Ben's Birthday

When we got home it was Ben's 4th birthday.  He keeps telling us all the things he can do now that he is 4!!  When he woke up and came in my room, I asked him if he knew what day it was. He didn't, so I reminded him it was his birthday and now he was 4. He ran out to find Amelia and said to her, "Amelia, I am four now!!!". He was so excited. We spent the day lounging around recuperating from our road trip. Ben requested pizza and apples for dinner and I made samoa cupcakes.  He had lego themed presents and Amelia gave him a bag of peanut M&M's, one of Ben's favorite. And just in case you weren't sure how big his eyes can get, here's the proof!!!

Family Reunion

The beach- being buried, making castles, Luke getting very, very muddy and LOVING it, walking to the lighthouse, running and dancing in the sand and the men diving in and quickly running back out!!

Cousins. Norah batting a pinata, swimming on the 4th, Liam kicking a ball ,Audrey singing and Amelia hopping on one foot for their talents, most of the gang and kids in the car

Over the 4th we went to Port Townsend, Washington for a Sargent (Philip's mom's side) family reunion. We drove in a van with 6 kids under the age of 6!! I am really surprised at how little problems we had. We had a caravan with some of the other family meeting up in various places while we made our way there. On the 4th we swam and watched fireworks. Fort Worden is an old military base that has been turned into a state park and the officer housing can be rented out. It is right on the ocean. My Cali babies were so happy to be back on the beach all day, digging in sand and laying around sun bathing. We mostly just stayed on the beach, as you can see!! The kids had fun playing with cousins the whole time.  We didn't see one spec of rain or clouds which is I think unheard of in these parts. I am so glad because I do not like being cold!! 70 degrees is about as cold as I like to be.  We also scouted around the old batteries and tunnels, climbing up ladders to overlook the bay andtaking a tour of a command post. Amelia loved picking flowers for her hair and wisely did not want to go inside the pitch black abandoned underground structures.  Philip's cousin did a fly over in a helicopter to take a family photo and Philip's uncle did a little air show in his bi-plane which included lots of loop-de-loops and stalling the engine out to free fall over the ocean. The other beach goers cheered him on with us. I didn't take any pictures!!!! What was I thinking?? 

It took us 21 hours to get back home and we made it without one meltdown, accident, allergic reaction or puking episode the whole way!! I was very impressed. When we got home, Amelia already was planning out next road trip!!  I guess that's proof what a good time she had.

New Tradition

So I saw on a list called something about "keeping your kids busy during the summer for free" and one idea was to make up a holiday. After a trip to the grocery store where they were sampling donuts, and then seeing the disappointment in Amelia's face when she heard she couldn't have what we were all enjoying, I decided to make Memorial day our family donut day. Then that night I found out by total accident that national donut day is June 1st, just a few days later. Oh well. (But if you are near a Krispy Kreme, you can get one for free on Friday!!!) You can never have too many donuts. And at least our Memorial day donuts are safe for Amelia.  Here are some pics from our holiday. We let the kids top them with whatever they wanted. Amelia's has Christmas sugar crystals, chocolate sauce, vanilla frosting, sprinkles and graham cracker crumbs. Ben's were simple, frosting and chocolate sauce. Later after much coaxing, he added some sprinkles to his plain frosted one.  Mine and Phil's, vanilla frosting, graham cracker crumbs, toasted coconut and chocolate drizzle. Needed some caramel and it would have been a samoa donut.

And you can't be more local than mowing your lawn on a riding lawn mower with the horses watching in front of your flag with a hat you can't see around and some overalls!!!  My kids love being country kids now. And did I mention we planted a garden. We'll see if I deem it worthy of ever speaking of it again!!

All the little parts I love of Miles...

I love all these little things on Miles. From top going clockwise, his little mullet, his fluff of reddish, blondish brown hair that won't lay flat, his adorable smile (and he has a dimple but you have to work at it, so it has not been caught on camera), his blue (for now) blue, blue eyes, his crooked weird toenails, his ridiculously long eyelashes (zoom in to see these puppies....and oh how they curl up) and of course his fluff again and his serious man looks. Oh and I guess the triple chin!!!

Made it a few more months!!

My last post said I made it a week. That makes me laugh. I feel like every week I look back and say, "Whew,  I made it another week".  Here's my attempt to sum up the last 3 months without being too boring, because let's face it, you really just want to see the pics.....



First, Philip moved and started his new job and loves it. There were a lot of concerns, complications and logistics to work out, but in the end, it has been a good move and hopefully will open some doors for him. If anything, it has renewed his faith in his degree, the law and his self esteem.  I say that's worth any inconvenience we may have had in the process.

Next, we had a baby. Miles Joseph born April 3 at 12:37pm. He was 8 pounds 10 ounces and 22 inches long. I basically gave birth to what Ben was at 3 months old!! He's patient, quiet, our "blondest" child (which makes the toe-head side of the family laugh), and growing like a weed.  The older kids ADORE him. I have to chastise them for things like messing up the closet to find the perfect outfit for him, brushing his hair too hard, kissing him too hard, or trying to make him smile while he should be sleeping and other sweet things like that. My delivery was a pain. Literally and mentally. I had 4 false alarm hospital visits with 2 minute contractions thinking every time that would be the day he was born, but due to some crazy hospital policy I wasn't allowed to have pitocin until my due date so I kept getting sent home. Finally 2 days past my due date I got the magical drug and 1 hour later he was born. I still cringe thinking about how it all would have been so much easier if they would have given it to me the first time I went in (or told me the policy about pitocin) and saved all the people who had to be involved a big huge headache for the last 3 weeks of my pregnancy. But what can you do... I guess it all worked out.

