Summer in Portland

We LOVE summers in Portland (and highly recommend that you, friends and family, come visit us this time of year!).

Summers really start fully at the 4th of July.  We had a good time with food, fireworks (LOTS of them!), and friends.

One of our very favorite things to do is go berry picking.

This day, we picked 3 different types of raspberries (including blackcaps on the bottom left).  Other favorites to pick are blackberries, marionberries, blueberries, and earlier in the summer, strawberries.  We freeze the many of the berries and have yummy berries throughout the year.

We bring blankets outside and have kids play on them... though, unlike Jacob and Claire, Kate and Liam have no fear of the grass.  Dani and Kate have a funny hair relationship - Dani likes to try to fix Kate's hair, and Kate likes to unfix it.  She will often to 'hair checks,' touching her head just to make sure there isn't something in it.  It's funny to watch their interaction.

We did a little family bike ride - we didn't go far, but babies seemed to enjoy it.

We love playing disc golf.  This day, Jared shot 3 under par!  We love this picture of Claire throwing her frisbee!

Jacob also has quite the flair on his disc golf pictures!

Liam likes hats.  In particular, he likes taking them off other people.

Jared went to Bend for a work trip with a number of his coworkers, so Dani joined a few of the other wives for family home evening with all the kids - 21 total!!!

Kate likes eating apples.  If you get near her or try to take her apple, she holds it in her hand away from you and turns the other direction. 

Jacob and Claire took swim lessons with one of the young women in our ward.  Claire is super brave and really wants to swim.  Her kick is a little awkward, and she looks like she's drowning, but she swims the length of the pool in what looks to be an exhausting swim, then wants to do it again!

Jacob spent quite a bit of his time negotiating ("no, come a little closer").  He has a strong kick, and when he is convinced he can do it, he swims pretty well.

Waiting her turn.

Kate and Liam spend a lot of time getting taken places: berry picking, tball games, shopping, to swim lessons, etc.  We get a lot of attention bringing our little twins with their big personalities around with us.

One day while Dani and I were on the phone, Dani looked down and Liam had a phone next to his ear and was talking.  Now, if you look at Liam and say, "Hello," he will find the nearest object and hold it to his ear and start talking.

 We sometimes bring Kate and Liam's exersaucers outside or into the garage.  While they don't really like playing in their exersaucers inside, they do like them outside.

After our last vacation, our car needed to be cleaned.  Dani made it a family activity.  Jacob decided he would be in charge of the vacuum.  Earlier this week, Dani walked upstairs and discovered Jacob and Claire vacuuming their room!

Claire went to a little tea party birthday party - she was a princess for the next couple days!

We LOVE the summer!  It's been especially fun for Jared because both his favorite baseball teams (the A's and Reds) have been playing well!

Kate and Liam's 1st Birthday Party

Kate and Liam had a fun birthday party!

They were quite interested in the bright colored packages.

Fortunately, they have older siblings that love presents to open the presents for them help teach them how to open presents.

They both got their first little babies. Kate loved kissing it.  Now, if you ask her to kiss her baby, she either gives it a huge kiss (like the one below) or smacks it in the face.  We'll want to be careful around their new little cousin!

NOM NOM NOM BABY!!!  (this is a kiss)

They got a little bike.  It's funny to watch them push one another around.

Kate and Liam really like books.

We tried to get birthday hats on the babies - that didn't go so well.

We stripped Liam and Kate down to their diapers in preparation.

Liam had a cautious start - he was going after the sprinkles more than anything for a while.

Kate, after eating the sprinkles, started to dig in.

Eventually, Kate ripped into her cake.  Liam noticed Kate's cake was different, so he decided to get her cake onto his tray and eat it.

 Kate was quite proud of herself!

What a fun party and fun cakes!

 

Happy Birthday Babies

I can hardly believe that today is Kate and Liam's first birthday...wow, that went fast!  We have been having so much fun with these two little people in our family the last year.  They are such happy little babies and such bright spots in our lives.  Here is the latest: they are both happy and very very busy little babies.  They both love outside and both love to wave hello and goodbye.

