Heidi turned 1!

I can't believe she's one already!  This year went by really fast. 

Heidi weighs just over 20lbs.  At least that is what Calista told me the other day.  They were having fun standing on the scale.  Calista would get on, then Heidi would get on, and then they both got on together.  After that, Ellen got on and then Calista and Ellen got on.  Scales are fun things at that age! 

I'm not sure how tall Heidi is.  She seems more average or small for her size.  I think the 9-12T are getting small now.

Heidi has two teeth on the bottom, and it looked like one was starting to come in on the top.  She loves to squeal, and we're trying to find a way to put an end to it.  It just makes our ears ring.  Sarah thinks its pretty fun, so she'll try to do it too, but I can't handle one squealer as it is.

Heidi is a full time walker.  While I was vacuuming the living room today, she was having fun walking away from the vacuum.  I think if she could run, she would've done it!

Heidi knows the meaning of "hot!"  Since it is wood heat season, we had to teach her that the stove was now hot, and not something fun to play with.  We built a fire and held her hand close enough to the stove that she could feel the heat.  Now I can say something is hot and she hurries and looks at me and then gets away!

Heidi found out how to climb onto chairs and couches all by herself too!  She was pretty pleased with herself this morning when she got up to the table.  She thinks she's a big kid already.  If I could just keep her off of the table, I might let her sit at the big table with us, just with a booster seat.

Heidi doesn't talk much.  She can say dada, mama, and uh-oh.  She experiments with the bahbahbah sound every now and then.

Heidi loves music.  If she's sitting down when the music plays, she starts wiggling around and bouncing up and down to the music.  I have to watch her if she's on the couch.  She'll bounce herself off the couch if she's not careful.  I caught her two times in a row one day.

Heidi loves the outdoors.  We spend a lot of the day inside, but I had to go outside one afternoon and I left the door open.  When I came back, Heidi was out on the deck.  I picked her up to go inside and she was not impressed.  It was a warm day so I just let her play outside while I went inside to get ready to go on a walk.  When I came back out she had gotten herself into the stroller and was waiting for me!  I hadn't even told her we were going.

Sarah is 3!!

I was having the hardest time with my blog, but finally got it all figured out (knock on wood).  So here's a little catch up.

Sarah turned three at the end of July!  She's kind of missed the size 3T clothes and went right to 4T just before her birthday that I had to remind myself that she was turning 3 and NOT 4!  I talked her into having donuts for her birthday "cake."

I love this little girl.  She has a lot of spunk.  She loves to do her "learning" on the computer every day.  She knows how to sound out all of her letters and we've tried to do a little bit of reading, but she doesn't know how to put the sounds together in her head.  But we have a couple years to finalize that process!  We finally got her potty trained.  I think it took us a whole year to get it done.  There were times that I thought it was never going to happen, but it did...on her time table, not mine. 

Sarah loves to do ballerina moves like she sees on barbie movies.  It is so cute to see because Sarah is not the most petite person.  She weighs 40lbs and is just a solid tank.  When you pick her up, you notice! 

Sarah is my big helper at home now that school has started.  It's fun to see her take a little more responsibility.  I'm not sure that she always likes to be my big helper.  She's use to being invisible when work is being done with the bigger kids, but she seems pretty happy to help.

Sarah is starting to sing in Nursery now.  She use to just watch everyone else sing, but now I'll catch her singing "Jesus Wants Me for a 'Sunbean'" and "I Am a Child of God" around the house.

Just the other day she held up a shape and said, "Mom, this is an oct-a-gon!"  I looked at her hand and it was!  I asked how she knew that and Calista says, "I taught her that a few days ago. We were looking at a shape book and I asked her what it was.  She didn't know, so I told her."  It's so fun when they love to teach each other!

