"Gookey, bus, go!"

This is repeated every morning from a tearful Jonah watching at the window as Lucas runs to the bus stop. Our big kid started the 5th grade this last week and loves it so far. He has a fabulous teacher, the teacher he wanted, plus his best friends in the class. It's already starting out a hundred times better than the 4th grade. They started an art study of Jackson Pollack so we've been serenaded every night at dinner with oh-so-interesting facts about the artist's life and interests. Did you know his real name is Paul but went by his middle name Jackson? And that he was killed in a car crash when he was just 44? Of course Luke has already come home splattered in paint from numerous creative sessions.


Also, in the 5th grade they invite the students to join band or orchestra. Lucas was all gung-ho. First wanted to learn the drums but they don't offer that through the school, then wanted to play saxophone but they won't let you start that until 6th grade and then wanted to play the trumpet, but EVERYONE wants to play the trumpet. So he "might settle with the trombone or something." He's already taking piano so I don't know if we'll actually venture into trombone territory. His piano teacher also plays the drums in a band so we thought we'd talk to her about maybe a few lessons tacked onto his piano. We'll see. Life these days is all about choices. Lucas decided not to play soccer this season and has decided to run with Aaron instead, much to the joy of his track/cross country star father. They run twice a week together and hopefully we can find a youth track team this next spring. Aaron is also giving him Spanish lessons. 10 minutes after dinner every night. Que bueno.


Lucas is smart, funny, kind and thoughtful. He is a crazy, wacky 10 year old boy who shows surprising maturity when called for and a love of life. He sat down next to me last night and marveled at how lucky he was. "I am 10 year old boy, so blessed to live where I live, to be healthy, to have the Gospel, to have my wonderful family. What more could I ask for?!"


I agree. What more could I ask for?

Labor Day Picnic in Seattle

After a c.r.a.z.y. busy week of baby showers, work parties, neighborhood bbq's, start of school, 2 PTA activities, Mariner's game, dinner with the missionaries, a sick Jonah and just life, we decided to have a quiet Labor Day to ourselves. I should have guessed just how "to ourselves" we would be for our Labor Day Picnic in Seattle.




Of course it was raining here in Seattle, so we had the whole park just about to ourselves except for another crazy family racing remote cars. We walked the trails, explored Lucas' favorite place in the forest and got really wet.

Personally, I am not ready for The Rain. We got gypped (That's how you spell it. I looked it up.)out of sun this summer and I didn't get my vitamin D quota for the year. I am gearing up for some raging seasonal affective disorder this winter. I'm already counting down the days until our sunny Thanksgiving extravaganza in Arizona.

Love this little family.

Great Expectations

Sometimes things in life don't turn out quite as magical as you had hoped...

Kitty Pee

Jonah, Jonah, Jonah. Our sweet, happy, cuddly Jonah. I cannot get enough of him these days. He is starting one of my most favorite stages. The stage where life is just always fun and new, they love without thought, are curious about EVERYTHING and busy, busy , busy.

One thing I love about this age is that his vocabulary is exploding. His favorite place is "side," or outside. And he would live out there rain or shine if we let him. He yells, "Guys! Guys!" as he trails after Lucas and his friends wielding his own too-big sword. Luckily Lucas is pretty good to let him play. Except when he is in his room and all Jonah wants to do is eat Legos.

Jonah will parrot almost anything you asl him. Aaron had him "say" the prayer yesterday. Granted, he only got about half the words right but you could tell what he was trying to repeat from Aaron. So cute. Especially with the fold arms and bowed head.

His talking is not always endearing since one of his new favorite phrases is "I wan' it!" And I hear it all. day. long. It is usually accompanied by a whine and a grimace, normally when I am taking away markers or light bulbs or knives he sneaks out of the dishwasher with ninja-like reflexes. I'm serious, that kid has skills. Other personal favorites are "No, mine!" and the innocent "Wha' happy?" (translation: 'What happened?") right after he spills the dog water all over himself or rips the pop-ups out of a book.

