Reading with Papa and Gram

Papa Norm and Gram came down to see our new house! Papa Norm brought cherries! Elizabeth and Nathan had fun showing them around our new house and yard. Elizabeth wanted to read them some books. She likes to memorize her books and then "read" them to people.

Mt. Birdmore

Nathan likes Angry Birds. He has an Angry Birds game and he got these little game pieces. Tonight, he said the funniest thing. I had to write it down! He put the birds up on the rock wall and said:

"Remember that big mountain with all the presidents? Mt. Rushmore? Well, this is Mt. Birdmore. Then, after they finished carving the stones, they painted the birds to make them look more real."

Isn't that adorable! I love his creative little mind.

Funny things Elizabeth says

Elizabeth found a Hello Kitty watch here at our new house. Here is what she said:

"Oh boy! I was needing one of these watches for my running."

Swimming

Since we've moved to Pasco, we've been doing a lot of swimming! It seems to be a bigger deal here than in Spokane. (Probably because it's hotter for a longer period of time). Nathan loves being in the water. Mostly he stays on the stairs and on the sides of pools, but he has lots of fun. I need to get him into swimming lessons.

Elizabeth will not get in the water at all. She says it hurts her feet because of her eczema and all the scratching she does. I'm sure this is a big part of why she won't get in. A smaller part might be just that she's 2.

We're hitting splash pads a few times a week as well. Nathan will run around like crazy for over an hour and I'll have to drag him away. Elizabeth wants nothing to do with the splash pads either. Those wouldn't hurt her feet I don't think (especially since she has sandals on).

Summer is so much fun! Lots of sun and water!

June/July Videos

 

Dr. Elizabeth

Here's Dr. Elizabeth!

Dr. Nathan has retired and has handed down his gear to Dr. Elizabeth. She loves giving checkups too.

Silly Faces in the Playhouse

The kids are having a lot of fun playing in the playhouse! We know the previous owners are going to come take it down sometime. But for now, it's fun!

Thunderstorms

The last few weeks, we've had unbelieveable thunderstorms! It seemed like they popped up every day for like two weeks. We're back to normal summer weather now, but those storms sure were fun to watch! We'd sit out and watch the lightning and listen to the thunder in the distance.

Royal Summer Fest

The kids and I headed up to Royal for their annual community days. It was Jeremy's first day at his new job so he wasn't able to come.


First event was the parade. It was Royal City's 50th birthday party so the parade was extra long! Here is Nathan and Auntie Laura waiting for the parade to begin.


They were passing out free popsicles! Nathan said his favorite part of the parade was the marching band and the big fire truck that squirted water out front.


Elizabeth sat in Gram's lap the whole time.


Eating popsicles and watching Gram pick up the candy. The kids each had a nice little bag of candy!


For $5, the kids could bounce, climb an obstacle course, slide down a water slide, and jump on a big bungee thing all day. Nathan loved this water slide. He also loved the obstacle course (which I didn't get any pictures of). Here he is climbing up the waterslide.


Here he is coming down!



He liked to splash down!

Nathan won a bike at Summer Fest! Every year, they have an event called the ping pong drop. A local pilot flies overhead and drops 300 ping pong balls. Every kid can pick up a ball with a number and go get a prize. Three of the numbers are "lucky" numbers and those kids receive a bike. Nathan was one of the kids!

Overheard conversations

Nathan was pretending his room was a park. Elizabeth wanted to play at the park and tried to come in.

Nathan: "The sign says no 2 year old baby girls at this park!"
Elizabeth: "I don't see any sign."
Nathan (sighs): "It's pretend of course."
Elizabeth: "Oh." Then she walked away. (I guess she obeys pretend signs.)

July Videos

 

July Videos

 

Family Reunion

We had a family reunion in Wenatchee last week! It was a great party. Here are some photos. Most include Nathan and Elizabeth. For some reason, my camera is always drawn to them! (I wonder why...)


Everybody!


The girl cousins


It happened to be my 32nd birthday!


Look at that. Elizabeth ate my cupcake!


