Hailey's note

Hailey was invited to her cousin Lacey's house the other day to go to Lacey's "salon". She was so excited about this. So, in the car on the way over there she says, "Sometimes I wish Aunt Alice was my mom."
Of course this  makes me a little sad, but logically I understand that it is because she LOVES going to her cousin's house and Aunt Alice is pretty fun.
So, I respond to Hailey in the most mature fashion, by saying something along the lines of, "What?! Hailey!! Don't you love your Mommy? Who would take care of you when you got hurt or sick or (enter here a variety of other things I was trying to convince her that I was needed for)."
She calmly replied, "Aunt Alice would do all of these things."
Hmm, good point.
So I tease her a little about it, and she says, "I only wish that sometimes, Mom."
Well, that makes me feel better then. Or not.
Anyways, she went off to Lacey's salon and had a fabulous time.
The next day, I did not bring it up at all. During Addison's nap time, Hailey wanted to be in her room by herself for a while. After a while she came out and said she had something for me. She gave me this:

If you sound that long string of letters out and add a lot of "wuh" sounds to the end of vowels, it says, 

I love you

I don't want to go away.

From Hailey

To Mommy

And that is me and her, dressed in the clothes we were wearing that day.  In the rain, of course.

So glad you are staying with us, Hailey. I love you too.

My girls like to party all the time

It seems everything comes in waves, and right now we are in the middle of a wave of parties. It has been 1-3 birthday parties per weekend, and then you throw in 10 or so graduation parties, and it makes for a lot of celebrating. I've been snapping pictures at some of them, and these are some of my favorites.

Kid's Korner at the Supermall - this was like a build-a-bear, but you get more for your buck.

Unfortunately, Derek told us the wrong time for this party, so we showed up for the last ten minutes. Just long enough for Symantha to stuff and dress her Penguin (named "Fluffers") and inhale some cotton candy.  Symantha was pretty sad about this, so we ended up going to Johnny Rockets instead and sitting at the bar to eat... it then turned into (and I quote) "the best day of their entire life". 

The same day we were on to our friend Chase's birthday party, outside in the rain in a bouncy house. Rain did not slow these kids down one bit, and I think they might have had even more fun since it was wet!

This picture was great, until we realized the birthday boy was not in it. Oops.

Then our friend Heidi's party, with lots and lots of little girls.

And some crazy swimming in the indoor pool, due once again to the rain. 

We love celebrating our friend's birthdays with them!

Symantha is now off tomorrow to a bowling birthday party, and then we are in the midst of planning her own birthday. Which she is mildly obsessed with, and wants to plan constantly. Let the partying continue:)

Send off

We said goodbye to Derek, youth leaders and around 60 students this morning, as they headed off on the mission trip. They will be gone for around 10 days to work and share the love of Jesus in small towns in Idaho.There has been a lot of work and preparation for this trip, and it has been Derek's last big task as he leaves his youth pastor job behind.

We will miss him, but we are also excited to hear what God will do through this trip!

Plus, we kind of have a lot of fun things planned for while he is gone.  

For those of you who might want to check out what they are doing, 

check here. They post updates and we can send them messages.

Thank you to all of you who helped support this trip!

It's about time...

for the sun to make an appearance.

We so appreciated a glimpse of summer.

King for the day

I especially love the pink crown they colored for him:)

We love celebrating such a great Daddy today!

Cards, presents, special brunch and dinner, 

multiple kisses, hugs, and cuddles.

Reminiscing about the last seven Father's Days he has enjoyed.

Man, time flies by!

What a blessing he is to us:)

Question for you

Hey fellow bloggers and blog readers, I have a question for you. When you comment, do you hit that button that alerts you if someone comments after you? Sometimes we ask each other questions in our comments, or we want to reply to some comment, and I'm not sure how to do this... if I respond in my comments will you even see it? I'm tired of wondering about this, I just can't sleep at night. Well, all right, I can sleep at night, but I do wonder now and then.

Date night

I discovered this great deal going on at Kent Station, where you get a four course meal and movie tickets for two for only $60. I had been wanting to do it for quite a while, but Derek has been really busy with work and mission trip planning. So, I decided it would be the perfect post-graduation celebration with Amy Jo! What exactly defines a "date" anyways? I'm sure it includes good girl friend time. However, the romantic booth in the back that they gave us, with our special menus and wrapped box with our movie tickets might mean a different kind of date.

Embarrassment didn't stop us from setting up our camera and doing a little photo shoot, to remember our special date night.

