Family of Five News

Peter Pan

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:19:00 +0000

Yesterday, we had a bunch of feathers out (The kids were making these cute little turkeys.) and they (the feathers) caught Paige's imagination. She decided that a red feather looked like it belonged on Peter Pan's hat. She went to her room with the feather and in about 5 minutes came out with a colored, stapled and taped hat, followed by a sword and shield and ship. I don't have a picture of it, but she even made a flag to go on their ship. Jonah LOVED being Peter Pan and even insisted upon wearing his hat to QFC (where he got lots of compliments).

I love it when our children play like this. Happy, creative and together. I know I have said this before, but I am so thankful that we are all able to stay home and learn and have fun together. I can't imagine us missing out on all of this!

Weird tasting oranges

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:54:00 +0000

My mom said that she was tired of looking at the mummy dogs... Here is some new material!

Peeling Oranges from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:42:00 +0000

Happy Halloween!!!

We had a fun Halloween! We started the day trick-or-treating at Bubba's and Aunt Barbs before lunch, and then ate all the candy for lunch. I tried to get everyone to eat apples and baby carrots, but my efforts were mostly in vain. In the early afternoon Grandma came over while we were carving pumpkins and brought more candy for the kids. Then in the late afternoon, we went to a nearby park and did a little Geocaching to burn off some energy. When we got home, I made a special Halloween dinner; mummy dogs with monster blood to dip in, goblin fingers, and pumpkin pie milkshakes. It was mummy...

The pumpkin pie milkshakes were really good.

Here are the kiddos in their costumes. Jonah is a lion and Paige and Jack are both butterflies. Jack was supposed to be a clown, but he doesn't "yike" the clown costume (at least he doesn't like it today). He wanted to be a butterfly "yike Gigi." So Jack, if you are reading this as an older boy, just know that we did not make you wear a butterfly costume. You chose it!

And here are Mike and I in our costumes! Mike is a clown (wearing the wig and nose from Jack's costume) and I am a fairy godmother (Thanks Bubba for letting me borrow the costume!). It is so nice having a child who is old enough to take a decent picture!

Our Jack-o-lanterns!

We have very special Jack-o-lanterns this year because we grew the pumpkins! We only ended up with 3 good pumpkins after those silly deer and other animals who like to poop in our yard trampled and ate the rest... 3 is enough though!

Here is "Jonah's pumpkin." He helped Mike design the bat. He didn't like Mike's first drawing of a bat and said, "No Daddy! That's not how you draw a bat. It's like this"! He drew a picture and Mike recreated it on the pumpkin. It looks cool with the moon behind it.

Paige wanted a more "traditional" jack-o-lantern.

Here it is!

And this is "Jack's pumpkin." I designed it to look like a clown. You know, because he was supposed to be a clown. Mike did all of the carving though! You cannot see very well from this picture, but this pumpkin had a very curvy shape- a lot actually like Butter the peanut.

So, that was Halloween! I hope you all had a fun day too!

Butter

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 05:03:00 +0000

This is Butter.

Butter is a stuffed peanut that Uncle Jason and his fiance, Michelle, got for Jack when they visited New York in July. His tummy says, "I went NUTS in New York". When Jack received Butter, we told him it was a peanut and he naturally thought of peanut butter which he simply called "butter". So, Jack started calling the stuffed peanut "Butter" and the name stuck.

Jack LOVES Butter. He sleeps with him at his naptimes and bedtimes. Of course, Butter accompanied him to South America!

Here are Jack and Butter sleeping on the overnight flight on the way to Brazil.

And here Jack and Butter taking a snooze on the way back home.

Butter doesn't need a lot of sleep, but he lets Jack snuggle him all night long. And he does this with a smile on his face. What a sweet peanut!

And this is Jack sleeping in his BIG BOY BED with Butter! Jack and Butter have been sleeping on the bottom bunk since last Saturday (and they've slept through the night for the last 5 nights! A miracle! Jack has now slept through the night 7 nights in his life! Woohoo!)

Goodnight Butter!

Brasil!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:45:00 +0000

Finally! The kids and I got to go to Brazil with Mike! Mike has been working in a small city, Lins, about 5 hours out of Sao Paulo, for almost 7 years now. He has estimated that he has been in Brazil for over 300 days total. We kinda felt left out... I mean, he has a whole other family there! Just kidding. Still, I wanted to see what it was like and meet his friends from Brazil and see the cruddy little hotel room he always stayed in...
The first week of our trip, Mike worked in Lins while the kids and I vacationed at the nice Blue Tree Resort he stays at when he's there. They have a wonderful breakfast, the rooms are very clean and spacious and everyone was helpful and kind even when I mimed what we needed. Nao falo Portugues...
We loved the pool! Actually, there are multiple pools, all connected, that all start out at a hot spring. The water was warm, just perfect for the kids. There were waterfalls, slides, and kiddy spray toys... So fun! Here is small section of the pool. This is the "big kid" end of the kiddie pool. The other side has spray toys and lots of shallow water for the kids to run around in, jump into or practice swimming.

Jonah finally got up the nerve to do the "froggie slide"! Jack actually did this one too a couple of times but would NOT go down the alligator slide because of those scary teeth.

Paige LOVED the curly slide. Mike taught her how to go down on her tummy, face first. She was quite proud of this ability!

Jonah learned to swim without his floaties, although he still likes to wear them for security sometimes. Here is a little video where Jonah is swimming!

Swimming! from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Here the boys are, trying their first "coco." I think all you do is drill a hole in a coconut and stick in a straw and drink. We ordered ours at the pool bar and I didn't see how the hole was made. Jonah LOVED it. Mike and I hardly got any at all. Paigey didn't care. It was not her thing...

In the evenings, we went out with Mike's work friends. I don't have pictures of Silvio and Louise here (even though they are the reason the kids and I came to Brazil! You will see pictures of their wedding soon!).

Here is Alexandre, along with buddy Jonah at the Choppao. We went to the Choppao at least 3 times while we were in Lins. There are 2 restaurants to go to for dinner; The Choppao and the pizza place. We went to the pizza place once.

This picture was taken outside a churrascaria, a traditional Brazilian barbecue place. When we drove in for lunch, Jack saw the horse statue. During the whole meal, all I heard was "Jack on horse. Get on horse. Want to ride da horse". When we finally finished and walked over to the horse, Jack freaked. "No ride da horse. No on! No! No"!

Here is Karina, showing the kiddos a video of her dog that she had on her phone. This picture doesn't show it well, but you know Super Nanny? She looks just like her. And she was really good with the kids too!

Paige, Jonah and Jack all got to try on Alexandre's motorcycle helmet. Paige and Jonah were all smiles, but to Jack this was serious. The boy loves his "Jack-dos" (that is what he calls motorcycles).
After a week of Lins, we headed to Sao Paulo for Silvio and Louise's wedding! So fun!

This is obviously Silvio and Louise getting married. I liked the colorful church! I could say that the ceremony was nice, but I really don't know. I didn't understand much of it! And then I missed the ending when Jack decided it was time to poo in his underwear. Nice.

The reception was a great big loud party. Everybody dances. Not just those few brave ones or those in the wedding party... And they dance all night long while holding a drink in their hand. I don't know how they do this. I am not coordinated enough to even hold a cup in my hand while dancing, let alone drink something out of it that impairs my coordination.

Here is Jonah hugging Talita, another work friend of Mike's.
Louise and our slightly bashful Paige. I don't think there are any shy Brazilians...

A couple hours into the party, costume stuff was passed around. Mike saw this at the other Brazilian wedding he had been to, so we're assuming it is pretty traditional.

Some party entertainment... There was real entertainment (two samba drum bands competed , and the constant dancing and music), but this entertained me as well. Jack loved these votives that were on the coffee table next to the dance floor. After he blew them out the first time, one of the men (who you'll see in the video) would have Jack bring him the candles and he would light them again. There was a lot of lighting. Jack would blow out those candles so quickly! But then I recorded him and he seemed to have a little trouble... Note the drool on the table.

