Home again Home again jiggity jig...

Luckily the drive home was pretty un-eventful. Just L.O.N.G. We had to stop every hour or so for one reason or another. 5 bladders in one car is not very forgiving! Add to that the need to eat, play and get some pent up energy out, and it makes for a long day! :) Tucker had gotten so excited that morning to do one last swim in the pool before we left, he jumped in in his only clean shirt left. I tried to find a dirty one in our dirty clothes bag, but they were all either wet or too gross to put back on. So, he was shirtless for the first part of the trip and our first stop had to be to find him a shirt. Clearance at Fred Meyer right off the free way was perfect.

Add to that more stops to McDonald's than I would ever like to admit:

Driving by the beautiful Mt. Hood. This picture does NOT do it justice at all. Stupid Camera phone!

And, we can't go to Portland or through Portland without stopping at Multnoma Falls. This has been family tradition since before I can remember. This time around Taylor and Jackson were both asleep in the back, so just me and Tucker hopped out real quick. And the upper bridge was closed for repair, so we had a quick jaunt out to snap some photos.

So beautiful and so many fun family memories here. I hope I can build some with my own kids!

Kathryn had never seen the Tri-Cities temple, and I think it's so beautiful, I wanted to take her by. We were so close to being home at this point, but had to stop for dinner anyway. After a quick stop at this beautiful place:

(How come the Colombia River temple is so much more beautiful than the Spokane Temple???)

And a quick dinner at Costa Vida, we were on our way. 9 hours later, we were home! We had survived. I only drove on the wrong side of the road twice, hit the rumble strips a handful of times, and had to turn back to yell at my kids at least less than 50 times. (It really is a miracle we survived) And Kathryn still likes us even after spending 18 hours in the car, and 4 whole days together, I think that right there is an accomplishment! :)

It felt good to be home!

The Arctic Lady...

The Arctic Lady...we lovingly and jokingly call her my dad's 5th child. Which, she would actually be his first, as she was built and purchased before I was born, in 1979. He's been working on her for that long. Yes, she does have a half naked lady on her, and yes, I grew up seeing that all the time. The American Flag was not covering her up before, so this is very modest compared to some of the ladies who have been painted on. And I think that she's getting a new girl this time around. Every 3-4 years the Arctic Lady comes down to Oregon to get some work done to her. This time around a new engine, and new refrigeration, etc... She's usually in the shipyard for a month or so before heading back to Alaska. We like to come and visit her (and my dad, too) whenever she's down. I love seeing my dad in his element, just like when I worked up with him the summer after my mission. A whole side of him I had never seen. I love showing my kids the boat, and explaining what Papa does when he is in Alaska. It's such a cool thing.

Lots of tarps to cover where they are working...

Of course, the kids (and I) wanted to explore, and there are lots of nooks and crannies to explore...

Jackson on the buoys. I have a picture of Taylor at this age sitting on the buoys. :)

In the wheelhouse (where I belong!) :)

In Papa's captain's chair...

My dad made us dinner one night, and here he is grilling...

One of my dad's crewmen, Abe was there still. He is Samoan, and very very large. Not fat large, but probably one of the thickest men I have ever met. Him and Tucker were comparing muscles! :) He is also one of the nicest and sweetest men, so sweet to my kids!

Papa explaining what all the gadgets do...

My big boy on the anchor chain...

I love the Arctic Lady, I wish we could hang out more! :)

Reedsport & Coos bay...

We had so much fun in the land of sand dunes, elk reserves and light houses.

I love this shot I got of Taylor running to the beach:

It was a bit chilly while we were there. I thought it would be warmer since we were so far south, but apparently we just missed the good weather. My dad said that right after we left, it got beautiful. The kids wanted to play on the beach again down here, but I wouldn't let them this time. It was so so so very cold and WET!

But one day as were were touring the area, we did stop to look at the beautiful ocean. I love the Oregon coast so very much and this place was so picturesque...

And turning around, this is what we saw:

Sand dunes for days! It's a popular area for motorbiking and sand buggies.  We were going to rent Sand buggies and take the kids, but it was so cold and wet, that we decided to stay in the warm car, and just have a looksey.

Driving down the 101, lots of beautiful stops along the way:

A little bit more inland was this beautiful valley that is an elk reserve. It is amazingly beautiful. Anyone who knows my dad knows that this was the place he was most excited to show us! :) I did think it was beautiful, but the beach is definitely more my thing.

