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!!