Oliver is now 9 months old...officially tomorrow. And as of last Friday he has been outside of my body longer than he was inside. I always find that a profound milestone.
Anyway...I'm having a hard time keeping caught up on blogging again, so I bring you Oliver's 8 month old photo shoot...1 month late! I decided to forgo a 6 month and a 9 month photo shoot and just have an 8 month one. These pictures were taken by the lovely and talented
Tara Mansius and
Amy Morgan (Tara's best friend and apprentice), at their photo studio. Have photographer buddies definitely has its perks!
My favorites of Amy's pictures:
LOVE
My favorites of Tara's pictures:
He actually pulled himself up to standing for the first time
when we were shooting these pictures in this doll cradle
I love, LoVe, LOVE those BIG olive green eyes...and I love that he inherited my turtle lip
LOVE him!
He's growing up SO fast!
I'm so blessed to have this sweet little hunk in my life.
I know you don't look at me and think "runner". You know the type...the ones with long slender legs and tall willowy bodies (I have an "apple shape" and short muscular legs). And I know I'll never win a race. I do not care. That does not stop me from enjoying running. I get my high from running. And I get my best epiphanies while I'm running.
So after two back to back pregnancies and ending up more out of shape than I've been since, since probably before I ever started running (9th grade). And well, I like being in shape. I like the way I feel most of all...like I can bound up several flights of stairs with great energy. Like I can chase my kids around for hours without getting tired or grouchy. I also like that with consistent running, the belly gets a little less apple shaped.
I decided that I really NEEDED some motivation to get to the kind of shape I like being in...so I do what I always have done to look for that motivation. I decide and/or sign up for a race. This time I have my sights set on the Sauvie Island Half-Marathon on July 4th.
And in order to train for a race like this, the most important thing for me is having a place to run. I need to know where I am going to be able to run 4 or 9 or 12 miles before I do it. And it needs to be in a place I find enjoyable. Every location we live it takes time to find that *perfect* running place.
I feel really lucky where we live here in Oregon to have found that *perfect* location nearby. There is a long paved pedestrian-only trail which traverses through beautiful trees. I took some pictures the other day as I was running...mostly just for me to look back on in the future.
pre-run...psyching myself up in the car
And as I was stretching out at the end of my run I played "I spy":
I spy with my little eye, something............WHITE
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| the beautiful, pure trillium flower in bloom! |
It's amazing to me that once I get into a regular running routine,
how that baby stomach fat starts to shrink!
What do these things have in common? They were all noteworthy happening in our lives withing the month of March.
Toby's Kung Fu souvenir outfit and Chinese fan from China town. We got a really great deal on them...but unfortunately the quality was dismal at best. He wouldn't take them off for two days and a bunch of the seams ripped. Now they are added to my pile of clothes that need mending.
I'm adding some more pictures of my new haircut because some friends on facebook asked for pictures and I never posted them. Just so you know, I am not ignoring your requests friends. I just do facebook from my mobile device and I can't add pictures from there. Anyway, I was kind of in shock over this haircut at first just because it was so different than I'm used to. You can't really tell from the pictures, but a ton of hair was thinned out...and add that to my already post-baby thinned hair and I kinda felt like I had nothing left afterward. At least compared what I am used to. But after a few days I really love it! It's nice not to have all that hair in the way (I've always had a lot of hair). And it's a change that I was looking for!
Last of note, is that my old lamp finally bit the dust. The reason this is noteworthy is because lamp and I have been through so much together. Lamp has been with me since I was 9 or 10! My mom bought lamp at a sleazy motel that was updating their furniture. We painted lamp PEACH to match the color of my newly decorated peach and teal bedroom {80's...sigh!}. Then when I was in college I painted lamp again. I did a starry sky paint job, with a cobalt blue speckled with light blue paint splatters. I thought it was super cool. After we got married, Brent knocked lamp down and lamp cracked. We had no money so we glued lamp back together. But lamp was never the same. After that lamp always had a crack and a hole where we couldn't quite piece lamp back together correctly. But lamp still worked great! After Brent finished school and we moved to Oregon, we finally had money to decorate our room. We bought bedroom furniture, a quilt, but we didn't need to replace lamp. I just covered lamp with a few coats of silver spray paint and bought a new lamp shade. The old one was ghetto. So very ghetto! Anyway...it was only about 2 years later that Toby bumped lamp off my nightstand twice in one month. Now lamp was broken. But I put lamp back and still used lamp. Then one fateful day I bumped lamp to lamp's utter destruction. Sorry lamp.
