Battle Ground Lake

We just got back from a very tiring, but very fun camping trip.

How big of a bed does a six-month baby need? Answer: queen size. Blake did not enjoy the bed we made up for him on the side, so he joined me on the air mattress, while Jeremy and Carolyn slept on the ground.

I've never gone camping with a baby. Carolyn was 14 months old the first time we took her. I think we did pretty well, but I didn't think about his bald little head at night. It was freezing, so we ended up sharing my sleeping bag so he could have some warmth for his noggin.

Don't judge the photography, but this rock proved quite entertaining. The children would all line up and jump off and then start again.

Of course, what is camping without marshmallows? The key to delicious campfire treats is to put the chocolate in the center of a very hot marshmallow and let it melt. So good. You definitely don't even need the graham for this.

Next trip: maybe a bigger tent. And figure out a way to get Carolyn to go to sleep before 11.

My little fish

Swim lessons have started at our house. Carolyn loves them. After her first lesson, Carolyn spent about 10 minutes drying out in the sun. Then she came up to me and told me she was ready. I gathered up our stuff to go to the car. She quickly clarified that she was ready to go back in the pool, not leave. She'll be quite disappointed to find out they only last two weeks.

P.S. Photos are courtesy of Rachel. She actually remembers to take her camera places.

Budding Artist

Carolyn really enjoys coloring. I have never seen another toddler color in quite the same manner. The picture is not finished, until there is not an inch of white left. We have sheets of coloring book pages in solid colors. Periodically, she branches out and uses multiple colors. But usually, it's like these. She calls them Night and Moon.

Carolyn figures it out...

We gave Carolyn this bike six weeks ago. Good thing we had time to practice so that on her birthday she was actually able to do this.

Feeeeeeeed ME!

I felt bad for Blake yesterday as he watched Carolyn enjoy all her birthday treats. He watched all the food move from the table to people's mouths. I tried to wait until his doctor appointment next week to start him on food because of some questions I wanted answered. But last night we just went for it. I'm glad we did. He was totally ready and really enjoyed his rice cereal. He giggled through most of it because he was so happy to finally get some food.

That party was out of this world!

Last night we had a family party, but today we took Carolyn and three of her friends to her favorite play place for a birthday party. The kids played on a bouncy house...

and did some rock climbing.

Here's the party gang racing down the wavy slides.

We let Blake participate a little bit.

Here's her birthday dessert. This year, I did a semi-homemade ice cream cake, but she still didn't like it. I give up on the birthday desserts. Unlike last night, Carolyn managed to blow her candles out.

Happy 3rd Birthday!

I've watched this little girl grow up before my eyes, and it amazes me that she is three today. It doesn't feel like very long ago that I held her in my hospital bed. Around October of last year I realized she just wasn't my baby anymore and was growing into her own person.

She has personality, and I love looking back to her time as a baby and recognizing the early signs. Right now she loves coloring the most. She can amuse herself for hours, and I used to let her until I noticed she was using up all my baby wipes trying to clean crayon off of various surfaces. Now her coloring is a little more supervised.

At 3, she loves to sing songs--real or made up. My current favorite is Teach me to walk in the light. She counts to 10, but almost always misses 7. Same for the letter J. She has learned to assign last names to people and always asks me if people are Horners. She tells me stories that she makes up if she can get them out through her giggles. She will always clean. I've had mornings where she cleans the entire living room for me.

I absolutely love her to pieces. She can make me steaming mad and then say, "Sorry, it was an accident" in the sweetest voice that melts my heart. She is always quick with hugs and kisses and makes me feel like I do a great job. It's good she won't remember all the mistakes I've made with her and we can grow together.

Happy Birthday, Carolyn!

Pushups

This is how girls do pushups,

and this is how I do them.

Tiny story

We were having a little time together as a family the other night. We were running through our calendars for the coming week and coordinating schedules when Carolyn perked up and said "I need to take care of my blog!"

Time in Washington

My grandmother died two weeks ago and I went to Washington to attend the funeral with my family. When my mother changed her plane ticket to stay longer and try to tie up loose ends, I changed my plans to stay as well. I sent Jeremy and Carolyn back to Portland with my sister, and Blake and I stayed to help.

We found lots of interesting things in Grandma's house. My mom says this is what people used prior to high chairs. In fact, she's sure I used this when I was a baby.



Apparently, my mother has a picture of me, with her and Grandma that was taken when I was a baby in front of this same church building. This is our only picture with Blake looking at the camera. He wanted to watch all the cars zooming by in front of us.
Sorry about the blurry picture, but you have to move fast when you want to take a picture of your dad wearing a pink, flowered apron!

I am glad that I was able to help my mom, and I am very grateful to Blake for being the best baby anybody ever saw! He slept wherever I placed him and happily played by himself for long stretches of time so I could work.

Sleep is for the birds

I get entirely too little sleep these days. Usually, when the kids go to bed at 8, I lie down on my bed to read until I turn the light off at the late hour of 9 pm.

Tonight, Jeremy lured me downstairs with the promise of So You Think You Can Dance. I wasted time reading blogs and watching the TV when I heard the pitter patter of little feet around 8:40. Carolyn snuck out of bed to try and join us downstairs with the TV. I took her little hand and marched her back into bed. We heard a couple of whines and wails intermittently, but then all was silent.

It was so nice to read things on the internet without anybody sitting on my lap. So I stayed up, wasting my precious sleep time away reading about new recipes and civil rights infractions in Burma. I couldn't bring myself to go to bed because the sooner I went to bed, the sooner I would have to get up to nurse.

Finally, around 10:40, I told Jeremy I was packing it in. I couldn't delay it anymore, and I knew I would be feeling the pain tomorrow. I hate feeling sluggish. We were getting ready for bed and I told Jeremy I wanted to peek in on Carolyn. It's so easy to do these days because she sleeps with her door wide open. I tiptoed down the hallway to catch a glimpse of her body burrowed into her blankets.

Instead, behold photographic evidence that Carolyn is in fact my daughter. If the lack of concern about hairstyle didn't prove it as my mom tried to point out here, then this should:

Don't let the flash from my camera fool you. She was working on her masterpiece by the dim light from her nightlight. (And yes, we let her sleep in her play clothes. It's so not worth the fight.)

I can't even count the number of times after my parents thought I was in bed that I would get a book and read until it was way too late. Of course, let's hope her imitation stops there and doesn't progress to sneaking to friend's houses when she gets older. (Sorry, Mom!)

Now I'm blogging so I stay up long enough to make sure she is really sleeping before I go to sleep myself. You know what I love more than being tired in the morning? Being tired with tired children. It's the best.

Is this really fun, Carolyn?

Early Birthday Girl

We purchased Carolyn a bike for her birthday and were storing it at her cousins' house. We wanted to wait until June. Then I took her out on her little push car for a walk. She couldn't actually move her legs so they weren't dragging on the ground. I realize I am not describing this very well, but it looked very uncomfortable. So we decided to give her the present early so she could work on learning to do the pedals.

Here she is finding it. Her joy is a little understated.

It will take some time to help her figure out the pedals, but once she does I know she will love it.


And as usual, Blake stayed parked in his stroller while we were outside helping Carolyn. He's such a happy baby.

For your listening pleasure

Carolyn made it obvious when I was filming Blake that she is more of an in-front-of-the-camera girl. She wanted to put on a little show.

And he's off...

Blake rolled front to back a few weeks ago, but yesterday he learned to roll back to front. And he hasn't stopped since. I'll have to start making Carolyn keep her crayons picked up and all that other baby safety stuff.

Here's a link to the video. Blogger hates the videos from my camera.