Toe sucker

This past week we had some construction on our street and the girls were at the window or outside watching for two days.  It was a busted pipe, so they had to dig up the old asphalt, replace a section of pipe, fill in the hole and replace the asphalt.  We talked with the guys several times and had fun watching.

As promised, here is Jared's awesome sad face!  Isn't he stinkin' cute!!!???!!!  He wanted me (Mommy) to hold him and was crying until I took him from Daddy.  We caught the picture on the tale-end ~ his full-on sad face is even better!  Can you believe it!?!?

Look at that drool!

Jared is sitting up!  He has been doing very well and it is so fun to watch him grow!!!

You may notice his amber necklace...we are trying it out to see if it will help with his drooling.  So far nothing has changed.  :(  But we will give it a few more days.  Poor guy has to wear a necklace.  At least it is brown/green and tough looking.

Tonight Jared figured out how to suck his toes!!  This kid loves to have something in his mouth.  All the time.  As he was sitting up he bent over to play with his toes and it turned into sucking his toes.

LOVE THIS KID SO MUCH!!!

Jared is 5 months old!

Our sweet baby boy is 5 months old!  He has captured our hearts and we are enjoying him so very much!  No, he doesn't roll over yet, or even have interest in rolling over - but we are working on that.  If we roll him from his back to his tummy he will roll back, so that's a start!  He is happy as long as he is being held by mommy.  ;)  He loves watching his sisters.  He has a very sweet smile and a great laugh!  He also has a very good cry/sad face ~ so cute!  He can "talk" up a storm if he wants to.  He sucks his thumb going to sleep and while he is sleeping ~ also very cute!  He does great in the Johnny Jumper.  He is doing well at sitting up.  We love this boy!!!

Josh got the swing hooked up and yesterday we tried it out ~ Jared loved it!   

 The girls had fun pushing him, too.

We are very thankful for you, Jared Ryan!

I do take pictures...

...But they don't always make it to the blog.  :)  Yes, I am 35 and loving life!  Although tired most of the time.  At what age do kids sleep through the night?  My 4 month old seems to be doing it, but the 5 year old and 2.5 year old have forgotten what that means most nights.  So look for posts with pictures, but not a lot of typing as I usually just want to get to bed.  ;)

I had the best birthday celebration Labor Day weekend!  More fun than I've had for my birthday in years!  My husband and sister totally rock!  And my three sweet kiddos are amazing!

 Did I mention that my sister is awesome!!!???!!!  And thanks to Adam and kids for loaning her to me for the weekend.

We hiked around the Ohme Gardens, ate out, went to Leavenworth, went to a park to play, ate some very yummy food and just had an all-around great time!  

This little guy is usually pretty happy as long as something is in his mouth.  He is sitting at the table with us now and sometimes likes it.  :)  Here his thumb and a toy are in his mouth.

Jared's first time in the Johnny Jumper.  Just like the girls, he loves it!  Jared likes be upright now, so the "Jared Jumper" as Shelby calls it, is great for him!  He loves watching the girls play! And he's a great little jumper.

He's got his toes!  Love watching him at every diaper change.  If he's a little upset he quickly calms down when he sees his toes.  I'm surprised they haven't made it to his mouth yet.  

Would ya look at that sweet thumb sucker!?!?!  Just love this kid so much!

Sweet Vivian ~ here she is standing on the fountain area in our backyard.  Josh got the fountain up and running and we love it.  Sounds so pretty.  (Pic taken before the fountain was running.)  And you may notice that pictures taken at our house reveal Vivian in her most favorite dress!  She wears this dress-up dress (my bridesmaid dress from Amanda's wedding that my mom shortened and made into a dress-up dress for the girls) every day.  She only puts on normal clothes if we leave the house.  And if this dress is being laundered then she sports a leotard from the dress-up box.

Tomorrow and Friday I plan to take the girls to "open gym" at a gymnastics place here in town.  They are very excited to wear their leotards and do gymnastics.  I doubt I'll get any pictures, but I'm sure they'll have a blast!

We are excited to welcome our new niece!  Emily Renee Hamilton was born on September 8th.  She looks so precious and we are overjoyed with Isaac and Trisha!  Congratulations guys!  We love you all very much!

He's 4 months old!

Our sweet boy, Jared is 4 month old today!

He is such a sweet, chubby, smiley boy!   

This was his first time in the ExerSaucer and he loved it!