And I'm sorry to you if you just read this whole post.
What was I thinking?
Wow! I have a kid who is
NICE NINE!! He's nice too. Does this ever happen to you? Your fingers are typing so fast that they have a mind of their own. They like to type the words they're accustomed to the most.
Anyway, I had all these great blogging schemes to commemorate Joshua's birthday, but I got so busy and so behind on blogging that it's slipped by the wayside. But we did celebrate his birthday. It is an odd number birthday for him, so that means no friend party. I just can't pull that off every year...too.much.work! But we did get to go to Disneyland the week before his birthday. And we had a couple little celebrations. We got home a couple days before his birthday and I had neglected to buy him any gifts. SO I took him to Target and let him pick something out. He walked through the aisles several times. Looking everything over again and again. He was surprised that he could pick anything he wanted (!)...within reason. I would've vetoed something dumb or expensive...and he wouldn't have picked it anyway. He's a very practical thoughtful and unspoiled boy. He knows that our money equals mine and Brent's life energy. The cute thing was that he kept saying over and over as he walk the aisles "I feel so spoiled, I just feel SO spoiled!" He picked out the lego Harry Potter Weasley Burrow House. And when he wasn't looking I snuck the Harry Potter lego game into the cart too.
The big brothers had lots of fun building the lego set and the lego game...and playing with them
I LOVE the way Toby is looking at his brother in this picture...such adoration! Even though they don't always get along and they're not perfect, they really love each other. They're good brothers.
flourless chocolate cake with strawberry reduction sauce, followed by presents (the lego sets)
The candles on the cake are 7 + 1 + 1 = 9
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| Toby and I printed and colored that birthday banner for Joshua while he was gone |
on Joshua's actual birthday we had some friends over for dinner. Here are the men with the babies!
We also celebrated with Joshua's aunties, my sisters later.
We obviously are so grateful for Joshua. He is a great oldest kid. He is so forgiving with all of our parenting mistakes and mishaps. He is an excellent example and friend to his younger siblings, and to us as well. Thank the heavens for this sweet boy!
scouts:
during the month of March we scrambled a bit to help Joshua finish his requirements for his wolf scout achievement before he turned 9.
We picked up trash at a park:
pretty sky
a fresh new spring
Joshua build a little
birdhouse in his soul:
This boy can use a hammer! I help him hold the nails a little bit.
I knew that Toby would want in on the action so I picked up a little birdhouse kit that you glue together from the craft store. And I was right! {Wants to do whatever Joshua's doing, usually.} Except he wanted to use a hammer and nails too. :-( I told him he'd have to wait a few more years til he's a wolf scout too.
Then Joshua was awarded his wolf, 1 gold arrow, 3 silver arrows and the Leave No Trace Award:
Joshua loves scouts
{I'm the bear den leader}
Joshua had a musical performance with the 3rd grade, which we all enjoyed:
watching the show
ice cream afterward, of course
Joshua dressed up for "nerd day" at school {?}:
I didn't have nerdy clothes, so I just pulled suspenders out of the costume box and slicked his hair to the sides. How do you even dress like a nerd these days? Everyone's a nerd inside.
Anyway, I just can't get over how different Joshy looks with his forehead showing!! He has pretty much had the same hairstyle since he grew hair. It started out because his huge cheeks were larger than his head...so the hair helped bring balance to his face. But ever since he had an opinion, he would not let me cut it. I think he has a cute forehead, don't you?
Then in April Joshua built a ROCKIN' pinewood derby car, which unexpectedly took 2ND PLACE at our tri-ward pack pinewood derby. Joshy was so modest about it, but we were all unexpectedly surprised. I didn't even bring my camera to the pinewood derby because I thought Joshua's car would be mediocre and it would be no big deal...just a fun party. Well, I was wrong! It's fun when cool stuff unexpectedly happens...like how I won two prizes from company pages on Facebook in the past month! It's a nice boost to the morale.
Fire Nation Racer, Prince Zuko
