Fort Ebey for the 1st Time

A couple of weeks ago I took the kids (minus Molly who went down for a nap) to Fort Ebey State Park, which is about 15 minutes away. This was our first trip there and it was a lot of fun. It's a very large park that has a lot of camping and hiking/walking trails as well as a lot of Mtn Biking trails in the Kettles section of the park. It also has some old tunnels as it was an extension of Fort Casey... the tunnels aren't that long and there is really just one with a couple of different branches, but the kids had fun with their flashlights in it for a little bit. We hiked down to the lake and hiked part of the bluff trail. We also spent a good deal of time at the beach there.

While we hiked, the kids enjoyed playing an animal identification game where someone gives a hint ("I'm thinking of an animal that is brown and lives in the forest") and the rest of us have to try to guess what the animal is. This kept them going when they got bored or tired and I was actually impressed with some of the animals that they guessed and tried to have others guess.


There were two crazy guys who thought it was a good day to surf and thought that was a good place. We watched them for a while from the bluff trying to surf... they were largely unsuccessful except for a couple of times and they just looked really cold to me. The kids asked a lot of questions about what they were doing and why. Sometimes I didn't have the answers.



They enjoyed playing at the beach and throwing rocks into the ocean and walking/climbing around on the driftwood. Their favorite part, though, was when they found a long pole that was propped up on what looked like a piece of a driftwood tree root or something. Sarah wanted to climb up to the top of the pole. As she was doing this and started getting closer to the top, her weight started to cause the back/low end to lift up. This was a little frightening for her but I caught it in time and then they had the idea of this possibly being a teeter-totter. We had to work out the weight proportions as the pole was unevenly placed on it's fulcrum. We first had Sarah and Nathan do it and then were able to eventually have all of us do it. We did it long enough that someone else ended up walking by and snapping a picture of us. It was fun and even though Jane was a little scared about it, she did great and we all really enjoyed it. [And wouldn't you know it, that this picture actually captured one of the surfers, actually surfing... cool... didn't realize this until I looked at the pics at home].


Anyway, the kids had a lot of fun and this will definitely be a place we will frequent among the many other parks and beaches on Whidbey Island.

I Need to Take My Kids Camping...

Observe:



These are pictures of my kids in our backyard. They have built a "fire" (complete with a less than adequate fire ring) and sitting around their fire roasting pine-cones. They were pretending their pine-cones were marshmallows or hot-dogs, but when they were pretending to eat the bigger pine-cones, they were pretending it was corn on the cob. Fun and creative kids.

Sarah & Jane!

I just love these two kids. Sarah is getting so big and is growing up so fast. She is maturing and learning so much right now... it's hard to keep up. Jane is at that magical age that I absolutely adore and (for the most part) can't get enough of. Whenever it's bedtime and we're singing Sarah her bedtime song, Jane will always insist on laying in Sarah's bed, right next to her, under the covers. This is usually adorable, but sometimes there is the (understandable, at times) complaining from Sarah ("You're on my hair", "OUCH", "Jane just hit me", etc.). But usually they enjoy these few moments each night where they get to cuddle or where they both get their backs-scratched while I sing them a song (that's daddy multi-tasking!). I love bedtime for many reasons, but it seems that our kids can be the sweetest when they are tired and just enjoying the process of being put in bed. Anyway, we caught some fun times with these girls before bed time one night recently. Enjoy!

Jane's 1st Birthday

Jane turned one at the end of April and we celebrated it with my parents and my brother and his wife and Jane's cousin who were in route to Seattle from Utah. It seems like I've hardly updated anyone on how Jane is doing. She's very small for her age... 5th percentile in weight I think. So to see her full on walking around and jabbering a bit and starting to say "Hi" to people doesn't seem to fit her stature. But she's absolutely adorable. Her brother and sister love her and get so excited when she wakes up from a nap or in the morning (YES, she's finally sleeping through the night and longer in the morning then her siblings), it's especially cute to see little Nathan say "JANE" and run and give her a hug and kiss.

Jane got a cute outfit from Mary's parents and she looks really cute in it. She's actually wearing it tonight and I think it's one of my favorite outfits on her.

Jane got this cute "My first Doll" from my folks and she really loves hugging it and has sometimes given it a "kiss".

The 1st Birthday Cake is always my favorite part, and frankly I have higher expectations then I should for this event. Most kids approach it timidly, which was Jane's experience. But once we got her an adult fork (she's always preferred adult spoons to kid spoons when being fed) she dove in a little more heartily.

But once her foot made contact with the cake, she was much less interested and it was pretty funny to see how she would suspend her foot in the air and announce her displeasure with the whole cake experience. Then it was on to bath time with her cousin, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

We're so happy to have you in our growing family Jane. You have brought us a lot of joy and it is so fun to watch you grow and learn and follow your siblings around. We love you!

