Snow Cave!

Mike, Paige and Jonah, well, Mike really, built a snow cave in our backyard on Dec 23rd. It took a lot of work on Mike's part. He filled the wheelbarrow over and over with snow and being a freak like he is, he gathered the snow from many different places so that there were no spots of green grass poking out. Then, of course, he had to build it. Cool, huh?




Paige took this picture of Mike! I was inside with Jackers. Didn't she do a great job? My first pictures were ALL blurry! Maybe I should give her the camera more often!

Here Paige and Jonah are, so proud of the snow cave and so proud of their Daddy. They really believe their Daddy can do anything. I have to agree. He is pretty cool!

Christmas in Leavenworth!

This year we did something that we have never done before. We left home on Christmas Eve morning and went to Leavenworth for Christmas with a bunch of family and had a ball! Mike and I were laughing at the irony of leaving our house that had about 8 or so inches of snow on the ground in order to go to the snow in Leavenworth. Of course that was not the only reason for going, but still it seemed funny to us to leave our paradise (Remember, we LOVE the snow!).

Besides just visiting with our family, we really enjoyed doing things together. The talent show on Christmas night was a lot of fun! There was a lot of singing and a lot of singing and a lot of humor. The kids were cute singing "Away in a Manger," dressed as Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.

Away in a manger no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.....

Apparently Jesus woke up! First he woke up and then danced to the rest of the song.

Mike and Dale did a juggling act. This was hard to photograph. Those oranges, apples and lemons were flying everywhere!

Paige and Katie played the piano. Forever. I don't think they knew how to end their song, but the song had a good sound to it, very sweet.

Most of us went on a sleigh ride too. It was fun, cold, but fun! You can't see me in this picture. I am behind Mike's big head. Jonah is the one in the bright pink mittens. Paige has a purple hood on. You can kind of see Jack. Over all, this is really a good picture of our family. haha

Well, I guess this is out of order, but because I am trying to get this post done before nap time ends, I will just keep on sharing out of order. Paige and Jonah were so excited for Christmas this year. Jonah couldn't wait for Santa to come. For days, Jonah would tell us that he would close his eyes and go right to sleep on Christmas Eve so that Santa could come.
Paige was so pleased with her Nutcracker from Santa! She told me that that was her favorite part of Christmas.

Jonah, our funny boy, got a skunk from Santa! He loves the skunk, but he also got a shirt with a skunk on it that says, "Nothing but trouble" that he HAD to put on right away.


Paige and Jonah slept on an aerobed together every night, each in their own sleeping bags, but apparently they liked to share pillows. They were so exhausted each night. Usually all the kids go to bed at 7:30, but because I did not want to keep them silent from 6:30 until 8:30 or so, I put the kids down late around 9:00. It worked pretty well. I think the earliest we got up was 7:30.

I guess that's all I want to share right now! We really had a wonderful time with all of our family. Paige adored Katie and played with her constantly. Jonah LOVED all of the adults there, but especially my cousin's husband, Jon, and Jack was Jack, pretty easy going and cute most of the time. He spent quite a bit of time begging like a puppy to go outside when we were in the lodge. Mike enjoyed goofing around with Jon and Dale and sliding off the roof (That boy is crazy!). I was happy visiting with my cousins and everyone else and loved playing games (Yes, Jeri, if you read this, Spite and Malice is almost exactly like Skipbo! In Skipbo you go up to 12 and skipbo is the free card. Other than that, it is played the same. Mike and I have been playing it every night since we've been home!).

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! I was just informed yesterday that New Year's Eve is tonight! It just snuck up on me.... So, we have nothing planned. It's kind of scary. 2009. I can remember the party Mike and I went to in 1999 (Cuz tonight were gonna party like it's 1999....). Happy New Year!

Snow!!!

Our family loves the snow, especially the biggest kid of the house, Mike. On nights that it is supposed to snow during the night, Mike will wake up often and peek through the blinds just to see the white stuff (or not...). And I don't think Mike has ever called me so much from work, "What's the snow like? Are the roads covered? Should I come home"? I do think he is quite crazy that he LOVES to drive in the snow, but I am also quite lucky in that I never have to drive in the stuff with all those crazy drivers if I don't want to.

