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I love my Kier!

I have really been having a hard time with how much older Kiersten has been looking. This summer she has grown who knows how many inches. She is really getting tall. The thing with her growing taller is that she does put on any weight with the new inches. So she is a bean poll. Her legs are really long & skinny. It's crazy to know that that is exactly what I was like as a little girl. She truly is my little "mini me" YIKES!!! Watch out world :) And she has the best personality. She is fun, outgoing, strongwilled, loving, & caring. She loves to be around little kids & is great with playing with them.

She found these old hats at my aunts house & asked if she could try them on. What a funny girl!
She looks so much older! Stop growing up!!!!

Silly girl!

I am struggling with her getting older. She really isn't my baby any more and is slowly moving from being a "little" girl. She is about to start her last year of elementary school. That is making me cry just to type that. I'm not sure what how I'm going to handle it when it is actually happening. There are so many things that I have been able to put off with her telling her that she can "do that when she is in middle school." Shaving her legs, cell phone... I mean really...am I really old enough to have a child that is in her last year of elementary school? Scary!!!!

Cousins Lunch

Last Wednesday the girls & I were invited to lunch @ my aunts house. Her 2 daughters were in from out of town with their 4 kids. My sister in laws, Jessica & Rachel, came with their kids & my Aunt Kathy brought her two grandkids. It was a lot of fun to have my cousins, my nieces & nephews, aunts & mom, sister & sister in laws together for an afternoon. There was great food & they put together a scavenger hunt for the kids to do outside. They had a lot of fun playing with family. And I had a blast catching up with Terra & Delee (my cousins that I haven't seen in a really long time).

My Aunt Margaret made a lunch for the kids. Pigs in a blanket & my mom brought jello jigglers. Margaret made a different lunch for the women. It was chicken salad on croissants, a pasta salad, & we got to have the jigglers too. It was really good.
I love getting together with family.

Family is one of the most important things in life!

A spontaneous trip to Montana

Last Tuesday Eric came home & asked if the girls & I wanted to go to Montana with him on Thursday. A friend of his bought an unfinished house over there & hired Eric & his brother to finish it. They have gone over three other times & it was time to go again. Jim, the owner of the house, pays for gas, lodging, & food. A free vacation???? YES!!!! So we got ready to go & headed out on Thursday night. We stayed at a really cool "resort" that had six rooms & was about 200 yards from a beautiful lake. It was a lot of fun. While we were there we went to the Kalispell Fair. It was exactly like I remember the fair being like when I was a kid growing up in Idaho. Old school rides, games, food, & animals. They even had the game that you tossed a ping pong ball into a jar of water & if you made it in you won a little gold fish. So we let the girls try, thinking that they would never make it, & on the first try Aubrey made it. She was so excited. She promptly named the thing Freckles. Great. Now what are we suppose to do with a fish...we are in Montana & live 9 hours away. Much to her dismay I made her give it away to another little girl. Aubrey cried. Kiersten was mad. I was glad. I didn't want to deal with the thing dyeing & having to deal with that. She still says every now & again she says that she misses him but has really gotten over it.

A family pic on the dock
Eric & I in the water
View from the dock

Our room

I Love our girls (when they get along)

Gorgeous sunset

Throwing rocks on the shore

On our last day there Eric got sick. He was up almost all night. So not much got done that day. The weather was really hot ( 90 - 103). We headed out around 5pm & I had to drive. It was going ok for the first few hours but kinda went down hill after that. Eric & the girls were passed out & I was just following Jim in front of me in his car & all of the sudden (it was around 11:30) this huge tan/white thing was in front of car and I hear a big thud & feel a thump, thump. So I quickly flash my lights for Jim to pull over & Kiersten shoots straight up & yells "What was that?" I smack Eric to wake up & tell him that I hit something. He wants to know what, I don't know, something big. He wants to know if it was a deer & I tell him no, it came out of the sky. It ended up that it was an OWL!!!!!! Yikes!!!! & sad. We got out & inspected the car, no damage, then back on our way. Then we ran into the thunder/lightening & rain storm that was over here the day before. Which I then discovered that the windshield wipers stink. The middle section didn't touch the windshield at all so I had a 2 inch section up top & a 2-3 inch section on the bottom of the windshield that I alternated looking though. It was really stressful but I made it through. We got in around 2:30am. It was tough but we all made it ok. Eric is finally feeling better today.

Glad that we are home.

Fun Family Time

This last week we decided to go & have a family picnic. We stopped by the store on our way out of town & picked up some fried chicken & Jojo's & some cookies. Then we headed up to Mud Mountain Dam. But we we got all the way up there (about a fifteen minute drive) the gate was closed but the sign said that it didn't close for another 45 minutes. AGGGGG... how frustrating. Anyway, we decided to hit another great place, Deep Lake. It has a wonderful playground & a big lake to swim in. We found a picnic table & ate dinner together.

After dinner the girls decided to "just" put their feet in the water. (it was discovered by Kiersten that there was a boy from her school there & it would have been way to embarrassing to get into her bathing suit. Gosh mom!!)
The clouds were beautiful that night.

I love when we are able to go & do a family activity. It's a rare night that Eric is able to be home in time to go somewhere for dinner. We love how had he works but wish that he was home a little earlier in the evening so we could go & do this sort of thing more often.

The Finishing Touches

I have been redecorating the girls' room for awhile now. I have been buying the things that I wanted to put in it & putting it away until I had everything. I finally repainted & put the goods in their room. It looked great. I was so excited with the way it turned out. But, there was something missing. I wanted to do something with vinyl in there & had my friend (she has a vinyl cutting machine) cut out what I wanted & my amazing friend Karin

a came over on Friday & helped my put it all up.

It looks AMAZING!!!!

The before shot

The after.
It makes a border around the whole room. If you can't read it really well it says....Loves me...Loves me not...

LOVE IT!!!!!

Crazy Rock Band

For our anniversary this year I stayed with tradition & bought a video game accessory for Eric. (It all start last year when I bought him a PS3) So this year I bought Rock Band. I'm not sure who is having more fun with it, the girls & their friends, or Eric & his friends. Since it's been opened it has been played almost every other day, at least. And on the weekends it's a favorite till the wee hours of the morning.

Kiersten & Aubrey had their friend Camille spend the night & they played Rock Band a lot. It was funny to watch them get the hang of it.