Boo!

Look what "we" made today! I think they turned out pretty cute! If you cannot tell, they are marshmallow ghosts. Not all of our marshmallows turned out quite "right." Some were just blobs, and some were "dead" lying down ghosts. Can ghosts even be dead? I don't know.

I love cooking and baking so much! And I love getting the kiddos involved. With this recipe though, they were pretty much just marshmallow tasters, which they really loved. The recipe either required the hot stove or the kitchen-aid mixer or my hands the whole time. It wasn't very kid friendly I guess, but Paige and Jonah were very content and eerily quiet the whole time... I did hear some swallows, some licking...

Sometimes, I regret my decisions to bake or cook something in the middle of my mess. I did with these a little. The marshmallow goo was sooo sticky to pipe out. Well actually, the REALLY sticky part was putting the marshmallow goo into the bag. My hands.... eeewy but tasty! And the kiddos... They had to take a bath. And the kitchen needed a good scrubbing. I love MAKING messes, but I don't really like cleaning up. I guess that is normal, but we do make LOTS of messes here, always cooking, baking, crafting, painting... Especially Paige and I. It seems we are always in the kitchen for one reason or another, either making, eating or cleaning OR making, eating AND cleaning...Hey, I have to multitask here! But, I keep telling myself that my children are not going to remember or even care about having a super clean house but that they will remember learning how to cook, bake, do arts and crafts, and just enjoy life and they will remember the fun it was to make those messes. And they will remember that their mommy spent time with them more than the vacuum cleaner or sponge.

Anyway... I am hoping that some of these ghosts don't get eaten. I would love to have them around for decorations, at least for this Halloween. I think the ones in our Halloween tree are safe. If they get eaten though, we can just blame Jack, right? Anyways, Boo to you!

Turtle Rides

Paige (curled up on the floor): First I'LL be the turtle and YOU ride. Come on. Get on!
Jonah climbs right up: wibble wobble, wibble wobble!

The turtle rides were so cute this morning. They didn't go anywhere, as the turtle just "wibble wobbled" it's shell. I think this was the first time a turtle ride was performed here. Daddy does all sorts of rides- camel (or canamel), horsey, bull (complete with counting to 8), dinosaur, airplane... Thinking of you Daddy!

Sleepy Jack

Jack was acting tired at about 8 o'clock tonight, rubbing his eyes, getting a little fussy... I asked him if he wanted to "go night-night" and he nodded his head "yes" so I got his clean diaper and jammies on him pretty easily. I did have to chase him down to get his clean diaper on, but that is normal. He LOVES to be FREE and usually crawls as quickly as he can, laughing hysterically. He also knows not to go into Paige and Jonah's room so he heads there VERY quickly!
Well, the fun began at his bedtime nursing session. I got licked and "rasberried" and bopped on the head. Jack made monkey "ah ah ah" sounds and growling noises between swallows. I was told all about "Dada" and "Goo ga" (hmm... "google"?) and myself (Mama of course!). It was really cute when he said, "Nana". He had never said it before. I think he wasn't intending to say Nana really, but when I talked to him about what he said, he was so excited and kept pointing up and seemed pretty proud of himself (Nana ALWAYS picks Jack up and takes him to things that are up. Jack LOVES this!).
I kept trying to keep Jack calm. Remember, it was bedtime. I would say "It's time to go to sleep." and "Would you like me to put you in your bed"? When I said this, he would say "uh-uh!" while shaking his head and then snuggle in tight and act sleepy for a minute before starting to play again. I think this was just his time to think up new activities, like "peekaboo" and plugging his nose to make funny sounds... He was soooo cute. It was hard, but I kept looking away so that he would stop trying to engage with me.
Eventually, Jack did fall asleep in my arms. I wanted to take a picture of my sweet Jack sleeping after our 1 1/2 hours of bedtime fun, but I'm afraid he will wake up...

A Confession...

I ATE IT. The chocolate sorbet that I made for my nighttime treat is all gone... The stuff is just soooooooo good that I just kept craving it all day. At first it was pretty innocent. I went to the freezer with a spoon and took little bites of chocolate bliss here and there... No one seemed to notice my chocolate breath. Amazing, since Paige is like one of those police sniffer dogs... "Mom, watcha eating? Can I have some of what you have Mom? I smell chocolate. Can I have some? Please?!" Anyway, Paige and Jonah went downstairs to watch a little Thomas the Tank Engine movie and I seized the opportunity. I ate it. Way too much. Oooh, but it was good! I was a little worried that I would lose weight on this non dairy diet. Not so worried anymore- at least I am not worried about LOSING weight.

Jack and the BEAN stalk (or stock...)

