I love JAY!

 
My little boy is getting so BIG! He is walking more and more—his longest stretch so far is at least 12 steps without falling! He will turn one year old this week.

Here’s what Jay has been up to:

 
Jay helps me make bread. He always wants to be around the action!

 
When Jay refuses to let me feed him oatmeal, I scoop it out in nasty cold coagulated balls, and he feeds himself. Maybe Quaker should market oatmeal balls!

Jay is really IN to  exploring new places. I am always surprised at what I find when I hear his distress calls:
I still don’t know how he managed this one

 
Crash!

Thunk!

 
Last week I officially (and finally) weaned Jay 100%!! (I dropped one daily feeding each week over 3 wks)  He’s finally starting to like moo moo milk (with a drop of Hershey’s in it…), and thankfully doesn’t seem to miss nursing. After 355 days, I am finally FREEEEEE!!! (still working on actually FEELING free, if you know what I mean…)

 
He eats 3 big meals per day, and no snacks (lucky me). He likes to cram as much in his mouth as he can. Chipmunk boy!
[To give you an idea: Breakfast= banana, milk, and oatmeal or toast; Lunch= 1 whole PBJ, 1/4 apple, milk, and cottage cheese; Dinner= milk, and whatever we’re having (e.g. tonight he had a whole chicken quesadilla!]


This week we figured that Jay is close enough to 20lbs for us to turn his car seat around to face the FRONT. It’s SO nice to be able to SEE him. Sleeping babies are so funny! Every time I tried to take away the cup, Jay woke up and started crying—it took me a few tries to finally sneak it away. 

 
Scared face! Jay is TERRIFIED of blenders, electric mixers, my mini food chopper, my hair dryer, and sometimes the vacuum. For some reason, he’s not scared of the Kitchen Aid mixer. It must not be quite as noisy?

Here’s what Jay does when I turn on a noisy appliance:

MAN, I LOVE THIS LITTLE GUY

don’t you?

Balloonsday!

This weekend in Walla Walla, there was the annual “Balloon Stampede,” which means they launch a ton of hot air balloons each morning. I only ever saw 2 balloons, sadly. But I did get to run in the Balloonsday 5k road race on Saturday morning! I’m always saying how the weather here is “always perfect.” Well, it was cold  and cloudy and drizzly on Saturday morning for the run. Fine by me! I wore my tank top anyways, and chuckled to myself when everyone else started peeling off their jackets during the first mile. [of course by noon, we were back to our normal perfect sunny blue skies].

I couldn’t believe how many people ran with ipods! Personally I run a road race for the atmosphere, so shutting it all out with earbuds seems pointless to me. Every time I came up behind an ipodder, I had the mad temptation to tickle them! It would’ve been so FUNNY! Don’t worry, I resisted. There were over 300 people in the race! Jeff and Jay were my fan-and-foto club, so that’s why we have pictures.

The START. Can you find Shaina? Hint: I’m wearing a headband to the left of Chuck Norris, right in the middle of the picture. I was wedged behind some slo-o-ow walkers when the race started. grr.

It’s so easy to smile at the beginning of a race!

Me finishing—waaay up there to the left of the cones. Yep I beat the hard core double duty stroller man.

You’ll only care about this if you’re a runner: I managed to hurl myself through the 3.1 miles in 21:21—just a hair under a 7 minute mile pace. Jeff counted the finishers and I was the 4th female to cross the line! I was pretty happy since the reason I didn’t run this same road race last year was because I was 8 1/2 months pregnant! Even though my body is a different shape than it used to be, it’s good to be in some kind of shape!

Woman vs. Wild

Hello. My name is Shaina White and I am going to show YOU how to survive in the outdoors if you ever lock your keys in your apartment. I will be parachuting into the middle of residential College Place, WA to give you an accurate example.

Now, the first thing you’ll want to do is build yourself some sort of shelter. In this part of Washington, we are lucky to have a few trees, which make a suitable location for a lean-to. 

After you’ve chosen your tree, clear a small area and gather plenty of sticks. Poke 2 sticks into the ground and lay a stick across them to make the lean-to framework. Lay sticks all over the place to keep out the wind. Then, gather bark chunks for the roof.

