Happy 1st Birthday, Elliott!

One down and seventeen to go. Woo hoo! We made it through his first year. And nearly unscathed. I wanted so badly to get some really great pictures of Elliott on his birthday. Unfortunately, the rascal won't stand still for more than half a second. I snapped over FORTY pictures and all but this one were blurry because he was constantly walking around. I would have tried to get more pictures sitting on the picnic table you see below, but he started to stand up on top of it so we had to abort mission.

Don't they look sweet?

The next set of photos are an example of something I like to do with the kids when they're little. I'll occasionally take pictures of the things they're into at that time. So here's Elliott playing with some of his favorite toys in his bedroom at one year old.

The Little People Farm. For some reason I saved all of Oliver and Owen's Little People.

He drops the balls into the top of the giraffe and they roll out the leg holes. He's really proud of himself for figuring this one out.

Apparently trying to make a return trip.

Peek-a-boo!

Elliott's birthday was on Friday and we celebrated on Saturday. It was just the five of us with some cake, ice cream and a few gifts. The Os had just as much fun with the new toys as Elliott did.

Oliver really wanted to video and I let him. There was mishap and we ended up singing the happy birthday song and blowing out the candle twice. Elliott loved being the center of all that attention.

We let Owen blow Elliott's candle out since Oliver got to blow Owen's first candle out. Elliott is sporting a custom-made birthday shirt designed by mom.

I really need to take a cake decorating class. So lame!

Click on this one to enlarge it and see if you can read his shirt.

Brian and Elliott reading his new birthday book, Gallop! It's the coolest book ever!

Elliott actually pulled some paper off himself!

This is a fun toy I found at Target. It's a giant gum ball machine he puts the balls into and then there are three ways to release them.

I believe this was Take One. Just look at that grin!

Elliott didn't care too much for the cake by itself. It was too sweet. Once Dad combined it with the ice cream though, he was all over it!

Camping at Kitsap Memorial State Park

We went camping last weekend with Linda, Alex, Vanessa, Mark and Leon. Quarters were close, but it worked out just fine. We shared some meals and some laughs and had a good time just hanging out. All the boys played and had fun. We plan to make it an annual event at various locations.

The park is close to Poulsbo and there was an arts and crafts show going on that we went to. I got a new pair of earrings out if it! There was also a marine science center the Os wanted to visit. It was small, but nice. The weather was warmer than we would've liked, but at least it wasn't raining!

The babies did really well considering the circumstances and they both get awards for being able to nap whenever and wherever. Alex gets an award for keeping the Os entertained.

As usual, I took too many photos. This one is far and away my favorite. This is Leon (3rd cousin to my boys) taking his first crawl while his adoring parents, Vanessa and Mark, watch him with great pride.


And here are some others that I like from the weekend:

Picking blackberries at our campsite.

LaLa and Chunks.

The group going into Poulsbo.

Mark, Brian and the babies.

Vanessa helping Oliver with a craft.



The finished product.

The Os at the Marine Science Center.

I'm an Aunt!

My brother, Ben, and his wife Aimee delivered their first child on August 8. His name is Logan and he was 7 lbs 10 oz, 20 inches. They are such proud parents. I hope they're getting some sleep.

The happy family.

The first of many joint naps, I'm sure. It's one of the great things about being a new parent, isn't it? You get an excuse to nap when you're SO tired. And is there a sweeter nap than one with a small wonder?

Doesn't she look radiant? And so full of love.

If I know a thing or two about baby boys, this is a dangerous position for Ben to be in!

Frankenbaby

At 11.5 months of age, Elliott has acquired some interesting new skills. He can walk backwards, play peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake, turn pages in a board book and careen into coffee table corners without hesitation.


Wait... what was that last thing, you ask?

Oh, you haven't heard? Well, on Tuesday evening Elliott tripped into the corner of the coffee table. There was the dreaded thump, followed by a howl, followed by me yelling, "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!"

I scooped him up and ran into the kitchen to hold his gushing head over the sink. By then the massive amounts of blood has run into his left eye. There was enough there that we could no longer see any part of his eyeball and feared he'd actually lost his eye.

I wailed, "Is it his eye? Is it his eye?"

Why do we say things twice when panicked?

Doug blotted the blood with something, a paper towel maybe and we were immeasurably relieved to see that it was a mere gash in his forehead.

Brian was running around asking (twice), "Where's my first aid kit? Where's my first aid kit?"

Of course, I got the blame for moving said first aid kit.

As soon as we got the blood out of his eye, Elliott stopped crying. Apparently that was more bothersome to him than the gash. Babies... go figure.

