We love summer part 2

I ran out of room on my last post to recap all our summer fun, so let the party continue shall we?

*  One of the great parts of Oregon is all the berries and fruit in the summer.  Our neighborhood has some great blackberry bushes so we loaded up after dinner one evening to go for a quick walk and get ourselves a snack.  I was at the stage of pregnancy where even that walk can wipe you out, especially when its still hot out at 6:30 in the evening.  The sweet berries and the adorable berry stained faces of my boys make it worth it though!

*  many, many summer evenings spent swimming in the backyard, or making our own water slide.  Really, I think our boys love swimming because they get to take their clothes off, ha ha.  Wish I could capture their giggles up so I don't forget this sweet age!

*  Jonah and Ben have loved checking every day to find the latest crop from our tomato plant and strawberry plant.  Jonah loves the tomatos and Ben loves the strawberries.

*  I still managed to hit a few garage sales this season with my two (well, three) boys in tow.  We implemented the tradition of "Friday Doughnut Day" and we'll head out early, hit a few sales then by some Entemann's Pop Em doughnuts from Safeway to enjoy while we garage sale.  The boys love it, and I love that they are pretty much a non-messy doughnut, perfect for the van.  Maybe we'll keep the Friday Doughnut Day tradition going, we shall see!  One morning we found a Lego soccer set and the boys enjoyed putting it together with Daddy and playing with it.

*  we're having new flooring installed in our kitchen so Peter did a bunch of prep work to save on cost, and had a little helper in Jonah!

*  my sweet friends hosted a dinner at my favorite Thai restaurant to help celebrate our little boy's soon-to-be arrival.  They treated me to my meal, spoiled me with fun mommy pampering items, and gave me a great evening with some women who are so special to me.  I'm blessed with these sweet friends of mine!  Of course I forgot to get a picture at the restaurant, but Peter snapped one of me before I left.

*  The day before our baby boy arrived (more on that coming soon!) my friends and I headed to Brownsville Park for the day.  We were there from around 10am-3pm, stopping for an ice cream treat before heading home.  The kids had a blast playing and swimming and it was a sweet time enjoying the company of my friends Kristen and Anna.  Love those girls!

We love summer

It was a little bit different having my 3rd trimester of this pregnancy occur during the summer months, but despite it being a bit harder to get around, we've still managed to have tons of fun memories.  I just want to write down a few things we were up to so I don't forget!

*  we have frequented (maybe a few times) the local ice cream joint, Hasty Freeze for their yummy chocolate malts and flavor burst ice cream cones.  Jonah always wants watermelon, and Benjamin varies between all the flavors.  Ben can down his cone in no time, just like his mama!

*  lazy mornings with big breakfasts are the best.  Helping Daddy with his coffee on Saturday morning

*  We went to see Despicable Me 2 one morning.  They offered free kids movies throughout the summer....and we almost made it through the whole thing before having to leave.  Granted, they had to sit through 2,534 minutes of previews before the movie even started (kids.movies.should.not.have.previews)

*  Peter and I took the boys to Brownsville Park one evening and they had a blast playing on the playground and swimming in the river.  And I enjoyed sitting my 37 week old pregnant self on the uncomfortable riverbank, ha ha, not!  Seriously though, it was a really fun night!

*  We spent our 4th of July with a low key day at home.  Our neighborhood had a little block party so we headed over to meet a bunch of our neighbors and had a really good time.  Later in the week Peter wanted the boys to light a few fireworks of our own.  And when I say Peter wanted the boys to light a few fireworks I really mean that Peter just wanted to play with fire and uses his kids as an excuse :-)  So Peter and my sister loved lighting things on fire, and my boys plugged their ears.  They can be a wee bit sensitive to noise.  Then they headed inside the house to watch from there.  Then went to the bedroom upstairs to watch from an 'even safer distance.'  But Peter and Auntie Amanda sure had fun, the little pyros!

