Three Months Old

Yesterday was Ryne's three month birthday....yep, already! In some ways it doesn't seem like three months at all...in other ways it seems like more than three months. Surely it's been longer than three months since I've slept all night long. It must have been more than three months now since I've been able to pack up my little guy Kade and head to the grocery store just the two of us. Definitely seems like longer than three months that my house has been out of order because I can't find time between holding a crying baby, bathing a crying baby, feeding a crying baby, or trying to convince a crying baby that he should sleep to clean it. Certainly feels like longer than three months that I've been doing most of my online teaching and blog posting one handed because the other hand is always busy with a baby.
Wouldn't trade it for the world!!!!!!
Three months have already passed and this guy will be 18 before I know it...which means his big brother will be 20...YIKES.
So, here they are some three month old pictures:


This picture here is actually KADE at three months. A good reminder of how quickly the time passes.


Here is Ryne at three months in the same little outfit. They sure do look a lot alike don't they?
I have to say that Ryne's feet are bigger because I had to squeeze them into these shoes to get the pic...I think he is a bit longer as well...the overalls seemed a bit short.

All dressed and ready for a trip to Red Robin in Seattle. We loaded up the boys and met some fellow church planters from the Seattle area for dinner. It was good to meet them and just spend some time with people who are doing what we're doing.

Posing in Big Brother Kade's "lightnin a'queen" chair.
I think he knows he has Kade's spot...just look at that grin.

Striking a pose just in time for Kade to come downstairs and declare, "Hey, that's my 'lightnin a'queen' chair, I need to sit in that chair!"

On the way home from Seattle I decided that I needed a little present for Ryne's three month birthday. He played so well in the exersaucer at church that I decided I needed for him to have one of those to play in at home.

He really likes it. So, does Kade. I think they will play well together with Ryne inside the exersaucer and Kade outside of it. Kade has already been trying to teach Ryne what all the farm animals are.
Bid you a farewell today with a short little video of Ryne sharing his thoughts on being three months old:

Post Happy

This is my third post tonight...why? Because I have lots of fun pictures from the past few days.

Yesterday morning I got Ryne out of the tub and wanted to take his picture in his robe. I made the mistake of telling Kade that was what I wanted to do and Kade quickly made his way into the chair and said "take my picture first mama!" So, what else could I do? Love that bed head!

Got a quick pic of the two of them together and then Kade happily gave up his spot for Ryne's photo shoot.

If that isn't the cutest smile....what is?

Kyle says he looks like a fighter all robed up in this shot.

Another cute grin.

How about that silly face?

Ryne all dressed up and ready for church this morning.

Kade and Ryne playing in the nursery at church. This was Ryne's first time in an exersaucer...gotta get one of those for our house soon!

Kade was flying the plane.

This afternoon Kade put on his "work clothes" and went outside to help Daddy unload some rocks and pile them in the back yard.

Look at what a good helper we have.

Kade kept telling us "I'm working hard." And just look at those rocks, pretty big, I think he was working hard. Check out the video below for proof.

After all that hard work we rewarded Kade with a trip to the park. Here he is checking out the grass.

For some reason he was fascinated with the grass. I think he must have eaten some of it because tonight when we were brushing his teeth he told me "mama, there's some grass in there, get it out."

Me and Kade hanging out in the fort at the park.

Mr. Cool

For Kade's last adventure he wanted to climb up and stand on all the rocks.

I took his picture on the first rock and then he decided that he needed his picture taken on every rock....yep, he climbed onto about six or seven rocks and requested that I take his picture. Aren't you glad I decided not to bore you with all seven rock pictures?
Well, until our next adventures.....

Crazy Kade

Here is a video of Kade going crazy at the "clam fry" with an exercise ball. He keeps us laughing all the time.