Good. Even though rain is not too big a problem in southeastern Washington, it is springtime so you’ll want to be prepared just in case. I recommend some makeshift thatching to finish off your roof:

Now that you have your shelter finished, you may want to plant a garden because you never know how long it will take your husband to get home from school with the second apartment key. (In residential areas, there is not sufficient wild animal and plant life alone to support your diet).

For the garden, clear a small area and build a fence by sticking spare wood into the ground. This fence will keep out pesky critters that may want to eat your veggies. Better yet, the fence my tempt said critters to try and find a way in to your garden, and then you can eat the critters along with your fresh veggies. Don’t forget to plant your seeds!

Well done! Now, a few finishing touches and you’ll be ready to wait out the afternoon in comfort and style:
 
A simple flower adds such a cheery air to a rustic lean-to.

Hurricane Jay: unfortunately, there are some natural forces that even a seasoned outdoorswoman like myself cannot avoid:

note: While the situation depicted above did really happen, we only had to wait about half an hour out in the yard.

Sneaky Mommy

Who would have known that just a  few little pieces of tape could make my life SO much easier?? (for now)

I love the view out our big front window! I love fiery sunsets! (and I also think that little house across the street is pretty cute)

Feel the fire!

This week I spent a lot of time in the kitchen—I love trying to cook new things, especially when the actually turn out yummy! My successes include: egg rolls from  and pitas (both from 100% scratch). Failures: fried rice that was supposed to go with the egg rolls (it was bland), and the Greek salad that was supposed to go with the pitas (it was just yucky). At least we had ONE edible thing each night!

Proof of yummy egg rolls (there’s some in Jay’s mouth and on his head). I combined 3 recipes from allrecipes.com to make these goodies—the wrappers took the longest to make. I did NOT deep fry the egg rolls. I just baked them. Way healthier. I also made the sweet and sour dipping sauce for them. mmmm

I didn’t get a picture of the pitas because I was too hungry to remember photography by the time they came out of the oven—but they looked flat and round like most pitas.

I started reading Anne of Green Gables once again this week (it’s one of my faves—another one I enjoy reading in springtime). In Chapter 2 alone, there are enough awesome one-liners to fill a quote book. Some of my favorites are:

“Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel good to be alive—it’s such an interesting world.”

“If you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, don’t you?”

and:
“You’d find it easier to be bad than good if you had red hair.”

One step at a time

When Jeff got home from student teaching this afternoon, he was playing with Jay when Jay decided to go bipedal on us!!! As you can see, he only can do a few steps at a time, but it was such a random surprise! He has been standing alone a lot lately, and he must have been thinking about walking all day today because when he lost his balance, he'd take one step to catch himself before sitting down. So by the time Daddy got home, it was time for some serious showing off! You can't tell in the video, but Jay has some major bruises all over his poor head! He must have bonked his head ten times today!! He'll probably be running around just in time for church on Sunday...

Our new vehicle

Drumroll….. we have a new set of wheels! When we visited Jeff’s parents last weekend, they showed us this little beauty at a local garage sale. It was only $40!  We couldn’t pass up such a deal.

Since Jeff drives our car to the high school every day, I usually just take the stroller out when I need to get things done (our stores are only 1-2 miles away and it’s pretty much always nice here). Today I took the baby buggy bike trailer one mile down the road to the grocery store. Let me just say—it has been a few years since I rode a bike. OW. Our bike seat is like sitting on the blade of a knife!

College Place is quite a flat little town, but the smallest inclines felt like mountains while I was straining to pull my nearly-20lb boy along behind me—and then I added another couple pounds of groceries to the load. If I was a handcart pioneer, I’d definitely PUSH rather than PULL! Phew! My t-shirt was damp and my legs were all trembly when I got home. I decided that while a lot of the problem was the old stiff bike I was riding, the main problem is I am just a wimpy biker!

Well, I am glad that we have a bike trailer but I think I’ll need a better bike (or at least a softer seat) before I attempt to use it again. I have always thought it would be so efficient to be able to tow children and goods behind a bike. I just never realized how grueling it would be. Once again, a Shaina-ideal met reality and it turned out HARD!

Spring is here

I love spring! The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous! It is so easy to run when it’s perfect outside every day, even when you have to push a zillion pound stroller. Springtime is so inspiring—I love to read The Secret Garden at this time of year, because it makes me feel “springy.” If that doesn’t make sense, then maybe you should read it too! Then you’ll understand.

