A Rare NW Visit

The last week in August was a special time for us.  My brother, his wife and their two kids flew up here for the first time!!  This was my niece and nephew's first flight and we were all so excited to have them in our neck of the woods for a change.

They spent the first half of the week on Anderson Island visiting with my parents.  During that time we met up one day at the Point Defiance Zoo for a little fun with the kiddos.  Of course the cousins LOVED being together!!  We had an awesome day together just visiting, checking out the animals and letting the cousins reunite (it had been about a year since they all saw each other last).

Cousins...Tatum (3.5 yrs) and Cammy (4 yrs)

Trying to get a picture of these 3 is hard work!

Cousin love!

Hailey checking out the mole rats, which she called bunnies

The littlest cousins...Bryce (20 mo.) and Hailey (21 mo.)

Cammy feeding a goat

My whole family after the zoo (minus poor working Jason)

Sleepy Hailey after the zoo

Sleepy Cammy after the zoo

Later in the week they made their way up to us with my parents for three nights of fun.  Besides Cammy's big 4th birthday party celebration on one of those days, we managed to squeeze in a fun photo session with our favorite family photographer Kristin Harris.  These special pictures will forever be treasured as it is becoming more and more rare that we are all together in one place these days as our families continue to grow.

The entire Friedrichs Family

I just love this one of Cammy!

Gramps and Grams with their grandkids

The cousins...Bryce, Cammy, Tatum and Hailey

My parents

My brother and I with our families

Playing around on the beach

Our little family of 4...soon to be family of 5!

I love when they are both so silly!!

One final family shot

And since the cousins were together, we made a fun girls outing the day before Cammy's birthday to get manicures and pedicures.  Now let me tell you...there is nothing cuter than 3.5 and 4 year old girls getting pampered in their own little kid chairs.  Cammy still to this day talks about when she got her nails done!!

Cousins getting their pedicures

She's loving this royal treatment

Cammy's cute little toes

Mommy/daughter fun!

Grams, Cammy, auntie Amber and Tatum drying their nails

Visits like these are priceless and I feel so grateful that we were able to make it work and have so much fun while together!!

FIRST Haircut!

As I was looking through some recent pictures taken of the girls and I, I realized that Cammy's hair was becoming just one crazy long mess of curls.  Those pictures prompted me to finally be ok with getting Cammy's hair cut for the first time.  For those of you who have never had a girl, it might be a weird concept to have this be such a big deal.  But it took a long time for that hair to grow and get long, so cutting it just felt wrong.  And don't get me wrong, it wasn't like we were chopping it totally short...she was just getting more of a style while keeping it long.

So on August 15th Cammy and her friend Chloe went in for their first haircuts together at Kids Kuts. And after seeing the results it was definitely a needed styling!

She chose the firetruck to sit in

The finished look...braid and ribbon to top it off!

A look at the back

Cammy and Chloe with their finished cuts and styles

Where's Waldo?

One of the most fun summer activities that we did locally this year was a "Where's Waldo" hunt throughout the Mill Creek Town Center on July 28th.  Kids would start at the bookstore and get a passport to tell them all the places that Waldo was hiding.  They would then have to visit each of those businesses and search for Waldo inside the store.  Sometimes he was an easy find and other times he was pretty tricky to locate.  Once you visited at least 20 businesses you could turn in your passport to be entered in a drawing for some free "Where's Waldo" books.

So of course we gathered up some of Cammy's close friends and went on this fun hunt all together. The kids had a blast and businesses weren't probably ready for such a crazy group of hyped up Waldo searchers, but it was so worth it!

All the girls ready to begin the big hunt for Waldo!

Towards the end of the hunt when they were all ready to just get their donut at the last stop!

Happy little donut eaters!

Even a month later Cammy still talks about finding Waldo and looks for Waldo in some of the businesses when we are in the town center.  Definitely a fun summer activity!

We're Having A...

Looks like Jason will remain the King of this castle (while probably remodeling the house to have a Man Cave) because we will be welcoming our THIRD GIRL at the end of November!!!!

Baby GIRL'S profile at 19 weeks

We are adding another sister to the family!

Independence Day

As tradition has had it since having kids, we spent our 4th of July going to the local Everett 4th of July Parade.  This year we were lucky enough to have Jason's parents with us to help celebrate this fun holiday!

Our little patriotic cuties!

Waiting for the parade to begin

The girls with their grandpa and G-ma

An attempt at our annual Old Navy shirt family photo

Celebrating 10 Years!

On July 3, 2005 Jason and I were two high school sweethearts who had waited 6 long years (4 of those long distance through college) to finally be able to call each other husband and wife.  It was a very memorable hot summer day at Sogno Winery with so many friends and family who came out to support us.  It's one of those days that we will always enjoy looking back on for the rest of our lives!

July 3, 2005

Our wedding party

Now 10 years later, it's crazy to think of all of the amazing journeys and life changes we have gone through together...

-We moved from CA to WA soon after our wedding to begin Jason's career at Boeing

-Leia had to come back to CA after a summer in WA to finish her teaching credential while Jason stayed to work in WA

-We bought a condo

-We adopted our first pet, our kitty Rascal

-Leia got a teaching job

-We got our first puppy, Coda

-We found out we were pregnant with our first baby

-We got puppy #2, Keela

-We sold our condo and moved into a house days before baby #1 was due

-Our first daughter, Cambrynn, was born

-Leia quit teaching to be a stay-at-home mom

-Leia got connected with Stroller Strides and soon after became a fitness instructor through that

-We found out we were pregnant with baby #2

-Our second daughter, Hailey, was born

-We found out we were pregnant with baby #3

...And just as one chapter ends, a new one is about to begin!

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary with a day with just the two of us (thanks to the grandparents for staying with the girls the whole day!).  We had lunch, went to a movie (Magic Mike XXL of course), went to dinner, and ended the night with a comedy show and dessert.  It's a rare occasion that we get many days where it's just the two of us with no distractions, so it was a nice way to celebrate even if it felt really low key.  Not too many exciting things you can do with a pregnant person :)

Dinner at the Melting Pot

At the comedy show

I cannot wait to see what the next 10 years have in store for us, but what I do know is that there is going to be a lot of love in this soon-to-be family of 5!

Time to Dance!

After trying a few different sports (soccer, t-ball and basketball) we came to the conclusion that Cammy needed to try dance. Ok, maybe it was more me than Jason to want to get her in dance since that is what I did for many years growing up.  And seeing that the interest wasn't really there for the other sports, dance seemed like the next best thing to try.

I wanted to avoid recitals at this age since they seem to get really pricey and kids at this age aren't always that reliable to perform when put in front of a large crowd.  So a friend of mine told me about a community center dance class that sounded perfect!  Cammy was able to do a little ballet, a little tap and a little creative ribbon dancing (to Disney princess music of course).

So beginning on June 27th, for 6 Saturdays we took her to dance and she was beyond thrilled to be able to put on that leotard and skirt every Saturday morning!!  And wanting to tap all throughout the house was a hard one to not let happen, but that made dance class even that much more fun.  I feel like Cammy was living her own princess fairytale everytime she danced.

Our tiny dancer ready to go to her first dance class

Ballet stretches

Plie practice

Cammy and her buddy Kieran

Here's to the beginning of...

A Dancer's Life