Sprinkler

The boys are miraculously playing nicely together in Jackson's room, so I have a few seconds to upload this post. I'm trying to sneak through the bathroom to check on them periodically without being seen. If Emmett sees me, it's all over.

We've finally been having some summer weather this week. Seriously - we haven't had many days yet since last summer where the high was over 75 degrees! But for the past few days the weather has been nice and warm. Lately anytime I have the hose on for any reason, Emmett is all over it. Trying to touch the water, sticking his whole face in the stream, etc. So since yesterday was so warm I decided to hook up a little sprinkler for the boys and strip them down so they could play in the water. There wasn't much water that came out of this sprinkler, which was actually perfect for Jackson because he wouldn't have liked something that sprayed really forcefully. They loved it! Emmett would stand in the stream with a shocked look on his face while sucking in air (the water was pretty cold), but go right back for more. And Jackson, of course, was running around the yard in and out of the stream (while screaming). :) Please excuse the fact that they look a little white trash-y in their underwear and diaper. This was very spur-of-the-moment and I didn't feel like putting on swimsuits.

Fini Flight

One of Phil's good friends, Vic/Chopper, is leaving the squadron and moving to Portland and last week he had his last flight in the jet here in KF. His wife Kylie is one of my good friends, too, and their boys are just precious. We are all going to miss them very much. My sister Becky was here (that's for another post), so she stayed home while the boys were napping and I was able to go out to the flightline to watch Phil and Vic land. I love "fini" flights... they're very bittersweet.

Here's Phil landing...

And L waving to Vic in the air...

And Kylie and her sweet boys walking to meet Vic at the jet...

And Phil looking very "hot/handsome" while walking over from his jet. I took several pictures of this. :) Love the bag slung over the shoulder...

The guys took Vic's ladder away, so he had to find another way to climb out of the jet...

And then the fireman helped Kylie and the boys soak him good!

And then the guys were sweet and shook hands with Chopper...

And then we took some posed pictures....

It was a gorgeous day for once, too! We're going to miss V & K lots, but hope to see them again soon up in Portland. How is it 11:00 P.M. already? My eyes are blurring... must go to bed!

Jackson

Here's what's up with Jackson these days. I can't believe he's almost three!

1. He's pretty much fully potty trained! He really did a pretty good job with it. We didn't have that many accidents and he wasn't as scared to go on the toilet as I thought he would be. We're still working on getting him to consistently tell us when he needs to go, but the whole process was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

2. He still loves Curious George, although Thomas and his friends may have taken the top spot.

3. He loves to do things with Dad, especially take rides in the Jeep.

4. He loves to watch and help me cook and bake.

5. He's very loving. He'll give hugs and kisses whenever I ask (which is a lot) and loves to sit and snuggle with me or Phil. Oh, I could just eat him up!

6. His speech is getting better everyday. People other than Phil and me can understand some of what he says now, which is nice! Here are some of his favorite things to say (and their translations):

• "Mom/Dad! DO-in?" (What are you doing?)
• "Mom, where's _______ is? (Where is _____?)
• "Mommy, what happen?" (What happened?)
• "Momma... got dere?" (What do you have/got there? Like, what are you holding?)
• "Dat's real spicy." (He loves to say that food is spicy.)
• "Jackson real sad." "Jackson fun at church." "Jackson real scared." "Jackson hit the ball." (He's always referring to himself in the third person lately.)
• "Jackson go back bed now." (Whenever he gets reprimanded for something or gets upset he wants to go back to bed. He'll even go into his room by himself and lay down in his bed... like his own personal time-out.)
• "Dat's not airpane... dat's a jet!" (Said to Becky when she pointed out an "airplane" (F-15) in the sky.)
• "Emmett crazy!" "Jackson crazy!" "George crazy!" (He loves to say that people/things are crazy.)

7. He loves to be silly and make people laugh. If he does something and someone laughs at it, it just revs him up and he gets even more silly.

8. He loves to run, run, run! And scream, scream, scream! He'll do laps around our kitchen island over and over again. He also loves to hit balls with plastic bats and golf clubs.

