Soaking up every last bit of summer

I cannot believe school starts next week. 

Signs of Maddie

I love finding her signs. 

I also love the age six. Six has been so much fun. For the most part it's like dealing with a rational human being...a very curious one with a lot of really difficult to answer questions (how do you explain sperm?), but a little person that can crawl into bed with me and tell me that I need to take a shower (yes that happened this morning) or tell me that she likes my outfit. Six is awesome. 

Rainier, OR

We went on quite the adventure today with Siri, Yazid and their nephew: A crazy animal farm in Rainier, Oregon. We saw tons of critters, both girls initially, much to my chagrin, were obsessed with seeing the free-roaming chickens but we soon had fun seeing a fox, armadillo, albino snake some crazy gross Amazonian turtle, a baby raccoon and who knows what else.  It was fun.  It was long.  Both girls were a tad on the wild side. But I am SO happy we got to experience it.  And I am SO happy that they're both SOUND asleep now. 

Of  course she caught a cricket while we were getting ready to leave in Seattle...

 

They had goats, chickens, peacocks and a very large great dane roaming the property.  Apparently the goats live inside and tend to act like dogs.

 Maddie loved to document as much as she could with Siri's phone.  I am sure Siri is having a blast deleting 1000s of pictures off of it.

And we ended our visit with a little visit

Which these two thought was HILARIOUS

Berry picking biker gang

We have grapes in our yard! We discovered ripe ones yesterday and the girls went to town. 

 

And Allie continues her tough as nails outfits to go biking in. I still shake my head wondering at how she became this way. I am so thoroughly convinced of "nature" over "nurture" now. 

Uncle Chris and Auntie Sophia came over for some bedtime hula hooping and bedtime stories. 

Swimming, Ear "peering" and some old b-day pics

We are in diving class again.  Although the  line up to the diving board is mostly  fake out.  She will jump off of it but has decided  that diving off of it  is no longer an option. 

Allie has been begging to get her ears pierced (peered) so we finally bit the bullet and went.  They  do one at a time so I was pretty  nervous that we'd leave with one hole.   She toughed it out.  Anything for the belle earrings she's  been dying to get... Maddie was really supportive.  I love watching her reactions.  

And finally, after dinner, I took them to a super lame park that they were not at all excited to be at. But we made the most of it.  And then went home to bed.

I just found a bunch of birthday pictures on my camera so I'll have to sort through those and get the rest of  them  posted.