Happy Birthday Anna!!

Anna turned one year old on Saturday (08/08/09) and we had a little party for her.

Here she is one year ago as a brand new baby!! How she has grown!!

And here she is turning ONE and wearing a cute ladybug colored tutu from Aunt Angie...

...and this matching hair bow which she tolerated for a while before pulling it off.

She sort of had a meltdown as we were trying to start the festivities, so she wasn't in the best mood when we presented her with her birthday cupcake.

But she figured out what to do with it soon enough.
She prefers the hands free method of eating cupcakes.

Here's Matthew after taking a bite of the red RED frosting on the cupcake and looking sort of Dracula-esque.

Here's Scott who was able to Skype into the party. It was good to be able to share it with him while he's so far away. You can also see the ladybug cupcakes we made. Red frosting is hard to make!

Anna has an E.T. moment with Aunt Angie

My sisters-in-law made Anna this birthday sign. So cute!! Thanks girls!

Here's Anna playing with her ladybug present.

She also got this doll and stroller which she seemed to like. In fact everyone seemed to want a turn pushing it around. That made Anna scream. Oh well, I guess she liked it. Happy Birthday Anna!!

Vacation Part 3: Oregon (mini golf adventures)

The kids and I went to Oregon for a week to visit with the in-laws. Here we are golfing with the cousins. We tried to get a picture of all the golfers all together and this was the best one. It kind of gives you a feel for how our golf outing went (L to R Kelsie, Matthew, Jaron and Kallie).

Jaron gets ready for his turn.

Aunt Alycia helped Matthew with his swing.

He was having a lot of fun.

Kelsie was having a lot of fun too. She was an enthusiastic golfer!!

Anna tried to be good, but eventually had to get out of the stroller.

She wanted to walk and crawl all over the mini golf course.

Good thing Alycia was there to help contain her.

Jaron also helped by offering to push the stroller. That's no small feat.

Matthew REALLY wanted to go inside all the small houses that we saw on the golf course and was very sorry that I wouldn't let him. He's thinking about making a run for it here.

Matthew's working on some new cutting edge golfing techniques. One of them is just picking up the ball and running it right to the hole. It saves some time. :)

Here's Alycia, Anna and Kallie...maybe they were glad to be done with the 36 holes. Yikes!! We had a good time.

Vacation Part 2: Coeur D'Alene

We drove across the border to Coeur D'Alene, Idaho. My Dad is from Idaho and sang the Idaho state song for us as we crossed the border.

I've never been to Coeur D'Alene before and apparently I have much to learn. I knew there was a lake, but I thought people just took boats out. I didn't know there was a beach area or I would have brought the swim suits. I think we were the only people out there in regular clothes. It was a warm day.

We walked around, had lunch, and found some fudge and candy.

And walked on the longest floating board walk in the US. Three quarters of the way through (way past the point of no return) we found out there were big stairs on the longest floating board walk. So we had to heft the ginormous stroller up and down the big stairs. Ouch.

Finally I let the kids get in this little river in (that went out to the lake) in their clothes. Did I mention it was hot?

Anna loved being in the water.

And here's Will and Matthew. Matthew asked if he could lay on his belly in the water.

We had to dry off by playing on some toys for a while.

Waiting for those pants to dry. Everyone was in swim suits, so this wasn't that shocking. If Scott were here, he would never let this happen. He has this hang up about the kids wearing pants all the time. :) Coeur D'Alene was beautiful and we had a great time.

Vacation Part 1: Spokane

This is the first installment of our summer vacation out west: Spokane. My brother and sister-in-law (Will and Courtney) live in Cheney, Washington (near Spokane) and we flew from Rhode Island to Spokane to visit them. It was hot there but dry, so much more bearable than the east coast humidity.

We went to Old Country Buffet for dinner. If you are unfamiliar with the buffet style restaurant, you might be susceptible to doing stupid things, like sitting too far away from the food when you have to fill up plates for three people. The last time I went to a buffet like that I didn't know what I was doing either, and I ended up leaving with Jello all over my pants. And I made lots of rookie mistakes this time too...mostly involving Jello. I brought Matthew a plate of food with Jello on it, which caused him to ignore everything else on his plate and keep asking for more Jello. He did try some fruit salad when someone told him there might be Jello in it. Then he got a free balloon, which meant the end of any interest in eating food. Oh well, at least he was happy.