9. He's a great sleeper. He still takes a 2-3 hour nap every afternoon, although he has been waking up before 7 A.M. lately, which stinks! He loves his "nice, comfy bed".

10. He's not really a picky eater and will try almost anything. He just only eats a lot of something every once in a while.

11. He's such a good boy. He obeys pretty well and seems to want to behave and do the right thing for the most part. Now if we can just get him to be more patient with his brother. There's still quite a bit of pushing and "accidentally" knocking E down going on. Although when he wants a toy that Emmett has, he'll try to bargain for it by bringing E another toy and saying, "Emmett want this now."

12. It's very hard to get a picture of him nowadays. He's either too busy to stop for a picture, or he closes his eyes, or he is in a mood and won't cooperate and look at the camera. Here are the best ones I've taken lately...

Helping Mommy make cookies...

Helping water the plants...

I got three pictures in a row that look like this...

This is what he does when he doesn't want to do something. He leans over and hangs his head and arms and makes a groaning/moaning noise. It's so funny! What he didn't want to do this time was look at the camera and smile.

Finally got a decent one!

Helping Mom and Becky scrub the patio...

It's a Boy! I Think...

After many, many months of Phil researching and scouring the internet, we finally have a new addition to the family... a big truck! Phil found it on craigslist last week and drove up to Portland on Sunday to check it out and hopefully buy it. It's a 2002 Ford F-350 and is in incredible condition. An older couple owned it and took very good care of it. Phil loved it as soon as he saw it and drove it home yesterday. He's so happy! He has been really patient and was content this whole past year to just keep looking and waiting until he found just what he wanted. His patience definitely paid off because this truck is exactly what he was looking for and is beautiful! He got a really good deal on it, too. Jackson loves it and we're all looking forward to being able to rent a trailer and go camping this summer. Yay!

Emmett These Days

I thought I'd take a second to record some of what the boys are up to lately. They are definitely busy, busy, busy and a lot of fun, but sometimes I do want to pull my hair out! :)

First, there's Emmett:

• He wants to do everything his brother does and will attempt everything, so I really have to keep an eye on him.

• He has 6 teeth - 4 on top and 2 on the bottom.

• He sleeps from about 7 P.M. - 8 A.M. and has just started taking one good, solid nap in the afternoon.

• He loves Thomas and his friends. He loves to walk around the house with a train in each hand.

• He also LOVES to be outside. Oh man, if I open a door to the outside while holding him and then close it again without letting him outside - look out!

• He's SO squirmy and busy! Hopefully it's just the age. He does not want to sit and be snuggled, even while drinking his bottle before bed. He just wants to get down and go! He'll hold his hands up like he wants me to pick him up, but then when I do he immediately wants down again.

• At his last doctor's appointment he was in the 50th percentile for weight and height, but the 95th for head size. His head is the same size as Jackson's. :)

• He doesn't say any words yet, but will follow simple directions (when he wants to) like giving kisses or coming to me. He shakes his head no when he doesn't want something, and today he waved hello and goodbye!

• He's kind of a picky eater, but will eat a TON of something that he likes. I'm trying not to give in to the pickiness, but it's hard.

• He's been walking well for about two months now. He's really fast and is almost running now.

• He is a STINKER! He has started doing this one loud scream thing when he wants or doesn't want something, and even sometimes when he's just content or happy. And he gets. into. everything! Example:

• Phil had taken Emmett out of the bath the other night and dressed him for bed. Jackson was still in the bathtub. Phil set Emmett down and he toddled off. Less than a minute later Phil went into the bathroom to check on J and this is what he saw:

E had climbed back into the tub with Jackson... pajamas, diaper, and all! What a stinker!

Here are some other recent pictures of our cutie-pie...

The aftermath of a chocolate chip cookie:

We had an alarm system installed the other day and Emmett thought for sure that he could make it up the installer's ladder:

One of his favorite things... watching and playing with his big brother:

And a cute video... He loves Jackson so much and thinks J is hysterical! (P.S. Sorry about the fingerprints on the window, Aree!)

