a good time, right?

Drive In Time!

We love us a good trip to the drive in, and we try to go at least once every summer.
Things have to align just perfectly, the first movie has to be one that the girls would be interested in, and the second one has to be one that Jordan and I are interested in, and it has to be on one of Jordans long weekends. This only happened once last summer and we drove all the way out there, but alas! They were sold out. Tragedy.
The line of cars was pretty long when we got there this time, so we weren't sure if we were going to make it in, and guess what?
We were the very last car.
That was a close one, folks.
But I really do LOVE the drive in, which is why I keep blogging about it when we go even though it doesn't get any more interesting to read about, and even though my pictures are not exciting.

As the last car in we had to take the one open spot, which was in the very front row. We weren't sure what to think about that, but it was totally fine, and the girls got to play in the front while we waited for things to get started.

We definitely try, you should too!

I didn't remember them doing this the last time we were there, but I totally loved it, and everyone honked and cheered at the end of the song.
I love America!
Going to the Drive In is what patriotic people do.

Sad spiel about how the Drive In is dying off and please support the concessions stand.
Don't have to ask us twice.

Oh, and we saw Cars 2 and Cowboys and Aliens which were both pretty fun... In case you were wondering:)

Cute Baby!

Last weekend, Mom and Kirsten drove down and they brought David, and Angela with them so that they could introduce Baby Avery to Grandma Valdine.

I made quite the nuisance of myself and spent every possible minute with them, just soaking in the cuteness of this sweet lil thing...Isn't she just the adorablest?!

They could only stay for one night, and of course it was NOT enough time for my liking, but I'm so glad that we got to see them for the day!

Gone Fishin'

There's a cute little U-Fish place in Orting that Mom has told us about before so we decided to go and give it a look see on our last day in Orting.
But first, a word about pictures: If there's something to take a picture by, I take that picture. If I think that picture is cute in ANY way, I post it. Good times.

Fishy head cut out board thingie dealie starring LaRue.

Starring Matilda

Feeding the fish before we catch 'em.
Tillie was there too, I promise.

Grandma, showing the girls how to catch a fish!

Ruesie caught one!

Turns out, I don't quite have the stomach for fishing. Did you know that fish die after you catch them? It's a little sad to see it happen, I tried to discourage the girls from looking in the bucket with the uh... fish sleeping in the red water. It might have bothered me more than it did them.

Look, they have peacocks there!
This one came up really close to us.

Adelaide was SO insistent about holding her own pole, so we took the hook off of one of them. So cute, right?

Sisters on a branchy chair!

I can't help it, I just think they're cute.

Jordan and his new bestie.
This dog was large and in charge at the U-Fish, but he was really friendly and anxious to play.
He made Adelaide a little bit nervous. Whenever Jordan tried to throw his little dog toy and play with him, she kept saying, "No daddy, no dog!"

Sittin' in a boat. Please refer to the note at the top of the post.

TeePee thingie.

It was a cute place and a fun outing, they had goats and bunnies for the girls to look at too. Over by the bunnies we found this pretty little thing...

So I had to take a picture of it with my pretty little thing.

Whisper voice: Don't tell Ruesie, but I'm 99.9 percent sure our pretty little butterfly was dead... he was awfully cooperative is the thing.
Thanks for taking us on this adventure Mom and Kirstie!

Adventures at the Super Mall

Whenever we're in Orting, we like to take the girls over to the SuperMall to go for a ride on the carousel.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: It's okay to be jealous of my picture taking skillz. Everyone is.

We even let them ride on the little cheesy rides that don't really do much of anything besides use up an inordinate amount of quarters.

They have this rock climbing situation there and LaRue was dying to try it, so we decided to let her go for it.

