Oregon - Lava Fields

We're back from the West Coast and my sister is married!  It was a lovely wedding and a great vacation, but it's good to be home.  Regular activities have begun again, but for awhile I'm just going to relive our fun vacation activities!

Most family had arrived for the wedding by Thursday, so Katie & Chris had planned a fun family day out to the Lava Fields in Oregon.  We first stopped at some beautiful waterfalls.

The lava fields were crazy.  Never seen anything like them before.  It's just this vast area of land covered in black rocks.  I had thought it would be very smooth land covered in rock, but as the lava cools and water gets in, it breaks up. 

The CCC built this fort out of the lava so that one could get a view of the land and have a nice view of the Three Sisters mountains.

Helena enjoyed standing in the windows with her Nani holding on.  (I love this photo of my mom.  It shows how happy she is when in her element.)

It was a great day.  We enjoyed the scenery, the company, and the hiking!

Where has the time gone?

When I think over the last week, I ask myself what have we done with all our time?  Then I realize, well, we did a little of this...

Sleeping with Daddy

and a little of that...

napping alone

and a little more of this...

Falling asleep together while we wait for the doctor.

 That's right - a nasty bug hit our home once again.  Ugh.  I know kids get sick a lot in their first few years and it's good for them as it builds their immune systems, but John & I are really ready for the regular sickness to be over & done with.

With being sick, our social lives ended but we still had lots to do at home:

Like celebrate John's birthday with homemade donuts.  I know, they definitely don't look like donuts but they tasted like donuts!  It was my first attempt, and I learned many things, one being making donuts when it's 94 degrees is just not a good idea.

Making Gak.  Helena was very interested until it was time to touch the finished product.  Anybody have any good craft/project ideas to do with a 1 1/2 year old?

Having matching painted toenails is Helena's and my new thing.  She can barely manage to sit still long enough for one of her toes to partially dry but she loves to pretend to paint my fingernails and toenails.

Yes - a report on food!  It's been a LONG time since one of those.  Well, I've been cooking away even though there have been no posts.  I actually just finished my first Shutterfly cookbook of our favorite desserts, so there are lots of sweets to eat around here.

We're better now.  Anyone want to come over for dessert?

Strawberry Picking

Earlier this week Helena & I went strawberry picking with friends at Whittamore's Farm. It was fun to observe the girls in the new environment.  At first they were pretty uninterested in tasting the strawberries...

but once Helena started, it was hard to get her to stop!

Of course, once they were done eating berries, they were DONE.  No more berries for the rest of the day and their preference would have been no more picking too.

So one mom picked while the other mom read to the girls, gave the girls containers to put lids on, took the girls for walks, played in the straw with them...

and played with rocks.  Rocks are fun for all kids, but I realized out there that Helena almost never sees rocks, being the downtown city girl that she is.  Helena & Holly could have played in the rocks all day long.

Helena & Holly are two and a half months apart, so there still is a developmental difference between the them.  We observed one at the farm - Holly saw the rows of plants and would walk in a line down the straw paths.  Helena, on the other hand, had a really hard time seeing the rows of plants (to be fair, they were a little sparse in greenery!) and would charge right through them over and over and over again.

On the way to the car, Helena found a puddle when her Mom wasn't watching.  This picture was taken right BEFORE she sat down in it!

The girls' favorite part of the farm was definitely the painted animals.  Christa's and my favorite part - the berries and the jam that followed.  Oh, how I love strawberry picking!

Happy Father's Day John!

 

John, you are a great dad.  Thanks for wanting to do exactly what Helena wanted to do this morning.  We miss you lots and are excited to see you on Wednesday!

My observations on kids, especially my own

1) Kids like to sit on laps.  Let's say there are two kids and one adult reading.  If one of them is sitting on the adult's lap, the other kid feels like it is crucial for her to also sit on that lap.  The interesting thing is that "lap" can be loosely defined.  If the adult's legs are crossed pretzel style, then the lap is made up of any section of his legs.  If the adult's legs are spread out to form a v, the lap is constrained to the legs and any/all of the area between the legs.

2) Kids are tough.  We all know it - if you make a big deal out of a kid's fall, then the kid thinks it was a big terrible fall.  If you don't and haven't in the past, the kid is fine unless it was a terrible fall.  But really, have you ever thought about all the falls and bumps and hits they take?  Cement, pavement, table legs, doors, steps, metal floors, and so on.  And then have you thought about the number of all of those that they experience?  Really, if it were an adult who experienced that much in one day, I don't think that adult would get out of bed the next day.

3) Kids eat strange things.  As I've said before, Helena loves condiments.  If she has sour cream (or ketchup) on her plate, she will use her spoon to eat it.  She loves it.  Or if a kid's mouth is really full, he may spit out the food, look at it on his plate, and then pick it up and eat it.  It's like he had to make sure he wanted his mouth to be extremely full of that food.  (Now I haven't observed my kid doing this but...no, wait, this very accurately describes my child.)

4) Kids sometimes latch onto something and do it over and over and over again, and then suddenly never do it again.  One day Helena put her hand on her head and one of her parents said, "Oh no!"  Boy, did she dissolve into giggles.  She kept doing it all day long and when we said "Oh no", her laughter would ring through the apartment.  The next morning all fun & joy in that activity was gone.  She'd put her hand on her head, we'd say "Oh no" and she'd walk away.  It was over.

Now here's a video of a behavior she started doing yesterday and then didn't do again until she kissed us good night tonight.  Oh how I do hope she continues doing it!