Clam Fry

In my last post Kyle was gone clam digging and the boys and I were about to get ready to go meet the clam diggers for a little "clam fry". It was a lot of fun but I found out that clam frying is a lot of work. See below:

Here is a picture of the fresh Razor Clams that the crew brought back from the coast. Kyle said that it was freezing cold...sleeting and snowing while they were in the ocean digging for clams....so these guys were quite a catch.

We all had a lesson in how to prepare clams to fry. First you have to drop them in some boiling water so that they will separate from their shells. Clams look disgusting without their shells, don't they?

Kyle, Andrea, and Brad are the first part of the assembly line here. Dropping fresh clams in the boiling water and taking them out when the shells come off.

All of these sweet ladies are working on cleaning the clams out. Once the non edible parts are removed they pass through a series of bowls of water where each person tries to remove as much of the grit as they can so that hopefully by the end of the assembly line they are grit free and ready to be breaded and fried.

Here Kyle and Brad have moved on to the second part of the assembly line....removing the inedible "guts" of the clam so they can be cleaned. Kade just had to get where he could watch what was going on.
The fried clams were good. Everyone really enjoyed chowing down on them. Kade was definitely a fan! So, fried clams for lunch Saturday and just look what he had in the mail when we got home that afternoon.....

Yes, Yes, C.G. felt so bad for Kade not having any "sea horse" food that she sent him some.
If you aren't sure what that's all about see my post here.

Look at what a good job C.G. did with her art work. Kyle said to Kade "what is that?" and Kade first responded "I don't know". Kyle told him to look at the picture and Kade immediately said, "that's a sea horse!"

See how he's checking out his new "sea horse" food! Had to have some right away. Wonder what he might ask for next that we don't have? Maybe a Suburban, or a Maid, or trip to Hawaii?

A New Blog Background for Monk Monk

Came across this background today and couldn't pass it up. Thought Monk Monk would really like it. So, this morning I am just hanging out with my two monkeys Kade and Ryne. Watching a little polar express....Kade's pick this morning. Kyle is gone on a new adventure....clam digging on the coast. He left this morning at 4:30. Maybe he will take some pictures for the blog but I'm betting that he didn't remember to get his camera out of the vehicle since it was sooo early. We'll see. Anyway, when the crew he went with gets back we are supposed to all be getting together to fry up some of the catch...the dig...??? I'm calling it a clam fry. Sounds like a fish fry in the south kind of thing to me. I'll let ya know how it goes. Better go get some boys ready to go and I think I was supposed to bake some cookies to take. Plus sounds like Ryne is ready for a little attention. Didn't have any new pictures so here are just a couple of cute faces to look at today:

Way Fun Times in Whistler

Had a fabulous time on our anniversary trip to Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. Just another perk to living in Washington State. Just a day's drive to the number 1 ski resort in North America! Whistler was a super cool place. A lot of hype about the XXI Winter Olympics happening there next year and that was pretty exciting.
So, I have quite a few pictures to share so I'll try to let the picture captions tell about our adventures.

See what I mean...the Olympics are coming and these guys are advertising. In fact, we bought Kade an Olympic shirt that was on sale and the lady at the store told us that it was, get this.... last year's line....and this year's line just came out. Mind you the Olympics aren't until 2010.

On Sunday morning we got up and put on our ski gear and headed to the slopes. We only had about a 5 minute walk through Whistler village to get to the gondolas. Here is one of our first looks at the ski runs.

Sunday was a beautiful day and we decided to go ahead and take the brand new Peak 2 Peak Gondola that just opened. This is one pretty amazing ride. You get to go from Whistler mountain over to Blackcomb mountain. The ride takes 11 minutes. We rode over with a couple of regulars to Whistler and they told us previously it took about an hour and a half to get from one mountain to the other.

Kyle and I riding the Peak 2 Peak.

Just look at that view behind us. It was totally breathtaking. God is so amazing that He created such beauty for us to enjoy.