Christmas '08

So, this is obviously long overdue, but if timeliness was a requirement I would've had to stop blogging long ago. Anyway, the kids didn't get up earlier than normal, which was nice... in fact I think they didn't get up until after 7 am (we'll enjoy this while it lasts). The tradition in my family growing up was to take a picture of the kids just before they got to run down the hall and open the presents. We have continued this tradition so here is our little trio together for Christmas for the first time. It was a beautiful morning, having snowed much of the night and it continued to snow for much of the day.

Nathan's Christmas was all about Thomas the Tank Engine stuff. He got this little interactive book (pic below) from his Nanu and Bumpa (Mary's parents) as well as Thomas PJ's, another book and a bunch of the trains that you'll see below. He also got a Disney Characters "I Spy" book that he really enjoys as well. He got a Dinoco (CARS) helicopter from Uncle Kris and some art supply stuff from his Aunt Jenny's family. The kid was in heaven! Thanks for all the wonderful gifts everyone.

Could this reaction be any more excited! Sarah got some first readers books from her Oma and Opa (my parents) and has really enjoyed them (if only she'd read them instead of trying to memorize the story and then just quoting it almost word for word after a couple of reads!). She got some My Little Ponies from her Uncle Kris, some play food stuff from Nanu and Bumpa, and some art supply stuff from Aunt Jenny's family. She also received a hat and glove set from her cousin Ruby. Thanks again for everything.

My Mom made this adorable skirt for Sarah and a matching one for Jane that they both should be able to wear in a few months. Adorable... Sarah is really excited and both of her matching outfits with Jane have come from her Oma and Opa and they look so cute together.

As mentioned above, Nathan got a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff. The pic above is of the stuff that he got from his Oma and Opa. Mary and I were so particularly excited for Nathan's Christmas because he's at the age where we know (sometimes) what he wants (and this year it was SO obvious) but he's not to the point where he's really asking for it. So we knew it would be (and it was) a totally, unexpected surprise of pure delight! It's so fun to be a parent at Christmas and seeing your kids get so excited over their presents. Anyway, so Nathan got this James and Rickety combo pictured above. As soon as he gets it he says "James" and takes them and runs into the toy room where his brio train tracks are (we've had a bunch of this for a while but we haven't really had any Thomas pieces to go with it) and starts playing. After a bit we go in and tell him that there are more presents to open. So he comes back in and opens the large set that we had gotten him with a bunch more Thomas characters and some more track. As soon as he opens this up he says "Huh! James!" and runs into the toy room to retrieve James where he had left it and bring them all together. The kid could not have been happier and it was so fun because, for the most part, he woke up that morning not expecting much of anything. So cute! Here he is below after his Dad totally loved using some of the new pieces to build a really cool train-track.
When we were younger (I don't even remember actually doing it) we all designed our own plates and then they were somehow laminated or something so we had them for a number of years. I know we did these at Christmas at some point because we always thought my Dad's plate was the coolest and it had some kind of a Santa on it, or something. Anyway, my parents got us this plate set for Sarah and Nathan and Jane to do some plates. Sarah was the only one that really did one on her own and it was pretty adorable as you can see above (it's a "kitty cat"). Nathan's was his hand traced, a little bird, and some clouds in the middle and then around the outside of the plate was some train track and then a bunch of the Thomas character's names as Nathan announced them. Jane's was cute too as it just had some stats about her being born and what she was currently doing (crawling, eating, nursing every three hours, getting bit by Nathan, talking, and some other stuff I can't remember). Anyway, we were really excited about these and the kids were excited to use them. However, unfortunately, it apparently wasn't a very good product as the dishwasher destroyed the finish on the plates the first time we ran them. We were really disappointed as we had carefully followed the directions :^( It was a really cute idea though!

The rest of our day was just spent with Mary and I playing some games and just enjoying relaxing. Last year we had these grand plans to cook this great dinner and then never got out of our jammies. So this year we changed course a bit and just did a whole bunch of appetizers. We made some really good stuffed mushrooms, had little smokies, cheese logs, wassail, and some other stuff. We just let the kids play all day and really enjoyed the day, though we terribly missed not being in W. WA with my family. However, we were grateful that we didn't plan on going because the weather certainly would've kept us at home. Anyway, we hope everyone had a wonderfully Merry Christmas! God Bless!