Although not an official weight from the doctor's office, when we weigh him he is about 18 pounds!  He likes watching the girls jump and dance around - they can usually get him to laugh doing this.  He loves being held and he likes to see what is going on.  He is just about a hip-baby (where I can walk around with him on my hip).  There is usually something in his mouth, either both of his hands or his thumb or a toy or a burp rag - silly boy!  He is still sleeping well at night and taking good naps (awesome!).  

Now, if his older sisters would just sleep through the night, we'd be getting some good sleep!  ;)

They are all three precious and we enjoy them!  Thankful for the blessings God has given us!

Here are all three kiddos at 4 months:

Us lately

Jared's super excited that his sisters are playing with him...and that he can see Mommy.  :)  The girls wear "dress-up" clothes just about everyday, all day.  Thanks Abby for all the dress-up clothes!

Reading with the kiddos before bedtime.

Josh took Shelby on a date Friday night!  He brought her flower and they went to dinner and dessert, and did a little shopping.  They had a blast!  

Jared, Vivian and I stayed home, watched a movie and ate ice cream.  :)

This is Shelby's favorite thing to do ~ walk around holding Jared.  She is very strong and does a good job, but don't worry, we keep her close by.

Daddy and Vivian working on the dishwasher.

We've had a great summer and it feels like it will never end.  But I'm sure cooler weather will come and bring us Fall ~ we love Fall!  Hope you are having a nice weekend!

Healthy Bars

I don't normally post any food things, but these "Healthy Bars" are so yummy!  They are a great replacement (healthy alternative) for cookies!  Enjoy!

Healthy Bars

In Food Processor:

2 c. raw almonds

1/2 c. coconut (flakes or shavings, etc)

1/4 c. ground flax seed

       Process like sand.

12 prunes

       Process like sand.

Add:

1/2 c. peanut butter

1/2 c. coconut oil (liquid state)

2 Tbs. maple syrup

1-2 tsp. vanilla

Press into an 8x8 pan. Can top it with melted dark chocolate chips. Refrigerate. Cut before all the way hard so as not to chip chocolate.

As you can see, I waited too long to cut the bars, so the chocolate is chipped.  But it still tastes great!!! 

VACATION!!!!

We were in our house here in Wenatchee for about a month when we left for vacation.  Now that we are back home and settled in I wanted to share some pictures.  This vacation we took was so much fun!!!

First we drove (yikes!) to Gothenburg, NE for Josh's cousin's daughter's wedding.  ;)  We had a blast with family there.  To see those pictures, go here: NE Trip 7/14.  The girls had been swimming in Richland with the Bonus kids the weekend before we left, so when we were in Gothenburg they wanted to swim at the hotel pool.  Swimming with the Bonus kids was the first time the girls let go of the wall and actually swam around the pool, with a floaty around their waist.  Let me just say...we were so very excited!!!  Some good, positive peer/cousin pressure was all they needed.  So, at the pool in Gothenburg they did it again!  Woohoo!  The wedding (Erin and Jason Gaare) was beautiful and we had so much fun seeing family.  The girls danced ALL night at the wedding reception.  We loved staying with Joe & Diane (THANK YOU!!!) and the girls loved being with all the "big" girls and petting Comet, their dog.

Then we went to Colorado to see my family and to share a vacation with some great friends, the Baethge family!  My, oh my, lots of kids and lots of fun!  12 adults and 18 kids when we were all together.  It was crazy fun!  To see those pictures, go here: CO trip with Baethge Family.  First we went camping; the girls for one night and two days, the guys for four nights and five days.  Pretty sure everyone's favorite part was 4-wheeling.  Woohoo!!!  While the guys were up camping the ladies hung out together, enjoying playing at Kelly's house and at Zoey's house.  And it never failed, every night the kids wanted to eat dinner.  Gesh.  Hehe - although we started dinner late most nights, we did feed the kids and we all survived!  We enjoyed girls' nights with movies and chatting.  Once the guys got back we unpacked from camping, then did some shopping and hanging out together.  We spent one day in Rocky Mountain National Park which included a cloudy, rainy drive up Trail Ridge Road, shops in Estes and some hand holding between our sweet kiddos.  More movie nights and chatting.  It was great to catch up with the Baethges after not seeing them for two years.  Many fun memories made.  Love that family!  We had an awesome time!  Everything is awesome!!!  :)

In addition to fun with the Baethge family, my whole family was there!  We took family pictures one of the evenings and we are looking forward to sharing them with you...hopefully soon.  Had a wonderful time with everyone together.  Praise the Lord!