Fall 2013

I can't believe it's been OVER a month since my last post! I feel like the reason for that is because there is so much to catch up on that I keep putting it off and then never end up posting anything! So here we are a month since Lily's broken leg (which healed great, after 3 weeks in a splint!) and tomorrow is Thanksgiving (not sure how that came so fast!). Here's a little catch up and then I'm going to just pick up where we are in life, because if I don't, I'm not sure I will ever blog again. 

The weather has been pretty nice this fall! We made to the pumpkin patch kind of on a whim one sunny Saturday afternoon with some friends. 

Searching for the pumpkins

Luke and Blake

Pretty typical family photo these days

Blake got to drive the tractor!

A wagon full of kids!

Russ and I both entered a new decade... the thirties... yikes!

My sweet sister threw me a surprise birthday party at a tailgater before a football game, and had lined up babysitting (my wonderful in-laws, who drove all the way up from Medford-- thank you guys!!) so I could actually go to a game!

For Russ's birthday I surprised him with a day off of work and a family trip to the zoo. Something we had been wanting to do for a while. 

Then we had a little party at our house. 

And of course there was some Beaver football involved. 

Russ has made it to every home game this fall. And Blake went to quite a few too. Both those boys love their football and their Beavers!

We've been teaching Blake's class at church which has been fun!

We had the Hulk and a Butterfly for Halloween

This little girl got a horrible virus.

 We ended up in the ER one night because she was just not acting normal at all and hadn't for days and I wasn't wanting to take any chances since she had been hospitalized for pneumonia and bronchiolitis last winter.

We were there for a few hours, they ran a gamut of tests and everything looked great so they sent us home and thankfully the next day she really started to improve.

We've been playing outside a lot since the rain hasn't really started yet. Have I mentioned how much we are loving our new neighborhood! 

Lily has really wanted to feed herself lately,

which is great, but it usually ends up like this...

And then straight to the bathtub she goes.

Well, that's what we've been up to in a nut shell (I'm sure there is lots I have forgotten). Hopefully I'll get better at staying on top of this blogging thing, and blog more then once a month! 

Hope you had a great fall!

Hello there

It's been a while. I feel like I'm so far behind on blogging. There's so many things I want to write and share about mostly because this is like my scrapbook of what's been going on in our lives, but for some reason it's been difficult to make the time to blog.

So here is a quick update/recap of what's been going on with us in 2013 thus far...

• Lily is healthy now! {I'm working on a post about her hospital stay, hopefully it'll be done soon}

• We've been working hard getting the house ready to be put up for sale and as of January 25th it's for sale! So far we have only had one showing but we are hopeful it will sell and thankful we aren't in any time crunch to have it sell. I'm hoping it doesn't take too long because it's a lot of work keeping a house picked up 24/7 with a 2.5 year-old that is continually making messes!

• Lily turned 4 months on the 24th {working on a post for that too}

• Blake is now {mostly} potty trained! On Saturday in early January we went to Portland and Aunt KK took him to change is diaper while we were in the Nike Employee store {the reason I mention this is because he would tell you about it... "I go potty in the Nike potty" is what he would say hahaha} and he went potty on the toilet for her there. That Monday I decide it was time to pull out the underwear and we haven't looked back since! I am shocked at how well he has done. He still has an occasional accident and wears diapers for nap and bedtime.

Those are some January highlights... here's to hoping I get better at keeping things up to date! {and a cute picture of Lil}

A little catch up: May in June

It's time for a little blog catch up. 

The month of May was supper busy and flew by way too fast and the month of June is shaping up to be the same way. {I can't believe we are already half way through June! Summer is flying by way too fast. Here's to hoping July and August slow down a bit!} 

I've {finally} managed to get our picture fiasco under control and have managed to make enough space on our computer to get all our pictures off the camera. So here's a bit of what the month of May looked like for us...

The beginning of May my sister and her two boys came out for a visit. We went to Medford for the weekend with them to see family.

