Bedtime Rituals

I was "rummaging" through some photos during nap time and found these that I never posted. This was several weeks ago, when the sun still made their room like daylight around bedtime (our kids go to bed on the late side...usually around 9pm for Sawyer, and Aspen will easily hang out another couple of hours after he goes to bed to get her one-on-one-I-can-get-into-any-of-my-brothers-toys-and-he-won't-take-it-away-or-scream-"MINE"-in-my-face-not-to-mention-one-on-one-time-with-mom-and-dad time. (whew that was long!)

I love this.

and this, too.

The fun we have at bedtime. Our bedtime routine stretches out easily for an hour or so. We all enjoy this time of day as we get ready for bed and unwind a bit. Mom and Dad aren't distracted by other things and we spend some quality time just playing together - bathing the kids, running and jumping around, tickling, giggling, flying, dancing, chasing, brushing teeth, reading, more reading, praying, hugging, kissing, and singing together.

A few things I would like to remember about our bedtime rituals NOW:

-Sawyer LOVES "reading" the encyclopedia for bedtime stories. He knows which ones he likes best, too: (A - lots of animals, automobiles, and airplanes and T - trains galore. He also enjoys the place one about Europe. Not exactly sure why?) It's pretty funny to see him bouncing up and down "up there, let's read "pedias"!!!"

-Aspen also loves books. But while Sawyer, from the day he was born, was a lover reading books - even long books, Aspen is a lover of eating them. This girl loves to stick everything and anything in her mouth and if we're not careful she'll get the boardbooks all soggy and start in on the paper pulp. Yikes. I guess she does like to feast upon words! She also really enjoys sitting next to her brother while listening to stories and likes to pat the pictures these days.

-Prayers. Of course the prayers of small children are always a delight and sometimes bring a smirk to parents faces. Or else melt our hearts! I love to hear the things Sawyer is thankful for - the Zoo is one of the things he is most thankful for!

-Songs. Sawyer is ALL boy. ALL BOY! He requests that we turn every single song into a song about race cars or tractors or semi trucks or trains. We have revised "The Wheels on the Bus" to be "The Wheels on the Race Car" (go vroom vroom vroom) and "Old MacDonald had a Farm" to "Old MacDonald had a...fill in your vehicle (train=choo choo, race car=vroom vroom, truck=honk honk honk - you get the idea). Anyway. Hilarious.

"FEEL." We don't even remember when this started, and we never called it "feel" but sometimes one of us will linger and pat or rub Sawyer's back for a couple minutes after we turn the lights out. If we start to walk away, he often requests "feel, feel" which means he wants a pat or a stroke on his back or across his forehead. While we always have things to do once our son is finally in bed, we never regret turning around for a minute or two to softly stroke his little head, or pat his little frame. We just love him like crazy. Often - well, every night at least once or twice before I go to bed, I go in to check on him. To kiss his little head. To hold his little hand. I know, I'm just about as bad as that Mom in "I'll Love You Forever" but another mother wrote that book and she knows what mother's do. Sometimes it's hard to believe that as he is growing older, so am I. I tell him often how much I love him. I hope he always remembers.

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These photos are from last night at bath time. It's really fun now that Aspen sits and crawls. She now gets to join her older bro for bath time, and she loves it! Of course, now his audience has also increased so when he splashes he gets even more giggles...except for when I snuck the camera in for 2 seconds and stood, straddled, above them with my *new baby* (we call her "Annie")....my very expensive new baby...and Daddy luckily warned me about the splashing before it was too late for Annie (this baby will never be joining in on the splashes and fun of bath time - or so I hope!)

Anyway, fun times happening around here. I love bath time - fresh-scented babies and then yummy lotion (I use the old fashioned pink stuff) and fresh pjs before bedtime stories. LOVE IT! As much as I love newborns and my heart sinks a little seeing my babies grow so fast, I must admit each new stage brings even more fun and adventure!

Oh the joys of bath and bedtime!

