Where has the time gone?

Lots to catch up on. We went camping near Florence at Honeyman campground from the 17th - 20th.. we had a blast!! Met lots of new people and Matt got to really experience Deaf culture for the first time. Since then he has been motivated to learn more ASL -- WOOHOO. During our trip we checked out tide pools, chased waves at the beach, played on the sand dunes, and swam in a lake with a sandy shore. Toooo much fun. Why is it that food tastes better when you are camping? Strange. But true.

Matt is preparing to leave for Utah tomorrow for LETC (Law Enforcement Training Camp) and he won't return until the 1st. Bummer. It is really hard to take care of two young kiddos with zero help, but I'll survive. We are planning on staying the night at the beach this week to help the time go by.

Matt also dropped off his applications for Marion County and Salem P.D. --> He is finally going to Enforcement. Look out world, Matt is going on patrol!! Hehe.. I think he will be sooo much happier and more challenged. As for myself, I need to be sure I don't worry and stress about his job and the dangers. I have to trust in his training, his fellow officers, and his own abilities to stay safe. It is very comforting that he is an awesome shot.. so at least if there is a gun fight I know he can hit what he is aiming at.. unlike myself. But thats a whole other story. :) Anyways, I am very proud of him and I think he is going to do great.. of course he hasn't been offered the job yet and passed all the silly tests -- but I am pretty confident he will get it. We will see.

Jonathan update: Now that he is more then a year he is adding new things to his talents. Lets see... he can say "cheese" -- strange isn't it? But clear as day he just repeats "cheese cheese". What other new words.. hmm.. every now and then he signs "ball" but still says "DA" for ball :) He is just entering the ball obsession stage, I clearly remember Alissa going through this. We had a house full of bouncy balls of all sizes and textures -- and here we go again. Fun fun. Jonathan also LOVES his Daddy.. every time Matt walks into the room Jonathan thrusts his arms into the air and stubbornly waits for Matt to pick him up. He has the most serious "pick me up now or else" look on his face. It is hilarious.

This morning we went out to breakfast with "GG" in Dallas because Matt wanted to see her before he hit the road for Utah. Alissa loves her "GG" and playing at her house. She is a lucky kid to have so many grandmas and grandpas and great's and great-greats... sheesh. I hope she grows up and appreciates all the love surrounding her.

Totally random thought -- but I recently discovered Google Earth -- what a TRIP that is!!!! I looked at my old house in Arizona.. and my old school.. THAT will mess with your mind. If you haven't seen it yet -- check it out. It's free.. and you can look anywhere in the world from satellite and zoom in.. freeeeeaky stuff.

I forgot to post also that Alissa can read.. kind of. She read her first book to Matt, called "POP FOX".. it's a short book and its just word recognition but cool non the less. She is a clever kiddo. Here is some Alissa randomness: She has one of the Fisher Price digital cameras. It really works, takes pictures and you can view them on the camera and load them to your computer. Well, the other day (awhile ago really) she was playing with her camera in the morning and I was not fully clothed... she pointed the camera at me and I hear the tell tale "CLICK" --> I turn to see my darling daughter grinning from ear to ear proclaiming, "I got a naked mommy picture!!" I of course started running for the camera and Alissa, giggling wildly, runs the other way. It turns into an all out giggle fest with Alissa running around the house taking pictures of my trying to grab the camera in my undies. Fun fun. Luckily the pictures delete at the push of a button. No harm. However now I must be mindful of being caught changing clothes by my budding photographer. The stinker.

On that note... take care.. and watch out -- you never know when your picture is being taken!!

Just a quickie update..

So we are leaving Friday to go camping with a group of people, some friends and some I haven't met yet. Should be VERY fun. It will be a four day affair, and seeing as it is our first camp trip with the kids I am asking for extra prayers!! :) Seriously, it will be great. We will be going to Honeyman and have access to a boat! YIPPEE..

Hmm.. what else?! Oh yes, we have all been sick with a cold yesterday and today.. but luckily it is not too bad and we should be well be Friday.

Jonathan has 6 teeth now.. 4 bottom 2 top.

