Gabrielle's Zoo Snooze

This past Tuesday I joined Gabrielle and her class (along with 30 other parents!) on the Zoo Snooze overnight field trip. We headed up to Portland Tuesday after lunch and got to tour the Oregon Zoo's hospital and commissary as well as see some animals up and close. After a full evening of touring, we all slept (30 per room!) in a couple of classrooms in sleeping bags! The next morning we toured more of the zoo and then headed back home after lunch. The best part of the trip was being with Gabrielle and seeing her excitement. She was very excited to go on this field trip and was so happy and excited the whole time.

St. Paul School's 3rd grade class with their teachers, Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Silva

Our small touring group: Trent, Brandon, Emma, Pheobe, Gabrielle and our tour guide, David

At the commissary learning about feeding the animals. Gabrielle (and her friends) freaked out when we went in the freezer and saw bags full of frozen (dead) mice, rats and rabbits which will be fed to some of the animals at the zoo!

We all loved touching and learning about the lizard, turtle and snake (not pictured)

Gabrielle and Jorja had a lot of fun together, as always!

Elle and me snuggled up before bed!

It was great that the animals were so active in the morning. We got to see so many animals up close.

As part of this field trip all the kids were assigned an animal to study and do a report on. Here is the White-Cheeked Gibbon, Gabrielle's animal.

I love my girl and so enjoyed spending time with her!

Willem Can Ride a Bike!

We are not very proactive about teaching our kids to ride bikes without training wheels. We don't have the easiest place to learn because we live on a busy road and the driveway has lots of truck traffic during the day. So our kids don't ride bikes very much except in the evenings in the summer when the dairy is quieter and safer for them to ride. This past week Willem's class participated in a bike/trike-a-thon fundraiser and it was clear that when Willem rode his bike with old bent training wheels, he wasn't really using the training wheels much. So when he got home that evening, he tried riding without training wheels and a few minutes later he was a pro!

Here's the proud bike rider...

And a video to memorialize his unassisted bike riding (yes, we know he needs a bigger bike :). Way to go Willem...

Genevieve is 16 Months!

Another month has passed and Genevieve's personality continues to come out! Genevieve...

~ is a talker; she talks all the time though we often don't know what she is saying. Her favorite word now is 'Ya'. When I ask her if she wants to go outside or if she wants to eat or see her brother, she excitedly says "Ya Ya"! She also loves to say hi and hello. She is also starting to copy us like today I said "Beep beep" and about 10 seconds later she said "Beep". She also says, cheese, dog, mom, dad, ball, Elle, Ca (for Cade), pees (for please), boo (for cow), wa (for water) and has said a bunch of other words but not consistently.

~ never seems to stop moving; it is hard for me to read Nev a book because she doesn't want to stand still that long! She loves to explore and continues to be pretty independent (except when I want to get work done :)

~ knows what she wants and lets us know it! Nev has been known to scream when we take something away she really wants but luckily she gets over it pretty quickly.

~ loves the dairy! Genevieve's favorite activity is going outside on the dairy for a walk to visit the cows. She is lucky that Uncle David takes her out there most days (I do it when it's sunny :)

~ loves balls; whenever Genevieve sees a ball she runs to it, picks it up then throws it in front of her and starts dribbling it with her feet. She will kick it 10+ times with both feet; it's pretty cute! She also loves to put basketballs in the hoop when she can reach it.

~ continues to be very social, saying hi to most people she meets. She is also good at giving open mouth kisses!

~ follows directions so well now; it amazes me when she seems to understand everything I ask her to do like 'please close the door' or 'put the toy in the basket' or if I ask 'where is my jacket?', she will look and find it. It's fun that she can follow directions and tell us if she wants to do something with her 'ya' response. So much fun!

She is such a fun and happy little girl! And is loved by so many people! We love you sweet Genevieve!

Here are some pictures of our 16 month old...

A Visit with Amber and Baby Nia!

On Sunday afternoon, Genevieve and I headed to Portland to visit Amber, Tony and their beautiful kids, Jacoby and Antonia, for the night!  It was great to spend 24 hours with my sister and our little kids and I loved seeing little baby Antonia again!  It was so much fun to see Genevieve and Jacoby really playing together for the first time and enjoying being together. They shared with each other remarkably well (except a few treasured toys of Jacoby!).  Genevieve was also pretty cute with Nia. Whenever I held Nia, Nev would come to me and want to sit next to me and get a little attention from me and then she'd be off to play again. She was very interested in Nia and was pretty gentle. We all spent some time outside together, where the kids had a ton of fun, and we got to visit with Duane and Mary too. On Monday, Amber and I spent the morning taking, talking about and sharing pictures with each other.  I got to play photographer and took at least a couple hundred pictures of Amber and Antonia (Amber took a bunch too of just Antonia). I love that we both enjoy pictures so much! It all went by too fast. The only thing that would have made the visit better is if our other sister could have been there too...luckily Marilyn is coming in July!

 

I love that my kids love being with their cousins!

Genevieve was so cute with Antonia

Luckily I am recently experienced with holding a newborn while doing other things :)

Genevieve wasn't quite sure what to make of Jacoby sticking his tongue out and blowing but I think she thought it was pretty cool. Jacoby is such a fun and smart little boy!

One of my favorites from our little photo shoot. Such a pretty, calm and content little girl!

So content in mommy's arms. Doesn't Amber look great!

It was fun to work with the lighting and different angles when we took the pictures of Nia. She was a perfect little model, just looking around at everything and very happy. Check out Amber's blog (Amandi Family link on the right) for more pictures of Nia from our little photo shoot (coming soon...).

Pictures from Cade's State Cup

Cade's EMFC Boca Jr. U12 (6th grade) team ended their pool play in the State Cup tournament with 2 wins (2-1 & 2-0), 1 loss (just 0-1) and one (1-1) tie. In their group of five solid teams they were 3rd; just one point out of second which would have advanced them to the quarterfinals. They showed they belong with the top ten U12 teams in the state but have some work to do (and some growing :) to get in the top five where they would like to consistently be. Cade was disappointed his team didn't advance but he played well, scored two of his team's five goals and played the entire game three out of the four games. Here are some pictures from the game this past weekend which they won 2-1.

Cade 'asking' for the ball from Hunter

Ethan's hair always makes for great pictures!

Gio fighting for the ball (Gio is one of the Boca's two '97 Oregon Olympic Development Program players)

Cade goes against a lot of kids that are bigger than him :)

It always amazes me the positions the boys put their bodies into when playing

Cade going after another header

Liam (Cade's best friend!)