Look how high she went!
Okay, so I was practically sitting on the floor when I took this picture.
She was well within reach. And not willing to go up any higher.
One of those awkward parent moments when you don't want to force your terrified child to climb any higher, but you also don't want to see that six whole dollars you just spent go down the drain.
Oh well, we let her come down;)

After all that fun, we enjoyed a delicious lunch at Red Robin, and as we were leaving the restaurant and heading out to the car we saw a horse in the parking lot! Their horse trailer had a flat tire, so the owner was walking the horse around.
Horses are Tillies FAVORITE. Anytime we see one while we're driving in the car, she yells "Mommy, HORSES!"
So we walked over and the owner introduced us to 'Bear' and let us pet his head (she was really nice).
Tillie was excited but WAAAAY nervous, I'm not sure if she actually touched the horse or not, but it was a fun little encounter.

I of course didn't think to take a picture while we were actually anywhere near the horse, so I got this fantastic shot as we were driving out of the parking lot. It really did have front legs, and even a head!

Grandma and Grandpas!

A few weeks ago we took a trip up to Orting to visit Grandma, Grandpa and Auntie Kirsten.
As usual, it was completely perfect.
Psst! Michelle, Julie, Jerilee, Douglas, and David: my heaven on earth would be if we all lived in Orting with our wonderful little families. How fantastic would that be? We would seriously rule that town! Or, you know, just really, really, REALLY enjoy ourselves... just sayin.

I looooooove Grandma and Grandpas yard, the girls had so much fun playing outside, and running through the sprinkler (something we can't do where we live).

Grandma had some sweet princess bubble wands...

We strolled through the weekend farmers market they have about a mile away, stopped by the awesome bakery, and then played at the park.
Adelaides face is a little bit messy from enjoying her treat from the bakery.
And look! I combed her hair on this day!

Park fun!
Tillie and Adelaide were both wearing sandals, and I always forget that instead of sand or bark dust, the Orting park has all these little pebbles, and if you're not wearing sneakers they get all up in your shoes every time you take a step. So pretty soon they were those barefoot kids. Oh well.

Sliding fun.

Swinging fun.

Pool fun, back at Grandma and Grandpas.
I'm so dying for a backyard, I got to do so much reading while we were up there!

They also spent a couple of nights camping in the backyard.
Note the DVD players. They really know how to rough it.

Thank you Mom and Dad, SO much for letting us come and visit, I seriously did NOT want to leave!

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

LaRue is one lucky lady.
In June, she and Jordan got to go and see Mary Poppins.

I'm told that the show was well done, and thoroughly enjoyable.
I'm also told that LaRue is really cute.
Okay, so I'm the one saying that.

Aw, Daddy Daughter Date.

I'm not sure what LaRue enjoyed more, the play or the Ira Keller fountain across the street from the theater.

You gotta admit, that's one fantastic fountain.

Ferris Wheel

Last month we got the chance to get together with some friends from out of town.
We had planned on going to a park to play, but of course it turned out to be a very rainy morning, so we headed to the play area at the mall instead.
After they got tired of that we headed over to the Ferris Wheel that's over in the food court.

These pictures are not very good AT ALL, but I just want documented proof to show the girls that they do actually get to do fun things once in a while.

It sounds like it should have been such a great time, right?
UNfortunately my girls were complete, bratty, ungrateful, MONSTERS pretty much the entire time.
I'm so sorry about that Jillian - next time let's just do you and me and a delicious lunch somewhere. Sound good?

Random Acts of Adelaidey Cuteness

Sleepy.

Silly.

She was being so funny this day. She had stripped down without any help, diaper and all, and was so proud of herself that she was doing the funniest little naked victory dance around the living room.

Classic.

Hey, Prehistoric Forest!

The day before we went to the beach, we all went out to Enchanted Forest.
I'd never been before and had no idea really, of what to expect, but it was so cute! And the girls had a really good time, they've already requested to go back for birthdays.
As ever, really really random pictures.

The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe Slide.
I think.

Ruesie and Sage

Emily and Matilda.
You'll have to take my word for it - phone pictures.

Jordan and Adelaide

We picked the perfect day to go, because we had a celebrity sighting! Guess who just happened to be strolling around Enchanted Forest on the same day as us?

Abraham Lincoln!

Look at these cute Erickson kids with ol' honest Abe.

Ruesie and Adelaide got to meet him too.
Matilda preferred not to.

If you happen to know what movie this post title is from, I'll think you're pretty awesome, for whatever that's worth:)