Seattle-June 09

It's taken us forever to get these pics up. We've been so busy since I went back to work and these kids make us exhausted every day so by the end of the day we crash in bed. Jordan finally got these edited the other night and I have time this morning to finally get these posted.

We left the evening of June 13th. I had great plans to be actually ahead of the game and not packing at the last minute but got very sick for 4 days right before our trip (and right after Isabelle's blessing/Matthew's birthday) and even woke up really dizzy the morning of our flight. I stayed in bed as long as I could and finally got up finished packing and made it through the flight ok.

My brother and his wife picked us up from the airport in both of their cars as we were going to rent a van a few days later and I felt like we were a circus getting all of our bags, the kids and carseats loaded in their cars. That night was pretty mellow. Even though it was about 9 pm when we ate dinner, Matthew was still wired and thought he didn't need to go to bed because it was still light out.


One of the few pics of Isabelle awake. She did so great on this trip until the end when she pretty much refused to sleep or breastfeed. We switched pretty much to formula after this trip and upped her to 6 oz. and it has been much better. Isabelle also has lost almost all of her hair now, but new growth has started so I'm hoping to see more hair soon.


Playing in the park Sunday afternoon after church. It was a cute little park at the end of their development.

Monday night we went and ate down by the ocean at scuttlebutts and then went for a walk on the pier. It was pretty chilly and both kids were well wrapped up.

Tuesday morning Jordan and my brother got up and went and picked up our rental van. It's crazy how much a few extra days and picking up/returning to different locations can add to your cost. We didn't feel like $300 was worth it so we were grateful that my brother/sister-in-law picked us up from the airport and that my brother took Jordan to the airport on Tuesday (we ended up picking it up/returning to the airport since it was cheaper). Incidentally having a van on this trip pretty much sold us on getting a van (I have been resisting). It's just so convienient to have so I can sit back with the kids and there is plenty of room in the back for all our crapola!

We were off that morning to do the typical downtown Seattle things. There were places we didn't get to like the Children's museum, science center that we'll have to do with the kids next time.


While waiting for Jordan to get tickets to the space needle. One of the rare pictures of myself that I actually like. Matthew even smiled really good.

My brother and sister-in-law stayed behind to watch Isabelle since they didn't want to go up the Space Needle again (understandable with the visitors they've had).

Matthew is always picking up rocks, sticks, leaves, etc. This one stayed with us for awhile.

At the top of the Space Needle.

The leaf hadn't left yet.

It's not as high as you would think, but still really cool.

Of course we had to do Pike's Market. Jordan thought I was a little nuts wanting to get a double stroller, but it came in handy several times on this trip and a few times since. Both kids were sacked out by this time and Matthew pretty much slept all the way home too. We ate lots of yummy food here-Perogies, baby doughnuts, and other treats.

Wednesday we headed to Deception Pass while my brother was at work. Jordan took Matthew exploring and it was pretty windy so I stayed in the car with a sleeping Isabelle.

Matthew had so much fun throwing rocks into the water. The water was pretty chilly but what little kid really cares about that? His pants and socks/shoes got all wet.

Later in the day, more park time. Matthew really loved this park. It was perfect for him.

Hiding because he hates always getting his picture taken.

Thursday we headed to Tacoma to the zoo/aquarium. It's so cute and it was fun going to a different zoo. Matthew of course loved it, but Isabelle wasn't sleeping so great. I can't wait for it to cool off so we can start going back to the Phoenix zoo again.

We stayed in the shark area for awhile. Matthew loved that.

We all tried sleeping in the same room the first couple of nights, but between Isabelle waking up to feed (she was only 2 months old) and Matthew moving all around I wasn't getting any sleep and was very cranky. Jordan ended up going into their other spare bedroom and crashed in there with Matthew on a blow up mattress. Inevitably Matthew would be somewhat like this every morning and Jordan would be somewhere on the floor too. I got half way decent sleep once they moved in there. Poor Jordan pretty much slept on the floor for 10 days.

Friday-Monday were pretty mellow as my brother was getting sick and it was rainy. We went to lots of yummy places to eat, the outlet mall and Jordan went with my sister-in-law and Matthew on a walk one day. Matthew of course had a great time picking up sticks and stones. I stayed behind with Isabelle.

Monday morning we got up and packed and headed off to the airport to hopefully catch an earlier flight home. It was full and they wouldn't let us switch so we hung out in the aiport for awhile. They have a big beautiful waiting that is all glass. It was the perfect area for us to be in as Matthew could be noisy and messy as he wanted and it didn't bother anyone since there was a lot of noise going on in that area.

I think this is in Vegas when we switched planes.

