New Names

Today over lunch I asked Grace and Liam, "If Daddy and I hadn't named you Grace and Liam, what would you want your names to be?"  Liam immediately said "Ben or Indy Jones Ratchford."  Grace thought about it for a minute, then said, "Sapphire, but you'd call me Sophie for short."  Then I asked what Sam and Declan's names would be, and without even stopping to think about it (seriously, they answered so fast that I swear they must have thought about it before), they replied, "Carlos and Chester."

We are leaving in the morning for our trip home, so I'll leave you with pictures of the four funniest, most beautiful children in the world: Chester, Sapphire, Indy, and Carlos.  Have a great week!  (I know we will!)

Declan's First Steps... Finally!

Counting down the days....

Only 5 more "sleeps" until we leave for our trip home!!  We are SO excited to see our families again!  

First stop:  3 nights at Davy and Rachel's house and the sheer madness and fun of seven Ratchford kids under the age of 8 in one house!  

There will definitely be a little of this:

AND we get to see these guys in action:

And hopefully we'll be able to indulge (after a year of deprivation) in a little of this:

Then it's on to a little place called Preston, Idaho, where we will watch some of this:

And experience the fun of this:

And it wouldn't be a trip home without going here:

Or here:  (amazing what you can find on google images!)

To all our families:  We love you and we can't wait to see you all very soon!

Birch Bay State Park

Question of the day:  Do anybody else's kids fight as much as mine?  It seems like it's worse in the summer when school is out and they are together 24-7.  Today I got to the point of nearly calling my mom and apologizing for all the sibling fights I caused as a kid.  I mean, now I really understand how hard it is as a mom to have the little people you love the most be so unkind to each other.  

My goal for the week:  Add some structure to our days and reinstate the chore list that we do during the school year and have neglected because of the move.  I think a little purpose and work would help things a bit.  Any other ideas?  I could use all the help I can get!

This afternoon I decided that an outing was definitely needed before I tore every hair from my head.  So we headed up the road to the state park and spent some time at the beach.  It was amazing how much better we all instantly felt and how much better they got along.

See? 

Hopefully Sam was pondering what his part in the familial peace initiative can be...

A nice aquatic shot by Grace.  

After the beach we found a great hiking trail through the forest.

It was beautiful and seriously just what we needed.

We even saw a little squirrel in his cozy habitat.

After the hike, we headed into town for treats at the C Shop.  Sam saw this giant ice cream cone and asked for me to take his picture.  That doesn't EVER happen so it must have really inspired him!  I'm sure he'll have good dreams about it tonight. 

Liam's 6th Birthday

I still don't believe it, but everyone tells me it's true:  Liam turned 6 years old on Thursday.  He is such a great kid - so cute and loving and funny. (Even if his sense of humor is still a little unrefined and revolves mostly around bathroom humor.  Case in point: The other day he said to me, "Mom, do you want to hear a joke?  It's not inappropriate, but it's STILL funny!")   He is such an amazing little man and we love him so much!

We celebrated his birthday as a family this year, with plans for an extended family party at the Cache Valley Fun Park when we go back to Utah and Idaho next month.  The kids bought Garreth the Lego Indiana Jones Playstation game for Father's Day and Liam is all about Indy right now.  We even let him watch a little of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and he is slightly obsessed.  Below you can check out his best Harrison Ford smile and see if you can sense a theme to his gifts this year:  

Nana and Papa sent these awesome Hulk hands, which I'm sure will only be used for good and not evil. 

We also went go-carting...

...and rode the mini-train. 

Then it was home for cake and ice cream.

Tonight we went out for his birthday dinner, and like Sam, he chose Billy McHale's.  But it was a close one - we almost had to go to Chuck E. Cheese's.  Garreth and I really dodged a bullet on that one. 

Liam and Sam decided to coordinate their outfits - green "shiny shirts" and camo shorts.

The Ratchford girls.

Here's Declan, making his vegetarian mother oh so proud.

And the other Ratchford boys.

The Billy McHale's birthday train.

Getting sung to by the wait staff with a beautiful sundae.  Liam graciously gave the cherry to Sam, who ate it and said, "I just did a magic trick with the cherry!  I made it disappear!"

Happy Birthday, my little man!  I love you more and more every day!

Cornwall Park

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at the spray park in Bellingham.  Every once in a while we have to check our kids for gills because man oh man they LOVE the water!!

Sleeping Bag Races

Hooray for a house with stairs!

I'm Back!

After a long week of being without an internet connection, I'm back, with only slight withdrawal symptoms!  First item of business:  find pictures of my cousin's new baby girl, Maddy, on their blog.  How cute is she?!?!

Congratulations, Doug and Shannon!  We love you guys and we're so glad you get to experience the beautiful miracle of adoption, too!

Next up, because I am a total loser, was to find out how to watch the season finale of this on the internet (since TV was also not hooked up):

In my defense, I do not usually watch "The Bachelor" or "The Bachelorette," but I happened to catch the season premier and got hooked.  I can't help that I really like DeAnna and secretly want to be friends with her!

I was a little surprised by this ending, but hey, they seem happy!

After a really bad week, we are finally moved in to the new house.  We have moved MANY times, but this move tops them all as the worst, most horrible move ever.  

I have three theories about why: 

1) We didn't have as much help as we had thought we'd have.  Note to self: moving 4th of July weekend is not a good idea. 

2) We have experienced being moved by a professional moving company and are now spoiled.

3) We have been married ten years and have four kids.  Not like when we moved to Texas fresh out of college and everything we owned fit into a horse trailer.  This move (along with a recent viewing of the movie "Into the Wild") has convinced me that we have WAY too much stuff.  There is an ongoing de-junking going on right now as we put away boxes of stuff and later in the summer we will be having a huge yard sale.

We are LOVING our new house and fenced-in yard!  There is still a lot to do, but we are really happy to be here.  It is fun to finally be able to paint and hang things on the walls without being worried about a landlord's wrath.  I'll have to post pictures of the rooms when we get them done.  Just a warning: there will be lots of COLOR!  I just survived a dreary Washington winter in a house where EVERY wall was the same shade of beige.  

And finally, we have to give a shout out to our best friends in the entire universe, Filipe and Joei, who spent their holiday weekend helping us.  We couldn't have done it without you guys!  We love you!

Stay tuned for pictures.... just as soon as I find the box with the computer and camera cords....