The story of the missing camera

Most of you know that I lost our camera. I've been really upset with myself over it. And I couldn't, for the life of me, remember anything about the last time I had seen it. Only vague details of packing it in the diaper bag to take it somewhere with the boys. (which turned out to be wrong anyways) Monday night I finally did a thorough search of the van to make sure it wasn't hiding somewhere. (I'd been avoiding this because I really didn't think it was there, and it made it seem more real that it was gone. I know, it's not logical. I know.) I told myself I would do this same kind of search of the Subaru in the next day or so to verify it wasn't in there either. BUT! Yesterday, before I got a chance to do more than plan my search, Alex called to tell me he had found the camera!!! I was so super excited. He'd randomly opened the center console in the Subaru and there it was! (We obviously don't use the center console often.) Neither of us could even guess how it got there. (I'm in the Subaru these days about as often as we use the center console.) There was not even a little whisper of a vague memory of putting it in there. Then Alex got home and I turned the camera on to make sure it still worked. These were the only three pictures on the camera-




Can you guess where we had the camera last?.............. The Seahawks game!! I had taken it but then I didn't want to take it into the stadium, so, I left it in the car. Out of the eyesight of any potential thieves. And the camera owners. Apparently the phrase "out of sight, out of mind" is really, really true. At least in my case.

Best job ever.

Being a mom has got to be one of the most challenging and most rewarding things I have ever done. I have heard this said probably a million different times and a million different ways, but not one makes it less true. It astounds me. I can go from being beyond frustrated at Brady for not obeying, for being able to tell me exactly what he should be doing and promptly doing the exact opposite to beyond full of warm fuzzies when he pulls out something like "I hope you have a great time in the shower mommy". Geez. What a rollercoaster.
I am just so thankful that God starts us off with sweet little babies that we can snuggle and love, that love us so much, despite how often we mess up. Can you imagine if he started us off with teenagers? Yikes.
I am even more thankful that God is my strength and I don't have to try to do this parenting thing on my own. Even though I get distracted and try. Because I fail. So hard. Yet, God is there with forgiveness. With strength, patience and that knock-your-socks-off kind of love that can only come from him. For me, and for him to give my kids through me. Wow.

Long time, no post

Well, I have been failing pretty miserably in keeping this blog updated over the last few months. We've been busy with life. Here are a few of the highlights:

Kellen is now almost 11 months old. I cannot believe it. His being super tiny doesn't help it feel all that real. He had his 9 month check up and was in the 1st percentile for his weight, the 11th percentile for his length and (drum roll please) the 65th percentile for his head circumfrence. Gotta love my big-headed boys! :) Kellen is walking so much more now and he's been using signs more and more to communicate with us. It's great. He knows the signs for eat, more, milk and sleep and sometimes all done. He isn't too consistent on the last one.
Brady has been trying to earn the privilege of sleeping on the top bunk of his bunkbed. He has a chart and gets a sticker to put on his chart whenever he does a good job of obeying and staying in bed at naptime or bedtime. It's not going so well. He's really excited about the reward, and the idea of earning his stickers. Something just isn't translating to him actually staying in bed on a consistent basis. Oh well.
As Kellen is getting bigger, he and Brady are starting to play more together. I managed to capture a rare moment of spontaneous sharing.


We've been having fun doing some fall type activities lately. Krista and I took Brady, Kellen and Bentley to an apple cider mill with some of the other moms in the community. It was pretty fun, but I was disappointed we didn't get to see how they made the cider. We got to see some animals though and even feed some goats!






We also had fun playing in the leaves recently. I've discovered we had a scary leaf monster lurking in our pile of leaves. :)


I'll probably be blogging again soon. I'm very excited to show off our halloween costumes. :)

Future stunt double?

Or maybe a competitor in the X-games? Who knows what this crazy kid will end up doing. This is one of his latest ways his come up with to entertain himself. (Ever notice how with Brady you can interchange the phrase "entertain himself" with "injure himself" and it still is applicable?)

Busy, busy!

Wow! So much has been happening. Brady turned three, Kellen is eight months, Whitney got married. Phew, I'm exhausted. Luckily, Alex has this week off for vacation and we get to go to Heron Island this coming weekend. Yay!
Brady's birthday party was a lot of wet, crazy fun. He was so excited to have so many friends over and be able to be playing in the water outside. He still talks about his "happy party". I was surprised none of the kids seemed too interested in the slip 'n' slide. Brady warmed up to it after seeing some of us grown-ups using it two days in a row. He let Drew push him down on his belly and then it was all over. He was hooked. After Brady's birthday part, we got to go to the Rainier's game with Nick and Renee. I was very happy to have the opportunity to experience the amazing seats Alex had described myself. I was not disappointed! It was pretty freakin' sweet, even though we had to leave early.
Kellen is as cute as ever. Alex and I are really enjoying how cuddly he is since Brady was SO not into snuggling as a baby. Kellen loves giving wet, sloppy kisses which frequently transform into him eating your face. He is also quite good at blowing raspberries. Including the kind on our bare shoulders or legs. He's made some pretty impressive farting noises that way. Such skill. And at such a young age. I'm so proud! (sniff, sniff)
This last week was full of Whitney's wedding activities and wedding. It was such a blast! A flurry of activities, laughing hysterically and LOTS of dancing. I loved her friends from college and it's sad that all the festivities are over and I probably won't see them again. :( The wedding itself was so beautiful and I feel so privileged to have been a part of it. Ah, man. I'm getting all emotional again. Well, here are some pictures from the recent happenings in our lives.

It's already July?! Dang!

I can't believe how fast the summer is flying by! I know time flies by when you have kids, but I think God pushes the extra-super-fast foward button in the summertime.
Kellen is now 7 months old. He's getting cuter everyday, in my humble opinion. He has been giving psuedo kisses. It's very sweet. And wet. ha ha He's now using a combo of "real" crawling up on his hands and knees and his patented army-crawl-wiggle-worm move to get around. And he is still pulling up on everything and getting better at sitting himself down on his butt instead of falling on his head. That's always good.
We're planning Brady's 3rd birthday party. It's craziness! So, I was talking to Brady about his birthday party and trying to get his input on what kind of party he wanted to have. After a lot of "happy birthday" answers, he replied with "brown birthday party". I still haven't figured out what that means exactly, but it was pretty amusing. He also got to experience his first fireworks this year. Previous years, there has been NO way we were keeping him up that late. He loved them! I'm pretty sure he thinks we should have fireworks every day of the year.

Fun weekend

This last weekend was a very nice treat. My mom and step-dad came down for a visit and stayed the whole weekend. It was great to be able to visit for more than just a couple of hours. They came down in their fancy new motorhome. It's really quite impressive. Brady had a blast playing in the "motor bus" and having Grandma and Grandpa's attention. Kellen thought it was great to have some new people to spit up on. hee hee Then to top that off, they watched the kiddos on Saturday night so that Alex and I could go out for date night with the Websters. It was a blast! We went to Bargain World (a thrift store) and shopped for outfits for each other. We each had a budget of $10 and found some pretty spiffy stuff. And then, when we went to the register to get rung up, we found out everything was half off that day! Nice little perk, if I do say so myself. We donned our awesome attire and then went around Tacoma taking pictures. It was super sweet. The pictures turned out AMAZING thanks to Lindsay's skills. We posted some of the pictures on facebook and one of my favorite comments was from a friend saying she'd pictured us having a lovely dinner and civilized conversation. Ha ha! This is MUCH more my style!