Beginners Silk

Updates on Clifton -
He has been wanting to drink from a big boy cup lately so we have let him try and he does really well.  The tough thing for him is he cannot carry it around like he does his sippy
We are still trying the potty training but it is not going anywhere as of now.  I am not pushing him very hard because I feel if I will push he might just not do it or fight back by peeing all over the place.  So I am trying to go at his pace.  I did go to the store with him and pick out a few cheap toys he wanted and put them in a basket.  I explained that if he goes potty on the toilet he can pick a toy out of the basket.  So far he wants the toys and will sit on the toilet but he does not go potty:/  We will keep trying.

Updates on McKay -
She has had stood a few times without holding onto anything.  Of course when she noticed she fell down:)  She keeps growing and growing and it is way too fast.  She is starting to play by herself better these days and that makes me happy.  She loves watching Clifton and Evan play and often tries to join in.  The boys are usually very nice and let her, until she crawls all over them and tries to use them to stand up.
She also has another tooth poking through.  So two in the bottom front so far.

This week was crazy and crazy fun!  Alex left for Washington DC this week for work.  He only went for one meeting so had a lot of time to roam around and explore Washington DC (I am not going to lie I was a little jealous).

He enjoyed going around and seeing the newer structures they have built.  He also loved going to the Smithsonian Museum and spending way too much time there.  Alex was there for 9/11 and they had some memorial services going on at the Pentagon for people that died and people who lived because of others.  He was very touched by their words and felt lucky to be there.

Monday morning at 5AM our house fire alarm went off.  I jumped out of bed and ran downstairs to see no smoke anywhere.  I quickly grabbed the kids and tried to comfort them while trying to figure out what was going on.  Finally it stopped after opening a window, which freaked me out.  (This was about an hour of alarms going off).  I was not sure I should call 911 so I waited till the fire station was taking calls and asked what they thought.  He suggested I call 911 and make sure it is not carbon monoxide which is what I thought it could be.  So I called 911 and she tells me to get out of the house NOW and the firefighters will be there soon.  That freaked this worrying mother out.  So we went outside and waited for the firefighters.  Of course Clifton and Evan were excited to see a fire truck again and right outside the house.  In the end, there was not a significant reading of carbon monoxide and I still have no idea why it went off.  It was a very scary and tiring morning.

 Since Alex was out and about in Washington DC looking at museums I decided to take the boys to one near us.  I have never been to the Puget Sound Navy Museum and it was right next us.  So we took a visit.

 It was a lot of fun.  They had a cute little kids area for the kids to roam around.

 And even in the rest of the museum they had a ton of buttons to push, structures to climb on, and things to play with.  The boys enjoyed it.

 However I think they enjoyed the water fountains outside even more!

I saved some of the packaging from the BBQ we got a little while back and I was planning on letting the boys play with it.

I gave them some tools and set them to work destroying the styrofoam.

Thursday night I escaped for the evening.  I took my bike over to the ferry and went over to Seattle.  So I have never taken a bike on the ferry.  For some reason in my head I was thinking that I was not taking a car so I must go load where the pedestrians load.  After a few weird looks I realized I was supposed to load with the cars.  Oh I felt so silly.  Very embarrassing, but now I know for next time.  Once I got to Seattle I biked over to Emerald City Trapeze Art where I meet my sister-in-law, Rebecca, and took a Beginners Silk class.  So biking in Seattle is a whole new experience.  It was fun and a little scary.  The roads are scary driving but even more scary riding a bike, mainly because I am in the cars' way.  Anyway I survived!

 It was SO much fun!  It was extremely hard and tiring but very fun.  Even after losing all the baby weight and getting back into shape my body still struggled to pull myself up and to balance.  It takes a ton of core strength and grace.  Which I am sure I could use more of both of those;)

Friday we went to the zoo for the first time this summer.  This was the first time going with Clifton where he was really excited and understood what we were doing and knew what they different kinds of animals were.  It was fun!

 McKay loved the shark tank.  She was amazed by it.  She also loved the fish tanks too.  She would kick her legs in excitement and make her ahhh face.

 The walrus was cool.  It would swim right next to the glass and you felt so tiny next to it.

 McKay is such a trooper.  She is a real good girl and is easy to do things with even if it throws her schedule off a little.

McKay's first ride on a carousel.  She loved it as much as Clifton does. 

Clifton and Dad looking like studs in their sunglasses.  Like father like son. I tried to get one with them looking at me but Clifton took them off before I could.  Love this photo!


We went to go visit our good friends over in Redmond this weekend.  We all went to visit Snoqualmie Falls and had a little picnic together.

 The falls were beautiful!

All the kiddos playing together.  It was great getting together and seeing their little one grow.  I love getting together with friends:)

Half Marathon

Updates on Clifton -

He is SUCH a daddy's boy!  He wants dad to do everything and always wants dad's full attention.  If I tell Clifton that I love him he will say "I love Daddy."  No joke:/  I can't blame him, he does have a good dad.

Clifton is getting really good with his colors.  He is not perfect but for the most part he could name his color and point to the right color.  He is also getting good at one to one correspondence.  He knows his numbers up to ten but he is starting to count one item at a time and count the correct number of items.  He is still working on it but he does pretty well.