Anyways, I just wanted to share with you some SNOW pictures from this last week. We love playing outside in the snow and our yard is so perfect for it. Hopefully it snows lots more this year!

This is Mike teaching Paige how to be a wild one! Mike is lying on a saucer with Paige on his back. This seemed to be their favorite way to get down the hill.

This is Paige's 1st snow driving lesson.



Hi Jonah, I mean, raccoon! (That was his animal of the day.) Don't you love his snowsuit? It is a great hand-me-down from our family friends. Their little boy wore it too after his big sisters outgrew it. It really is super warm and cozy. Jonah never gets cold in it. We're glad he doesn't mind purple and flowery for now.



Jack wasn't so fond of the snow at first. He loved being in his swing watching others in the snow. In fact, I could not even put Jack on a sled until today and he LOVES it! I pulled him up and ran him down our hill over and over. Jack would laugh and yell "Mo mo mo"!

Awe! They are too cute!

Yep, it is indeed a camel ride!

Here's the last pic. My sweet Jack.

Yeah snow! Hope you all get to enjoy some snow soon too!

Ant-ARC-tica Ant-ARC-tica

You'd better wear your PARC-tica!
We have been repeating that phrase over and over in our house today! It is part of a poem in the book Antarctic Antics, a book we LOVE but we get from the library, and we don't remember all the words...
But guess what!? Our cruise is booked! We are going to Antarctica- and Argentina and Uraguay and the Falkland islands too, just to name a few. We are all so excited to go! Jonah, our animal lover cannot wait to see the penguins. He wants to go "today!" Paige is really excited about the swimming pools on the boat, as she is now a great swimmer and even jumps off the diving board! Mike and I are ready for adventure! Hoping little Jack is too!
Anyways, I just wanted to tell you all the news. We are excited about the cruise obviously and are also excited that my mom (Bubba/Nana) is coming along and our friends Zachariah and Fiona and their 2 year old twins are going too! Yeah!!!

It shouldn't have been so hard

Mountain biking is one of my favorite activities. I started riding when I lived on Tiger Mountain, and behind our house (literally four houses away from one trailhead) were some of the best trails in the area. Of course like everything in life, you don't enjoy something as much until it is gone. I really started riding more after my family moved from that house and I had to drive to the trailhead. But away, I have always enjoyed mountain biking.

Over the last ten years the majority of riding I have been doing has been on weekends with Bruce, a friend from work. He lives about a five minute bike ride away from another great trail system. Not as nice as Tiger Mountain, but more accessible year round, and still plenty of fun. This year we went for a ride on New Years Day and I came up with the idea that we should set a goal to ride at least one time per calendar month. We laughed about this because we tend to ride more than that, but never the less, we set the goal.

It turned out to be really difficult. When you combine travel, family activities, bad weather, etc. time can disappear really quick. Throughout the year there were months where we rode on the last weekend, even in bad weather, just to not lose the goal. At the end of March (note: only the third month of the year), when we still hadn't ridden, we considered counting February 29th, leap year day (and Bruce's B-Day) since it normally would have been March, but we didn't and went for a ride in the pouring rain instead. Another month, I actually arrived home from Brazil on a Sunday afternoon, came home only to change, grab my bike and go for a ride, because it was the last weekend of that month, and we still hadn't ridden yet. There were better months too though, were we rode three out of the four weekends, but still looking at the entire year it was not as easy as seamed when the goal was set.

Yesterday we went for our December ride. I yelled "woo-who" went we first hit the trail. We completed the goal. Twelve months, at least one ride per month. I am sure that this seems silly to some, but I felt really good about accomplishing this, not because it was a major milestone, but because it really wasn't that easy, and without the goal, I probably would have ridden a lot less this year.

Next year my goal is to summit Mount Rainier. That probably will not be easy either...

