Horning's Hideout 09

Gerry and I took our fifth annual trip to the Northwest String Summit this past weekend. This is something we look forward to all year long. There's good music, wonderful people, and camping at one of the coolest places around.

Highlights from this trip include reconnecting with friends who we made over the years at summit, camping with good friends, Reed saying salanamander (there was a pond there with lots of rough skinned newts), seeing the space station pass overhead one evening during the music, and of course, lots of great music!!

The lowlight of the trip was that Spring came down with some sort of bug the night before we left. We decided to go ahead and go and hope it wouldn't be too bad, but she was out of sorts for most of the weekend. Poor thing is still under the weather and worse yet, we managed to spread the bug to other kiddos and parents while we were camping. :-(

As a result of Spring being sick, we didn't take tons of pictures, but we did get a few good ones.

Spring thought it was hilarious to sit in the suitcase while I packed.

Mommy and Spring, enjoying the music.

Daddy and Reed enjoying the music. The camera freaked out because of the dust, but I love this picture anyway!

Spring crawling on Daddy.

Darkness means it's time to play with glow sticks! Spring was enjoying chewing on her glow stick so much, that Reed thought he'd see if it was all she made it out to be.

Reed listening to the music, playing with our poi.

The happy family.

Summer fun

We've been spending a lot of time outside lately!! I've been a real shutterbug trying to capture good pictures of Reed, who is getting increasingly difficult to photograph because he's always in motion! And of course, if Reed is out of photo range, then I'm taking pictures of Spring.

Love this little white dress!

Spring has been starting to enjoy solids... which is to say, she actually eats them now instead of just spitting them out!

More time outside!

How cute are both babes with their sunglasses on (or sun-kwocks as Reed calls them).

Smiley girl!

And one more, of Spring just for good measure.

Reed and his garden.

Reed was playing in the water that leaks out of the faucet when the hose is turned on.

Another good one of R.

Gerry and my dad went crabbing. No dungeness, but a limit of red rock crab!

Crabby!

Catching up on June pictures

I need to play catch up on some good June pictures! Here are Spring and I observing Daddy working on the fence.

Reed, lounging on the couch.

We took the kids down to Olympia so Gerry could help some friends install new bamboo flooring. Mommy E and baby J accompanied us to the farmer's market. It was a tight squeeze in the back of the Escort, but we made it!

Then we headed to the Olympia children's museum. Reed loved it!

Spring and J loved the baby mirror.

Reed got to drive a school bus (and several other vehicles).

Then after heading back to E's house so the kiddos could take a nap, we headed back out to a park so the daddies could get more flooring done. I'd love to know what Spring is saying to J!!

Reed on the teeter totter.

Spring reached the top of this climbing wall with only a steadying hand from me to help!

Reed at the summit of the climbing wall, telling Spring not to come up! LOL!

Big boy

Out of the blue, Reed came up to me today and said, "I'm getting to be a big boy now." So I said, "You sure are." To which Reed, pointing to his upper lip replied, "Yep, I got some whiskers growing!" It was so cute! I made a big fuss and oohed and aahed over his lip, even though obviously there was nothing there (except for some macaroni and cheese residue). A little later, he pointed his cheek and said, "I got some whiskers on my cheek too." Apparently he and Grandpa had been talking about whiskers a few days ago and the conversation really stuck with Reed.

I highly recommend...

checking out this post on our friend Katt's new blog!

I love it when it goes like this

Last night, I was really ready for the kids to go to bed. It had been a long day (not a bad day, just long) and I was running low on patience and energy by evening. This evening was completely different. Gerry made a tasty dinner, then Reed started asking for bath time, but it was way too early for bath so I told him he could play. He was being a rambunctious two year old and after asking him not to throw his slinky several times, he started throwing other toys. I told him, "It looks like you really want to throw some toys, let's go outside and play with a frisbee," and Reed was excited about it! I always feel so good when I come up with a good solution like that. Anyway, Reed and Spring and I all went outside and played with the frisbee. Then we blew bubbles and Reed thought it was really fun to take turns popping the bubbles with Spring. That made my day because we're definitely struggling with the sharing concept right now so if we could get good about taking turns, that would be good progress. Then we had a fun bath time, and Spring practically passed out after stories. I wish all evenings were this good!

A visitor

We had a busy Father's Day weekend and I had a busy work week, so I'm just now getting around to updating. Gerry's unlce John came and visited us over Father's Day. Reed and Spring absolutely adored him!!

We took him to the beach and made a trip to the Pike Place market, where we stopped for the obligitory pig picture! :-)

And we put uncle John to work too! Gerry's building a fence in our front yard. Here's what it looked like before John's visit.

And here's how it looks now! Nice work eh?

Smooth move

Reed's not much a fruit or veggie eater, but recently we discovered that he likes to make smoothies and drink them. I figure it's a great way for him to get some balance in his diet. I can even sneak a handful of spinach into his smoothie without him noticing. So lately, we've been making a lot of smoothies around here. Reed was enjoying a blueberry, blackberry, banana smoothie when I thought it would be cute to get a picture of his smoothie 'stache. I ran for the camera and came back to this...

My mom asked "Aren't you glad you've got the hardwood floors installed?" Yep!!

Reed was holding one of Spring's teething toys which also got smoothied. Reed chose to lick it clean. No smoothie wasted there!

And we did get some good mustache pictures too. Fortunately, the whole smoothie didn't spill, only about half.

More from Spring's six month photo session

Thanks goes to Kathryn for once again, capturing our beautiful babies in photos!

Rejoining the world of the living

Long time no post eh? That's because last week, our whole family fell ill and it seems we've just now finally recovered.

It all started two weekends ago, with our first family trip (with the four of us) to Lake Chelan. Gerry and I were a little worried because Spring is a less than enthusiastic car rider and doesn't sleep well in the car. What baby doesn't sleep well in the car? Seriously, most people I know put their baby in the car to put them to sleep, but not our Spring... The thing that made the car ride survivable, was that I figured out how to nurse Spring while she was in her car seat. Comfortable? No! Easy? No! Private? No! (Until I finally got tired of staring out at the other cars and semis and put a blanket in the window.) But these are the things mommies do for the babies they love! And the bonus was that not only was she full, but she could fall asleep nursing as she loves to do.

When we got to Lake Chelan, Reed was okay, but by evening, he was really out of sorts. We thought he was just tired, but then I noticed a bunch of gunk in one of his eyes. That night nobody slept because Reed and Spring kept waking up unhappy. The next day, Reed had a fever and was fairly miserable. Spring was starting to get the cough Reed already had and my throat was getting sore. Great... It was not the successful first family of four trip to the Lake we were hoping for. By the time we had to go home on Sunday, Reed was doing a little better, and the rest of us waited until we got home to get really sick.

As you might imagine, we didn't take many pictures while we were there, but we did manage to get a good one of Spring and I with Hama.

Backhoes for Spring

Reed wanted to draw a backhoe for Spring the other day. Over and over he'd say, "Reed draws a backhoe for Spring". It was very sweet!

You can see, all the marks on the sidewalk. Most of them were backhoes, a few were rainbows.


As ever, Spring enjoyed watching Reed. She'll be drawing her own backhoes soon enough I'm sure!