Sarah either has a lazy eye, or really good control of her eyes.  She can make one eye look straight and the other look cross-eyed.  She only does it on demand, so it's not a wandering eye.  It looks kind of freaky.  She loves to do it and get a response from her siblings.  She can also wink.  I can remember learning to wink in church.  We were sitting in front of Richie Stephens and he winked at me.  I remember trying, but having to hold my eye shut with my finger.  I suppose since I can remember it, I must've been older than Sarah.  Ellen has to do the finger wink still.

Our trip to the Oregon Coast

As Summer approached, we asked the kids what they wanted to do this summer.  They decided that they would like to go see the Oregon Coast!  Samuel has been studying about Oregon this year and most of the kids in his class had seen the ocean, so he wanted to see it.  Aaron was able to get half of a week off in June, so we loaded up and took off.

 Ivy was nice enough to let us come and stay Wednesday night at her house!  She made the kids sing for their supper.  Actually she didn't, but they did sing a song for her, "Fifty Nifty United States."  That is their favorite song right now.

Devil's Punch Bowl

Our first stop was the Devil's Punch Bowl.  We parked up top and ate lunch.  I'm not sure who ate more of Samuel's lunch, the very plump tame squirrels, or Samuel. I think there were upwards of 10 squirrels just waiting for us to drop food, or throw it to them in our case!

 Devil's Punch Bowl at low tide

 Ellen was a little bit nervous about sitting on the fence to get her picture taken.

 Calista. It was fun to hear everyone's excitement when they first saw the ocean!

 Samuel

 Heidi and Jacque

 After lunch we finally made it down to the beach.  The Devil's Punch Bowl

 is just around the rocks to the left.  We stayed at the beach for a good 3 hours.  By the end of our time, everyone had shed their jackets/sweatshirts.

 Finding seashells

 Aaron helped the kids get started on a sand castle.  Then the girls started on their own.  Although I think it morphed into make swimming pools.  It's easier to dig in the sand than to actually form something.

 Treasures

At one point Calista wrote in the sand and then quickly erased it, thinking it was bad.  I acted excited and said it was actually a really fun thing to do, and then a new type of creative playing began.

 Jacque wrote Sarah's name for her!

 We couldn't leave Heidi out!

Tillamook

After the ocean, we headed to Tillamook for the evening.  We got to stay in a Shiloh Inn hotel.  I hadn't noticed that we hadn't stayed at a hotel with all the kids before.  We were able to get two adjoining rooms - one with two queens and another with a king and hide-a-bed couch.  We brought a playpen for Heidi so it was perfect!

 

We don't have TV at home, so watching TV was another exciting part of the vacation!

 

 The hotel had a swimming pool!

Tillamook Air Museum

Our next adventure was the Tillamook Air Museum.  I think it took us a good 2 hours to get through it.  Aaron and Samuel probably could've stayed longer, but the girls were through.

 Tillamook Cheese Factory

And you can't go to Tillamook and NOT see the Tillamook Cheese Factory!  It was interesting to see the process.  There were tons of people there.  I was afraid that it was going to take us forever to get through it, but it is a self guided tour and we made it quick.  The kids weren't as interested in the process as they were the taste testing and Tillamook ice cream later.

 Squeaky cheese was the favorite.  We ended up buying a package of squeaky cheese and a small block of Cheddar Garlic Pepper cheese, or something like that.  That is Aaron's new favorite!

Small Town Folks

After leaving Tillamook we headed home.  That took us through Beaverton and Portland.  We were headed through at 2:00pm so we figured we'd be missing traffic.  I don't think that is possible though. It still took us 2 hours and 10 minutes to go 38 miles!  Boy were we thankful for AC and that we got to leave the mess and go home to our quiet non-crowded Eastern Oregon!

Multnomah Falls

We made one last quick stop at Multnomah Falls.  We walked up to the bridge but didn't make it up to the top.  A nice lady saw me taking pictures of the kids and offered to take our family picture!

 Jacque

 Calista

 Ellen insisted on making a funny face.

 Sarah

 Samuel