Blowing Out A Candle from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Here is Jonah and Pedro Monte, a guy who used to work with Mike. Fun guy.

Silvio and Louise. Note drinks in hands.

More entertainment. Watch Jonah's eyes!

Light Glasses from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Mike with Silvio. Even though Silvio lives in Brazil, he is one of Mike's closest friends. It was really important for Mike to have us all go to Silvio and Louise's wedding. And they were so happy that Mike and the kids and I could be there for thier special day. We were so happy to be there! I was so afraid of feeling like a fifth wheel here, not knowing many people and not being able to speak Portugese, but I felt more than welcomed. People were so friendly!

We left the party early at about 1 am. In Brazil, the reception lasts all night. Sometimes they even serve breakfast to those who are still there in the morning.

Here are our party animals the morning after...

The morning after the reception, we drove about 6 hours to Ubatuba, a beautiful city on the coast, with the rainforest nestled right up to it. When we got there, we were welcomed in Ubatuba style- with rain. The nickname the Brazilian's have given Ubatuba is "Ubachuva". "Chuva" means rain. We had some beautiful days there though. I think it was just the 1st afternoon/evening and the last full day and the morning we left that the rain was dumping down. Seriously dumping.

We got to do a little hike in the Alantic rainforest!

I know this picture is blurry, but it's all we have of our littlest hiker on this day. He LOVED this hike!

We loved all of the different shades of green and just the lushness of the rainforest. So beautiful.

And we loved "our" beach, the one right outside the hotel. The waves were very calm and the water was shallow for quite a ways. Paige was always getting Mike to take her way out into deeper water and Jack was so happy to play in the shallow water. Jonah, as usual, played mostly in the sand, digging, scraping, mounding, building...that's Jonah!

This is a video of our family on the road out of our hotel in Ubatuba. Boy am I thankful for the roads in our country! There were so many roads that made me feel ill in Brazil. I dreaded this one out of our hotel. By the time we got to the main road, my stomache would just be in knots. The kids seemed to enjoy it though. Oh, and you should see the speedbumps (speedjumps) there! The roads are so bad that the speedbumps have to be that much worse. They were, as Paige would say, ginormous! You could easily lose the bottom of your car if you weren't careful. We did see a few mufflers close to some speedbumps. And they were not well marked, so sometimes Mike didn't see them until it was too late to really slow down.

The Road to Mar e Praia from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

On the rainy day before we left Ubatuba, we decided to go to Projeto Tamar. They rehabilitate sea turtles and then release them back into the wild. We were hoping that the exhibits were inside, but no. We just got wet! I am so glad that our kids are troopers!

The big turtles seemed to love Jack. I remember the same thing when Jonah was this size. Although with him, it was an alligator at the zoo who was eyeing him.

Looking good!

We loved Ubatuba. The rainforest, the beautiful calm beach, the safe feel. I did have a few issues with our hotel that I was glad to leave....I didn't think it was very clean and hated it when the kids or Mike would use the "community" blankets or would undress completely while sitting on the floor or on one of those dirty blankets! Jonah teased me about this by rubbing his little tush on the bedding. Mike licked the blanket. Eew! And for the whole time we were there (a week), I don't think the cleaning lady cleaned on or around the toilet and I could smell pee from the bed. And we were all dirty and stinky because the hot water was not working. And everything was wet and stinky and some things were starting to mildew...But for the most part (really!) it was sad to leave this place after a week. So, we headed off on our 3 to 4 hour drive to Rio de Janiero, which ended up being a nine and a half hour drive! We were stuck in traffic for three of those hours in Rio de Janiero.

We got to Rio de Janiero in the pouring down rain. It rained all night and then the whole next day. Lots of rain. This definitely put us in a bit of a predicament. What can you do in a place when it rains when all there is to do is outside stuff? Not much really. We walked around in the rain and even went to a mall (not my idea of a good time), but we had to do something! When the sun did come out, everyone in Rio de Janiero went to the big tourist places.

I think we stood in line for one and a half hours to get tickets to get on the 1st cable car (there were two cars) to go up the Pao de Acucar (The famous sugar loaf mountain). We expected to just get there and go up and then head to the beach for the rest of the morning. Nope. We got there before 10 am and we didn't get out until 3pm! But it was worth it. Totally beautiful. And I am so thankful to be a North American woman, dressed in casual clothes. Most of the Brazilian women wore high heels. Seriously. Even with shorts!

Here you can see much of the line to get to Sugar Loaf mountain. It isn't really a mountain though. Just a giant rock.

While we were waiting for the second car, we spotted a monkey. See the cute little guy behind Jonah?

Here are a couple of pictures from the cable car rides and the views from the top. This rocks sits out a ways and from it you actually look back at Rio and the beaches. It was quite an amazing view. Here is a family picture we had someone take with Copacabana in the background. Our hotel was right off Copacaban beach. Notice the lady on the left side of the picture. Cut-off shorts and high heels.

A picture of Copacabana.

Looking out the other side to the city center. We never went out to the city center, except driving through in the rain at night when we arrive, but really that's not the point of going to Rio...

This picture looks all the way down to where our first cable car started. The beach is praia vermelha (red beach).

A picture looking back up, on the way down...

Another family picture. This time from the station between the two cable cars, with Sugar Loaf in the back ground.
A picture of just me!!! This doesn't happen that often, it is generally the kids or scenery. That's the city center side in the back ground

Mike with Copacabana in the background.

After visiting Pao de Acucar, we went to the beach for a little while, but the wind was blowing pretty strong and the day was coming to an quick end (it is spring there), so we didn't stay too long. On the way back to our hotel we bought some biscoitos, a popular (cheap) snack sold on the beaches in Rio. There are vendors contatinly walking the beaches that sell you everything, mostly food and drinks, but you could probably buy a car if you stayed long enough. These guys just keep coming by. We just took our biscoitos and ate them in our room.

For our final night in Brazil, we went to another Churrascaria. Brazilian barbeque is so good, and it is rodizio style, where the servers bring the different meats (or sometimes cheese, or even pineapple) to your table and cut pieces off for you. Then they take the meat back to the fire and cook the outside a litle more. It is a great experience, but it is easy to eat too much. There is also a salad bar to start, and of course we had to have ice cream and papaya cream (wow, papaya cream is really good!) to finish as it was our last night. We got one of the servers to take a picture with Paige and Jonah. He even let Jonah hold his knife...

Our last day started with another trip to the beach. This time the sun was really out and the people really started to come out. It was a little crazy. Rio is nice, but the beaches in Ubatuba were better, cleaner, and less crowded. The sand in Rio was "softer" though, so that was a plus. We played for a couple of hours at the beach; Jonah in the sand mostly, Mike and Paige in the water mostly, and Jack and I somewhere in the middle. Jack didn't like the water in Rio much because the waves were crashing to close to shore and were bigger, but this morning he did start to feel a little comfortable and had a good time. A great ending for him.
You see as the people are starting to show up. Remeber this is the off season...

Here we are walking on the Copacabana boardwalk on our way back to the hotel.

Mike took this picture from our hotel window. We really liked how the beach lines up perfect with the reflection of another area of the beach.

After we checked out, we had 6 hours until our flight left, so we headed up Corcovado hill to go see the Cristo Redentor (Crist the Redeemer) statue. We really thought (and had heard) that we could basically drive up to the top, park and walk to see it up close. Remember, the rain though...Yep, if we thought the 1.5 hour wait for the Sugar loaf mountain was bad, this was horrible. It took about 1.5 hours to drive close to the top, because there were so many people trying to do the same thing and basically only a handful of parking spots at the top (people were actually parking on the road, making the road only one lane wide in spots and just walking). When we got there we actually lucked out and got a spot pretty quickly, but then quickly found out there was still an hour line to buy tickets (it is a national park), and then another hour line to take a shuttle the 2.5 km's to the top, you could walk this, but we were quickly running out of time and energy. So anyway, we didn't make it. As we headed back down we took this picture looking up.