 

He loves his sister and it melts my heart!

Updates on McKay -

Well her first tooth has made an appearance.  Here we go!  She actually is handling it well.  A little more fussy and needy then normal but it has not interrupted her sleeping, yet.  Hopefully I did not jinx myself:/

Her personality continues to shine more and more everyday.  She is going to be just as silly as Clifton is.

 She is using a sippy now!  She is growing up super fast.

For Labor day we spent the night at Alex's parents house.  Clifton loves going to Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Grandma had some more blackberries to pick.  So Clifton got to work!

On Labor day I spent the morning doing my half marathon.  It was my goal that I gave myself after I started running a few months ago.  I also decided to give myself a more challenging goal (for me maybe not challenging for others) to run a half marathon, 13.1, in under two hours.  So summer was coming to an end and I wanted to get one in.  I found one in Elma which is right next to Alex's home town, McCleary.  I knew it was a small town so I was not expecting a big turn out or a fancy race.  I figured we could spend time with Alex family over the holiday and Alex could hang out at home with the kids while I was running and just meet me at the end later.

It was defiantly an experience!  There were only 9 half marathon runners.  And I came in second!  The whole time I thought I was in first because no one was in front of me but there was someone who accidentally ran earlier with the marathon people.  Anyway I was excited to come in second even though there were only a few of us.  But since there were only a few of us they did not get prizes.  I just wanted a trophy or something.  Not very often will I come in second.  But the main thing is I did it and I did it in under two hours.  1 hour and fifty eight minutes!  I also got to meet some cool people along the way.  I ran with a guy who was running the marathon but showed up late so he ran with the half marathon people (if you could not tell it was not very organized).  But he was an older man in his 40's and in the last six months has almost traveled to all 50 states to run marathons.  This was is 98th marathon.  He needed to do two more to hit one hundred and go to Alaska to get to all 50 states.  He was intense.  We both had a laugh when telling each others our life stories.  He thought I was crazy for being married and having two kids by the age of 25.  And I thought he was crazy for not being married and not having kids and traveling all over the world to run.  It is interesting to hear the other ways people live their lives.  All in all it was fun and I did what I came to do.  I felt great about myself and proud to have followed through.

This week we went to a small little farm, where Clifton could interact with the animals. 

 Clifton reallly really enjoyed it but it was freaking me out a little.  They also had sheep and they were afraid of us which was fine but they would run around and get close to ramming into us.  Clifton thought it was cool.  I was worried we were going to get trampled.  An adventure indeed!

This is what happens when Clifton asks Dad to color with him.  Alex spends an hour coloring:)  Alex wanted me to put his on the refrigerator too.

The fire fighters for our neighborhood came to talk to our neighborhood about fire safety and they brought their fire trucks along with them.  Clifton could have spent all day and probably all night in the truck. 

 This boy sure loves trucks.  He is totally a boy:)

We had some friends come over to have a Sounders game BBQ!  It was a ton of fun.  It was great to get together with friends and for Clifton to have friends to play with while we ate and watched the game.  I think we should do this more often:)  GO SOUNDERS!

Mom in Town

Updates on Clifton -
He keeps us laughing over here with his silly ways.  The other day he had a poopy diaper and I asked him if I should change it he replied, "No Mom.  It's dangerous!"  I agree Clifton, I agree:)  He also ran into a chair while running around.  He got a pretty big bump on his head.  I told him he had a goose egg on his head.  So he went around telling everyone "a goose put an egg on his head."  Seriously he makes us giggle everyday.
He went potty on the toilet!!!!  However it has been downhill since then.  He will sit on the toilet with some fighting but has not yet gone again on the toilet.  Not sure where to go from here?

This week we spent a ton of time in the bathroom.  This is us doing family scripture reading in the bathroom.  It makes me laugh!

Updates on McKay -
She too is keeping us laughing.  She is starting to make silly faces and silly noises. She has been making this new face, we call the surprised face.  It makes me laugh every time.  I have yet caught it on camera:/

Seriously love her!

 Alex's family put money together for his birthday so he could get a BBQ.

So now we finally are proud owners of a BBQ thanks to his family:)

This week my mother was able to come to town for a few days.  So we made sure to have a lot of fun things to do together.  First we went to Manchester beach - which I think is so beautiful.  I love the fact that I can see Seattle but not be in Seattle.

The boys had fun!

Then the foot ferry and a picnic at the park.

 Again more fun!

Then Friday we went over to Seattle and visited the Sea Aquarium.  It was everyone's first visit to the Seattle aquarium (well except Alex). 

Clifton really enjoyed taking the "big boat".

They were cleaning the tank so a couple scuba divers were in there.  Clifton thought it was cool.

Octopus McKay

Octopus Clifton

The octopus came out when we were there.  It was so cool to see the octopus out.  We also got to see it change colors.  Very cool!

Scuba Clifton catching eel McKay.

Clifton says his favorite thing to see was the seals.  They were my favorite too!

Riding a killer whale:)

Touching sea anemones.   A very fun morning in Seattle!

Saturday Bremerton airport was having a car and plane show.

 Clifton loves looking at cars.  He thought this car looked like Doc from Cars.

He really wanted to fly in the plane.  Wish we could have.

Another fun packed week here!  Loving the weather and spending time together as a family.