life with 3 boys

Here is how the boys were entertaining themselves last night as I tried to make dinner. Austin is on the counter in the kitchen.  The wall between the kitchen and the living room on the other side does not go to the ceiling.

There is a pile of candy on the piano bench, if you can see it.  Austin was throwing it piece by piece over the wall into the living room where the other 2 boys were catching it.  I have to give it to them - they are creative.  And they did pick it up afterwards without arguing with me for not letting them eat it all!

Westport

We had the opportunity to go to the ocean with Tim's parents.  We stayed in a condo owned by some friends of theirs who very graciously let us use their condo for the weekend.  It was a last-minute trip but a fun adventure!  The ocean out here is very different that going to the lake in Michigan, which is what I'm used to.  No one really swims in the ocean out here - its a very rocky beach, very cold water, lots of wind, and huge waves.  We totally soaked up the sunshine though and there was a pool in the complex that we were in a LOT.  This is the view from the deck of the condo.

 Walking to the beach from the condo took only 3-4 minutes.

 There was this great "cliff" the boys could have jumped off for hours...

 Lots of interesting things to look at on the beach.  Cool seashells, rocks, sand dollars and even a jellyfish!

I don't have any pictures of the other stuff we did, but it was fun just to hang out with Grammy and Pa, go out for ice cream, and also to fly kites.

Some of our favorite things...

Since this is a new blog, I thought I'd post some pictures of some of our favorite things/activities.  Its a little peek into what we enjoy (almost) every day.  Of course, Star Wars is very popular with the Brinkley boys.  Star Wars lego people and light saber duels are their favorite play activities.

 This is our bearded dragon.  The boys hold him every day.  He rotates between Austin and Christian at night for their reading time in bed before lights out.  He was given to us by a friend of mine that has a whole lizard room in her house.  He is 5 years old and came with the name "Fat Boy".  We have not changed that.

 This is still one of my favorite things.  Our house.  It is such a huge blessing to our family and sometimes I still can't believe we have it.  Its a long story, but we certainly didn't think we'd be living anywhere like this 3 years ago!

 Funny faces.  I wish I could post the yelling that goes along with all the silliness.  There is never any shortage of noise or craziness with 3 boys in the house!

 I have really been enjoying planting flowers in our yard this year. 

 We are always on the hunt for bugs.

We also paid for half of 2 Seattle Sounders season tickets this year.  It has been fun to go to the games.  They average about once a month - its about an hour's drive to get to the game.  Tim is in his glory of course.  We let Austin and Christian choose one of the games that Tim would take them to.  They had a blast.  Austin and Christian can tell you all the names of the players as well as the number on their jerseys.  We are now big time Sounders fans!

There are many other things we enjoy that I could post.  Hopefully more of that to come in future posts!