Then about 1 mile down, there was a really cool spot that looked out over the whole city again, but also back at the Crist statue. We wish we had been able to see it up close, but really I think this view is better. You can see millions of pictures of it up close, just seach the internet. It was just amazing to see just a large statue standing on the top of this hill looking out over the city! Our pictures don't do it justice.

Finally, on the way back down we made one wrong turn and ended up driving right through a favala (poor housing). It was really sad to see this up close, but it is a serious reality in Brazil and especially in Rio were between 20-25% of the population (over 14 million total people) live in Favela's. We took this picture looking back up at the Favala we drove through.

I think this post is long enough. It was really long trip though, and was hard to decide what to share and what to leave out. We were in Brazil for 17 days. We had a really great trip. I am sure we will be back to Brazil again, so much more of the country to see.

Just a little laugh....

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:06:00 +0000

Yes! I am working on a Blog post for our Brazil trip! It is just taking a while... Unpacking, washing clothes, attending to the kiddos and cooking seems to be taking all of my time. I will get that post to you soon enough.
But in the meantime, I thought you should laugh a little. On our way to Rio de Janiero (actually we had been in Rio for probably 2 hours at that point, just not going anywhere...), Jonah was in the backseat working on his alphabet dot-to-dot.
Jonah: Mom, do I go to L or M next?
Julie: Well, where are you now?
Jonah: B

Paige's Video

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:43:00 +0000

Paige asked to use the camera tonight to take a video of the boys. It is sweet to watch, she tries to be so mothering to them. Anyway, the video turned out cute. I left the ending because it was cute that she didn't know how to stop it and you can here the happiness in her voice; "Daddy, I got one, I got a video!!!"

Paige's First Video from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

Sweet moments...

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:20:00 +0000

You know, there are moments that I wish my kids would go to school, where I could clean the house by myself and think by myself and just be by myself without anyone making messes all over the place or anyone hanging off of my various body parts. But most days, I see the good in having them home with me. I love our unhurried lifestyle and love that the kids are best friends who create games, puppet shows, art and everything else together. I love finding the boys cuddled up on a bed or chair, with Paige reading stories to them. Sometimes I catch Paige and Jonah out of their beds at night, with Paige reading to him or teaching him how to write words or letters on their Magna Doodle. Of course, I pretend that I don't see it. Why would I want to stop my children from learning and bonding? And since we don't have to go anywhere in the morning, staying up a little late is no big deal.
Today, Paige was reading to Jack out of his Bible story book. He sat so quietly and then after she was finished, he paged through his Bible for at least a half hour, looking at the words and pictures. I didn't get a video of Paige reading, as I was cleaning up the kitchen after lunch (and enjoying it, since it was so quiet in the house! Remember, Paige was reading...), but I got a little video of Jack talking about and closing his Bible. I think he is pretty understandable in this video. I think his only words are "Bible," "no," "Jesus," and "done".

I love these moments, these days, that are filled with unhurried learning and fun and togetherness. I often wish the kids could stay this young forever, but then there are the moments where I wish they'd just grow up... Thankfully I don't feel this way very often!

Stitches

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 23:39:00 +0000

Jonah fell this morning as he was climbing onto a bar stool. Jonah was probably climbing as fast as he could, as he has only two speeds: super-fast and super-slow. I think he hit his lower lip on a caddy we have the art supplies in on the kitchen counter. He bit the inside of his lip, but the outside got pretty sliced open.

Well, as you already know from the title, Jonah got stitches. 5 of them! All without getting numbed. I don't know why the doctor didn't numb him, but Jonah was so brave and calm. He laid on the patient bed and let the doctor and assistant do what they needed to do. I am so proud of him! Did I tell you he was BRAVE? And the doctor kept remarking on how wonderful a patient he was and that he wished all of his patients were like that. What a good boy we have! And the other two kiddos were silent almost. Jack sat quietly on my lap and Paige sat next to us, paying attention to what was going on with Jonah quietly. I am so thankful that the kids chose today to be so obedient and sweet. Tomorrow could be different...

Here is our brave boy modeling his 5 stitches.

Camping fun!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:11:00 +0000

We went camping last weekend (Labor Day weekend) at Battleground Lake State Park. It was a beautiful place! Nice trails, nice warm lake water (heated by underground lava tubes, I believe) and we had a beautiful and private campsite 1/3 of a mile from the parking area and the bathroom that the kids were not afraid of (Outhouses are NOT their thing. But then again, who really likes to use an outhouse?). Lots of walking! We had a wonderful 1st evening there. The weather was perfect. The sky was clear and the air was pretty warm. We ate hot dogs (Jack's favorite) that we roasted on the campfire and made s'mores. Yum! Then the kids all went peacefully to sleep. We did too, pretty much...

In the middle of the night, it started to RAIN. Not just little drops, but a torrential downpour. When we got up in the morning, there were puddles everywhere! Water was flowing in streams down the trails. You pretty much couldn't walk without stepping into a puddle. And, as Mike would say, we had a small lake in our tent. We were pretty determined to stick it out at first, but when the rain continued like this through to the afternoon, we decided to pack up. We had to finish our camping trip at home.

Cute and happy kids eating pancakes and hot chocolate Saturday morning. Mike put up a tarp over the picnic table, so we could at least eat without the rain pounding on us!

Mike is holding a soaked and dirty Jack. He fell face-down into a mud puddle or two...

See, he's completely soaked. And he is wearing his spare jacket already (and a completely different outfit than he started out in) around 11am.

Paige, playing in a beloved mud puddle at our campsite.

Even though we decided we were done and were soaked to the core, we just couldn't leave without finding at least one geocache! Paige found this one!

This was the grittiest, wettest, messiest adventure yet! We did have fun and the kids LOVED the rain! But we knew that they wouldn't if we stayed. If we would have stayed, we would have been almost constantly wet and cold for the next two days. I was We want our kids to LOVE camping and want to do it again.

Camping at home-

We made s'mores, using the grill for the marshmallows.

Paige and Jonah slept in Mike's two person tent in the family room.

And we went adventuring! On Sunday, we took the kids to Snoqualmie Falls, where we again got completely SOAKED! The kids loved the hike down to the falls. Jack even hiked the whole way down, not missing a puddle to jump in. He walked at least half way back. Jack is such a trooper! All of our kids are, actually. It is so fun to go adventuring with them!

And Monday, we went geocaching! Again, it was WET! We found 4 geocaches!

Good fun, messy times... I don't know how many loads of laundry I have done in the past few days. Too many... But it's worth it!

NW Trek

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:02:00 +0000

On Saturday we went to NW Trek. It is a wild animal park / zoo that only has animals that are native to the NW. It was really really cool. We had a great day. The real reason we went was to see these guys...

Yep, Jonah is still completely obsessed with skunks. He was trilled when he finally saw a real one, it was worth any price of admission (NW Trek wasn't that expensive though). Jonah was a little disappointed when he learned the stink had been removed from the skunks and that he wasn't going to see them spray.

Pretty quick after we got there we were scheduled to go on our tram tour through the fields where all the non-carnivores live naturally (or almost naturally) together.

Here is Julie, Jack, and I on the tram.

Jack really loved it. We thought he might be afraid, but he wasn't. He just looked out the window the entire time. What a cute boy!!!

These are some of the animals we saw from our tram ride. It is only a small few actually, we took an amazing amount of pictures, a lot look the same now... We saw deer, elk, moose, bison, long horn sheep, goats, caribou, and some others I can't remember right now.

When we were getting off, I looked over to a nearby pond (in the natural area) and saw this bison drinking water. I thought it was really cool, especially with the reflection of the trees on the water.