Here's Kyle on the slopes. He spent a lot of time waiting patiently on me. Here are the realizations that I came to on day 1 of hitting the slopes:
-several years, several pounds, two babies and fast new ski's (as opposed to rentals) really does make a difference in how prepared you are to ski down the mountain.
-the thrill of skiing for me IS NOT THE SPEED!!! I just like coming down the mountain at my own pace.

I like to go slow enough that I can look out and see the beauty around me! If I'd been speeding down the mountain like a madwoman I would have missed this spectacular view! Plus when you fall it doesn't hurt as bad if you're not going very fast.

This is still day 1 on the slopes and you might not can tell by the smile on my face but my legs were about to fall off. This wasn't actually a pit stop to pose for a picture, it was a pit stop to let my legs have a break.

We came in Sunday afternoon after a day of skiing and had a nice surprise from Stephanie and the boys. They had baked some cookies and Kade wrote this sweet note to go with them.

Decided to venture out with the family for a little "fire and ice" show that they were doing at the base of the mountain. Boy was Kade excited to get out. Here he is strutting down the village stroll with his snow boots on....he is on a mission to find some snow.

And that is just what he did...find snow. Kade wanted to walk up the mountain and Kyle, being such a good Daddy, took off with him up the slopes.

Can't you just picture this little guy coming down on skis next year?

This just gives you an idea of how far these guys trudged through the snow. Kade was having a blast and getting some good use out of his snow boots.

Ryne, on the other hand was all tuckered out and had to have a little nap.

Here is the one family picture we managed to take on this trip.

Kyle and Kade watching the fire and ice show warm up. Some pretty crazy stunts from skiers and boarders. Kade clapped and cheered for each one.

Here is one skier who came up the ramp backwards and was about to do a flip. No wonder, Kade was cheering....they were pretty talented.

Here's Stephanie with Ryne in his cute little snow hat. Can't even tell you how nice it was to have Stephanie as our traveling nanny. Kyle and I really got to have a great time together without trying to keep up with two little guys. She was great with them and I was not ever worried if they were okay while we were away. This was the first real Mommy break I've had since Ryne was born and I didn't even realize how much I needed it. Thanks Steph for being our traveling nanny!

Kyle surprised me Sunday night when we went out to dinner and he had a present for me. I was surprised first of all by the trip and wasn't expecting anything else at all....certainly didn't deserve anything else! But my sweet husband gave me this beautiful anniversary band lined with diamonds. (the new ring is closer to Kyle's thumb in the pic) I LOVE IT! Wow, I'm so blessed to have a husband how loves me so much and takes such good care of me!

Day 2....here we come! Snow was falling and it was a bit colder but still a fabulous day for skiing.

You can see in this pic of Kyle that it wasn't quite as clear on Monday but it was still beautiful. Was nice to have some fresh snow to ski on. This is probably actually a picture of Kyle waiting on me. He did a lot of that. But to be fair I would always take my turn waiting on him with a nice cup of coffee and a snack at the bottom of the mountain while he rode back up and came down as fast and furious as he wanted to! I thought that was only fair.

Here are the boys all bundled up and ready to head out again.

Isn't Ryne so cute in his little coat?

Our adventure on Monday was a trip to "Cows" for ice cream. Kade was loving his ice cream cone and wanted no help at all with eating it. Got Kade full of ice cream and left him with Steph while we went to dinner. This made like three date nights in a row! We really did some good eating.

To top it all off, we decided to have two dates on Monday night....one place for dinner....stroll around a bit.....another place for dessert. Look at this yummy dessert...Baklava for Kyle and Chocolate Eruption Cheesecake for me!

Tuesday morning we had to get ready to leave. Kyle and I went out for Crepe's for breakfast and got a couple of souvenirs...trying to milk this trip for all it was worth. Kade is getting one last look at the snow falling from our place before we had to go.

And of course we couldn't go before we checked under everything for run-away toys that might be hiding. Kade was very good at helping his daddy with this job...I think he actually found a truck under the coffee table here.
Now we are back home and trying to get back in the swing of things.
Was the best fifth anniversary I've ever had!!!