Ice Cream for Breakfast and Peach's 1st Shoes

The Frog caught something while in Massachusetts (we think from a McDonald's play place) called "hand, foot, and mouth" (and bum) disease.  Basically he had weird blistery red marks on his hands and feet (and bum) and his mouth was FULL of white canker-sore looking things.  The poor kid couldn't eat ANYTHING without crying.  It didn't start showing up until the plane ride home and this is the next morning.  As you can see we tried 4 things until we found something The Frog could eat:

 Pancakes with syrup, pancakes without, grape-nuts cereal, and vanilla ice cream.
He ate nothing but vanilla ice cream and peach creamies for about 3 days (he wouldn't even have his favorite thing of all time- milk).  Finally, Sunday morning, he was able to eat again.  Hooray!

Peach showed some signs as well, but wasn't affected nearly as badly as her brother.  I think, probably because I'm still nursing.

 I forgot to mention that Nanie bought Peach her first pair of shoes!  They are so tiny and cute.  It's amazing that any foot could fit inside of them.  This is the first pair that actually stays on her narrow little feet- thanks to the laces.  Unfortunately, though, I must always double-knot them because she likes to untie them and suck on them, otherwise.

 Other things I've been meaning to mention.  She is a complete chatter-box and her facial expressions when she talks to you are hilarious.  I know she thinks she's really communicating.  My favorite is when she leans into you with her face really close and her eye brows raised, like she has something very important for your ears alone.  She often responds "yes" when you ask her questions (not matter the question), and can often be heard repeating something (over and over and...) resembling "do it?" or "do that?"  (she says it like a question).  These were all developed on vacation, but since she's been home, I think she's trying to say her brother's name- "Dak".  It's obvious that she can understand a lot of what you say to her already- recognizing her name or if you say "where's *The Frog*?" she will look where he is and smile, or crawl to where he is.  She will clap if you say "clapping" too.  It's amazing how much ahead of The Frog she is verbally- though I've heard girls are usually much faster at that than boys in general.  She really likes walking holding your fingers and can stand by herself, but when you try to make her, she starts whining and squats down.  I can't believe she's turning 1 this month!  It makes me so sad to loose my baby already...

The kids haven't been sleeping well since we got home.  (something I've come to expect after flying back East...) They have been waking up at 5:30 every morning since we got home, and won't go to bed until 8 or 8:30 (we used to be on a 7pm-7am schedule), even though we start getting ready for bed at 6.  It's quite aggravating.  We have officially moved them into the same room, too, in anticipation for our foreign exchange student-- that is probably the main bed-time disrupting, contributing factor.

And finally, I wanted to start trying some things on for Halloween costumes.  This year is gonna be awesome (I hope!)  Any guesses?  (I've decided not to use these old wings for her.  She hates them, so I'll probably make smaller ones for her instead)

Visiting Cousins and Goodbye (Mass Trip part 4)

One thing I love about visiting Jay's family in Mass is that I also get to see my older sister and her family!  I sued to see her all the time when I was at school back East and it was always so much fun.  I miss the frequent visits...

 We forgot to take many pictures because we were having so much fun catching up and the kids were having so much fun running around together, but here are a couple.

I love everyone's expressions in this one...

We spent most of the time playing with blocks and cars, eating delicious fresh foods, and playing with water balloons.  It's so fun now that our kids are old enough to play together.  I know our visits will only get better and better.

We had SUCH a great time and can't wait for next summer!

Jay wanted to make sure he packed the essentials.

The Lakehouse (Mass Trip Part 3)

Man was it hot while we were there!  We get over 100 every summer in Utah, but that's nothing compared to 100s with insane humidity!  Luckily for us, we had a cool lake to beat the heat with.  (and we did because the lake house is not air conditioned...)

 Peach, sporting the adorable swim suit Nanie and Gampie got her for Easter.

 Showing me one of her latest finds- an old rusty nail.

 Jay's little sister, K has become quite the swimmer since I've met her.

 Exploring the tubes.

