dance life

In June we attended Taya's annual dance recital for Footlites and she did amazing! We are so pleased with how much she has grown up over the past year, and all of the dedication and responsibility she has shown us. As a privilege and reward we allowed her to try out for Dance Explosion which is Footlite's competitive teams and... SHE MADE IT!!! It's going to be a crazy busy year for her, but we think she is ready!

let's play a game

To catch up with a lot of the random happenings that were missed, here is a photo guide of it all!

I got new glasses! Yes. After wearing the same ones since 2010, I finally upgraded and I loveeee them! You can never go wrong with Kate Spade.

I lightened up my hair for summer! And actually I'm due for some toning, like now!

Emilia went to her friend's princess themed birthday party and had so much fun dressing up!

One of my favorite girls moved back to Washington state!

I tried the Unicorn frappacino... cause DUH. It turned out to be effing disgusting.

My favorite flowers in the world have always been peonies, so my sister and I had a date to the local peony farm where we STOCKED UP for our houses!

Emilia and I spent the day in Moses Lake and their little water park and she absolutely loved it! We are planning a bigger trip to another park to celebrate her 4th birthday this month!

Coffee date with "brudda"

We picked local strawberries on a farm! I made an amazing strawberry rhubarb pie with mine!

A Sunday farmer's market haul

And I don't even know, but I am obsessed with filters!

farm day

I absolutely love goat cheese. And I love local.

For the last few years I've been purchasing my favorite cheeses from our Tieton Farm + Creamery, usually at our local farmers market but also at different pop up events that happen throughout the year. Every year the farm has a couple of open farm days for families to visit all the new babies and learn about the cheese process and even though my kids personalities tend to lean more on the urban side, I don't know anyone who doesn't love to snuggle baby animals! On the farm they also have pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens and geese. All the babies were so so cute, especially the piggies! I also love buying their farm fresh eggs and I cannot remember the last time I bought eggs at the grocery store, because farm fresh are so much more flavorful and when you scramble them up.. fluffiest ones you've ever seen! My favorite cheeses from them include Bianca with the herbs, Bianca with the fig, Black Pearl and Calypso. You can learn more about each of their flavors on their website.

Please check out their page at: www.tietonfarmandcreamery.com

spring barrel

My little sister and I had a day date at Spring Barrel!

Amazing local food and the best wines in the valley!

We started at Gilbert Cellars and the pop up for our new upcoming restaurant Crafted. The desserts were amazing and I can't wait to have a date night at their new store front! Then we moved on to Treveri (my personal favorite local wines!) and had some deep fried asparagus that was to die for! Since it was Spring Barrel they like to get fancy and were serving up Sorbet Glacee. I had the peach sorbet with Rose of course! It was so nice to relax on their big open lawn and just take in the valley views! 

7 + 10

Every other year we celebrate the big girls birthdays together but this year they each got to pick their own thing!

Taya chose a trip to American Girl in Seattle with her a few of her best friends, Hadley, Ashlyn and Gaby. We had lunch in their adorable little bistro and then the girls got to shop, shop, shop! Taya also got her ears pierced about a week before her real birthday... third time is a charm and she is happy she finally went through with it!

When I asked Asha what kind of party she wanted to have to celebrate 7 she said one word... "CATS." Done and done! She invited a bunch of her friends over and we had pizza, cake and ice cream. At the end each of the little girls got to "adopt" a kitten to take home in a crate and they just thought that was the best thing ever. Seven is so easy!

bellingham + mt baker

At the end of February we wanted to take advantage of a long weekend and get some more snowboarding time in (somewhere other than White) so we packed up and headed for Mt Baker! We did all of our favorite things in Bellingham including pizza dinner at La Fiamma, ice cream at Mallards and walking along the dock at Wood's Coffee for an incredible sunset. We went to Barnes + Nobel for over an hour and just wandered and enjoyed the quiet, and then spent an evening at our hotel reading our books and taking a Lush bath. HEAVEN you guys. HEAVEN. Boarding at Baker was a blast! The drive up was so beautiful (except the part when the hotel called to say I'd left my iPad Pro there! Don't worry we came back through BHam after boarding to grab it). I don't even remember how many runs we did, but the day flew by and we definitely plan on going back next season. 

i'm baaaack!

After taking a major hiatus from blogging back in February, I am finally returning! My distant family has been bugging me about more posts for I don't know how long, but I needed some down time to focus on family life and living in the present which includes less screen time. This is still an important theme in our lives, so if I'm MIA for a week or 2, it's because we are busy loving each other and creating memories. Here is a quick list update of things that have happened since my last post back in February!

Taya got her ears pierced!

We celebrated both girls birthdays!

Had an amazing getaway to our favorite PNW city!

Bought a new car!

Asha rode a horse! (lots of mama tears!)

Had our annual trip to Tieton Farm & Creamery!

Celebrated Easter!

Went Spring Barrel Tasting with my little sister!

Cut and lightened my hair!

Took an ancestry DNA test to learn more about ME!

Had a couple of amazing warm thunderstorms!

Taya went to her first volleyball camp!

Celebrated Mother's Day!

Had fun at our annual Community Days!

Went to the waterpark!

Had a berry picking adventure!

And drank a lot of wine in between!

I will try to touch on most of these exciting things on upcoming posts, starting tonight!