Road Trip through Idaho

For the Labor Day weekend we drove home to Jonathan's parents' home in Adrian, Oregon and had such a fun time with almost the entire family (except Jared on his mission in New Zealand, and the Tessems who live in North Carolina - we missed you, Tessems!).

My boys and I left at about 5 am on Friday and got there around 11 (we were originally going to leave around midnight or 1 - Jonathan actually went to bed at 6:30 and slept until 2:30!) James did really well and slept a lot of the time (this was much shorter than our last trip!) and we had a fun time driving. James is getting used to road trips!

Here are some pictures of our drive - they are actually mostly from the drive home on Monday.

James on the way there - he loves to look back at his Daddy while he is driving and smile at him!

Stopping for dinner on the way home

SO happy to be out of his car seat

so sweet

We gave him some of his puffs to munch on, and he grabbed two big handfuls and started stuffing his face. I guess he was hungry!

Daddy trying desperately to not get squash on his shirt...

what is that??

the Wienermobile, of course! (what the random??)

beautiful Idaho

I bought this word puzzle book at a gas station and it kept me entertained for hours!

my hubby

love the sky

sunset

cool clouds

James was kind of fussy on the way back, but his window shade kept him entertained for a little while!

A fun evening

Tonight we walked down to my parents' house and had a fun little visit. My Dad went out to the shed and found a bin of our old bricks we used to play with when we were little - basically they are really big legos. We had so much fun building things, and James quite enjoyed it, too.

happy boys

Josh was feeling patriotic

intrigued

Grandpa built a buddy for James! (and then James knocked it over...)

"Quick! Build a wall around James!"

Jonathan doesn't fit quite as well...

Unkins Josh

cute

he made a piano!!

complete with piano lamp and metronome

walking home!

Explorin'

James enjoys pulling out every toy from his box and every children's book from the shelves. He pulls out movies and he would probably pull out the bigger books and textbooks, but they are heavier and a bit more tricky. What a busy boy!

graham crackers

James is a lot like his Mommy and his Great-Grandma in that he LOVES graham crackers! He just discovered them this past week and it is so cute to watch him bite them with his little teeth.

our macho man

trying to share

stuffing his face

Nine Month Stats

James had his nine-month check-up yesterday with Dr. Durham, and here are his stats!

Length: 29 inches (76th percentile)

Weight: 18 pounds 11 ounces (21st percentile - which is good, because last time he was in the 17th!)

Head Circumference: 18.9 inches (98th percentile! This is one SMART boy!)

A couple of cute pictures before we went to the doctor -



Since we are planning on moving in about a month or so, this was probably James' last visit with Dr. Durham - which was kind of sad! Dr. Durham is an old family friend and was my pediatrician when I was a baby! (Not to mention all growing up, too!) He's a great doctor and we'll miss him. Here's a picture of me, James and Dr. Durham -


Some things that James has been doing lately -

crawling all over and getting into everything
crawling up the stairs
standing up and cruising
laughing a ton
getting mad when we take a toy away
EXPLORING
falling and getting a few boo-boos from the exploring
eating more and more finger foods
eating crackers and biting into them so cute with his 4 little teeth
bouncing and "dancing" to music
humming
babbling like crazy - many syllables, like da da fa fa ba ba and an occasional something that sounds like a real word!
oh and he says ma ma sometimes when he cries (MA MA!!)
waving bye bye
giving us five

What fun! We just love him more and more every day. He continues to entertain us like crazy and we love just watching him play and explore things. He loves to examine small little objects or electronic devices or screws with his little pointer finger, and you can just see the concentration in his face. Yesterday he stood ALL by himself for a few seconds - I just know he's gonna take off walking one of these days! Something else cute is that today he learned how to turn the cell phone on! He has this old cell phone of ours that he plays with, and today he was playing and turned it on. The lights turned on and he just stared at it, and then started bouncing and squealing! He was so excited! It didn't have a sim card in it, so he couldn't really call anyone, except you can still call 911 on it, so we turned the phone off, just in case. He got mad, and then turned it right back on! He turned it on about four times in a row. What a smart kid :)

Anyway, we just love our little guy and it is just so fascinating watching him grow and learn!

