Family Visit

Two weeks ago my youngest sister (Leslie) and her husband (Charles) and their kiddos (Cameron and Olivia) flew out from Florida to visit us for a week!  I was so thankful to them for making the trip to our tiny little town just to see us!  It was so great to spend time with them and the kiddos (especially the three older boys) had so much fun together.  Here are some pics from their visit:

These three are such great buddies.  No fighting or arguing, just fun!

We had a little leftover snow that Cam loved playing in...

We drove up to Bend a few days after they got here and rented a house for three days.  Charles and Phil went snowboarding and skiing a few times and Les and I hung out at the house and at parks with the kiddos.  I just love Bend!  Here we are all walking from the house to an awesome little grocery store down the street...

Here are the big boys playing with some Target playdough...

Here Reid was coming in for a kiss from Leslie and Olivia was getting upset!

Probably the most fun we had while we were in Bend was taking the kids to the public pool there.  They had a huge 2 foot deep kids' pool that was super warm and also had a slide, lots of water toys, and a fountain that would shoot water.  The boys were absolutely fearless and absolutely in heaven.  We stayed there for over two hours and they would have stayed longer!  Oh how I wish we had something like this in our little town.

Reid had so much fun, too!

We couldn't believe Jackson... he was jumping in and going completely under the water without plugging his nose or anything.  I don't think he had ever put his head completely under water like that before.  He is getting so brave as he gets older.  :)  It was awesome to see him having so much fun!

Untitled from Phil Gilcreast on Vimeo.

Back at home...

These kind of crazy shenanigans happened almost every day and night!  The boys just loved playing together...

Charles and Cameron came out to the base one morning to watch the jets take off...

Eating Cheetos after a hard morning of walking around the squadron...

Since Leslie and I didn't have much alone time in Bend, we went out to eat together one night when we got back.  We are so much closer to each other since we've had kids and it is just wonderful.  She is such a special person in my life and one of my best friends.

And here are the babies getting into a little mischief.  Reid just loves tearing the wrapping and toilet paper off the roll.  I've since locked up all of the cabinets!

Oh, it was so wonderful having them here!  Thank you so much for coming to see us, Simpsons!  We love you so much!!

My Funny Valentines

sweet comic valentines

you make me smile with my heart.  

your looks are not laughable, 

but you are sometimes unphotographable (no matter how hard I try!)...

still you're my faaaaaavorite works of art!

My mom had a Linda Rondstadt CD when I was growing up that I would listen to all the time.  I loved when she sang this song and I can still hear her voice in my head as I type this.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's my other favorite work of art... Love you so much, Phil!!

A New Post... Finally!

I got a text from my Mom yesterday pleading for a blog update.  She said it had been almost a month, which is a slight exaggeration :) but almost true.  We have had a busy month!  My sister and her family were here visiting us all last week, which is the main reason for the lack of posts.  We had a wonderful time together and I'm working on a separate post with all of the pics from their visit.  But here's what else we've been up to (and just a warning... this post is heavy on videos that may only be interesting to grandparents!)...

We have started a little tradition of going to Baskin Robbins on Tuesdays for their dollar scoop night.  The boys love it, but it's hard for mom and dad who are trying to watch their weight!  And the BR lowfat stuff is just not the same.... blech. 

Reid had his first taste of ice cream that night.  He approved.  :)

Jackson just looked so grown up and cute before school the other day that I had to take his picture...

And then Emmett wanted his picture taken, too!  He also looked grown-up and cute, just with a little messier hair.  :)

Here are two little videos of J and E.  I asked J to recite the little verse he was supposed to memorize for school that week.  It goes, "Big Q, Little Q.  What begins with Q?  The quick queen of Quincy and her quacking quackeroo."  Emmett memorized it almost before Jackson did.  But, as you can see, it took some convincing to get E to recite it on camera.  Oh, how I love my little E.  :)

Untitled from Phil Gilcreast on Vimeo.

Then a few seconds later, on his own terms, he happily said the verse.  Go figure!

Untitled from Phil Gilcreast on Vimeo.

Here are the boys watching Little Einsteins the other morning.  Jackson has his favorite buddy with him... his leopard, Leo.  Emmett will sometimes go into his room and bring out every single stuffed animal on his bed all in one trip.  He did that the morning I took this picture...

Here are two cute videos of Reid. The first one is long and probably boring, but I love it because you can see his sweet little personality coming through.  The second one is shorter and features Reid showing off his new skill (as of two weeks ago)...

Jackson and Emmett were playing outside the other day and Reid stood at the sliding glass door for about 15 minutes just watching them and "talking" and laughing.  So cute.

Emmett just loves to line up all of his cars.  He does this all the time... either in two rows (like I posted about before) or just one like this along the back of the couch.

And finally, this is another long video, but one of my favorites.  Yesterday Jackson and I were snuggling together before his nap and I was asking him about school that day.  I asked if he went to chapel (which they usually do on Wednesdays) and what they did there.  All of a sudden he starts talking away a mile a minute and I realize that he's telling me about the creation of the world.  Apparently they only learned about the first four days that day, and apparently I need to go back and read my Old Testament because I was a little mixed up about what happened on each day.  He was mostly right, though.  I thought "Let there be light" was on the fourth day when God made the sun, but it was on day one.  Oops.  Yes, I know that was a really dumb mistake.  I think I get a little dumber each time I have a child.  :)  J had it right to begin with but then I mixed him up.  And the second time J says "Let there be light" in this video he actually says "Leopard day light" I think because he was looking at his stuffed Leo the Leopard.  Oh, and at the very end when he asks to pick a tree that made me crack up because that's how we pick the different filters for the Instagram app on my phone... you click on different pictures of trees to see how the filters look.  Anyway... here's the video... :)

Oh, and just so I can remember this... we have been noticing lately that J sometimes has a real southern drawl when he says certain words!  I have no idea how since he learned to talk in Oregon and Phil and I don't speak southern.  But sometimes when he says words like "will" they come out like "way-uhl" and "saw-may-uhl" (sawmill).  It makes us chuckle!