We headed down to Bandon one day for some Umpqua ice-cream. There is the Umpqua cheese factory that had some delicious cheese ( I got some honey-cranberry cream cheese that was to die for!) Also, we got these kid-sized ice cream cones. These were seriously the kid sizes. It was fan-freaking-tastic!!! :)

The pictures of this next little adventure of ours don't really do it justice. My dad had the great idea to take the kids to this petting zoo that they have somewhere down there. It is supposed to be the biggest petting zoo in the country and actually had some pretty wild animals (in cages, not to pet). , I went along with it. Not a big fan of animals, so I was hoping to stay in the car with Jackson while they took the kids. We pull up only to have my dad very adamantly decided that he was the one who would stay with Jackson in the car (he was sleeping). So, Kathryn and I go in with the two older kids. $17 per person was a freaking waste, but we begrudgingly did it...

The peacock was beautiful showing off for the ladies, whom were ignoring him. But we decided to buy these fun little ice cream cones full of seeds and animal food. You can toss the food on the ground and the animals will come over to you and then you can give them the cone too, once your cone is empty. Fun fun fun, we thought. Not two minutes into the stupid thing and we make a spectacle of ourselves. A herd of goat charge at us when they see we have all of these cones. Kathryn and Tucker run for their lives leaving me standing alone not sure what is going on. Taylor had walked up two steps to get a better view to see a tiger, and in the meantime they herd attacked. She's stranded on the top stair screaming bloody murder. Luckily Kathryn and Tucker have all the food, so the herd follows them when they run, and since I was just the photographer for the day, I start snapping pictures, all the while trying to save myself, rescue Taylor and see where the heck Kathryn and Tucker are going!

Here is the calm before the storm, Kathryn with all the food:

My finger must have just automatically started snapping away during the commotion:

And after, Tucker and Kathryn walking in a daze back to where we were. Not sure what had just happened. They both had gotten rammed by a goat and all we could do was laugh. I really think that everyone there had stopped and were just staring at us. We were quite the scene.

After that I was done. I was going to take Taylor, swallow the $30 I had just spent, and call it a day. But Tucker really wanted to see some more animals, so Kathryn, being a trooper, agreed to take him real quick and be done. Well, then Taylor wanted to stay, so we did it as fast as we could.

In the end, the kids ended up having a good time, and we have a fun story to tell, so I guess all was not lost.

And they got to pet a fox and learn all about incestual breeding. Thanks fox lady for the information! :)

We needed some time to recover after that adventure, and luckily we did get some down time in the hotel. It was conference weekend, and we got to watch all four sessions in our hotel. It was so nice that they had BYU tv. I definitely need to go back and read the talks, but it was so nice to relax and be spiritually uplifted!

Dog pile on Kathryn during conference:

Lots of swimming was done. Tucker begged to go swimming every spare minute we had. Early mornings, late nights, it didn't matter! He is my little fish and wanted to go any chance he could!

Jackson even got to go swimming for the first time. And why shouldn't he with that beach body!

Taylor was content just doggy paddling away in her floaties and I was content just hanging out in the hot tub most of the time, but Tucker wanted to play play play in the big pool, and did whatever it took to convince us to join him.

I'm so glad I got to enjoy the time with my big kiddo's though. I love that they are so fun to be with and we can enjoy our time together (for the most part) :)

This guy enjoyed watching his big brother swim:

Getting there...

Spring Break baby! We decided last minute to head down to visit my dad on the Oregon Coast. The Arctic Lady is there for the next month or so getting some work done, so we wanted to see him and the boat while he was there. Ben couldn't come, and Kathryn wanted to come, so we decided to girl trip it, with the little ones, and had a great time! Kathryn had to work, so we were only able to go for a long weekend, from Thursday to Monday but we still had a blast! Such a fun adventure. Not sure I want to drive 8 hours with 3 little kids again any time soon, but lots of good memories! :) We left Thursday when Kathryn got off work, and headed first to Portland. Portland is only about a 6 hour drive or so, add in numerous potty, diet-coke (a must), and food stops, it took us just a wee bit longer! :)

We stopped in The Dalles, about an hour before Portland to eat dinner. The kids were so ready for a break, so even though it was like 8 pm and we were only an hour from our hotel, we stopped. We ended up running into the missionaries there, and since an Elder from my mission in Chicago was from The Dalles, I asked them if they knew him, and the lived with his family! Such a small world and so fun! Anyway...long story short, after too long of a stop in The Dalles, we finally got to our hotel at around 11. 