So last night, we had African Peanut Soup. It is one of our favorite recipes and Jack liked it too! This is a big deal because Jack, at 15 1/2 months, still doesn't usually seem interested in food. But, he ate lots of kinda spicy African Peanut Soup. Well, tonight I made a spicy Black Bean Soup. Jack LOVED it! I had to give him a second helping! It was so cute watching him actually eat. He even fed himself with his spoon- a first for him! Notice that we do not have a bib on Jack. In the past (before today or maybe yesterday) we haven't had to put bibs on him. He just didn't really eat anything... Maybe a bite or two of yogurt (which he no longer eats since we have given up dairy) or a couple corn kernels, a few black beans, but nothing that required a protective layer. We will have to get into a new habit. I THINK I know where the bibs are...?


I wonder if he will be like Jonah. Jonah didn't really eat food until he had his first Chicken Enchilada. We have called Jonah our "little south of the border boy." There was a lot of talk about him being related to our pool boy :) Lucky for me, Jonah looks exactly like his daddy! Jonah LOVES eating jalapenos out of the jar and eats salsa with a spoon. We went to Torero's for my sister's birthday in May. Right in front of Jonah was a bowl of their spicy salsa with a spoon in it. No surprise, Jonah ate the entire bowl of salsa on his own, intermittently reaching into his water glass for an ice cube to chew.
I am so happy that Jack is now eating- and eating healthful and flavorful food at that! Yeah Jack!!!

Fun Day!

The five of us went to Nolte State Park in Black Diamond on Saturday. Our friend Colin was competing in a half-iron man (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, 13.1 mile run)there and we came to cheer him on. He got 3rd place in his division. Yeah Colin! We only got to cheer for him a couple of times, but while we waited to cheer (with homemade signs of course!), we had a ball!
As some of you know, we have caught the geocaching bug! Mike now looks online to see if there are geocaches wherever we go. There was one geocache located in Nolte State Park so we had to go! Paige is all about going treasure hunting now. So we took Steph (our friend and Colin's wife) on her first geocaching adventure! It was a short walk through the woods from where we cheered for Colin (the transition area). I found it almost too quickly. So much for the adventure part, but it was still fun!

After we found the geocache, we headed back to the spectator area where Paige and Jonah swam in the lake and Jack slept in the Ergo (This really is the best piece of baby equipment we own! I cannot say enough good things about our Ergo.). I did not even consider that swimming would be a possibility so we didn't have swimsuits. I did have an extra outfit for Jonah though since he is not afraid of getting messy and is often too busy to find a toilet... So I stripped Jonah down to his undies and put Jonah's already pretty messy clothes on our modest Paige. The kiddos were so happy to be in the lake. They had fun splashing and swimming and finding fish!
Colin finished soon after the water play. Paige and Jonah went on a warm-down run with Colin while Jack played in a drinking fountain puddle. Fun for all! Well, I don't know how FUN it was for Colin...

Closing the Gap!

I took Jack in for his 15 month well-child exam today. It was not fun... Since we are trying to figure out Jack's possible allergies (allergies are an immune system issue) I did NOT want to do any immunizations on him today and the doc kept pushing for them, especially the chickenpox vaccine for some reason, and she kept advising me to use a potent steroid cream on his eczema (which seems to be getting a little better). Aaaah!
The only thing I found amusing is that Jack is now 24.9 lbs! Jonah is holding steady at 29 lbs (at 3 1/2!). I need to get a picture of just the 2 of them... I'll add it later.

Geocaching - Treasure Hunting

Today we decided to do something different. Well different for us. We went Geocaching!!!

It all started on my birthday really, late June, when Bubba (Julie's mom) gave me a GPS. Mainly she was worried I would get lost in the woods on a hike I was planning, with Zac and his cousins Ben and Greg. We didn't get lost. In fact, because of late snow this season we ended up hiking down the Olympic coastline and had basically no need for a GPS. But I am still really glad to have it. It was on the list of "toys" to have for a while.

Anyway, so today we decided to try geocaching. Geocaching is basically treasure hunting using a GPS to get you really close. There is a whole online community of people who hide objects in a small box (from magnet key holder to bread box size) somewhere, anywhere really, and log on the web the GPS coordinates. When you find the box, it normally contains a registry and sometimes some little trinkets. You can take a trinket and put another of your own back in for someone else. Then log on the website http://www.geocaching.com/ that you found it. Additionally, in some boxes there are trackable objects, so when you find this you can also see online the history of where it has been, and a lot of them have a goal location, more about that in a little bit.