After we got into Phoenix I took the kids to the baggage area and waited with our bags while Jordan went and got the car. They both fell asleep in the double stroller (once again great to have) and slept all the way home since it was after midnight once we were loaded and off to home.

All in all a great trip. Great for us to go while I was on maternity leave and it was fun to go see my brother and his wife in Seattle. I have been a couple of times in the past, but Jordan hadn't ever been. It was also really nice to get out of the heat for 10 days. It definitely gets chilly there and it was a nice break from the weather but I'm a heat lover and would rather deal with our hot summer and have a really warm winter than cooler/rainy weather all the time. The kids did pretty well and it was a fun trip. Now to tackle scrapbooking it all! :)

Convention & Potty Training

I returned last week from Convention and am so glad it is over. I knew that coming off of maternity leave and jumping back into crazy work was going to be hard but it was more exhausting than ever and 6 days away from the family was harder than it's ever been. Mostly because I knew Isabelle wasn't sleeping well while I was gone and I just missed being home.

I left on Wednesday the 5th and my parents flew in on Thursday afternoon to help out. I came back on Tuesday the 11th and met Jordan/kids and my parents at the airport. We had lunch together and then they flew back to Utah. They work at the Temple on Wednesdays and needed to be there both weeks. Jordan said it was great having them here to help out with the kids. It was weird for me to have my parents visiting while I was away but we all know that really only the grandkids matter right?

I committed to myself and Jordan that right after Convention we would start in on the Potty training hard. 3 yr old poopies is disgusting and I'm sick of changing them. We started Saturday and have set a timer every 30 min. to take Matthew to the potty. He's really only had accidents while he's playing computer games because he's too lazy to get down and go so he's banished from those for awhile. He even went poop once yesterday and it was huge so I'm glad it was there instead of in his underwear.

Matthew is a very smart kid but just lazy in wanting to stop his activities to go. He'd rather just hide and pee and then continue what he's doing. We were using Star Wars guys as rewards but he's earned them all so now we are moving on to treats. He loves treats so that's working well.

My friend Kris who's son is about 2 1/2 months younger than Matthew is potty trained and we went to lunch on Friday and she was sharing some tips. She mentioned setting a timer, moving the potty into the kitchen, and that she had a frog potty. On Saturday we started with a timer, moved his potty into the kitchen and things were going ok. While at walmart on Saturday I saw the frog potty and wanted to get it but Jordan talked me out of it. When I got home I saw Matthew trying to go potty in this tiny blue potty we had and it was way too small and making seriously ring dents in his bum. Jordan had to go back to Walmart to get some wrapping paper for a wedding present and I had him pick up the froggy potty.

Things are going much better now with the froggy potty. It's super easy for Matthew to sit on and go and he won't spill anywhere. He thinks it's really cute too so it's makes going in even easier. He's so proud of himself when he goes and we give him tons of praise. Seriously cute! So far accident free today but we're only half way through the day. I'm hoping the rest of the week will be easier.

I think this potty training business is the hardest thing I've had to do yet as a parent so far. I know, I know you are all thinking this is nothing compared to when they grow up. I think the hardest thing was convincing Matthew that he wanted to give up the diapers and be a big boy and go in the potty. He seems to be pretty on board now so we'll see.

Isabelle started on cereal today. She hated it and wrinkled her nose at every bite but did swallow a little bit. It's a good start to her eating pureed vege's/fruits.

These milestones are fun to experience with our kids.

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Crackerjack (or Just Popcorn Will Be Fine)

I (Jordan, just to clarify since this blog is typically Karin's domain) may have mentioned this before, but I think one of the big challenges in life and especially with kids is taking a deep breath and enjoying the stage of life you're in for what it is. It's pretty easy to look forward to some state of nirvana down the road and in the process miss some of the best things about where you are now. I think that's a major temptation when you have a newborn; I'll be the first to acknowledge that I struggle a little bit with the "little baby" phase because there is a lot of work and sometimes not a lot of real interaction.

It's a pitfall that I'm trying hard to avoid. Isabelle is about 3-1/2 months now, and we were just saying last night that she doesn't look (or feel) like a tiny newborn anymore. She starting to smile and "talk" a lot, and I know that in just a few months really she'll be crawling all over the house. As much as I'm looking forward to that, I also know that this may be the last time (given that we don't really know whether there will be another) I'll be able to hold my baby almost in the palm of my hand and where the only thing she really wants is to be near us all the time.

In the spirit of enjoying the moment, then, here are some great shots Karin got of her the other day:











With Matthew, I've loved pretty much every stage so far, but one thing to which I've looked forward all along was the day when he was old enough to go to baseball games with me. In some ways he may not yet be there, but last night I took him to his first anyway. It went a lot better than I had expected, and as mundane an experience it might sound to someone else, to me it was one of the best times I've had with him since becoming a dad.

