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My pregnancies are always adventures, and getting to this one definitely has been. I had a couple of miscarriages before this one, and am now on some medicine which will hopefully keep this one healthy and in there for 9 months. We are thrilled and bracing ourselves for lots of mommy-in-the-bathroom-puking!

Pictures from the last post

So when I posted last night on my tablet, apparently the photos didn't attach properly to the post. So here they are. Fredrick calls it his little "house."

For anyone interested, the instructions can be found here.

Boys' Room Redo

So the boys needed a little room rearrange. Fredrick decided he would much rather snuggle up to his big brother at night than sleep in his toddler bed, so the toddler bed was only used for occasional jumping. He also lost patience with being rocked at night (stifled sob) so the rocking chair was just taking up space. So they never wanted to play in their room, and toys were always in the living room. I found this tutorial in a magazine a few years ago, and wanted to make it for awhile. So last Saturday, I bit the bullet and went to Joannes with my mom. We got all the materials, then during nap time we put it all together. Then yesterday we moved the furniture around, installed a ceiling hook, and voila! A brand new room for the boys to play in:

Train Ride to the Oregon Zoo!

My boys are kind of in to trains right now. Don't mistake, Lightning McQueen and company are still first in the hearts of these two little boys. But when they aren't playing/watching/talking Cars, they do really like trains. They like Thomas and Friends, and right now Wesley is on a bit of a Dinosaur Train kick. Thank goodness it is at least educational! (Side note: the conversation about carnivores/herbivores is an interesting one coming from a vegetarian. We asked Wesley what he is--we let him choose whether or not to eat meat, and he said he is a carnivore. When we further asked what animals he liked to eat, he said, "fishy crackers!")
So as a special treat my parents took us on a train ride from Salem to Portland, where we caught the light rail over to the Oregon Zoo. We had such a blast! I think the pictures of the train ride are on my mom's camera, so I'll have to post some of those later. But here are a few cute ones from our excursion:

Wesley in the eagle's nest. Joe, Mandy and Grandpa Johnson can attest to his uncanny bird call he loves to make.

Wesley and the beaver. He was a playful fellow!

Fredrick really liked the fish in the Northwest exhibit. He was pretty much dying to get out of that stroller and try to catch one.

One of Fredrick's favorite words right now is tractor. You can imagine how hard it was to pull him off this one!

Little cowboys!

Wesley and the goat.

He liked the monkeys!

He fits right in!

They loved the fish that were almost their size!

It was a warm day. A little water gave him some crazy hair!

Crazy hair 2!

Feeding the pretend elephant with some new friends.

Riding the hippo

An energetic drummer at the African exhibit

They really liked the big kitties.

Wesley the prairie dog. I don't remember the actual name of the animals hiding behind the glass bubble, but they were cute little burrowing critters.

Zebra bum!!

The giraffes are always my personal favorites.

There is this cool exhibit where you can feed the Lorakeets these cups of nectar. We got there a little late in the day, so I think most of them were already glutted on nectar. But we got one to take a sip.

We had such a fun, full day. The train was so fun, the zoo was a blast, and we all came home exhausted and happy. This years trip was definitely a success!

Quick Trip to Washington

Sunday afternoon we headed up to Washington for a quick trip to see the Johnson clan. We really missed spending time with everyone at the reunion, plus we owed Grandma Johnson some belated birthday hugs, plus we wanted to spend some time with Ashley, Morgan and baby Clara before they move to Denver later this week.

It was a short visit, but we had a really great time. We got a few card games in with the Fillmores, and Monday night we got to have a family night with the Chantrys, Grandma and Papa, Ben and Casey's family and Joe and Mandy's family. There were so many little boys all together! Very fun.

Joe and Mandy were so nice to come hang out with us for a good chunk of the time we were there. It was pretty cute to watch Brady and Wesley run around together. Tuesday night we were able to go to a Mariners game. Grandma Johnson was nice enough to watch Fredrick, Brady and Connor so we could enjoy the game. This wasn't Wesley's first game, but he was pretty darn excited.

