My sweet one year old

Happy Birthday Annika! I can't believe you were born a year ago. (doesn't every mother say that?) Your Daddy says you keep getting cuter and cuter every day. Lately your personality has really started to shine through and its so fun noticing all the little ways you are different from how your brother was. Here are snippets of what you are like at one years old:

• You walk everywhere, no more crawling for you! We've gone to Boulevard park a few times lately and you will walk and walk and walk along the path. You still fall down some, but you really like the independence. Sometimes you like to hold our hand when you are tired of falling, but most of the time you want to go wherever the heck you please.

• You love to play this game where you hold out an object to someone and then pull it away when we reach for it. You laugh your head off when you trick us like that and you especially like to do it to Roxxy. She reaches for the food in your hand and just as she licks it, you jerk it away and giggle. Over and over until she finally gives up.

• Another favorite thing to do is play with Daddy & Saben on the couch. (and mommy too sometimes) Daddy throws you & saben up in the air and lets you fall bouncing onto the couch. You also love being pushed over while you are standing on the couch and then being tickled on your back. And you still LOVE being hung upside down.

• You love playing in the water and often try to crawl right into puget sound when we are at the beach. But for some reason the pool & swimming lessons scare you. I think it is because you are nervous about the teacher and mommy not being in the pool with you. But the last couple of days you've gotten a lot braver.

• You really like to feed yourself with a spoon and suck the food off of it & your fingers. You've gotten pickier about what you eat lately and if you don't like it you start yelling, shove food onto the floor and throw your spoon. But you can eat a banana in about 1/3 the time it takes saben.

• It is very obvious that you have quite the independent streak. You really like to do things on your own and have them done your way. You often get frustrated if we try to "interfere" by helping you. But you do play well with Saben, he is the one always taking your toys and you never seem to get that angry about it.

• You do get angry whenever mommy holds or hugs Saben.

• You don't really say anything yet, but it seems like you are getting close....Lately if you are hungry you come grab my hand and take me over to the drawer where we keep your cups, spoons, etc.

We love you Annika! Happy Birthday!

Miracles

In the last two weeks, Saben has tried and decided he likes peas & cucumbers. He only eats a few bites of each, but they are the first veggies he's eaten in over a year. (except for avocado) He has really been open to touching his tongue to things lately to try them. Once he's "tasted it" its up to him whether or not he tries biting it. Such a relief and we're praying he's starting to outgrow the ultra-picky phase.

He's also been gagging & spitting things out lately, especially new things or things he doesn't think he likes. He keeps eating, but says the item got "stuck in my throat" and spits it out before taking another bite. This is new too. hmmm....

Summer

Three weeks ago, we headed over the mountains to visit my moms extended family and celebrate my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary and my grandpa's 80th birthday. It always amazes me how much fun Saben has with his "cousins" (my cousin's children). Lara is the oldest, seen below holding Annika. She is always amazing with all the younger kids and really helps out when we stay at her house. Saben adores her and even named one of his toy cars after her.
The other kids are all evenly spaced by about a year, so we have a 4 year old, Saben, a 2 year old and annika at one. No babies born this year, so the run has been broken, but its so fun to see them all play together and visiting them is one of Saben's favorite things to do.

After our visit, me & the kids drove another 2 1/2 hours away to visit Crafty Mama. We stayed with her for 3 days and had a WONDERFUL time. The kids got along much better than they did at Christmas and it was awesome to see our friends again.

I also talked my other long lost friend into driving up and we had a fun day at the park, catching up and seeing eachother's little ones in person for the first time. I love blogs, because if we hadn't reconnected via blogs, I don't think I ever would have gotten in touch with her. And it was really fun to introduce my two friends because they have a lot in common (crafty) and live somewhat close to eachother. It was wonderful, even though Saben was being a complete brat most of the time. I think the lack of naps & schedules were really getting to him.