Rudolph Hunting

We began this almost nightly "hunt" a couple of years ago. Mike was in Brazil the first week or two of December and we needed something to fill in our evenings and something that was kind of special and different. Well, I took Paige and baby Jonah to a couple of nice neighborhoods and drove around admiring the lights with them. A while into our drive, Paige kept asking, "Where's Rudolph? Mommy, I want to see Rudolph!" I drove for over an hour that night, searching for that red-nosed reindeer without any luck. The next night, I had a brilliant idea. We would search for Rudolph in the mobile home parks by our house. Maybe they'd have old Rudolph decorations, not just those big air-filled snowmen or snowglobes. Well, it turned out that I was a genius. There were lots of Rudolphs there. There are also a few Rudolphs in at the houses in our area, but we have yet to see any in the higher-income (or is that higher-debt) houses.
So, almost every night between Thanksgiving and New Years for the last few years, we have driven around the neighborhood finding Rudolphs and each time we sing "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer". The most we ever saw in one night was 13. Last night we saw 5! For the beginning of Rudolph season that was a great number. And most of those were new Rudolphs! Hopefully more Rudolphs get put up today! And hopefully their owners will remember to turn them on. It only counts when you can see a red nose!

Day-after-Thanksgiving Tradition

Every day-after-Thanksgiving our family goes to Bellevue Square to have a holiday latte, hot chocolate for the kiddos, see Christmas decorations and shop the sales, although we don't usually buy much at all. I don't really know why this started, oh wait, maybe it was because Mike thinks crazy crowds are quite humorous. He used to go mall shopping on Christmas Eve every year. He never really needed anything, but laughed at other people who did. But since we had the kiddos, after-Thanksgiving craziness seems to be crazy enough.
Today, we had a great time. We found the dress that Paige will wear at Christmas on sale at the Gymboree so while Mike spent an hour in a line that wrapped around the store, the kiddos and I walked around looking at decorations, peeked at Santa (We didn't visit him because the kiddos will do that at the company Christmas party in a couple weeks- Free picture!), and spent a considerable amount of time in the Build-a-Bear Workshop. The kids love this store. Well, all except Jack, who was quite afraid of the stuffer machine. He also doesn't like to hold big stuffed animals or have them near him. My little chicken...
When Mike was finished paying, we watched a local ballet theatre perform parts of The Nutcracker in the center of the mall, while drinking our lattes and drinking and spilling our hot chocolates. Again, everyone was happy. The kids loved the music and dancing, but Jack did NOT like the Nutcracker mask. He didn't cry or anything. Actually, it was quite nice. He just snuggled close to me the whole time.

Jonah and Paige with the Cast of The Nutcracker

We walked through mall, looking in various stores, like Eddie Bauer and the Lego Store (Jonah did not want to leave this store!) and Jonah kept climbing trees. They have live trees in the mall and he couldn't really climb them because the branches were too high, but he did wrap his little legs around them and held on. He was pretending he was a panda all day. So, ofcourse he had claws to hold onto the tree and whenever he ate, it was bamboo, not rice and beans or cereal. Then I spotted an ear-piercing place. Mike and I have been talking to Paige for a while about piercing her ears. She was even going to go with her best friend Gabby awhile back, but it just didn't work out. I wasn't sure I wanted to pierce her ears anyway, but she sure did and Daddy was 100% behind her. So, my big girl looks even more like a big girl! sniff sniff

Here is Paige, so excited. She was not nervous or afraid one bit.


Ouch!!!!! You told me it wouldn't hurt Lady! The camera battery died here. She was smiling within seconds and couldn't stop smiling!

We had lunch at Taco Del Mar (one of the only places we feel we can take Jack without worrying about milk, cheese and butter being in everything). Paige smiled the whole time. She just felt beautiful. We'll have to get a shot of her with her earrings soon. She chose flower shaped birthstone (ruby for her) earrings. They do look really pretty in her cute little ears.

So, that was pretty much it. We bought very little and did not so much, but it took us more than 4 hours to do what we did!

Have a Happy Turkey Day!