PS-Happy 7 months today, Aspen!

*Annie is my new Camera. We saved for her a good year, and - I really do need to add her to our homeowners insurance or something!*

Our California Vacation

For our family vacation this year we went to Southern California. The trip had dual purpose: first, we attended the wedding of Jacob's sister, Mia, in Lake Arrowhead {It was the first wedding I have photographed, officially - to see pics, click here}. Secondly, we spent as much time at the beach as possible! We stayed two blocks from Venice Beach and also a couple of days with an old friend near Laguna Beach (who totally helped with the kids and spoiled them with lots of love and little treats - thanks Mel!). I will let the pics speak for themselves!

I have to add that Melinda gave Aspen her first real nickname (I call her "little sister" and "sweet girl" a lot...but she needed a good nickname!) She started singing to her to the tune of a well-known Beatles song: Penny Jane (you know, the latter part of As-PEN + her middle name). So Aspen's new nickname, which seems to be sticking, is Penny Jane. Cute, huh?

Our only souvenirs are our memories, photos, and, yes, I did get two new pair of my fave shoes in the world: flip flops! RAINBOWS to top it off - my first pair!

*pardon my obsession with making everything "vintage" lately in my post-processing...I guess I was in a "Gidget" mood :) I snuck our Holga cameras into our luggage and Jacob and I took some rolls of REAL FILM while on our trip. Gotta love the real stuff, 120 is pretty awesome. There you go. Dreamy Memories Made!!!!

You'd think it was Chocolate...

You would seriously think this was chocolate, the way she went at it. But it wasn't. It was prunes. I guess she loves prunes? I don't mind that she loved them...but I am not looking forward to the post-processing part of the deal. Silly girl!

182.5 days

Our baby girl is 6 months old. I can seriously not believe it. Where has the time gone? It goes so much faster with the second child, it seems. It seems like yesterday, she was this little sweet pea:

And now look at her:

It was a week ago that she passed her 1/2 year mark. I have been so busy I haven't had a chance to get some photos to truly document and mark the moment. But I did get a few. I will try for more this week. (wish me luck, please!)

A couple of things to note about Miss Aspen at 6 months:

-she is truly the sweetest and happiest baby I've ever met. I'm not just sayin' that either. She doesn't fuss. She only cries if she's starving beyond measure. All of this has been such blessing. I just love how she loves to cuddle up with me, and how she loves to watch her brother.

-she laughs in the face of "danger" aka her big bro who is always running and jumping around her (he likes that he can make her laugh - but we always hold our breath to make sure she's safe when he's trying to get her to laugh at his twirls and jumps).

-she has just started to crawl. (Too early, if you ask me, but it seems like our kids are just "early" crawlers...Sawyer crawled at the same age). Now that she is mobile, she makes her way around the room grabbing Sawyer's race cars. He's not so sure he likes that.

-she is still a night owl. Totally takes after her Mama. She still occasionally stays up well past midnight with me working on projects, and we both enjoy it. She's great company. She's also a Mama's girl. I am loving it. I never thought I'd be able to say that I enjoy shopping with my daughter (I'm not much of a shopper myself) but even at this young age, she is much more pleasant company at the Fabric store than her brother. He gets bored shopping (unless it's Target and he begs to pick out a new Race Car) while she just loves looking at things with me. We browse the designer fabrics and she wins the hearts of all the old ladies, and the young ladies. I think Sawyer's friends are already intrigued. I hope she doesn't break too many of their hearts, because we don't plan on letting her date until she's at least 25. :)

-she has a very cute giggle. And she has this cute little flirty smile where she scrunches up her nose. A-dorable!

random fact from her 6 months check up and Sawyer's 2 year check up (they had their appt together): even though she is super chunk-a-licious, Sawyer was actually almost a pound heavier and .5 inches longer at this age. They now wear the same size diaper: size 3.

She is our lovely little lady. We love her dearly, and can never get enough of her. I will attempt some pics when I ever get a chance, but in the meantime, I did snap a few the other day of her wearing the same headband from her newborn photos, with the same prop (my skirt) under her. Enjoy.