But I think my ultimate favorite is this one. And I'll give a dollar to who ever can correctly decipher this phrase I have been hearing 20 times a day all week.

"Kitty pee!"

Any guesses?

Well, I'll tell you...


Kitty pee = Candy please!


It starts off cute enough, sweet and meek with his chubby, little hand turned out so cute. But it quickly escalates to demanding proportions. He knows where we keep our candy stash so he pushes the chair up to the counter and climbs on up and yells "Kitty pee!" until someone gives in or we pull him down in screams. I have a video of his chair stunt but not the candy-yelling.

Jonah boating on Lake Cavenaugh. More on that to come.

Jonah with his 9 month old cousin Pax, who could eat him under the table any day, and twice on Sunday.

PS Email me if you deciphered the code of "Kitty pee" and yes, I will honor your dollar.

asdf...jkl;

We got another bug. But this time it's some virus that turned off the "asdf...jkl;" keys on our laptop. What's up with that? Can you write a post or do anything without such keys? I quickly discovered no. I keep turning the laptop off and then back on to see if it will magically fix itself, but alas, no such luck. The frustrating thing about it, at least to me, is that I keep all our pictures on the laptop and have a system of how and where to store them so I can post them easily. We have a new laptop coming and now I have to learn something new and I'm old and I don't like change. Dang it.

Anyway, picking up from the last post, I am all better and feeling good. Lucas has been off at cub scout day camp this week and, though it's been super fun, he is ready for it to be over. Can you be burned out with too much fun? He was gone for 3 weeks in July doing amazingly fun things like animation camp with his cousin Jack, camping in Bend where all the kids followed him around like the pied piper plus hiking, golfing and movies with his grandparents in Spokane. Over all, a pretty great summer so far.

And August will be just as full. I went a little camp-happy this year and signed him up for 2 more camps this month. Mainly because his best friend, Kyle was signing up for them but now I think Lucas is feeling burned out and just wants to be home. I can understand that, I like to be home too. And I am wanting a little down time with my Lucas, slurping popsicles (like only Lucas can slurp them) on our back porch and riding bikes around the neighborhood. We may just have to cancel some fun so he can spend some time with his mama.

Now, a post is no post unless it has pictures. At least my writing doesn't stand alone. So, since our recent pictures are trapped in the bowels of our "asdf...jkl;" disadvantaged computer, I picked out super-random-but-some-of-my-favorite pics of Lukey. Or Gookey, as he's referred to lately.


Now, how could not just love that little face on his first day of kindergarten!?

Or lazily "swimming" with his daddy...

Contemplating his future....

Cuddling with his great-grandmother, Judy "Honey, it's gotta DO something!" Fish...

And how he spent his entire early childhood...in costume and fighting the bad guys.

I know. How random.

Love, love, love this kid.

Flattened.

I have not been this sick in a L.O.N.G. time. We were in Portland all last week to visit with my sister's family and to have Lucas attend animation camp with his cousin Jack. So fun!

But come Thursday I came down with a combination of a stomach bug that was going around and a flu that left me in a fever-driven comatose state for almost 3 days. My throat swelled up to where it killed to even think about swallowing and my entire body ached. I mean my ears hurt. My toes hurt. Every joint in my body ached. I spent about 4 hours of Friday awake. The rest was spent in a drug-induced sleep that just left me more achy and more tired. I won't even mention the puking. Aaron and my sister Genet took care of everything. That's when you know you've married a good man, one who still loves you and tells you you're beautiful even when you haven't bathed for 3 days and your sweaty hair is plastered to your forehead. He then completely packs everything up to go home (which is quite a feat since we've spread ourselves out throughout the house), cleans the basement, changes the sheets and gets everything packed in the car. He's changed every one of Jonah's poopy diapers and changed him when he decided to go back in the baby pool, fully clothed, right as we are walking out the door. Aah, that man takes good care of me.