The kiddos are downstairs having "Daddy time," which means I get a much needed breather, Mike gets abused, and I get to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving! I have been busy all day getting ready for Thanksgiving tomorrow. Of course with me, that means that I have been in the kitchen all day. I took little breaks to play with Paige, Jonah and Jack, but I spent most of my time hard at work, loving every minute of it.
Wow! It is really noisy downstairs right now. I wonder what kind of ride Mike is giving. Maybe a dinosaur ride, but he wasn't doing the normal "roar" it was more of a grunt. A wild pig ride? Last week, I walked downstairs during one of these unplanned Daddy times and Paige was sitting on top of Mike. Mike didn't seem to be moving. I just sat down and started talking to Mike. A couple of minutes later, Mike says to Paige, "All right, slug ride's over"! I laughed so hard. It was funny to me because I didn't even question why Paige was just sitting there on top of Mike and why he was just a lump on the floor and the fact that I didn't even notice them moving.
I hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving! Okay, I am needed. I am so thankful for my family.

I don't have anything exciting to post

Thought I would give an update though...
Jonah is obsessed with skunks (porcupines, turtles and possums are his other favorites. He spends many hours each day as one of these animals. When he is a skunk, he sticks his little tush out and "sprays" us. When he's a porcupine, he pokes us. And when he is a turtle, he is constantly saying, "Scare me"! He wants to be scared back into his "shell", which is usually his shirt, but sometimes is a towel or a blanket so we have to growl or bark or say "boo" many times a day.
Jack is now running! He loves rough play with Daddy, and unlike the other kids, he likes to take his daddy rides backwards without holding on. He loves climbing too. Paige and Jonah taught him yesterday how to put the little slide behind the couch, climb up it and then sit on the top of the couch. Little stinkers. They know they are not to climb onto the backs of the couches, but they thought it was fun to teach Jack how to...
Paige, our geocaching obsessed girl, is obsessed with finding treasure! So today, I made a map of our upstairs and we took turns hiding Baby Bop and marking and x on the map for the other person to find. This was fun. She read the map pretty well. It was definitely a challenge for her though. Paige also made pirate eye-patches out of black paper for her and her brothers (I helped with the string.).
I made a really good chicken barley soup last night. It tasted great and everyone ate it. Today at lunch, I noticed BUGS in my leftover soup! They must have been in the barley and we just didn't notice because of the lighting.... YUCK! And I was being so resourceful too. I made my own stock with our leftovers from our chicken the night before (something I've been doing for a while now) and made enough soup with it for dinner last night as well as five lunches for me. Now I have to throw them out. I know that the bugs probably wont hurt me, but I will not intentionally eat bugs. So, anyway, I'm a little bummed and really grossed out.
And Mike, he doesn't know he ate bugs for dinner last night since I haven't told him yet. He's at work, getting ready to go to Brazil next week. He's probably looking forward to pizza night tonight.

Our Girl

I thought I would share this conversation I overheard last night...
Paige: Daddy, are you staying home tomorrow?
Mike: Nope, I have to go to work.
Paige: But, when ARE you going to stay home?
Mike: Tomorrow will be Thursday and then there's Friday. 2 more days. Then, I will stay home on Saturday and Sunday.
Paige (very quickly): Then can we go geocaching?
Mike (with a goofy smile on his face): Of course we can!

Mike is so proud of his "Baby Girl." He loves that she enjoys something that he loves and loves that she just cannot get enough of it. Lots of exciting Daddy time! But, he is also impressed with the unsissyness of Paige. She'll hike for miles, doesn't mind the rain so much if she's got her raincoat, knows how to use the GPS and even wants to go geocaching again, after what happened last weekend (And if you haven't already, read the blog entry from Mike titled, "Another geocaching adventure." It is hilariously written and gives you a better picture of what their adventures are really like.). Last Sunday Mike ended up taking the two kiddos through a swampy marsh to get to the cache after hiking a couple of miles and a couple hours already... Paige and Jonah (Mike too for that matter) were SOAKED from head to toe after their adventure. Paige had fallen in the mud so she had that going too. When they came into the house, it instantly smelled like swamp, but there were so many smiles- from the excitement of the adventure, but also from the hot chocolates and donuts Daddy treated them to from Starbucks on the way home. Mike was giddy about their adventure, laughing while he told me whole story. It is so fun having a little princess who loves dancing and singing while wearing beautiful poofy and twirly dresses, but who is also at ease in nature covered in dirt and stink. I guess I'm proud of my little girl too.

