The winner is...

It took a while, but we have picked the park for the trio's 2nd Bday party! We went out to Hillsboro to check it out today, and it is PERFECT! It is a beautiful park, 61 acres with tons of trails, Rhododendron garden, tennis courts. The park is not on a busy road, it is set well back and mostly fenced, it has a great play structure and 12- 8ft picnic tables under a shelter with a fireplace...the place rocks! Thanks to my Momma friends who suggested it! It is about a 40 min drive from our house, but so worth it. So a early heads up...save the date for 7/11 @ 3pm!!! Xander, Hayden and Lily had a blast playing and cruising around for over an hour. You can see improvement weekly in their running abilities, today they didn't fall a whole lot and even when they did they caught themselves well and we came away boo boo free! Then of course they passed out in the car on the way home, so nap time was a bust LOL.

Some pics from the park...

Kids running everywhere LOL.

Xan and Daddy go down the slide!

Hayden's turn.

Now Lily...Hi Lily Bug, I see you up there.

The Bug holding her first worm...he survived his Alien encounter and we placed him in some mud.

Lily giving us her new side eye look. Happy Lily...

Side eye Lily Hahaha

Just because every kid needs a knuckle deep mining picture to embarrass them later...Lily here's looking at you kid LMAO She is going to kill me for this one day :)

Some funny pics from yesterday, and yes we dressed them yesterday too...this makes 3 days in a row, go us :)

Lily was enjoying, and wearing, water from a water bottle.

More side eye Lily.

To my sister...

Happy Birthday Allie! Welcome to the 30 and over crowd; lucky for us 40 is the new 30, and 30 is the new 20! So we are now 20 and 21...again :)

I love these pics of you and me back when we were little kids...look at us. I have so many great memories of us growing up, yes there was some fighting...and I am so sorry for the times I was mean to you or told you to go away. There were so many fun times though, our planned attacks on the neighborhood bullies, telling funny stories to each other late at night when we were supposed to be asleep, making potions in the spaghetti pot using all of mom's spices and anything else we decided to throw in, eating a whole jar of cake frosting and blaming it on the cat, painting the neighbors house in cream cheese, and being the criminal masterminds that we are, we did it at just our height so we got busted, spending entire days playing Nintendo or watching TV together...and oh so many more. I remember kicking anyone's butt that messed with you, your little friends would run and find me on the playground at school if you were in trouble and I would fly to you and take on anyone there. I'll always have your back!
We had such great times, I am so glad we had each other and were so close. I hope my girls can have what we did, and I hope still do...I really miss those times. I don't think you will ever know how often I think back over this stuff and cry happy tears because of how lucky I was to have you by my side.
I love ya Sis, I wish everyday that we didn't live so far apart.

Don't forget our pact, if we are old biddies, husbands dead and kids doing their own things, we will live together and take care of each other.

While the cats away...

My little mice enjoyed playing with their milk. Toward the end of breakfast I went to pick out some clothes for Xan, Hayden and Lil. I decided to get them dressed today for a change, shhh don't tell anyone LOL. I was gone maybe 3 min and came back to a milk covered kitchen, and 3 kids happily splashing in it. And I had just given them their first "Mom hears all, sees all and knows all" speech while playing around with them when I served breakfast. Obviously they were testing my superhuman mom powers, and dang it I failed.

Next we had a little playtime, Lily is so proud of herself...here she shows off her big muscles :)

Then we turned on Dora, they were having a bit of a multiples episode today I guess. The mommy and daddy Marmoset monkeys had triplets, and the Maned Wolf had quints hehehe.

At lunch time we broke out the straw sippys for the first time. It actually went a lot better than I expected, they seem to know what to do other than they think the cups still need to be tipped back to drink :) We also got them little forks since the spoons were not getting us anywhere. They did pretty good with them, though they didn't quite get the stabbing the food part. I would stick some food then hand the fork to them, they would take the bite then hand the empty fork back to me to refill it. I kept showing them and saying 'see stab the food, stab the food.' I think I should use the word spear instead, I can see it now three kids yelling 'stab the food' at meal time LOL. Hopefully they will get it soon, I am ready for a little less mess!

We played a couple signing DVD's today and boy are they getting good, they are now trying to say everything that they sign and they almost do all of the signs on the 2 DVD's we watch the most. Even Xander has busted out with quite a few more, the young lad is doing really great...I really think the EI visits are helping. Hayden and Lily are getting good at body parts too, they seem to love showing off all they know :)

The girls were melting my heart tonight after I got them all changed for bed. They were sitting on the couch together 'reading' and making each other laugh, it was so sweet.

Oh how Hayden loves to read outLOUD for all of us to enjoy :)

Sweet sisters

Xander looking so very handsome in his PJ's LOL

It has been a fun filled, busy and tiring day...I love my life. Jason worked his second double this week today, so he missed out on all the fun, but I know we are both looking forward to his weekend so we can get in some quality family time!!!