Hiatus

     Hey everyone. I've been super busy lately, and writing a blog post has just been seeming like one extra thing to add to the pile, so... I'm going to take a hiatus, for I don't know how long. I will try to continue to post pictures on Facebook occasionally, but yeah. Sorry, my sanity and my kids well-being take priority. ;)
     As a farewell post, here's a bunch of pictures from this month. (And when I say a bunch, I really mean it.)

Look Mama! I found the stairs, I know they go up, how do I work them.

(at the zoo) Hmm, this stroller idea is pretty great, I think I like this.

Also at the zoo, hard to avoid taking pictures of Jacob, he just makes the best faces.

What is this I'm eating? and why are you taking a picture? (Still trying to get Timothy started eating solid foods, but we're having issues because of chair situations)

Mom, I'm tired. Why am I here? (I brought Timothy with me when I went out to Port Townsend for the evening to celebrate my friend's book release. But while he was fabulous the whole time, he sure doesn't look impressed)

Hey, these stairs things again. If I straighten my legs it feels like I'm going up, maybe that's part of it. 

Jessica's birthday! 

She'd been begging for a bike for almost a year.

Yay! Mama found a recipe for cupcakes that actually doesn't have any added sugar, and it still tasted fabulous!

I didn't get a picture that showed how excited Jacob was, but he sure loved watching his cousin play the violin.

Mario

The Hulk

A dragon

All 3, ready for the party!

What could possibly be better than face paint?

And those cheeks! Oh those cheeks! They're just the best ever

I'm not sure how I feel about forehead painting

Pumpkin carving! I have a clearer picture, but it wasn't as expressive.

Jessica was very adamant about wanting a Spiderman pumpkin, but the patterns we had didn't fit. Nathaniel was WAY better than me, because he was willing to free-hand it. I would have said "Nope, sorry"

This is what we do while trying to get Jacob not to run across Jessica's portraits, have Mom take random pictures of him.

Grandma! I love my gifts!

Hey! I figured out these things! Look, I'm going up!

And even pulling myself to standing sometimes

And Jessica is 5, so here's her portrait

Lost

      So, I'm kinda lost as to what exactly to write about, so it may be a bit rambly. (Yes, I just made that word up) I got a breast infection a week and a half ago, and then as that was starting to get better my neck decided to seize up. And it was bad. I couldn't even move my neck back. Couldn't even stand up without blacking out bad. So yeah, nothing happened for about a week around here. That was fun. Except it would have been a lot more fun if I weren't in pain for it. ;)
       But I know I took some pictures, so I'll go through them and see if I can find anything.
       *peruses pictures on various phones and cameras*
      Oh yeah, phones... heh heh heh. I have been trying to switch carriers from Republic Wireless to Freedom pop to cut $20 off my bill. (And my bill was only $20 to start with, yeah that's right, free phone service) Well, I ordered a new phone off of ebay, it was for the wrong carrier. (Different carriers have different technology, so it wouldn't work) It had been listed wrong, so I returned it and bought a different one. That one got here, and it worked basically just long enough for me to cancel my phone service. Now we can't even get it to turn on. It was listed as used on ebay which in the description of used says "an item in working condition" which it wasn't. So, working on getting money back for that as well. Next phone hasn't arrived yet, hopefully it is fully functional and all that. In the meantime, Nathaniel set up an older phone we have with an app that lets me call and text when I have wifi. So I have a home phone at least, if not an out-and-about phone.

Cousins. okay, not quite playing together, but hey, they're still super cute

Yeah, Timothy took over this picture, but seriously, enlarge it and look at those blue eyes! Gorgeous.

Yes, this is a thing. Timothy loves to eat his cousin's head. *Nom nom nom* *Brains*

Though, Timothy isn't really a fan of the swing. 

      So, yeah, apparently we went to the park at least once. ;) That was actually yesterday, so yes I do remember that one. 

     Okay, so that's all the pictures that I can find. Which is actually sad, because I know I took some other pictures with the phone that won't turn on. :( However, I'm pretty sure that one of them was of Timothy trying to climb onto the fireplace step. He's getting pretty good at crawling now, to the point where I'm starting to get worried about him climbing the stairs (and then falling down them obviously). 