Wow, enough explaining about Geocaching, let me tell you about our adventure. We set out with the locations of 4 Geo caches in my GPS. All 4 were in parks close to our house. We decided to start out easy since we didn't know what to expect and the kids were hopeful to help. All morning while we were waiting for Jack to wake up from his nap, Paige and Jonah kept talking about going treasure hunting. They were excited, they were digging holes and burying shiny rocks in the back yard, to find later, while they waited. It was cute.

So once we finally got going we went and started looking for our first cache in OUR neighborhood park. I couldn't believe there was one hidden there. All the times we are up there, you just don't think something could purposefully be hidden there. Anyway, I really thought this was going to be easy. I had my GPS; I had the coordinates; we would just walk right to it, bend over and pick it up. Wrong. The GPS is only accurate to about +/- 9 feet. Still very accurate, but when you think the person putting it there also was only this accurate, at best, you can be searching around in the woods for a while looking. This is especially true, given they don't want anyone to just see it sitting there, so it is hidden a little. Luckily for there are also clues on the website, so we knew it was at the base of a tree. So there we are in the woods off the edge of the park looking around the base of about 30 trees. First Julie tripped and fell while carrying Jack, really nice save!!!, then Jonah fell down and scratched his eye, then Paige (who was still wearing her church dress) got stuck in a sticker bush. Nothing bad happened to me, except I couldn't find the cache. Finally, we decided to give up (about 20 minutes later, which is a long time with 3 kids). Just as we were walking out of the woods, I saw the little box under a few sticks at the base of a tree. If you didn't look right at it, you never would have seen it. Jonah picked it up.

In it was a logbook, some dice, a rubber ball, a soft turtle key chain, and a hedge hog toy. Paige took the turtle and Jonah took the hedge hog. We left some $1 Aruba coins.

After this we took the kids for a special treat. They have been listening to Socks by Beverly Clearly in the car and Slurpee's are mentioned. They didn't know what Slurpee's were and so we decided we would let them find out... They loved them of course. But what isn't there to love about a Slurpee, it's frozen, it's full of sugar, and you suck it through a straw. Jack really liked it...

After finishing our Slurpee's (less than 5 minutes...) we headed to Coulon Park in Renton to look for 2 more caches. We found both of these very quickly, as they were right on the side of the walking trail, but nevertheless they were fun to find. Both only had a logbook in them as they were both magnetic key holders. Again crazy to think about how many times we have walked right by these and never thought "hey, maybe there's a treasure under that lamppost."

Since these were quick to find, we still had time to go and look for the last one I put in my GPS. It was at another park in the area. When we got there, Jonah and Jack saw the play structure and were done treasure hunting. Paige really wanted to find another though, so we headed off. This time I knew to really look around, so when we got close Paige and I heading into the bushes again, with me pulling the sticker bushes out of her way. She was determined to find this one!!! After about 10 minutes though she didn't want to be in the woods anymore and decided to pick blackberries (ant eat them of course) while I searched. Finally, I saw what I thought was the cache in a hole under a the base of a fallen tree, I called to Paige and she came running to look.



Coincidentally, this was only about 5 feet off the trail and you didn't need to go into bushes to find it... We found a Geo coin in the cache. As a mentioned briefly above, some items are trackable. A Geo coin is one of them. This one is a Mother's Day coin, and the owner wants it to travel all over the US and come back to Montana by Mother's Day 2010. We went online when we got home to log having this and saw instantly that it started in Montana, moved into Idaho, and then it has been all over Washington state. Now, we need to put it somewhere. Next weekend, Colin is competing in a half-Ironman in Black Diamond, so maybe we will have to go Geocaching there.

Finally, we went out for dinner to finish off our day.

The best part of the whole day for me was when Julie asked Paige what her favorite part of the day was. Typically, food is involved in the answer, especially when you get a treat and go out for dinner. But not today. Paige answered "Going treasure hunting."

Trauma for Mama!

Well, Jack has had eczema for most of his 15 months of life. We tried many different lotions, tried having him take codliver oil (which tasted like lemon but made our cloth diapers and everything they touch smell like fish- yuck!!!), and I even have resorted to hydrocortizone cream which I really really hate puting on my baby! But I could never really get rid of the rough red patches that Jack would inevitably start scratching. So, I have started thinking that Jack must have an allergy so I took him into the naturopathic doctor today and he said that eczema is caused by an allergy 85% of the time and that the biggest offender is dairy. So, Jack and I have to GIVE UP DAIRY for atleast 3 weeks (if this doesn't clear up the eczema then we have to try eggs next). No biggie for Jack since he has never eaten more than 2 tablespoons of table food in a day, but for me this will be challenging. I do love healthy food. I enjoy my salads, vegetables and fruit, but I LOVE icecream, cheese, yogurt, vanilla lattes and butter on banana bread...All of my comfort foods are gone. I will do anything for my babies though. If you have any favorite non-dairy food (no whey, casien, casinate either- they are dairy), especially yogurt or icecream, let me know! Jack still breastfeeds so much and I really need those calories to keep me going!