After the tram we looked around some more. They had bears, cougars, foxes, lynxes, wolfs, owls, other birds we didn't see, coyotes, badgers, porcupines, wolverines, raccoons, opossums, and of course the skunks!!! There was also some smaller animals, like frogs, lizards, and snakes, but we didn't go to them. We went to hear an animal keeper talk about one of the animals and to see it up close. We had heard it might be the skunk. It was a opossum, which was more interesting than we thought. Julie really just thought they were ugly, scary animals; but cleaned up and cared for they are actually cute. However, they did have a skunk hide on display. The kids loved touching that.

Finally we went back to see some of the mid sized animals one more time. I got a good picture of this wolverine.

And then this porcupine came really close to Jonah and I. Look at the boys face. This was a great day for him!!!

The close-up!!!

And really, I can't finish this post without another picture of a skunk. I mean really it was the reason we came!!! Paige actually took this picture while I was still taking some of the porcupine.
We will definitely go back to NW Trek. It was really great. It was definitely great to go on a day that was a little overcast also, because I don't think there was one animal that wasn't out and about, incredible.

Lawn Maze

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 01:42:00 +0000

I am sure everyone has heard of a corn maze; you know the ones you see at a pumpkin patch? Well this summer Paige has asked a couple of times for a lawn maze. She came up with the idea when the grass was long once and noticed the "track" that is formed when it is mowed. I think the first I made was just that, a running track that made a couple of turns through the lawn.

But last weekend when I got home from a business trip the lawn was really long. This is good news, because it has been a hot summer and most peoples lawns have burnt out. Ours is still really green. Julie did a great job watering this summer, and Bubba too while we were gone the hottest week of the summer. Anyway, so the lawn was really long and Paige asked for a lawn maze. So I made one. I thought I would share, because we thought it was pretty cool.

Here is Paige running through. She is a really fast runner!!!

And Jonah pushing his lawn mower through...

Finally, I had to add a video, because pictures don't do the maze enough justice. Paige had already been through a couple times so she doesn't make any wrong turns, but she still hesitates a couple of times to think about it.

Lawn Maze from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

The worst part of a lawn maze though is in order to finish mowing the lawn it has to be mowed away. This one only lasted about 30 minutes until I started cutting away at it. Luckily the way it was made, the kids could still play in it for almost another hour.

A Celebration for Jack!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 20:40:00 +0000

Last night Jack got one of these! Mmmm... (Although, to be honest, he enjoyed his hot dog more than the milkshake!)

The reason for the celebration?

These!!!!

In case you couldn't tell what "these" are, they're diapers and diaper wraps. That's right!!! Jack no longer wears diapers! In fact, he hasn't peed or pooed in a diaper in almost 2 weeks and has only had one little pee accident in his pants. When we got back from Pennsylvania (almost 2 weeks ago), we continued to put a diaper on him at night, but after wearing the same diaper at night for 5 days in a row and it continued to stay dry, we just stopped putting it on him.

Here's Jack going "boop." Boop has been his generic term for going potty, either poo or pee. He is starting to say "bown boop" now though. Actually, as I was writing this a few minutes ago, I heard "bown boop"! coming from the bathroom, where a giant "bown boop" was waiting in the potty for me.

And a little video of some "boop" excitement.

Yeah Little Booper!

MORE family!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:05:00 +0000

Jason and his clan (the same group we met in Philadelphia), including his fiance' Michelle, arrived in Seattle the day after we arrived from New Jersey and Grandpa (Mike's Dad) and Grandma Debbie arrived a few days after that. What a busy time with family (and fun of course!)!

Here is a family picture, including Michelle, that Jack and Jonah did NOT want to cooperate for. It seems to always be like that... The kids were all playing so nicely, but then you ask them to stand and smile for a minute and they just cannot do it. Luckily Paige is hamming it up!

Paige and Kevin (11 years old), Michelle's nephew, played so nicely. They played a lot of Frisbee! Here they are taking a smile break from a game of catch.

Grandma Debbie and Grandpa went geocaching with Paige and Mike one afternoon. Paige and Grandma Debbie really enjoyed the blackberries and the peaches (on a tree) they found on their adventure. I heard that Paige was supposed to have brought a peach home for me, but for some reason, I never got it! I wonder where it went... The girl can eat!
Grandpa, Grandma Debbie and Paige.
And of course, when Carter Tull comes to town, we go to the Museum of Flight!

Mike was a bit giddy getting off of this glider simulator. Paige did this for the first time too and loved it!
Jonah is flying Jack in a "copter." Jack wasn't feeling well that day...

Grandpa and Paige did a flight simulator together!

We had such a busy and fun few weeks! But now we are all a bit tired. The kids are sleeping in a lot, I have been getting to bed before 9, and Mike has pressed the snooze button twice this week instead of going on his morning run. You all wore us out! Thank you for so much excitement and play! Don't worry. We'll be all rested by the time you come back!

Astronauts!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:03:00 +0000

Another use for underwear... Astronaut helmets!

Pennsylvania/Jersey Shore Trip

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:44:00 +0000

Our family just came back from a fun and relatively relaxing trip (remember, we have kids...) to visit Mike's side of the family in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. We spent most of our time with Mike's mom (aka Grandma or Jane) and Aunt Barb and had so much fun! We went to a family reunion, swam a lot, visited Amish Country, Philadelphia and Hershey and ended our trip at the Jersey shore.

Here are some shots that captured our fun!

Jack liked the water for a few minutes off and on. He liked it when Daddy bounced him up and down. I liked the stream of water that gushed out of his swim diaper whenever he got his little tush above water.

Paige was a complete fish. She LOVES the water and was jumping in and swimming across the pool like it was nothing.

Paige and Aunt Barb happy to be in the water together.

Jonah LOVED the pool this time too! He felt safe with this fishy float, but he actually SWAM with his eyes underwater a number of times. Yeah Jonah! And he jumped in too! And Aunt Barb was even teaching him to dive. Woohoo!

Here we are doing the Hershey tour. We didn't want to buy one of those pictures that they sell at the end, so here is our lovely shot! Aunt Barb, Jane and Paige are in the back. Mike, Jonah, Jack and I are in the front. Anyone want to purchase prints?

We all got a treat at the end of the tour. Jack really liked his peanut butter cup!

Philadelphia! We really enjoyed our visit to this city. There was so much to see. We came up for just one day, so that we could meet Jason (Mike's brother) and his fiance' Michelle, along with her nephew Kevin and friends Eugene and Dorothy (They are all really nice, by the way!). They took a train down from New York City where they were visiting for a few days before coming to Seattle. Aunt Barb, Sally (Jane and Barb's cousin), and Jane took the train from Lancaster. And the 5 of us, we drove from Lancaster. It was going to cost our family, $110 to ride the train to and from Lancaster. We drove for about $40, including parking.

The pictures are a little out of order, but for some reason I am having a hard time moving them around! Anyone else having that problem? I am no longer able to scroll down on the right.

Here is Jason and Jane at the Philly Cheese steak place we stopped at for lunch. It was good. Very crowded! But good! Although one time I made a recipe for Philly Cheese steak sandwiches that I thought were better... Yep, I am a little bit of a food snob. Greasy is just not my thing. This is where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

And Paige and Aunt Barb were here while the constitution was being signed. They are much older than they look.

The Liberty Bell.

Of course Mike had his GPS, so we found a cache in the city. Here are Paige and Kevin with their find. Kevin had never done anything like this before, but loved it. He used his compass to help direct us.
Paige is walking on the oldest continually inhabited street in the country. The oldest of these homes were built between 1725 and 1727. For Mike and I, Elfreth's Alley was probably the highlight of the trip to Philadelphia. We loved the style of the homes, their character, the compactness, and just the fact that they are so old. When we came home, we had a Benjamin Franklin documentary waiting for us (Netflix). So, we have been watching it and this street has been shown dozens of times in the film during reenactments of Franklin's life.

