Fourth of July in the "Barrio"

Growing up in a state that outlaws fireworks (other than the professional shows) has apparently left me a bit skittish when it comes to the fireworks. Unless they are shot up by someone who is paid a large sum of money to do so, they just make me very nervous (yes, even the sparklers, I'm lame like that). That's not to say that I think all states should ban all fireworks. Though when my neighbors,who I wouldn't even trust to light the candles on a cake, are in possession of fiery exploding things in very close proximity to my house and they continue to shoot them up until the wee hours of the morning and for days after the fact, I wonder if maybe a full-on ban isn't such a bad idea.

The view from the roof just amazes me. I just can't get over the fact that one can just buy these things. The ones that shoot up more than 10 feet are illegal within the city limits, but as you can see from the picture below, that stops no one.

Happy Ollie

Happiness is a ziploc baggie full of Kix

One Down, Lots to Go

Look! He lost a tooth!

Or as he puts it (when he sticks his tongue through the hole) he now has a pink tooth.
This really is a horrible picture, I think that as excited as he was that it came out, he was also incredibly traumatized by the whole thing.

Jonah Climbed a Really Tall Mountain

I've mentioned Jonah's penchant for rock climbing, but his most recent endeavor makes the previous ones look like nothing.

notice the cars in the background - he was high!

This is, I think, a pretty good indication of what the climb was like

With minimal assistance from Jordan, Jonah climbed 80 feet to the top of the above rock. Meanwhile, I stayed down with the other two kids and pretended that if I didn't look, it wasn't really happening. I hear he did a fabulous job, and was pretty much a natural.

*This is Bath Rock at City of Rocks National Preserve near Albion, ID, where we spent the past weekend at a family reunion.

Now He's Three

Jonah turned three years old last week. We had a birthday party with everything he wanted - watching a show, eating lunch, and playing. He picked a dinosaur theme for his party, so I added a 'digging for dinosaurs in the sandbox' game to the mix.

He has this same expression on his face for each present he opened. Though he really does like all his gift, he just doesn't show it when he opens them! He seemed to get more excited about being sung to than opening gifts!

He had a fun day with friends, playing with new toys, and cake. And, it was so nice to have all the birthday festivities done after just one day!

Jonah loves trains and dinosaurs. He says the craziest things, like when we were waiting to get some of Oliver's bloodwork done, he asked me what the x-ray room was for. I told him what an x-ray was and he responded that people don't have bones, only skeletons do. He loves to pretend. Currently he frequently pretends he's a chicken or a crab or a monster. He thinks that Oliver is cute and tells me all the time (sometimes he'll say "Oliver is so cute, just like me"). He likes playing with Skyler, but now that it's summertime, he sometimes just wants Skyler to go to school. Jonah is increasingly getting more and more interested in playing games on the computer.

Ollie's Outpatient Adventures

Two weeks ago, Oliver had an upper endoscopy with biopsies done in order to confirm or rule out a celiac diagnosis. It was a long afternoon since the procedure was delayed for nearly two hours! The waiting room was full of toys, but I'm pretty sure that all Oliver wanted was to eat. He also seemed to be pretty tired, and though there would have been nothing wrong with him taking a little nap, he wouldn't fall asleep.

The biopsies showed no signs of celiac. This is a good thing, but what they did find could prove to be even more challenging. He had a large amount of eosinophils in his esophagus, so he earned a diagnosis of eosinophilic esophagitis. It's a fairly uncommon and "new" disease, so it's hard to know how this will really affect his life and ours in the future. It is nice to have a confirmed diagnosis, however!

Jonah, King of the Rocks

On Memorial Day, we went hiking. . There were plenty of large rocks to climb and Jonah loved that. He managed to scale this one almost completely on his own.

Yet, he was still incredibly pleased with himself when he "climbed" the little ones.

At the end of the day, every rock he found he told me he'd climb on it and he wanted me to take his picture. So, I have a lot of pictures that look suspiciously like this.

Arizona!

I recently returned from a trip with the kids to Arizona. Can you believe I forgot my camera? I did take plenty of pictures with my mom's camera, but don't have them yet. That's okay, I'll make due with some pictures that I do have.