Today was the first day of school...

The school bus drove past our house this morning. I cannot tell you all how happy and comfortable I am not puting Paige on that bus! I am not one of those sad, crying moms on the first day of school but instead a happy mom who gets to enjoy her sweet, smart, funny, curious and creative girl at home. If you didn't know, we have decided to homeschool the children- to be more exact- we decided to "unschool" them. We don't have a curriculum and don't sit down every day at particular times and play school. We learn all the time, following the interests of our children. Today Paige wrote a list of fruits that she wanted from the market, shopped and found the best prices, made up a dance with her own funny music, crafted with paper, crayons and scissors and is now quietly watching, "Charlotte's Web." Later on, after Jack wakes up from his nap, I am sure we will all go outside and enjoy the beautiful September afternoon sunshine. This is the life!

Bellingham!

Sunday morning we packed the car and headed North to Bellingham to see our good friends Colin and Stephanie. They just moved from beautiful Vermont, where we went to see them last October. Bellingham is just as beautiful, just different. Instead of the fall leaves, we got to walk down to the ocean and could even see the water from their home. We loved it there! Stephanie is a mathematics professor now at Western Washington University. Colin will also be teaching math, but his main focus right now is training for ironman triathlons- 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of bike riding, followed by a 26.2 mile run. Wow!

On the way to Bellingham, we stopped in Everett, where I lived until I was almost 8, and played at my favorite childhood park, Forest Park. It has changed a lot. It has so many more really cool toys like the digger that Jonah loved and it even has a spray park that kids can run through and scream in when it gets too hot. My favorite slide was gone though. It was really tall with just a ladder up to it- probably very dangerous, but I loved it! The merry-go-round is still there though! Yeah for danger! We do not see merry-go-rounds being put in any more. I don't think the parks departments or cities could get a permit for those anymore. Too many sue-happy people I guess. We did see a lot of almost bad accidents when we were there Sunday... The kids loved it though! And so did I! Oh ya, we met my friend Melinda and her children too at Forest Park. They recently moved from here to Mukilteo. Forest Park was a great meeting place, just 20 minutes drive for them. Paige loves her friend Benjamin so much and they played so happily for an hour or so, before we decided that we were hungry and needed to go for lunch.



Bellingham! So beautiful! I think I want to move there. I love the old beautiful houses and I love being by the water... And it just feels so safe. But, Mike has to have a job, so this probably wont happen. Not a lot of jobs out that way for an engineer like Mike. Maybe when he retires?

We had a wonderful, probably mile-long, walk down to the water. Mike and Colin skipped rocks, Paige and Jonah waded in the water, Jack looked at rocks ("da-a da-a"). Mike and Jonah-Monkey climbed some rocks up to the railroad tracks and then Paige wanted to do this too with Stephanie. We hung out for a while and then headed back up the hill to Colin and Steph's house where we visited and played with all of their stuffed animals and things. Colin went for a run and then we all went to dinner. It was so nice! We could walk there! There we lots of restaurants within walking distance. We ended up with Italian. It was good- and plentiful! We hope you enjoyed Paige's left-over pizza, Stephanie!






By the time we got back from the restaurant, it was 8:30 (LATE for our kids, who usually go to bed at 7:30). We said our good-byes and went to find our hotel. We all went right to bed.

The next morning, Monday, we got to enjoy the hotel pool! Paige amazed us by swimming and swimming! She repeatedly just swam across the pool by herself, using the skills she has learned at Kinderswimmer classes "one arm, two arm, three arm, side breath!". Mike was overjoyed to have his little girl loving the water! He is a fish himself. He swam, did tricks for the kids, like handstands and somersaults. The kids loved going for "baby turtle rides" on him and even loved being thrown up in the air and caught by Daddy. Jonah, was a little more timid. He loves the water too, but doesn't think he can swim outside of his classes yet- in time... And Jack, well, he HATED the water! It is just his age. Jonah was like that at his age too.






After swimming, we did some exploring. We stopped by a park on the water, where it was really really windy and then drove Chuckanut Drive back to the freeway. That was a beautiful drive. Lots of beautiful views of the water, islands, trees, beautiful homes and then farmlands. We are hoping to come back there again soon! None of us minded the drive (Well, Jack did get a little irritable on the way back...) and we really want to head up to Birch Bay, 20 miles north of Bellingham.

Okay, you are all probably a little tired of my blabbing by now and I just don't have time to write any more right now. I need to go make a grocery list. We have no food...