And because we didn't have a full enough day already, having toured Philadelphia, we stopped at Valley Forge for a couple hours on the way back to our hotel. It was so beautiful there. We saw where Washington's army encamped the winter of 1777-78 (I think my years are correct here, but I may be a little bit off. I do know that it was after 1776.). Valley Forge was wonderful for the kids. They were able to let off some steam and just run freely through the grasses and around the cabins/huts and cannons.

Jonah, running through the tall grass.
Paige and a goofy Jonah.

Here are Paige and Jonah on real bunks of an open cabin (Most of the cabins are closed/preserved.)used by soldiers in George Washington's army.
Deer were everywhere! Jack loved watching the deer and spent a bit of time talking about "our" deer at home. "Deer boop! In yard. In gass. Eat happle. Num num. Boop! Boop!"

Mike and the kids posing at a cannon.

Here is one of the huts.

Amish Country. I was/am fascinated by the Amish. I wouldn't want to be Amish, but I think we can learn a lot by watching them. I love how they grow their own food, work together as a community and live a much simpler life than we do. It makes me want to keep simplifying ours.

We spent a morning in Intercourse. Not Mike and I, silly! Remember his lips? Eew! Intercourse is a town in Amish country with a bunch of shops. Many items were made by the local Amish community. But there was a lot of touristy type stuff.

Paige and Jonah loved this giant gingerbread man walking around. Jack, did not!

Sorry Aunt Barb, but Jane and Paige look cute, and Jonah is funny. He did NOT want to be the blueberry!
Jack is very easily overwhelmed by crowds and horses (in near distances). Grandma took a turn holding Jack-a-doodle and got a kiss.

Cheese!

Jonah is becoming more and more comfortable touching all kinds of animals. Just in Pennsylvania, Jonah pet this horse, held (and squeezed!) lightning bugs, and picked up a leaf bug that Daddy was too afraid to catch.

We took a buggy ride, another highlight of the trip. It was lead by an Amish girl, Miriam, and two horses, Albert and Bridget. Grandma kept mixing up Miriam and Bridget... Poor Miriam! Luckily she didn't seem to notice. Miriam gave us a great tour of Amish farmland with lots of explanations and answers to our questions.

Sorry again. These pictures are out of order, and I can't just switch them around like I'm used to! Aah!

Here is what Amish Farm Country looked like from our buggy.

We all loved the horses, but Jack liked them best (although he loved them from a distance...). "More horse, more horse, more horse, more horse..." was something we heard a LOT on our trip. Whenever we'd see a buggy go down the street, Jack would shriek "Horse! Horse! Horse"! and then after it passed us or we passed it, he would be back to "More horse! More horse! More horse"! Look at that cute little foal.

Paige and Jonah and another boy around their age got to sit up front with Miriam. They took turns helping her drive the horses. Jonah spent a LOT of time talking about the horse tushies. That is surprising, huh?

An Amish farm. We did stop at one farm and purchased some homemade root beer to drink. Very yummy! Grandma got some lemonade, zucchini bread and whoopee pies. I think I need to find a whoopee pie recipe. They looked pretty yummy!

Getting on. Again, sorry about the order. Hopefully it bothers me more than you!

More water play! Grandma and Aunt Barb had a great indoor pool at their hotel. Our hotel did not. Our hotel was clean, but it was a concrete square with rooms on each side and down the middle. No exercise room, no pool, no extras. We were thrilled that Grandma and Aunt Barb wanted to pay more for their room than we did.

Mike and Jonah. Mike, how did you get your hair to do that?
Here's a cute picture that keeps turning itself when I put it on the blog. Hmm....

Geocaching again! We met Sally and Fred for a geocaching adventure near their home in Lititz. This was fun! And Lititz is a very neat little town. It is old and beautiful and clean and updated at the same time. And Sally and Fred are so nice, so the people of Lititz must all be wonderful, right?

Grandma found this one!
Mike found this one. Everyone was nervous about poison ivy- or was it poison oak?- here. Mike was the only one who would brave the rash. He didn't get poisoned though...

After spending a number of nights near Lancaster, we drove to the Jersey shore to where Mike's Uncle Bruce and Aunt Jo have a Beach house. It was wonderful there! Jane and Barb stayed for just one night, but we stayed for two and had very nice accomodations in the apartment over the garage. Usually they rent the apartment out in the summer, but they got it cleared out for us. We were so thankful for this! And we were so thankful for all of their hospitality. We were served lunches and dinners and breakfasts. We felt spoiled, especially because we had been eating restaurant food for a week (Except for the nice dinner that Sally and Fred shared with us. Thank you!).

Aunt Jo, Uncle Bruce and their son Duane (Mike's cousin) and his two kids Alex and Ben stayed in the house. I had met all of these relatives (except for the kiddos and Darryl- Mike's other cousin who came for dinner one night), but it was nice to actually get to know them a bit. I don't think I had seen Aunt Jo or Uncle Bruce since we got married (9 1/2 years ago!). Everyone was so nice! Paige and Alex really hit it off. Ofcourse, Paige cried when we left... Jonah played with Ben, but also with Alex and Paige too. They all really seemed to enjoy playing "Scooby-doo" where they took turns being each of the characters, complete with monsters, zombies and ghosts. They game included LOTS of screaming and running and running and screaming.

Here is Paige with Alex inside an airplane on the beach.

Uncle Bruce was a great airplane sculpter!

Here is Mike, Uncle Bruce and Aunt Jo. If you have a hard time seeing her, just look for a florescent red beach cover up. Yep, there she is!

Jumping waves!

Jack is spending a rare moment on the beach. Whenever we got to the beach, Jack would pretty much climb up me. He wanted me to hold him and stand in the water or jump little waves, but he did NOT want to get wet. This picture shows him shoveling sand into the water. Notice the extra long shovel. He would not have done this with a shorter one.

Sand-buddies!

Here is Jack. UP. Just where he likes to be. I am very happy in my new swimsuit. I'll probably look like I'm Mennonite or something when we go to Brazil (with all their teeny weeny suits), but atleast I feel comfortable in it. I really like the board shorts.

We HAD to stop at Ben & Jerry's before coming home.

Paige apparently likes "Chocolate Therapy." She had no idea she looked like this. If she did, she would have insisted that she washed her face up before taking a picture.

Say "Yummy!"

Here are all the kids. Jack, Ben, Paige, Alex and Jonah.

What a fun trip, beautiful surroundings and wonderful family!

The lip

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:34:00 +0000

Okay, here it is. Mike's badly blistered lip after his Rainier climb. Apparently he didn't even think about applying sunscreen or sunscreen chap stick to his lips while he was at a high altitude with the sunlight reflecting off of the snow... He won't do that again! He is healed now, after 3 layers of blisters peeled away slowly. Eew! And OUCH!

Mount Rainier

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:52:00 +0000

We did it!!!

That's right, we summited Mt. Rainier. "We" was me, Zac (his family was on the Antarctica trip), his cousins Ben, Greg, Jeff, and Paul (are you technically a cousin?). Zac, Ben, Greg, and I went on a hike last summer down the Olympic peninsula coast and the plan for Mt. Rainier was hatched then. Our summer hike is quickly becoming a tradition. We were a really good group and it was a lot of fun. Let me tell you a little about our climb...

On Tuesday night everyone met at our house (Ben, Greg, and Paul arrived in the afternoon and got to know Julie and the kids until I got home...), we repacked all the gear, and got a little sleep. The idea was to depart from my house in the morning as I was closest to Rainier. It was still a little over a 2 hour drive to where we started, Paradise. Once we registered to climb, we started up the hill.

He we are at Paradise before we started. (from left: me, Greg, Zac, Ben, Jeff, and Paul on the ground).

Our first day's goal was to hike to Camp Muir. This amounted to about 4 miles and 4,700 feet of elevation gain. The first 1.5 miles was on trails with limited amount of snow. After that it was basically snow all the way. Here are a few pictures from the day.

This is at our first rest stopping point. It was a hot afternoon, we were all overdressed for the initial climb. The view even from here were incredible.