 Siblings sitting in a kayak together.  The Frog loved taking these out with mom or dad.

I took this to show off The Frog's amazing farmer tan.

 Peach LOVES the water.  Her favorite thing to do is splash- even though she mostly just gets herself in the face.

 K again.  (side note, isn't she so lucky to look good with wet hair?  I, on the other hand, look bald...)

Jay's older bro, Uncle Joe.

 You know it's hot if Nanie will get in the water :)

We all got to go tubing too.  Though The Frog didn't love the tubing part, he really liked riding in the boat.

 Gampie, K, and Jay all got to go at the same time!

 The Frog LOVED trying to find frogs and salamanders- though once he discovered the salamanders, he refused to walk into the lake through the shallow part because he was afraid he'd step on some.  He opted for jumping off the dock instead (which I, sadly, have no pictures of)

 A frog I found for The Frog.  Unlike his Uncle, though, I would not pick it up for him :)

 Look at this crazy scary spider hanging out on the dock.  Gives me the heebie jeebies.

 Some gorgeous lilies Joe planted.

 One of the neighboring lake houses has a really cool inflatable "raft" that The Frog liked to call "the bouncy raft" because he liked jumping on it and making people fall off.  (at least he thought he was making people fall off :) )  It was too far for him to swim there, though Jay liked to swim.   So Jay would pull The Frog in a kayak.  Well one day, The Frog fell asleep in the kayak on the swim back.  He stayed asleep there for quite awhile.  So cute!

 Showing off his latest salamander catch.

 The Frog did such a great job swimming, I couldn't believe it!  He would jump off the raft all the time and even swim under the raft.  (which I would NEVER do- too many spiders...)

 On the drive home from the lake house I always can't help but snicker at these two town names: Athol and Belchertown.  Makes me giggle even now :)

Berry Picking and Maine Lobstah (Mass trip part 2)

Though we spent most of our free time at Jay's parents' lake house, we also went blueberry picking at a nearby farm. 

  The Frog loved it and even though he picked a LOT of berries, when we were leaving the field I noticed he had left his bucket in one of the rows.

Me: Where's your bucket?
The Frog:  It's over there (pointing waaaaaay down at the other end of the row)
Me: Well we need to go get it.
The Frog: But I ate them all! (running after Nanie)

 So, I went to retrieve the bucket and sure enough, it was completely empty.

 Jay's little sister, K, showing off the haul.  Jay's mom made the best blueberry pie that night.  Seriously, the crust was EVEN better than my grandmas!  (and that's saying something!)

 They also had a few animals we could feed.  This particular goat was very friendly.

And no post is complete with a display of Peach's cuteness.

Another day we drove up to Maine and got lobstah rolls at this great place that had a playground outside for the kids!  Honestly, I think they were more interested in the surrounding forested area and all the great climbing rocks.

Happy 40th Anniversary! (Mass Trip Part 1)

Our family made our annual trip out to Mass to visit Nanie and Gampie this July.  We feel so lucky that Jay's job is flexible enough to allow us to stay for 2 weeks!  As always, we had a great time.  I can't believe it, but I FORGOT MY CAMERA.  Luckily, his parents let me use theirs.  I didn't have enough time to figure out the manual settings until midway through the trip, and for some reason, many of the photos got corrupted, but I'll share some that survived. 

Jay's parents celebrated their 40th anniversary this year and so he and his older sister decided to throw them a celebration.  We planned it for when our family was going to be out visiting them.

 Instead of a guest book that they would flip through once and never again, we decided it would be fun to have people write well-wishes on river rocks and place them in a vase as a home decor reminder.

I don't have any pictures of the final result, but I think it looks really great!

Kids' table:

 Jay's older sister made the beautiful cake herself!

 Jay's parents got married at the courthouse, so we thought it would be fun to have them cut the cake for us :)

 I'm realizing now that most of the pictures were taken before or after the event since Jay and I spent most of the time being reminded why we never take our kids to restaurants...

Someone brought this lovely bouquet (stuck full of $5 and $10 bills), I just had to take a picture :)