The Graduate

We had our first graduation ceremony in the Hammar family today!  Erika graduated with honors (just kidding) from Wee Care Christian Preschool...hooray!  I am not sure if the pomp and circumstance ditty makes me teary eyed or if it was just seeing my little girl in a cap and gown, but I was a bit choked up by the ceremony.  She is growing up really fast!

She was looking forward to this day for a super long time!

Erika with her preschool graduate classmates.

Waiting patiently for her turn to get called forward.

 Getting her diploma and medallion from her teacher, Mrs. McAdams.

Proud graduate!

Erika with her awesome teachers, Mrs. Funk and Mrs. McAdams.

Laurel is super excited for her turn to start preschool (September 2013).

Fishing

Matt and I took the kids fishing this past Saturday.  One day, it will be a fun, relaxing time as it is meant to be.  Now, it is full of anxiety that one of the children will fall in the lake, trying to remind them that fishing is a quiet sport, and keeping them entertained once the novelty of throwing their line in the water and waiting wears off.  But, we will continue to take them because Matt and I love it!

Matt bought the girls some really fun pink chairs that they loved sitting in!

I did not trust Levi with a stick with a hook on the end of it, so he got to bring a bucket and shovel and dig in the dirt.  It was a great activity for him, but unfortunately Laurel also wanted to dig rather than fish so there were some fights over the shovel. 

Levi also really liked the eating part of our fishing adventure.

This picture absolutely makes me laugh every time I look at it!  Erika is eating her chips from the drink holder in her seat.  It totally reminds me of my Grandma Parnell and I would venture to say that I probably have a very similar picture of Grandma....legs crossed, sitting in a chair by the lake with a bottle of water.  I love it!  She looks like she is having a great vacation day!

Zoo

We took advantage of beautiful May weather to go to the zoo!  It was a new experience as it was Levi's first visit to the zoo as a walker; we used a wagon instead of a stroller; and I took the kids as the only adult in charge of them.  It was such a fun time!  I love walking through the zoo just as much as the kids do.  There was more walking than riding for the kids, which made for a really good nap time later in the day!

The kids favorite exhibit is the polar bears.  I don't know if they actually like the animals, or just like the big picture windows looking into the water, but we always spend a lot of time at the polar bears.

Picnic lunching on the big lawn.  Shortly after lunch, Levi tried to escape by running away across the lawn.  That kid is fast!  So, unfortunately, I was that mom who looked ridiculous running after their child.

Almost looks like they are the ones you are suppose to be looking at!

By the end of the day, everyone was tired so they all piled in the wagon.  It was super heavy and difficult pulling the last 15 minutes of our trip!  But, it was such a great time!

Mother's Day Weekend

Sometimes, even on Mother's Day, not all the children are happy. 

And only 2 of your 3 children will pose for a picture.

Laurel was tired from going out to eat after church instead of just coming home for a nap.  And, she had been feeling a bit yucky that day anyway.  So, she is excused.  And, was much happier after she had a nap and was able to come outside to wash Daddy's truck!

Levi got his own little bucket of water to play in/with.  He had a great time!

I love when the girls hold hands on our walk to the park.  They truly love each other very much!

Our first ice cream cone of the season.  I'm sure there are many more to come!

I Was Running!

Last weekend, I ran the Hippie Chick half-marathon with 5 of my very good girlfriends.  We were blessed with absolutely gorgeous weather!  It was a really pretty run through rural Hillsboro with fields of bright red flowers, a beautiful old church and lots of supporters lining the race route.  What a better way to kick off Mother's Day weekend than with an all-woman race of 13.1 miles?  After I was done, I said I would never do that again.  However, after having a week to think about it, I am going to do it again next year with my sister!  It was a great race and a lot of fun to train and run with my friends.

The 6 of us had been training since January.  My friend, Lauri, and I would meet Friday nights to do our "long" runs.  We started by running 4 miles and each week would increase our run by one mile.  The best part of our runs is when we would go to either coffee or ice cream after completing our grueling long runs.  So fun!  On Mondays, we would all get together for our "short" runs, usually 3 or 4 miles.  Now that we have completed our race, we are still planning on getting together to run, but not nearly for as long.  And we'll probably still have ice cream when we are done!

Children's Museum and Superman

 Aunt Sarah treated the kids to a day at the Children's Museum last week.  It was not crowded at all and was really fun to have all the exhibits to ourselves!

Levi and Erika could have stayed in the water section all day.  Laurel didn't like it for some reason.  She went to the grocery store instead and put every single piece of fruit/vegetable into a cart.  And then let me put them all back where they belong.

Isn't this the sweetest Superman you ever saw? 

Grandma Parnell made him a red cape so he can practice his flying.

Erika's Birthday Party

Erika decided in November that she wanted to have a birthday party at the park.  With a May 5 birthday, it is always hit or miss if the Oregon weather is going to be nice.  But, we chanced it and reserved a covered area at a local park in case of rain and fulfilled another one of our daughter's dreams!

She wanted a Rapunzel themed birthday party.  She loves that movie and her little figurines she got for Christmas, which worked nicely on her cake!  Matt made her a pinata in the shape of Rapunzel's tower, which was a huge hit!  Pinatas and baseball bats with 5 year olds is kind of scary though!  It was a really fun party and Erika added to her Barbie doll collection with the gifts from her friends!

Summer Sun and Teeth

Levi is too cute in this Spiderman shirt to not post a picture!

The girls held hands on the way to the park one day and my heart just melted into a puddle on the sidewalk!

Erika begs daily to have a picnic so we ate lunch outside when the sun was out.

Laurel really likes reading to Levi.  She loves holding him in her lap, but he is not much smaller than she is so he often tips her over.

In February, Erika got her first loose tooth.  Finally, on April 28, it fell out.  And by "fell out", I mean I accidentally ripped it out while washing her face.  The tooth, which was super loose anyway, got caught in the weaving of the rag I was using on her face and came out when I pulled it away.  It was a little bit of a traumatic experience, but she is very proud of her missing tooth now!

And, she got $1 from the tooth fairy!

Beach Day

While looking through my iPhone, I noticed quite a backlog of pictures and videos!  So, I have a couple catch up blogs to get through!

In April, we had an unseasonably warm weekend so we packed a lunch and headed to the beach!  It was the first time Levi could walk on the sand and although it gave him a bit of trouble, he loved it!  He also loved the water so it took some work keeping him from running into the ocean.

We built sandcastles and big mountain for climbing.

Levi liked smashing the little towers Daddy made for him.

We had some sandy sandwiches for lunch.

Matt took the girls out to chase waves.  I love this picture of the 3 of them!