Christmas Eve '08

So on Christmas Eve in mid-afternoon, we were out delivering the last of our goodies to friends. We dropped by one family that we haven't spent a lot of time with but have been wanting to get to know more and who have watched our kids on occasion for Mary during the day. Anyway, when we stopped by they spontaneously invited us over for Christmas Eve dinner. Being lonely and missing company (family) and knowing that they were kind of in the same boat (used to big gatherings) we were excited to spend the evening with them. Instead of a simple yummy broccoli cheese soup for dinner, we had that plus ham, potatoes, homemade rolls and all the other good stuff. Their family does a pinata on Christmas Eve and so we had fun doing that with them and just being around them. Nathan loved just playing by himself with all their Thomas the Train stuff (a preview of sorts for him!) in the other room. Sarah loved being around their girls who are mostly a few years older. We enjoyed hanging out with DeRay and Emily. DeRay was preparing to go kayaking on Jan 1st (CRAZY!). Anyway, it was great fun and filled our need to spend some of Christmas with others. They were great surrogate family and it was so kind of them to have us over on short notice!

Here's Nathan swinging for the homemade pinata. He really enjoyed this (and so did Daddy!)

Here's Sarah giving it a good thump. She almost got hit one time diving in for candy a little too soon.

After spending time with our friends we went home and let the kids open their traditional new set of PJ's on Christmas Eve. They were both excited!

Jane did get some new PJ's as well but they don't quite fit her but they do match a pair that Sarah wore, so that'll be fun when they can wear them together. Jane was just as happpy with the tinsel and the bows! What a doll!
We got a little Nativity set from some friends in our Church earlier in the day and the kids had fun playing with that in their new jammies before bedtime. It was a nice Christmas Eve for our family.

Christmas Family Get-Together '08

On Dec. 20th we headed to Rick and Laurie's house in Fruitland. It was a crazy weekend as Mary and I went to my work party in Boise on Friday, Mary went to the ward Christmas breakfast while I went to work all day on Saturday and then when I got home we threw the kids in the car and headed to Fruitland and didn't get home until late Saturday night. It was our chance to spend some time with some family over Christmas as we were wishing we could be in WA, where all of my siblings and their families were gathered for Christmas (we so wish we could've been there!). The weather was snowy and blustery but we made the trip safely. There were plenty of desserts and just fun conversation/interaction. There were about 40 of us there and Laurie did a gift exchange for the kids that Sarah and Nathan participated in and, as you can see from the pic below, they really enjoyed themselves and the little gifts that they got. Then they did a gift exchange for the older kids and adults after everyone played SANTA Bingo.

Here we are before we left. Actually a decent picture of our little family!

Here's the whole group for the adult gift exchange. Fun times!

My cousin Joey enjoying hanging out with all the Farmer girls. We enjoy being around my cousins!

These pics are of Sarah and Nathan participating in the kids gift exchange. They had a blast and it was good because the presents weren't opened until the end so no one knew what they were giving up as they passed them back and forth.

Halloween '08

The kids had a fun Halloween this year. A week or so before Halloween we painted pumpkins. This is the first year we've painted them and I think we'll do this until the kids are older. They seem to enjoy it more because it's more colorful, they get to actually do more of the work and the designing and we like it because it's less messy and doesn't take as long. I hope next year we'll do a little of both. The kids loved "mixing colors", which usually just ends up with most colors looking a tannish gray hue, but they had fun and that's what counts.

Above is Sarah's pumpkin that she painted. You can see that she started with a good face and then just started mixing colors.

As far as costumes go, Sarah chose to be a witch and was excited about getting a little black kitty cat to go with her outfit. Nathan, who has fallen in love (read 2.5 year-old obsession!) with Thomas the Train was able to wear a costume that we borrowed from our friends the Angerbauer's. We also borrowed a Giraffe costume from our friends for Jane as well. All the kids were cute and excited. We went to our church's Trunk or Treat. It was nice because they started early (5:30) so we were actually home a little after 7 pm. The kids are still young enough to just be excited with whatever is in their bag at the end of the night, though I'm sure the days out with friends where they fill large containers full of candy and go out way beyond when anyone answers the door will come in a few years (such fond memories!). I guess that we did get a hint of that this year as Sarah has been so interested in counting her candy and playing with it when Nathan naps (I figured she would end up eating some pieces unless I watched her closely but, no, she just loved sorting and organizing her candy. She really did just want to play with it! Coincidentally, this was something I loved to do with my candy... when I was younger). The kids get a couple of pieces of candy a day and are excited about choosing and often sharing with one another. One thing that was crazy was how warm it was... it had to be in the 60's, which was a really nice break from the usually really cold weather this time of year. We didn't have a Halloween Party like last year, but maybe we'll do that again in the future. Mary and I didn't do anything to dress up this year, no surprise there... I love how the kids enjoy it but I don't really want to dress up, though I would if I had a good costume. Anyway, below is what you really came here to see.

