Blake is 2 Years Old!

Blake celebrated his second birthday last weekend. I can't believe my baby boy is two years old! Every time my kids have a birthday, it reminds me of just how short this precious time is with them. Now, if I can just remember that when they are throwing tantrums, we'll be in business!

Sunday was the big family party with a few close friends thrown in. We did a race car theme this year complete with a race car cake and black & white checkered flags. Notice that there are NO balloons? Blake HATES balloons, they make him cry. He says, "no oboons, no oboons!"

We had pretty nice weather after a slow cloudy start and the BBQ was great. Blake was totally excited that everyone was there and liked opening his presents out in the yard. Thank you to everyone who came & thank you for all of his gifts!

Happy Birthday my sweet boy! We love you more than words can say!

Catching up

I really need to get back with my blogging! I'm sorry it's been so long... AGAIN. (Haven't my last 3 posts said this?)

What have we been up to???

The first part of March I decided to try jogging/running. I've never thought that I liked running, but it's beginning to grow on me. It all started when a friend of mine invited me to the 1st Annual Fort Vancouver Run. Right about that same time, a co-worker of mine decided that she was going to try running too. We decided to run together a few times a week and to sign up for the 5k event at the run. On March 29th, I finished my first 5k (that's 3.1 miles) in 35 minutes & 36 seconds. I was 11th out of 35 for my age division and 43rd out of 151 in the women's division. It was really fun and I've been running 3-4 days a week ever since! Our next goal is a 10k in June.

We also went to a parent/teacher conference in March for Avery's preschool. Her teacher says that she is doing really well in her academic, as well as social, skills. She has made some friends and is always really excited to tell us about her day and show us her school work on Wednesdays.

Avery also started playing spring soccer a few weeks ago. (sorry, no pictures yet). The first practice, she loved it. The second practice, she cried 90% of the time. She's so funny, you're never quite sure what you're gonna get with that girl. We have had 2 games so far. Avery scored 3 goals last Saturday. We couldn't be more proud! Pictures to follow soon, I promise!

Blake is becoming quite the big boy lately. He is talking SO SO much and just being a "2 year old". Tantrums & all! We got his pictures taken at Flash last night. You can go here to see them. Type in our last name, and the password is "Blake".

Brian has been doing really well at work lately. He & his "partner" have had a few captures in the past month. Pretty exciting for him! He also has a couple of trips planned in the near future. A bachelor party in Seattle that includes a Mariner Game and a chauffeured van for the evening. And a trip to Dallas to see his best buds Eric & Cory.

Well, I think that catches us all up for now. I promise to be more diligent about posting!

Clamming at Long Beach

Ok, I know, I've been a terrible blogger lately. I have reasons, but I won't bore you with my excuses...

Anyway, last weekend we packed up the car and headed to my parents beach house for some family fun and clamming. Nani, Popi, Nana & Grandpa were there too. We even got to see some other friends and Uncle Dean & Aunt Pauly showed up to surprise us for the Saturday afternoon dig.

The weather was beautiful on Saturday, so we played at the park, played on the sand and had a fun "outside" day. Sunday wasn't bad either, no rain until dinner time, but we took Avery to the arcade in town for her usual hour of game playing. It's like Chuck E. Cheese where you win tickets for your games and then can trade your tickets in for candy & prizes. Her daddy let her choose Fun Dip! NOT something her mommy would have introduced to her until was later in life. That's what daddy's are for I guess!

We came home late Sunday night, the kids slept the whole time so that was nice.

This past week was busy. Avery had her Valentines Day party at Preschool on Wednesday and another party at daycare on Friday. Needless to say, there has been lots of candy consumed this week.

Happy Valentines Day to all!

The Beach

Two weeks ago, Brian had to work,but our parents were going to the beach, so I decided to take the kids and go too. The weather was absolutely beautiful and there was a clam dig scheduled Friday & Saturday evening, so Avery got to go clamming with everyone (I stayed at the house with Blake because it was almost dark & getting cold). Saturday morning we woke up and the girls all went into Long Beach to the arcade. Avery, Mommy, Nana & Nani all got to play lots of games and Avery got fun prizes with her tickets. We played on the beach that afternoon, but no clamming that night. It got too dark and we didn't have lanterns. The kids and I headed back home Sunday morning. They did great in the car and were overall really well behaved all weekend. And it was great have 4 other people to help out!
Here are some of the highlights...