In this picture, Saben is/has been behaving beastly and is refusing to sit on the bench
Cute cute cute!!!
What amazed me about the whole trip was how energizing/rejuvinating it was. There was really nothing relaxing about 2 moms and four kids hanging out all day long, it was just like being at home with lots of work & juggling involved. But having a wonderful friend there to share the day with and chat with turned the whole thing into something really special and fun.

We went out to lunch one day and it was absolutely crazy. Annika was throwing buttered linguine all over the place, I was coated in butter, Saben was testing his limits & pushing ever button he could find. I'm pretty sure I dragged him screaming out of the restaurant by the time we were done. Audrey was under the table threatening to poop in her pull up. Me & Andi had all the kids separating us. But we ate marvelous food and didn't have to prepare it ourselves and laughed at the bad parts. We didn't regret it at all!

Saben pushing Audrey in her baby stroller. She looked like she was in a wheelchair.


We drove the 6 hours home, leaving at 7pm in the hopes that the kids would sleep all the way home. HA! Annika screamed for a good 30 minutes before falling asleep. Turns out she had pooped, but I had no idea, I just thought she was fighting sleeping. (she never poops at night after I've gotten her ready for bed!! Never!) I felt awful when I got home and saw it. In fact I have no idea why I am admiting to such a horrible thing here on my blog.

Saben was sort of sleeping but his car seat wasn't holding his head up so he was sort of slumping out the side of it. He threw up after Snoqualmie pass, luckily he is old enough to know it is coming so I caught most of it in a bag. I threw the bag out the window because I didn't want it leaking in the car. One of the only times I have ever littered, but oh well. Right before we got home he threw up again, in another bag, this one paper, so I definitely threw it out as well.

Andi called right as we were pulling into town and once again, it was shocking how good a mood I was in. I didn't feel exhausted like I sometimes do, I felt happy, content and energized for the week ahead, despite the 6 hour ordeal. It also helped that I had a book on tape to listen to the whole way, that really kept me entertained.

When we arrived home, we had gobs of strawberries from our home plants ready for us. This year we had so many more than ever before. Part of it was that I finally got fed up with slugs & pill bugs eating everything so I poisoned them early on with this organic stuff. It was amazing to finally get so many perfect strawberries harvested. We probably had about 4 bowls this size by the time we were done. Enough to eat fresh, make jam, ice cream, & sorbet.
We've spent plenty of time out in the sun the last few weeks. Golfing....
Annika loves the water and this is the first year that Saben is enjoying the water too. He hasn't really ventured into the spray park yet, but he's been very adventurous with sprinklers, pools, the lake & even having a ball on a slip & slide. All the other summers, he would barely touch the water so its fun to see him outgrowing that fear. Tomorrow he starts swimming lessons which should be fun too.

We had some professional pictures taken right before our trip and got them back when we returned. It was bad timing for Annika, she had a runny nose & sort of puffy eyes. But you can't really tell & they turned out great, here's a couple to check out....


I think that's enough for now, time to go enjoy the sun again. I realized the other reason I haven't been blogging is because all my time on the computer is being spent planning our itinerary to Italy, booking hotels & working on planning our bathroom. So much work, its pretty much eaten up all my free time lately. Hopefully we'll wrap those two projects up in the next couple weeks & I'll have more energy to keep the blog up.

Sunny Days

Sorry....
We've been out enjoying the sun and I can't seem to find the energy in the evenings to sit down and update the blog! I do have lots of fun things to update about, and I'm going to try to do it soon.

Two weeks ago Annika really started walking on her own (as opposed to taking steps we beg her to take) and this week she is stomping all over the house & even trying to chase her brother sometimes. It is so cute!!!

Lastly, I just saw this again this morning & enjoyed it so much, I think you should check it out. The expressions on their faces are hilarious.

Kari's daily funny

(I wish I had the time to put up something every day to make you laugh, but I'll call it that anyways. OH, except its not mine per se. But I did find it for you.)