Pumpkin Patch

Our traditional fall-time adventure to the pumpkin patch.  👍🏻🎃

Warm Slough

(Five week old little Evan 😍)

This summer we have spent a lot of time at the river or slough to be more exact. It's a smaller portion of river that feeds into the much bigger Henry's Fork area of the Snake river. It's super kid friendly and the water while chilly, is much warmer than most bodies of water around here. The slough is shallow and the kids are able to freely explore without us having to watch them like a hawk- which is always so relaxing to do haha! The kids favorite part of the slough is finding all of the creatures that live around there- frogs, turtles, minnows and crawdads. They can spend hours searching for and catching them. It reminds me of my childhood a bit, always exploring. 

More pictures of our time spent at the slough:

The Summer of Six States, Stranger Things & Sprague Reunions

Summer 2016 was by far the busiest summer so far. We traveled in and through six states (all driving) in our good old Volkswagen, Wolfie.

-We hiked and camped our way through the middle of the Wyoming plains.
-Ten year high school reunion in Oregon (go Sprague Olympians!)
-Austin's mom's side of the family (the Sprague's) reunion in Sacramento, California.
-Day trip to San Francisco and Muir beach
-My mom came to visit for a couple weeks, which included Yellowstone, Gold Bug hot springs,
 Rexburg Rapids, Finding Dory etc.
-My Grandpa's birthday bash in Oregon (thankfully this worked out be be during the week of our  high school reunion so we killed two birds with one stone and saved our car a ton of miles haha).
-While in Oregon we blew through the entire season of "Stranger Things".
-Since my parents were in Oregon the same time for my Grandpa's birthday we had a day trip to  Enchanted Forest.
-Beach day at Neskowin
-East Idaho State Fair
-Tautphaus Zoo

I will make separate posts about some of the items listed above because I have TONS of photos!

Random iPhone photos from our various trips:

Roadtrip diva

Sacramento Reunion

Private bowling room with 75+ people

Maisie feeding her baby in Oregon haha!

Ellie passed out after Enchanted Forest

Cousin snuggles

Lunch in San Francisco at Rainforest Cafe

Entertaining the babe at my Grandpa's birthday

Not an iPhone photo but a professional photo from the family reunion in Sacramento. It was 105+ and beyond muggy in this photo, we were all miserable, but somehow the photo turned out:

Palisades Reservoir

Shortly after Maisie started her first summer break (the end of May 2016) we took a day trip to the Palisades. We had intentions of hiking the Upper Palisades, but ended up just exploring the Reservoir and buying fireworks in Wyoming (note to self: buy more lady bugs next time haha) instead. This little day trip is when we first became aware of Ellie's motion sickness and unfortunately hadn't stocked up on baby Dramamine yet. So after a quick stop to change her clothes and sanitize her carseat as best as possible, we continued with our day. I took a picture of Ellie post clean up and she looked so darling, even for a baby who just was sick all over herself just minutes prior. Need evidence? Here you go:

Need evidence that Idaho is incredibly beautiful and that our girls are cute (albeit crazy)?

Last adventure of 2015

It took quite a bit of arm twisting, but I eventually convinced the family (mainly Austin) to leave the safety of our warm cozy house to brave the 3 degree temperatures to go ice skating. We bundled and layered our girls and made sure to pack a thermos of hot chocolate and made our way to the rink. It was a lot of fun and while he won't admit it, Austin had fun. He was by far the best skater in our family- I on the other hand will be babying a bruise the size of Alaska on my left hip, but totally worth it. You know those moments where you know you are creating memories for your children? We did that today. It was a perfect way to say goodbye to 2015.

Christmas @ Hemming Village

Early in the month we took the girls to the Christmas event at Hemming Village. It's our yearly tradition to go to both the Halloween and Christmas events there. This year was especially cold and the Santa line was especially long, but we enjoyed ourselves nonetheless- hot chocolate helped our bellies and hands stay warm and  thus vastly improved our attitude to the cold weather. 