Trick or Treat!

We had a fun and yummy Halloween! Since I am such a foodie, we began our day powered up on pumpkin oatmeal (I put a little pumpkin in regular oatmeal along with pumpkin pie spice and a little food coloring...). Yum! The kids and I did our normal chores and stuff, but we also made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies later in the morning. Lunch wasn't super special, besides having a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie, since I wanted to pump some good stuff into the kiddos. Jonah, Jack and I had leftover pumpkin soup from Thursday night, while Paige had apples and a peanut butter sandwich... Like you really are interested in everything we eat! Oh my! But, I do have to share our dinner! The kids and I made a jack-o-lantern pizza. Cute, huh? Jonah did the pepperoni circle while Paige designed the face complete with eyebrows.

No, I didn't get to eat this masterpiece. Jack didn't either. But we have found a frozen cheese-less (completely dairy and soy free) pizza that we LOVE (Thank you Annie's Organic!).

We had a nice Halloween evening. Grandma Tull came over, ate dinner with us and shared in our festivities. The kids are always excited to have company, especially one of their grandparents! After dinner, Grandma and Mike took the three kiddos trick-or-treating at two of our neighbors home. So, here you go... What you've been waiting for... Pictures of our trick-or-treaters! Oh, actually this is Paige's second costume of the night. I don't know why we don't have any pictures of her dressed as a ghost. Maybe because we couldn't even see her...

Jack as Harry Potter

Jonah as a Bat

Paige as Hermione

Grandma as a cat with our bat and Hermione. Jack wasn't really fond of Grandma's whiskers....if you're wondering why he's not in the picture. We should have dressed him up like a chicken!

Paige and I did a little more trick-or-treating while Jonah (and probably Daddy too...) ate candy and Daddy and Grandma (and probably Jonah too) answered the door to our lowest number of trick or treaters ever. I don't think we had more than 10! We are drowning in candy!!!

Another Boo!

We made haunted houses today! Actually, Paige made a haunted house and Jonah made the garden shed. I just thought these were so cute. Thank you Grandma Tull for the idea! It is so easy to make these with milk cartons and graham crackers (We used chocolate ones cuz I think they look spookier.)! We also liked our slime-green frosting. Just thought I would share... We had a great, really sweet time.

Pumpkin Farm Day!

Yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL fall day! Sunny, bright and quite cool. Oh, I love these crisp days! We drove to Enumclaw (which really isn't that far of a drive...It just sounds far, at least to me.) passing lots of beautiful fall colors on the way, to a new farm, Thommason Family Farm. This two year old farm is actually a working dairy farm for most of the year, but the cows are moved to a nearby farm just for the pumpkin harvest time for people like us who love coming to real farms.

We stayed for 4 hours enjoying the sights and activities. Of course, they had a pumpkin patch, but that didn't take up much of our time- maybe 5 minutes? We spent the bulk of our time in the "corn box," really a huge box made out of hay bails in a barn filled with grain (mostly corn). We loved going down the slide into the grain and jumping off of the hay bails. Mike and I had to keep our shoes on while we were in there. We didn't have socks on and the corn was absolutely FREEZING! We didn't mind dumping our shoes out. It amazed me that the kids didn't even mention the chill. Paige, as you see in the picture, even took her coat off. Although, Paige WAS a jumping maniac so that also meant that she had to climb a lot. Plus, walking through that stuff up to your knees is not easy!