Miles and family in the hospital

Miles from 1 week to 6 weeks old

Then, we moved. 3 days after I gave birth. Never again would I do this, nor would I suggest it to anyone. Thankfully Philip's parents came and basically kept us alive. I have no idea how it would have happened if they weren't there. I probably would still be trying to clean and pack. It took us 2 days to make the trek and we still are trying to figure out what to unpack, but we have a great house with TONS of inside and outside space. Something we never really had in CA, but when you live in a small town in the middle of nowhere, I guess you can have all the outside space you want!!  The kids love the fact that they can do normal kid things like ride their bikes and jump on the trampoline and see birds and pick weeds. OK almost all of those.

Top: Our backyard Bottom: kids bird watching, Miles soaking rays when he had jaundice, kids making angry faces

Left: first day of school.  Right: last day of school.

Amelia (started again) and finished kindergarten. She had quite an adjustment but finally made it inside her classroom without crying on the last day of school. Better late than never I guess. She is already bored and ready to go back to school and it's been 1 week. I have a long 3 months ahead. Look how much she's grown up!! She looks like a little angelic baby on the first day of school. Now she looks a little bit more mischievous!!!

Where's Waldo......Amelia's kindergarten program.

We are really excited to be closer to family and even some old friends.  If anyone is bored and wants to stare at fields, you are welcome to come to our house anytime!!!

Time with cousins

I made it a week....

I have never been one for Valentine's day. Forced love and romance...gag. Kids make everything different. I have to be more involved in holidays for their sake and I actually surprise myself at how festive I can get while rolling my eyes!! I really have kept our kids out of the holiday loop until Amelia started school and they have to keep reminding her of things like Valentine's day!! Since Amelia is in school we had the task of creating cards for her classmates. I took her to Target hoping she would just pick something off the shelf and I would have to do nothing but supervise her signing her name. That proved to be a complete mistake. 20 minutes in 1 aisle just comparing the Disney princesses to the fairies and the Toy story to the Cars and how this person would like this kind but this person wouldn't like this, and I like the candy in this one but this toy would be fun and why can't I give a stuffed bear to everyone in my class and pretty soon our cart had like 6 boxes in it. This was not working. Plus the boxes had like 20 in them and we needed 25, so buying 2 boxes just to have 15 leftover nasty candies was not appealing to me. I finally decided to buy a bag of suckers and some glittery stickers and go and home and make them. It took some convincing, since this is a new tradition for her, she wanted the store bought stuff. But luckily she is my child and loves a good arts and crafts project and once I mentioned glitter stickers, she was in. She chose to make butterflies for the girls and superheroes for the boys. I cut everything out and stamped the message on them and then she got to sign her name and decorate the butterflies. I fell asleep while I was supposed to be overseeing the decorating and when I woke up, this is what she had made.

At first I was a little disappointed at the scribbling and the lack of symmetry that a real butterfly has, but as she was showing me each one and explaining the thought and care she took to make each one unique and special, I felt so guilty that I did not instantly love them. And then felt stingy and didn't want to give any of them away!!! I had to take a picture and share. Hope you can zoom in on some of those drawings. I can't wait to hear about it all when she comes home. Finally, on the drive to school this morning, this is what I heard and had to laugh and share.

A: Ohh, I just saw 2 birds kissing. How cute.

B: They were kissing?? Are they married??

A: I don't know?

And I will share with you one of my favorite Lucille quotes, for those of you in the Arrested Development know. I told Phil this quote this morning while warning him of my lack of acknowledgement for this holiday, and I will extend that to anyone else who wants to scoff at my cynical disgust in this holiday, "If that's a veiled criticism about me, I won't hear it and I won't respond to it!!!"

Happy chalk candy, cheesey cards, excessive use of pink, unnecessary guilt and forced gift giving, Valentine's day!!!

....black and blue all over....

It's all fun and games until someone gets their eye blacked out!! Ben was doing some pretty tricky wrestling moves when he fell on his wood bed in just a way that instantly popped out about an inch and has slowly blossomed into this nice huge shiner!! The pics are one from each day. They do not do it justice, and it doesn't help that he hates his picture taken. Don't let that smile fool you!! It was the only one of like 10 that he is holding still enough to not be a blur.The middle one is much more true to how it really is!! It goes all the back to those totally awesome shaggy

sideburns. Today he was wearing a sweatshirt all day with the hood on and it just made him look like a totally rotten child. He is happy to play the tough guy part!! It's healing a lot quicker than I thought, so we'll see how many more colors he gets to. I had to post these pics because not only were they cute, but his eye is how my heart feels today. Philip had to start a new job in Utah and left today and I have to stay behind in order to give birth in 8 weeks!!!! I am starting to realize the danger in leaving a 32 week pregnant girl alone with 2 kids, a house to pack while

trying not to go into labor "too quickly", and having to eat up all our food so I don't have to move it when I already am too big for my maternity shirts (which I can still wear non maternity pants, so how does that work?? I am telling you my belly is a phenomenon this time). Plus my distraction/hobby is to bake and bake and bake and with no one to share it with and not to mention Valentine's day around the corner, it is a cocktail for a diabetic coma. (Have I mentioned I am a stress eater?!?!) If anyone wants to send early labor vibes this way, I would love it. Not too early, but the sooner my baby comes (healthy...no NICU) the sooner I do not have to be a single parent.