Warning...longest blog post ever...Washington trip and K's birthday!

This is my excuse this month for taking so long to blog...isn't she beautiful? She's my new niece! :) Welcome to the world, Miss Elianna London! You are perfect in every way!! Congratulations to Kelly and Craig!!

And this is Brookey in the car on the way to Dallas to catch a flight to see her! Craig and Kelly very generously offered to help pay our way, and well, how can you say no to that??? 

Getting ready to head to the Evergreen state! We left for Washington state (my home state for 17 years) on September 6 and stayed for about a week.  

This is Brookelynn in her hotel room bed the morning we were getting on the airplane. She was NOT having it! I don't blame her...! It was pretty early.  

But riding the escalator for the first time, with Daddo? That was FUN!

That's our airplane! Waiting to get onboard!

Beautiful Washington! We arrived in one piece, after much craziness, I must add...;)

It was so worth it, though. Just lots of new sights for the kids, and Justin was impressed with the shopping/customer service experience there. Lol. We went shopping one day at Safeway, and were even impressed with the shopping carts. 

This is one of the many, many playgrounds we saw and played on! That was a definite highlight. They have the coolest playgrounds there! This one was in our friends housing development that we stayed with.

I seriously love Texas sunsets. But man, this is one that took my breath away. I forgot how beautiful the trees are there. This was also taken in their housing development.

We also got to visit a really good friend of mine who has children almost the same ages as ours (well, her oldest is like two weeks older than K, I think. The youngest is quite a bit younger than B.) Jenna, on the far right, and Kaleb got along really, really well. She was just his speed, which was awesome!!

She is such a good friend, I hated to leave her house knowing we wouldn't see her again for who knows how long, so we got together again the next day before we left! LOVE her and her family! We had to take several shots here to get all the kids to look the same direction...not sure if we ever got that far, though!

One of the many really awesome playgrounds the kids played on. :)

Beautiful Bradley Park! It's one I used to go to quite often. Ahh, good memories.

Elianna and Mommy. :) I LOVE these two and their little family to pieces!! 

Here we are on a stroll with them. We surprisingly got a lot of fresh air while we were there! It's not usually rainy right now. They are just heading into the really rainy season again. September is perfect!

Mukilteo Park - another one of our favorite playgrounds now! See the fog in the distance? It stayed that way til noon, but it wasn't cold at all. 

Took several last pics around the Mukilteo area to capture the beauty. Kaleb is enjoying the view here!

Airplane time. The kids did amazing, when it comes down to it. The first trip was eight hours total on the airplane (the route we took - it was a roundabout way, just the way it worked out) and the second trip was about six. They only went completely nuts on the way there, on the five hour plane ride...well, if you call jumping up and down in their seats and yelling nuts...I do. And I was getting there myself! But most of the time, they were doing pretty good, all things considered. We brought a LOT of things to distract. But even after five hours of sitting in one tiny spot, an adult starts getting weary. :)

Oh, be still my beating heart. I just love this picture. We took it when we were all completely exhausted, in an IHOP in Weatherford, Texas, where we stayed the last night before heading home. 

SO, we had a lovely time in Washington visiting with sweet friends and a new niece, AND THEN, when we got home, guess who's birthday it was?? Our Kaleb turned three. 

Cannot believe that time has gone by that fast. Here are just a few shots of his "blue" birthday! (That is specifically what he requested!)

Presents!!

Yummy blue cupcakes...Yes, this is what he wanted!! Some of them were blue raspberry, and the others were cotton candy! They actually didn't taste bad at all!

Daddo birthday hugs are the best!!

We did have all the cousins over, but weren't able to get shots of everyone, sadly! But, here are two of the boys - Isaac and Andrew! :) Kaleb has five boy cousins, and one girl cousin!!

Brookey in her blue, celebrating big brother's day! 

And of course, we had to celebrate with blue balloons! Grandpa had fun with the grandchildren! 

Nana, and Grandpa, Oma, and all of Brookey's and Kaleb's cousins, Isaac, Abigail, Andrew, David, Luke and Timothy all came to celebrate his birthday with him. The coolest part was that we actually celebrated on his birthday! :) He had been waiting very patiently for that blue cupcake, too, for weeks, I will add. We had talked about what kind of party he wanted, and he had told me he wanted blue cupcakes at least three weeks beforehand. And almost every day we'd talk about the blue cupcakes. So, I am sure that first bite tasted wonderful! :)

He also LOVED his gifts from everyone. 

He loves to "fix" things, and the toolbelt with tools from Oma and Opa was perfect, along with the tools from Nana and Grandpa. 

"Fixing" his new dump truck. Brookey loves all the toys too! And we had a lot of fun this morning with his new play dough fun factory from his cousins! 

