Ri's first day of school!

Ri started kindergarden this fall. When he was a baby I thought I couldn't wait for this day, but when it came I admit I got teary eyed. I thought I was fine until it was time to leave him in his classroom and it just felt so unnatural to be apart.
Ri, on the other hand, handled starting school like a pro. He is doing great and loves his teacher. He already knew how to read, write and spell phonetic words before he started, but he has just blossomed as a kindergardner - its so fun to watch him read bigger and bigger books! T and I enjoy our time just the two of us and then the boys are so happy to be reunited at the end of the day!

Blackberry picking and pie

Ri and T and I went blackberry picking and decided to make a pie for when Ry's sisters were going to stop by on their way to Candada (Ry's oldest sister turned 40 and they surprised her by flying in to take her to Victoria for an all girls weekend. I was planning on going untilI realized my passport expired last year and you need a passport now to go to Canada. Oops.)
We had extra pie crust so we picked a few more berries from the side of the walking trail that runs behind our house and make little pies. Yum!

Ri and T doing chores

We took pictures of Ri and T doing their chores and I made posters for each of them to help remind them of their jobs. The plus side is T doesn't fight too much about the doing the stuff that is on his poster. The only problem is everytime we ask T to do something that isn't on his poster he points to it and says,"but that isn't one of my jobs." I guess I should have seen that one coming :) T has 3 jobs because he is 3 years old, R has 5 because he is 5 years old. T puts plates on the table, puts soap in the dishwasher and makes his bed. Ri is supposed to sweep the kitchen, make his bed, switch wet laundry to the dryer, pick up 20 toys and use the swiffer on the living room. Here are the pictures:

Our House

We sold most of our furniture before moving to Charlotte and then we sold most of what we got in Charlotte again before moving back to the Northwest (Thanks Craigslist!). Having been students for so long most of what we had was not worth paying to move. When we moved into our house we had a couch, beds for everyone, two dressers, a rocking chair, a couple bookshelves and lots of books, toys, clothing and other smaller knick knacks. So... Here are a couple pictures of Ri and T eating breakfast on the deck (we didn't have a table and the boys wanted to be outside and I couldn't think of a good reason to say no, other than it was a little chilly... aren't they adorable?!

We still don't have a lot of furniture, but we did manage to get a pottery barn farm table and schoolhouse chairs on craigslist (again, did I mention how much a love craigslist?) and a couple months later I found the matching pottery barn bar stools on CL. Ry's sister was redoing her house and generously gave us a beautiful cream and red computer armoir and entertainment center. Ry and I spent every night for a week painting the entertainment center a cream color and I absolutely love how it looks in our family room. We also spent a couple weeks decorating and furnishing our office. Our living room and dining room are still empty, but the boys love the extra space. With the wood floors its almost like their own gym... I think they'll be disappointed when it is finally furnished.

This fall we painted the boys rooms blue and they chose wall decals online to decorate. Ri chose trains (big surprise!) and T chose a mix of vehicles, a firetruck, train, cement truck and two airplaines. When we first moved into our rental house in Charlotte Ri kept coloring the walls with crayons (he really went to town one day while my parents were visiting - Grandma L took me to Costco while Grandpa J watched the boys. Grandpa dozed off and Ri took advantage and colored all over the place!) We finally figured out that Ri thought once we lived in a house we would have colored walls (as opposed to our white apartment walls) we explained to him about paint (as opposed to crayons) and promised him once we bought our own house we would paint his room.

4th of July Fun!

The boys had fun blowing out the United States of America's birthday cake candles and having fun with cousins and firecrackers at my parent's house. Too bad I didn't get a picture of the backyard water fight that started with cousin Josh and my boys each wanting a water sprayer and ended with Grandpa J and Ry going after eachother with hoses!

Catch Up Post: Reed's Gold Mine

This is a little out of order, but I forgot to post the pictures from our trip to Reed's Gold Mine in May. It is located about an hour out of Charlotte and is the sight of the first goldrush in the United States. Ry was working so the boys and I decided to brave the trip ourselves. Ri was super interested in the museum and all the old mining equipment. T was patient while I read the plaques to Ri and T actually asked to use the potty unprompted while we were there (a small victory for us!) The boys loved the tour of the mine and panning for gold. They say about 1 in 4 visitors finds a little speck of gold. There were 3 of us so I thought our odds were pretty good, but we didn't find any. It didn't really matter though, I mean, for 3 and 5 year old boys, what's not to love about dirty water, rocks and large bowls!

