a FAIRly good day

Hey Grandma, your blanket is already being put to good use. It's great for taking in the car and on trips like today.

Jeff had to work the Fair today up in Lynden, so I decided I might as well bring the kids up and see what trouble we could find.

First (and last) stop was the bunny barn. We also visited the chickens, the goats and sheep, the dairy cows, the horses, and a reptile tent.

Kaylee being a ham with some cute young Jerseys in the back.

Macaw?

The reptile tent had lots of snakes, turtles, frogs, and an alligator.
Near this exhibit is a little tent that had a straw mound for kids to dig through and look for little prizes. It was a fun activity for the kids. Hudson found some toy frogs and Kaylee found a couple pencils and a candy braclet.
Hudson loved the bunnies. They had some for sale... it was SOOOOOOO tempting!
I really liked this guy.
We lasted about 3 hours. Now it's nap time for everyone. G'nite!

UPdates

It's been a long time since I've updated on the kids.

For those who are not aware, we have #3 on the way, due January 1st. So far this is the easiest pregnancy, and I can say that now that I'm not in the first trimester anymore. I always get so tired and have no energy. But now things are mostly back to normal and I'm feeling good. Quite often I forget I'm even pregnant. Then I have that momentary panicky feeling when I finally remember! But mostly I just get excited. It'll be strange to have a winter baby. Both Kaylee and Hudson were born in early August.

So yes, we just celebrated their birthdays. Grandma L came out for that, and it was sooooooooooo nice to have her here. I will make another post for that and have pictures galore. For this post I just want to share a few things about the kids' development.

Kaylee is now 4 and is very proud of it. She has her big girl booster seat (which is SOOOO nice because it's easy to move around when needed). She is fully potty trained and has been for about a year now I guess. She knows all her letters, their sounds, colors, shapes, and has been known to count to 100 a few times (with a little help). She is very excited to start preschool in a few weeks. Personality wise, she is much less shy than as a baby. She is rambunctious and very athletic. She loves pretend play. I like to sit and listen to her playing with her toys and the conversations she makes them have. She also has my Praise Baby CD pretty much memorized. She has her favorite songs on there and I love to hear her sing praise songs! Today she started singing "Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord". She said "...to see you high and lifted up, shining in the light of your BORING" (ha ha ha!!)

Hudson has changed so much, so fast! His vocabulary has increased quite a bit and now says some short sentences. He is learning his lower case letters and colors right now, and I hope he's listening as I go over letter sounds with Kaylee. He often says the abc's while he's playing, for no apparent reason. Grandma discovered he can count, at least to 5, but I heard him count up to 20 once...although taken out of context I never could've known what he was saying once he got to 11! When Kaylee is in preschool this fall I plan to spend a lot of one on one time with him. I feel like I've neglected him in that way a lot. He seems to be very intelligent, but apparently them kids don't teach themselves :)

One interesting thing I've noticed about him is that he sees abstract things in objects. That's the best way I know how to say it. For example, he sees an open clam shell and says "butterfly", he bites into chips and says "sailboat", he eats into a sandwich and says "U". He does this all the time with lots of different objects. I wonder if that indicates any specific type of learning style...

I plan to continue with letters, colors and shapes, as well as potty training this year. At some point we're gonna have to break him of his pacifier addiction as well. He is also very attached to his blankie. He carries it everywhere, drags it through everything, and loves to find the corners and play with those in his hands. But I don't think we need to break him of a blankie habit. It's just those pacifiers that I hear can cause issues with their teeth.

The kids say and do the cutest and funniest stuff everyday. I need to keep a pen and paper with me at all times cuz it's so hard to remember it all. Just now Kaylee says to Hudson, "You're kinda crazy, kid." He says "Why?"... "Cuz you are!"

Kamping

This summer I had planned to take my kids on many fun camping adventures. Well we didn't even get "summer" here in the Northwest until July while we were on our family trip down in San Diego (where it never got above 70 and rained almost every day!). So upon our return from the cool shores of California, and inbetween archery tournaments, I managed to squeeze in one camping trip with the kids.



I took them to a KOA about an hour away from our house. I chose this location because these campgrounds are very kid friendly. It was helpful to have the playground across from our campsite while I was setting up and tearing down camp, but in between it was sort of a pain.



I took a lot of pictures with my phone and now I realize they don't transfer well...at least not when you send them to hotmail. There's an option to "send to blog" and I will try that out one of these days and see what happens.



