At The Lighthouse

 

My whole family.  In a picture.  Together! Here we are at the North Head lighthouse, one of our very favorite places. More lighthouse pictures to come soon. 

  

xoxoxo

A Little Bit of Funny

This cracked me up. And then the girls watched it 5 or 6 times, laughing their heads off. Enjoy.

A Few of His Favorite Things

 Dashiell's number one favorite thing: this book. "The Zoo". It is literally disintegrating. He loves all books, but this dollar store number takes the cake.

 Second most abused (I mean loved?) item in our home: Mama's Star Trek toys. The best (worst?) part is that they talk. You can regularly hear Dash crawling through the house with one hand going, "Red Alert! Red Alert!" each time it hits the ground and the other repeating, "Captain, we're being hailed." From his mouth you might hear a slightly muffled, "I'm giving it all she's got, Captain!!" at the same time.  Or maybe, "Kirk to Enterprise." You always know just where he is...it's better than a cat bell.

 "Baby move it move it" and "Vinny". Vinny is by far the best use of felt scraps I've ever had. And apparently he and his little giraffe are delish.

 Juice can lids. Good times to be had here. I'll never fully understand the appeal of these things, but, boy, have my babies all loved them.

 Melissa and Doug dinosaur magnets. The lower half of the fridge has become expressly for Dashiell's dinosaur play, but you can regularly find them in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the living room, in the hallway, stuck to his toy bin, stuck to the front door, in his mouth....

 This lizard. We have about a hundred plastic dinos and reptiles, but he likes this one.  Also apparently delicious.

 The pegs from his little wooden workbench. Or as his sisters call them, Dashiell's cigars. He could give a rip about the workbench, but oh the wooden cigars....

Well, Dash. Favorite car toy extraordinaire.

Honorable mentions:

Pots and pans. He loves to ski around with each hand grasping a lid as it slides along the floor and he walks along behind them, little bum in the air.

Toilet paper. Or as Joel calls it: the other white meat. Also a tasty treat.

The Best of Friends

Dashiell and his Daddy kind of like each other. Just a little bit. So they both love it when it's time for a hike and Dash gets to see the world from high on Daddy's back, and get Joel all to himself (or so he thinks, anyway).  Even when tuckered out after a long day when Little Man is drifting towards dreamland, his hand is holding tight on to his Daddy.  I love these guys.

Camping Bits & Pieces

Here are some random snippets of our camping/hiking/biking/climbing/scootering and all around general merriment from the last week. And glow in the dark swords by the campfire? HUGE hit. One thing we love so much about Cape Disappointment are all the great paths & trails for the kids to ride their bikes on (and we've decided we finally need bikes, too. Next year everyone should be old enough we can start putting some miles in as a family!) right near the campsite. They can ride around and make friends while Dash plays happily on his blanket and Joel and I putter around cooking and playing with the campfire. Elora was all about doing tricks on her bikes and climbing 30 or 40 trees, while Amarra was blazing the off-road trails on her Strawberry Shortcake ride and finding new "hiding spots" all around. Seleia was making friends with every other kid around and pretty much entertaining all of the parents. (At one point I saw her clearing off someone else's table for them and helping to set it for their dinner.) Then we all take breaks and go on a "real" hike together here and there...and then back to relaxing. I love it.

And Everyone Else Was There Too

Photos simply cannot do justice to the real beauty of a summer sunset over the sea. God indeed had His almighty paintbrushes out and was working a masterpiece, while we simply got to enjoy the magnificence of it. The way the colors would change in the sky and the water, the birds flying over the horizon, the salt spray coming in on the wind...the royal oranges and reds, pinks and purples, yellows and blues all danced in the sky and skipped over the waves until they finally said their farewells. Then the North Head Lighthouse took center stage, shining its beacon to ships out at sea and all the while winking it's welcome, as if to say, "It's good to see you, old friend." The girls jumped in the waves and ran on the sand, full of delight while the baby giggled with glee and yelled at the waves in the background. We waited until the sun had well set and headed back through the tall grass to spend more time together...in front of the campfire and away from the world! Nights like these make everything else worthwhile.