Couch = Trampoline

We love our couch. Not only did we get it for free several years ago, but it matches our decor; and since it was free I let our kids get away with almost everything on it. Chase especially likes the couch and does all kinds of acrobatics on it, and jumping off of it. Unfortunately I didn't catch one of his great stunts while filming tonight, but you get the picture. I also apologize that half of the things I am saying don't come out right, and Kai keeps saying "help me" throughout it. (He does that to copy his brother, who will always put himself in a position where he looks like he is falling or trapped and will say "help me"...so now Kai says "help me, help me" too). Hope you enjoy their little entertainment. I especially like Chase's legs flying across the screen at the very end. :)

The Hunt for our Christmas Tree

So I probably shouldn't title this entry as a "hunt" because our tree ended up being an easy find. We had in mind to go up in a more mountainous area to cut down our tree, but had promised our boys that we would look at trees after their afternoon nap on Friday, and decided to go around the corner to a u-cut place that was in someone's very large backyard. However, this little u-cut place off of 36th Ave in Edgewood was very impressive, with a large choice of perfect looking, affordable trees, it just took us some time to find the most absolute perfect one in both of our eyes (I like taller and skinnier trees, Nathan likes shorter and bushier with not a hole to be seen).
Of course, me being goofy since I rarely like to take a serious picture (I am not the most photogenic so I might as well look like I am not trying to look good, haha). At least it looks like we are in a forest, huh?

Ok, I guess I am being serious in this picture, and it turned out ok. Too bad Kai has his "bobbie" in (as he calls it), and Chase is doing his "cheese" smile :).

Look at my man sporting a saw...so masculine :)!

And after, to make the experience even more perfect for the boys, they each got a candy cane...something Chase has been wanting for weeks! (You would think that I would have bought him one since they are so cheap and he has wanted one for awhile, but I am a bad mom, so that's why he had to wait until now to be given one for free ;) ).

Chase wanted to save his candy cane until we got home, (he loves to plan and is often too practical, haha), but Kai on the other hand wants things IMMEDIATELY, and will let you know by screaming if you don't get him what he wants NOW. So he was happy to eat his candy cane right away.

And since the Christmas tree place was seriously only 3 minutes away, it sure didn't take us long to get it back home and put up. What fun...I am so happy it is the Christmas season!

Last, but not least, below is a video of Nathan holding our tree for it to have the loose needles (and bugs, hopefully) shaken off of the tree. Unfortunately I didn't start recording this earlier since seconds before I started filming Nathan lost his grip and the tree fell on top of him while it was being shaken. It was hard for him to get control of it again, but he did :). I just thought it was funny since both of our boys didn't like seeing their new tree get shaken to death.

Random Video Blog

I decided to video the boys playing today, and then got to looking at what was saved on our camera. I found this video of when me and the boys went down to visit my family in March of this year, and my sisters and I were trying to keep our older kids entertained. I guess all of the little guys, each of us have our youngest boys not represented, must have been napping. Anyway, seeing Megan dancing around with them, and then Kelli videotaping it made me miss my sisters even more. I wish we could all be hanging out at Mom and Dad's again tonight :). Oh well, someday :)This isn't that exciting of a video at all, but I realized that I hadn't posted a video of the boys for a way long time, and if Nathan's mom is looking at our blog every once in awhile still, well I thought she might enjoy seeing what they look and act like now. The weather outside was nice this morning, but started getting ugly this afternoon, so we used a box I got today in the mail as a bridge for the boys to drive their cars on. It is funny that the junkiest, lamest toys end up being the most fun.

Anyway, at least I posted something, cause lately I haven't been the best :)

Dirt and a Bumble Bee

Ok, so none of these pictures turned out great...oh well, but here are what the boys ended up being for this year's Halloween. Last night was our ward's Trunk or Treat, and Chase chose to be dirt this year (even after I gave him so many clever, fun, boy costume ideas), and Kai had to be a bee since he is too young to tell me what he wanted to be. I had a difficult time thinking of how we could make Chase look like dirt, and not a poop, and you see the result. We put a little plant on his head to look like it was growing from the dirt, put cocoa on his face to look dirty, and made a sign that says "Can you DIG it? I wanted to be DIRT" and had a garden shovel that can go in and out of the back of it.