Cramp-ons are the best!!! They make hiking on the ice possible. Only problem is when you catch one on your pants; they're sharp and cut easily.

More walking up a hill. I had a horrible 1st day. My backpack didn't fit right, and basically pulled at me, pulling me down the hill. It made for a really long climb. Zac, Ben, and Paul all had used this same model pack before and where wondering how it was comfortable for me. It wasn't. I will be buying a new one before our next trip.

We finally were getting close. Camp Muir is under the big rock outcropping on the right, called Cathedral rock.

This is looking out from camp Muir in the direction we came. That is Mount Adams in the distance.

Another picture looking out from Muir.

Here is our camp site. We had to dig a lot of snow, as our 6 person tent took up two previous tent sites. Once we got the tent up, we spend the rest of the evening melting snow for water, and boiling it for our dinners. We ate and all crawled into the tent and tried to get some sleep. I think I slept the best, but still only about 4 hours.

In the morning we woke up at about 4 am and actually headed out at about 5. We were about 4 hours behind most of the other groups, but we actually liked this as we only planned to summit and come back to Muir this day (most of the groups summit and go all the way back down on the second day) and preferred to hike in the daylight as much as possible.

After we crossed over Cathedral gap, we had to hike across the Ingram glacier. There were some pretty big (and deep) crevasses on this glacier. The trail though always took you to a place where it was easy to cross. Zac really wanted to fall in (or throw Ben in...) just so we could use some of the gear we had.

Approaching Disappointment Cleaver.

Climbing across and up the Cleaver.

Finally, we reached the top of Disappointment Clever and took a long break. This was at about 12,000 feet. We still had 1/2 the distance to the top...

This probably doesn't show up well, but towards the upper right side of the picture in the snow is two small dots. These were people coming down. This is where we had to go...

The crater!!! That's right! The top of the world (at least in Washington)! We reached the summit at about 3:30, 10.5 hours after we left camp Muir. We didn't have a lot of pictures between the top of Disappointment Cleaver and the top. It was really a long hike traversing back and forth. So much of seeing the same thing and not feeling like you were getting anywhere, that we all started to get tired and didn't want to keep going. That was the great part of having a team of friends, we all motivated each other to keep walking.

This is my Reese's peanut butter cup that Paige gave me for father's day. I brought it as my motivation. I told Paige the day before the climb that I would eat it at the top. It was good.

Mount Adams (I think) in the distant.

Another shot looking out from the summit. I really loved the views from the top. All civilization seemed to melt away, you only saw mountains, hills, and small lakes (that were close). It was absolutely beautiful!!!

Here is our summit shot!!! We don't look that tired, we were able to lift our ice axe's (from left: Greg, Jeff, Ben, me, Zac, and Paul in front).

Unfortunately Ben got a really bad migraine while on the summit and we felt it was probably worse due to the altitude, so we didn't stay up there for long. We wanted to get down a ways hoping his head would feel better. After we dropped about 1,000 feet we stopped to melt some more water for the return trip. Ben did start to feel better, not great though, so we pretty much kept walking all the way back to camp with minimal breaks.

When we reached Camp Muir again it was 9 pm. We had been hiking for 16 hours, and had climbed about 4,200 vertical feet, plus the return.

Ben climbed right into the tent and crashed. The rest of us were not far behind. We melted more snow and made dinners, nobody ate all of their's, and all basically crashed in the tent for the night. Zac and I did have a cup of hot chocolate while we were melting snow though. I think we were the only ones left not in the tent already.

The next morning we got up, packed up rather quickly and headed back to Paradise. The return trip was pretty fast. It took about 4 hours to descend all the way back down. We were able to glissade some which was great, it made the descent go quicker.

All together this was a really great trip. Completely successful for one, but also no one was seriously injured.

I think this was the hardest thing I have ever done. I had heard it compared a lot to running a marathon. Jeff had just run the Portland marathon last year, and I ran the it in 2001 and the Seattle in 2006, and we talked a lot about this. We were in complete agreement that this was much harder than a marathon. I think it was like running a marathon, sleeping for 3 hours and then running a second.

It hasn't even been a week since our climb, and I already am looking at the mountain wanting to go up again. Not for a few years, anyway, but this wasn't the last time either.

The Birthday Cakes

noreply@blogger.com (Mike) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 03:12:00 +0000

Last weekend was Paige's 6th birthday, she was born on the 4th of July. This was of course a happy event, but also slightly sad, she's 6!!! She is very quickly becoming a big girl, not my little girl anymore. Of course she will always be my baby girl though...

Anyway, we had a nice party for her. As you all know Paige is a little Geo-obsessed girl. I think she just really loves the outdoors and this is part of the fuel to get out. So anyway she asked for a Geocaching party, including the cake. It was fun, I bought some ammo cans and official Geocache stickers and found three good spots in the backyard to hide them. I logged the coordinates into my GPS the night before, so the kids had a real adventure. Julie filled each one with a different party favor for each of the kids. Now we will hide these for real as we find a good spot where we can easily keep track of them. We also bought trackable tags, so each kid (Paige, Jonah, and Jack) can have their own to keep track of and watch move around the world.

We bought Paige a Razor scooter, she calls it her "2-wheel scooter." There have already been several falls resulting in bloodied knees, but she loves it and is actually getting good quickly, better than Julie or I expected.

So anyway, that is Paige's birthday, it was a nice party, thanks to all who came, Paige appreciated it!!! Paige and Julie ended the evening by going to Coulon park and watching the firework show. I stayed home while the boys were sleeping, and started this post...

Okay, so the title. This is really less about Paige and her birthday and more about the cakes. As you may know (you will now, if you don't), Julie makes the most amazing cakes. She has a lot of fun doing it and it generally is what the kids look forward to most on their birthday's. Paige will talk for 6-9 months before here birthday about what cake she wants. Basically they come with an idea (or Julie does) based on what they are really into, and Julie spends a lot of time trying to figure out how to creatively put the idea on a cake. As you will see no two are the same!!! She does a great job, every one is a new favorite.

So lets so back to March of 2004. Julie and her sister Shannon were took a cake decorating class. The class was a Christmas gift from Bubba. They both had a good time and learned a lot of the cake decorating basics. These are a couple of the cakes that they made in there class. I think the brown one is Julie's.

After this class was my birthday, 28th (seems so long ago...), and Shannon made my cake. While this post is primarily about the cakes Julie has made, I really liked this one, so I had to include it. She actually used real cookies (I think the remainder of the batch was my birthday gift!!!) coming out of his mouth. I didn't know I was getting a Cookie Monster cake, and was randomly wearing the shirt on the same day.

For Paige's 1st birthday (July 2004), Julie was still into all the techniques she learned in her class and tried to make a cake but also make something for a 1 year old. Anyway, I thought this turned out really good. This cake had no sugar in it. It didn't taste that great. It was actually the only time that taste was not a factor, all other cakes had to taste good too, not just look good; a primary Julie requirement. We actually bought a star shaped pan (for our stars and stripes birthday girl) and thought we would use it every year with a different design on top, this didn't happen.

For Paige's 2nd birthday (July 2005) Paige was really into Barney (I always hated Barney!!!), so of course a Barney cake was created. I remember Julie looking at Barney movie covers and pictures on the internet, and trying to sketch out her own Barney face. I thought it turned out really good. No question what it was. See still using the star shaped pan...

Now, the first little guy came around. For Jonah's 1st birthday (March 2006), Julie made a dump truck cake, working in a mud pit. She dug out a small section of the cake and put it in the back of the truck, which created the pit on the cake. While relatively simple, this was a cool cake, and Jonah loved it. He ate the ball from the back of the truck... Jonah still plays with that dump truck too.

Next up was Paige's 3rd birthday (July 2006). She asked for a "lady bug" cake, and so a lady bug cake was made. As you can see we aren't using the star shaped pan anymore, we talked about it. I was concerned as I wanted to keep using it every year, but could you really make a star shaped lady bug?