Happy Halloween

We had so much fun trick-or-treating this year. Avery is totally addicted to candy & sweets so she was in hog heaven, and Blake, he just loves riding in the wagon, so he was happy too. He really got the hang of it after about 3 houses. He would trot up to the front porch and hold his bucket, not really knowing why. He didn't care about the candy, he's never had any...yet. Anyway, they were totally cute twin dragons and loved every minute of it.

My Nana and my parents were at our house for dinner and handing out candy to other trick-or-treaters. Avery had just about as much fun handing out the candy, as she did getting it! We had 75 goblins come to our door this year.

Vacation

This year we used our timeshare to stay at the Eagle Crest Resort in Redmond, OR. Our friends, the Bachelder's, went with us for the first 1/2 of the week and then it was just the 4 of us for 2 more nights. Avery & Kendall had so much fun swimming and playing together. Lake Billy Chinook is about 45 minutes from Eagle Crest, so we took our boat with us for some end of the season adventures. We got Avery to jump off the back of the boat into the water for the first time and Brian even took her wake boarding! She is a dare devil to say the least. She loved every minute of it. When Brian was getting his wake board ready to take her, Avery says to him, "Dad, are you sure you're up for this?" She has had some great one-liners lately.

Blake didn't love his life jacket, but (as long as he was eating) was fairly happy on the boat most of the time. We also took our bikes and bike trailer to cruise the trails at our resort, and even went into Sun River for a day. The pools at the resort were great too, although, I don't think I got many pictures of that. Click here to see our entire album.

Blake & Lauren doing what they do best... eating cheerios!
Yogurt mouth!
Avery up on the wake board!



Avery & Kendall rockin' the side ponies!

Officially walking!

We'll, it's official, we have a full blown walker on our hands. Blake is pretty much walking all the time now. He still crawls if he's tired or wants to get somewhere really fast, but I'd say he is walking 80% of the time.

He is also getting more & more of an attitude! He lets you have it when you take something away from him or take him away from something. He just screams and waives his arms around like a little tantrum. I wonder who he learned that from??? :)

Heading right for my camera!

Blake is 11 Months Old

Blake is now officially a walker. For about the past month, he's been taking one, two, and three steps. Just in the last 2 weeks, he's gone to about 60% walking now. Today I think he realized that he likes walking better than crawling. I don't have too many good photos of it yet, but I will post some soon. He still only has 4 teeth, the two bottom ones and the "fangs" on top. Other than walking, his other new favorite thing is climbing. In the past week he has learned to climb the steps or the slide itself of the little plastic indoor slide and, that if you turn a box upside down, you can use it to get on the couch! I have a feeling that he is going to be climbing out of his crib WAY too early...

Blake can also say a handful of words.

Mama, Dada, Bye Bye, nana (banana), and num num for food.

Here is a link to his 11 month slide show. Enjoy!

"Surfing" the vacuum

Princesses & boys

Avery and her friend Signe love to play together. In the last couple of months, they only play outside. They love to get dirty, catch grasshoppers, frogs, and anything else they can put in Avery's bug cage (see post next week). On this rare day a week or so ago, they were playing inside and were dressing up like princesses. Well, actually, Signe was the princess and Avery was the Queen (fitting), anyway, they were so cute, I just had to share the photos.


And then there was Blake, just being a boy and ran-sacking the play clothes! What a little ham I have.
This is his new face that he makes whenever we tell him "ah ah ahh" (that's no-no in our house). He gets mad an pulls this face. It's hard not to laugh.

Blake update

So our little man is now 10 months old. Where has the time gone? It seems as though he has only had 2 stages of his life up to now. Tiny little baby, and, very active mobile baby. Well, I believe it will only be a matter of days until he enters the 3rd stage... WALKING BABY! The past 3 days he has gone from taking 1 step, to taking 2 steps, to standing up all by himself in the middle of the room! I need to get a picture of it, but haven't yet. He is working on his 4th tooth and loves to say Mama & Dada, although he doesn't actually "call us" by those names. He does know what a duck says, "quack, quack" what a car says, "vroom, vroom" and does sign language for more, all done and milk. I can't believe my baby is growing up so fast.

Here is his latest slide show if you're interested.

Blake's Maiden Voyage

After getting home from a week long vacation with no kids, we decided to spend some quality family time out on the boat on Sunday. We packed up and took the kids to Lacamas Lake. Blake wasn't too sure of his life jacket at first, but as soon as he got in the water, he was in heaven. Avery was a fish as usual. She loves the boat and loves to swim, and from what I can tell, her brother is going to be just like her!