Thank you, all who have actually stayed to read this long...I know it's really long, and I'm sorry!
That said, I am going to end with letters to K and B. I keep this blog for many reasons. One is so that ya'll can catch up on our lives. Another is so that we will have something to look back on. And so that my children will have something to look back on. 
I have wanted to do a post on their progress for a couple months now, but have not been able to. So, I feel letters to them are fitting! :) I know, this blog is kind of a combination of a lot of things this time! But, here goes, sweet babies...

Kaleb, my BIG three year old, and the one who made me "mommy,"
First of all, I am so glad to be able to write to you, knowing you might read this one day and know how much you are loved. I never, ever want you to wonder. I know there are and will be hard days in your life. But I know that you are SO special in God's eyes. Know why? Here are just a few reasons!
I see your daddy in you.
You tickle me every day. You are FULL of boundless energy and you keep me on my toes. You are SO important to the Lord, and he has GREAT plans for your life, because, my child, YOU are full of life!
You are passionate, and you are SO smart. You completely amaze me. Having just turned three a couple of days ago, you know all of your colors, most of your shapes, can count almost all the way to twenty, and you know plenty of letters of the alphabet. You have grown by leaps and bounds this year! Every day we do a bit of school, and you work on a letter, and do a project of some sort. You are awesome at stringing beads, and working with your hands. Your hand eye coordination is amazing to me!
You are also always taking things apart just to try and fix them. 
You have also begun to tell me stories. You are a very good talker - have been ever since you could form sounds, and it was really early. You say all sentences now and you are a good communicator (in many ways!). You still throw tantrums, but they are fewer and fewer these days, so that is really good. 
You love to see me laugh at your silliness. Like today, you were throwing a balloon, then you stuck one on one side of your head, and another on the other side of your head, and squeezed, all while laughing and watching me, seeing if I was laughing. You are funny, and you try to be!
Before you were born, Mr. K, I prayed you'd be just like your Daddy. And the Lord answered yes! You are smart, you keep me on my toes, and you make me laugh! 
But I see me in you, too. Today, you told me you needed to go tee tee in the potty. You were on your tricycle, but when you tried climbing off, you fell over with it, and all the toy cars you had stuck inside the back of its compartment fell out. I tried getting you to go to the bathroom right away, but instead, you said, "Oh, let me put my cars back!" 
You may need to go to the bathroom, but you always have to do one last thing first and make sure things are in order! Lol!
You tickle me, and I love you, sweet boy. Cannot wait to see how you grow in the coming years, and just what the Lord has created you to do. I know that it's something big!
Love you to pieces, sweet boy!

Miss B, my sweet pea girl,
You say and do way too many cute things lately to even mention. 
But the sweetest thing recently was when we were leaving GG's house late at night and taking Daddy some food on the night shift. Normally I don't go late at night, but this time we had spent some overdue time with family we hadn't seen in a while, and time had gotten away. I think Kaleb had gone to sleep, but I heard the sweetest sound coming from your side of the backseat...You were singing to yourself, like you do often now, and every couple seconds I would hear, "Jesus". Guess you were singing about him! :) It was just very sweet to hear. 
On a different note, you have also recently added the letter "T" to everything. Like, when you want down from a chair, you say, "Downt". Not sure where you get that from, but it's funny! And bath is "Bat". You also say "Nena," for "Nana". 
You also have a very hearty laugh for such a small body. You're really kind of tough for being such a sweet girl. Sometimes you go up to brother and hit him, hard! And you are not afraid of him. You fight back well too. We are working on hitting, on both ends (yours, and brothers). 
And, the other day at Aunt Shelly's, they had a pinata for cousins Abigail and Andrew's birthdays, and they let you swing at it too. You did a good job - you made it twirl fast like the rest of them! Then, as your "grand finale," you would throw down the stick as hard as you could on the ground - I think that's what you thought you were supposed to do! I'm glad no one got hurt!
On your lighter side, though, you love Minnie Mouse, hugs (especially when you're in trouble), kisses "mwah," using the hand to the mouth of course, saying "Wee you," (translation - "love you"), shoes, because it means you're going outside, talking to and laughing at yourself in the mirror, dancing, even in your high chair (sitting down of course), laughing in general, any type of ball (and you LOVE to kick it!) patty cake, high fives and fist punches, spaghetti, your "biddy," (translation - "blanket" or "blankey"), playing with your blankets corners to fall asleep, having me tickle the inside of your hands to fall asleep, sleeping on your tummy with your bottom in the air, putting on leggings for some reason makes you giggle, feeding your baby dolls, reading the story about Baby Jesus, babies in general (when we went to visit Auntie Kelly with the new baby, all you wanted to do was hug and squeeze her and give her kisses, and while you'd do it, you'd say, "Aw, sweet baby") and many other things.
You are precious, in our sight, and in God's. Cannot wait to see what he does with your life, princess!
Love, 
Mommy and Daddy


SO....happy almost October, ya'll!!! Thanks for sticking around, and have a great month...hopefully the next one won't be as long...! ;)