Keeping busy at Jacob's baseball games

We've been lucky to have mostly good weather for Jacob's baseball games this year.  With 2 very active babies, that's been a good thing!!!

 

Though we bring a blanket for them to sit on, Kate and Liam spend most of their time roaming around the grassy fields with other little kids.  One of Jacob's teammates mom brings a wagon - it gets a lot of use by our kids and others!

One game, the rain earlier in the day left a little puddle (which was more like a damp spot than an actual puddle) for the kids to splash around in.  They wound up playing ring around the rosies and 'falling' into the puddle.

Not pictured (yet) is that one of babies favorite game-time entertainment is the McKnight family.  Getty is on Jacob's baseball team and finds the babies between each inning.  Scott and Alice and their kids take turns with the babies, with the kids walking all over the place with them.  Kate and Liam LOVE the McKnights!

The games end with long shadows cast over the field as the family walks back to the car.

Mumford and Sons Concert

Dani and I got to go to the Mumford and Sons concert with Jim and Mel.  A bunch of my other co-workers had seats in other parts of the arena, so we went to dinner beforehand.

We had tickets to be on the floor, and we ended up about 20-30 feet from the stage.  It was cool to be that close - I definitely like the energy from being on the floor.

Above us, from the back of the arena to the front, there were lights strung up.  The colors changed throughout the show and during the songs.  It made for a cool environment.

For the encore, they went to the back of the arena and played a couple acoustic songs around a single microphone.  Then, they walked right next to us on their way back up to the stage for the final encore.

It was an awesome show!

Father's and Son's campout

After one of Jacob's baseball games, we went to the father's and sons campout.  It had been raining intermittently throughout the day and right before Jacob's game, and we got there after 9, so we decided to sleep in the car.  Liam slept in between Jacob and I and seemed to take up way more room than a little 1-year-old should take!

In the morning, Liam and Jacob played with some of the boys.  It was pretty sparse attendance because it was Memorial Day weekend, but they got out some Nerf weapons and had some epic fights and had a great time!

Meanwhile, the girls had a girls night, which included watching a movie and going out for frozen yogurt.  Kate was quite concerned where Liam was.

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I am pretty sure that this was the first time that Kate and Liam spent a night in different places!

Hanging with the neighbors

We have spent an increasing amount of time hanging out with the Bowles through the hole in the fence.  We've enjoyed having their kids in our backyard, and our kids have enjoyed playing with their kids.  I appreciate that, though the oldest of their kids are older than Jacob and Claire, they enjoy including them in their games of basketball in the street in front of their house and other games they play.

One day, they got out the slip and slide, and the kids had a blast with it!!!

Dani brings Kate and Liam over so she and Andrea can swap watching each others' kids so they can both go for a run a couple times per week.  One wet morning, Kate and Liam headed over there in their new too-big footed pajamas and rainboots!

Lull-a-bye!

Kate has a favorite book - Lull-a-bye, Little One.  Her world pretty much revolves around it.  Over the last couple weeks, her attachment to the book has grown.

The first thing she told me the last couple mornings when I went to get her out of her bed was, "Lull-a-bye!"  She carries the book all over the house.  She talks about the book constantly (and quite loudly, I might add).  She brings it in the car with us.  Miraculously, the book is holding together (with a little more tape than it used to have).

She constantly is asking people to read her the book, though at this point, she basically has it memorized.  Sometimes, it is quite cute.  

Other times, she ends up a little bit in the way.

Jacob and Claire were read this same book every day before naps for a long time when they were younger, and they had memorized the book, but neither of them took the obsession to the degree Kate has.

Stuffed Animals of their Own

Recently, we had some drama over stuffed animals.  Kate had adopted one of Claire's stuffed animals, her monkey, and had been sleeping with it for a few months.  Claire discovered this one day and suddenly, Claire's monkey (who she hadn't seen in months) became her favorite animal and she couldn't sleep without it.  There was some drama over the monkey (and one cute moment where Claire decided Kate could sleep with her monkey), so Dani ordered Kate a monkey of her own.

After Dani ordered the monkey for Kate, she realized it might be nice for Liam to have a new stuffed animal, too, so she ordered him a Lion.  When Kate got her monkey, Kate walked it all around the house. 

 Liam found a little stuffed bear and followed her around, obviously wanting to be as excited as she was for her new animal.  So, when Liam got his new lion, he was SO excited for it and gave it lots of hugs.

Trip to the Zoo

While Matt went to his seminar, we went with Rachel and her kids to the Oregon zoo.  We recently purchased a family membership which got 2 parents and 4 kids into the zoo plus 1 additional adult, so we were all covered!

We got to see sea lions (Liam got a little nervous when the sea lion came close to the glass)

 

and a polar bear

and lots of monkeys.  Everyone was excited to see the different animals.  Kate and Liam liked yelling, "MONKEY" over and over and over.

In one of the exhibits, there was a little cave that we were able to fit the kids into - and get almost all of them looking at the camera at the same time!

We also saw elephants

including a little baby elephant, just 6 months old.  We watched it follow its mom around and scamper around the pen.  He climbed over a big log, getting high centered for a minute before he figured out how to get his back legs over the log, too.

  

One cool temporary exhibit was a Lego exhibit put on by a school.  Of course Jacob, Claire, and Madden were really excited to see that!  There were lots of creation, including many Legos in motion and Lego robots.

We went to see the lions, which Kate and Liam were sure to growl at.

 

We must have worn Jacob out - he fell asleep not long after we got into the car.  Fortunately, he was able to recover and had a great baseball game (in a constant rain).

Rachel stayed with Claire and her kids and saw most of the other exhibits in the zoo (and managed to miss the rain until she was getting in the car!).  I'm sure we'll have more zoo trips later this year.

Raabs in town

Matt and Rachel Raab and their kids came and joined us for a long weekend.  Matt had some training seminars on Saturday and Sunday, but they came Thursday morning (at about 1 am!) to spend a couple days with us.

The kids had a LOT of fun the whole time!  Quite often, it was a wild time!  One of the fun things they did was to build a HUGE tower, complete with waterslide and pool.

We got to meet baby Blazen.

On Friday night, we ate dinner at John's Incredible Pizza.  Yum!  Jared and Matt played a game of Speed of Light, and then Jared and the kids had a go at it.  It was cute watching Kate and Liam hitting the same button, over and over.  It didn't matter whether or not the light was on, but they were having fun.

 

Matt and Rachel played some Dance Dance Revolution.

The kids also played some games.  Liam and Kate even rode the merry go round!  Liam was pretty obsessed with a little train ride, too.

We left all the kids at home and went out with Matt and Rachel on Saturday night to La Provence, in Lake Oswego.  The food was good, and it was a lot of fun to be out without our kids!

We got dessert from a grocery store in the same shopping complex (in large part because the service at La Provence was a little slow) and ate outside.  While we were there, we were discussing how nice it was to come home to sleeping kids.

When we got home, we discovered Jacob was having an off night and was on our floor crying.  Liam also started crying, and when I went to get him, the doorknob started moving... Liam had flopped out of his bed!  In addition, Madden had lost a tooth (Matt and Rachel didn't even know he had a loose one!) and Kate was sleeping with a play bin she had pulled into her crib and without her clothes!  It was a pretty nutty night!