So...we checked into our hotel, got the kids settled and into bed, and I had LITERALLY just put Jackson in his pack and play when the fire alarm started going off. Like in the whole entire hotel. At first I just kind of stood there not really knowing what to do. The thought of waking all three of my kids up again to go outside kind of made me want to shoot myself. But the funny thing was, was that Jackson, while he wouldn't fall asleep very easily when it was totally dark and quiet, was totally dead asleep while this amazingly loud alarm was going off.

So... while the fire trucks came and checked the hotel, we waited in the rain. Finally, and luckily I brought the keys, we went in and waited in the van. In our PJ's, tired after driving all day, and totally wet; we were miserable! But we had to laugh about it, because that is all we could do. We finally got back into our room like an hour later, and finally got to bed!

Luckily, the next morning they were all smiles. Me....not so much, but we got a good breakfast and were on the road for our final few hours.

We passed this exit, and it brought back so many great memories. This is the exit we had to take to get to Ben's sister's house when her and her family lived in Portland. Lots of good memories in Sherwood, with David and Lynlee and it made me miss those fun days. I texted her this picture as we drove by! 

Since our hotel was so close to the Portland temple, and it's always been a favorite of mine, we stopped real quick to snap some pics...

Me and all my cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles all came here to Portland when I was like 10 or so for the Temple open house. I remember walking through it with all my cousins. And then when Ben lived here with his sister for those few months, we would come and do sessions. I love the Portland Temple. Anyway, it was fun coming back with my kiddies, I just wish Ben could have been with us. I really wish we could have stopped at mine and Ben's little Mexican place we used to always go to!

So...the shipyard that my dad's boat usually is in while down in Oregon is on the Columbia River by Portland, so I just assumed that the boat was there. Well, I didn't realize that the boat is actually in Reedsport which is so south that it is actually only about an hour from the California border. So, we headed over to the 101 and drove down the Oregon coast. It is a beautiful drive and we were able to stop and play on the beach. I haven't been down the Oregon coast in so long, it was so much fun. I forgot how much I love it! I will never forget the first time Ben moved up here and we were headed to the Oregon coast. I showed up in my jeans and hooded sweatshirt, you know, normal wear for the Oregon coast. Ben shows up in his swim shorts and flip flops. He was so naive! :) But...apparently he must have passed that on to his children, because they did the same exact thing...

They were just so happy to be at the beach. They beg me all the time to go to the beach. They just enjoyed running on the sand. I was so cold that I had gotten a bowl of the famous New Port clam chowder. I sat and ate that delicious bowl of clam chowder in the wind while those crazy kids of mine put on their swim suits and played in the sand. They were bound and determined!!!

Jackson's first time at the beach...I think he liked it! :)

People kept on walking by us looking at me like we were crazy and I was the worst mom ever! It was 50 degrees!!! That is very close to being in the 40's! And they were in their suits!

But they did have fun while it lasted!

After about 20 minutes or so they realized how cold it was, so they got back into their clothes and jackets and finished playing all bundled up! Silly kids!

Then we continued our trek southward to Papa, and made just a few more little stops on the way at beautiful look out points when we saw them...

Oh I love the Oregon coast so much!!!

Next up...Reedsport/Coos bay, The Arctic Lady and our fun adventure home!

In like a Lion, out like a Lamb...

March was a fun month for us. Still totally cold, but I taught my kids that saying about March coming in like a Lion and going out like a lamb, so every time the weather was bad, they made jokes about the Lion weather. One day in particular, it was totally nice and sunny then instantly it started hailing. And not just a little bit, but like my van was swerving from so much hail on the road! It was crazy, my kids thought it was pretty cool. I was dropping off Tucker at the church to meet up with some friends to watch the pinewood derby, and as soon as we got home, Taylor wanted to go jump on the trampoline in it! She's a crazy woman!

Typical mornings at our house, the kids not listening and taking FOR-EVER to get ready! Especially on Sunday's. Love my cute boys:

Luckily, once the hassle is done, they sure are CUTE! :)

I have never made freezer jam, and my dad and Kathryn were dying to teach me. OK, maybe I was dying to have them teach me. My dad kind of went crazy buying the berries at Costco one day (he does that from time to time) so we thought it would be a great time to make some. We made Strawberry, Raspberry, Blackberry and Huckleberry and combinations of all of them.

Lots o' Sugar..... YUM!