Catch-up Post: Oregon Coast

On the 3rd of July our newly reunited family decided to get away just the four of us and spend a day at the Oregon coast. It was supposed to be 100 degrees in Portland and 80 in Seaside so we, with memories of the warm Charleston Beach still fresh in our mind, put on our swimsuits, packed a picnic and headed off without any sweatshirts or blankets. Oops! We were freezing cold! It was super hot until we got within a couple miles of the beach and then all the sudden in was overcast and cold. But we had a great time anyway!

Catch-up post: Moving from North Carolina to Washington State

Moving is always an adventure and this move was no exception. Ry and I were excited to finally be settling down somewhere, but sad to leave North Carolina. We met so many wonderful people and we truly fell in love with Matthews Ward. Everyone was so welcoming and from the first Sunday we felt like we belonged. Its been six months and we love our new ward, but we still miss Matthews ward. There is just a special feel there.
I still miss so many things - the Siskey YMCA (especially their childwatch and super fun zumba classes -I've never looked forward to working out so much!), driving through beautiful Myers Park, Sardis Presbyterian preschool, living 3 hours from warm beaches, the list goes on and on. Of course, there are a few things I don't miss - the bugs, especially the mosquitoes, being #1 on that list.
Anyway, to get back to moving. We loaded our stuff into a Movex truck (while the driver sat in the cab with the engine running so he could have AC - the fumes were something else!) But at least we didn't have to drive the stuff back ourselves. After our last cross-country trip with a moving van we weren't too interested in doing it again!
Our house was supposed to close June 5th and so the idea was that the boys and I would come out June 15th to set things up while Ry finished up the last couple week of his residency. At the last minute the bank, however, changed their policies so that Ry had to have started his new job before the house could close. Therefore, there was no real good reason for me to fly the boys out two weeks ahead of time, but the truck had been reserved and plane tickets purchased and so that is how it worked out.
Ry stayed with a wonderful doctor and his family during this time and I stayed at my parents house while my wonderful parents drove our Xterra from Charlotte to Portland. While we were super grateful to have a place to stay, this was actually a really hard time for me. We were unsure if the house would close, I was bascially alone in my parents house with the kids, trying to keep them from breaking things - for example, my Dad's new laptop that they took the keys off of - I didn't always have access to a car, our stuff was still en route, missing my husband, missing Charlotte, and not being able to get T to settle down and go to sleep until midnight most nights - then getting up with him as early as 4am because his internal clock was confused. Anyway, it was hard.
One bright spot was the day we picked strawberries and made jam together. Look how proud the boys are!

We were so happy the day that Ry came back and we were all together again! Ry started his job the day after flying in, but we still had no stuff and no house. Our belongings arrived July 4th and we had to put them in storage. Then after days of waiting for the bank to fund, a last minute trip to Seattle to sign closing papers, and a lost bank wire that threatened the deal at the last minute, our house finally closed 6 weeks after packing up our stuff in Charlotte. The bank actually failed completely 2 weeks later so I guess we were lucky. We moved into our new house (the one in the picture in the previous post) on July 23rd. Here is a picture of us on our first night in our new house!

Catch-up Post: Charleston Trip

During the last week in May Ry's parents came out to visit us. We had a wonderful time visiting with them and taking them down to Charleston, SC to see a historic Southern city. On our first day Grandpa T took the picture of the boys in front of the Provost Dungeon and also the pictures of our family in front of the United States Custom house and the picture of Grandma J and I and the boys on the steps of the Daughters of the Confederacy Hall museum near the end of the outdoor market.

On our second day Grandpa T, Ry and Ri went to tour a retired battleship (I can't remember which one, maybe a it was a carrier?) that has been turned into a museum while Grandma J, T and I spent a fabulous morning walking around the beautiful houses of rainbow row and the Battery. T was great in the stroller we bought him the day before (after the first day we were willing to spend almost anything on a stroller and it was worth it!). As we walked through the downtown a restaurant was giving out hushpuppy samples. Neither J nor I particularly liked them, but apparently a bee wanted to take a bite, but ended up stinging my finger instead. Ouch!

