Another Birthday Celebration

On Thursday we went to a family birthday dinner with Banny and Granpa at the Cheesecake Factory. The girls had never been, but were intrigued by my description of the large portions of cheesecake for dessert. The ones they were too full to eat by the time they had three bites of dinner!!! Oh well....

After dinner, with money burning a hole in their pocket, we went to Claire's so they could purchase a pair of earrings and then to the Mac store to buy themselves an iPod gift card.

Memorial Day in Manzanita

Yes, second weekend in a row....back at the beach. Although this time it was both the Pardy AND the Murphey families, just the way we enjoy it!!!!! And as an added bonus, Emma and Sara's birthday was on Memorial Day this year, so we started off a series of "birthday week" celebrations on Saturday night.

There was another family staying up the street from us that the kids joined forces with. At one point we had TEN kids romping through our house. They all had a blast, and even joined in on the birthday festivities.

The weather was sunny and warm, although a bit too windy to spend much time down on the beach. But it was perfect for hanging out on our front porch in the sun with a cold beverage in hand!

New Razor Scooters from Nick (so they will stop riding his!!!)

Molly Murphey.....taking all three boys DOWN, Ninja style!!!

A fort built by someone who didn't bother to clean up after themselves on the beach.

The boys taking a DS break.

More Beach Fun!!

I had a spontaneous moment earlier this week and decided it would be fun to take the kids and head out to the beach for the weekend. Will was off on a guy's camping trip this weekend, so I let the kids invite friends to take along. The forecast for Portland called for sun and warm weather, so fingers were crossed that we would find the same out there. So off we went on Friday night, me and FIVE kids!!!

Emma~their pal, Molly~Sara

Nick and his friend Josue

We met up with a couple of other families we know from the school who rented a place right on the beach. We spent a lot of time with them playing on the beach on Saturday, and then we all had dinner at their place that night. It was a fun time had by ALL!!!!

Annie~Molly~Sara~Emma

All four girls are fourth graders together at Capitol Hill.

Soaked after playing in the water!!!

The boys busy building sandcastles.

All nine kids gathered around the table for dinner.

Sitting out on the deck sipping a glass of wine after dinner.

Happy Mother's Day

We spent a couple of hours cruising through the Rhododendron Gardens....us and 2,000 of our closests friends!! Obviously not a unique idea, but we had not been there since the girls were little (got married there) so thought it would be fun to go and check it out. The kids had a good time feeding the ducks. Things are in full bloom this time of year and there were little baby ducks cruising around. Fun way to spend the afternoon!

Happy Birthday to Will....again!!!

Saturday, May 9

And on Saturday we celebrated both Will and Jerry's (cousin in law) birthdays with the two families here at our place. We decided we would do an hors devours spread, something Jerry and Will like to do when we are out at the beach. So this is very telling, I managed to get photos of our food spread, but never managed to get a photo of the guests of honor (ok....so I can be a little food focused!!!). It was a really fun night of WAY too much food!!!

Happy Birthday to Will

Friday, May 8

We went out to a family dinner to celebrate Will's birthday. Fun night of decadant food and dessert!!

Right of passage....again

Saturday, May 2

After an unsuccessful ear piercing experience three years ago when the girls removed the earrings from their infected little ears, I told them we would not try this again until they were at LEAST 10. Funny how quickly that was upon us. And....funny how they totally remember those "promises". So, back to the mall we went. Granted, it was a few weeks prior to their 10th birthday (guilted into it because we will be at the beach on Memorial Day....their birthday), but thought we'd take advantage of the window of time we stumbled upon to get it done! They had moral support from their friend Shea who went along for the ride.