My Heart Melts

Some days I just look at her and wish she would never grow up.

At the same time, I can hardly wait for her to tell me how real her baby dolls are and for her to have enough hair for braids and pigtails.

Surrounded by cars the other day (every day, really), Aspen noticed something: a doll. I bought Sawyer a small doll before she was born, thinking maybe he'd have an interest in caring for it when we had the new baby. But seriously all he cares about are things that have wheels. Of course, once she wriggled her way over (yes, she is starting to crawl at barely 6 months old!) then he cared about his doll. So, I got her one of her own. The first of many, I am sure. It was sweet to see her face light up and her natural instinct to go hold onto the baby.

Anyway...sorry for the random post. It's just these little things I like to remember and tuck away for "someday"...

Happy Friday!

Canada Day 3

Sunday morning, amazingly enough, we got up in time to pack up all of our camp site, eat, get ready for church, and drive the 30 or so minutes to make it there with 5 minutes to spare (9:30am). We can barely get to church on time at home, so it was great we could get there on time during vacation!

We were able to visit with an old friend and meet his wife and daughter Saturday evening. They invited us to attend their ward, which happens to meet right behind the new LDS Temple. We had planned on going to see the temple, anyway, so it was great to go to church right there. It is a breathtaking building.

I absolutely love this pic of Jacob and Aspen. I hope to show it to her on her wedding day.

We had packed a picnic for after church, so we ate lunch and spent some time admiring the new temple. We walked around, well, Sawyer RAN around, the grounds and just felt peaceful and happy to be there. We don't get to the temple often these days, but even just being on the grounds of such a beautiful and sacred place feels quite divine. Sawyer wouldn't hold still for a picture with me, but Aspen was delighted. After our time at the temple, we drove home.

We had such a wonderful time on our little mini-get-away. I wish we could've stayed a week!

I am sure grateful for the 3 days we had making some marvelous memories.

Canada Day 2

Saturday we started the day with pancakes made on the camp-stove. We had gone swimming the night before and since camp fires weren't permitted on the grass, we actually felt pretty clean for camping. I guess that's one bonus of "fake" camping ;)

Sawyer loved the wide open space and all the grass he had to play on. Once we were ready, we drove in to Vancouver and to Stanley Park. Really, you could spend a few days just in Stanley Park, it is awesome. It is one of my favorite places on earth.

We picnicked at the park and then headed to the Aquarium. Sorry Seattle - Vancouver's Aquarium rocks you out of the water!

We did some whale watching, too. For Belugas, that is! Those "melon-heads" are seriously cute for such a big creature!

Sawyer's favorite part were the big toads. Hmm..dolphins...belugas...toads?

Canada Day 1

I am finally getting around to throwing up some pics from our long weekend up North. First, we love Canada. We have thought of living in Canada. We are lucky to have such friendly neighbors to the North, and since the border is a short 2 hour drive from Seattle, it makes it easy to visit. We stayed in White Rock, BC. We "camped" (sort of...if staying on a big field of grass in an RV Park that has a pool, jacuzzi, mini golf, and a playground counts as camping, that's what we did). Sawyer absolutely loved camping and sleeping in our tent. In fact, the day after we got home he said "I want go back to Canda and sleep in my tent". Profound words from a just-turned-two-year-old. I think he also loved the fact that camping meant spending lots of time playing with mom and dad, and doing fun things like playing at the beach, walking out on the pier, eating fish n chips, and other fun things we did, while "camping"...

It's funny, because we have excellent beaches right in our backyard (well, a 5 minute drive, anyway) but it's always nice to just be on vacation to appreciate the beach a little bit more. Maybe it's because when you're on vacation, or "camping" in our case, there is absolutely nothing to distract you when you get home, tent sweet tent, for the night. That's what I LOVE about traveling, it pretty much just forces you to live in the here and now and to enjoy each moment. I love that.