Fun With Family

It was so nice to have so many family members come to town for Jamen's baby blessing!  One set of unexpected travelers surprised us...and boy were we surprised!  My brother and his cute family didn't think they'd be able to make it, so they told us they weren't going to come.  Last minute they decided to drive down from Idaho anyway.  They drove all 18 hours (or whatever), didn't tell a soul they were coming and showed up at the door.  We were SOOO happy!  They spent a couple days with us, so we decided to have some fun!

We spent a day at the beach.  David's parents and sister and her family met us there as well.  Its so fun to have family to hang out with!  Check out Reese's bikini...is that not just the cutest frilliest thing ever!

We spent another day at the SLO Children's Museum.  None of us had been there since it was remodeled, so it was fun to see the new stuff.

One night we all (my parents, David's parents, us, my sister, and my brother & his family) went out to dinner at the Cracked Crab in Pismo.  I think I've mentioned it before.  It's yummy and so fun.  Everyone loved it.  Melissa said we're now like 5 for 5 (or whatever) on the restaurants we've introduced them to!

After dinner we went for a walk on the pier.  We got to watch a seal rescue take place.

We got to spend a few days with David's parents as well.  One day we went for a walk at Oso Flaco Lake...a place we always enjoy!

As we were walking back a scruffy raccoon came walking out of the bushes, across the path in front of us, and into the bushes on the other side.  The boys were pretty excited about it!

We had a great week with everyone coming to visit!  De Groots, thanks for surprising us...it was the best surprise we could have gotten!!

Jamen's Blessing & Stache Bash

July 11th Jamen was priveledged to be blessed by his dad in church.  

I love my boys! I'm so lucky!

After church we headed to the studio to celebrate Jamen with a Stache Bash! All of the food was named after a different kind of mustache (if you click on the picture and zoom in, you can read the little signs for each food)

And what would a decent Stache Bash be without everyone having their own mustache?  Mustache straw that is...

It was fun to see family and friends there!

 

And here is the cute little babe in the blessing outfit Gramma de Groot made for him (and his special blankets made by Ma Radmacher & Great Grandma Martens!)

Jamen was so sad when the party ended (oh this picture just turns me to mush!)

4th of July Weekend

Well I'm finally doing it...blogging.  Its been WAY too long since my last real post.  This will be the first of a LONG string of posts.  Nothing fancy, just basically all the happenings of what we've been up to since, well the last time I posted, which was like 7 months ago (how embarrassing!).

Way back in July we had an awesome 4th of July weekend.  We didn't do anything fancy, but had SO much fun!  The day before (Saturday), we headed south for our first adventure to Nojoqui Falls.  Living on the Central Coast my entire life, I'd never been.  In fact I'd never even HEARD of it until a couple of years ago when a friend of mine brought her family down.  It's an awesome hike for families with little kids who don't like to walk far.  It took probably less then 10 minutes to "hike" to the falls.

David warned (ok, scared) the kids into walking quietly so they wouldn't catch the attention of any mountain lions.  (Oh, and by the way, notice the Ergo pack David's carrying Jamen in?  It is stinkin' awesome!  For anyone with a kid baby to 40 lbs, get one, you'll LOVE it!!!  You can wear it on your back, too!)

Jonah loves adventures and is always prepared for whatever might come his way!

The pool at the bottom of the falls was just the right depth for the kids to play in.  The boys were really mad they didn't bring their swim suits!

They found plenty to play with though.

The falls were beautiful.  The green moss & ivy looked so cool under the dripping water!

Jaxon built a dam like the beaver on Wonder Pets with his sticks.  I'm pretty sure it didn't do much good though :-)

On our way back, we found a park table and had a delicious picnic.

The boys thought the hollow tree was so awesome.  How many trees do you find that you can actually climb inside?

Lets just say Jaxon was a little wiped out. (By the way, that's a chip in his mouth)

On our way home we decided to make a couple fun stops.  First up, Solvang.  Since it was summer and a holiday at that, we mainly just walked around (it was real crowded).  Of course the boys had to play in the telephone booth.

And what would a trip to Solvang be without playing in the giant clog?

For some reason I didn't take pictures, but next we went to the Old Mission Santa Inés and looked around.  We then packed back into the car and made our last stop at a park in Shell Beach before we headed home.

The next day was actually Independence Day.  We did nothing too fancy...we had a nice dinner at my parents.  My sister Elise came over & I finally got a picture of her with Jamen.

I think David had a few poppers or something.  The boys loved them, but Jaxon hated the noise he made when he popped them...silly kid!

 But we did head down to Pismo for some fireworks.  A family friend let us watch them from his driveway/front yard, which was only a few blocks form the beach & had a great view without the crowd, traffic, & smoke.

 It was awesome!  I think we'll have to do it every year from now on!

Slacker!!

I can NOT believe its been SO long since I last posted anything!  I guess that goes to show how busy our lives have been.  I'll get you all up to speed here hopefully soon!  In the mean time, just know that we ARE still alive and doing well!