      Umm.... we've also discovered, as it has started to get colder and darker that we don't have very many, or more of any, warm clothes for Jessica and Jacob, and not enough for Timothy. And it gets pretty cold in our house with the lack of any insulation. So yeah, lots of clothes to buy, and we need to get rain boots for the kids and me, and some way of adding more light to our living room, and one of our carseats is about to expire, so we need a new one of those too. Goodness. When it rains it pours huh. ;)

Reading and Sleeping

Well, I don't have any pictures for you this week, and not a whole lot to write about, but hey, at least I'll write something. There are a couple stories. So, first off, as we were driving around, I noticed that the leaves were turning red and I pointed out out to Jessica.
                Me: "Look! The leaves are turning red."
                Jessica: "Oh! It's like they're bleeding!"
                Me: "......... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Also, this week, Jessica has started being able to read. Not tons, but she has sounded out words, and she has read, pretty much by herself (getting help from me on words that aren't really sound-out-able) almost a whole book. (Little Critter "Just Go To Bed") She got tired of it, because it was a bit hard, but still! Awesome!

And last but not least, we started Timothy sleep training. (Of course, when I say we, I mean I, because I just didn't think it was wise to try to handle the 3 naptimes and naptime/preschool at the same time anymore. So, I wait until he's obviously tired, and I feed him, and rock him just for a bit, and then set him down. So far we're 3 and 2 success to failure rate. (Failure being he cries for more than 15 minutes, so I get him back up. We'll see how it progresses in the next few weeks. Hopefully more successes and fewer failures.

Haircut

     Not much has actually happened here this week. At least, not much more than the norm. Life is crazy busy, but there wasn't much of note that happened this past week.
     That being said, I did give Jacob a haircut. But last time, with the scissors, I felt that I didn't do very well, and since that's the only boy's haircut I've ever given, I take a long time, and Jacob doesn't sit still that long. So, this time I gave him a haircut with the buzzer. But I've never done that before, so I didn't know how to tell what length it was going to give me... Oops. I'd intended to do more of a haircut length. I wanted to cut his hair, make it look nice, not remove it all. :( But the attachment I used only left about a quarter to a half inch of hair on top of his head. He's still super cute, but I miss his gorgeous red hair. And because Jessica's hair faded to a more blonde color, I'm afraid that his will too, and I'll have just chopped off all the red. :(
Anyway, here's the pictures.

Here's the best "before" I could find. I always forget to take a before picture, but this was from this month too, so... close enough. Shaggy and uneven, because of my previous haircut for him. 

Kind of "during" Though, all that was left was cleanup. I was worried I would need to buzz Nathaniel's head too, because when he heard the buzzers turn on he might have gotten scared. But I turned them on and asked if I could use them, and he said okay. then when I started, he just stated laughing! "It tickles!"

My little cheezer. Done now. 

He looks so much older now though. He also reminds me of my younger brother with this haircut and the cheezer smile. 

School

      Well, this week has been interesting. Oh my goodness. The school year started for the Shoreline School District, so Jessica started our preschool as well. It's been pretty good, and Jessica loves it.

Here is Jessica on her first day with her teacher. Oh wait. That's me. Yup, for anyone who hadn't heard, I'm homeschooling her for preschool. We'll enroll her in public school for kindergarten for now, and see what is best for her, but I didn't want to just leave her with nothing after having preschool last year, and frankly, $500 a month is just a bit too much for us. 

And here is Jessica showing off our preschool corner of our fridge. She puts the date on the calendar every day, and then fills out a weather chart, and then a today/tomorrow/yesterday chart. And we'll start a few more things  to the daily "Calendar time" in another week.

   We have been using a program from a blog called Confessions of a Homeschooler that is actually for kindergarten, but she's already done the letter of the week thing, and is doing fabulously with the kindergarten stuff so far.