 Kate has a lot of spunk and has definitely formed some opinions of her own.  She has learned to climb the stairs which she surprised me with one day when I could not find her and finally located her in my room playing with her toys!  She army crawls most of the time but can crawl on her hands and knees which she mostly does on unusual surfaces like grass or trampolines.  She has developed a love of screaming.... not because she is upset, just because she likes to and it is a very sharp high pitched noise. Kate has a funny sense of humor, she likes to repeat things that make people laugh and she really laughs at things that she finds funny, sometimes naughty, sometimes not.  She is pulling up on things and so happy about it, she loves to throw food on the floor, but also loves to eat it.  Her words are dada, baby(baba), and mama, although she would always prefer to say dada to mama.  She has a very expressive face and often looks like she is up to something.

Liam is the happiest friendliest little (big) guy, he smiles at EVERYONE and just beams if you look in his direction.  He has 11 teeth, two of them are molars!  He army crawls everywhere and is a very fast and fluid army crawler.  He loves to stop and pose on his side like a swimsuit model, just stop, turns, smiles, and now he will often grab the toes on one leg and hold it up in the air.  Liam is also pulling up on things and is so determined and happy about it.  He loves food...ALL food, and it is obvious because he is a big big guy and really heavy to lug around.  He loves to splash hard in the bathtub and HATES getting dressed.  His words are mama, dada, baby (baba), and sometimes banana (nana), luckily he prefers to say mama.  Liam is a little sensitive and if he gets scared or gets his feelings hurt he will just lay his head down and cry in a way that just breaks your heart, but he always recovers quickly.

 We have definitely entered the stage where the babies take what they want from each other and get mad when they are taken from.  They also will laugh together and get each other giggling every once in awhile.

 The birthday girl today.

 The birthday boy today.

 Liam's favorite trick is "so big" and he gets so excited when he does it that he is constantly flapping his arms as he holds them up.  He also claps and holds phones (and other toys) up to his ear when I am on the phone.

 Kate's favorite trick is "where is your head?" and everytime she does a trick she promptly follows it by smiling and clapping for herself.  She also dances with her arms.

Jacob and Claire are such great big brother and sister to these two little babies.... they get so excited when they do something new, and they love to play with them and help with them.  The babies just adore them too.  Who would have thought one day we would have our twins pushing our twins on the family walk?

 6 months ago...

About a year ago....

 One year ago....

 They got bigger!

Cinci Trip

At the end of June we got to go to Cincinnati to visit and play at Nana's castle.  Camie and her family came and Amber came, so it was a week long family party!  It was hot while we were there, but we barely noticed since we basically spent the entire week in the pool.

Aunt Amber got some baby time.

We were able to see some friends, unfortunately not quite everyone we wanted to see since a week passes by too quickly but luckily we saw some of our closest friends.  We have really missed living close to Trisha and Trevor and it was fun to meet there new little Duffy and see how much Trey has grown up.

Trisha and I grew up together, it was fun to see her little family.

Like I said.... we basically spent the week in the pool; it was Kate and Liam's first pool experience and they loved it.

We finally got to see Papa's new building.  It is an amazing building, with amazing views.

All the big cousins at Papa's desk.

We fit in a Reds game too, which was a lot of fun because the kids are at the age that they are really into baseball and some of the players.  Jacob loves the Reds, specifically Joey Votto.  We had a box which was great since Liam and Kate came to experience their first Reds game.

Gapper also came to visit the box (Kate was thrilled)!

The kids got Joey Votto batting gloves and they seriously wore them for the ENTIRE game, even when they were eating.  It was very funny to watch.  They also were very into the game, cheering loud and dancing to the music at breaks.

One day we spent the morning and early afternoon at Kings Island, it is fun now that the big kids are big enough for a few more rides (Jacob and Claire are a couple inches shy on some of the big rollercoasters).  Thanks to Camie and Amber for keeping the babies while we took Wyatt to kiddie-land and to the Dads for staying with the big kids after we left.  

After Kings Island was more pool time.

Luckily we got to see our good friends Marnie and Adam while we were there and cannot wait for them to be moving just a 2 hour drive from us.

Babies also got to experience the trampoline for the first time, they loved it.

And Kate discovered if she got real close she could see things under the trampoline.

Nana had lots of treats planned.... one night was s'mores.

More pool time.  The dads and kids built a floater bridge across the pool and the kids would try to run across it and jump in the tube at the end.

Aunt Camie turned out the be the best swim teacher our kids have had and finally on our last day of swimming started to practice without floaties.

Lydia is sweet older cousin to play so well  with Claire.

We left on a Sunday, then we were delayed, then we got stuck in Detroit for the the night and rerouted early the next morning, but we made it home...

And it was worth the trip...