Labor Day Weekend: an ode to Steph

Thursday, September 3rd, we packed up our trusty, rather dusty little Honda Civic and drove the 9 hours to Salt Lake City, Utah. Jay slept most of the way. Jeff's sister Steph kindly let us stay at her apartment. When we asked her if we could visit, we merely requested 2 1/2 pieces of her floor-- one for me, one for Jeff, and half for Jay. When we got there, Steph gave us HER OWN BED and slept on the floor herself! Of course, Jay chose this weekend to sprout his first 2 teeth. A teething baby after a long day in the car made sleeping before 1am rather difficult on Thursday night. Jay yelled nonstop for a few hours after we arrived! Steph was a very patient host. Not only was she patient with her wailing nephew, she also made us yummy breakfasts, took us out to eat, and hiked lots of trails with us. THANK YOU STEPH!

Our first hike--Jay LOVED it!

Grandma Kay (Jay's great-grandma) went out to lunch with us. We helped her get started on Facebook, and she needed a profile picture-- so we took one!

Steph took us to Frogurt for some yummy frozen yogurt. mmmmm!

Saturday night was Laurs and Chris Snow's wedding open house. It was SO good to see my best friend so HAPPY and married! It was also fun to see a few good ole SVU friends who were there.

Buddies: Liz, me, Midge, and Laurs

Goofy old roomies

Right before my triumphant Blokus victory

Our little family hiking at Brighton-- talk about lack of oxygen!

Lovely aspens along the trail

It was chilly on our hike-- Jay's little nose got cold and his cheeks got rosy!

On Labor Day, Steph, Jeff, and Justin (Steph's man friend) hiked Mt. Olympus. Jay and I stayed behind because, as you can see, the terrain was too treacherous for a baby.

I slipped in the shower and bruised my shin!

On our drive home, we stopped a few times to let Jay exercise. Look at that strong neck! We put his changing pad on the back of the car. Don't worry, we stood right next to him so he didn't fall off!

Teething bites!

Kick, Bounce, Yell, Wail, Roll, Barf, Smile, Repeat

Jay is 3 months old!!!! What he's been up to lately:

1. He loves kicking and bouncing in his bouncy chair

2. Growing lung capacity: recently he has started yelling just to make noise

3. He has been having major cranky crying spurts-- probably because he does not like to nap for longer than 30 minutes at a time, so he gets pretty exhausted and wails. The only sure-fire way to calm him if NOTHING else works is we put him in his car seat and either rock it on the floor or put it on the stroller and go for a walk.

4. Sometimes I think he may know his name. He often looks over when we say Jay. When he's crying and I say Joseph instead of Jay, he sometimes pauses-- like he knows when he hears his full name I mean BUSINESS

5. Alisha Hillam wrote on her blog that she's still wondering why Heavenly Father thinks she's mature enough to have kids (that cracked me up)... wellllll maybe kids are more fun when you're immature. Example: Jeff and I STILL can't help laughing whenever Jay does his noisy bubbly toots!! Lately he has been producing some seriously stinky stenches! (It's rather hard to be reverent in church when there's a little motor-butt sitting on your lap...)

6. All week Jay has been rolling from side to side and wriggling all OVER the place. Last night, he finally accomplished his goal: he rolled over onto his tummy! His victory was marred by the fact that right when he landed on his stomach, he did an icky chunky barf, and then did a face plant right into the barf...

Mr. Happy Pants. I think he looks like Baby Shaina in this picture (although I sincerely hope I never wore red...)

Sometimes when he's ultra tired and fussy, he falls asleep mid-writhe

Church was exhausting, and Jay didn't even have to sit through singing time in Primary with me while they sang "I am a Builder" and "The Family is of God" OVER and OVER. Talk about complex, high songs-- I still don't quite know the words after all that...

Jay's first roll: yes, that sharp wall corner was making me nervous, so I couldn't take the time to check if the picture was in focus. And it turned out blurry.

This one is blurry because I was in a hurry again-- I felt bad for taking a picture of the nasty barf Jay face planted in when he rolled over, instead of cleaning it off right away

Here's a sad boy wearing an appropriate shirt (courtesy of the "Hong Kong Hillams")

Lake-cation: Brown Style!

McCall, Idaho, Payette Lake: August 15-21. My Dad rented a little cabin on the lake, and all of his kids, kids-in-law, and grandkids convened there for a classic Brown-style lake vacation. The lake vacation is a family tradition that we have not kept for the past few years, so it was GREAT to get together at a lake again! What do we do? We rent a boat and go water skiing and tubing. We go swimming. We eat lots of snacks. We play Abstracts. We hang out and have fun family bonding time! And we have milkshakes. Thanks to Dad for a great family vacation!

The lake-front cabin we rented--just barely enough space for the 10 people staying there (Kyle and Mel had couches for beds). McCall was only a 5 hour drive for Jeff, Jay, and I-- we were the closest. Em, Jesse, and Steve flew in to Boise from Missouri and drove 2 hrs to get there, and Mom, Dad, Kyle, and Mel drove 9 hrs from Seattle. We lucked out with the travel-time!

Jay met Steve, his one and only cousin (until Em has baby#2 in November). They are going to be best friends!

Me and Kyle in the boat-- Kyle is borrowing Dad's famous Captain's hat. In past lake-cations, Dad and his buddy Ron always wore the captain hats while driving the boat

My sister Mel with her two nephews-- she's a great aunt to Jay and Steve. I think she was the only one who could wear Steve out.

