Marty

We seem to have a lot of praying mantises around here. We see them a lot.  Nathan and Jeremy found this really cool one in the backyard. They named him Marty the Mantis.

Fun with Mud

When we moved to this house in July, the previous tenants had a small garden. As things have been harvested, it's been turning into a fun mud play area! Actually, it's kind of like a big sand box. The soil here is quite sandy. Nathan and Elizabeth love to play in the sand and mud. We pay a flat fee for irrigation water each month so they have a lot of fun making ditches and moats and volcanoes!

They are digging a tunnel from the moat to that big pit. 

                                         They each wear a pair of irrigation boots so they can tromp
                                         in the water and sand and not get their feet wet!
                                         Elizabeth wanted Hello Kitty. Nathan went with
                                         traditional black.

Tunnel is almost done! 

Here is the castle with moat. 

It later turned into Mt. Saint Helens when Nathan blew the side off with water. Well, he said it was lava flowing into the Toutle River. (He's really into volcanoes right now). 

Artwork

Nathan enjoys drawing with sidewalk chalk. The top photo is a picture he drew of Papa Norm (on the left) and Grandma Jane. They are dancing. 

The bottom photo shows how he decorated the back of the truck! Jeremy let him color all over with the chalk. It washes off easily. He had a lot of fun! 

Fights

Nathan and Elizabeth fight a lot. It's one of their favorite games!

Here is a fight I heard the other day that I almost burst out laughing about, but didn't want to encourage the fighting.

The kids and I were driving someplace.

Elizabeth: "Mom, Nathan is looking out my window. NATHAN STOP looking out my window!!!"

Nathan then proceeded to spend the rest of the trip looking out Elizabeth's window just to make her mad.

Wow. A fight that involved no touching/hitting and no words. Impressive!

Popsicle Games

It's always fun to watch the kids play made up games. I had the camera out when they made up this popsicle game. We have my old mini-fridge from back when I was teaching (I used to keep it in my classroom for lunch). Now it just sits in the garage and we're not quite sure what to do with it. Well, the kids like to pretend play restaurant and other games with it. Here's how the popsicle game works. 

Elizabeth waits at the fridge ready to peddle her pretend popsicles. Sometimes she'll have the flavor you ask for, and sometimes she won't. 

Oh look. Here comes a customer!  He uses a bungee cord to keep his bicycle in place so it doesn't get stolen. 

He then requests a popsicle and as you can see, he is pretending to eat it. 

The popsicle restaurant owner sits and waits for the return of her favorite customer. He will return many, many times. There will occasionally be a fight when the popsicle vendor does not have the asked for flavor. 

August/Sept Videos

 

Facebook Photoshoot

You know how sometimes narcissists on Facebook will take 50 photos of themselves doing practically the same thing and expect people to look at their photos and care and comment? 

Well, 2 year olds seem to be proper narcissists. A certain 2 year old I know wanted her picture taken with every Sesame Street character. I indulged this whim and here are the results. I hope she's still not doing this when she's 20!

Elmo

                                                                          Grover

                                                                            Ernie

Big Bird

                                                             Cookie Monster attack!

                                                                    Just being cute.

Eating popsicles and ice cream in the truck

We like to eat popsicles and ice cream in the back of the truck.

It started when we moved here. It was July. It was hot. Dessert was popsicles and ice cream. Popsicles are not allowed inside the house due to stickiness.

The truck was a nice place to sit because the front of our house is in the shade in the evenings. The backyard in the sun was much too hot.

So it stuck. People drive by and think we're weird. This picture was just taken a few days ago on the last day of summer. It will be cooling down now (and getting darker) so there might not be much more dessert eating outside! 

Elizabeth LOVES ice cream. 

Nathan can pump!

Nathan can finally pump when swinging! He'll never have to be pushed again. This is actually quite exciting for him AND for us. Yesterday, his legs just started making the right movements. He'd been trying for a long time and finally caught on. He swung for a long time by himself today. Then, he went to bed early tonight because he said his legs were so tired from all that pumping.

Boats and Sharks

Nathan loves these boats he got for his birthday. And if you'll notice, there is a large shark on the ledge on the back of the tub. Lately, he likes to take "play baths." I'll just run the tub, and he'll play in there for a long time with his boats.

He likes to come home from preschool and take a relaxing play bath with his boats and shark.

Hugs and Kisses

Every time I drop Nathan off for preschool, he makes sure to give me a goodbye hug and kiss. It's the only time he will do this, and I just love it. I'm sure it will be the last year he will ever do such a thing, and it's just so adorable!

Footie Jammies

Kids are just WAY too cute in footie jammies. It is very difficult for me not to want to squish them when they wear these.



