Family Portrait

Here is our first attempt at using the timer on our camera.

Ok, ok... so it needs a little work.

Adrian 1 Year

Little Dude (as Allie calls him) turned 1 on the 27th. He is shooting up like a weed and has shown himself to be very mechanically minded. He already understand helping you dress him (by putting his arms into sleeves without too much resistance), knows that socks and shoes go on his feet and what a hairbrush, toothbrush and mirror are used for. He just decided in the last few days to walk for real (before he was just messing around) and I even had him walking with his sneakers on in the basket ball court a little bit ago.

His sissy is his FAVORITE play toy, he's definitely a momma's boy and plays so well by himself sometimes I think he would have been better off as an only child. He loves to hug, lay on and pull anything soft and sleeps with his sissy's stuffed dog. He can't resist a kitty laying anywhere within reach and makes a beeline for then as soon they come into view. Most of the time, they are pretty good natured about it, even when he full body lays on them.

His stats for his 1 year well baby check up are as follows:

Weight: 25lb 12 oz (he only gained 7 oz in the last 3 months, probably due to quitting his bottle)
Height: 32in
Head: 19.75in (still off the charts. My big headed babies!)

Where we live, Part 2

Passing by some retail stores and Zeeks Pizza

Beautiful grassy circle surrounded by the brick homes
right by Bentley Hall.

Bentley Hall, Our Community Center.

There is another cute park back in that green area.

This is a fully fenced soccer field.
Nice place to let the kids kick around a ball

The other side of Central Park

Where we live, Part 1

I shared, in a previous post, what our new home and area is like, but now I can show you the photos!

Our house front

From the side

The fire lane behind our house.
It goes to the elementary school and is our super short cut to the park

This is a really cool covered playground on the school property.
It is kitty corner to our house and very convenient when it rains.

Central Park

We spend most of our time here.

Hurray! New Camera

Our poor camera met a sad end. Actually, we aren't exactly sure who or what broke it, but regardless it was nearly impossible to take pictures due to a shattered LCD. Jake thought he could fix it and ended up with a handful of leftover parts and a camera more broken then when he started. So, we decided to bite the bullet and get a new one (after my brother failed at his try of fixing the old one too). After 2.5 months of no camera, our new one finally arrived in the mail and we are back to our snap happy selves!

I wish I could take a picture of the new camera. It is unbelievably tiny, less then half the size and weight of our previous one which I thought was small when we got it. I will share all the lovely photos it takes so you can see the quality too. Superb!

The Wonder of Sippy Cups

Adrian decided at 10.5 months he no longer wanted his bottle... at all! Just cold turkey! He went from downing 6-8 ounces 3 times a day to nothing. Normally that wouldn't be such a big deal except he was totally unable (or unwilling... not sure which) to drink for a sippy cup, straw or anything that would keep him from totally dumping milk all over himself every time he drank.

I tried several different spill free methods and finally gave up, resorting to taking out the lovely 'spill free' part and just had a huge mess to clean up after every meal. Plus it was stressing me that he was getting virtually no liquids as most ended up on him, the high chair and more popularly, the floor. However, he didn't seem too dehydrated so I tried to not worry too much.

After about 2 weeks, he just seemed to figure it out! He got a hold of my Camelback water bottle and was able to bite and suck at the same time, getting out enough water to gulp. So I gave him a sippy (with the spill free piece in place) and Viola! He downed the entire cup and another half in about 3 minutes. Of course, he drank it all too fast and proceeded to throw it back up, but I was not in the least bit upset. I could now envision spill free meals in my immediate future! Sigh..

Overall, I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. He has now eliminated the whole hassle of tring to break him of his bottle, which was pretty hard with Allie.

First Official Hike

Our family did our first hike with the kids. It is something I did a lot before getting married and virtually not at all since then. But, since we live in Issaquah and Allie is fascinated by all the tall mountains (well, tall to her anyway) surrounding us, I decided we would take the kids on a little hike to see how they/we did.

Saturday, we drove to Snoqualmie falls (about 15 min from our place if you don't take the longest possible route... which we did unintentionally) which is only about 1/2 down (pretty steep) from the top to the boardwalk at the bottom. I had Adri in the back pack and Allie walked down on her own two feet. She did make it all the way down on her own and about 20 steps back up before Jake had to resort to the on the shoulder carry.

The kids had fun playing in the water at the bottom, but Jake and I got a little tired of the crowds that swarmed after we arrived. Over all, it was a good trip. One of Jake's coworkers has a backpack I think we will take for Al next time.

Sorry there are no pictures to show. Our camera is currently on the fritz.