Double Digits

10 years ago today our baby girl was born. She is such an energetic, creative and happy girl. I can't believe time has flown by so quickly. As I blogged about earlier we are currently living in the same duplex we lived in when Midge was first born. At random times I will have a flashback to her being in the bassinet or bathing her for the first time in our kitchen sink. It has a weird way of making the past decade seem so close and so far away at the same time. For Midge's birthday we were able to celebrate with family and had a barbeque. Midge picked the menu of hamburgers.

Leo got to help me make the cake this time around.

His favorite part was using the edible spray paint.

The whole family!

Washington Park

A new splash park has opened up in town. They are taking out all of the old wading pools and converting them to splash parks. I convinced a fun family to make the trip with us to go and play. We took a lunch and had a lot of fun. I decided to change some of these pictures to black and white because it makes you focus on the action taking place in the pictures.

There are sprinklers located all over the park and the water periodically will pop out. It was entertaining for the older and younger kids.

During lunch we had a blueberry throwing contest.

This photo shows it bouncing off Leo's head.

Each of the sprinklers is painted with bright art work.

Towards the end the kids wanted to go and dig in the sand.

The nice part is that they could then wash off easily before we left to come home.

This kid needs a break

When we came back from our trip to Sunriver Leo started complaining about his skin itching him. I just thought the climate had been dry and he needed some lotion. When we got home he had huge welts all over his body and had broken out in hives. We couldn't think of what he had eaten or been exposed to that would have caused this reaction. We gave him a benadryl and gave him an oatmeal bath. When the hives started to go down we thought we were out of the clear. I was a little surprised when 4 hours later they started to come back just as bad. Again I gave him a benadryl and again they seemed to react to the medication. Over the course of the next 24 hours the hives returned over and over again. By the next day the hives weren't even reacting to the benadryl medication. Leo was miserable and because there were no appointments at the after hours clinic I had to take him into urgent care where we proceeded to wait for 2 1/2 hours! It was crazy. Leo kept asking me how much longer is this going to take.

Finally they got us in and ended up giving him a shot of prednisolone. They also gave him a prescription for further steroids. He still had to deal with the hives for several days, but they are getting better. The poor kid asked me why he keeps having to deal with these strange illnesses. He feels like he should be given a few extra weeks for summer vacation!

Turning 4

Little Miss turned 4 this past Sunday.

My parents and brother were able to come down and celebrate with us. Because of some other things happening that I will blog about later I didn't get a single picture of them. They gave Little Miss a new scooter, which she loves because she can be like her older brother and sister.

The best thing ever is that midge made her cake. I helped her a little, but for the most part she decorated it herself. On the top she put a graham cracker cut out of flounder and a shark.

Little Miss was so excited. Midge wanted it to be a surprise for her, but the night before when we were making it Little Miss kept sneaking out in order to watch Midge making it.

A few days after her birthday we took Little Miss to the a shop that is a

little girl's absolute dream called Bella Couture.

Little Miss wanted a tiara like her sisters.

We ended up taking along one of our neighbors that the kids have known since he was born.

He has always been sweet with Little Miss and she adores him back.

Here he is helping her try on shoes.

I tried to get her brother Leo to give her a kiss too. His reaction, "Are you kidding me! I'm not kissing her." Ah brotherly love. We decided to let her have a boa too.

Around about this time Leo stated: "Wow there is a lot of pink in this store!"

Road Trip

Last week we headed over to Sunriver. This little guy was not happy to be stuck in the backseat. He wanted to be allowed up front and screamed for part of the way to let us know it.

When we arrived the welcome committee greeted us.

On the first night we went to the village to see all of the changes they are doing. They are remodeling all of the shops, building 5 new indoor and outdoor pools, and building a sledding hill. Of course we had to stop at Goody's to get our traditional treat.

The next day we headed up to East Lake to spend the day.

Baby Huck loved it. As soon as he saw rocks and water he was in heaven.

Ken spent most of the day fishing. He caught a total of 11.

Grandma Susan joined us at the lake too.

The kids were delighted that she brought along her beagle Kara, who promptly helped herself to all of their lunches. Got to love a beagle.

This little guy is a crack up. Don't take this serious expression as his true character. He is turning into quite the comedian.

For the past several years Leo has been terrified of going out in the boat on the lake. He insists there are sharks. It doesn't help that our family loves watching shark week on discovery, and had just watched an episode the night before we went to the lake. Despite this we took it as a good sign that he got into one of the boats.

Even if this was the farthest he got from shore. Baby steps right.

See what I mean about the little comedian. He loves Midge's sunglasses, and whenever he got a chance he would slip them on and want me to take a picture.

The kids found this log and loved playing on it. Baby Huck started trying to climb up it by himself. In addition to being a comedian he is also a climber.

Here is my proof shot that I was there.

See what I mean about being a climber.

and a comedian.

On the third day we went to the south pool. When Midge laid down her glasses Huck snatched them. He kept going up to people and making funny expressions.

The life guards don't really like the Woodwards. We do crazy things like this...

This game is called pile on dad.

On the final day of our stay we took a hike to see Benham Falls. The kids did pretty good considering that it was hot.

Huck was the only one that paid any attention to the actual falls. The other kids were obsessed with feeding the chipmunks.

That final night we went to our favorite spot on the Fall River.

I had to snap this picture as evidence that he does love his sister.