Then we enjoyed the most DELICIOUS dinner at Duke's, even though the waiter did not really laugh at my jokes about us being on a "date". I'm not sure what he thought of us, and I'm sure he was afraid to make any assumptions.

After dinner, we had to get some coffee and sit by the fire to chat. Which of course provides another photo opportunity. Derek would not have enjoyed the number of pictures I wanted to take, which makes Amy Jo a much better date.

It was still a beautiful evening at this point, and we headed in to see our movie (which was "Killers" and I don't recommend it). However, after the movie it was POURING down rain. That did not stop Amy Jo from grabbing another photo as we cuddled under our umbrella (still giving people something to talk about).

Such a great date night.

And so proud of Amy Jo for finishing Nursing school. 

We went to her Open House on Saturday to celebrate.
I'm so excited to see what God has planned for her now - Yay, Amy Jo!!

June: 10 on 10

Granny's dress

Great-Grandma (Granny) made Addison a special dress for her birthday. Sunday was the perfect day for me to catch a picture of the two of them while Granny was in town. We love Granny, and love that she was thoughtful enough to make this dress for Addi. Unfortunately, I had just accidently poked Addison in the eye before taking this picture, so she isn't particularly cheery! But we will still treasure the picture.

Shout to the Lord

Symantha was a part of the LSCC Kids' Choir this Spring, and the big performance was on Sunday. She had been so excited... until a couple of days before when she was suddenly so nervous. She had a solo and a few speaking parts and her biggest worry was she would get a frog in her throat, sound horrible and everyone would laugh at her. We could not convince her that this would not happen, and even if it did, she just needed to do her best. I was really nervous for her, but she did great! She had a little cold, so she did get a bit of a frog in her throat during second service. We could see it in her face that she was almost going to break down, but thankfully she held it together.

Her cousin Lacey was also in kids' choir, which was an added bonus for Symantha.

And it was really cool to see some of the adults be a part of it, like Aaron...

and Aunt Stephanie

It was a really great experience for her.

Here is a little clip of part of her solo. Sorry for the long space at the beginning, I can't edit these video clips!

The big sale

Andrea's neighborhood had a garage sale weekend, so Sara, Chelsea and I joined her in trying to sell some of our junk treasures. Friday it poured and we had lots of people come. Saturday it was beautiful and NO ONE came, well except a few every now and then. Luckily, it was just a great time for our kids to play in the sunshine and us to sit and chat!

The kids did make quite a mess of Andrea's house and Addison continued to check out the garage sale loot, so it wasn't ALL relaxation. But it was still fun. 

I love this picture of Andrea and Heidi skateboarding.

And I also loved getting a little baby fix from this cutie, Harper. Thank you Chelsea for having a baby.

Oh, and I made $100 (almost, I just couldn't make the last $4 to get me to that point, but I am rounding up). That was just a bonus.

Great Wolf Lodge

This is how excited the girls were about returning to the Great Wolf Lodge.... 

Especially since we were there with the whole Edwards' clan, cousins and all. 

It was this girl's first time.

And she had such a great time.

Well, most of the time. Except when it was just a little too much for her and she had a meltdown or two. Or when water splashed over her head in the wave pool with Grandma. But for the most part, she was unafraid and went down all the slides with no fear. Even the big red one that she turned around on and went down head first, upside down on her back. It was the funniest thing I had ever seen, and she was not bothered by it at all.

The big girls had no fear this year either. Especially Symantha, who went on the Howling Tornado repeatedly and actually enjoyed it! Even Grandma and Grandpa went down that one, much to the delight of the rest of us. It was so fun having this time with the Edwards'.

Hailey couldn't wait for the clock tower show and Story time again. Addison loved watching it too.

She is the right age for it.

Colby is not. 

 But he was a good sport and hung out anyways.

Symantha thought it was so cool that she got to spend some time with him.

I love cousins.

Someone tried to take Derek's spot when he went to get coffee. I told the person the spot was taken and she reluctantly got up. So, Colby came and sat by me to prevent any more awkwardness. Then we laughed that the lady must be wondering which of these guys is my husband....

Neither one is really appropriate!

Then Addison's fear of dressed up creatures returned. You may remember the fear of the penguin at Christmas - she still sees pictures of penguins and says they are scary. 

So you can understand why "Violet" would terrify her.

She clung to Daddy the whole time this wild beast was around.

Daddy and Addison actually had some very sweet times during this trip. While I was taking some of the kids to do the Magiquest thing with the wands,

I caught them having some very sweet moments.

It was a great time!