Sarah and Nathan before we headed off to the Trunk or Treat.
Sarah was really excited about counting her candy before she went to bad that night and was pretty pleased with her results.

Jane's 1st Solids and a Little Update

Last Friday night Jane had her first taste of "solid" food (besides the occasional miniscule stuff I hook her up with). Why do they call this kind of food "solids" - the stuff is mush at best. They should call it the first food that isn't out of a bottle or a breast. Anyway, it was homemade rice cereal and she seemed to really like it. I love it how their tongue, mouth, and whole body communicates that they want a bite... it's pretty hilarious!


She's over 5 months old now and rolling as a means of travel. She smiles readily and adorably but she's not a huge laugher. She's on more of a sleeping schedule and sleeping in her crib in the room that she shares with Sarah (which Sarah really likes) and she's getting up once per night. Things always change though and that is just how she's been for the last week or so. I'm sure it'll be different soon. She's talking/cooing a lot more and really enjoys being around Sarah and Nathan when they're playing. Nathan is being more attentive to her and actually noticing her existence in a positive way, though he's soon going to find out how interested she is going to be in anything he has once she starts cruising around more. That'll be interesting. There have already been a few instances when Jane has made her way over to Nathan's cars or train track and we hear "Stop it, stop it, STOP IT" from the other room - ahhh good times.

Jane is also very enamored by movies! If she's nursing or doing anything else, if she hears a movie or show on she diverts her attention to the TV or Computer. I promise that we don't set her up in front of the TV in the Bumbo, we just did it cause it makes a cute picture.

Visit from the Stimmel's

So, as I mentioned previously, the Stimmel's dropped by for a brief visit on their way back to Portland from SLC. Taylor has been my best friend since early in my childhood and his family now lives right in front of my parents and they share a driveway. It was a quickly planned visit, but it was so much fun! They got here around 8 pm on Tues and left the next morning aroun 11 am. We let Nathan and Sarah stay up later and play with them and then we didn't send Sarah to school the next day and I went into work late. The kids had so much fun together and you wouldn't know that they've hardly ever played with each other. Taylor and Leah just moved back to the mainland after Taylor finished his Bachelor's at BYU-Hawaii. He started Chiropractic school the day after they got back to Portland. Anyway, we got our kids down around 10 and then we stayed up until 2 AM. I haven't stayed up that long in a while and the time just flew and Mary and I loved all of our great conversations and the personal meaning they held for each of us. It was a therapeutic conversation for me. I wish they could've stayed here longer, but we certainly made the most out of the time we had with them! We hope to find more reasons to be able to meet up with them in the future... but at least Leah blogs a lot!

Here is a pic of the Stimmel's. Such a cute little family and their kids are adorable!
Jane and Paysen really enjoyed looking and making noises at each other. They're only a few weeks apart. Paysen has an adorable little laugh!
Growing up, I would almost always sleep over at Taylor's house and Taylor's wonderful Mom would almost always make us French Toast in the morning for breakfast. It was heaven. When we were able to make it work for them to visit us and when I found out they'd be here for breakfast, I had to make French Toast for Taylor and his family. I really enjoyed that!

Here is a picture of Adi, Sarah and Nathan. Adi loved wearing Sarah's robe and they had a lot of fun together. Sarah, and the rest of us, were very sad to see them go! I know that they took more pics so look for them (soon?) on Leah's blog.

Kiddos Pics

So here are just some random pics of our cute kids. Sarah and Nathan play very well together, generally, and Nathan copies just about anything that Sarah says in her "excited" voice. Sarah adores Jane and Nathan is beginning to clue into the fact that he has a little sister and is starting to show her more attention. Sarah loves to show Jane attention and to hold her, which is great, though her interest in this seems to increase particularly when it's time to go to bed, or clean up, naturally. Jane rolls over all the time and seems to enjoy spending time on her tummy when there's people to watch around her. When she's fed and well-rested, it's adorable to watch her on her tummy with her head high tracking Sarah and Nathan as they play around her. She's also starting to reach out to things and twist around on her tummy. Here are some pics:

Sarah loves to hold Jane this way and Jane generally likes it as well. Sarah doesn't like to do this when Jane spits up or slobbers. They're pretty cute to watch like this, especially if Jane's happy.

Sarah absolutely loves to color and draw. Here she is teaching Jane the ropes. And anything that Sarah does, Nathan likes to mimic!

Sarah goes to school now everyday, which has been an adjustment for Nathan. He looks pretty bored in this picture looking at a book by himself, but he's actually adjusted quite well. Mary says that often this is her most productive time of the day as Nathan is frequently very willing to play quietly by himself while Sarah is gone (we love that about both Sarah and Nathan). This isn't always the case of course, but it's great when it happens. He's always very excited to pick up Sarah though when it's time.