Steve and Jay, who he called "baby" the whole time. Steve was always so concerned about where everyone was: when he noticed that someone was not in the same room as him, he would ask about them: Papa? (Grampa or sometimes Grama) Baby? Ssaina? (me), Jets? (Jeff), KyKy? Mommy? Daddy? Mel-Mel?

The three-tube ride-- in this picture, Kyle had just climbed OVER Jeff (in the middle) from Mel's tube to join Jesse on the right.

Dad tried standing up on his tube once. We hit a bump and he fell... the bump also unfortuately caused me to jerk the camera, but I still love this picture!

Mel and me-- for the record, I am a big scaredy cat when it comes to high speeds and cold water, Therefore, most of my facial expressions look very worried. Mel had to ride with the boys so she could go faster. As a side note, nursing mothers were definitely not meant to wear life jackets and got bouncing around on tubes...

My favorite part about tubing-- when it's over! It was cold when we arrived (hence the wetsuit), but as the week progressed, it warmed up nicely so that chilly lake felt great.

This is my kind of tubing: relaxing and floating around

Mom and I enjoyed 2 hikes together, and Jay came on one with us... I had a sweaty baby-print on my front after that hike! I also got to run with my Dad for the first time in over a year! We love running together. It was tough breathing at 5,000ft altitude, so the 2 hikes were a lot more enjoyable than the 2 runs.

Dad, the master of the single ski--I don't think he ever even uses 2 skis any more! He likes to sing while he is skiing. Usually it's Disney's "The Bear Necessities"...I love my Dad!

Mel went skiing for the first time and she got up on her second try!! Go Mel! She surpassed my limited skiing skills very quickly, and she looked like an old pro by the end of the week. wahooo!

Here I am. Skiing. I think I never wiped out thanks to pure fear of falling onto that hard water.

Kyle and his sweet skiing skills-- the one-handed water-touch. He skied (skiied? skeed? bah.) even with a sprained ankle!

...and Kyle gets the gold star for the best wipe-out of the week. We told him to jump the wake when he got bored, so here he is getting some major air...right before a face plant

And Jesse (brother-in-law) was the only wakeboarder. Quite impressive.

After experiencing a whalloping water-wedgie on his first-ever water skiing attempt, Jeff did just one more ski on the last day. He got up, skied for 10 seconds, and let go. He met his goal and skipped another wedge.

Mel, me, Jesse, and Steve all tubing. I loved tubing with Steve because that guaranteed a VERY slow, relaxing speed.

There was a hot tub that felt SO good on our cold, lake-battered bodies... we kind of overflowed it here

For those of you who are on my parents' Christmas card list, sorry to spoil the surprise... I think this is the picture they will be sending out. This is my dear family. I love them all SO much!!! Thanks for an awesome week, guys!

La Palouse de Washington

On our drive home from Spokane, we went south through Washington's Palouse region. This state is so surprising with its wide variety of landscapes! The center of the state can be pretty depressing with its brown sagebrushy hills. However, the far west side is mossy and mountainous, and the far east side has golden grain and rolling hills. Even though the drive from Spokane to Walla Walla took forEVER (thanks to a baby-feeding stop and the small 55mph roads), it was very pretty!

Lovely golden fields of wheat! I would say I'm getting pretty good at taking pictures from the car window while we're driving, but anything that turns out is more luck than skill. (don't worry, Jeff was driving and I was photo-ing)

another from-the-car-picture

When we stopped to feed Jay (at a tiny rest stop an outhouse without running water) , Jeff took the camera and got impressively artistic with its color settings:

old house

he took horse pictures for his horse-loving wife

Jeff's favorite

so...agricultural!

Generations

Jay met two more family members yesterday! We went to Spokane to visit Jeff's Grandpa Argyle. Jeff's brother Sam was also in town, so it was one jolly family reunion! It was a gorgeous day, so after lunch we sat on Grandpa Argyle's porch to chat and admire his lovely landscaping and gardening.

Uncle Sam had fun figuring out how to hold little Jay...

...until Jay gushed baby barf all over him. Sam said it was one of the grossest things that has ever happened to him. If that's the case, he's pretty lucky!

4 Generations of Argyles: Jeffrey Argyle White, his mom Leslie, Jay (aka Joseph Argyle White, wearing his special Argyle socks), and Grandpa Argyle (Leslie's dad). I don't know why we didn't change Jay's shirt before this picture!

After we got Jay all cleaned up and changed and fed, he was such a happy camper!

...the men in the family I married in to...

What's that noise?

Whenever Jay hears something strange, new, loud, etc, his eyes get huge and round. I was goofing around with him the other day, and it was cracking me up!

Picture-a-holic

I enjoy taking pictures of things that make me happy... Jay makes me super happy, so I take a TON of pictures of him! How did mothers survive before the digital camera?

We love our boy!

I finally got another smiley picture!

Seriously, Mom, are you still taking pictures?

He loves looking out the window

getting chubbier!

SHOT

Yesterday, Jay had his 2 month doctor check-up, complete with 3 shots! It felt like I was getting shot in the heart while I watched the nurse stick him 3 times. Each time he felt a new needle stab him, his eyes got HUGE and he wailed so sadly, I was almost crying with him. He's never cried that way before. booooo hooooo. Luckily he cheered up pretty quickly, and I only had to give him Tylenol once. Now for the good part of the visit: Jay weighs 12 lbs 6 oz, and he's 23 inches long. We looked it up and he's right in the middle percentile-- what a nice normal baby! Normal is a blessing!

Don't worry-- I didn't take a picture of him during his shots. This is when we got home. He must have had a flashback to the doctor visit...

Suspicious

Jeff has started reading stories to Jay