Dishes

I love my babies.

Ward campout

Friday the 20th we had a ward campout. Scott took the day off and we headed out there about 10am. The campsite was only an hour away on a reservoir. We of course went geocaching. And I of course found it :) Addilyn loves finding and opening caches. We always bring something to trade and she is very willing to take it all. But we of course keep it to one. The name of this cache had dragonfly in it, and there were a bunch of toy dragonflies. There are actually several more pictures that I have, but for whatever reason they didn't upload. And for my times sake they aren't going up.

We headed to our campsite and set up. While the babes and I attempted to nap in the tent (note, attempted) Scott went out to find his first 5/5 geo cache. AKA the hardest ratings- 5 for terrain and 5 for difficulty finding. He has pictures, but you wouldn't know what you were looking at. But he did find it and thought it was really fun.

 For dinner we made dutch oven for ourselves. It was delish. That night we did dutch oven cobbler for the whole ward. Addi had so much fun playing with her friends. I ended up putting my headlamp around her waist so that 1) she could see and 2) I could see her. It worked wonderfully. Addilyn was filthy as you can see in that picture. People would look at her and then look at my sympathetically. Well, her and Scott both took showers that night. Unfortunately we didn't plan that we would take one and we didn't bring any towels. But we did have a bunch of hand towels in our camping bin... Also that night we had some campfire singing. I was amazed at how awesome Addi was since she didn't nap. We didn't get to bed until about 11. Scott and the scouts participated in a flag retirement ceremony. And for those who don't know, you have to wait until the ashes are cool so you can burry them. That took fooooooreeeevvvvverrrrrr. As a side note, Levi did great the entire time. Like most babies, he loved being outside.

 During the night Addi woke up at 4AM saying she needed to poop. Yaa.... to start the night off, Addi was next to Scott and Levi was next to me. We had a hard time sleeping because we didn't bring the air mattress. That was on purpose sadly. We figured it would be really awkward to try and all sleep on it in our tent together. So we sacrificed and slept on the ground. ehh. Well, I slept on cushions and Scott forgot his roll up air mat. But don't worry, it was still really bad for me. So after this whole, "I have to poo" incident, Addi wanted to sleep next to me. So she was in between us. Then in the wee morning hours I had to feed Levi on that side and when I was done feeding them, this is how they were. Sooooooooo adorable. For a moment they both had their arms above their heads, but I was too slow at getting my camera for it. After we left the campout, Scott wanted to go back to the cache he was trying to find (ya, he found it the day before but didn't realize it and had to go back to get it). While we were there there was a pow wow going on. It was pretty neat. I really like the guys doing their chants and banging on their drums. Cool.

When we were planning our food for the trip, I decided that for lunch on Saturday we were going to go to this creamery I'd found. The ice cream was really the best part about it. The food- not so much. Oh, but that ice cream...

Levi at 4 months

Ok, so like all of these posts, they are a bit late. Levi turned 4 months September 13th. What?! I know I will say this every time I say how old he is. Especially since he's already almost closer to 5 months than 4! Here are his lovely 4 month stats:
14.08 lbs = 25th %
16" head cir = 85th %
25" length = 34th %
Here is a comparison to Addilyn. (it's a link, click on it)

 I love love this picture above. Many of you have already seen it. We were at Levi's Dr apt and Addilyn wanted to sit up next to him on the table. She is so caring to him. When he had to get his shots I had to hold Addilyn because she was so concerned for him. Levi took it like a champ. Of course he cried for the first 20 seconds of the shot, but he had a quick recovery.

Proof that Levi has blue blue eyes! They are very clear blue. And as a side note, he was pooping in these pictures. :D
Other updates: He has found his toes and he loves to talk (see video below). Levi LOVES to jump with his sister. I wish I had a video of it, but there is only one of me. I need to borrow Scott and have him get it. Levi laughs hysterically when he's jumping or watching Addilyn jump. Levi has a contagious smile. All the ladies swoon when they see him. Levi's grip has found my hair and glasses now. He sleeps lots still, but not very well at night. That's my biggest problem right now. His longest stretch right now is about 3 hours. Ehhhhh. And I'm too tired to help him go back to sleep without nursing him. We're trying out some different methods tonight. So we'll see how it goes. On a related note: Levi's grandma said that his daddy ate every 2 hours, even at night. Addi ate every 2 hours but would sleep at night. I'm thinking he takes after his dad. Grr.

Tonight we fed him some rice cereal for the first time. We're not sure how he liked it. You tell us:

Here he is after the fact:
Instagram is making these huge pictures

Fall

Geesh. You'd think I'd be awesome at blogging since I'm a stay-at-home mom right? Wrong! It is definitely a full time job and I know I'm not the fist to tell you that. I'm quickly trying to blog while Levi naps (for who knows how long) and Addilyn is content playing with her cars by herself.

"I'm a Vet" hospital

I sure love these free activities. Especially the one they do at the Children's Museum. Levi slept half the time which was awesome. And when I fed him, my friend Nancy was nearby so she could keep an eye out on Addilyn as she ran around.

Scott had the 12-13 year old boys over for a campout a few weekends ago. They came over Friday night and stayed until we took them to church on Sunday. They had a good time and made some awesome dutch oven. They left the house in decent condition which is all I cared about :)

A rare moment where Levi was happy on his belly.

 While the boys were here we took another one of our many walks. Addi and Levi sure love each other.