It's fun to see how much the girls have changed since last time. Here they were last year. It's hard to believe that this was only Ellie's second Christmas! Look how small she was last year!

On Santa's Lap

Maisie has never cried on the lap of Santa (or around any mascot for that matter) and knowing that's not usually the norm when it comes to children, I was curious how Ellie would fare this year. Ellie is not a people person. It takes a while for her to warm up, but once you have won her over, she stays loyal- it's a rare occurrence even getting to that point though. I can only name a handful of adults who Ellie truly enjoys (Austin and I included). So sitting on any man's lap would be quite a challenge for little Ellie, but how about a jolly, bearded man who gives you gifts? I thought Maisie (or by holding my hand) would provide some level of comfort to uneasy Ellie, but alas she was left comfortless and dare I say tortured?

I finally feel a part of a club of parents who's children cries/cried on the lap of Santa. As much as I love the pretty smiles and cheesy grins, this is great too. 

Star Wars Fanatic

Notice the Darth Vader on her shirt too.

For the last month Maisie has been OBSESSED with Star Wars. We finally introduced her to the original trilogy (which is far superior to the prequels- in our opinion) last month. It all came about because we couldn't agree on a movie to watch. We wanted something tame, but with a more intricate storyline that Maisie could keep up with. So we borrowed them from our friend and decided to give it a go, completely thinking Maisie would lose interest within the first half hour. She fell in love the second the opening song and credits turned on. She begged to watch a Star Wars movie every night until we blew through the whole collection. She has been begging to watch them again, but unfortunately we don't own them yet so we have to get creative with blaring the soundtrack in our home and in the car (who needs Christmas music right?), watching "The Clone Wars" and the Phineas and Ferb episodes "May the Ferb be with you 1 & 2" on Netflix, YouTube clips (these are her favorites, she calls them R2 funnies- 1 & 2), playing the Star Wars Lego game on the iPad and just by Googling/Pinteresting anything and everything related to the movie.

Maisie knows the entire story, who every single character is and has since developed an undying love for R2D2 and although she won't completely admit it, she totally has a crush on Luke Skywalker because "he's awesome and cool and awesome". Her words, not mine.

Every night before bed we tell funny stories about Maisie's adventures with her friends R2D2, C3PO, Luke and Darth Vader (yes, once again Maisie has a thing for the villain). Some times Wickett, Leia, Chewie and the Sand People get in on the action too. Often times she pretends one of them is coming over to dinner. The nights she invites Darth Vader are the especially fun because she's scared and excited all at once and she wants us all on our best behavior so we don't get forced choked.

Her Christmas requests this year are all Star Wars related items and you better believe I am so thankful the remake came out shortly after her obsession began because it would have been much more difficult finding the items she would like to have without "Star Wars VII The Force Awakens" coming out.

Speaking of "The Force Awakens" we took her to see it today as an early Christmas gift. We were going to wait to take her after Christmas because we obviously got her a couple Star Wars related gifts and we wanted her to have them for the movie, but the timing worked out better to do it today- our babysitter was available to watch Ellie and we were already going stir crazy with Christmas break just starting. We ended up letting Maisie open one present before the movie so she could proudly wear it- her very own R2D2 shirt (conveniently in her favorite color and also with glittery letters). Taking her to see the movie has been one of the most fun times I have had as a parent. She was so excited. I can't tell you how many times she cheered, clapped and made happy little screams during the movie. Seeing all her favorite characters and also BB8? Man, how do they make these little droids so lovable?! The movie was 6 thumbs up (two for each of us) and made our nerdy little family very happy. Now we just have to wait two more years until the next one... Oh boy.

After the movie and just after a refill on our bucket of popcorn. How cool is Maisie's shirt?

P.s Maisie is already planning a Star Wars themed 6th birthday party... only 5 months early.