That afternoon we traveled to the beach and enjoyed the warm water, waves and yellow sand. I stood in the waves, watching the boys play, trying to think of a way to make it back before we moved back to the northwest's cold, rocky beaches. Unfortunately, with only two weeks to go before we moved, and Ryan being on call at the hospital both of the upcoming weekends, I couldn't think of a way to make it back.

All in all it was just a truly great trip. Even when the hotel didn't have our reservations, we ended up finding a better place to stay for the same price.

Back in Charlotte we took Ry's parents out for some real Southern BBQ at Sonny's BBQ pit. Who knew fried Okra was so yummy?

Mother's Day

The boys' school had a mothers day breakfast that happened to be on my birthday. The boys made the sweetest gifts for me, handprints,flowers, potholders and cute pictures of them.

Watching Ri get up and sing the songs he had learned in his class was such a treat! As recently as the Christmas program he didn't really sing with the other kids on stage, but for the breakfast and at church today he sang all the words. He has been so excited about his songs that he has been singing them for weeks and he sang them for me again before going to bed tonight. If I think of it tomorrow I will have to film him!

This morning Ry and the boys brought me cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs with flowers. Ri chose blue and T white and yellow daffodils (so I have a BYU colored bouquet!). They came home from church with more sweet crafts for me - including the crown that Ry took a pictue of! Ry made us dinner and let me take a nap. It just really was another lovely day.

Birthdays!

We have been trying to be super frugal in the time between now and when our house closes and so Teddy had a very homemade kind of family birthday party. He's young enough that he was still very happy with it! Fortunately he didn't seem to mind the christmas wrapping paper :)

It's hard for me to believe it has been three years since he joined our family! He is such a sweetheart and we love him so much!

He LOVES chocolate and he loves to pretend he is a baby bird (he loves seeing the nest in our back yard) and so I made him a "wormy" (gummy worms) chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. The three random chocolate candies are there because he asked for them and that's where he wanted them.

We brought cupcakes to preschool and his teacher made him a crown that he kept calling his "princess crown." I tried to turn it into a "prince" crown, but he wouldn't go for it.

He got a construction set, a "word whammer" a toy that builds words - believe it or not he really likes it! - underwear (so he can be like a big kid) nice khaki shorts (for church) and a car from Riley. He will get to spend his gift card to Toys R Us from the Allreds and his money from the Mize's after we move. He blew out his candles before we sang happy birthday and so we had to light them again! He loves birthday cake!

On my birthday (two days after Teddy) we used a gift certificate to the Cheesecake factory that we got for Christmas to go out to dinner. Ryan made me a cake and I will get a present after the house closes in June - or I guess the house is my present! On the morning of my birthday Riley asked, "If it is your birthday, why isn't the house decorated like it is for our birthdays?" I explained that it is because I decorate the house and I didn't decorate for myself!" He very seriously said that when he got home from school we would decorate the house for me. Sweet boy! Ryan surprised me by getting off work early and I really had a lovely day.

Catch-up post: Easter and other Fun

We really enjoyed the back yard until just two weeks ago when the mosquitoes came out in full force. The boys spent hours out every day for almost the whole month of April. In the above picture Riley is pushing Teddy to the "letter factory" so they can go "build" words (thank you leapfrog videos!)

Here are some pictures of the boys doing an Easter egg hunt in our back yard. We drove out to the Carolinas largest Easter egg hunt (it happened to be about 10 minutes from our house) and boy was that a mistake! We waited for an hour to get on a shuttle to where the hunt was - the cash I brought to buy lunch (no one took cards) fell out of my pocket (luckily and amazingly it was still on the grass in our front yard when we got home) and the bigger kids got all the eggs before any younger kids could get any. We then had to wait for the shuttle to take us back to our car again. So we came home basically tired and hungry with nothing to show for it - it really wasn't very fun. The boys loved the backyard hunt though, that is what we should of done all along!

There are also a couple pics of Teddy finding his basket in the morning.

We had fun dipping strawberries in chocolate one afternoon

The boys at bathtime. Ryan captured this "priceless" moment.

Homemade hot cocoa (Answer to the question - where does chocolate come from - we got out the cocoa - doesn't taste good without sugar etc.)

Riley reading to Teddy (his favorite book about rescue machines)

Hike and picnic at Reedy Creek park - it was great until the lightening storm hit. We spent the second half taking turns carrying Teddy and Riley as we sprinted back to the car! (there are news stories out here after most major storms about someone being hit by the lightening)