1 Year Old!

It's this little lady's birthday today. She's 1.

Was she really this small once?

The birthday girl!

This is her uh-oh face.

And another uh-oh face

Things she does...
Makes a ghost sound
Says uh-oh kind of. Sometimes she just says oh and sometimes she says both and sometimes she just makes an oh face.
Walks most of the time
Follows us around
Climbs on the dishwasher door
Rips things
Climbs on anything she can
Eats anything off the floor
Tries to destroy books
Cries when I do her hair
Doesn't take good naps. She seems to think an hour a half a day is enough for a 1 year. I don't agree. We'll see who wins. I'm willing to compromise with 2 hours
Wakes up early. Also not supposed happen in my house
Smiles cute smiles, especially when I try to take a picture of her. Lately, she's been opening her mouth really wide sometimes too
Loves yogurt
Kind of gives kisses
Love being held and now holds her arms up when she wants up
Is super cute.

Happy Birthday Kenzie Girl!

Mackenzie's Birthday Party

We had Kenzie's Birthday party on Sunday. My parents and the Crabtrees were there.

Kenzie wore her cute birthday outfit.

We took pictures while we waited for the guests to arrive.

This little boy was super excited all day and kept wanted to "celebrate" (decorate) the house.

Kenzie wasn't very into opening her presents. Even though she ripped this one right away she didn't care to keep ripping it, which is weird because she loves ripping things.

She got this cute stroller, but doesn't like pushing it around as much as I thought she would.

Daddy helped her open some of her presents.

And her brothers and cousins helped her open the rest.

They were all excited to see what was in this one. It kept making noise in the wrapping paper.

While the kids (and parents/grandparents) were looking at the doggy toy, Jordan opened this present.

Kenzie also got a baby and a bottle. She prefers sucking on the bottle herself rather than feeding it to the baby.

Then it was time for the cake.

Mackenzie was excited to get in her high chair and have pictures taken of her.

She was a looking a little confused when we were all looking at her and singing. But she focused on the cupcake as soon as it was starting to be brought to her.

Even though we've been working on blowing for the last month or so and she can do it, she wouldn't blow out the candle. I guess we should have practiced her blowing it out. I was a little disappointed. Instead she tried to grab it and grandpa blew it out I think.

She was really excited when Doug was giving her the cupcake. She kicked her legs in anticipation.

She picked it up, tried a little of it and then squished it with her hands.

But decided she didn't like it so much when she saw that messiness wasn't coming off her hands very easily.

Seattle Children's Museum and the Fair

Last Friday Doug and I took the kids and Cousin Alli to the Seattle Children's Museum. We have a membership to it, but haven't used it yet. We got it a few months ago for a really good deal from a deal of the day site (like groupon... but I think it was actually different site, but I'm not sure which...) It turned out to be really fun for the kids. We there for about 3 or 4 hours.

While walking there from out parking spot we passed this cool fountain. This kids liked watching it. On out way back there was actually a boy in the water playing and them some college aged boys starting sliding down the cement hill into it and trying to catch a frisbee on their way down. It was pretty entertaining...

Kenzie through a hippo's mouth.

Alli getting eaten by a hippo.

One of the rooms was full of stuff from story books. So Alli is sitting in Mama Bear's chair. Doesn't it really look like she's sitting on a chair in a book?

Jordan cooking

and cooking some more

Jordan, Alli, and Jack in the fire truck.

There was a grocery store. Jordan pretended to be the baker and Alli bought some bread from him.

Jackson doing his shopping.

There was also a stage for the kids to play one. The danced around on it.

Jackson did some break dancing.

Kenzie playing the drums.

Jordan playing the drums.

Alli giving rides on the bicycle.

Alli, Jack, Jordan in the story time room.

I just love little Kenzie in this picture. She's so cute!

We also went to the Puyallup Fair last week. I forgot to bring my camera and was pretty sad that I did that. But we survived and somehow still had fun. We looked at the animals and did the rides. Jordan was scared when we saw the cows. As soon as we walked in the first cow barn he covered his eyes and kept them covered until we left. He did that in the other cow barns too and started to in the other barns too until he saw they were smaller animals. He didn't want to walk in them at all though. Jackson didn't care much about the animals. He just wanted to ride the rides. We went in the morning and the little kid rides didn't open until an hour after we were there so we had to keep looking at animals until then. Jackson loved the rides. Jordan loved some of them. The second ride he went on was pretty fast (for a kids ride) and he was scared. He would try to smile at us as he went around, but I could tell he was scared. He was also scared of a jet ride. But he liked all the ones that went slowly around in a circle. He said his favorite rides were "the boat ride and the other boat ride." Jackson loved them all. He just wanted to keep riding them. The rides and food and games were supposed to be $2 the day we went. We were excited to see what foods they had for $2 and it turned out that they didn't have much so we were disappointed. We could have bought the boys a peanut butter sandwich for $2 though... But overall we had a fun time. I wish we had more time to see all the other stuff that was there. But we had to get Jack to preschool and Doug needed to work so we came home.

New Bed

We bought Jackson a new bed a week and a half ago. It's actually for Jackson and Jordan eventually since it's a bunk bed. Jackson was really excited for it. He even wanted to take a nap in it. I think these pictures are actually from bed time though...