Kai doesn't look that cute here, but he sure was cute as he walked around later that night and his little chubby face was hidden back in his big bee head.

So tonight, Halloween night, we will be joining Nathan's sister's family and having pizza and then going Trick or Treating around their neighborhood. Hopefully the weather (and our boys) will cooperate! :)

FHE: Pumpkin Carving

This last Monday, as a tradition of ours, we carved pumpkins since Halloween was later in the week. The boys loved getting to stay up late, and the privilege of getting to sit on the table, a rare occasion, and watch Dad carve out the "yucky stuff" and see Mom carve out the faces. They loved smacking the "yucky stuff" and helping separate the seeds from it.

Don't you love Kai's "smile" haha.

And here are the finished products. Happy Halloween!

Beach Trip!

Unfortunately our batteries died pretty soon after our fun weekend getaway began, but thankfully we were able to get a few pictures in before then. We were able to go down to Seaside, OR with a few of our friends to stay in a beach house and have fun hanging out, a surfing expedition, and playing games. It was a lot of fun, and it was nice that the weather was really pretty on Saturday so we could enjoy the beach. Nathan caught almost every wave that came by him, and even I gave it a shot, but a very quick shot. I figured stand up one and a half times for a second and then I had had enough :). I am not a major ocean person, and after being thrashed in the waves I realized I really am out of shape! Anyway, it was a fun attempt, and I was kept pretty warm in the wetsuit, and it was overall a really fun weekend hanging out together and seeing a really beautiful place.

The beach we went to.

We went to the shops "downtown" and stopped by one of the arcades. Don't you love that 3 year olds have no idea that they are not the ones playing the intro to the game? Sure saves us some quarters at least when they think they are already playing and doing awesomely since that is the example :)

We also stopped by another beach at Cannon Beach, OR before we left to go back home, and the rock in the distance is the same rock at the ending of the movie "The Goonies". Funny.

Nathan's Trip to Santa Barbara

Even though this isn't the best picture of Nathan or his grandma, Bobbie, it was a neat experience that Nathan went down to Santa Barbara for. Earlier this month Nathan flew down alone (it was too expensive to do as a family), and went and sealed his grandma to her deceased husband who died well over 30 years ago. He was also able to then seal his grandma to two of her daughters. It was a neat experience for their family and I am glad he was able to go down and be a part of it.

Also, both of his sisters were able to go too, and so they were able to have fun together in the nice 70-80 degree weather, while the rest of his family (me and the boys) were in the rainy, cooler WA weather :).

Some of the Latest Fun...

So it has definitely been tooooo long since I wrote on here. Our family has had several bouts of the flu and it has been so non-fun, and crazy. However, we have had some fun over the last month or so that I thought I would post on here. I am really bad at figuring out how to post these pictures in order, so we are starting from most recent :). Yesterday, for Labor Day, we were able to go boating with our good friend's the Mann's. We thought the weather was going to be pretty bad, but thankfully it was actually pretty nice, and a lot of people weren't out on the Sound with us because they were listening to the weather report unlike us.

The boys weren't a huge fan of boating, but thankfully Kai had his blanket and me, and he calmed down for the most part. Doesn't he look like he is having a blast in his life jacket? I look pretty scary, but what can you expect when you are the picture taker?

Here is Captain Ron (Evan Mann :D), who didn't know I was taking a picture of him, haha. He also made us all a delicious, hearty breakfast that morning, treated us to some fun boating, and then introduced us to Korean BBQ that night, which was really good. Thanks, Evan!

Here is the lovely Heather, somewhat bundled up trying to keep her boys feeling secure. Too bad Orion and Merrick weren't paying attention to me taking their picture so I could have captured their cute faces. They were great sports about the whole boating thing...too bad my boys weren't as good.

Here is their oldest, Connor, who was majorly brave and figured he could sit by himself and still hold on. He did a great job, but on the way home, when I took this picture, it was really windy and their was some water spray on him that he would hold his hood down to shield his face. He is a funny one :)

I love Nathan. He is such a good dad that he held Chase, who was seriously FREAKING OUT most of our boating time, and he did his best to keep him calm, or really, from passing out. I am glad he has more patience then me!