Our finished batches. We had so much that we ran out of jars, we had to start using Tupperware containers, which is fine for freezer jam, luckily! :)

I've never really done too much about St. Patricks day, but this year I thought it would be fun to do something a little fun. Nothing major. I saw somewhere an idea where you put green paint on the outside of a closed fist and make a 'footprint' out of it and then dye the toilet water green and it looks like the Leprachaun went pee in the toilet. So I did this before I went to bed the night before:

Added some green confetti and viola. :) The kids thought it was pretty cool at first. Taylor was the first to go in and use the bathroom and was so excited that the 'clover' had come to visit. I kept on telling her all day that it was the Leprechaun, but she kept on calling him a clover. Anyway...after we ate breakfast and got ready, I sent them in to brush their teeth and they refused to go back in. Taylor just looked at me in fear and shook her head and finally said, 'do you think the clover is still in there?' and Tucker said, 'I'm kinda freaking out....I don't want to go in there.' So it looks like there will be no leprechaun traps at our house ever, I guess they are the only kids on the planet who DON'T like leprechauns.

I was going to make a big green dinner, but got busy and so homemade pizza instead. We added some spinach for St. Patrick's day! :)

Taylor at one of Tucker's basketball games:

And Jaxey, such a sweet happy little man:

Also, I won this cute little embroidery hoop!! I couldn't believe it, I was so excited. It was actually for Valentines day, but I loved the yellow so much, I kept it up for spring decor, too! My friend Natalie, over at Natalie's Sentiments sent it to me! She has such a fun blog about mommyhood, and is always having giveaways, and actually I've won three of her giveaways. Like over the last 5 or 6 years or so, but THREE!!! I can't believe it, and she has such great taste, I know that whatever I get from her is going to be rad! Thanks Natalie!

While I try and decorate my house cute, to be honest, most of the time, it looks like this:

That's why I have to clean the stupid thing 30 times a day!

And if you ever wonder how I feel about it:

Glad Tucker caught that on camera! :)

OK, no one else might appreciate this but me, but I thought that this was awesome. A few weeks ago I was in our church building, and these two posters were hanging next to each other:

This is the difference between asking women and men to advertise for an upcoming event. I thought it was awesome. Does anyone else appreciate this as much as I do? One of my good friends, Marianne who is so talented,  designed and painted the Women's broadcast poster, which I think is beautiful, and I know that it probably took at least a few hours to get it complete and that beautiful! The boys on the other hand, slap down a poster board and do their best bubble lettering and done. Hilarious! :) It really doesn't take much to entertain me. :) Now bring on these April Showers so we can get onto summer already! :)

Gma Kelly's March visit...

My mom came up to visit us in March, of course. Because she can't get enough of us up here! :) She was actually supposed to come up for a surgery. Since my grandmother just died of Ovarian Cancer, her and her two sisters were advised to have theirs removed, my grandmother's sister also died of Ovarian Cancer years ago. They said hers were fine, but that just out of precaution, to get them removed. Long story short, insurance wouldn't pay for it because it was an elective surgery, so she had to cancel the surgery (or pay like $10,000 out of pocket) and she's going to have to go and either add it to her insurance and then wait the allotted time or just have yearly checkups until it is 'advised'. Anyway, she already told my kids that she would be here for the weekend, so she decided to come up anyway. We were on a mission to find this boy a jumpy toy to get those legs moving, the ones I had he didn't like, so I sold them and was on a mission to find a good one. They are surprisingly hard to find! Target didn't have any, Walmart didn't have many good ones. But we finally found one! :) And, of course, grandma found some other little trinkets along the way:

I don't think he liked his new sunglasses! :)  Note that beautiful blue sky! It's finally starting to warm up a bit around here...yay!!! :)

It WAS March, so, of course, there was a lot of basketball watching....

We went to FroYo and Jackson was happy that grandma fed him as much of the stuff as he wanted:

Our branch is so fun, we are always having activities and dinners and dances. We had a branch dinner and dance while she was here, and my mom was SO excited. Anyone who knows her knows that those types of things are right up her alley. Especially in our Spanish Branch that she loves dearly! :) I think she was more excited about it than we were! :)

Of course, she was snapping away the whole night... Don't mind that white girl out there with all of the amazing Latina dancers...I just made sure I had a kid in my arms the whole night so I didn't feel so awkward! :)

It was a combined dance with the other Spanish branch (our old one, down town) So President and Sister Condon were there, and we were So very happy to see them! He held on to Jackson all night! It was way cute! He must have been missing his grandkids or something! :)

Jackson enjoyed it, so I was happy!

Grandma did have to steal him away from President Condon eventually...

Then my friend Yulissa grabbed my mom and Jackson out into the middle of the dance circle. It was hilarious! Everyone kept on telling my mom that she should just have her records transferred up to our branch and come up here every weekend so we could put her to work! :)

Taylor helping the Sister Missionaries washing the dishes and cleaning up...