One Sweet Baby

Last week I decided to take some newborn pictures of Jamen.  I'm really mad at myself for not doing it sooner, seeing as he's not really newborn anymore, but I guess its better sooner than later!

First off I have to show just how chubby this little boy has become.  At 6 weeks he's bigger than my other boys were...guess thats what happens when they start off bigger.

Here's my favorites (click on the pict below to make them bigger).

Believe it or not this is only about 1/2 of them.  The 1st in the last row show my favorite baby looks.  I love the pucker lips and tongue hanging out and that almost smile is SO Jamen right now.  Jamen is so photogenic and was so fun to photograph!  Now I need to get myself a nice dSLR so I can take good picts of my kids.

Jamen, you are SO sweet and enchanting.  We all love you SO much!

The Guitar Show

The other day Jonah handed me this:

It was a "Golden Ticket" to Jonah's Guitar Show.  

We all (Grand Pa, Gramma, Aunt Carina, me, Jax, & Jamen) gathered in my parent's kid room to watch Jonah's show.

He performed beautifully!  He is so talented.  He makes up songs as he goes along and has an amazing strumming hand (he's a heck of a lot better at strumming with a pick than I am!).

It was so fun to watch him, especially since his concert was all his idea.

Jamen enjoyed the show from Gramma's lap.

When Jonah was done, Jaxon wanted to do a concert JUST like Jonah (he has to do and have EVERYTHING Jonah does!).  He doesn't quite have the skills yet, but it was fun to watch him mimic his older brother. :-)

To end the night off, there was a special guest performance.

What could possibly cause this such reaction from little children?

Why Grand Pa's juggling, that's what!

Notice the tongue...my dad has a hard time doing anything he has to concentrate on without sticking his tongue out.  He's been that way for as long as I can remember...its kind of his trademark.  Finally my dad has found an audience that appreciates his juggling.  All those years of embarrassing his children while whipping out his juggling at birthday parties and such, has finally paid off!  Way to go Grand Pa and thank you Jonah for a fun-filled night!

Summer Fun

Now that we're 3 weeks into summer vacation, we've fully established a schedule of no schedule at all.   This summer is actually going to be shorter than summers past and I'm finding we haven't done as much fun stuff as I'd like...I'm finding I've got to pick up the pace and get off my lazy buns (actually its not that I'm COMPLETELY lazy, I spend most of my day nursing this oinker of a baby I have).  Heres a little piece of our summer so far.

Jonah sure loves his baby brother!  He can't get enough of him.  He loves to read to him...or rather Jonah explains the pictures and Jamen wanders aimlessly into space.

Jaxon is his Aunt Carina's little helper.  He helps her cook, walk her dog, and he LOVES to drive in her car and run errands...doesn't matter where, just as long as he gets to be in her car.

Jaxon discovered a new favorite show..."Super Why" on PBS.  He's actually only seen a few episodes we downloaded on Netflix, but he's convinced that he's "Alpha Pig."  

He wears Jonah's chemist goggles and carries a plastic hammer, magnifying glass, and his metal Toy Story toolbox around singing Alpha Pig's ABC's song and tells everyone "I'm Alpha Pig!!" I've got to hand it to Alpha Pig though, he's taught Jax his alphabet better than I have!

One day Alpha Pig Jax found my breast pump and asked what it was.  I told him, so he decided he needed to try it himself.  He's adamant that he produces milk too.  When nothing came out, he decided it wasn't his lack of milk that was the problem, but the pump must be broken.  Then he whipped out his hammer and said, "I'll fix it!"  Thanks Alpha Pig!

Gramma got a new slip 'n' slide, so naturally the boys had to test it for her.  Jonah had the time of his life.  It was SO much fun watching him.  I love to see the pure joy and excitement in my children's eyes.  There are few greater joys for me.

He slipped...

he slided...

he splished...

and he splashed.

There was so much fun being had!

And out came Captain Underpants!

Jaxon wanted so badly to have as much fun as Jonah, but he didn't know quite what to do...he'd forgotten his slip 'n' slide skills from last summer.  He sat on his bum and tried to slide...that didn't work.  So he tried his knees...that didn't work either.  He just expected to slide down it like a normal slide.  He didn't get he needs to get some momentum.  So he tried out the little pool at the end.

He walked up and down the slide until...oops...he slipped, and he slid...not on purpose.  And BOY was it fun!

But he wasn't about to do that again, so he splished and splashed in the little pool until he slipped again.  There was WAY too much fun being had!

I couldn't resist ending this post with this picture:

It so doesn't do him justice, but it's oh so cute.  When Jax gets mad, he folds his arms, huffs and puffs, sticks out his lips, scrunches his eyebrows and says, "I'm mad!"  It is the funniest, cutest thing ever!  

Despite what this pictures shows, he is the happiest boy ever...he got to graduate to a booster seat.  He out grew his car seat...I'm sure it would have been more harm to him then help...so we got him a new seat.  He loved it so much when we used it for the first time, he cried in the car when we went into the house because he wanted to take it with him.  He is the funniest kid!