       The same day Jessica started preschool, Timothy hit his 6 month mark. He's not quite crawling yet, or at least not hands and knees crawling. But he is very p roficient at army crawling. Starting solid food is being interesting though.

He wasn't terribly impressed with carrots, though I may have had them a bit too thick for him. He loved the oatmeal I gave him the next morning. (Pureed from the oatmeal we had for breakfast.)

      And his 6 month pictures were gorgeous. Just see for yourself.

I think this is one of (if not my absolute) favorites. He looks like he should be a model for diapers. I wish I had put him in his dinosaur cloth diaper though, that would have been super cute. Oh well, it was dirty, and I was gone all day, which makes the cloth diapering harder. But his skin is so perfect, and all those rolls! And hey, who can resist the redheaded baby? ;)

This was the closest we got to his smile, which was kinda sad, because he's got a super cute dimple when he smiles, but again with the gorgeous! And these were just taken at JCPenny's, so no touchups even, let alone photoshopping. Those eyes though! So beautiful! (Cause I'm not biased at all.)

Again with the eyes! Who could resist those?

Mom! I have toes! 

       Also, we started babysitting my nephew Finley while my sister-in-law is at work as a school nurse. It's working out fabulously. Finley is a month older than Timothy, and it is so fun to watch them lay on the ground and grin at each other.

And one last picture, because Jacob is just such a cheezer. Yes, that is blue around his mouth. Apparently he decided that the crayons made fabulous lipstick. Though, seeing as I don't wear lipstick, I guess he thought more along the lines of chapstick. 

3 months

      Wow! 3 months... Oops. I didn't mean to let it go that long without me writing. We moved 3 months ago, and I haven't blogged since. No apologies, its been crazy. That and we've got our house set up differently than our apartment (go figure) and so I don't have access to my computer as much as I did down there, so I don't get on as often, and when I do, it's generally after bedtime, and so I'm trying to relax/wind down, and blogging isn't necessarily what does that for me.
      So yeah, anyway, I don't think I'm going to do tons of writing, probably more just pictures, and then hopefully I'll be a bit better about writing regularly. (since that might help me remember to actually take pictures of my children.) Also, there may be more than one post. There are a LOT of pictures that I want to share.
       But here's the brief outline of the last 3 months:
-Moved June 6th,
-June 17th-the movers FINALLY arrived with our belongings
-spent the next week finding everything that was broken. (mostly furniture, repair/replacement value close to $2000)
-unpacked the kitchen, and then lived the rest out of our suitcases, because unpacking with the 3 munchkins is a beast, and we're not sure it's worth it because (see below)
-found a lot of unpleasant "quirks" about the house (such as the two-lane road in front that looked nice and small... yeah a highway, or the EXTREMELY shoddy workmanship, and holes straight through to the outdoors), decided that we're only staying until our contract is up
-found a "hobo" spider infestation (holy crap 2 inch diameter spiders on my floor/walls!) (found out later they were more likely to be wolf spiders, which are indistinguishable from hobos except under a microscope, *sigh of relief*)
-found out sister getting endowments out, made a slightly last-minute trip down to Utah for 3 weeks.
-Helped Mom understand the value of the silence in her house. :) (Love you Mom)
-Drove back up to Washington (3rd 14 hour drive this summer, not sure I want to do the drive EVER again, except the price of plane tickets)
-Had the Orkin man come, no more spiders.
-Decided (after choking and gasping over preschool prices) that we'll homeshcool Jessica for preschool, which will start on Wednesday.
-Weaned Jacob from the binky (actually cold-turkey when he lost it, then was found again, and then took it away [without fuss!] when we realized how much the nipple part was breaking)

First we have our official family picture. I wanted it taken before we left for Washington so that I could hand-deliver them to people.

Yup, another family photo. This was taken the Sunday before we left, which happened to be the same day we blessed Timothy (hence the picture)

EEEE! Look at all the chub! So cute! This is, I guess, Timothy's "official 3-month picture. I didn't get any professional pictures taken sadly, but I did take a picture on his 3-month birthday, so at least that's something. He's still super chunky, but looking back, I think he's actually started thinning out.