Blog Around the World

This is my very first post. Isn't this exciting? So you know how when it's really late at night you can do some pretty fun activities? We have a new one to add to the list if you haven't already tried it. It's called Blog Chaining. This is where you go to people's blogs and click on links they have to people they know and you try to eventually come back to yourself.

Here are the results

http://thebosterfamily.blogspot.com/
http://tessemland.blogspot.com/
http://nalj.com/blog/
http://wojomojo.blogspot.com/
http://erinwalker2.blogspot.com/
http://schto-za.blogspot.com/
http://dangiehansen.blogspot.com/
http://atsmithfam.blogspot.com/
http://memyselfandira.blogspot.com/
http://thehannibals.blogspot.com/
http://bensonfamily-wa.blogspot.com/
http://hussmattandrachel.blogspot.com/
http://thebosterfamily.blogspot.com/

That's 12 steps. How many can you do?

three years ago AND nine months ago today...

Three years ago today, Jonathan proposed to me and we got engaged! It seems like forever ago in a way, but also I can't believe how fast the time has flown. Jonathan took me on an all-day date and then we ended up in Provo Canyon, where he gave me a dozen roses, played the guitar and sang to me, and read me a children's book that he wrote about me, and then he proposed. It was very cute and I was very impressed with his creativity! I love you, Babe!

Here is a picture from the night we got engaged -


And a recent picture -


Also, nine months ago today our sweet little boy was born! Now THAT went fast! Honestly, I cannot believe how fast he has grown. He is now crawling around, standing up, getting into everything, trying to walk, laughing, babbling, waving, and showing his cute little personality.

I love these pictures from the day he was born -



And now he's all grown up! -


We love you, Buddy!

Then & Now

My Mom just sent me this picture of Annie as a little girl on the big tree at Wheeler Farm, so I just thought I'd share! Isn't she so cute? She's sitting on a different side of the tree, I think, but it is still fun to see the comparison. :)

Good morning!

Just some cute pictures of James eating his breakfast and looking out the window at the birds. I love this kid!

Wheeler Farm

Last week, James and I went to my brother Josh's cross country meet. It was held at Wheeler Farm, an old historic farm that is a lot like a park. I hadn't been to Wheeler Farm for YEARS and it was so fun to go back! I think the last time I went was for a field trip in either elementary school or preschool.

Here is a great action shot of Josh -


James is just chillin', watching his Uncle run -


So this farm is such a neat place to go, there are tons of animals and it's totally free to just walk around and look at all of them. You can also milk cows and stuff - pretty nifty! Although, if I really wanted to milk cows I'd just have to go to my in-laws' and I'm sure they'd be glad to have the help! :)

After the meet we walked around for awhile and looked at all the animals - first we saw these huge geese (they are geese, right?) - and to be honest, we were a little scared. I guess they are just so used to the people that they are not afraid to walk right up to you. I thought James would be scared, but he just sat there and looked at them. We even fed them some of his little Gerber puffs!

A big old goose, staring me down -


Kind of scared to go any closer -


James and I looking at the geese -


I don't have pictures of the other animals, but there were cows and horses and sheep and chickens and bunnies and turkeys and roosters and pigs - pretty much every farm animal you could think of. What a fun place to take little kids! We will definitely be going back there.

We kept walking and we found this big huge tree that my sister Annie and I remembered from our childhood. When we were little, our Grandpa Glenn used to take us to Wheeler Farm all the time (he is the one who James is named after - Jim Glenn - the kindest man ever!), and we both remembered this tree from when we were little. We even have a cute picture of Annie sitting in the tree when she was really little. I wish I had a copy of that picture, because it would be fun to compare it to this picture of Annie sitting in the tree -


And here are some pictures of my boy and I at the tree. What a handsome little guy -



I'm loving his toothy little grin -


Peeking out through a window of an old playhouse (do you see Josh in the background?) -


My son likes to bite things lately - his crib rails, his Mommy's arm, old rotting wood -