My grandma also came over to visit us from Colorado for a week, and that was a ton of fun. It was nice that she was able to meet Chase and Kai, and get to know Nathan better, and it was really fun for me being able to have another helper who was always happy to play and read the boys a story. We all really enjoyed having her here...thanks Granee!

Then before my grandma came, Kelli and her family came down from Bonners Ferry, ID to visit us for a few days. Here is Chase and Payton, her youngest, sitting in their PJs watching some morning cartoons. Payton really liked hanging out with Chase since he thought he was cool :), but Chase wasn't as big a fan of that. Payton is only two weeks older than Kai, and 18 month olds aren't so fun to play cars with I guess.

While the Bateman's were visiting we also went to the beach in Tacoma and that was a lot of fun. We had never been to Ruston Way (I think that is what it is called), and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the sand and water.

Our boys liked it a lot too, until we showed Chase the jumping little sand "crabs" and that was the end of Chase's fun. Thankfully Chase is recently getting over his fear of bugs, but at the time the little jumping critters sent him into pure terror. This posting seems to be addressing all of Chase's fears :), unfortunately he has a lot to work through.

We have had a good time with family and friends these past few weeks, and look forward to hopefully some more soon!

Having Fun with Cuppie and Nammy

Last week my parents came to visit from El Dorado Hills, CA and we had a lot of fun with them! I wish we lived closer to them like we used to, but it was nice having them "captive" with us for four days so we could spend all of the time together doing fun things like reading as a family (see above), and...
going to Dairy Queen (DQ) and getting messy with ice cream...

Chase loved his ice cream cone, can you tell?

We also enjoyed visiting Redondo Beach 2 out of the 4 days. Of course the boys loved throwing rocks in the water, and...

playing with big sticks. Thanks "Cuppy" (Grandpa/Dad) and "Nammy" (Grandma/Mom) for making the effort to come up and see us, we already miss you!

"I'm So Excited, and I Just Can't Hide It!" :)

So some of you already know that I have been working, and working, on a drawing of President Monson, but I am FINALLY DONE! I got the idea to do this a little while ago because I was thinking that I would like to have a picture of our Prophet in our home for our boys to see, and then found the perfect picture that I wanted to draw. I contacted the photographer who said to do whatever I want with it (thank you so much to him!), and so I think the drawing has finally met my expectations. I had so many fun and inspirational thoughts along the way that inspired so many of the ideas behind it. It probably looks simple to all of you, but there were so many decisions along the way, and sometimes I have a really hard time making decisions, especially when it comes to a project I am working on.

So today I am mailing a matted, hand-signed print, with a letter to President Monson and his wife to have, (I hope they like it :S), and I am offering the same to any of you that are interested (minus the letter, but I will put a special note in it instead, haha). If you are interested in seeing the three different quotes you can choose to have on yours, or would like to have one, I created a separate blog where you can buy it online with cheap shipping. I priced it cheap so anyone and everyone can have one (and I am crossing my fingers that someone else might want one of these, but no pressure, only if you want a picture of the Prophet like I did :) ). Click here to go to the website.

Also, I would love to have any feedback, advice, thoughts, suggestions, etc. as well...thanks! So, please let your family and friends know about this if you think they would be interested. Thanks everyone, and hope you like it!