Such a gorgeous night for baseball! Especially when the Mariners were on a winning streak! Look at that gorgeous Seattle skyline. Man, I love that ballpark.

Wesley loved seeing the players in real life. He's quite a little baseball fan!

Making some goofy faces!

Wesley was having a hard time sitting still through the whole game so I took him on a little walk. There is a little playground in the stadium for little ones with slides and big tubes (they kind of look like big gerbil toys) for kids to climb through. Wesley loved it! When we were done there (more like I was done--he could have stayed forever) we were on our way back and he grabbed my hand and dragged me over to see the Moose.  He was pretty excited to see the Mariner's Moose!

I miss this girl! 

Daddy bought him a huge foam finger to wave. He thought that was pretty cool. He still walks around with it saying, "Mariners number one!"

He has a special place in his heart for Grandpa Johnson. I had to get a picture of them together at the game, like the one from Wesley's first game:

Next time hopefully the game will start earlier in the day so we can bring Fredrick. Got to start these boys on baseball early and raise them up right!

Pictures I wish I had taken: Wesley and his cousins playing in the sand box, a million of Clara (although I can't compete with the professional ones her mom takes!), and Grandma Johnson with the boys on the porch swing watching the airplanes. I'm so terrible at remembering to take pictures. We had so much fun these past few days. Thanks everyone for making our trip so fun!

Big Boy Bed

The other day when I woke up, I found a Fredrick up and wandering around. This was quite a shock considering I had no idea he knew how to get out of his crib and open the door. That day at nap time, he decided That Was IT! and he refused to go in the crib. I put him in; he climbed out. This freaked me out because his crib is a sleigh style and is really high up for such a small guy. So we decided to transition his crib into a toddler bed before he cracked his cute, cute head. This transition was not without much trepidation on my part: when we transitioned Wesley (I was pregnant with Fredrick and couldn't lift Wes in and out of his crib) it was a bit of a nightmare. He cried and cried and hated going to bed for a long time. I think it was about the time Fredrick was a new baby he finally settled down at night and wasn't so hard to put down.

Night One: Fredrick was really excited about his big boy bed. Wesley was such a sweet big brother and insisted on laying down next to Fredrick to help him feel comfortable. I stayed in there singing to Fredrick and trying to help him settle down, but eventually I just left the room and let him cry for a few minutes. He settled down after maybe ten minutes and did go back to his little bed, crawl up, and go to sleep. Wesley went back to his bed, and this is what we found a few hours later:

I did lift him back in bed gently and he slept there the rest of the night.

Night Two: I did pretty much the same thing as the first night, but I wasn't so concerned about leaving and letting him cry. I accepted the fact that they would probably be little monkeys and get up and play a little, trusting they would end up in their beds. They did! When we went in to check on them, this is what we found:

Night Three: Fredrick pretty much had the hang of things (or was it Mom getting trained?) and they went down very smoothly. It is so cute to see them such good friends and Fredrick being old enough to really play and interact as a brother with Wesley. And it is very sweet to see Wesley take Fredrick under his wing. When we went to check on them, this is what he found:

I love these little boys so much. I hope they always stay close, close friends.

Summer Fun

We have been busy having some fun around here. These boys love playing in the sprinkler at Grandma/Papa's house! I don't think I've ever seen a bigger smile on Fredrick's face!

Wesley loved to oblige him by chasing him with the hose. 

They also love digging in their dedicated garden space. They even planted some corn that has sprouted quite nicely! Wesley's favorite part is finding worms to put in his bucket.

Fredrick just likes to dig, dig, dig.

Wesley helped Papa build a birdhouse for the back yard. He got to use tools just like Bob the builder!

This hat on Fredrick cracked me up!

Wesley looking so grown up helping with his own shovel.

The boys eating snacks in their little tee pee fort. Which my very cool mom built for me when I was in grade school and wrote a play that needed one as a prop.

