Father-Son, Mother-Daughter

Friday night Jeff went on his first father-son campout as a FATHER! And Jay went camping for the first time! It sounds like they had fun, even if they did *ahem* eat McDonald’s for dinner.

THE SUPPLIES. Amazing how much stuff you need to spend the night outside!

We wanted to get a picture of Jay standing next to the PACK, but he wasn’t in the mood, so this is the best we could do. The big rig backpack was bigger and heavier than Jay by a LOT. This was the first time one of our big orange hiking backpacks was actually  used for camping—the last time we even used them was for our memorable 3 month journey around Europe, 3 years ago!

Now, the rest of this account is second-hand. I’m just repeating what Jeff told me.

THE DIRT: Jay played on this earthy mound most of the time.

THE SITE: Yakima, WA doesn’t exactly have a forest to camp in (sadly). This is the park where they camped.

THE TENT: That’s where they slept.

THE SLEEP: Apparently Jay took quite a while to wind down and actually fall asleep in such a new, exciting place as a tent. But exhaustion finally won out.

Now you’re probably wondering why Jay and Jeff ate McDonald’s for dinner instead of a smoky, fire-roasted meal. Well, the story goes that the communal fire took a very long time to get going (I still don’t know where they found wood in the non-forest of Yakima—maybe buffalo chips? or should I say, sage rat chips??). So, even though I helped pack a delicious hobo dinner for Jeff and hotdogs for Jay, the fire wasn’t ready for cookin’ till after 7pm. Hence the Mac-Doe. [side note: I love that nickname for McDonald’s—we heard it in France]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… Rose and I went to an informal girls’ campout. Except we didn’t do the camping part. Basically, Rose and I went to our friends’ house and hung out by a campfire for a couple of hours, talking and relaxing. We had heavenly homemade ice cream on top of hot Dutch oven peach cobbler. Plus smores. Luxurious camp-food. It was fun having a girls night OUT, and I even got to chase down a goat! (a goat escaped the pen at one point—I discovered that I may be slightly allergic to goat hair. itch. sneeze).

Then Rose and I came home to our quiet man-free house and went to bed. I slept right in the middle of our bed, all rolled up in our big puffy down bedspread. It was a little lonely, but at the same time it was kind of  nice to have the bed to myself for a night.

And there you have it—our first father-son/mother-daughter activities. Yay!

Hats

The sun is fierce here in central Washington. I guess that’s why the crops grow so well, but my fair little children need protection! Today we got HATS for the summer.

Rose was too hungry for picture time. Plus Jay doesn’t really like holding her, and I think she can tell.

I have a hat too! Ok, it’s just a visor. I got a few weeks ago to run in because running with the sun blazing around here gives me a headache. I like running with my visor and my “twig-tails.” No sun or wisps get in my eyes now! [Jeff doesn’t seem to want a visor or hat, so he doesn’t have a picture on here]

Rose’s big hat is technically a toddler hat, but it’s so CUTE and floppy, it makes me giggle every time I look at her! The bigger the hat, the better the sun-protection, right?
Side note: Rose has started admiring her hands. Can you tell?

Lounging on the front porch. We have a good porch.

As for Jay, he’s still trying to figure out this whole hat thing. He really likes taking his hat off and putting it on again. I hope to get him into the habit of wearing it whenever he goes outside so his little head doesn’t get fried.

It’s funny watching Jay put his hat on because he’s still learning how to do it…

…you get the idea.

We have HATS, and we aren’t afraid to use 'em!

Tidbits

1. I had whipped cream on my oatmeal this morning. Delicious.

2. Mother’s Day started off with the  glamorous acts of: scrubbing dried doggypoo off of Jay’s shoes with an old toothbrush (we don’t even have a dog), and changing 2 poopy Rose diapers during the first 20 minutes of church. It was one thing after another all day…

3. Mother’s Day was hard work this year! With Primary sharing time, a presidency meeting with a wailing Rose, an emotional no-nap Jay, cooking a big family dinner, cleaning up the huge heap of dishes left from the family dinner (don’t worry-- Husband helped), and more Rose-care, it wasn’t really MY day of peaceful relaxing bliss. I guess that’s how it is being a MOM—plenty of work to do, even on Sunday! But then I read a little note “from Jay” that Jeff transcribed…

…and it reminded me that all the hard work is worth it! That was my one Mother’s Day gift, and it was just perfect. Jeff wrote it out in Jay talk, but I know it was from him too, and it made me feel special. It’s a list of reasons that Jay loves his Mah-nee (as he calls me). It melts my heart when I read it.

