Hey Look! Pictures!

We had one last summer hurrah in Pagosa Springs, CO over Labor Day weekend. It was great and fun and wonderful. The boys spent lots of time playing in the river, we hiked up to two different waterfalls, and we hung out at the house watching movies.

Look at the camera, Jonah!

We discovered that Oliver really loves potato chips. And he loves throwing rocks into the water. And he doesn't like to sleep on a couch cushion in the closet. Remember how I said it was a great and fun and wonderful trip? Well, we forgot Ollie's pack n play, which really wasn't so great and fun and wonderful. The closet was large, so we put a couch cushion in there for him to sleep on. He wasn't amused. The first night he was up for three hours in the middle of the night, the second night was much better, but he did end up in our bed for an hour or so in the morning.






I didn't take swimsuits for the kids because I was under the impression that it would be really cold. The place we stayed at is Jordan's boss's house and his brother was there the week before we were and informed us (via Jordan's boss) that the morning temps were right around 40 degrees. Turns out there's just a thermometer that appeared to be permanently stuck at 40 degrees and it wasn't nearly that cold! The lack of swimsuits didn't deter the kids at all - we just switched them into dry clothes as soon as they were done playing.

Our young mountain climber extraordinaire (there's new pictures on that post, by the way) can most definitely climb, but apparently has much trouble balancing once he gets to the top. He took a little tumble and for a while I thought his rock climbing days were over, but later that day, he seemed to be brave again (which is good and bad!)

Ollie at 15 Months

Here's what the little guy is up to lately:

He loves to climb. He's pretty much part mountain goat.

He likes to push buttons on remote controls, the TV, the computer and phones. He especially loves playing with Jordan's iPod. He is always pulling something up to his ear as if it were a phone.

He doesn't walk on his own yet, but he will walk while pushing something.

He says "da" a whole lot more than he says "mom". He has started using the sign for "more" as a sign for "I want".

He can climb up and down the stairs.

He can eat pretty well with a spoon or a fork.

He likes to play with balls, cars, dinosaurs, and books

He has finally started to gain weight and at 15 months old, he was 19.5 lbs.

He likes to play peek-a-boo.

First Day of First Grade

Skyler started first grade last week.  He wasn't looking forward to it at all, after the first day he told me that he liked his teacher and he seemed happy with his classmates, but he still told me he didn't want to go back. There have been no fights in the mornings though, so I guess there wasn't too much truth to that statement. Today was day 4 and he finally said that he likes it. Hopefully he keeps liking it!

Here's the obligatory first day picture, even though he is not holding a cutesy sign stating that he is in first grade. I'm sure that makes me a horrible mom, or a least a bad historian.

Game Night

Skyler invented a game for us to play tonight. Normally this is quite troubling as his games usually involve really difficult rules that are only understood by him and therefore cater to him winning. Tonight's game was simple (other than the fact that we all had to use the same color lego as our playing piece - that way we wouldn't argue over what color we had) and mainly involved sharing either your favorite thing or the favorite thing of another family member depending on what space you landed on. We learned that Jonah's favorite things are the computer, playing, and eating (but only eating cheese sandwiches) and that Skyler thinks my favorite thing is doing the dishes. When asked "My Dad likes it when I" Jonah said, "watch shows on TV".

This Weekend

Once upon a time, I used to blog nearly everyday. Seriously, I did. This was back in the days of one child. This is not something I credit to the fact that I had more time on my hands two kids ago, but rather to the fact that everything Skyler did was new and wonderful and amazing. Now, nothing really seems all that new or exciting or amazing. Heck, my kids all look the same and wear all the same clothes so even some of the pictures don't even seem new. I like reading those old blog entries because even though it was all so normal and mundane at the time, it was a different normal and mundane than I experience now. Which means that all too soon we will be living an even different normal and mundane. When I think in those terms, it really makes me want to record a lot of the everyday things. All that said, here's a few things we did on the first full weekend in August, 2010.

On Friday night, we went swimming so Skyler and Jonah could show off their mad swimming skillz. Skyler went down the slide all by himself - hooray for him not being too scared! Jordan and I both proved to each other that we could pass the BSA swim test.

On Saturday, after grocery trips and chores, we dropped the kids off at friend's house so Jordan and I could go out on a date. We ran a few errands and then went to the zoo. It's amazing how much ground you can cover at the zoo with no kids in tow. Upon learning that was where we went, Jonah told us that the zoo isn't for dates, it's for moms and dads to take kids. Jordan's parents stopped by our house on their way through town and took us to dinner in honor of Jordan's birthday.

On Sunday Skyler decided he wanted to ride his bike with no training wheels, so Jordan took them off. After whining and crying over I'm not quite sure what, he calmed down and we drove over to a park so he could practice on some grass. He did such a good job, I'll admit it was much better than I thought he would do!

That was the weekend, now on to the last full week before school starts.

Swimming Lessons

On Friday, Skyler and Jonah finished up two weeks of swimming lessons. Skyler went from not wanting to put his head under the water to swimming on his own.

Jonah also was able to do a little bit of swimming on his own, but his biggest accomplishment was floating on his back, something he was very nervous about for awhile.

Jonah's teacher was a girl from our ward. A girl who he did not recognize unless she wore her hat! One day she didn't and I think he thought she was a different person. He said the swim teacher with a hat was nicer, so I'm glad she wore her hat every other day!

On both Fridays, the kids got to go down the water slide at the end of the lesson. Jonah was super excited about this. Well, they both were actually, but Skyler was also a bit scared. On Wednesday of the first week, he told me he wanted to go down the slide, so after his lesson was over we went over there. He decided he didn't want to do it. On Friday, he would only go if his teacher slid down with him on his lap. A week later, he went down all by himself and would swim over to the side after the teacher "caught" him. He wouldn't go down until he was sure she was ready for him though.

Jonah never needed a teacher to go down with him and he was even going down head first after awhile.

Skyler with his teacher Josh, who called him "homeboy". Skyler thought that was pretty cool.

Skyler Turned Six

Skyler turned six on the fifteenth. There were cupcakes and candles (with pink frosting, which seemed odd for a boy, but what do you do when he wants strawberry frosting?).

Candles that were very hard to blow out, apparently.

There were presents and legos and dollar bills and Toy Story things. He's not a terribly huge fan, but since that's the big movie of the moment, that's about all you can find at the toy store!

There were Fetch challenges at the birthday party. We made ice cream and musical instruments and aluminum foil boats and decoded invisible ink messages. But, what I will always remember about Skyler's sixth birthday party is that he was the only boy there! I guess that pink frosting was too terribly out of place in that case, then.

There was a birthday banner and lots of pictures of the birthday boy.

There was the all-important birthday meal - a hotdog at the bowling alley. Along with bowling itself.

Apparently He's Tired

Jonah came down from bed one night and promptly fell asleep on the stair.

That's nothing compared to this.

He fell asleep in the computer chair while playing computer games. Before I got the camera, he actually had his head rested right next to the keyboard.

It's nice to have a child that will actually just go to sleep when he's tired!

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)