Funny story.. went to Costco today, and found some cute pj's. I held up a cute pink polka dot kitty pj and a frilly doggy pj to Alissa and asked her which one she wanted. Without hesitation she pointed behind me and said, "I want the dinosaur pj's mommy!!" LOL.. of course! What was I thinking. So I bought Alissa and Jonathan matching dino pj's.. toooo cute. I am so happy I have a tom boy.. frankly, I don't know what I would do with a girly girl because I was never one myself. Alissa is just the best. She loves bugs, dinosaurs, spiderman... lol.. But I must add that she is a devoted fan of Cinderella, so there is hope for her.

I'm off!! I'll take lots of pics of our camping trip and try to post some here. HASTA

Goodbye baby..

This is kind of a sad night. Jonathan will be a year old tomorrow.. no more baby :( Matt and I decided that we are done having kids, and frankly it is depressing to know that I won't have any more babies. On the other hand.. no more labor! Hehe. Seriously, I have enjoyed having my two babies, just seems they grew up too fast. Now I have to wait for grand kids. What an awesome experience motherhood is!! I have learned to live with my heart outside my chest -- twice. What an incredibly wonderful and frightening thing to have little ones.

Speaking of frightening. Alissa for the past three and a half years has been a very cautious and accident free child. I guess God thought it would be fun to change things up a bit with Jonathan. This morning at 9 am we were playing in Alissa's room. She has a captain's bed and one of the drawers was open about 6 inches. Jonathan tripped and fell and hit his forehead right on the corner. Very sharp corner. I picked him up and saw an indented HOLE in my son's head. Soon after blood started rushing out. YIKES. Thank God Matt was awake, I called for him and he came running in. He quickly assessed the situation and said Jonathan was going to be fine. *I* on the other hand was convinced he needed the emergency room. But I have faith in my hubby so waited a bit and he was right, because it was a head wound there was a lot of blood..but the actual injury wasn't that bad. As soon as we figured out Jon was going to be ok I started to shake and cry and Matt had to then make ME ok!! LOL.. I am such a weenie when it comes to my kids. It was SO hard to see my baby injured. But thanks to my hubby's good sense we didn't make an unnecessary trip to the er. What a morning!! So now Jonathan will have a nice beat-up look for his b-day tomorrow. Sigh. It could have been much worse.. I thank God for breaking me in slowly.. I'm sure the worst is yet to come.

In lighter news.. Alissa has been in a dinosaur class at AC Gilbert house this week. She is having a blast with it. Learning about dinosaurs and what they eat.. how they live..etc. She made a dino out of clay and other fun projects. She is such a creative little girl. Today we made fossils in class. Too cute. Just FYI, when Jonathan bonked his head and was bleeding all over mommy, Alissa didn't even pause in her play, lol.. guess she wasn't too concerned. She just takes everything in stride. I just love her so much, she is such a pleasure to have around. Always singing and dancing and chatting about magic horses and other creations. Oh! A kid of funny but not-so-funny Ali story.

So we were chatting about getting a new dog next year. I was telling Alissa how cool it will be to get a puppy and watch it one day grow up bigger then Daddy (English mastiff) and she said to me.. "Mommy, let's give Zena to Jesus." Now.. in my adult mind I'm thinking -- how horrible! She wants the dog to die!! LOL.. but really in her three year old mind.. she knows that some pets (and people but thank God we haven't needed that talk yet) go to see Jesus (like Grandma Adams dog Taffy) and Jesus lives in this really great place called Heaven. So really it would be a really neat fun thing for Zena to go live with Jesus and we get a new dog, right? Yikes.. try fielding THAT with a three year old. I did my best. Apparently my best was not good enough because either later that day or the next we were talking about babies. Alissa wanted mommy to grow another baby in my tummy. I told her that we already have JonJon and don't need another baby. She then says, "Let's give JonJon to Jesus so we can have another baby." AAAAAHHHHHH! NOT good. So AGAIN I try to explain to her just how very wrong that is.. you know, with the "We want JonJon to live a long life and be very old before he goes to see Jesus"..blahblahblah.. I hope she got it this time. I know it is very innocent, and would be very cute if it weren't for the serious subject matter. I had no idea how difficult it would be to explain things like this to my baby.

Man oh man I have really rambled this time!!! :) Tomorrow the plan is to go to AC Gilbert for class and then head to the Polk County Fair to celebrate Jon's b-day with him. Should be fun!! He loooooooves animals.

One last thing. Jonathan may not be a baby anymore. But him and Alissa both will always be my babies. I hope they appreciate this fact when they are in the dreaded teenage years and mommy wants to cuddle with them.. hehe.. we'll see.