Addilyn set up Levi's props and was happy to take his picture. She loves getting pictures taken and taking them. But I'll let you know how that really is come time for our family pictures. :)

Lately I've been seeing a huge change in how Addilyn is with being a big sister. She has always been really helpful. But she's been especially helpful to herself. The other day I didn't really have to do anything when it came to putting her down for her nap. She did it all by herself. Addi got her night-night book and climbed in. All I had to do was sing a few songs and called it good. Unfortunately she's got a nasty cough right now. Poor thing.

We started a co-op playgroup/preschool. We're not sure what to call it. It's not quite preschool because they are too little and we are not structured enough. But it;s not just straight up playgroup because we are doing some activities and brief lessons. This was the 4th week of doing it, and my turn to host. From 9:30-12 

 I themed my playgroup "Ocean". We looked at pictures of different ocean animals, we acted some of them out (like a crab or a manta ray), we colored pictures of ocean animals, we went "fishing"...And my favorite was the bath toys. We have some ocean animal bath toys that I brought down in a clear shoebox sized storage bin with some water in it. They were all so fascinated and it was as though they were the real animals.  It was darling. When we went outside we drew with chalk an underwater scene. Two year olds can be quite fun. I honestly couldn't have done it without my friend Chelsea. It was awesome having her here so that when I needed to be with Levi she was there.

They are all admiring a caterpillar. I picked it up when I spotted it on the driveway. It was too cute having them all be so fascinated by it! Only one of them actually let it go on their hand. Another when attempted, but it tickled too much. Addilyn wanted to hold it, but she kept psyching herself out last minute.
And by the way, I started this blog post Friday I think? Maybe it was Thursday. And it is now Sunday night.

The last of summer

Car tracks with masking tape

SMOOCH

Addilyn loves to play outside. Her relationship with Cabo is love/hate. She demands his presence, but while he's there, she is mad at everything he does. (like smell her, or he accidentally walks on her paper, or he is there...) Thankfully Addi does really well now being outside with out me. I can see her from the kitchen window and hear her when it's cracked. It's a nice alternative from having netflix on while I do dinner.

Hey, we still have Cabo!

 The last of the Dash. Well, for this season. We usually sit in the box seats from Scott's work. But this game we had seats next to the grass. We opted to sit in the grass until we were sick of it and needed to sit in chairs. I really liked it except for I really had to pay attention for fly balls! Addilyn had a blast too. Levi was a piece of cake.

with her glove

Scott trying to get a tshirt

note where Levi is :)

Co-worker Steve and his daughter

The rest of the game, and I mean the rest, we sat in our chairs on the 3rd base line. We stayed even through the fireworks. By the bottom of the 7th Addi was asking to go home. Poor girl. But I was too. We were all so tired. And we lost by 2. But up until those last runs it was a pretty good game.

Steve's son is also 2

The next morning we dropped Addi and Levi at our friends house. Scott and I went on a bike ride to Salem Lake. We ended up going 16.5 miles. Ouch. The start of the trail is only about 2 miles from our house. It's mostly shaded and a beautiful ride. We are excited to take Addi and Levi next time in our bike trailer. 

I was actually going pretty fast for that one arm/leg picture...

Sometimes you've just gotta make cookies

Labor day morning

 Well, we made it to the pool for one last time. Labor Day. It's the day when they close, and we were there. It was nice because Scott could come for the first time too!

Addilyn has started a co-op playgroup/preschool thing. It's more like an organized playgroup. We are trying to do a short lesson about whatever (last week was on animals) and do activities/crafts that relate to it. The rest of the time is snack and play time. There's 5 of them total. Addi loved it so much she cried when she left and told me all about it in the car. My girl is getting so big!

Addi climbs up on the table and says "picture?!"

Reading books to her brother. He hates being on his stomach (like most babies) so these are rare pictures. Go ahead, ooo and ahh.

On another note. I've been pretty lucky with both Addi and Levi when it comes to my diet and nursing. I've never had to lay off my chocolate or milk. Well. With Levi I vow to never ever eat beans. Oh heavens. I made these yummy black bean burgers Saturday and all day Sunday you would think we were pinching him all day. He was a mess. I felt so bad for him. I was exhausted from holding him and trying to console him all day. Oy. But those burgers were so good...

Time flies when you have kids. The 13th Levi will be 4 months. Whaaaat?! He is grabbing things, rolling over (whenever I put him on the floor which is like never. It's more out of safety from his sister), loves twirling and looking at the gadgets in his excer-saucer, and smiles all the time. And it's no longer only when he's gassy! He squeels. He loves watching his sister. And she loves making him smile and laugh. Usually the trick is for her to jump up and down. Gets him everytime. 

Cute shoes from grandpa and nana Jadwin

This picture is for the Kirkham's. It's honey. And it's about to be saran wrapped for over night incubation. Scott has mersa in his elbow. I know, what is mersa? Why and how is it in his elbow? Right. When Scott gets sick it's never normal stuff. So he had been touching his elbow a lot and cause the skin to break out in bumps. We did the honey trick. (wink wink Paulette) Unfortunately Scott couldn't stand it during the night (we had put an ace bandage around it too) and came downstairs to take it off. But I am confident that it would have fixed these little bumps.

To add to the home remedy theme... I recently made laundry soap and orange/vinegar spray. I had to peel what seemed like a gazzillion oranges, which I hate peeling, and put the rines in an empty pickle jar, filled with white vinegar, and marinated for 2 weeks. Then I poured it in a spray bottle 50/50 to water. I no longer have stinky vinegar spray! As for the laundry soap. I love it. I only put 1 TB for an entire load. One large mason jar is approx 128 loads and cost about $0.013 for each load. The link is here for what I did.