Happy Father's Day!

Typically, on Father's Day we have a BBQ so Jason can use his great grilling skills to make one of his favorite types of meals. This year, we went out on a limb. Jason wanted me to make Baked Crab Cakes with Red Pepper Chipotle Lime Sauce, from my friend Rachelle's sister-in-laws' blog. I wasn't sure if the kids would eat them, but we did and they were fabulous!! They weren't hard to make either.

Victoria and Karissa made lots of pictures and books for Jason and we got him a nice, new backpack that will work better for his laptop. The best present of all, I think, was just being able to be together for the weekend with no study interruptions. Yesterday morning we went to the church Stake bowling and arcade activity, where the kids had the "best time ever". We had some extremely slow balls rolling down to the pins, but some good cheerleaders. Last night, Jason took Victoria to see the local fireworks that occur every year over the first weekend of summer vacation here. She hasn't seen them in two years, since they start after 10. By some miracle, she actually fell asleep around dinnertime yesterday, so staying up past 11 wasn't as bad for her as it could have been .

Here's a picture of the kids with their dad. Austin was too worn out from church-during-nap time to smile for the camera. He was quite the character in church, though. The whole congregation took note of his speed-crawl under five pews to get up the stairs to the flag on the stand. He also laughed out loud every time anyone laughed during sacrament meeting and during Sunday school!

Happy Father's Day!

Proud Mom

One of the other moms in our carpool drove to school and volunteered today, the last day of school. She talked with Mrs. Morrison, Victoria's teacher, and told her that Victoria is the most detailed student in the class. It always takes her a moment to get started and she is sometimes a little poky getting going (that sounds familiar), but once she's working, she stays very focused and does the best, most detailed work of anyone. Of course, that means she often finishes after everyone else, but I am very pleased that she puts good effort into her work. It's been a great year!

P.S. This is my 100th post!!

School is Out!

After nine grueling months of juggling work and school, Jason is done with classes for the summer! Not only do we get to see him every night, but I don't have to mow the lawn now and I can focus on maintaining the landscaping. In September it all starts over again, but at least there's only two semesters until he graduates.

This week is also Victoria's last four days of school. She told me today that she will miss Mrs. Morrison and her friends at school, but I reminded her that she said the same thing last year about her preschool. Overall, I think putting her in the Fantastic Fives program at the charter school was the right thing for her. Now she can go to kindergarten feeling confident, which she will, since I think her class now is not far behind what a kindergarten class does. I also loved the fact that she had to wear a uniform. I never had to worry about her wearing matching clothes, and now she knows how to match her clothes, so we're set for next year!

My advice: charter schools are awesome and if you live in a state where the school deadline is in December (there's not too many of them), then really consider holding your fall-birthday-child back, it's definitely worth it!

One Year!

Austin is now a one-year-old and he has "graduated" in many areas. He now sits in a front-facing car seat, which he loves! Right now he's in between his sisters since his is the only seat that will fit between theirs. When school is out, I will put him up in the middle row, though he sure does like sitting in between his sisters and hearing them sing their hearts out to the High School Musical sound track!Mostly to save on space, but also so he'll feel more like a big boy, Austin now sits in a booster seat at the table. He likes being able to reach for his sippy cup from the table.

Speaking of sippy cups, Austin enjoys drinking from his sippy cup all the time now, except that he wants nothing to do with whole milk, which makes the weaning process more complicated. Never fear, though, I have had experience with a reluctant weaner before, except Karissa would not even use a sippy cup, or anything else, until she was about 14 months. Kefir was the ticket for her. I bought some Kefir for Austin and put it in his sippy with a dab of whole milk. The first few days he refused to drink it from the sippy, only from the 1 quart container it comes in, which was hilarious to watch him drink from that huge container (unfortunately no one was around to take a picture and I couldn't as I was holding Austin in one arm and the Kefir in the other). Since then (three days ago) he's been taking about one sip more of his Kefir mix each day. And after a two day food strike, he has been eating better again, but not as many table foods, mostly baby food. I'm still nursing him morning and night and I guess I'll be doing that for a little while still until he starts drinking his milk better.

At his well-baby check-up he weighed 20.8 lbs. and was 30 and 1/4 in. long. That puts him in the 10-25th percentile for weight and the 50th for height. I'm not surprised he went down in percentiles, since that's what most nursed babies do and odds are against him for being the biggest kid on the block. The doctor actually had him weighed again, though, since she thought he looked bigger than that, but the second weight was the same.

Besides getting into things (see previous blog), he loves to walk with his walker all over, crawl around pushing his trucks or a ball, the swings at the park, climbing up and down stairs, and watching trucks or anything else that makes noise. He can say "hi" and it sounded like he said "Daddy" one time.

We celebrated his birthday on Memorial Day with some friends and had a bar-b-que. He ate some beans and tortilla chips, tons of watermelon, and his slice of lemon poppy seed cake.

We love our big boy!

Boys Will Be Boys!

Though Victoria and Karissa can be handfuls now, they were pretty easy around ages one and two since they didn't get "into" a lot things. I think part of that is the fact they aren't boys. I have heard boys usually get into things more at that age. Well, it is holding true in our family! Austin has already uprooted a couple of our precious tomato seedlings that were waiting innocently to be planted outside (luckily we planted extra, just in case). He climbs over the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs with a wicked grin on his face (I mean really, what good does that baby gate do anyhow?!) Check out what he did to the toilet paper in a matter of seconds:

You can see how much toilet paper he actually took off by how much I rolled back on!

But how can I get mad at such a cute face?!!

Holland

Last Friday Jason had to report to an Air National Guard Base in Battle Creek for a muster for the military, just to evaluate his readiness if he were to be called up for service again (he's not, though, so don't worry!). Since that was on the way to Holland, we all went and enjoyed a little weekend getaway.

While he was doing his muster, the kids and I went to the zoo. The cheetah came right up to the window to check out the kids a few times. We got close and personal with the giraffes, enjoyed the tram ride to Africa, and rode the carousel. Victoria claimed it was the best day of her life. Austin must have thought so too as he was laughing and kicking his legs the whole time.

After picking up Jason, we drove to Holland, which is just east of Lake Michigan (we got to see Africa and Holland in the same day!) The first evening we saw the Windmill Gardens, which has the only authentically Dutch windmill in the US. Aside from the rain, the fact that it was close to closing time, and the fact that Victoria and Karissa got into some plant that gave them an itchy rash (which they got over after some Benedryl), it was very fun.

The next day we went to the tulip gardens, which was supposed to be the highlight of the trip, but it turned out that we missed the peak bloom time by two weeks, so we only got to see a row of tulips that were already wilting, but we will go again another time. We also saw how they make wooden shoes and got to try them on, which the kids loved.

These are usually full of tulips during peak time.

The rest of the day we played at a beach on Lake Michigan where there was a playground, some sand dunes, and a tunnel. We also saw a red lighthouse. It was good to get away for a weekend, even though the kids were all grumpy when we returned!

Our models with a foggy Lake Michigan in the background.

Speaking of Good Artists....

Victoria is not the only good artist in the family. Check out Karissa's artwork. Not bad for a 3-year-old!