*  The boys and I went to the local county fair one afternoon.  They give you free admission on one of the days so despite it being hot and me being 9 months pregnant, I really wanted the boys to have a fun day.  They had so much fun riding on the pony, seeing all the animals, playing with the ducky water pump, and checking out the exhibits.  Then I totally splurged and let them ride on one of the rides.  I wasn't sure whether or not they would enjoy it but they convinced me they would, and they were right.  They laughed and smiled the whole time they rode the airplanes.  They sat next to each other and the airplane goes round and round, up and down.  It was seriously adorable!  Of course I had completely forgot my camera.  So just imagine 2 adorable boys smiling and laughing.  Worth.every.penny.

*  I picked about 17 pounds of blueberries one morning.  My sister watched the boys, I remembered to bring a stool, and it was a peaceful morning.  I'm pretty sure my boys ate about half of them when I got home before I could get them in the freezer :-)

*  Peter had to work through lunch one day, so since we had gone to the library that morning, I decided to pick up a pizza on the way home and let the boys watch the Tom & Jerry dvd we checked out that morning.  I'm pretty sure it was hit, Benjamin couldn't stop laughing.  Oh, and they each ate 3 pieces of pizza.  Is there any point of having a grocery budget with these guys??

*  My sister's daycare has had lots of fun members of the community come to let the kids hear about their services.  My boys were there for the fire department, police department, and sanitation department.  They loved getting to sit in all the vehicles!

*  This post is really long so I will recap more summer memories in another post!  Isn't it a great thing when there are too many summer memories and pictures for one blog post????  Love it!

Potty training Jonah

I may have slightly lost my mind but I realized I had a few weeks where I wasn't going to be gone on the weekend and we didn't have any 'major' plans so I bit the bullet and decided to attempt to potty train Jonah.  He has shown some interest in the past, probably in part to having a big brother, but I wasn't sure how it was going to go.  We were starting about 4 or 5 months earlier than we started with Benjamin.  And I was hesitant to do so because it was a complete breeze with Benjamin.  Sure, he had accidents, but overall it was quick and smooth.

But I just kept thinking how nice it would be to only have 1 boy in diapers (when #3 comes) and how nice it would be to get potty training over with before I had to sit at the foot of a toilet with a nursing baby (like I did with Ben).  So the M&M's were bought, the toddler undies brought out, and Monday morning we started out.

To our surprise, he took to actually going on the toilet really well.  He understood the concept for both #1 and #2 and didn't seem scared at all, which was a bit different than Ben.  But there were definitely lots and lots of accidents that first week.  He is a stubborn one and refused to tell us that he needed to go.  If we put him on the toilet, he would go, but lots of times it was 'too late.'

Now, we're a couple weeks in and we've made lots of progress.  He still hesitates to tell us that he needs to go, but we've learned to see the 'warning signs' and can usually catch him before its too late.  He's still in a diaper at night, but I'm so proud at how quickly he's learning.  We crack up at how he says "I love you daddy, I love you daddy" over and over again when he's had an accident and knows he's going to face a consequence.  He looks stinkin adorable on the potty and I can hardly believe how big he's getting.  I'll spare those pictures on the blog for his sake, but his little body is just so cute!

Love my little guy who is so quickly becoming a big boy!

Happy Valley getaway

My best friend and I get away for 2 days every year to do our annual garage saling adventure in Happy Valley.  This year we also explored a new neighborhood in Eastmoreland.  It's something we look forward to every year because we love garage sale deals and its just so nice to spend some time together, enjoying our friendship.

We headed up late Thursday night after I had worship team practice, and headed out early Friday morning.  To be honest, the sales this year were kind of a bust.  Not sure exactly why, but there just wasn't the amount of quality stuff we usually find.  We still had a blast though, and even got to sneak out to Cheesecake Factory for dinner and dessert afterward.  I stayed up way too late chatting with Jer and Heather (we stayed at their house) and we headed back out Saturday morning.  Again, I didn't find a ton of things, but Kristen scored quite a few fun finds early that day.  We didn't get home until around 6pm that night, and though we were tired, we're always so sad when the weekend is over.  God has given me a gem of a friend in Kristen and I'm so grateful for our fun times together.

