2 weeks of summer vacation under our belts...

our first outing of the summer was 2 days on Whidbey Island with Jen, Taylor & Kadyn. We had so much fun and the weather, although not super sunny, was perfect.
First, the ferry ride...



The the walks on the beach finding all sorts of sea creatures, shells, etc

We found starfish...


Emerson enjoyed filling her bucket...mostly with rocks. She wasn't too interested in touching a crab or any other moving thing for that matter.

She did enjoy playing the drums with the driftwood...


On one of our 2 beach walks we got incredibly close, within 30 feet of a beautiful bald eagle. It was so cool to see it so close!

if you look closely, you can see it sitting on the rock and you can see how close the kids were to him (it). so cool!

all of the kids (minus Emerson who was in the backpack)

The kids spent hours building forts in front of the house that we stayed at. what a blast!



The sunset was the most incredible sunset I've seen in a long time!! The colors were unreal!! and the reflection on the houses to the east was even pretty.



This was probably close to 9:15 or 9:30 at night. what a gorgeous night!



We have taken several walks to an ant hill that we discovered in our neighborhood! Its about a mile round trip and Camden in particular wants to go every day! It's pretty incredible to see the thousands of ants crawling around!



We had a fun and safe 4th of July! We went to the Bothell parade and then we went to our friends house for the evening and the kids had a blast with the fireworks and friends!!

I loved this picture! Looks like something out of a movie!! they love the smoke bombs!


Emerson wasn't sure what to think about the fireworks. She was pretty afraid at first but then seemed to get used to it. she was making the funniest "ooooh" faces!

That's it for now. Onto the next summer adventures...

School's out for the summer!!

Summer's out and we at the Brown house couldn't be any happier about it!!
We have tons of fun summer plans and tons of pajama days planned as well... a good mix I think. I'll let you know in a few months how it all went.
Here is Emerson on her birthday (forgot to post this earlier) but she loves her new stroller! she has so much fun pushing her babies around in it!


Here is the day before school got out breakfast with Emie. She slept through breakfast almost the entire year but I think with it getting lighter in the morning, she's up and at em early!!


The day before school got out, Hudson's beloved beta fish, appropriately named "Beta", died. He was a slightly neglected fish, Matt might say extremely neglected fish, but Hudson bought him when he was in preschool. He had some money burning a hole in his pocket and one day said, "mom, will you take me to the pet store? I want to buy a fish" and so we did. and Beta came home with us. Matt suggested flushing him down the toilet, but Hudson preferred a proper burial. And so we did. A burial complete with tombstone.



Here are some first day of school pics followed by the last day of school pics. Fun to see how they've changed in the past 9 months.
Hudson first day

The 3 of them on the first day

Camden's First Day

Camden's last day

The 3 on the last day of school

Hudson's last day


These days Emerson is most of the time goofy and fun with a big smile on her face and happy as a clam. However, since turning 2, she definitely has some stronger opinions about getting the answer she doesn't want to hear. here are a few of Emerson's faces...
goofy

contemplative

the "someone just told me no" face


some summer fun... here is our start to summer...

Emerson and her buddy Ben with dueling lawn mowers

coloring on the deck under the tent Dad built for them.

painting outside on a sunny day!

maybe Emerson's idea of UGG boots? slippers and a summer dress? I guess she knows what's cool.

Camden and Hudson dueling...


Lastly, Emerson's new favorite pastime.... the trampoline! She can't get enough of it and now asks for it by pumping her fists up and down. she loves it!



HAPPY SUMMER VACATION!!

Emerson's 2nd Birthday, Etc...

Emerson is 2!! It's so hard for me to believe! I decided a few weeks ago to make cake pops for Emerson's birthday despite the fact that I had no recipe and no plans for a party. So here goes...
I found a recipe for lemon cake online that sounded good so I started with that. Then I made the chocolate cake off the back of the hershey's cocoa box. I then made a lemon buttercream frosting and a vanilla buttercream frosting and after crumbling my perfectly nice looking cakes... I added their respective frostings to make it almost a dough consisitency. Emerson is such a great helper!! She helped clean the mixer paddles!



Then I started rolling...and rolling...and rolling... I had no idea how many it would make... I believe the final count was 80!

Emerson found this part a little boring... so she found ways to entertain herself...

Then came the dipping.

First you dip the stick, place it into the ball, then chill for 5 minutes. Then you you dip the entire ball... and voila... a cake pop!




We had a little party for Emerson the night before her actual birthday. We got out the giant bubble wands and blew lots of bubbles, the little kids played, the big kids played, we ate hot dogs cake pops!






















Happy birthday to the sweetest little girl!! We love you Emerson DeLynn and had so much fun celebrating with you!