1st Day of School!!!

Brielle was super excited to start Pre-K

Brielle at Pre-K

Daniel walking into Eastlake as a Junior

Drew at Explorer with his friends

Drew as a 6th grader in front of Blake's garden

Brielle's 1st lost tooth!

I can't believe my newly 5 year old lost her first tooth yesterday!  She was SO EXCITED to have it out!  I had some friends over and we all cheered when it came out.  Brielle had been working on it for a couple of weeks.  I love the baby teeth and told her just to leave it...but for some reason kids just love to have their teeth come out.  She has another one loose and keeps asking me to pull it out as well!  Very different from the boys who had me pull their teeth out while they were sleeping so they didn't know I was doing it!

Brielle's 5th Pinkalicious Party!!

I can't believe my baby girl is 5!  5 years old just seems to be a big jump in age.  I love being her mommy so much.  She brings a lot of joy into our lives.

 Brielle loves the book Pinkalicious so we chose that for her birthday party theme.  All of the girls and a couple of the mom's had PINK HAIR!

The kids made pink beaded picture frames...

We played PINKO Bingo...

And they went on a treasure hunt looking for pink treasures that Pinkalicious's brother Peter took and hid from the girls...They found their treasures...

One girl at the party said, "I knew I was going to have fun, but I didn't know it would be THIS fun!"  :)

We had a BIG cupcake cake...

More birthday fun...

We had to have PINK food and some green in case we ate too much pink!  Pink popcorn, pink dip, pink M and M's, strawberries dipped in pink 'white' chocolate.

Here are the invitations...

 Happy Birthday Brielle!!!!!!!!!!

Riley

I am in shock and not really believing it.  Our sweet puppy Riley went to Heaven on Sunday to be with Blake.  We had NO idea anything was wrong with her.  She was her usual self...full of love, life and happiness.  Greg took the kids and Riley to a local park/lake to swim.  She swam around for quite awhile as she just loves to swim.  Then she hung out in the shade for awhile and rested.  They started to walk back to the car and her legs became stiff and she just fell over.  I met up with them, we rushed her a few blocks away to a friend's house who is a vet.  She had died.  She actually had died even before I got to see her.  We are all just DEVASTATED. The Vet thinks it may have been her heart as Cavaliers have heart issues.  However, her parents are fine with no heart issues.
 We all loved Riley so much.  She was only 1- 1/2 years old.  We got Riley to help us all (and especially Drew) to deal with our great sadness of losing Blake.  I cannot understand how  we would have to lose again.  We have all been crying for hours.  I REALLY enjoyed having Riley hang out with me in the evenings as she was such a sweetie and LOVED sleeping with her.    She helped me so much with missing Blake's snuggles.  It is just so sad. 

Brielle has said some cute things the past couple of days.  Tonight we were talking about how we miss taking Riley for a walk and Brielle said, "Riley doesn't need a walk.  She is running around up in Heaven and having a great time!"    Today we were walking by a pet store and I was feeling sad.  Brielle looked up at me and said, "We don't need to buy any dog food, cuz our dog died".  Just the facts there.  And last night Brielle was asking about Riley  and who is up in Heaven if she is still down here.  I started to talk about her soul and spirit and she was confused.  I told her I'm not sure I have an answer for her that makes sense, but I'll think about it.  She responded, "But you are a mom, you should know".
Our family is missing Riley so much.  Daniel has stayed home for two days and just read books.  He loves to read and finds comfort in his books.  I know his heart is so sad.  Drew is sad and thoughtful.  He wants another dog to comfort him.  He said he had a talk with Riley and told her that if he gets another dog it won't ever replace her, but just help him with his sadness.  I find myself crying a lot and looking for Riley throughout the house.   We are faced with deciding if we should get another puppy now or later or never.  Many people have said another dog would help us heal.  I believe this is to be true for Brielle, Drew and myself.  Daniel thinks it is all too soon and Greg doesn't know even if he wants another dog.  Our breeders offered us an 11 week old Cavalier.  He is very cute.

I really believe in the old saying, "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."  I like to think that Riley is hanging out with Blake in Heaven and giving him lots of snuggles for us.

Summer is flying by!

I haven't been too good of a Blogger this summer, but I suppose that means we have been too busy having fun in the sun!  We had a fun adventure River Rafting the Salmon river in Idaho, a weekend of camping in Lake Chelan with Daniel's preschool group, days at the pool, and a long weekend in Wenatchee at our church's middle school camp.  Many more details to come.  But here are a few photos...

Happy 4th of July!!!

We had a fun 4th of July in our neighborhood.  It started with decorating Brielle's bike...

Then the kids were in the neighborhood parade...

Picnic fun...

Yes, it did rain in the evening, but around here they said summer starts on July 5th and this is when our sun is coming!!  :)