The boys were delighted with the few fun finds I got for them.  Jonah had requested a ladder fire truck and I found the perfect one for him.  The ladder extends and the four buttons play actual dispatch recordings complete with engine sounds, sirens, etc.  He was SO happy.  He kept saying "thank you mommy, thank you mommy, thank you get me this fire truck."  And he continued to say that over and over and over for the next week.  So cute.

I got Benjamin a great little race car repair Lego set (for only $2)  It came with lots of figures, car parts, wheels, etc and he's had fun making different cars.  He was so sweet and grateful for his fun surprise.  Between that and the Ninjago undies I found him, he thought I was the best!

The boys also loved the new little backpack I got for them to use at church.  Their old one had a big rip in it so I was so excited to find this adorable car one for $3.  Jonah loved modeling it on the way to church the next day!

Sad that Happy Valley has come and gone, but here's to looking forward to next year!!!

My 30th Birthday

Its not exactly something I was dreading, nor was it something I was really looking forward to....but nonetheless, this year I was going to be turning 30.  Its an odd feeling because in some ways I still feel 23.  In other ways I feel like I've been at least 30 for years.  My body is certainly different than 10 years ago, but life is at a really good place right now for me.

I wasn't really expecting to do too much for my birthday.  We always take advantage of the birthday voucher that Benihana's sends you, but that's all that I was really looking forward to.  My birthday was on a Monday, and that Friday through Sunday prior I was at a mom's retreat with our church.  When I got back on Sunday afternoon around 2pm, my boys were napping and Peter told me to go pack for another night, we were going somewhere after the boys woke up.

Turns out, he had arranged for us to stay at a beautiful bed and breakfast about 40 minutes from us, and my sister and mom were going to watch the boys for us.  After I took a few minutes to get over the fact that it would be another day before I really got to spend time with my boys, I was excited and grateful for my sweet husband's plans.  We took off around 4pm, and checked into our lovely spot for the night.

Our room was on the second floor of a lovely country home on a beautiful piece of property.  The owners were very friendly, the room was large and cheerful, and it was a beautiful evening.  We headed out for a quick pasta dinner at the nearby town, then just came back to our room, sat on the huge window seat and reminisced on our life together.  The windows were open and it was so pleasant, I have such sweet memories of this time with Peter.

We slept great that day, then enjoyed a lovely breakfast prepared by the home owner.  It was nice to have a leisurely morning together.  Then we headed out to browse a few furniture shops, and headed to lunch at Benihana.  SOOO good.  I seriously eat every bite, it is just so yummy.  Scallops and filet, fried rice, shrimp appetizer, yummy salad and soup, vegetables.......lick.your.fingers.good.

We also picked up some slices of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory.  We picked up quite a few because we were also buying some for our friends......our friends, who Peter had invited over for the evening to celebrate my birthday with me.  My incredibly thoughtful husband had invited a few of our friends, my mom and sister, over for a little party.  Peter had worked that weekend while I was at the retreat to prepare TONS of appetizer foods, enlisted a bit of help from our friends and family, and put together quite the spread.  I was so touched by his thoughtfulness and attention to detail.  He did all the prep work, all the shopping, all the planning.  He really did good.  And we stuffed our faces (even after Benihana)  And we ate leftovers for days.

Of course I'm a moron and only took 2 pictures from the actual party, one of some of the kiddos and one of the food.  But it was a sweet time with my mom, sister, Jeremy, Kristen, Carl, Anna, Ruby, Elijah, Haddie, Micah, Nehemiah and my little family.  I felt loved and couldn't think of a better way to spend the day.

Turning 30 didn't make me feel any different necessarily, but I must say, if you have to turn 30, it helps to have wonderful friends and family and an amazing husband who make you feel so special.  Thanks Peter for such a great little getaway and such a sweet party.  As always, you made my day and my life so blessed!