First tooth

Look who now has his first tooth?!  Of course, he decided to pop his first tooth while we were on vacation which isn't exactly sleep inducing......but.......considering he has no control over that and he's still adorable, we'll forgive him just this once :-)

Family Getaway

Our summer was a good, crazy busy and once the school year started up Peter's work hours turned crazy.  There was just a lot to be done and not enough hours in the day.  We knew that a little family getaway would be fabulous as soon as there was a tiny "break" in the workload.  Well, the break didn't really come, but we decided to getaway anyway :-)

Peter found us a fabulous deal on a vacation home rental in Eagle Crest resort.  2,000 square feet of cozy, right on the resort, including all the resort amenities.  Sign us up!  We took off Sunday after church and didn't arrive back home until evening on Wednesday.  To say I was excited about 3 uninterrupted days as a family would be an understatement.  And I know Peter was grateful for the rest, and time to focus on life outside of technology for a bit!  Benjamin kept saying, "Daddy doesn't have to go to work for THREE days!" 

The house was great.  I had shown Benjamin pictures online so he was delighted to find all the different furniture/beds/etc that he had seen in the pictures.  I had hyped up our vacation for the past 2 weeks and his enthusiasm was contagious and adorable.

We filled our days with laughter around the table, big breakfasts, lazy mornings, taking the boys to the pool 3 times, going to multiple parks, renting bikes and riding around the resort, driving around the local towns, eating ice cream (a few times!), sitting on firefighting helicopters, watching random shows in the evening once the boys were asleep while drinking hot chocolate and eating our weight in mint Oreos.

It.  Was.  Wonderful.

Though "vacationing" with two young boys isn't exactly relaxing, it was strangely restful.  It was so much fun watching the boys have fun.  It was perfect to relax with my sweetie in the evening with no agenda and no distractions.  We spent so much time smiling at how full of blessings our lives are.  We were celebrating our 8th anniversary a bit early, and are so in love with our boys....God is good.

Of course, I took pictures of everything.   So sorry in advance for the overload.....  :-)

Day 1:  Unpacking, family dinner, lots of swimming!

Day 2:  Big breakfast, lazy morning, bike ride around the resort, sandwiches in Redmond (great coupon Entertainment Book!), ice cream cones from McDonalds, throwing rocks in the river, an afternoon in the pool, family pizza dinner while watching Kung Fu Panda.

Day 3:  Big breakfast, lazy morning, lunch then drive into the town of Sisters while the boys napped, Ben sat on a fire fighting helicopter (need to download pics from my phone since I forgot my camera), then we had ice cream cones and walked around downtown, headed back to the resort to play at 2 parks, then home for spaghetti dinner.  Peter took Ben for some late evening swimming while I put Jonah to bed.

Day 4:  Big breakfast (Ben got a special pre-breakfast of a mint oreo from Daddy), lazy morning spent half packing/half playing, lunch, a bit of cleaning, then more park playing, more ice cream in Sisters, then finally heading home.  We arrived back home about 6pm, ate leftover spaghetti, bathed the boys, and were all more than ready for bed!

Though we were SOOOO sad that our family getaway was over.....

we were so happy to have made wonderful memories as a family....

Thank you Lord for this sweet time as a family!  We had a blast :-)

Thank You Abby!

Abby, for your wonderful thoughtfulness at Safeway yesterday.....Benjamin just wanted to say.......

THAAAAAAANNNKKKKK YOOOOUUUUU!!!!!

He loved his sweet treat that he picked out with his "monies" and *bonus* it helped serve as motivation to clean his dinner plate :-)  Thanks Abby!

New skills

Jonah is just growing and developing like a crazy man.  It seems like he's learning something new every other day, getting taller by the minute, and dare I say cuter by the second???  Oh we love him.  Here are a few things we want to remember....

*  Sunday, September 1st Jonah said Dada for the first time.  I was able to capture him saying it over and over again on video.  And now he says it all.the.time.  He pretty much adores his Daddy and trust me, the feeling is more than mutual.

*  He is officially mobile.  Though he doesn't stay up on all fours the whole time, he does this cute one armed crawl in combination with getting up on his knees.  He can get to wherever he wants.  He has mastered the start of the bear crawl, its pretty cute.

*  He's a pig.  He eats so much food.  He is hilarious because he still doesn't like to feed himself.  He gets frustrated when he can't get it into his mouth fast enough to meet his appetite.  He can feed himself, he just prefers to be catered to.  Unfortunately for this banana, this was one of those times he decided to give self-feeding a try :-)

*  He's rockin' the big boy pajamas just like his brother

*  Yesterday he started clapping.  It is sooo cute.  Yes, I realize that only parents can get giddy excited about these little milestones, but that's okay.  We still think it's adorable and we're not ashamed, ha!

We love watching you grow and learn Jonah Caleb :-)

Funny Benjamin

I wanted to remember a few cute, funny things Benjamin did this week.

He was playing outside one afternoon before dinner and he was sitting by the garden, which was nothing new.  He likes to play in the dirt with his excavator.  This time however, he was sitting down and looking so intent.  Peter looked closely out the window and realized what he was doing.

He was picking our green beans and shoveling them in his mouth.  Apparently, he couldn't wait for dinner!  It was so sweet watching him from the kitchen window, we had to stiffle our giggles.

Later, he wanted me to watch his guys that were jumping off the diving boards.  I thought to myself, "diving boards?"  When I turned the corner, I saw what he meant.  Clever, little cutie!  Always finding new ways to use spoons :-)