For Jonah's 2nd birthday (March 2007), Julie made the Lego cake. She used marshmallows for the nubs. I just really thought this turned out perfect.

For Paige's 4th birthday (July 2007), Julie made the Ariel cake. She didn't like this project. We actually bought the pan and it came with directions, and the right dyes for making all the colors. But when you start making the picture on the cake, you really just look at the picture that came with it, there are no lines or anything to follow baked int the cake. I think Julie didn't like this much because she couldn't be creative, she just basically followed the directions. Regardless, Paige got what she wanted and really could you do this? I sure couldn't!

For Jonah's 3rd birthday (March 2008), Julie made what is still one of my all time favorites. This is the volcano cake!!! A picture doesn't work here, so we put in a video instead, sorry it is pretty long, but funny. No candles were necessary and the kids kept trying to blow out the volcano, it was great. Julie basically buried a glass jar into the cake and we added dry ice and water to make the eruption. We wanted to add some coloring, for lava, but also wanted to eat the cake, so the smoke is where we ended up.

Jonah's Volcano Cake from Julie Tull on Vimeo.

And now baby Jack turned 1. For his 1st birthday (May 2008), Julie made a "Jack and Jill went up the hill" cake. This was the first time I got to help on a cake, and I actually made the well; pretty good huh?

Paige wanted a fish cake next. So for her 5th birthday (July 2008), that is exactly what was made. She used little round candy disks for the scales. Once again it turned out great!!!

Anyone who knows Jonah, should have guess that a skunk cake was coming. This was Jonah's 4th birthday (March 2009). Julie used cotton candy for the spray. She would have used dry ice, but the idea was taken just the year before for the volcano. I think this was just awesome!!! Jonah was sooo excited!!!

For Jack's 2nd birthday (May 2009), Julie made a giraffe cake. I think the challenge with this was really how to make it big enough and still have it stay together. The best solution was to use the liquorice for the the legs. Another great cake!!!

Finally, for Paige's 6th birthday (July 2009) a week ago, Julie made an outdoor geocaching cake. This was really cool, and turned out unbelievable. Jonah has recently had his blood tested for allergies (He and Jack and Paige a little have had eczema issues) and it came back that he is allergic to dairy, beef, wheat, gluten, eggs, tomato's, pineapple, and I think something else. Anyway, Julie really wanted to make a cake that the kids could eat, so this one had none of the things from the list in it, with the exception of the trees and logs on the cake, which were just too difficult to make otherwise. We just didn't give these to the kids to eat. Julie also is now making coconut milk ice cream for them, which is really good. Anyway, back to the cake. For the geocaching part, Julie did a gummy worm in the cake and whoever found it was going to get a 100 grand (you know the candy bar), but she found it while cutting the cake so that didn't quite work as expected. Anyway, again another great cake.

Weren't these all just incredible? I just don't know how she keeps coming up with the different idea's of how to create what the kids want. While most are not complicated, no two are the same, and they all turn out to be exactly what the kids wanted if not something a little better. I am getting to be like the kids and the cake is the best part of the whole birthday!!! Way to go Julie!!!

Camping!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:19:00 +0000

We finally took our kids camping last weekend! We had never taken them before because of the kids' ages and abilities and behaviors, blah blah blah. It seemed we always had a new walker or a crawler/roller/on-the-knees walker until this year. I wasn't sure I wanted my kids to get that dirty. I still wouldn't want to take a crawling baby, but I know now that we could have handled it. We're all pretty tough and our kids were literally, very "happy campers!" We roasted marshmallows and hot dogs over the fire, played in the woods, did some hiking and some geocaching (of course!), played on the beach...It was so much fun!

This was our campground at Larrabee State Park, just south of Bellingham. We chose a walk-in site so we had to trudge our stuff up and down a pretty steep hill about an eighth of a mile or so, but it was well worth it. We didn't have to worry about our kids running into the street. They got to run in the woods instead! And we all seem to like more seclusion and adventure. It doesn't feel like camping to me when I can see cars or people's RVs next to us. We could see two or three tents, but they were all spaced a ways apart. This was a beautiful place!

And if you didn't notice how ginormous our tent was (We weren't really roughin' it!), here are a couple of pictures to illustrate. The tent has two rooms. Here are Paige and Jonah in the back room, asleep. Notice how much room they have!
And here is a picture (not as good...) showing the front room. We were able to set up the playpen for Jack and still have PLENTY of room for our stuff and Mike and me.

Marshmallows were very fun to roast! Paige had roasted a marshmallow when she was Jack's age, but doesn't remember it. This was Jonah and Jack's first time. I loved how Jack said "momamow!" and that Jonah said his favorite part of camping was eating the "cream" inside his burnt marshmallows.
Here are all three roasting their marshmallows. I am carefully leaning from what could become a marshmallow torch. Look how careful Paige is not to burn her marshmallow.

Am I really blowing out two marshmallows at the same time? I don't remember that, but it sure looks like it!

I think I need some back up!

After a few marshmallows, our kids (who are often deprived of sugar) get a little goofy...

Jack loved to help build the fire!

Mike's 33rd birthday was on Sunday! He wanted to go camping for his birthday, didn't want anything for a gift, as usual. But, he did need a couple new shirts for work and a couple of wonderful cards from his children!

Mike was surprised at the beautiful pop-up card Paige made for him.
And he was scared when he opened up his card from Jonah. If you cannot tell from the picture, Jonah made a spider on a spider web.

Jonah's was so thrilled to scare his Daddy!
And a super cool part of our weekend didn't have to do with camping really. Our friends, Colin and Stephanie teach at Western and they live about 6 miles from the campground, so we got to see a lot of them! They came to the campsite and visited and roasted marshmallows with us. Well, Steph roasted marshmallows and Colin amused the kiddos... We also spent time with them at their house (They have the best toys!). And they took us on a tour of Western Washington University on Saturday and for a walk down to a dock on the water on Sunday. You can just walk to the water from their house! It was so nice to spend so much time with them. They told us that we were their plans for the weekend. They had nothing else to do, except for a run, swim and bike ride by Colin, who is always preparing for Iron man triathlons. It was so nice spending time with our friends and kids, not having to worry about anything, just enjoying one another and beautiful Bellingham (I always want to move there when we visit!).

Here are the kids on the WWU campus by one of the "little green men" statues.

Paige and Jonah loved these log "stairs"

And also these zigzag stairs.
Here is Colin, Paige and Jonah on the dock, playing with their shadows.

We are all looking forward to camping again really soon! The next few weekends will be busy with Paige's birthday, a company picnic, Mike's Rainier climb...but we will have to try to camp a few times in August and September. Maybe by then I will have the campfire smoke smell out of my hair!

Anyone wanna play?

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 22:35:00 +0000

Anyone wanna play "skunk & bumble bee," "skunk & snake" (Daddy's favorite!), "bumble bee & bat", "grasshopper & bat", "grasshopper & bee", "lion & grasshopper", or any other game that involves skunks and/or insects/arachnids? Come over and play! My mommy and daddy and sister don't seem to want to play these games with me all day long, every day and Jack doesn't play right. I don't understand it. These games are sooooo fun! Oh, and if you happen to have or know where to buy a mosquito toy, would you let my mommy or daddy know where to get it?

Love, Jonah

Summer Fun!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:17:00 +0000

Here are a few pictures from the last week or so (kind of Virnig-style). We are enjoying the summer sun and our yard. Last Sunday we had around 20 kids and their parents (LOTS of people) over for the end of the year Girl Scout BBQ. I have no pictures of that, but it was so fun! Mike wasn't here, so I just focused on being hostess and making sure I knew where my kids were. I loved seeing all of those kids (and some parents too!) playing on the swings and the slide, kicking and throwing balls in the grass, playing in the playhouse, and smiling and laughing the whole time.

Filling the pool! Although if anyone walked near him, Jack would laugh as he filled them!