So we camped 4 nights. Thursday to Monday. It was exhausing and a lot of work, but I think a good experience for the kids and a learning lesson for me. Next time: use a SMALLER tent, or better yet, rent a cabin!



One morning I loaded the kids up and went to explore the Baker Lake area, to which I had never been. I pulled off to a boat launch area and found a nice picnic area and swiming beach. This is pretty much the only time I took out my camera, sad to say, but better than nothing!

The view from the beach.

Before they wandered into the water. I was just hoping for some rocks to throw, but the water was just too much for the kids to resist. I didn't bring swimsuits along, so we improvised. Luckily I had some extra clothes in the car.

Doesn't it look like they're sharing so well? Ah, the magic of pictures! :)

Cute.

Cute too.

Super cute. I gushed so much over this picture that it's become Kaylee's signature pose.

Hudson came up to me and said "heart, heart!" He is always finding shapes in things. I looked at the rocks he had found and sure enough, they looked like hearts. What made it so special was that once Jeff found a heart shaped rock and I took a picture of him with it.

I forgot to take a picture of our tent, but here are a few at the campsite:

SUPRISE! and a trip to MN

I bet you all thought I'd never make another post! Well my apologies. It's been so long. First with the pregnancy wearing me out and the nice summer weather we have, it's not easy to find time to sit down and blog. I think if I get caught up though, I'll do a bit better. That's my plan anyway.


So we left off last APRIL when I took the kids home for a visit to MN and Iowa. My last post was our time in Iowa with Jeff"s parents, so this will be about our time in MN with mine. I'm not sure I really remember much, other than we had a great time, so I'll just go with the pictures I took.


Hudson paying close attention to the wisdom of his Auntie.

Grandpa with his hands full!

One day Grandma and I took the kids to the Children's Museum in St Paul. It's got lots of wonderful exhibits for kids. You can really just let them go and explore. The most popular place for my kids was of course, the water room!

I can't believe how short I once cut Kaylee's hair! That's the main reason I put the above photo in.

This was a great room too. It's an enclose space so you don't need to worry about the kids sneaking off. Lots of places to crawl, climb, and explore.
I only took a couple pictures of our trip to the zoo. Cousin Heather made both pictures!

Iowa

Recently I took the kids on the Super Duper Grandparent tour of 2010. Both sets of granparents were within a few hours of each other so it was time to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

Above is the church and parsonage where Grandpa K filled an interim position over the cosy winter months in Sully, Iowa. Sully is a lovely little town not too far from Des Moines.

The night we got there, we went to an auction/dinner/carnival fundraiser at the local Christian school. There everyone in town and neighboring countryside instantly knew who we were and very graciously welcomed us.

Even though there's not a lot to do in Sully, the kids had more fun than you'd ever believe.

Grandma K set up pop can bowling in the hallway.

The quickly melting snow outside was fun to play in as well.

The bus driver lives across the street. Seeing a bus is the biggest thrill for little Hudson.

Kaylee found some nice ice balls that were not very fun to be hit with.

Wearing grandma's shoes is more fun than anyone but Hudson would've guessed.

They borrowed some toys from the church's nursery and turned the big empty front room into a grandkid's wonderland.

But the kids favorite toy by far was Grandpa. He's much more fun to climb!

I'll make a post of the Minnesota part of this trip on another day...hopefully not too long from now! ;)

Floating to an Island

HA! Here I am again. Want to say hello to my most devoted fan - Heather - for hanging in there and checking here each and every day that I neglect to add anything new to this blog. And to my sister for her not so subtle hints.

Well here's a trip we took one weekend recently to the lovely San Juan Island called, strangely enough, San Juan. You see me below in a self portrait...am I talented or what.
We are on the Yakima. Someone tell Hudson that this is a life preserver... not the helm. You're not driving the boat buddy!

Jeff's version of a self portrait... maybe a little better than mine.

The real reason I couldn't do this post for so long. I just couldn't pick a favorite picture of Kaylee. I captured so many great moments. So I'm just going to throw them all on there.

See what I mean? How do you pick just one?!

For Hudson, it's not so difficult. He doesn't sit still for one second to take a picture. Most of the ones I have of him are blurry.

The view from the ferry looking back towards Mt Baker.

This is the place we go to on the south shore of San Juan Island. This beach has the best rocks. You look south towards the Olympic Mountains - all capped in snow. The sun was just too blinding that day, so I took a sidelong shot.A long way to go to throw some rocks!