Nap Time!

Oh how I love nap time! It is the only time I can get something done. We have been so busy lately that these are the only pictures I have to share. Nicholas and Stella are both asleep right now....well at least Stella is. Nick just woke up. Well, he was sleeping with his stool on top of him. When he puts it over his back, he says he's a turtle! Sooo clever! He must still be tired though. I was out running errands today and we were over at JoAnn's. I had remembered reading about a kids play place over there and thought I would seek it out. It was pretty cool. It was $5 for 30 min. It was basically an old store that had been filled with a bunch of those air-inflated toys- like those bounce houses. Anyway it was a perfect place for me to contain Nicholas while I fed Stella. When he walked into the play area his head was just spinning; he didn't know what to start playing on first! He had so much fun. Stella even got to play a little before our time was up! Well, today I need to start sewing Nicholas' halloween costume. He has a costume party on Monday. How's that for a deadline!


Think it's time for us to get a new camera? That one of Stella is pretty bad.

First Swim Lesson

I can't believe it, but Nicholas had his first swimming lesson last night! It all happened so fast, too. I mean, I didn't even realize he was enrolled in the class until Sunday night, at, oh, 10pm! I had emailed the swimming coordinator just to ask about lessons. I truly figured that he was too young right now anyway. So she emailed me back and asked for his name and age and mentioned something about the October session. Then last Wednesday I realized that October was in a few days! So I emailed her again (emailing is the only way you can reach this lady, too) and asked what I had to do next. I hadn't heard anything. Then Sunday night, I was reading my emails and I got one from her that said "nothing, see you Monday." So then my heart started pounding...Monday was tomorrow!! Good thing Suzanne brought Nicholas a swim suit when she came to viisit! (thanks again!) I was officially over-scheduled yesterday. Yoga was in the morning. Then I had invited friends down to play and have lunch with Nicholas because he has been asking everyday for about three months if they could come over. I finally just called my girlfriends to come down. Then I had to get the kids to nap...which Nicholas did NOT! ugh! Then I started dinner because I was bringing dinner to my friend who just had a baby. Shawn was having a friend over to watch the game and eat. And I called his wife to come over, too, after she finished up work. Then Nicholas and I were off to swimming lessons. whew. But I couldn't believe it... Nicholas was all the way across the pool from me and he was just having the best time. I don't think he stopped talking the entire forty minute lesson. I noticed a couple times he missed his "turn" because he was just yapping and not paying attention to the instructor. He is probably too young. But, we are in the class so I will see how it goes. I am just hoping that in a couple more lessons he starts to listen and get the hang of it. I am not hoping he will become an olympic swimmer, just that if I take him to the water park he will be able to kick and paddle and not be scared. He did awesome before when we went to the waterpark, but that was before we had Stella. And this place is awesome, so I want to take him this winter. Oh, yeah, it is an indoor waterpark. They have a toddler time during the day and the little ones can play on the big pirate ship and go down the little water slides. Shawn and I like going, too. Anyway, here are some pictures from his lesson. Yes, they are blurry. I sat really, really far away.

Nick trying to enter the pool before he is allowed

Nick waiting his turn.

Noodle ride.

Fetch.

fall is here

I wonder if everyone else feels super busy during this time of the year...or is it just me? Maybe if I weren't so darn tired these days! The kids don't seem to want us to sleep at night. Stella's excuse is teeth. But she did better last night. Maybe because the night before I decided I was going to put up the fight and not nurse her back to sleep. So she cried for two hours. I did the whole go in and pat her back thing and finally after two hours she gave in and fell asleep. But she may not have woken up in the first place if Nicholas hadn't woken up screaming and running into our room at 2am. We got him settled down and sure enough Stella woke up fifteen minutes later. Then we were up until after 4. Now Nick's excuse is most likely because it is darker now at night and he can't see as well. Maybe it startles him. So we are going to put out his second nightlight and see what happens. But sleep or no sleep, we are still making it out of the house and doing our "norm." Today was yoga and a book study. Yesterday was just a meeting. Tomorrow is nothing!!! BUT, I think we are going to head down to Anchorage and look at the party store. Somebody has a birthday coming up!!! And I think I am going to suck it up and brave a party. I was unsure if I wanted to do a real party or not, but Shawn did some research on Monday and found all kinds of ideas for a Go Diego Go party. I am psyched now!! I already told Shawn that he is going to dress up like Diego!! So I am going to go to our one party store here and see what I can get locally. The rest I will order online. I need to start working on that, too so that I can get everything shipped up here in time. I have a few weeks, but you just never know what the shipping options are for AK.

Well, I snapped a few cute pictures of the kids playing this weekend.





Nick just woke up from his (much needed) nap!

And here is one of Stella spitting! See the spit flying out?


Oh and there are a few new photos on our flickr link...

Real quick

This week is super busy. Almost every minute is accounted for during the days! But here is my friend's website for her new photography business. You can see us under "Baby Stella."