I'm sure he won't remember everything, but if you ask him today, the best part of the whole experience was eating popcorn. I helped a bit, but he practically downed a whole souvenir hat-full by the end of the 3rd inning.











Given that I didn't know how things would go, I bought the $5 cheap seats, but we could see well enough, and Matthew (being a bit of a media junkie sometimes) was just happy to find out that they have a ginormous HDTV. He was a little disappointed that the green relish hotdog lost to the yellow mustard one in the animated hot dog race, though.



I'm sure a few people in our section questioned my parenting skills when I let him put the empty souvenir hat on his head, but in my defense I did wipe it out pretty well.





After about the 4th inning we headed over to the kids' play area ("the Sandlot"), stopping to say hello to a few giant Dbacks along the way.



It's a bit early to tell, but I'm not sure Matthew is cut out for professional sports, because anytime he falls down he has to come show you his "owee." OK - maybe he could play European pro soccer.



They had slides and stuff like that, but mostly he just wanted to run around in circles (hmmm... maybe I'm really onto something with this pro soccer thing).



By the time he got done, he was pretty sweaty. (It's hard to take self-portraits with our new camera, by the way.)



Right near the kids' area was the organ player, and Matthew was fascinated watching that guy play and hearing it over the loud speakers. We stayed there through the 7th-inning stretch - I guess I need to teach him "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" pretty soon, because when I asked him what song the guy was going to play next, he said, "Twinkle Star."



Baxter (who I think is a bobcat - not really sure) was hanging around there, so we got in a shot with him. Matthew wasn't too sure what to think of him at first, but he seemed to like him better later when he saw him on the big screen (maybe he figured the one on the big screen can't eat you).



I gave him the choice to go home after that, but he wanted to stay, so we headed back up to our seats for the last few innings and actually made it all the way to the end. Matthew didn't watch a lot of baseball, admittedly (mostly, he entertained the people sitting around us), but he did clap for a few home runs and got excited when a few guys caught routine fly balls. We'll work on that part later, but for now, I'm just enjoying what for me (and I hope for him) was a great little life moment.

Vacations, vacations, vacations

We've been packing it in before I finished maternity leave. We went to Seattle for 10 days, came home for a week and then left for Beatty for the 4th of July, went to Kaysville for a few days, and then to Antimony Utah for a family (my immediate-all 8 kids and their spouses and most of the grandkids) reunion-11 days in all. It's been crazy and today I'm back at work. Our house is a disaster and we have tons of laundry to do but it was nice to get home and back into our own beds. We drove 8 hours home yesterday and were too pooped to do much except take care of the kids. I went to bed at 9:30 and still feel super tired today. I'm working a long day at work today so we'll see how much we get done tonight.

All in all great vacations, lots of good memories and we are stocked full of photos to post here in the next few days and for me to scrapbook.

I'm just really hoping that Isabelle does great this week with the babysitter.

A Blessing and a Birthday

This blog is LONG overdue. Granted I got really sick-couldn't get out of bed sick right after the blessing/birthday and then we went on vacation for 9 days so I'm just getting to this.

June 7th we had Isabelle's blessing and incidently that is also Matthew's birthday so we celebrated his birthday the same day later in the evening. I was totally wiped out (and I think also contributed to my getting sick) by getting everything ready for two big celebrations going on the same day.

My parents attended my niece's baptism on Saturday and so they flew in late on Saturday night for the blessing and Jordan's parents drove down on Saturday and arrived Saturday night. We had a full house but it was really great having both sets of grandparents here.

Our church is at 8 am and it was pretty crazy trying to get all of us ready to go in time. I was finishing up things for after the blessing and was running pretty tight on getting there in time. I ended up sending everyone else but me and Isabelle and arrived just before Sacrament started. Jordan was sweating it thinking I was going to miss it. I knew I had extra time as our Sacrament never starts on time. Isabelle was half way through her bottle when she needed to be blessed and I was so nervous she was going to throw a huge fit. She started fussing and they kindof bounced her so she was really good and didn't make a peep. Matthew on the other hand was wound up and was sitting on my lap making lots of noise so I hardly heard the blessing. I was so mad at him. Eventually Jordan took him to the grandparents to hang out and he was being bad there so my mom took him to the nursery room to play.

After Sacrament we headed back to our house to have brunch with the parents and our friends who had come down. It was pretty crazy with everyone in our house and Matthew was awful. He was hitting and throwing things and had to go to timeout about 4 times. The last timeout was about 30 min since he had hit his friend Heston over the head with his hard Handy Manny. I was pretty frustrated with his behavior and I think he just couldn't handle knowing it was his birthday and having all of his friends over as well having his grandparents here. It was just too stimulation and so by the end he was in his room until mostly everyone left so he could settle down. Isabelle was great she slept the whole time everyone was here in her carseat.