YUMMY

So I gave Jonathan spaghetti yesterday.. think he liked it? Hehe

My mom and I took Jonathan to the fairgrounds for some photo judging. Alissa stayed with Grandpa George. It was a pretty neat experience. For those of you who don't know, my mom started entering photos into the fair a few years back and now she has me obsessively trying to get a photo displayed there as well. It was a real eye opening experience (TUNNEL VISION) to watch the judging. I think we will both do better next year. My "Pull My Finger" photo scored a 16.. pretty low, but not too shabby. It will be interesting to learn how all of our photos scored.

After photos we headed to the Hot August Flights at the Salem airport for good food, too loud live music, and cool planes and cars. WOW I summed that up in one sentence! THAT is talent.. hehe.. We were going to go on a helicopter ride but it was a 2 1/2 hour wait.. ummm.. no thanks. Mom took lots of photos and then we headed out.

We stopped at the carousel for a quick ride -- Alissa rode "Magic" her favorite horned and winged horse. Jonathan rode bench with Grandpa George and I rode "Thunder" -- don't ask why I remember this. After our first ride half of Salem showed up so we decided to get the heck out of there. Besides, by this point it was well into nap time.

Got home.. and Alissa didn't take a nap -- go figure. So she and I hung out while Jonathan slept for 3 hours. When he woke up we went for a bike ride -- fun times. Alissa got a kick out of riding through my neighbors sprinkler and getting misted in the trailer. She also thought it quite hilarious that mommy had trouble getting up the hills.. sigh.. I am way out of shape!!

Alissa is now snoozing away and I am seeing Matt off to work.. tomorrow is Matt's dad's b-day party. Hawaiian themed, should be fun. I hope to sleep in tomorrow.. hopefully the kids cooperate.

Quick update

Hello!! Life is busy busy! I am still taking calls for MVIS from 12-1 this week and next then I don't know if they will have work for me or not. Should be interesting.

Alissa is now taking an art class at AC Gilbert house called "Paint a Rainbow" its all paints. Lots of different activities, it is a great class. Today she made a picture frame and painted it, did a roller ball painting, painted by blowing on a glob with a straw, and her favorite was painting a cookie with different colored pudding and eating her art. Much fun. Alissa is also very much into imaginative play.. it is incredible to watch her make up stories.. she is quite a kid.

Jonathan is as wild as ever. He it signing much more clearly now (milk, more, dog, finished)and I can see that he loves to communicate! He is also voicing words more clearly. He says Daddy, not just dada. He also says doggy, ducky, kittykitty, Ali and a few more that only I can understand :) He also loves to climb on everything and the little booger is doing pretty good at walking down short steps (the ones on Grandma Adams deck). He shouldn't be walking now let alone climbing down steps on his own.. I'm in big trouble with this kid. Did I mention he loves to eat? And eat and eat.. Matt is going to be doing a lot of overtime to feed this kid when he is a teenager.

I am frantically trying to prepare for Jonathan's first b-day party.. the invitations are ging out tomorrow! Woo-hoo! It is neat to have a winter and a summer baby.

In other news, I am a little peeved at Costco. I went to the Salem Costco to buy a new bike and they were out, they looked up on their computer and sent me to Albany. I arrive at Albany and OOPS computer glitch.. I will need to go to Tigard now.. WTH?! Grrr.. I am not looking forward to the 1 hour drive, but I REALLY want this bike. Sooo life goes on. I'm not sure that I blogged about the bike thing yet.. I found a bike trailer for the kids on Craigs List for $150 -- it is a Burley d'lite in AWESOME condition.. and if you know what those are you know that what I paid is a steal. Sooo exciting. I had bought a bike at Walmart but didn't like the way the gears shifted.. so took it back.

So if you have made it this far in my rantings I will reward you with a funny story :) Alissa has a little Cinderella doll and she also has a tiny little "potty" from one of her dolls. Well, this potty is now Cinderella's to use and Alissa was playing with Papa (my dad) today with these items. She had Cinderella sitting down and doing her business and then she took her off the potty and pretended to dump it out on my dad saying, "I poured peepee on you!!" LOL.. She was cracking up, I'm not sure Papa was as impressed as I was with her creative imagination. Hehehehe..

Until next time.