You can take the girl out of Oregon....

Well, we had quite the rainshower the other day, and Serayah was desperate to get out and play in the rain. She laughed, and ran, and jumped... but mommy's camera was getting too wet to stay out for the entire adventure.

Doh a Deer

Here's Serayah wanting to get in the act... her rendition of "Doh a Deer". Enjoy!

Hide and Seek

Here's Cam's "counting" when he and Serayah play hide and seek. I know the picture's grainy, but this is on my old digital camera that is meant for still pictures, but has a camcorder feature... it was handy. If you guys like these, I'll try and start getting good video on the camcorder... let me know.

Camden's face meets concrete

Well, the picture doesn't really look that bad, but man oh man does Cam have a goose egg. We were going to lunch yesterday before taking my Dad to the airport (Thanks again SO MUCH for coming, Dad!), and Cam pulled a Summer. In his joy to reach get to me on the sidewalk, he comes barrelling up the side of the car and doesn't notice that large curb-thingy that separates the parking-spot from the sidewalk. In his defense, he was really wanting to get to me (which made it all the worse, you should have seen his big 'ol grin as he was running to me with open arms)and was running with all the abandon his little almost 2 year old legs could produce. He hit so fast and hard he didn't even brace his fall with his arms. The head thud was not good.

You know, this kid can give Bart Simpson a run for the obnoxiousness award, and his tantrums can be on epic scale, but I held him for about a minute while he cried, then I asked him if he wanted to go in and eat... he gave me a sniffle or two more, then grinned and said "Nummy!!!" and that was it. Huh. He can go on for 15 minutes if Serayah doesn't give him what he wants immediately, but making a header into concrete, 1 minute of cuddling then the prospect of food is all it takes. Go figure.

An afternoon in pictures

"Yes! What a great day!"



















"I've got my (rather nasty) ball... what could go wrong?"

"Hey Serayah... what'd you find? A BUG!?! Cool!"


"Umm, Serayah... not cool."



"You know I HATE BEING SPLASHED!"




"I am not amused"

















(I am!)




















"How come you're laughing? What kind of sadistic mom did I get stuck with?"

"Quit your whining... Let's PLAY!"

Yet more sprinkler fun

Here are even more pictures of Serayah playing in the sprinkler this afternoon. I know... not much variety in the pictures I post, but we play around in the yard a lot, so that's what you get!

May May

Hi all. I realize that pictures of bugs might not do it for you, but this is what we do at our house. My dad was out in the yard this morning, and found a grasshopper and called in to Serayah. She was thrilled, and christened him(her?) May May. No, I don't have any idea where she comes up with these names. My only guess is that she watches a TV show called Ni hau Kai-lan, which teaches some Chinese words and phrases, and she picked it up from there. Well, May May was released successfully back to the grass, and that has been our adventure for the morning. As you can tell, we're still in our jammies, and Serayah's hair hasn't had a brush to it yet. Our next big adventure is to go grocery shopping. The fun around here never ends!

Cam... a man with a style all his own

Yeah.. Cam got back into my mascara, and into one of Serayah's hats (remember I told you in a previous post that he doesn't really ride the horse without a hat on?). I guess he figured that with the mascara, the cowboy hat didn't really fit the image.

Bobby

We are camping in the backyard tonight (per Serayah's request), and while we were setting up the tent, I found a preying mantis. I called Serayah out to see it, and she was THRILLED. She proclaimed his name to be Bobby, and that he loved her very much, and that he was her friend. It took quite a bit of convincing for her to finally release him back to the grass. Here are some pictures of them together.

My Klutziness knows no bounds

Hi. Well, you've might have noticed that I haven't posted any blogs in a while... That would be because Cam got really sick last week, and I (in the words of Shiela's husband) can't walk and chew gum at the same time. Those of you who know me well know that walking upright without falling over nothing has been a challenge for me in the past. Nothing had really happened to me since the broken leg while pregnant fiasco, so I thought that maybe having kids had cured me of my klutziness. Well... not so much.

Last Friday night, Cam was feeling miserable, Serayah was sleeping, and I was going to take him into urgent care. I'd taken him to his doctor the previous day, but he'd gotten a lot worse. Anyway, Art brought him wailing down the stairs, with me following behind. I'd navigated the treacherous stairway without incident then stepped onto the floor where there was an innocent copy of the Backyardigans counting expedition. The dumb book isn't more than an inch and a half tall, but that was plenty for me to stumble on. To make a long story short, I'm an idiot, and rolled my ankle when I stepped on the book, and tore some ligaments in my foot. Yeah... brilliant, I know.