There was also a barn filled with a miniature hay maze and a big pile of hay bales that had a slide at the top. Soooo fun! And in a corner of the barn there was an "all terrain tricycle track." We loved these John Deer tricycles! Jack loved chasing the kids on their tricycles. There were animals too.... A couple cows, a miniature horse, a pair of goats, a couple pigs, some kittens... This farm had everything! Plus, there was a huge play area called the "Kiddie Corral". They had a bubble station, a rubber duck racing station which Paige loved, a (not real, but really working) cow that you could milk (Of course this was popular with Jonah!), a large sandbox with lots of tractors and diggers... Also a hay ride and a little kiddie tractor pull. I think the kids rode in old plastic milk barrels. This video shows the kiddos on the tractor pull ride. I must have taken this video since it is sideways... Our regular camera is also our video camera and sometimes I just naturally turn the camera. Does anyone else do this? I think Mike thinks I am the biggest airhead (which I am NOT!) when I do this. Anyways, Jonah is in the back "car," and Paige and Jack are right in front of him.

Oh, we loved it!!! Oh, another thing, the cost of going to this farm is soooooo much cheaper than Remlinger. It was $6 for the kids, free for adults. We (Mike) spent a total of $30, including pumpkins. At Remlinger's, that would just be 2 admissions.
So you wanna see our jack-o-lanterns? This was our first year actually carving with kids. Mike did the carving with one of those cool pumpkin carving knives while I sorted the pumpkin seeds out of the pulp (So that I could roast them and then saute them in some oil and sugar and then burn them... :( ) Paige designed her own Jack-o-lantern this year with a marker. Jonah, who doesn't like to draw much, just asked for a bat. Cute, huh?

That's my bat! See my cute kitty!

I hope everyone else is having a happy fall too! We just love this time of year...the cool, sunny days, pumpkins (pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pancakes...), beautiful changing leaves, hot chocolate, hot cider, mmmmm..... and there is always the fun of Halloween!

Jonah's Imagination

Jonah has always been a creative, spunky kid. It seems like he is in his imaginary world more than when he is in reality. I often hear, "Mommy, no! Don't go in the water!" when I try to cross a room. Jonah will also try to get my attention and I will say, "Yes Jonah? What would you like to say"? and often I get reprimanded by him. "Mommy, I wasn't talking, the dinosaur was talking!" so then I have to say, "Yes Dinosaur? What would you like to say?" To get anywhere with Jonah is a challenge. Well, anything is a challenge with Jonah right now, but it is also pretty hilarious! We just have to be on "Jonah time" with plenty of patience and an imagination ourselves.

Jonah has never needed toys. Sure, he has a couple toy animals he likes, but he finds household objects more than satisfactory. Right now, he seems to be pretty obsessed with turtles (This started after Paige invented the "turtle ride") so Jonah likes to have a towel wrapped over his shoulders and tied on. The towel is his "shell" and he will spend hours as a turtle crawling a little here and there and then covering himself with his towel "shell". The other day Jonah was in the bathtub and quickly grabbed a towel. I shrieked, "Jonaaaah! Why did you put that towel in the tub?!" Of course, that was his turtle shell... Last week, I left a half cup of tea on the counter with the tea bag still in it. I don't remember what I was doing, probably reading or playing with Paige or Jack, but I looked over and there was Jonah with his hands in my tea. Again, I shrieked, "Jonaaaah! Please get your hands out of my tea!" Jonah just looked at me innocently, "But Mama, this is my possum (the teabag)." Jonah played with that teabag for a good half hour... I also remember when we were in Aruba last year, Jonah did not play with any real toys but a little digger and a shovel for the whole week. He did, however, "vroom" Silvio's candy bar all over the house (Jonah had no desire to open the candy bar. He just wanted to use it as a car. Crazy kid!). Poor Silvio had a pretty deformed candy bar to eat! Oh, there are too many stories...
Here are some of Jonah's other favorite "toys":
Tongs- He does like to use them to dish up food, but they are also crab pinchers and garbage grabbers.
Small old piece of cotton batting- This is Jonah's ghost.
Sticks- These can be anything to Jonah. They are snakes, swords, bats, spiders...
Rocks- These can be just rocks, but usually they are some kind of animal like a turtle, a bug, a bird, a skunk...
Boxes- Many a child's favorite toy, right? These can be a boat, an island, a nest, an airplane, a car.
Laundry baskets- These are usually nests or animal cages.
White plastic strip that I took off of a can of juice concentrate- He's playing with his "skunk" right now.

Wanna play?

Making Strides!