It was a fun night and a fun weekend with grandma here! Usually when she's here we have parties to plan or visitors to entertain, but we were able to just hang out and enjoy grandma and it was so fun!! :) We are so lucky!

Jackson...

Words can not describe how much I love this little man. He seriously is the best! He is happy and snugly and cute and I seriously put his cheek in my mouth at least once a day to take a little nibble, I just want to eat him up so much!

This was his favorite seat in the house up until a few days ago, when I put it away forever. He has been sitting on his own for a long time, I just liked having him so close, and since he isn't too much of a mover (no shock there, more on that later...) I could put him in as much as I wanted. But, I think it's for the better, that he move on to bigger and better things. He is now officially in a high chair to eat all of his meals.

Oh, here he is in a bumbo again! :) And we recently discovered that he is happy forever in his bumbo as long as he has a vegetable in his hands. We tried many a toy, and the vegetable did the trick and it lasted the longest! :) Bless you Celery stick! :)

Oh, and he loves to talk (no shock there either) and will just chat and chat to his veggies...

And here is Jackson's camera phone portrait from my new sucky camera phone:

Playdate with his two buddies, Crosby and Jack. These boys. It was accidental after Jack's big sister's birthday party, and we're missing George, their 4th band member, but these boys sure are cute, and are getting so big. I love that we will have photos of them together in every stage of their baby hood. (Although most all of them are crawling and pulling themselves up at this point...)

Speaking of crawling, this is what happens when Jackson is on his tummy for even 2 seconds...

I guess I should have been more diligent when he was littler, because now he just immediately gives up and puts his head down like this and cries:

Like there is no movement whatsoever!

Put him on his back like this though, and then you're getting somewhere! :)

I didn't think I should worry about it until I took him in last month to his 9 month appointment where they told me that they wanted me to take him to baby physical therapy! Yes, my 10 month old son goes to physical therapy. I joke about it, because I'm still not too concerned, given the history of my other two children, but deep down I do hope that he starts using those legs soon, so I really don't have to start worrying! I'm not so much concerned about the crawling, but there was no rolling, or even getting up on his knees. I did tell the doctor that I may have been encouraging his immobility, because it is really nice having a baby who will stay in one place and I can get things done. And I wasn't super diligent about the tummy time, thinking that it will come when he's ready. Anyway, since then, I've been better about getting him tummy time, and he's started rolling over like a champ. And he kicks his legs and uses them, just doesn't put any weight on them. He still isn't so good at that, but he's getting better. The physical therapist came to our house last week for his assessment, and she said that his muscles are weak because he doesn't use them, but that she isn't concerned that he has like weak muscle mass or anything, but that I just have to start doing daily exercises with him, and she is going to come to our house once a week until he is where he needs to be. She doesn't think it will take too long, and I really hope it doesn't either! She also told me that it just could be part of his personality because he is seriously so chill. He doesn't care about things too much, so if things aren't within reach, who needs it! :) My poor lazy baby. She told me that he was pretty small compared to most babies she sees, so it wasn't his size, which I was surprised at. At his 9 month appointment he was 20 lbs. and 3 oz. and 28 inches long! He is SO long!!! I was kind of in shock! But he sure is a happy sweet little thing. She also said that his social skills and talking was right on, and he was right where he needed to be, we just need to get him using those legs! And I've never seen anything like it, but seriously, whenever I try and put him on his legs, he lifts them right off the ground! (And I thought that Tucker & Taylor were bad!!!) 

At least he's rolling now and so my heart is a little lightened, thinking that he is fine, and just needs a bit more time for the rest to come!!!

Since he isn't moving yet, we thought we'd just put him in the oven and eat him right up!! :)

He is the sweetest boy! Those big blue eyes are just the best. Here he was during Taylor's gymnastics one night, and he was so tired, but he doesn't complain, just hangs out looking around!

Baby selfie! I don't even remember taking this, but just saw it on my camera roll. Must have been early early in the morning. My worst hours! :) He actually is a champion sleeper, but was teething there for awhile and had some rough nights!

Oh, and just chatting away with the fork in his hand. He loves to talk, just like his brother and sister, oh and his mom and dad, oh and his grandma and grandpa for that matter...hmmm....looks like my kids have no hope! :) I love how excited he gets when he talks to the objects in his hands! :)

I sure love this 10 month old of mine!!! I CAN NOT believe it has been 10 months already!