 Story time with Uncle Russ

 Some coloring and stickers

 Bubbles

 Who would have thought we would have so many boys! 

Good thing there's a girl on the way :)

 Sisters and cousins

 The boys with Great-Grandma Dee and Great-Grandpa Lowell

 Being crazy

Some snuggle time with Granma Lori

We had a fun and busy weekend in Medford. The boys have so much fun playing together and it was hard to say good-bye.

The next weekend was Mother's Day. 

We had a low-key weekend and enjoyed a Mothers Day/going away BBQ for our friends The Arnolds. It was surprisingly warm that day!

Then Memorial Day Weekend we went to the beach, did a bunch of yard work, including planting a garden. But I'm going to save that for it's own post, so don't go too far.

Where did May go?

Are you sure it's June 1st already?! Some how the month of May managed to slip by so quickly! The weather has been nicer and the days have gotten longer which I guess has meant more time spent outside. I've been working on organizing our pictures {finally}. We have absolutely no room on our computer for any more pictures so I've been trying to put them on our external hard drive to make space for all the ones on currently on the camera {this somehow seems to be a recurring problem}. This picture fiasco would also contribute to lack of blogging, but I'm hopping to have a handle on all the pictures and be able to share some of them with you soon! So stay tuned!

PS... Blake turns 2 in a week!!!

Long plane ride, new baby and Washington DC!

{so this post ended up being supper long... probably the longest post I've ever made, sorry!}

I can't believe we've been back for almost 2 weeks and I am just now getting around to posting about our trip! So I'll get right to it! 

Our plane boarded at about lunch time on a Wednesday. Which was both good and bad, good because I figured B would hopefully nap {since it was a 3.5 hour flight!} but bad because I didn't want to have a hungry little guy on my hands. We had quite a bit of time to kill before we boarded the plane so I thought getting a bagel {which he loves} to eat would keep him occupied and fill his little tummy. {just a random side note... did you know that the Starbucks in the Portland airport does not have a toaster, I asked to have the bagel toasted and the gal said they didn't have a toaster and then I asked if I could at least have the bagel cut in half and she said they didn't have knifes either?! I thought this was a little ridiculous! Are they afraid some psycho is going to steal a knife and then hijack a plane?! I guess it could happen but, really?!}

Yay! We made it on the plane! Now to sit for 3 and half full hours!!!! I was a little anxious about this haha! But Blake surprised me and did an awesome job! He sat in my lap for the whole time!! He napped for about an hour but the rest of the time he watched some Melmo, {Elmo, thank goodness for the iPad!} colored, stuck stickers everywhere and visited with the nice older man sitting next to us. B did a great job, but I now have a new found respect for mothers who travel with little ones {like my sister!} it's not an easy job!

We had a 2 hour lay over in Chicago. He loved walking up and down the moving walk way things in the middle of the airport, we probably did that a hundred times between there and back!

We got into Reston about 10pm east coast time. Which only felt like 7pm to us.

We spent Thursday just relaxing around the house and letting the boys play.

Trouble One and Trouble Two! They had so much fun together!!

Friday I got the opportunity to do some site seeing. Reston is about 30min out side of Washington DC. My dad and Carlos played tour guide for me. It was so great to finally see some of our Nation's History!

Washington Monument

 World War II Memorial

At the World War II Memorial they have all the states etched into the stone. There is usually a fountain in the middle of it but it wasn't on when we were there.

 The Lincoln Memorial

This is where the Reflecting Pool usually is. I don't know if you can tell from this picture but it is under construction right now. They are lining the bottom with marble!

The Lincoln statue was HUGE! So neat to finally see! 

 Korean War Memorial

"FREEDOM IS NOT FREE"

So true. We saw the Marines from Quantico Marine Base touring and it made me realize what they are doing for our country. Our freedom is not free, so if you are someone reading this who has served our country, I thank you, you and your family for your sacrifice.

Vietnam Memorial

It was surreal to see all those names.