My other little Jello eater. I kept bringing her plates of food that got universally rejected. She did eat some Jello...and then squished it up and wiped it on my pants. Nice.

She wiped it on her own pants too, which, as you can see, were white to start out with. Why did I dress her in white pants to go to the buffet? Another rookie mistake.

The next day we explored Riverfront Park in Spokane, the site of the 1974 World's Fair. Yes, it's true, Spokane, Washington hosted the World's Fair. Believe it. My mom actually attended the fair that year and can vouch for it.

Here's my brother, Will, and Matthew at the carousel in the park. Matthew and Anna rode the carousel and Anna was only a little terrified. Oddly enough, this carousel was made in Rhode Island.

The big red wagon. I loved this. You could climb up the back side and the handle was a big slide. So fun.

Anna and my mom looking at the geese in the park.

And no summer outing is really complete without a sno-cone. We got good sno-cones from a little stand in the park. Yum. Anna didn't get one of her own, but she cruised around to everyone else for tastes. So clever.

There were a lot of runners at the park and also these runner statues. Because I have been running so much I was totally able to beat these runner statues...except that guy in the front.

And here is a picture of some of the falls on the Spokane river. We didn't take the gondolas down to see the falls up close, but we still had a nice view from up above. We had fun exploring Spokane.

Go Anna, Go!!

Anna is becoming a walker! She took her first steps back in June but they were few and far between. She would just take a step here and there. At the beginning of July she started taking more than one step at a time, but she wouldn't try it very often. In the past week she has really started walking whenever she can and taking lots of steps at once. She is getting more and more steady. Here's a video of some of her walking this week (this is from July 30). Matthew will encourage her somtimes by shouting "Go Anna, Go!" And sometimes he just wants to take the camera for himself. In this video he keeps asking to use the camera and when I tell him he can use it when the video is over he says "bye bye." He knows how to end the show.

Trip to DC

Last week I drove with the kids to DC. I stopped in New York City to pick up my friend, Amy. Then we all drove down and stayed with our friend Cindy who lives in Virginia. It was a lot of fun, but not long enough. Here we are in D.C. seeing some sights. I've never been there before and now I know you need probably a week or more to see everything. Oh well.

Amy and the Washington Monument

We hit the Museum of Natural History thinking it would be good for the kids. I think they liked it. Here's Matthew with a rhino.

And some dinosaurs

We were there on free butterfly exhibit day, so we got to see the butterflies free of charge.
Matthew found a butterfly, but he didn't want to get too close. He walked around in the exhibit with his arms pinned to his chest after he saw a butterfly land on my finger. I guess he didn't want to have a close encounter.

Anna was interested in the butterflies, but mostly wanted to get down and walk.
Amy was happy to help her walk around in the museum and Anna LOVED it.

Matthew with Cindy's son Gavin, who is exactly a month older than Matthew. Matthew still looks a little nervous, even with a buddy nearby.

Cindy and her cute baby Andrew. He was a good little traveler.

We went to some play fountains one afternoon. It got mixed reviews from the kids, but I thought it was fun. Matthew and Gavin weren't sure about it at first, but they eventually gave it a try. Gavin loved it and got right in there.

Matthew played for a while until he got too wet...

...and then went and sat in the stroller and said he wanted to go.

And Anna had a great time!! She crawled over the jets, let them squirt her in the belly, in the face...and she even crawled into the inner circle of fountain jets (the big guns - see pictures above), from which I had to rescue her at great personal risk.

After wards we got ice cream at Ben & Jerry's and all was well.

These two look like they are hatching some kind of plan...uh oh.

Cindy, Amy and I. I've been friends with them since third grade. I wish we got to see each other more. We were all on the east coast this summer, so we got together. Amy's moving west and I'll be back in Japan soon enough, so I wanted to take the opportunity while I had it. :) It was a fun time.