4. I’m so thankful for MOMS and all the good, hard, often-unnoticed work that they do. My Mom is the best, and my kids will be lucky little duckies if I can even be half as awesome as she is!

5. Here’s Rose telling me Happy Mother’s Day in her own little way.

6. Saturday I went to the high school track to see how fast I could run a mile 3 months after having a baby. With lots of sweating and gasping for air, I ran one mile in less than 7 minutes—6:57! Whew. The post partum “fitness test” that I invented after Jay was born is: 1-mile, (w/7 minute recovery), 800 meters (w/4 minute recovery), and a 400. On Saturday I made it through this “test” ok, but two days later I’m still stiff and tired from it!

7. Here’s another Shaina-tidbit for you: It was a sunny day on Saturday, and our car was super warm inside. After I got a 4-lb package of bacon at Costco, I didn’t want to just leave it in the toasty car to go bad. So I did what any sensible person would do—I crammed that 4 pounds of bacon into my already-bulging diaper bag, and took it into Joann’s fabric store with me. I never thought I’d go fabric-shopping laden with a large pack of bacon!

8. And now for an exciting tidbit, I found this dress for only $13! Score. It actually fits and I can nurse discreetly in it thanks to the deep V-neck and my sweet nursing cami. Bring on the wedding reception, Brad and Dani!

tidbit #9: Rose and I did a little Shakespeare re-enactment the other day (except we used our fists instead of our thumbs)…

“Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
--I do bite my thumb, sir.
Do you bite your thumb at us, sir?
--No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.”

Summer Haircuts

This week, 3/4 of us got our hair cut in anticipation of the summer heat:

Jay was first. I re-buzzed his hair. It just looks lighter now, not too different. And he only squirmed and cried a little this time! His reward was a nice long bath. He had so much fun “swimming” and splashing in the tub that I had to mop the bathroom when he was done!

Jeff was the next to get rid of his hair. He buzzed it himself! I like his hair short.

Even though I just barely got my hair cut a month ago, I decided to go back and get it nice `n short for the summer. I may or may not have brought in a picture of Rapunzel’s hair cut at the end of the movie Tangled…

I was so nervous before the girl started cutting my long locks! But I survived. For the record, my hair has NEVER been this short since like kindergarten or something. Scary! I just hope I can figure out how to DO my “new hair!”

And as for Rose, well, all she has to do is get used to THIS view:

Pants Eat Baby

Like mother…(yes that’s me in the purple pants)…

…like daughter!  (yes that’s Rose)

Heh, heh, heh. Baby pants make me chuckle. I know they have roomier crotches for bulky diapers, but honestly. Does any diaper really need THAT much room?

Living the cushy life

Here are some reasons that our life is so “cushy:”

1. Soft blankets to lay soft baby on

2. A bouncy jumper to dangle in. [Even though Rose isn’t quite 3 months old, we got out the jumper this week…]

2a. Weeehaw!

2b. It’s still a little bit too big… this cracks me up because it looks like she’s drowning in giant panties!

3. My first “break” from feeding Rose—she had her first bottle this week! I did have to spend the time pumping the milk for the bottle, but Jeff fed it to her! I tried giving her a bottle, but she expects the fresh stuff from me so she wouldn’t take it. The next day while I was out running, Jeff worked his daddy magic and Rose drank her first bottle. [Rose is such a good little nurser that the only reason I want to get her to be ok with a bottle is so I can go on a date that lasts longer than 2 hours with my husband every now and then!]

4. Comfy chairs to relax and recover in. Check out those bruised, scraped up legs! Jay is such a BOY.

5. Sweet, loveable, cute little kids! It has been a few weeks since the last photo-shoot with my sweetfaces, so I tried and tried and tried to get a good one this week. I even used Jeff’s camera because it has a remote trigger so I could just click it any time. Well, it’s really hard to hold 2 kids and a remote and push the button on the remote AND keep the kids happy in the process. Plus it took me forever to figure out how to work Jeff’s fancy-schmancy camera. Bottom line: my favorite picture was blurry because I didn’t figure out how to turn on the flash till later. I did a little image sharpening and editing with my limited skills, so it’s a little bit better, but still. It was a lot of work.

5a. Here’s the best non-blurry one I could manage (notice the remote in one hand). Jay kept running away. And then I realized that Rose had pooped straight through all of her clothes as well as straight through all of MY clothes during the photo-session.