Look at that dapper young man! So handsome!

Noodle Bath

Thanks to +Lindsay Brems and her idea published on her blog "A Teacher Mom" (link at the bottom), I decided it was time we gave the boys a noodle bath. I had no idea how much pasta it would take or what I was getting myself into, but the thought of seeing them squish around in a tub of noodles was worth the try. So I cooked up 10 lbs (dry) of spaghetti and dumped it in the tub. It took the little one a little time to relax, but once they spent a couple minutes with their dad dumping noodles on their head they had the best time and didn't want to come out for over an hour. The whole thing stressed +Alicia Johnson out, but I thought it was just great. I have the maturity of a five year old so I was tempted to jump in myself until the little one urinated. The temptation went away.

Things that didn't surprise me
It was a lot of fun for the boys, more than I've seen them have for a while and we do fun stuff.
It made for some fun pictures and videos.

Things that did surprise me
It was a lot of work to cook up that much pasta. We have a big pot, but it still took forever.
It was a lot of work to clean up. I didn't think much beyond "put boys in pasta".
It was cheaper than I thought it would be. Ten 1-pound bags did the trick and the whole thing cost less than $9.
It was difficult to get pictures and especially videos that were peenie-free.

All in all, it was a great time and I'm glad we did it. It was hilarious watching them chuck pasta on each other for an hour. They just loved holding, squishing, and experiencing the noodles. Thanks for the idea, Lindsay.

link-- http://www.ateachermom.com/2012/07/09/messy-challenge-give-in-to-some-dirty-fun/

It's a great blog on teaching your kids, check it out

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion

I started a new blog for original knitting designs, and other musings. You should check it out!

bloomsburycafe.wordpress.com

Oh, and a shout out to my lovely models. Aren't they pretty? 

And thanks to Ashley, photographer extraordinaire!

Reunion Adventures, Part 2

So we came back from La Grande, OR on a Wednesday afternoon, expecting to leave for Federal Way, WA on Friday morning early to attend cousin Connor's birthday party before the big Johnson family reunion being held in Cle Elum, WA. Wednesday night Fredrick went down to sleep with only a tiny runny nose. Two and a half hours later the poor boy woke up with croup so bad we ended up taking him to the hospital for a breathing treatment. That was a long, scary night with not a lot of sleep. The trip to the birthday party was cancelled, because although he bounced back pretty quick from how sick he was that night, we didn't want to infect any on the little infants we would have been staying around. 

We headed up to Washington Sunday afternoon and made it as far as Auburn, where we stayed in a hotel for the night. About four in the morning, Wesley woke me up by climbing in bed beside me, burning up with a temp of about 102. So as Fredrick was getting better, Wesley went down for the count. Nasty cough, high fever, lethargy . . . just in time for the reunion.  Big time bummer.  

We were so  blessed in our accommodations. Each family had their own individual cabin, so while we were quarantined the whole week, we had a comfortable place to stay.

Here is Wesley's cute bed

The little kitchen table, fridge/microwave counter leading off to the bathroom.

Our bed and couch.

Fredrick immediately got into mischief by coloring his head with a green marker. It took a good week for it to come off his scalp.

My poor Wesley.

Wes did get a fun adventure on day of riding a horse for the first time. He was a little trooper and tried really hard to have fun even though he was really not well.

After a particularly rough night where Wesley's fever got up to 105, we decided to cut our losses and leave the reunion a couple days early. We were so disappointed to miss spending time with family we get to see only rarely, but we didn't want to get anyone else sick. Plus LeGrand and I were both coming down with fevers (and had some serious sleep deprivation going on) so it was time to head back. But we really loved to see everyone in passing, and we can only hope we can actually make the next reunion! (We don't have a very good track record with these events. Reunion #1: Alicia was pregnant with Wesley and puking the whole time. Reunion #2: pregnant with Fredrick and unable to travel. This was supposed to be our year, darn it!)