Paige would get about 25 yards away from the pool, start sprinting and then would jump into the pool. Sprinklers are fun too!Here is Jack jumping in his little pool. He got this pool from Aunt Barb for his birthday. It's perfect for him. He definitely likes to have control of the water he's in. He prefers to be the only one splashing on him.
Any suitors?

Sorry it's sideways, but isn't it cute anyways?! Paige drew this while I was cleaning up the yard after the GS BBQ.

Cheese!

Jonah loved this "spider web" at Kelsey Creek Park. I don't think he played anywhere else for the 20 minutes or so we played there. He just stayed on the web, waiting for his prey. And when "prey" would get onto the web, he would pretend to bite them and suck their blood out. That's our boy!

"When's it my turn?" says Jonah. We got Jack a battery and charger for this little brroom brroom for his birthday. EVERYONE loves it!

And look here at Jack kissing Baby Matthew at his birthday party. Sweet boys.

Recently Paige and Jonah started gymnastics at Metropolitan Gymnastics. They LOVE it! Right now, they are the only ones in our Wednesday morning class, so if you (or your kids) are between 4 and 7 years old and want to start gymnastics with us, let me know. They will give you two free classes! It is less expensive then "the little gym" and I like that this is, in my opinion, real gymnastics. We would love any of our friends to join us!

Here is Jonah doing his favorite activity on the beam- the bear crawl. Oh, and next to him is Coach Frannie.

Jack loves going to gymastics too. Although he doesn't take a class, he gets to play on lots of equipment. The other day he was loving this little balance beam, although the big yellow trampoline is his favorite!

Here is our (somewhat) graceful Paige. She really is doing great! She can bunny hop and walk backwards across the beam. She loves trampoline work and is at the beginning stages of learning to vault and tumble.
Jumping Jonah! Jonah loves gymnastics as well and Wednesday Coach Frannie started him on the male apparatus'. He held his body weight up while holding onto the pommel horse for 3 seconds. Yeah scrappy Jonah!

Here is a cute pic of Paige while they get playtime after their class.

We all enjoyed a trip to the Point Defiance Zoo on Jack's birthday weekend. We learned that that Beluga whale there, named Beethoven, was soon going to be moved to Texas (Maybe y'all can visit him, Fiona and Zac!). We were able to see the last performance before his move.

Is it a surprise to you that Jonah LOVES the zoo?

Here's the whale!

And if you've never seen it, here is a zookeeper brushing a walrus's teeth! We watched this for a while. I'd be a bit scared to get up close to that animal. Did you know that walrus's, at least the ones there, are between 3,000 and 3, 500 pounds? Yikes!

And this is Jack. I just thought it was funny. He was helping me spin the lettuce. He would push the button a few times and then lie down to watch it spin.

I hope you all are having a happy almost summer! It sure is beautiful out there!

Happy Birthday Jack!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sat, 30 May 2009 14:00:00 +0000

My sweet baby Jack (Can I still call him that? A baby, I mean?) is 2 today! I am so blessed by this wonderfully laid back, happy-go-lucky, funny and sweet little guy. I really don't think he should be 2 years old yet though. It really does seem like he was just born. I always cry when my kiddos have a birthday, but this one is the worst. He's my baby! I have loved having tiny ones around here soooo much! I even cried today as I was reading Ramona Forever to Paige when the girls found out for sure that their mother was going to have another baby. Sob, sob. I didn't want Paige to know I was crying, so I had to turn away and wipe my tears as fast as they came. My baby isn't a baby anymore...

I have been looking at Jack's baby pictures and I remember, just like it was yesterday, holding him right after birth. Oh, he was beautiful. He definitely wasn't the cutest looking though! Poor kid had so many splotches and got scratched right away when his siblings met him the first time, although neither kiddo would admit to it. And then he got baby acne at 8 days old and it continued for 3 or 4 months... But, from the beginning, he was the sweetest child I have ever known. He just radiated sweetness, if that's possible.
Jack on May 30th, 2007

Jack has enjoyed being a baby for as long as he could. He walked at 16 1/2 months and is still not a huge talker. I mean, he talks, but in just one to two word phrases and usually about the same stuff. You know, brroom brrooms, lawn mowers, poop... And Jack has been so adored around here. Not by just me, but by Paige and Mike as well. I remember when Paige would say that we had "the cutest baby" because he was so chubby. And now, she loves helping Jack accomplish new things, like climbing a ladder (which he does with no problems, thanks to Paige), riding a scooter, or saying new things. Paige loves how Jack talks. He does sound pretty cute! And Mike always has a huge smile for Jack when he sees him in our bed in the morning. I know it is not easy to have a kid who doesn't sleep through the night and because of it pushes his feet into your back or stomach (Jack has slept through the night maybe 4 times.), but Jack just looks so happy to wake up to his mommy and daddy in the morning. Mike also loves how Jack is such a good listener. He just obeys. I mean, we have had to flick his little knuckles a few times when we've asked him not to touch something and he doesn't comply, but a little flick gets him right on track. It has been so nice that Jack is so obedient and easy going. We have always been able to take him anywhere.

Jack at one year-

Boy, I may be rambling a bit in this post. So sorry. I guess I just had to get all that out! Here is a video of Jack at his first birthday, just a year ago. He was so little, such a cute little impish lump.

It is so amazing to see the growth of children in their first two years. They go from being almost completely helpless, to being able to get around and socialize and then they turn into little people with distinct interests and personalities. As much as I hate seeing Jack grow up this quickly, I am looking forward to seeing what kind of person he will grow up to be. Unless I mess up big time, Jack is sure to become an amazing man. God gave him such a gentle spirit and wonderful temperament, along with a good sense of humor and smarts. We'll just have to wait and see what he'll do with all that!

Here's a picture of Jack taken at Kelsey Creek Farm this week. He was pretending that he had keys in his pocket, just like Daddy. He's still little, but he's growing up quickly all of the sudden. I'm not crying...sniff sniff.

Kelsey Creek Farm!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Fri, 29 May 2009 03:09:00 +0000

Wow! There are so many fun places to go around here! They are soooo much more fun though when the weather is nice. Today the kids and I took a trip to Kelsey Creek Park & Farm and the weather was perfect. Sunny, low seventies. So nice! I loved seeing the animals and watching my children with them. Jack was so cute saying "huwo" to all of them and Jonah quite enjoyed the poop, but he also was a fan of all of the animals, especially the ginormous sleeping pig and a parrot that talked/squawked (I know, it is not really a "farm animal," but I think they had it more like a pet...). And Paige really liked the animals and wanted to keep going to find more (like always). She's always moving! And you know what else I LOVE about this place? It's free!

Here are the kiddos at the entrance to the farm.

Nope, I could not manage a better picture. YOU try getting three excited little children to look at you at the same time when they would rather find some animals (or open up the little gate on the sign)!

Here are some animals we saw.

Here is a short video discussing a critical problem at the farm. Poop was stuck to the sheep's tushie. I'll spare you the picture of the poor sheep.

Bummer! I have been trying to put up some videos of the kids talking about their favorite parts of the farm and it just won't upload. I guess the videos are a little to big. Next on our To Do list: Get a Vimeo account... And just in case you were wondering about what was said on the videos, Jack liked the riding lawn mower at the park and the car ride with Mommy, Paige, Jonah and not Nana best (He was just expressing that Nana did not come along.). He also liked the horses. Jonah liked the big pig, the poop and the parrot. Paige liked the horses and the seesaw at the playground best. So much cuter when they talked about it themselves...

Just to ease your mind...

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sun, 24 May 2009 22:22:00 +0000

Jack-Jack is still shorter than Jonah (although Mike does NOT believe that he weighs less than Jonah...)! I just wanted to post a picture of the kids lined up since my sister Shannon was concerned that Jack and Jonah looked the same height when they were on the rock at Kubota Gardens. So, here they are in this not-so-great picture after our little hike on the Pretzel-tree trail last Friday morning (The hike was really great though!). The ground is even this time.