Jack (16 1/2 months now) is making so many strides lately! In the last couple of weeks he has become a full time walker! No more funny knee-walking! No more funny looks from people (at least about Jack's walking. We get funny looks for other things...). No more little soft leather shoes with holes in them... No more holes in every pair of pants he has (Well, almost every pair is worn through because Jack would "knee-walk" everywhere, even on concrete. Crazy baby.) I have to show you what his little shoes look like. They are now retired...Oh, I am sad. I really was hoping Jack would stay a baby forever.

Don't buy the Target Robeez/Bobux knock-offs! I know that Jack is/was tough on shoes, but these only have about 2 weeks of use behind them. The leather is not fully dyed and the paint on the giraffe and the brown of the shoe has just rubbed off. I am so glad that he didn't have these when he used to put shoes in his mouth!

Oh, poor firetruck Robeez! You are missing some wheels and rungs on your ladder! These shoes were worn a little by Jonah but Jack has worn them for months and months and they have been washed a number of times.

I will miss you puppy Bobux most of all! You are holey and stained, but still so cute. Jack wore these shoes, almost daily, for almost 6 months! I love all the Bobux shoes and LOVE that the designs are facing the right way for the babies.

Mike bought Jack his very first pair of walker shoes last Sunday, just like he has for the other kiddos when they started walking. It is always a big deal, becoming a real walker, but for Jack it has been even more exciting, I think because he waited for soooo long. He could walk and took his first steps a couple of months ago, but Jack is smart and cautious and doesn't seem to mind being a bit of a baby either. He walked when HE was ready. Paige kept saying, "Mom, I think Jack will be walking by Halloween, don't you"? I kept saying that I didn't know, but that I would think so. I asked her why this was so important and she replied, "So he can go trick-or-treating Mom"! (Like I was totally ignorant...)

Look at me go!

Like my new shoes?

This post wasn't just supposed to be about Jack's literal strides though. He has made strides in other areas as well. All of the sudden he is trying to talk much more. His words are not very clear, but I understand him when he asks for help (ahmp!) or to nurse (num!). He tries to repeat our words now when we say "Jack say it.". It helps that he has a little cheerleader (Paige, of course) with him most of the time. She is always so proud of his accomplishments.

The third stride is related to the water! I don't remember if I have posted about this or not, but Jack has been afraid of taking a bath for at least 5 months. Jonah was the same way at about 12 months old, so we just showered him with Mike on the weekends and then in a month or so he was taking baths like normal again. Well, like a lot of things, what worked for Jonah did not work for Jack! Every time I put Jack in the tub he would scream and jump out as fast as he could. I couldn't even get him to sit. He would hold himself so rigid! But, here's what changed all that. Jonah and Paige have been in swimming lessons at the Kinderswimmer (We love this place!), but Jonah was just getting tired of going to his lessons. He had lost interest and was just not trying anymore... Well, Jonah is three. He needed a break. Anyways, we had already paid for swim classes through the month for Jonah and Paige but I just couldn't imagine dragging Jonah to 5 more lessons. So, we decided to have Jack have lessons in Jonah's place! Jack had his 3rd lesson today (I go in with him.) and he LOVES it. The first day he was nervous and cried a bit, the second day he was just nervous a little, and today, he smiled and was so proud of himself. The best part? Jack now loves taking baths!!! He stayed in the tub for about 45 minutes today and 45 minutes Thursday and he didn't mind me washing his hair. Today he even practiced putting his eyes in the water all by himself! Oh, my big boy!

PS. Jack's eczema is greatly improved too. We have been off of dairy for a while now and last Monday we reintroduced it to see what would happen. Yikes! Poor baby had bad eczema on his cheek and chin and his poor little bottom was red... It is better now, but he still has little bits of eczema here and there. It has never been totally clear, but almost. I suspect he may react the same way with soy, so we'll experiment... Just wanted to let you know.