The White House

 Ford's Theater where President Lincoln was assassinated.

The house across the street form Ford's Theater where Lincoln died.

The room he died in {kind of weird to think about!}

 The Capitol

Apparently the day we were at the Capitol there was a suicide bomb attempt. Security seemed very present, armed men seemed everywhere but in light of today's world we just figured that's how it always was. Little did we know it was most likely that way because of a bomb threat!

 We had a beautiful day, a little on the cold side but it was nice and sunny! Between all that we saw we figured we walked about 6+ miles. Thank you Dad and Carlos for showing me around DC!

That evening we went to a mall. We took the boys to Build a Bear and they each got to make a bear.

B made a Black Bear named Re-re and T made a Brown Bear named Dude. They loved their bears!

On Saturday my Aunt Peggy {my mom's sister} and her two girls Kristen and Katie came to visit. They live in the Philadelphia area. We only see them about every other year so it was fun to see them on a year we wouldn't normally get to!

We also had to say good-bye to my dad on Saturday.

After they all headed home we headed to Georgetown!

Have you ever head of the TLC show DC Cupcakes? It's in Georgetown and yes, we waited in line for an hour just to try one {or 8} of their famous cup cakes! Which were pretty delicious!

 Georgetown University {from afar}

 The line went all the way up the street!

 Yummy cupcakes!

There were tons of fun restaurants all over Georgetown, but were did we end up, with two melting down toddlers who needed dinner that minute and not a minute later and a new born, who is probably the easiest baby I've ever met, yep, that's right we ended up at Qudoba. And you would think that that black stuff all over B's mouth would be from a chocolate cupcake which we had just purchased, but no its black beans, surprisingly his favorite! As I'm sure you guessed, we sadly did not spend much time at all in Georgetown. Oh, how life changes with kids! If I ever make it back I would love to spend more time there sans B!

By now I bet you are thinking, "wow they sure did a lot with having 2 toddlers and a newborn!" We did at first but then things slowed down, we all got a little worn down {if you can imagine that, ha!} and Michelle and I came down with colds. 

Now, finally onto the whole reason we went to Virginia... Baby Logan!

Isn't he so sweet!

Like I said earlier he is probably the easiest newborn I've ever met. He only really cried when he was having his diaper changed and he was fine with just chillin in his little bassinet thing or the swing. He was so sweet! It's amazing how quickly your forget how tiny they are.

B and his new cousin!

 Sunday morning we didn't get to church but B some how found T's little story bible and sat down with it and they both started looking through it. It was pretty funny and cute but lasted about 2 minutes {just long enough to get the picture}.

Monday we hung out around the house till after nap time and then we headed to an Outlet Mall. This outlet mall was HUGE. It had everything. There is shopping everywhere in that area! It kind of made me appreciate the simplicity of where we live, but don't get me wrong it would be nice to have more options other then Target, Old Navy and Ross!

The whole week we tried to get a picture of the boys sitting nicely next to each other. Here's what we got...

Michelle's expression in this one says it all!

 Crazy boys!

And finally a semi good one!

Tuesday was my mom's birthday! In the morning her and I took the boys down to the Town Center that is within walking distance from their house. We didn't last long since it was freezing cold!

And the boys just weren't having it.

That night we went out to dinner to celebrate my mom's birthday and opened her present and had a cupcake.

 Helping grandma open her present

Instead of happy birthday T says "Happy Cake to you!" it's pretty cute!

Wednesday came way too fast. Saying good-bye has not gotten easier over the last 4 almost 5 years since Michelle and Carlos made the move across the country. 

I was thankful to have my mom to help with the long trek back home. 

Blake did pretty well again. Thankfully he did this....

for the last 2 hours of our flight. After all it did feel like 9pm to him. 

It was a great trip! Thank you dad and mom for making it possible!

{and if you've made it all the way to the end, I'm impressed! and you probably want to do what B is doing in that last picture ha!}