Enjoying the wind in her hair.


Elizabeth spent most of the day sitting in Gram's lap. Big surprise.


Archie and Nathan spent most of the day shooting deer and other game on this game. They loved it!


Carolyn, Archie, and Laura enjoying some yummy homemade pizzas for lunch!

I wish I'd gone around taking some more photos, but that's what I got!

Treasure Hunt!

The kids were lucky enough to get to take part in a treasure hunt! They had such a fun time.


Pirates need the proper clothing.


Clues will tell you where to look for treasure next!


Trekking across the wilderness in search of the elusive treasure.


Goodness! They came across a volcano on their journey!


The littlest pirates were a few steps behind, but were providing backup protection for the bigger pirates.


X marks the spot! Dig, pirates,dig!


Even pirates can need a little help digging.



What's in the treasure??


Silly string and water guns. And coins of course! What a great hunt!

Nail polish with Auntie Laura

Elizabeth likes to have Auntie Laura paint her nails. Elizabeth gets very concerned when her nail polish starts "going away" and requests Auntie Laura come fix the problem. Auntie Laura started painting nails to try to convince Elizabeth to stop scratching her eczema. Elizabeth has spent the better part of the last 2 1/2 years trying to scratch her feet off. Her eczema has improved, but she still scratches (maybe out of habit). We usually tape socks on her every day to try to prevent scratching and bleeding. SO, if she wants to see her pretty painted toes, she can't scratch because if she scratches she has to wear socks.



Elizabeth requested pink this time.


Nathan doesn't like being left out (see his face in the picture?) so Auntie Laura paints his big toes.

July Videos-Live in Pasco now

 

Playing at our new house

The kids are enjoying playing at our new house. Our yard is much smaller, but does have some interesting things. We have several fruit trees and some raspberries and grapes. Right now, the apricots are coming on, so we've been eating those right off the tree. Peaches will be up next!
For now, we have a fun play structure. The previous owners will be coming to take it at some point in the next few weeks, but until then, the kids love to swing and do "gymnastics" on the rings.
It's been hot this past week. 100+ every day. Nathan has enjoyed running through the sprinklers and the splash pads in the park. Elizabeth will not get in the water yet. At least she's finally wearing her swimsuit. As it's been so hot, we've been thankful for this central air conditioning. I've never had central air conditioning before! It's wonderful.


Finally got her swimsuit on, but she still won't get in the water.


Well, you can still try to swat flies in your swimsuit.


Sprinting through the sprinkler.



Getting soaked. See the grapes growing along the house? It looks like a LOT of them. I guess we'll see in a month or so.

Finding a tunnel

When we moved into this new house, the first time I used the dryer, it took me 3 dryer cycles to get the clothes dry. This was not good.

Today, some guys showed up to clean out the vent. They said it had been clogged since the very beginning. The people that built the house had used some foam that had expanded over the vent. The previous owners told us they just thought they had a bad dryer. Nope, the vent was completely clogged.

Nathan loved all the tunnels that were opened in our house. He wanted to explore them with a flashlight.

Pruning the Roses

I write a lot about what a big helper Nathan is. It's just fun to watch him enjoy chores so much. Someday when he doesn't enjoy them anymore, I'll have to show him this blog post!

We didn't have any roses in Spokane. Here at this house, there are a couple of bushes. Nathan loves deadheading. Every day, he'll go to see if there are any that look past their prime. Then, he'll go find the biggest pruners he can. The roses are not cut at the perfect 45 degree angle, but I'm sure it's good enough!

Gymnastics star

It's not uncommon to find Elizabeth like this in the mornings. We think she would be good at gymnastics.



It's amazing how flexible 2 year olds are. We laugh when Elizabeth puts her legs straight up over the back of her head.

Our 10th Anniversary!

We celebrated our 10th anniversary today! Wow, time sure flew!