The saddest part about it was not being able to see our niece Camille on Friday or Saturday. She is up from Texas and we haven't seen her in years. (Sorry, Camille!) I am hoping to figure out a way to see her when I go back down to pick Lucas up from Portland.

We some how made it home on Saturday, I stayed in bed all day Sunday and I am just venturing out of my room for the first time this morning. I feel better than I have in days, but it's 9am and I am ready for a nap. The laundry and the get-the-house-back-in-order-post-vacation is just going to have to wait one more day. This rainy Monday weather is quite conducive to just hunkering down and convalescing with movies and herbal tea. And I think that is exactly what I am going to do...after my nap.

We have a mouse in the house

Luckily he left a trail of chewed-up apple skins straight to his hide out. I easily "took care of him."



I tickled him until he got the hiccups.

Little Mr. Independence

Jonah (aka JB, Jonut, Little B, Disaster) turned 18 months on June 30th. C.R.A.Z.Y.


I've been coming back to this post all week so I have a random collection of thoughts and things I love about this kid.

He is one that expresses his opinion and lets me know what he wants or doesn't want in the primitive form of screeching. For example, we tried to go for a walk the other day. He LOVES being outside and will spend hours playing in the backyard moving sticks and eating leaves. So I decided to have him walk himself around the block. Yet any time I go forward, he wants to go backward. Any time I want to turn a corner, he wants to turn the other way. He screeched when he wanted to hold the dog's leash. he screeched when the dog was too strong and didn't go where he wanted. He screeched when I tried to help him hold the leash so he wouldn't be dragged down the street. He screeched when the dog pulled him over and he landed flat on his face. He screeched again when I took the leash from him. I have to admit we only made it 200 yards before we turned around, both of us screeching and went home.

So yes, he has quite the independent streak in him. He has to feed himself, take the keys out to the car, walk the way he wants to go, close doors by himself, he would even push himself in the grocery cart if he could. There are times he screeches when I have my hands on the cart too, not quite putting it together I have to push in order for us to go.

Case in point, Lucas was riding bikes out front. Of course, Jonah wanted to ride too.


But then he still wasn't happy until Lucas completely let go of him so he could "ride" himself.


Unprompted, he started folding his arms during prayers and we get a resounding, "Yea!" whenever we finish.

Jonah is a climber and has perfected pushing the chair up to the counters or computer table, literally bringing his havoc to new heights.



Jonah loves babies, so I bought him a baby doll a few weeks ago. I know. Everyone has their different opinion about boys and dolls. Even the cashier at the store said, "Is this doll for you?! You're a boy. You don't play with dolls." Me, being me, I just smiled and thanked her for my receipt and then told her nicely to "Shut up." In my head. I don't care what anyone says, he loves his baby. He cuddles him, lays him down to go "night-night," and sings to him. He plays with his swords and balls lots more than his baby but I know he has a soft spot for him.

Jonah continues in his babbling. He says about 20 words including sounds effects to about 7-8 animals. My favorite being the lion because he always whispers the "roar." Why, I do not know.

Key to recent Jonah Speak
Pacifier: "choopie" (we call it chupe, Spanish)
Cock-a-doodle-doo: "Do-do-DOOO!"
Please: "Pea"
Pj's: "Peas"
Thank you: "Kankoo"
Anything he really likes: "Cool."
I want up on this couch: "Screech. Screech. Screech."

For months every time we asked him to say "Lucas," Jonah would respond "Doggie." Then after that, any time we asked him to say "Lucas" we would get just silence. Nothing. And then out of the blue he started saying "Gookey." And he sure loves his "Gookey." he wants to do everything his older brother does. Lucas is sitting on the floor, Jonah goes and sits on the floor. Lucas is reading a book, Jonah grabs his book and sits next to him.

Love this kid, even if he still prefers dog food to my cooking and keeps trying to change the password on my computer. We'll keep him.


Especially now that we've made it to Nursery!