MA & PA

I spent all week thinking Seth had pictures and a soccer game on Saturday afternoon. Luckily I figured out I had the wrong date about ten minutes before we needed to leave. Instead of a soccer game, we headed for a walk along the MA & PA trail. 

The 15 foot stretch of track that Catherine is now obsessed with

Playing in the creek

Two kids on the rocks

My handsome Seth Man

A happy stroller rider

Mouth full of goldfish...nom.

Two babies on a bench

She's getting really tired of me taking pictures of her.

But I can't resist those curls!

Possibly Seth is getting too big for the stroller

Just walking along the tracks

Love the cowlick there

Leaving my baby on the railroad tracks

Thanks to the library summer reading program, we ended up at Pizza Hut for three free personal pizzas.

Aaron didn't mind the wait with his daddy: 

Don't mind all the pictures--I'm practicing for his one-year-old pictures here in a few weeks!

Eleven Months

Eleven months. I can't believe we're here already. To be perfectly honest, this has been kind of a hard month for both of us. Partly due to you getting miserably sick for a week (in August? Why?). Partly due to the fact that you are desperate to start moving but aren't really capable yet. Here's hoping for good health and more independence in the very near future!

At eleven months old, you are:

*growing out of 12 month clothing (except the pants--your skinny rear is still in 6-9 month pants)

*still eating everything under the sun. New favorites: blueberries, cucumbers and corn on the cob.

*still drooling like Niagara Falls. It's completely out of control. Look closely at your chest in the picture below to see what I mean:

*closely related to the eating: I change your stinky diapers 4-6 times a day. Ridiculous.

*you are constantly saying things that sound like "light", "yes", and "Seth". But no context yet. You will look up at the light in the kitchen when we say "light", though.

*your favorite activity is whacking things with sticks/markers/utensils. For example:

*you can get from tummy to sitting now. Which means we see you at least once a night because you've decided to sit up and can't figure out how to lay back down again. But other than that, you're officially sleeping through the night! Usually from about 7 pm to 7 am.

*you're still not pulling up or cruising at all, with one exception: the tub. If you are close to the tub, you will claw your way to a standing position in the hopes that we will put you in.

*the Roomba is your best friend. You love to sit and watch it while it's running. You'll also go whack it when it's docked at its charging station--"Come on, Roomba! Wake up and play!"

Looking...

"Roomba! I love you!"

*you decided that you are DONE nursing. You were losing interest, but I could at least nurse you when you woke up in the morning or went to sleep. This week you decided that was all over. Looking around the room is WAY more interesting than nursing. Bad news is that you refuse milk. So lots of yogurt and cheese for you!

*and, the grand finale...CRAWLING! Okay, it's not "real" crawling yet, but you're very close. You still move very slowly and have to concentrate on moving the correct limb (this ends in a faceplant fairly often). But you get faster every day!

Crawling for marshmallows...sort of.

Your main motivation is food. Your first real attempt at crawling was to get to a marshmallow on the floor that was just out of reach. You'll also crawl for Legos or marbles or other things you'll probably choke on. But mostly just food.

Love that drooly face and red hair!

The Garden

Gardening is a lot like raising children: a ton of work that ends in either great reward or heartbreak. This year we had quite a bit of both. Let me introduce you to our children. I mean plants. 

First, we have our Sweet 100 plant, otherwise known as "Septoria Leaf Spot":

Next, our Better Boy (which miraculously survived a fall off the deck due to a freak wind storm and a neighbor's deck umbrella). Also known as "Septoria Leaf Spot with Late Blight":

And our last tomato plant, known as "Bush Better Boy" or "The only undiseased tomato plant":

This has been a GREAT plant for containers, FYI.

Onto the green beans!

First, the regular-type:

Five plants in two containers

Used to be six but one plant didn't make it.

Then the freakishly giant plants: 

Four plants, grown from the same seeds as the others.

Apparently five-gallon buckets are the way to go with green beans.

And, finally, the impossible-to-kill green onions and chives: 

The daily harvest:

Green beans out our ears and a pitiful handful of tomatoes...sigh...

Dear gene modifiers--I hereby proclaim my support for your work and give a desperate plea for the accelerated production of disease-resistant tomato plants. Please. 

Jon is a Great Dad

He builds our children awesome structures out of foam blocks.

He also insists that the baby "will be fine" and is totally safe in said structure.

Apparently "totally safe" means "I am within grabbing distance when the baby decides to dive."

"See? Totally safe."

Shutters, Shutters, Shutters

I'm growing to really hate the shutters on the front of our house. Sure, they look nice and everything, but the stupid things keep blowing off the house. Putting them back up is a pain as it is. Repairing them when they fall off and break is a bigger pain. And replacing them when they fall off AGAIN and break AGAIN and we lose a piece is expensive. And a pain, since our shutters are a custom color and have to be painted.  Nothing quite as fun as spending a weekend painting and hanging shutters...

Aaron enjoys the show.

Not really--he was a horrible whiny baby who wouldn't let me help Jon at all.

Jon installs the freshly-painted shutters with the help of Logan 

(a young man from the ward who we hired to help due to Aaron's awesomeness)

Catherine LOVES it when I take pictures of her.

Helping clean and paint the shutters

Why yes, that is a screwdriver touching my $350 lens.

Thank you, Catherine.

Warrior princess 

Seth got bored of the painting quickly.

He spent the day playing Legos in the house instead.

At least our shutters look nice and shiny now, I guess...

I'm a Soccer Mom!

Jon and I decided when Seth was a baby that we were going to force him to play soccer. Okay, maybe not "force", but strongly encourage. This was the first year we felt like he was ready to play a team sport, so soccer it was! And, since we have nothing better to do, his weekly practices are a family outing for us. 

Waiting in her car seat

Waiting out of his car seat (since he can unbuckle himself).

Apparently my daughter is a supermodel.

Aaron just likes to be held by Daddy and show interesting things.

Sampling Dad's Dr. Pepper.

Catherine loves soccer practice since it means one-on-one Daddy time.

Aaron loves soccer practice since he gets all the snacks he can eat.

Getting ready to kick the ball.

(side note: Maryland is SERIOUS about soccer. These 6-year-olds are already slide tackling)

First game is in a few weeks--here's hoping he has fun this year!

First Day of School!

We started school a bit early this year since we have a big vacation to Arizona planned for the fall. And so, on August 4th, Seth started first grade and Catherine started three-year-old preschool. Nothing says "first day of school" quite like pancakes with your initials written with chocolate chips:

I promise that Aaron got some pancakes and chocolate chips, contrary to how it looks below: 

Traditional beginning of the year picture: 

For reference, here's kindergarten:

That's right--he grew like 6 inches this year. My son is huge.

Back to now.

I tried to get a good head shot and got this instead: 

Then this: 

And, finally, this: 

I gave up and tried to get some Catherine pictures instead.

It didn't go much better: 

So cooperative: 

Another year of homeschooling for us!