Back to normal

Wow, we weren't even the ones traveling and we feel like we have jet lag. This is probably the first day of "normal" that I have had all week. We have truly enjoyed all of our house guests this summer. The most recent visitors were our dear friends, Suzanne and Balazs. They stayed with us and they went to Denali for a few days. We LOVED having you guys here!! Thanks for all the memories. Their trip to Denali was awesome- they saw every animal and they even saw Mt. McKinley! Then, we were driving down south last weekend, we were just past Anchorage and we pulled off the road to see beluga whales!! Shawn says that we are taking them with us on our next vacation because they are good luck. Seeing the whales is a once in a lifetime experience. My camera was slow, but this is a picture of a whale. They were swimming pretty close to the shore. We must have seen a dozen of them out there! (Balazs, I need a copy of your video!)

I was actually driving them down south to Portage to see the glaciers. There are 100,000 glaciers here in AK. This is just an example of what we can see from the highway.

I don't know who enjoyed their visit more- Shawn and I or Nick and Stella.

So...what do we do on a "normal" day? Good question. I am not sure if we really have a "normal" day. Every day is different. It was just nice today because we stayed around the home. I have been mourning the loss of summer for the past two weeks. But now, I am ready for fall. In fact, I welcome it. Soon we will have snow. We will rake the leaves and mow the grass one more time before we snuggle in to our little house for the winter. I really like fall. It is such a cozy time of year. I think it is Shawn's favorite season (but I bet that is because it is also football season). So, since it IS fall (see, welcoming it) I put down the treadmill for the first time since I don't know when and took a little run today. I keep it folded up during the summer. I don't know, it seems almost sacreligious to run inside here during the summer. Anyway, I was really shocked how well this treadmill thing worked out. I ran, Nick played with his toys, and Stella played with hers. I even watched a TV show. It was awesome. I just couldn't believe how well the kids played. It was perfect until Nicholas, and I quote, "bonked Stella on the head" with his garbage truck. So Stella cried and Nick got a time out.







Then later, Stella napped and Nicholas and I headed outside for some gardening and soccer. This little garden didn't produce as well as I had hoped, but we still picked quite a bit from it. We just didn't have the heat that it needed. Every time we did have a warm day, the plants would grow several inches overnight. Honestly. And I am not a gardener. I just put seeds in the ground and crossed my fingers. I don't know what I am doing. But one day I hope to have a real garden. So this is just for practice, I guess. We grilled the last of our zucchini when Suzanne and Balazs were here. Today we picked the last handful of sugar snap peas and a whole bucket of carrots. We have one more carrot patch and that will be it for the garden.



The rest of our day has been rather uneventful...lunches and naps, which neither Nicholas or Stella wanted to do these at the same times today. So now Stella is waking up. Nicholas has been up for about 30 min now. Guess this will do it for our post for today.

Six Months

Stella is six months old today! Yeah!
- she just got her second tooth today
- she is not always sleeping through the night (I think she wakes up when the Tylenol wears off!)
- she eats 2 "meals" a day- breakfast (rice cereal and fruit) and a late dinner (rice and a veg)
- her favorite "foods" are sweet potatoes and bananas. she likes all the rest, but these are her faves
- she is wearing a size 2 diaper, just barely
- she is truly wearing a size 6-9 month/6-12 month in her clothes. I just have to phase the smaller ones out of her wardrobe.
- she can sit up by herself and play, as of tonight. she has been working on this one, but I think she finally has the sitting thing down pat
- she rolls to get things (watch out Nick!)
- she sqeals, and I mean squeals, when she is all excited
- she loves to watch Nicholas and other small toddlers- and squeals when she sees them
- she squeals in the exersaucer
- she squeals when she is with her Daddy

Happy Six Months, Stella Ann!
I love you with all my heart.
(now please just sleep through the night)
; )

Alaska State Fair

Well we finally made it out to the Alaska State Fair! Woo hoo! We didn't anticipate it, but we ended up staying up there for over 6 hours!! This kids held up great so we kept walking around. The fair grounds were pretty nice actually. Everything was really clean and there was plenty of space to walk through. So what do you do at the Alaska State Fair?? Well, here is what WE did.

Well, first Stella and I got a picture with Smokey the Bear. You remember him right?!


I really wanted to see the giant vegetables. Since there is so much sunlight here in the summer, farmers can grow these huge cabbages and I wanted to see them.


We also checked out the animals. Every state fair has animals. Shawn tooked Nicholas into the petting zoo. He got to pet a llama, some piglets, and a few goats.

We found some rides for Nicholas to ride on. He hopped in the helicopter with two other little boys- they were so cute everytime they made the turn.


And you can see Nicholas loved this motorcycle ride, too.



Shawn and I each took Nick down one of those giant slides. He rode safely on our laps. It was fun for us to ride a ride, too.

Then we could not believe we saw this "digger" for Nicholas to sit in. Nicholas was on cloud nine. I think it totally made his day. He couldn't stop talking about it to doggy dog (his favorite stuffed animal) when we got home. When he was siting in the digger all Nick talked about was making a Wal-Mart. This is probably because they are renovating our Wal-Mart up the street and he LOVES all of the construction equipment on the site. This "ride" made his day and it didn't even cost a carnival ride ticket!



Stella had a fun day too. She pretty much lounged and slept all day in the stroller. Overall she was very pleasant even though she is cutting her second tooth. (Yes, sorry, forgot to blog it...Stella got her first tooth last Saturday)