We were lucky enough to be able to spend lots of time with my brother and his family. My boys had so much fun with his girls and I was so impressed by the girls' abilities to remember their names! Skyler and Jonah tend to just call their cousins "cousin" or "girl" even when the cousins don't look alike. :) We went swimming and went to a splash park with them. The splash park did not have any standing water, like in this picture, but there were lots of spraying things like in this picture, and Oliver was wearing this same swim suit, so this picture totally works.

We went to a new aquarium. The sharks at our local aquarium could probably eat the sharks at this one in one bite. Okay maybe not, but I wasn't impressed by the size of any of the fish at this aquarium, though the aquarium as a whole wasn't bad at all.

I was able to go to my friend Jana's wedding reception. I was remembering after I left that she had caught the bouquet at my reception!

 I got to go visit with my friend Lisa. We did not spend our time selling overpriced bookbags at the Arizona book festival as this picture would have you believe. Instead, I got to hold her sweet newborn baby boy.

Oliver got sick towards the end of the trip. Though Jordan really wasn't there to do any comforting (and this picture is actually of Jonah), this is pretty much what Oliver did on my chest for one afternoon.

So there you have it. Our trip and completely unrelated, yet totally related pictures to go with it.

The End of the Year

Skyler wrapped up his first year of formal education last week. There was an end of the year performance/family pot-luck (aka graduation).

The kids all sang a song and then received a certificate from the teacher (who also announced what each child said they wanted to be when they grew up - I believe Skyler said a police officer).

On the last day of school, Skyler wanted to take a treat to his classmates. He insisted on something involving pretzels and peanut butter and made most of these little pretzel sandwiches himself.

I tried to get some pictures on the last day, but apparently the same little boy who insisted I carry him from his classroom to the car last month because it was too windy one day is now too cool for pictures at school.

It's been a wonderful year for him, he made lots of friends, learned a lot, and enjoyed going to school. Here's hoping first grade is just as good!

I Love This Picture

Even though it's totally staged (Jordan told the boys to point to the tent), I totally love it.

(from the Fathers and Sons' outing last month)

One

I've approached each of my kids' birthdays with different feelings - excited for the next stage, not wanting my baby to be that old, or in the case of Oliver, happy that the first year is over!

The last month has been a big one for Oliver. He mastered crawling. Though he can't pull himself to standing yet, he will stand next to something if you put him there. Skyler taught him how to roll a ball and that's now one of his most favorite things. He's starting to "talk" more, though he doesn't say any words, he lets us know how he feels. He loves hot dogs and can drink from a straw far better than he can from a sippy cup.

Here are some shots from his birthday parties. We had one with just us on his actual birthday and one two days later with some friends.

He Crawls

It's been almost a month since Oliver figured out the science behind crawling, but in the last week he seems to have fully discovered it's practicality and usefulness.

This skill seems to be tied right into the knowledge that he can pull things off shelves and just generally make a mess. I swear that two weeks ago I could sit him near the open game closet and he'd do nothing. Now, not so much.

A Week in the Life - Sunday

A Week in the Life - Saturday

This collage makes it look like Jordan wasn't around all day - and that's the truth! He was gone at the Scout yard sale until 4:30ish, and then we headed back out to drop off the kids at a friend's house so he and I could go out on a date.

A Week in The Life - Friday

A Week in the Life - Thursday

A Week in the Life - Wednesday

A Week in the Life - Tuesday

Notice the second picture on the bottom row - Jonah seriously was asleep under there!

A Week in the Life - Monday

This week I'm documenting our week through photos and words as seen here.

These are some of Monday's pictures

Easter A Month Late

On Easter Sunday, our church held its semi-annual General Conference, which means we did not attend traditional services and instead stayed home to watch the broadcast on then internet. Since we didn't dress up in our Easter Sunday best that day, I decided we could do it whenever we wanted to, you know once all the dress clothes for little boys were sufficiently clearance priced. I didn't want to skip it since we take an Easter picture each and every year and it's become a nice way to document our family's growth.

Ice Cream

We really need to go out for ice cream more often, but not so much more often that the whole thing looses its specialness.



I told them there might be a long line, so Skyler brought books for their waiting enjoyment (we were at BR for thirty-one cent scoop night and waited all of five minutes).

Skyler took charge of the camera for most of the evening.

Yay for yummy Daiquiri Ice dairy-free ice cream, too bad it was in a wheat-filled cone.

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