See the excitement?

The problem with the bed is that we bought it from craigslist and when Doug picked it up, it had already been taken apart. The lady said we had all the pieces we need to put it together, but when we tried, we noticed the pegs were missing. Doug called the lady and left a message, but she never called back. So I emailed her and she wrote me back saying she looked but couldn't find them. So Doug made some new pegs. But then when he tried to put it together the second time he found that we're also missing the parts that make the screws tight so they don't fall out. And so we need to buy some of those now too. So if you're going to buy a bunk bed on craigslist, make sure you have all the parts before you leave. We did get a really good deal though... So I still think it was worth it.

Things I want to remember...

I always want to remember funny/cute things my kids do and say...

A few weeks ago Jordan and Doug were playing "tiger cubs" (a game where they act like tigers and the boys are the cubs... Jack was already in bed so it was just Doug and Jordan). Jordan had just returned from gathering the food when Doug said "here comes the dinosaur" and Jordan freaked out. He was so scared. He ran, screaming, one way then realized he would be running to the wall that way and turned around and ran to me and I picked him up. He was so scared looking around and I told him there was really no dinosaur and that it was just pretend. And he was like "oh." But he was done playing. He got down and said he wanted some wheat thins. Doug told me after that there's always a dinosaur or something that comes, but Jordan is usually in the tiger cave.

Jackson has been loving preschool. I ask him everyday what he did and try to get lots of details out of him. I usually ask him who he played with and for the first few days he said he didn't play with anyone. But last Thursday he got really happy when I asked and he said "guess who knew my name? Hannah!" He said they played outside together. Then yesterday he said he played with her again and told Doug and me that she's his best friend. And today he was excited when he thought he saw her car when we got preschool. And was even more happy when I told him that her car just got there. After preschool he told me that he wasn't a helper but then said "guess who was center helper?" (I think he said center helper... could have been a different helper though) "My friend. Hannah." I asked if she was excited and he said "yeah, we smiled at each other." It was cute.

Yesterday, after Jack had said that Hannah was his best friend he started to talk about Alli and said she's his "super duper best friend" he loves her so much. Then he said "and Kimber and Sam too. I them so much" He looked like he couldn't believe how much he loved them. He was kind of shaking his head. It was pretty funny and cute.

One day, Jackson was telling me that he's going to move out and live in his own house someday (he tells me this somewhat often...) He said he's going to live in Hawaii (he might have even said the house that we stayed in). Then I asked if I could come visit him. And he said I could come anytime I want to.

On Friday Jordan and I ran some errands and as we were walking from one store to another I was holding him. He was telling me he wanted to walk in the store we were going to. I said ok. Then he said "I touch anything, I ride in basket?" I said yeah. He said "I'm touching you... I have to ride in basket."

Lately Jordan has been saying "I (insert what he wants to do, that I don't want him to do) if I want to." Jackson says it too sometimes, which is where Jordan learned it, but I'll admit it's much cute coming from a 2 year old :)

When Jordan pretend talks on the phone he always "bye, bye, see you later, thank you, you're welcome"

One day, Jordan put on my tennis shoes (which I only wear to Zumba) and said he was going to zumba. Then he grabbed my water bottle and said he was taking my zumba water bottle.

First First day of School

Jackson started preschool yesterday. I can't believe he's old enough to go to school. I know he really could have gone last year, but it's still weird that he goes. He loves it. All summer he kept asking if it was time to go. Although, I don't know if he realized that you keep going to school once you start because today he asked where we were going when I told him to get dressed and was surprised when I said preschool. He likes it a lot though. He was pretty nervous yesterday. He told me he was scared because of all the kids he doesn't know. But he was more excited to go today. His favorite things so far I think are being the line leader and the snack helper. He said her really wants to be the bell ringer (which is what they all want to do I think.) He loves his teacher, who is my sister Ashlee :) I think it helps him feel a little better about going to preschool since she's there and his cousin is in the class too. He was also really excited that he made a book that he can read to me. I love seeing him excited about and hearing all about his day at school. I have to ask a million questions to get any answers out of him, but I love what he does tell me. It was really weird to drop him off somewhere and still drive away with Jordan and Mackenzie in the car. And it's really weird to have to make sure we get him to preschool everyday. I can no longer do whatever I want whenever I want and only worry about naps. And I'll never be able to go back to that. Until summer. And I guess when my kids are all grown up. But then it won't be the same. So life from here on out will be different then it has been for the past 4 years.

Eating breakfast.

1st 1st day of school photo

So excited!

Mariners Game

We had our annual Riding family Mariners game a few weeks ago. My mom got us all tickets so we could enjoy the game together. This year only us and my brother in law and his daughters were there. The others couldn't come. Our tickets were on the second level in bleacher seats, but since there weren't very many fans there we got to sit down in the section where my parents have their weekend season tickets. It was a much nicer spot. :) We all had a blast at the game.

Sam, Jackson, my mom. Grandma and Grandpa bought all the kids cotton candy. Jackson was nice enough to share with me though.

Jordan

Konrad, Kimber, Doug, Kenzie's head.

Kenzie's face. She did pretty good at the game considering it was during her normal nap time.

Jack and Alli

The view from our seats.