Another Geocaching Adventure

Well yesterday I wanted to give Julie a small break while Jack was taking a nap, so I took Paige and Jonah and we went to explore a park near our house. We are finding all sorts of small parks or wilderness areas we have never been to through Geocaching. It is really a lot of fun. I am into it, so is Paige. So anyway there were two in this park. The first was pretty easy to find. The GPS led us to a old mail truck in the middle of the woods. Why was there a old mail truck in the middle of the woods? How did it get there? Who knows, but it was kinda cool.



So anyway we found the cache pretty quickly. So then we headed on to find another that was (by GPS coordinates) not very far from where we were. This second one we had actually almost looked for a couple of weekends ago, but we couldn't find a way into the park from the other side closer to where the cache was hidden. From just off the road it looked like a pretty steep hill down, so we assumed the best way in was from the other side. So anyway, now we are coming from the other side so all is good, right? Not really...

We pretty quickly found a trail that looked like it would go down to the creek that runs through the park, which is where we needed to get, so we followed the trail. It was a little overgrown with sticker bushes and a little steep, but I figured it had to be the best way. No you may be wondering why I figure it had to be the best way. Basically, it was the first way I found, so that was good enough for me.

Anyway, so we started heading down and the trail became quickly denser and steeper. Oh yeah, it has been raining here now, summer is over... So Paige slipped first. Wasn't bad, she got right up, had one sticker stuck to her back, but she was a little scared. So I tried to hurry a little to get down to her. This is where I slipped. I went sliding right past her. Now she was really scared. Jonah meanwhile is up above both of us on the hill. So now I am about half way down (or at least I think) and the kids are above me. So first I get up, pull the sticker off me and hike back up to calm Paige. Then I go up a little further and get Jonah and carry him down over the spot where Paige and I slipped down to where Paige was. From this point on, I started carrying the kids down the hill. First Paige would go a little ways down, then I would go back up get Jonah and take him down past where Paige was, and then repeat. When we made it to the bottom we were all a little muddy and everyone had had multiple stickers pulled out of them. It was a great feeling. The best part was we now had a field of sticker bushes and nettles to cross to get to the creek. This is the part where common sense would tell you to turn around. Actually, that point probably should have come after Paige and I both slipped the first time. In either case, we didn't.
So we crossed the field of sticker bushes and nettles only to find out we were on the wrong side of the creek. At this point we are so into this adventure nothing can turn us back. So I cross the creek by myself just to see if it is safe. The water was about ankle deep. I crossed back over grabbed Paige and carried her over. When I turned around Jonah was already in. I ran back across to get him. I figure he was only in to his ankles so far, so I was okay, I just didn't want him to fall and get all wet. So I crossed again carrying Jonah and finally our search started. After about 15 minutes with no luck the kids were getting bored, plus Paige was constantly asking how we were getting back to the truck. She was really nervous of the possibility of going back the way we came, maybe she didn't like the sticker bushes tangled in her hair? At this point Paige pointed at another trail, this one was on the side of the creek we were on and looked nice; wide, no stickers and not so steep. Unfortunately it headed the wrong way. Paige talked me in to trying it anyway, so we walked up. When we got to the top it opened up and there was the road. Wow!!! Paige and Jonah were happy. This was the way we should have come in to find this cache; 2 of them in the park and both need to be accessed from different entrances, go figure. So back to the story, Paige really wanted to walk to the truck following the road, the only problem, the truck was about 3 miles away by road... So I convinced them to head back down and we would go back the way we came. I promised to carry them both all the way and make sure no one slipped, fell, or got stuck in sticker. Big promise, huh, since I really couldn't completely control this. So as the "Going on a Bear Hunt" story goes, we went back down the hill, across the creek, through the meadow of sticker and nettles, and up the steep hill. Me doing each of these three times because I couldn't carry them both at the same time. Here is a picture of the hill (our trail is on the left, hidden under the sticker bushes) and Paige and Jonah each waiting for me to return to get them at one point. No matter the situation, there is always time for a picture...




So when we finally all made it to the top the kids were happy again and Paige even said she had fun. Jonah wanted to be carried back to the car which was okay with me, because I couldn't get much dirtier at this point.

The final part of the story really came when I woke up this morning. My legs were still tingling from all the nettles. I don't think I have ever walked through so many...