For brunch we had breakfast casserole, zucchini bread (I found a really yummy recipe), fruit and cupcake pops. I saw these cupcake pops on a blog awhile ago and knew I wanted to make them for the blessing. Essentially you make a cake, let it cool awhile, crumble it up and then mix that with icing and form into balls (let them harden in the fridge). I stuck one side into a teeny tiny cookie cutter to make it more cupcake shaped and then dipped the bottoms into melted chocolate and turned it upside down and then stuck a sucker stick in it. Once that was dry I dipped the top in pink chocolate (white and red discs melted down from Michaels) and then sprinkled white sprinkles and stuck a pink M&M on the top. I think they turned out cute and were pretty yummy too.




I found Isabelle's blessing dress before she was even born at a Carter's store and I am a non-conformist sometimes and did a creme colored dress rather than white. I looked high and low for creme shoes that would fit Isabelle's teeny feet and finally found some at Dillard's. She looked so cute! We had to take pictures after she woke up from her nap after everyone had left so unfortunately we didn't get any pics of her with our friends. My dad and Jordan's mom were taking naps at the time we took the pics so they weren't in any pictures either.


I love this picture of Matthew kissing her. Lately he's been wanting to cuddle her and help hold her and feed her. It's so sweet seeing their interactions.


Cutie!


Me and My mom-love Isabelle's raised arms.


Jordan's dad took at least 10 shots and this was the best one. It's tough now with 2 wiggly kids.


I was taking a nap when Matthew put on his "wobble gobbles (goggles)" which is from the show Imagination Movers on Disney. He was trying to find something while wearing them and cracked everyone up. When I got up they asked me what wobble gobbles were and so I had to explain they were from a Disney show. This kid makes us laugh constantly.


I taught Matthew how to do 3 correctly by holding his finger with his thumb. He was so cute holding his finger down with his other hand until his thumb could hold his finger down.


Since there was so much craziness with the preparations for the blessing and birthday I decided to be lazy and make cupcakes (I like them more than cake anyways) and stuck these cute Mickey Mouse Clubhouse picks into the top of the cupcakes, blew up some mickey mouse balloons, hung a mickey banner and called it good.




I had the cupcakes out while waiting for some friends to come over and it was killing Matthew. He was so excited to blow out the candles and finally dig into his cupcake. It was perfect for him and he ate it all.




He eats in the funniest ways. He was squishing his cupcake into clumps and sticking them on his finger and then eating those. He definitely does not lack in the personality department.

On Monday we extended the Celebration with the grandparents by going the the movie "Up" and out to eat. Isabelle slept the whole movie and Matthew loved it. All in all a really great weekend spent with grandparents and friends.

Museums, swim lessons, lots going on

This week has been packed with lots of going ons. We got some free passes from the library to go to the Phoenix Children's Museum and went there on Monday with EmmaLee and Adina and their kids. Tuesday I ran errands all day with Isabelle and Matthew stayed home with our babysitter. Wednesday we went to Kris's for a swim and Thursday I ran some more errands. We also started swim lessons this week so every night at 5:30 I've been taking Matthew to those. It's been a super busy week. I guess I'm trying to pack in as much as I can before I have to go back to work.

We got this little slide/pool at Target and set it up this weekend. Matthew needed something to play in at the house, especially when I go back to work as the babysitter can't take him and Isabelle to the community pool. This will be nice so they can go do this while Isabelle is sleeping.

Throwing water at Jordan.

I took these pictures while he was at swim lessons. He's in a love/hate relationship with photos and I didn't want to distract him so I sat on the opposite end of the pool and took the pics with my telephoto lens.

Monkey Walking-he loves to do this

At the Children's museum. We had a ton of fun. There are 3 floors of activities. If I didn't work I'd think about a yearly pass, but I just don't think I'd get enough use out of it since it's downtown and we could only go on Saturdays. It's pretty pricey too for a yearly pass. We did go at Christmas and this is where Matthew broke our camera. It was way less crowded this time and a great day to be there. We spent about 3 hours playing and then went to lunch. Matthew was so pooped he fell asleep on the way home, took a 2 hour nap and me and Isabelle took a nap. It was a really fun day.

Drumming on big cans.

Riding bikes.

This cool wall where you put in these wooden discs and they go every which way. Kindof like plinko on the Price is Right.

A little grocery store. Matthew loved filling up his cart, putting the items on the conveyor belt and turning the handle around to make the belt move the food to the end. We spent quite awhile there.