Recent Happenings

I recently took Kai to the Dr. for a well-baby visit and found out he wasn't so well. He had a double ear infection (no wonder he had been so cranky lately, poor guy), so we got him on Amoxycillin. He loved the stuff, but it didn't do the job. So after a wasted week, he got on some other stuff. His ears like it, but his poor bottom doesn't. The stuff has caused him to break out in a rash all over his body, and it has given him the runs that have done a number in his diaper region. So, since he is often going #3, I didn't want him running around naked to let his skin air out, but thought Chase's undies might offer a little protection and be nicer for his rear. Needless to say he enjoyed the new freedom, looked pretty funny/cute, and then left us with a disgusting mess to clean up, and undies in the trash, (I don't know how some of you deal with cloth diapers--yuck!)
Since fireworks are legal in wet WA, Nathan went and dropped some moolah to purchase some fun. Even though the 4th is still a few days away, every day a little fun is to be had. Chase has already joined in on some of Daddy's pyro enjoyment, and is fond of sparklers.
Nathan's mom came to visit from Santa Barbara for a few days, and so we took her to a trail that Nathan visited before. It was like a rainforest in there, (to think it is only a few miles from our house), and we thought we would take some pics with the nice foliage background.
A somewhat decen family pic minus the stroller :)
Lastly, Mr. Kai loves cookies, and even though he was smiling in most of the other pictures I took after his enjoyment in eating them this time, I decided to post this one since it almost looks like he is a tough guy with stubble growing in.

Attempting to Take Good Pictures--Oh Well

The other day I gravitated toward picking out somewhat matching outfits for the boys. So because they were looking pretty cute, I told them we needed to take pictures before we got to play outside. Anyway, these are how they all turned out. First, Kai would not cooperate and cried the whole time, so I liked this picture because it looks like Chase is giving him a "what is your deal?" look.
Then this picture turned out semi-cute except Kai started bawling as soon as Chase put his arm around him and tried pushing him away.
If I had good editing software I could probably turn this picture into something good.
Then we took this picture a few Sundays back because my grandma said she wanted a family picture of us and we were all looking good, but had no one to take our picture. So needless to say, it didn't turn out :). Oh well, we are excited to get "official" family pictures this next week!

Kai--a funny little guy

Kai is such a funny little guy, and is someone who seems to have so many facets to his personality. I think Chase is so similar to Nathan and myself, that our little Kai, who is so different, is hard to anticipate what he will do next, or what he is thinking in that big head of his. One cute thing he has been doing recently is he will disappear in his room for long periods of time, and just sit on his little bench and take book after book out of his bookshelf (right next to the bench) and "read" books to himself. I came in the other day and found him sitting here reading "Goodnight Moon".
Since our place doesn't have a bathtub, I bought a big bin to bathe the boys in, in our shower. I decided to put bubbles in it, and Kai starts dunking his head into the bubbles to eat them. He of course got a bubble beard, and was making such a funny face that I ran to get the camera. Unfortunately he wouldn't make the face one I had the camera to take a picture, but at least he made a goofy face for this one.
So Kai is still stubborn, and will not walk for us. He is now 14 months old, and has been standing up anywhere and everywhere, but will not take a step once he is standing. Oh well, we know he can, he will take a step every once in awhile, and will walk well when we are holding one hand, he just has to gain the confidence. But what is cute is that when I brought the camera out to take a picture of him he said "cheese" and smiled. He barely says any words except: "Da-dee" (Daddy), Chase, mommy, yes, more, and this, so it is funny that cheese is one of the few words he knows. I love this little guy!

Lake Tapps

So this is a pretty funny picture to start out this post, but it is a funny picture wherever I put it. Chase is quite the ham for pictures, and he posed for me on this tree stump on an outing we did two weekends ago since the weather was really nice. What a goofball :).

Anyway, two weekends ago we decided to go and see what there was to do around us. We wanted to go to where there was water, and in WA that isn't really that hard to do. Lake Tapps is near to us, so we decided to explore, and we are glad that we did. It was such a pretty place, and it made me realize that I should be more grateful for living where we live because Washington really is a beautiful place--so green, so many different trees, so many things to do outdoors, and really pleasant weather (when it is the summer :) ). We had a lot of fun, now the next goal is to find a boat for next time because then we will have a blast!
Of course Kai is gonna go to where the real fun is, and that is wherever he can make the biggest mess of himself. He is always one to experience life to its fullest though, and thankfully Nathan was there to hold him back from jumping right in.
What is nice about boys is that it is pretty inexpensive to provide them entertainment. Give them a few rocks, some water to throw them in, and they are happy for hours.
My picture didn't turn out that great, but this would be my dream home (minus the 6 mo. of rain a year). Surrounded by tons of trees, and right on the water, with a gorgeous home, how fun. I really don't need a big home like this, or in these surroundings, but I still had to take the picture.