And here we are. New house. Empty because the movers took so long, and Jacob is the one dressed appropriately for the temperature. With it being empty it was so FREEZING the entire time (insulation is poor where it exists, and is non-existent in some places). Poor Jessica had wet her pants, and this was all I had for her to wear. 

Jacob found that there are a new kind of leaf up here. These are large, oval leaves, that are thicker and so stiffer. He decided he loved them, and kept trying to bring them inside. 

A merry-go-round! I haven't seen one in forever! And Jessica seems to find it more fun to push the thing than to get a ride herself. 

Finally the boxes arrived, this was my attempt at keeping them entertained while I unpacked my kitchen. (You can see the laptop on the counter, it is playing a movie.

And here is Jacob "helping" me unpack. (The newspaper had been in the box

Here we have a video, taken on July 1st (so, almost 4 months old) of Timothy rolling over. 

Okay, so this is going to get really long, maybe I should have split it at the month marks, but oh well. Long, picture-filled blog post continues. 

I gave Jacob a haircut, which... was interesting. It wasn't horrible, but its a good thing he's a toddler. Mistakes are more forgivable. This is him showing it to the camera.

Much better view of it.

And the back.

Sprinkler/water party with some friends in our ward. 

The YMCA had a free family BBQ, we decided that free is good. So we all went. Here are Jessica and I. This was "selfie" angle, so I had struggles. Good picture of her and me, but....

This is the better one because I was wearing Timothy the whole time, and was trying to include him in the picture

And here are the other boys. 

Face painting! We always love face painting.

Can you just take a moment an read her shirt. How priceless is it that she's wearing a shirt that says "I am a true princess" while her face is painted as Spiderman. Yup. You betcha. That's my daughter. 

"Rawr!"

Tiger Jacob.

July 18th, 4 1/2 months old. "Woah! What am I even doing here?" Timothy sits up. Though, he's still shaky now. 

I got a new hat. I'm not sure who was more excited. Me at not to put sunscreen on my part, and having shade for my eyes, or these two wanting to play with it.

Right before we left for our trip back down to Utah, our ward had a "pioneer day" picnic. This included an older couple sharing stories with the young kids about what life was like as a pioneer, complete with a huge amount of props that they seemed more than willing to pass around. So here is Indian chief Jessica.

Poor tired boy. I set him down, intending to rock him to sleep after doing something (probably the bathroom) or may we were leaving soon, and I didn't want him to nap yet, not sure which. This is what happened. 

Again with the me getting new things, and Jacob trying them on. Cute though. 

And I really just love this picture. It was so very sweet. Jacob with his Grandma.

Swinging on Grandma's new swingset

"Look what I found when Grandma took us to the mall." Gotta love that the kids love dinosaurs.

Such a sweet boy. And yeah, definitely thinned out a bit. 

Apparently tired at Grandma's is a theme. This is dinnertime. Poor guy passed right out without even eating. 

And this beauty was on the way home from Utah. We stopped a friend's house along the way for a barbecue, and they had a nice big area of dirt in their front yard. Oh they had fun. But wow. That was quite the mess. 

They do love their uncle Oscar. We met Oscar and Carley at the park, and the kids will just follow him around wherever. 

Of course, its about the same with their Papa. 

Jessica saw someone else taking pictures of her daughters, and asked that mom to take one of her too. Her mom sent her to me for a camera, and here's the picture.

This is one of the fun things about our house. I took these pictures from my back door. The bird is one of about 10 we'll see in our yard. Especially right after it rains. We've also seen a family of 4 raccoons wander through our yard. It's great. Wildlife in my own backyard.

And here is Timothy swinging. Yes, the hat is on backward, and the tag is in his face.  Sorry. I thought it was fairly cute. That's also a fairly regular look for him. The confused, "what is going on" look.

And last but not least, we have a video of Timothy crawl/scooting around. He turns 6 months old tomorrow, this was taken... Sunday? Maybe Saturday. 

(and I'm hoping the sound on the videos worked, because my computer is having some issues.)