6. That reminds me of one of my favorite movie quotes: “Throw it in the wash, it’ll be grand!” With all the laundry we do around here, things are very GRAND.

7. In fact, I think everything I do is bordered by laundry on all sides: go running, do laundry, eat breakfast, fold laundry, sweep the floor, scrub stained baby clothes and do more laundry, read a book, rotate the laundry, make bread, fold Mt. Everest (aka laundry), etc. With everything so well-padded by all this laundry, my life is sure cushy!

Squeaky Clean

Bare babies are so cute! I like taking a bathing picture every now and then to document the cute little chubs growing. Looking at these pictures made me wonder why we go to such lengths to cover certain private places with a washcloth, when the ultrasound pictures I posted back when I was prego had an arrow pointing to that same place!

For the record, our sink is a very weird shape and depth. Our counters are low. We don’t have any special baby bathing equipment (that’s a towel behind Rose’s head). So giving  Rose a bath is kind of tricky. It’s getting easier now that she’s less floppy. In fact, she’s almost too stiff!

Trying not to drop a wet baby.

Rose never takes her eyes off of the water when I wash her with the sprayer hose thingy. Doesn’t she have a cute little belly? I wish I could look that cute with a round chubby belly!

Jay can get dirty in 5 seconds flat! I looked out into our barren back yard the other day to find him LAYING in the dirt! It looked like he was either giving the yard a big hug or taking a nap. He came in coated in dirt. Little boys are so much fun!

I eat one marshmallow Peep per year. I don’t really like them, but they are so goofy and blobby and unique that I just have to get a package every year, and eat ONE. This is our Eastery kiss: squeaky clean, unless you count the yellow sugar that was all over our faces after we took this picture!

I love how limp and relaxed sleeping babies are! I sometimes use a blanket wadded up to support my arm while holding Rose. One day, the timer beeped, and I had to quickly go take the bread out of the oven, so I just scooped Rose onto the floor, crumpled blanket and all. She just kind of melted around it.

All of those toys are Jay’s, except for that little pink striped doll draped on the floor—she’s mine!

Palouse Falls

On Friday (April 29th) we went exploring in the grande state of Washington again. This time we visited Palouse Falls. We drove and drove for 2 hours across brownish sort of flat, sort of rolling, seemingly endless land. Suddenly, (or should I say finally), this deep deep gorge appeared out of nowhere with a huge waterfall gushing into it!

It looks small, but it wasn’t—it’s the biggest waterfall in Washington!

There was only a fence along a short path—the rest was wide open. Needless to say, we couldn’t exactly let Jay roam too freely on the cliff’s edge.

It wasn’t freezing, but the wind was strong and chilly!

We forgot to bring Jeff’s big, cozy jacket to zip Rose in, so I had her wrapped in a blanket and a sweatshirt. The wind kept trying to steal her blanket!

Father, son, waterfall

I can’t get over how this place does NOT look like it has a waterfall. The roaring from the water died away almost instantly when we walked a few steps away from the ledge.

After about 45 minutes of breathtaking breezes (and views), Rose, Jay, and I retired to the cramped, tiny car to eat our PBJs out of the wind while Jeff took a little excursion INto the gorge. There was a nice picnic area with tables and green (!) grass, but it was too cold and windy for an outdoor picnic.

I’m glad I couldn’t see what Jeff was doing from my hideout in the car, because he told me that taking this picture was a “rush,” and he was as close as he could get to the edge of the waterfall without falling in. ahhhh!

The mist from the falls drifted up to us on the wind.

It was nerve-wracking to walk on that little path clutching Jay’s hand HARD. He’s good at twisting free, so I had him CLAMPED in my hand. Yes, we’re crazy parents. Thrill-seekers. Walking on the edge of a cliff is a rush when you’re by yourself, but when you’re carrying a baby and leading a toddler, it’s even more than that—it’s kind of terrifying!

Jay was such a good sport in spite of the long hours in the car. We accidentally took a 30 minute detour on the way home, so we drove for 4 1/2 hours round trip! We passed Jay an apple with a few bites taken out of it to entertain him during the long drive. About 20 minutes later, he got my attention and handed me the stem. He ate the entire apple—skin, seeds, core, and ALL. But not the stem. 

Ever since before Jeff and I were married, taking excursions into nature has been one of our very favorite pastimes. It is definitely harder to do these days with 2 little children and not much nature, but we make do. I just hope that our next adventure involves a little less driving and a lot warmer weather!