When driving home from the library yesterday, Landon told me:
“Mom, when I’m bigger and big enough that I’m going to get married, I am going to marry Emma.”
Emma is a girl at Landon’s school that we have heard a lot about. I guess now I know why. :)
And for good measure, here’s a picture of him at the Lake Oswego Farmer’s market last weekend, enjoying a nice juicy peach.
8 - Days Davis has been wearing his Lightning McQueen underwear
60 –Minutes it took for him to pee in the first pair of underwear
4 - Number of pairs of underwear he wore the first day
3 - Amount of times I’ve done a quick batch of underwear wash so he’d have a clean pair for the next day
0 – Number of minutes before we were supposed to leave for church when Davis, fully dressed to the shoes and already getting in the car announced, “Mom, me poopy.” By some miracle, I got him inside, clothes off, underwear in the garbage can (didn’t want to deal with it), wiped down, pants (and diaper) back on, shoes tied, and back in the car to arrive at church on time.
1 – Number of nights Davis fortunately stayed dry since Shane forgot to put his diaper on before bed
39.99 – Dollars saved per month by potty training Davis
15+ Number of times per day I hear Davis answer me “No mom, me not,” when I ask him if he has to go potty.
5- Number of fingers dirty with poop when Davis first went poop in the potty and realized where his poop came from.
1 – Number of disgusted dads when he had to clean up the 5 poopy fingers (I was conveniently feeding James at that moment)
5 – Number of times he announced to me today “Mom, me haffa go potty!,” and we had an accident-free day!!! Hopefully more to come!
Last Sunday, Shane blessed James in our Sacrament Meeting. It is especially on days like these that we wish we had more family that lived close to us, but we were grateful that my parents could be there, and that my great friend Kim and her husband Dave happened to be in town visiting also. (I was especially grateful for her when she informed me at the end of Sacrament meeting that my shirt was on inside out! Oops! Let's just say I had to make a quick change as we ran out the door when I realized that Davis had spilled juice on my other shirt!)
It was a beautiful blessing, and a wonderful day. Shane blessed James, among other things, to be a child blessed with faith and understanding, to have a soft heart to understand others and help them, to look to his brothers and parents to feel the spirit, to bless others through a life of service, and to understand the love his parents have for him and that the Savior and Heavenly Father have for him. James is growing so fast! And, it is crazy to see how much he looks like Landon did at this age. We’ll have to see if it stays that way!
After all of our trips, it was nice to get back to everyday life, whatever that might be now! Landon started Kindergarten last week, and so far, he loves it. He has a great teacher, and he gets to ride the bus home everyday, which is great for me because the bus driver drops him off right in front of our house! He hasn’t even complained about having to go early in the morning, or about knowing nobody in his class. Hopefully he’ll make friends fast!
The other day, Shane had the following conversation with him:
“Dad, you and Mom never read the warnings on things.”
“We don’t?”
“No! I ALWAYS read the warnings! Lots of things say ‘Not for Children under 3, so Davis can’t play with them.”
He is one funny kid! The other day, while I was resting, he was coloring a color by number picture. He has really liked those lately. When I woke up, he was sound asleep on the floor next to me, and this is what I saw:
Davis is also quite entertaining. He gets a little bored with Landon at Kindergarten, but not too bad. He likes to listen and run to his Little Einstein Music (classical songs from the episodes) that he turns on, as he says, “all by myself.”
Yesterday, while Shane was at work, he asked me:
“Mom, where’s Dad?”
“At work,” I replied.
“At 7-11?”
So apparently, he thinks Shane works at 7-11. It would be pretty sweet. Maybe then we could get all the free slurpees we want!
When we left Ashland after Dave and Liz’s reception, we were lucky and got to bring Grandma Landon back with us for the night before she flew out of Portland Monday morning. She didn’t get to stay too long, but we had fun showing her our home and taking her to the Rose Gardens. We hope you can come back soon Grandma!
The worst thing about Dave and Liz’s wedding was that we didn’t stay longer to enjoy the beautiful southern California coast. The day after the wedding, we loaded back up and headed back to Ashland, with a stop-off at Jake and Stacey’s for the night. Becky and I drove most of the way together with our four boys in the back of my van – ages 5, 2 1/2, 1 1/2 and 6 weeks. It was a bit crazy at moments to say the least, but it actually went quite well overall. I think we both decided driving was more relaxing than being in the passenger seat, because that person had to be constantly attending to the boys’ needs!
The best thing though was that I got to spend the week at my parents’ house with Becky and Bennett and Grandma Landon. The cousins had fun playing together, and we had fun helping Mom get things ready for the reception on Saturday.
Davis had fun lining up Grandma’s toys – the Little People cars and regular cars.
All the boys had fun playing with the marble game Grandpa Landon made, and finding frogs in the hose box.
And James enjoyed being taken care of by Grandma Landon. She always came through at the crucial moments to hold him when I needed a break!
The rest of the clan showed up late Friday. The kids were happy to have Kallie and Ethan to join them, and they enjoyed seeing all of the shells David and Liz found on the beach and brought back. All of us enjoyed hearing Dave and Liz tell the quite hilarious story of Dave’s near-drowning experience in Cancun (you’ll have to ask him about it sometime).
Saturday was the reception in the Clason’s backyard. It was gorgeous! Becky and I went to set up, and while we were gone, Shane and Jake helped get the boys ready to go. When we came back, we found Davis and Bennett like this:
And some pictures from the reception:
(That’s Ethan I’m holding in the last picture, not James, just in case you think he grew a ton since previous pictures, and Jake and Shane are playing air hockey on Jake’s new ipad to keep themselves entertained.)
After the reception, we headed back to our house for some very entertaining gift opening, the best of which was the Cracker Jacks gifts with the surprise 50 dollar bill inside that he discovered during a game of Catch the Cracker Jack in your Mouth (see picture progression below).
A couple of weeks ago, we went to San Diego for David and Liz’s wedding in the San Diego Temple. It was a perfect day, and we were so glad we could be there with them for their special day! Liz is amazing (and she looked AMAZING!) and we are so glad Dave found her, and she agreed to marry him. :)
(I might update this post later with more pictures. Here’s a few to start out)
The San Diego Temple had scaffolding on it, so we went to the beach for most of the pictures.
James was just barely six weeks old. He did great though with all of the traveling! He spent most of the time sleeping like in the picture on the right. :)
We headed to a friend of Liz’s house for a lovely reception/dinner after the pictures on the beach. Everything was delicious, and we had a nice evening meeting Liz’s family and friends, and visiting with our family and friends.