The story of our move

We've moved! We now officially live in West Pasco. Moving day was quite chaotic and hectic so I didn't get many pictures. We spent the few days prior to moving packing up and cleaning as much as we could. On moving day, the boys packed up the truck and I spent the day cleaning floors to make sure the house was as clean as possible for our new tenants!

Jeremy and Brian picked up 2 trucks in Spokane. Our neighbor (and new tenant) Barry came over to help out as well. They started packing up the trucks at 10 am. All was finished around 5:30.

Sofie came over to keep an eye on Elizabeth so I could spend all my time cleaning. Elizabeth was very confused.

Nathan was SUCH a huge helper. That little boy spent all day carrying things out to the truck. He didn't sit down once. He worked and worked. He said he was "Doing his best to help."

Brian drove the smaller truck. Jeremy and Nathan drove the huge truck. Nathan loved being "King of the Road." They didn't get to our new house in Pasco until 8:30 pm and then had to unload everything into our garage. (The previous tenants weren't moving out until the next day). Since we have too much stuff, we also needed a storage unit. So after unpacking the big truck at the house, they headed over to unpack the little truck at the storage unit. BUT, the gates were locked at 9. SO, Jeremy and Nathan had to drive the truck up to Royal (pulling our pickup truck on the back). The next morning, the boys headed down to unload the little U-Haul. Elizabeth and I stayed in Royal. This was July 3rd.

July 4th we could actually unpack the new new house. Jeremy and I headed down to Pasco to spend the day unpacking. Mom and Laura watched the kids in Royal and brought them down in the late afternoon. By that point, Jeremy and I had most of the important and big stuff set up and unloaded.

Jeremy and Nathan headed over to Dust Devil Stadium to watch the fireworks that night! Nathan loved it of course. I was able to see most of the show out the window. Hopefully next year Elizabeth won't be scared anymore.

We had 2 moving casualties. We lost a box of plates. So we now have no plates. Where could it be? Also, our computer broke in the move. That is much worse than losing some plates. So our second day in Pasco, we had to buy a new computer. Not happy about that! However, I now have my first laptop. It took forever and a lot of confusion to get our phone and internet set up, but all is well now.

Jeremy started work on Monday. So far, so good! The kids and I went and visited him on his first day of work and got a tour of the police station.

So far, the kids and I have visited 2 libraries and 3 parks. Nathan had a great time at the Kennewick splash pad this morning. We've made a few new friends too and already have playdates set up!

I'm trying to find Nathan a preschool for next year. It's shocking how many are full! I'm looking for something that's a couple of days a week for just a couple of hours. I guess those fill up fast.

We really like our new house. We got lucky finding such a nice house to rent. It's a tad too small (hence the storage unit) but other than that is wonderful. I love one story houses! They bought a brand new nice fridge for us with a water/ice machine which the kids are having fun with (and I spend all day mopping the floor...). We have lots of fruit trees outside and we have raspberries too! As of right now, there is a play structure with swings and a slide. We know the old tenants are going to come take it eventually but the kids are having fun for now. A downside is the yard is really small compared to our acre that we were used to. Nathan can't run around as much I guess there's not much we can do about that! Hopefully when we buy a house we can find something with a bigger yard.



Brian giving packing directions to Jeremy and Barry.

Nathan posing in front of the truck. He loved to run up and down the ramp and around in that big truck!

We'll miss you Sofie!

Sofie is the best babysitter ever! Nathan and Elizabeth just love her and will miss her very much. They both talk about Sofie frequently and she's always in their pretend play. They like to "run" races with Sofie all the time. Sofie is a track star so I think they want to be just like her when they get bigger!

When Sofie comes to the Tri-Cities to run her state cross country meet this next November, we will be there to cheer her on!

Beard Baby

This is how Elizabeth looks after eating chocolate cake.

Fun at Grandma Pam's

We went to visit Grandma Pam! Jeremy was busy doing pre-work stuff so we used the day to have fun with her.


Watching the cat eat was a bit hit.


Grandma Pam had a fun craft project. The kids decorated cups with stickers! They had fun. Nathan liked the dinosaur stickers and Elizabeth liked Mickey Mouse.