Doug stayed with the Os and assured them that all would be well while Brian and I took Elliott for stitches. When we arrived at the urgent care clinic inside our HMO we were taken back to an exam room right away. After about 15 minutes, I asked Brian to see if he could get someone to help us.

He returned to our exam room and replied, "They said there were four people ahead of us with chest pains, loss of consciousness etc." Well, I'll be damned if old people dying takes priority over the scratch on my baby's head!

I waited about another 5 minutes before I got up in a huff and reached for the door. Brian said, "Don't do it, Beverly." (Beverly is my mom. She has a certain way of dealing with situations like this. Remember when George Jefferson got upset? That's her.) I just smiled and said, "Oh, don't worry."

I wandered around the nurse's station looking lost with Elliott on my hip. We looked terribly pathetic with blood all over us. I pretended to be understanding about the old dying folk and said (while giving them the doe eyes), "Oh. I see. I just wanted to find out about how long it would be because it's his dinnertime and he's getting very fussy."

One of the doctors happened to take notice. He got up and walked over and quietly asked, "What room are they in?"

I walked back into our exam room in front of the doctor and beamed a big, fat TOLD YOU SO smile at Brian. As luck would have it, the doctor was a grandpa 8 times over and was just an awesome guy. He put 4 hideous bright blue stitches in Elliott's forehead and we were out the door. Which was a good thing since we had people at our house waiting for us to cook dinner!

Yep. It was a crazy evening.

The wound doesn't seem to bother Elliott at all. He does get extremely upset when I have to change his bandage though.

He actually looks kind of cute with his bandage, doesn't he? Well, get ready for the ugly truth.

The envelope please. Drum roll.

The winner of this year's Mother of the Year Award goes to..... me!

Blueberry Picking with Uncle Doug

Brian's brother-in-law, Doug, arrived yesterday afternoon. He's in town for a week to go on a backpacking trip through The Olympics with Brian and four others. We haven't seen Doug in nearly four years! Reactions from Oliver and Owen were not what I expected. Owen got all gussied up for him and even asked me to do his hair (which means make it curly). Oliver turned two shades of scarlet when we finally met Doug at the airport. The boys were quiet at first although Doug made them laugh quite a bit.

They played some frisbee and tossed the baseball after dinner. I can't tell you how great it is to have someone who actually knows what he's talking about give them pointers on baseball. Brian and I are useless when it comes to sports. Doug corrected Oliver's form and from then on Oliver was firing them in. Both the boys were doing loads better catching grounders after Uncle Doug taught them the "alligator chomp."

This morning we went to pick blueberries. We all made a good team because Doug picked the high ones, I picked the middle and the boys picked down low. We're going to make a blueberry-lemon crisp tonight for dessert. Yummy!

We came home for lunch and while I made PB&Js, Uncle Doug wrassled with the Os. That was the end of the quiet! Man, oh man, Oliver and Owen were in a frenzy. They love to wrestle and fight anyway, but when an adult joins the mix they go berserk.

Some serious picking.


Some sort of discussion.


The booty!


Even Elliott tried to pick some berries!

Happy 12th Anniversary!

July 21st was our 12th wedding anniversary. Wow! We were able to celebrate it together on Saturday, the 26th by climbing Mt. Ellinor in Olympic National Park. It was my first ever real mountain hike (as opposed to an easy nature walk). Most of the trail was very well-groomed and so the going was fairly easy. The snow chute, however, was a bit challenging on the way up and a lot of fun on the way down. (Both our rear-ends were drenched!)



We had a nice lunch up at the peak, saw some mountain goats, Douglas squirrels and lots of wildflowers (it's just now springtime up there). Visibility was poor at the peak but that was fine by me since I'm afraid of heights. ;o) Visibility was better below the snow chute so we were able to appreciate the lovely vista.






Afterward, we returned home to clean up and then went to see The Dark Knight. Woo-hoo!! It was BATASTIC! I was afraid it was getting better reviews than it deserved because of the death of Heath Ledger, but I was so wrong. The plot was complex, the action was thrilling, the cinematography was stellar, the soundtrack was good and the acting was fabulous. And Heath Ledger's performance as The Joker really was astounding. I can't imagine anyone being able to fill his shoes to take over that role. I rather hope they don't even try.

We owe a mountain of thank yous to Linda for making our anniversary celebration possible. She kept all three boys for us so we could go hiking. We love you, Linda. Thank you so much.

Bike Helmets

Okay, so apparently an explanation is warranted on my kids' seemingly constant wearing of bicycle helmets. The reason you see the boys wearing helmets in so many photos below is because they were on and off their bikes every few minutes so there was really no reason to remove them... it just slowed them down. Also, Owen can't take his off by himself. :o) He even wore it during some meals. It was really funny. I could tell he enjoyed the attention he was getting by wearing it at odd times.