floor mat

We have one of those prickly shoe-wiping mats that says "Wipe your paws". Jack has discovered it in his explorations. He keeps whacking it (his current favorite form of exploration) and every time he pulls his hand back really fast and shakes his head in disapproval. It's very cute. :)

no rest for the wicked

I have about a million projects right now:

1) I am making a small braided shoe-mat rug for Alison. My first one, so it has taken kind of a while to get not-so-much done.
2) A bigger (4' by 5') braided rug for Amy. (She is re-arranging all her stuff and has a blank spot that could really use a rug.)
3) All my floors are in DIRE need of mopping. There is nothing like an army-crawling baby to show you just how dirty your floors really are. No matter how many times I sweep, it just doesn't get the job done!
4) I am working on collecting up all our household crap for a series of yard sales, starting two Saturdays from now.
5) I have a chicken I'm supposedly roasting this week. How exactly is that done?
6) The never ending march of dirty-clean-dirty dishes continues.
7) I would really like to make skirts out of the pile of fabrics I have stocked up. I even have a book of easy patterns from the library!
8) The bathroom needs a mega-scrub. Or is that just my spring cleaning madness speaking?
9) I have to sort out the too-small baby clothes and get them packed up properly for storage.
10) Some time tomorrow I need to re-stock our toilet paper supply. How do these mundane things sneak up on me every time?
11) I need to re-babyproof everything for Jack, who has now figured out how to pull himself into a stand on any furniture available, and then pull everything down from his new vantage point.

Okay, so that's what's coming up just off the top of my head. 11 really isn't the same as a million, but there just never seems to be enough time!

lentil soup is the BEST!

The spoons went by the wayside very quickly. Lentil soup is just too good to have utensils in the way!If your tummy is full, you can always squish it instead. :)

helping me cook

He has a whisk and spoon that are his size, and he always gets some of the spices I'm using.

bedtime

That's right, he brushes his teeth before bed!

cornbread dinner

Just a cute shot of Jack devouring a slice of cornbread. :)

craft projects

I have a bunch of artificial sunflowers that are waiting for inspiration to strike. WELL. Jack got into them. Need I say more?

dinner time

more Easter pics

apple sauce!

Everyone knows you need at LEAST two spoons to eat anything.(Or a spoon and a fork....)

This photo made me really notice how long his hair was getting. I trimmed it right before Easter, which you'll see in later pics!

possibly the best toy yet!

Here he is discovering the prize:Watching a movie:

Wondering why that darn camera has been busted out again:

He really likes sitting in it to play, which is nice since you can put your legs to the sides of it and it won't tip, AND his toys don't escape from him this way!

Happy Easter!

"cooky" press

I have this old cooky press (its spelling, not mine) -- a Price family heirloom, which is nice words for "old junk that is fobbed off on the other Prices at family reunions". :) I am an honorary price by way of marrying Markita Price's son. It actually is a really cool press, and quite functional! I've made peanut butter cookies and chocolate cookies so far. Yummy!

who loves hats?

baby's first apple

While we were in Tennessee, Jack had his first apple. Yum, yum!

Donations accepted!

We are slooowly saving up for our eventual return to Oregon. Anybody want to help us along? Alex has a PayPal account if you want to send funds! :D

On this topic, I was filling out one of those store surveys recently, which offered a $1000 gift card to WalMart, and I always think "What could I possibly USE this for?" but I realized that it could be practically a whole apartment of furnishings. Okay, universe, we're ready for our payout!

another "growing up" post

It seems like every time we turn around, Jack is jumping to another big or small milestone, but this time he's really knocking our socks off. He seems to have grown up three months in two weeks!

This happened right after his six-month checkup. (Also after his four-month checkup.... Maybe there's something magical about Dr. Loh's hugs?) Suddenly he has four teeth and eats cheerios and biter biscuits. He sits IN the shopping cart like a champ, not in his bucket ON the cart like some baby. He hardly holds on to it at all. He sits up in the tub all by himself (with guards, obviously, but he doesn't use them!) He has just about nailed furniture walking. He has figured out that when you throw a toy over an edge, it GOES somewhere! He has the army crawl (elbows and belly) down like it's nothing and is hard at work on getting up to his hands and knees....

Who is this grown up little boy? Everyone tells us that parenting gets better and better as you go, and we can only dumbly reply, "We know!" What on earth could be coming next??

Next month, I predict he will be walking, talking and singing the alphabet. :)

one more zoo picture

Here she is again, having a grand old time. :D

zoo trip!

This was Jack's first zoo trip. All winter, I have been DYING to get out and do all the fun activities that are around here! Technically it wasn't a great day to have babies out in (Caiden and Becca came too) but we bundled them up and everybody had a great time anyway. :)

First we saw some sheep and goats, but didn't get any pictures. We were going to use the Webbers' camera but it wasn't working so we had to settle for cell phone shots.

Here's the first documented animal sighting:
It's a zebu! (A what?) [apparently it's some kind of camel-y thing]

This was the only picture we got of Becca's face, as far as I know. She had a really good time, despite appearances. She was just concentrating on something here. :)

I brought my umbrella in case it did more than drizzle. Well, Becca knows this whole dance about duckies and you HAVE to do it if you have an umbrella, even if the thing is three times your size....

Here is how we traveled from animal to animal. Note the fine, manly Harley Davidson hat that we borrowed from Caiden. (Jack's hat kept blowing off!)

He looves his biter biscuits. They are cookies in his book.

This handsome guy wouldn't stop pacing. He was the first animal that Jack was REALLY interested in. He kept lunging around me whenever I blocked his view. I have to say, it's a good choice for a favorite. :)

The absolute winner of the trip was the bears. There were two brown bears that had been rescued from Tennessee. They kept pacing in a predictable pattern, so we knew just where to stand to get a good look! They were pretty exciting from up in mom's arms...

...and REALLY exciting from eye level!! Jack couldn't even believe how cool these guys were. One of them stayed at the window and looked at us for about 30 seconds, and he just gaped in awe!

The answer to "What do you think of bears?"

Not pictured: a bunch of goat-type things, wolves (really exciting because they were running around their big enclosure and right past the viewing window), a yak, a crane and two blue parrots (his first bird sightings -- he was very curious!), meercats (also fascinating), cougars and a small army of coati (but Jack was bundled into the stroller for the last two, so they kind of don't count).

Alison and I agree this was probably the best zoo trip EVER, despite the chill and the slight rain. We're going again next month!