So instead of me quietly taking Cam to the doctor, we had to haul Serayah from out of bed (she never really woke up during the entire adventure) and all of us trucked it to Urgent Care. Art had to stay in the car with our sleeping beauty, so I got to take Cam with me to get examined. X-rays were particularly traumatic.. the really nice X-ray tech would take him with him out of the room while the X-ray was being done (with Cam protesting really loudly) then bring him back to me... I'd calm him down just to have the procedure repeated for the next film to be completed... It was a barrel of fun.

We found out that Cam had his first cold-sore which leads to complete misery in babies and toddlers (sores all over his tongue, gums, and throat), his 2-year molars all straining to break-on through, and a raging ear infection. I was put in a splint and given pain killers up the wazoo (the doctor was kind of prescription happy... yeah me!), given crutches and told not to walk for a week... uh huh.

Art's travelling to New Mexico on Sunday nights - Thursday nights for the next few weeks and we've got 2 kids under 4. Not walk... right... no problem. I ended up calling my dad (who has to be the best grandpa on the planet) and he caught a flight the next day to give me a hand while Art was away. Oh, and THANK YOU Southwest Airlines. They ROCK! He had a flight scheduled here for later in the month, and the nice lady I talked to got him on a next day flight (less than 12 hours from when I talked to her) and it only cost us $37.


Cam is feeling much better now, and I've graduated to a walking boot for the next couple of weeks. Art's home for the weekend, so life has been great (thus my ability to blog).




These pictures were taken last Friday prior to the battle of the book and I. We were all goofing off in the backyard. Serayah knows no fear when it comes to being tossed around, as you can see, and we all had a great time.

Hope every one is well...

Ride 'em Cowboy

Ridin' the range (family room) is fun!

Well, a lot of you have probably seen pictures like this before, but I haven't posted any in the blog, so here you go. Cam and Serayah both LOVE their horse. They're up and down on it at least 20 times a day. Actually, it's really funny... Cam won't say "Yee-haw" without a hat on.

Sprinkler fun

Well, Cam was down for a nap and Serayah decided that Daddy should come out and play in the sprinkler with her... He thought it was a good idea, so off they went. Here are a few pictures from the fun.

Independence Day

Daddy, Serayah and Cam


"Are you seriously still taking pictures?"


"I LOVE my sister!"


Cam's Coy look


Cam's Pseudo-happy look


Cam's Sad Pout ... We see this one a lot


Serayah jumping. I had 25 of these. She wouldn't hold still. Big surprise.


Hmmm.. Let's see if I can get the star off her shirt!


Happy 4th of July!

We've had a great day... we went up and found a couple new lakes to explore (and needed a lot more bug repellent!). We're going over to Ellie's house tonight to do fireworks... we'll see if Serayah can handle the fireworks w/o freaking out... she still has her major fire phobia... I'll let you know how it goes.

We also made a cake for America's birthday (Serayah was really happy to hear about the cake prospect, but it was all her daddy's idea!)

Hope everyone had a great day... and a great weekend!

Waterslide

Well, this is just a really quick one.. Here are some pictures of the kids having fun on the new waterslide this evening. You'll notice that there aren't any pictures of Cam... He wasn't having anything to do with the whole "spraying water" thing. Serayah and the rest of the kids next door had a blast! I think Serayah could live 24/7 in water if we let her.

Backyard Fun

Camden, Serayah, Garrett & Maddie

Paeden and Serayah


Finally!!! Yes... we officially have a backyard. There's still quite a bit of work to do (most notably yank the giant weeds from the perimeter, and get the playstructure up), but the kids don't give a whit about any of that, and LOVE being turned loose outside. I'm happy to oblige, especially knowing that they can't escape (hee hee). Yesterday, we had our fantastic neighbors come over to play. The Ricks children are wonderful, and Serayah loves all of them.... especially their oldest, Paeden. Paeden is 7, and Serayah officially has her first crush. Last week, he brought her a grasshopper to keep (yes... our girl loves bugs... I've got a picture on the way (hmm...Sheila?) showing her love of giant cockroaches), and then later that evening came over to give her a watch he'd found. What a guy! He really is a sweetheart, as is all their kids.

Crazy girl with a bug on her hand

Mischievous elf disguised as a boy


Tonight they're coming over again & we're going to break out the inflatable waterslide... I'm sure I'll be posting more pictures about that soon.