Nathan wouldn't wear footie jammies for the longest time. Then, just recently he's decided he loves them again and wants to wear them every night. He's a big 5 year old, but the jammies make him look younger, and I like that.



And Elizabeth is difficult to resist in her jammies as well.

Tea Party

Would you like some tea?



Let me fill the cup until it's overflowing.


I'll drink half of it first and then give it to you Mom!

Who is this guy?

Nathan had his face painted at a birthday party.

Then, he (and Dad) made a plane out of his erector set.

It's 2 days later and his face is still stained slightly red.

2 year old barbers...

Nathan likes to cut Jeremy's hair. He does a decent job. Well, Elizabeth wanted to try too.


I think Jeremy's face here says it all. 2 year olds do not make good barbers.


A little guidance from Dad helped it become less painful!

Hello Toyota Camry!

We're so excited to have our new car! We bought a 2012 Toyota Camry. It was time for a new car. It had been over 10 years. Our car was too small and was so much less safe in comparison to the new car. The old car had 2 airbags in the front. The new car has 10 airbags and has super safety ratings.

The Camry is also much more roomy inside and has a HUGE trunk for packing all our stuff on trips. We may even have room to spare!

Toyota of Tri-Cities was having their model year clearance sale so we decided it was a good time to buy. The Camry had top safety ratings, good gas mileage for a larger car (25/35), the price was great for a new car, and it had an interest rate of 1%. It worked out really well and we love the new car!

Since we were buying during a sale, we didn't really get a color choice. We got the choice of beige, white, or this color which is "cosmic gray." (Someone had already bought the red I would have preferred.) It mostly looks black. In different light, it sometimes looks different colors. It can look green, blue, black or dark gray. It's pretty. It seems it gets dirtier faster than the old red car though.

The plan (knock on wood) is to keep this car for 11 years and then (I hate to say this as it's too scary) give it to the kids to drive around when Nathan is 16.


Looking shiny in the driveway


We love it!


Playing around in the new car. They loved to crawl through the trunk into the backseat. (Until we put their seats in).


We had 2 cars for a few days.


Nathan wanted to take this photo of us with both cars.

Goodbye Pontiac!

We've said goodbye to our 2001 Pontiac Grand Am. We had the car for over 10 years! I wanted to post a few pictures to remember the car by. Our brand new scanner does not work, so the "old" photos are actually photos of photos!


Here I am in March of 2002 with my new car! This picture was taken in Pullman. I'd spent my entire college career begging people for rides, walking, or taking the bus. I finally bought this car during spring break my senior year. Mom and Dad took me to Discovery in Moses Lake on a windy March day, and this became the car I'd drive for the next 10 years! I remember it cost $13,000 and had about 13,000 miles on it when I bought it. For a car that had been used as a rental, I never had many bad problems with it over the next 10 years.


Me with the car just before we sold it. Nathan insisted I give the car a hug and a kiss before the new people bought it.


A lot of big events happened while I owned the car! Here is a wedding photo from that hot day in Ellensburg in July 2012.


It was weird to have my car sitting on the street with a "For Sale" sign!


This car also drove 2 newborns home from the hospital. The first time, a frantic new mother sat in the backseat trying to keep the baby from crying on the 30 minute trip. The second time, the mother had to sit in the front seat as there was no room in the backseat. The baby cried a bit, but the mother wasn't so frantic this time.

Here are those 2 children playing around in the trunk.


Jeremy worked really hard cleaning the car up nicely so we could sell it. It was probably the cleanest it had ever been! Good job Jeremy!

We made sure to take those two out of the trunk before we sold it!

Swimming in coats

I'd stick to your footie jams kids. Those leather jackets are just too big for you!

Ever Feel Like Your Backyard is a Playground?

We do!

From Caterpillar to Butterfly

We ordered one of those "caterpillar to butterfly" kits. We watched the tiny little caterpillars turn HUGE. We watched them form cocoons. Sadly, they seemed to emerge as butterflies in the middle of the night so we didn't see that happen. We'd wake up and there was a butterfly! After a few days, we let them free.

Elizabeth liked to put on her butterfly wings and talk to her butterfly friends. It was really cute.

Columbia River

A favorite new activity is throwing rocks in the Columbia River! It's nice to live so close to a river and have such easy access. The kids have lots of fun.

Track and Swing Play

Here are some more fun photos of the kids playing at the playground and track.


Elizabeth said she was too hot to run.


Nathan and Auntie Laura running their laps.


Fun with sliding

More sliding

Swinging high! Mom is getting good at pushing 2 kids at one time. When will Nathan learn to pump?

Elizabeth's face is just so funny in this photo. You can tell she's hot!