The Farm @ Swam Lake

Last Sunday, after we did family pictures, we decided to hit up "The Farm" in Snohomish.  Kayden and I went there last fall with Shelly and Blake, and I remember it being a lot of fun.  You can see the post about last years visit here.

We kinda went on a whim and invited some friends of ours to join us, Matt, Silvia and Emma. 

Here are some pictures from our trip. 

 Rubber Duck Races

 Orange blob bouncing.

Matt gifted Kyle a selfie stick and Kayden couldn't get enough of it.  Do you guys know how many years I've been struggling to get Kayden to smile for a picture, and all I needed to do was get a selfie stick!  Come on!

 

 Perfecting his angle.

 We went apple picking...one word, delicious! 'nuf said.

 And lastly we went pumpkin hunting. 

 

And not pictured: duck racing, pig racing, Kayden swung on a horse shaped tire swing, petting zoo, tractor ride and a large slide.  It really is an awesome farm, and reasonable priced to get in.

 

Yesterday Kayden came home with a field trip permission slip for this farm!  It's going to be a lot of fun!



Six Years Old

Six.  Please excuse me while I wipe the tears from my mascara stained cheeks.  Six years old, already, really? Come on!

Now that I've gained control of my tears and the reminiscing over the last six years is over, lets get back to the topic at hand, Kayden's sixth birthday party!

Last year my niece had her party at a horse farm, and since that day Kayden hasn't stopped talking about this "Cowboy" birthday party and all he wanted to do at his party. 

First he tried to convince me to have two parties, one at a horse farm and one at our party.  I vetoed the horse farm idea, just because the one he wanted to have it at was too far away, so we chatted and discussed the party being here and we searched Pinterest for ideas.  He liked some ideas, and others not so much, and then there were some I didn't let him decide on.  :)

We let him open the gifts from us in the morning, before people started getting there!

Christy of course, did an amazing job on the cake.  Kayden kept telling me, Auntie HAS to make my cake because she makes the BEST cake, as if we ever discussed the cake coming from someone/where else!  Silly boy!

It gets really difficult to take pictures of all the decorations and aspects of the party.  I really need to consider delegating the job or hiring a photographer.  Anyway, we had different cowboy snacks.  Some of them being:

*"Veggie Garden"
*"Chicken Feed" - Chex Mix
*"Cowboy Cookies", amazing recipe by the way, it might be my new go-to recipe for cookies
*"Little Piggies" - Little Smokies in BBQ Sauce
*"Hay" - Pretzel Sticks
And I'm sure I'm leaving a few out, but you get the idea.  Most of the food was labeled with these chalkboard clothes pins. 

So, I wanted to play "Pin the Cowboy Hat on Kayden", and idea Aunt Sissy gave me, but Kayden wasn't liking that idea.  I really think he believed we were literally pinning the hat on him.  After many discussions and trying to convince him we were pinning the hats on a picture of him, he still wasn't having it.  So, I just went out and bought a "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" game.  It wasn't ideal, but we made it work.

One of Kayden's request at the beginning of party planning was having a piñata, something we haven't had at a party of ours before.  And he really enjoyed it! 

 Of course, there was opening of presents, which he also enjoyed! :)

And I made a jail for the kids to play in and I made photo props for the kids to use while in jail, but it wasn't too well used.  Maybe because I didn't place it in a very available spot.  It was a cute idea, just needed a better placement for it. 

The party was a success, and now it's time to start planning next years party! Ha.

Orcas Island: Fishing

On our last full day on Orcas Island, we just kind of laid low and hung out.  Went out and explored a little and went to this resort where they allowed fishing off their dock. 

Kayden loves fishing, and was absolutely in his element.

 The boys spent a little time in the morning just chilling outside.  They have fun together!

 He agreed to let me take a picture of his toothless smile once he caught his first fish.

 

And there is our trip, in a nutshell.

Whale Whatching

We did another whale watching tour and it was absolutely amazing!  Kyle and I have been on a few different tours and did the exact same tour last year with the same company and this trip far outshined any previous tour we had been on.  It was incredible.  We had one whale go under our boat, he was close enough to touch!  It was amazing.

We had the bee episode the day before, and on the whale watching tour Kayden was eating some chips and nudged his front loose tooth and it bled and bled and bled.  I literally had two wipes to my name, no napkins in reach and no people around me to ask for some.  Kayden was screaming, blood dripping down his chin and into his hand and I'm looking around for anything, anyone.  I couldn't get up because he was in my lap paralyzed from the blood.  Thankfully, Kyle appeared and saved the day!  Only to have it happen a second time an hour or so later!  I tried yanking the tooth out, but failed!  Got Kayden cleaned up finally, and it was pretty uneventful, as far as his tooth went, for the remainder of the tour, we did see lots more whales though! 

Kayden did finally lose his front, right tooth that night while eating oatmeal, of all things!

We saw a plethora of deer on this trip.  Kyle thought he would be able to feed one, so we stopped and let him get out to try.  He wasn't successful. 

I'll have another post soon.

Orcas Island

Kyle took this week off of work and we planned a trip back to the fun Orcas Island rental house we stayed at last year, you can review last years trip here, here, here and here.

We had some friends come with us for one night, kinda last minute and we all had a great time with them being there with us.

The first day we arrived we got there before check in so we decided to show Matt and Silvia one of the waterfalls we hiked to last year.  It was an easy hike, until you head back up the mountain to get to your car, and it is even more difficult when you're holding a 45 pound child because they got attacked by bees and stung several times.  Poor kids!

After the kids recovered from the bee attack, we headed higher up the mountain, via car, and introduced Matt and Silvia to the castle we found last year!

 

I'll finish posting more of our adventures another day!