Emmett sure keeps our lives interesting! We love him to pieces and I could seriously smooch those cheeks and feet all day long. :)

Alaska Trip Part Two

People have been asking us what all we did in Alaska, but the truth is that we didn't go there to do a ton of stuff. We just totally love Alaska and enjoyed being up there and hanging with our friends. The weather was absolutely gorgeous for most of the time, too. It was even warmer and nicer there than it was at our home in Oregon! We stayed with our friends Chad and Aree, who we met when we were stationed up there together in 2002. Chad flies F-22s in the Alaska AF Reserves, so they're staying there for a while. Their kids are almost exactly the same ages as our boys, which was great. It was kind of different to be up there with C and A this time because the first time we were there together we were all DINKS and could shop and go out to eat and party whenever we wanted. So being up there with all of our kids was quite a different experience! Phil and I never realize how much we miss Alaska until we actually get up there. We would live there in a second if it was just a little closer to the lower 48. And if Phil had a job up there. :)

Here are some of the highlights of our trip:

1. Aree greeting us with two pitchers of margaritas after our horrendous flight with Emmett.

2. Hiking with the kiddos in the gorgeous Eagle River Nature Center. Aree and I hiked this together back in 2003 and ran into a bear on one of the trails. No bear encounters this day, thankfully! As you can imagine, we made enough noise to keep the bears away.

3. Getting a babysitter and going on a double date to one of our favorite restaurants. Phil and I both had yummy halibut dishes... his was stuffed with crab and macadamia nuts, and mine was crusted with parmesan and asiago cheeses. And then after dinner we had some delicious microbrews at Humpy's - one of our favorite casual dinner and nightlife spots. It was fun sitting in there reminiscing about all of the buffoonery that used to take place there "back in the day".

4. Walking to Eagle River to throw rocks in the water. We were about to take a fun little trail through the woods down to the river when we noticed a handwritten sign taped up to the trailhead post. It read:

"Grizzly Sighting Today! Aggressive... charged! If you walk this trail, bring rifle and/or mace!" The date listed was today's date. Um, yeah... we decided to just take the short, very open trail down to the river instead. And we didn't stay too long. The kiddos loved it, though. It was just hard to keep them from walking out too far. The water was very cloudy from glacial silt and we couldn't see where the bottom was.

5. Letting Phil practice for his retirement career of cutting kids' hair. He gave Aree's son Pace his first haircut. Not too shabby, huh?

7. Taking the kiddos to the Alaska Zoo and watching a wolf try to pounce on Emmett. Seriously, you should have seen the size of these wolves. They were huge! And the cool thing was that when Phil and I visited AK in 2005 these wolves were puppies whose mom died, I think. We watched them play and eat for a while back then. And now they're enormous!! Anyway, Emmett was toddling down the path and one of the wolves who was laying down saw E fall down and try to get back up. Then the wolf totally jumped up, ran over to the edge of the fence and pounced! It was a little freaky, even though I knew the wolf couldn't get out of the pen. Here you can see the wolf staring at E. He had his eye on E for a while.

8. Watching the kiddos play together. Aree and I decided that Evangeline and Jackson have to get married because we have several cute pictures of them together as babies/toddlers. Evangeline's speech is way more advanced than Jackson's - you can actually have a conversation with her! Jackson tried his best to chat with her and Evangeline was very patient with his jibberish. :) They played together really well.

9. Eating pizza at Moose's Tooth... our fave pizza place. We did a lot of eating.

11. Taking a trip down to Girdwood and Big Game Alaska to see more animals. And that baby moose... oh, I could have just died at how cute he was. He was three weeks old and was found right after being born in someone's yard outside of Anchorage. He had a twin sister who's staying with a wildlife biologist. Their mom died right after birth. You should have seen how fast he sucked down that 20-oz bottle. And he made the cutest little baby noises! Listen to him sucking on that lady's fingers in the video. So cute!

12. Enjoying an Alaskan Amber on the porch in gorgeous weather. Emmett has a crazy fascination with bottles. He loves them.

Thanks, C and A, for putting up with our circus all week! We had an awesome time!!