We had a hot dog s’mores roast with some friends at Rooks Park, where there is this cool bridge over the river. Jay loved walking around the park in his basket.

oooooooo!

Jay and I went to the park with some friends, including his “girl friend” Alexandra (they’re only 1 week apart in age, and they always poke each other at church—must be love). Even Jay’s charming-ness couldn’t get her to relinquish her juice box, though!

Jay loves to swing. He would probably swing all day if I’d push him that long. Can you feel the joy?

  Babies are so much fun to take pictures of in swings!

He looks guilty for some reason…

And this is the view out our front door—so green and happy and SPRINGY!  The other day Jay and I just went out and sat in the grass under a tree to enjoy the pretty day. Springtime makes me happy!

Buzzzzzzzz

After weeks of debating whether to cut Jay’s hair or not, we finally did it last night!!! I coerced Jeff into getting out the clippers. Jay was interested in them until they started buzzing on his soft little scalp. Then he started yelling. Jeff only got a couple of good swipes in between Jay’s squirming, but there are only a few uneven spots. Now Jay is Mr. Peach Fuzz! His little head sparkles.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Recovering from the trauma

And now for one of Jay’s new hobbies… I’m not sure I like this one

The Spring Break MegaPost

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS NO LESS THAN 22 PICTURES, plus captions. If a picture says a thousand words, then this is the Victor Hugo version of the Brown family spring break. I hope you can finish looking at this post before next week's update!

This week, Jay and I left Jeff at home and drove the 4 1/2 hours to visit my family. My sister Em and her 2 boys flew in from Missouri, so the only person missing was Brad, (who is almost done serving a mission in Portugal). We did all of the things that we love to do when we get together: we ate tons (and I mean tons) of delicious food, did crafts, went shopping, played with babies, watched General Conference, took a million cute pictures, and played games. And Dad and I went on a 90 minute trail run in the mountains. (I added that one separately because that's something that ONLY Dad and I call fun). Thanks for all the good times, family!

And now, on to the one million pictures: (I only posted about 1/8th of the pictures we took...)

Jay and I met baby Dan for the first time. (Dan is almost 5 months old) Jay liked poking and grabbing Dan because he didn't poke or grab back. Steve (2 yrs old) on the other hand, was much bigger and stronger than Jay, and I think Jay was jealous! Jay got this worried upset look on his face whenever Steve got too close, and they had a few tussles over toys.

The Seattle area had some crazy weather this spring break: sunshine, rain, hail, snow, and fog!

We made the cousins matching PJ pants! (Dan had some too, but he was asleep for the picture)

These poor little boys had to sit through far too many photo shoots. An airplane was passing overhead for this one

I wish I had a video of the CRAZY things we were doing to keep their attention and coax some smiles!

mmmm we made and decorated Easter cookies!

no cookie shall go naked...

...but these 3 cute boys did!

We gave them a bath in the morning, and Jay has his rosy "I like to scrub my face in my blankets all night" face. Jay kept floating into Steve. It was hilarious, because Jay didn't necessarily want to be quite that close

I got to babysit Dan, and I think he likes me.

The men watching the Final Four. Poor Butler.

WE WALKED TO THE PARK:

Mom (aka Grama Meri) and I took Jay and Steve to the park one sunny morning.

My mom climbed all over the playground to protect Jay from his own curiosity, and she walked at Steve's inchworm pace up the HUGE hill on the way home. (I walked Jay up in the stroller and then went back for Steve, and they were almost halfway up the hill!)

What a sweet Grandma

WE WENT TO THE PARK AGAIN:

Kyle (my brother) gave Steve rides on his skateboard

I was as long as the slide

I have been wanting to ride a skateboard with my jogging stroller for so long, and Kyle let me try it out with his skateboard. Steve volunteered to be my copilot. I was pretty wobbly for most of the time, but Kyle gave me a few tips and I managed to do a few scoots without tripping or stumbling! It was hard! I think I prefer my razor scooter.

Jay's favorite park activity. If he could talk, he'd say "push me higher!!!" I think that's what his kicks and giggles and squeals mean while he's swinging.

Steve prefers to swing with his auntie.

The g-parentals with their posterity

I love my sisters!