Painting the House

 

The back of our part of the duplex.  Yeah, Ugly.

Painting the house was a huge part of September.  Pressure washing, letting it dry, picking out colors, masking/taping, spraying, hand painting the trim.  It took 4 full saturdays, an afternoon, and help from the grandparents!  I didn't know what I was getting myself into.  But as you can see, the back of the house needed it, and the front is just boring!  We got premium paint that will last forever, so I never have to do that again!

In September Kyle and I both got Oregon drivers licenses.  Reading the drivers manual was pretty boring, but I learned a lot and passed my test. 

Kyle and I also got callings: I am the Relief Society chorister and on the Relief Society Activities Committee, and Kyle is the Advancement Specialist for Cub Scouts (he buys their patches each month). 

The best part of the month was celebrating my birthday and our Anniversary by going kayaking and going out to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  Kayaking was peaceful, fun, and interesting.  It was so rejuvenating.  Hooray for 5 years together!  We are happy to meet that milestone, grateful for where our lives have taken us thus far, and excited to live the rest of forever together.

New and improved!  Compare (to above pics), love, enjoy.  All that work was worth it.

 A sneek peak of Hazel's Halloween costume, a hand-me-down from Dillan.

 

Aahh! We bought a duplex!

 How awesome is this picture?  Other than the finger in the corner, it looks like one of those highschool senior lacrosse player photos.  I'm pretty sure Dillan took this picture!

This post is all August.  What a month August was!  We got a new car (Grandpa Tanner's old car), got back from our family reunion vacation, and registered that car.  We also closed on the duplex, packed, cleaned, loaded, unloaded, lost a ton of money to our downpayment, and started living a new life in Gresham.  Some smaller things that happened: We went to the GreenSmoothieGirl event in Portland (which is exciting to us), and tons of people helped us move: babysitters while cleaning and packing and loading, and friends, ward-members, and family helping us load and unload.  I would say moving wasn't the hard part, the hard part is adjusting to your new location!

 We packed up all the DVD's that were under the TV, naturally Dillan wanted the space to be filled, with him.

 Hazel saw and wanted to do it as well, it was much harder for her, even though she is smaller.  Coordination is important!

 This is Dillan's train set we got while in California.  In order to redirect Hazel's destructive energy, we showed her how to stand over the tracks.  No more grabbing the train off of the track or standing on the track and causing a crash.  It was such a hit that Dillan invited us to do it too!

 King Kong!

 I heart you, Kyle.

 I love that Hazel watches TV now.  It makes those first 20 minutes in the morning so much easier and showering as well!

 She is drinking what we call a Monkey Shake: kefir (like yogurt, only awesomer), cocoa, peanut butter, banana.  She does the same thing with water, hot pink smoothies, and green smoothies. 
One day, while surfing Facebook I noticed some friends I had who weren't married and didn't have kids.  5 minutes later I was looking at a face similar to this one, only she had poured it on the table as well and done a very good job of spreading it around.  And I was so grateful I had that dirty girl!  Thank you friends of Facebook for that moment of love, especially because it is normally a moment of unlove.

 This is what I get when I tell Dillan to change into his underwear (and out of his Pull-Up) after his nap, and then I leave the room.  I loved it!  Only it was the same underwear he'd had on before his nap! 

Don't forget to notice the awesome mountain of boxes in the background.

 Hazel, taking advantage of the extra space packing had provided her.

2 vacations, running, jumping, swimming

• July was so full!  Unfortunately, I didn't do a very good job of taking pictures this month.  The good news is, I can make up for it with more words!  Some little things that happened this month: 
• Dillan "read" the scripture and said the prayer in primary for the first time.  It was great, he asked that he'd sleep well and he said thank you for his cousins...
• Hazel asked to go pee in the potty and has gone about 4 times successfully since then.
• Hazel can now put together the medium legos
• Hazel pulled out one of her earrings and we lost part of it.  So Grandma and Grandpa Tanner bought her this set of beautiful sterling silver earrings while we were on vacation with them.  She kept pulling it out!  (Always the same one.)  She would even chew on them after she took them out, flattening the backing and popping gems out of the fronts.  I almost gave up and was going to let her holes close up, but Kyle found some screw back earrings and it fixed the problem!
• We found a duplex to buy!
• Dillan can now swim about 5 feet under water by himself.
• We traded cars with my dad.  Now we have a Mitsubishi Endeavor, a little bit bigger than our last car, so our family will be able to grow!
• I started running at a track.  I will push the kids in the jogger stroller until they get bored, then Dillan will ride his bike, or they will play in the Running Long Jump Sandpit, or they will play in a nearby field together.  It's great for all of us to get outside in the sunshine and get some exercise!These pictures are all out of order, but they are all from the month of July.  We took a road trip down to San Diego for a Kirkham (my mom's family) family reunion.  It was Kyle's first time getting a paid vacation, 8 days, 15.5 hours of driving each way!  We left at 8 pm, the kids finally fell asleep at around 9:30 pm, then we drove all night long and arrived at 11:30 am.

 Before we went to the family reunion we stay at my Grandma Tanner's house near LA.  We went swimming in my uncles pool twice and were surprised to find one of Kyle's cousins at church with us.  What are the chances?

 This is at the Wildlife Safari Park.  Our favorite parts were the African Acrobats on poles, the baby Gorilla, riding the tram around the safari section, those mist things (they feel so good out in the hot sun!), and seeing the cheetah run (full sprint, 100 meters, 5.65 seconds)!

 

My cousin Jordan got married as part of the family reunion.  We also went to the beach once.  Dillan managed to have a blast for all 3 hours we were there without ever getting into the water.  The waves really scare him.  Hazel on the other hand was perfectly content to be held by Mom in the ocean, waves crashing on her.  She also didn't mind getting dunked a few times and even stood chest deep in the ocean in between waves.

My Grandpa Kirkham is winding down in his old age, so Grandma Kirkham got together all of his sketches, brought them to the reunion, and let everyone pick one!  It is so special to be able to have one of his pieces of artwork to put up in my home.  Also, one evening all the siblings (my parents generation) got together and told stories about their childhood with Grandma and Grandpa Kirkham, it so fun to here them banter and reminisce.

On the last day of the reunion we went to Sea World, sorry, no pictures! 

• The kids loved going on their first "roller coasters." 
• Hazel made up a sign (in sign language) for shark. 
• Dillan thought adjusting his hat to fit just right was more interesting than Shamu the Killer Whale doing tricks. 
•  I got sunburned because I forgot I had a neck and therefore the sunscreen missed that part. 
• Kyle got the best seat at the Shamu show because Hazel was throwing a fit and he was holding her. 
• Who knew seeing "shows" could be so exhausting? 

 On the last day of vacation we went to the Travel Town Museum in Griffith Park in Los Angelos.  Lots of train engines and restored train cars: lounge cars, dining cars, passenger cars, sleeper cars.  Lots of them had mini tours through the car.  And we rode the teeny train that went around the area.  We loved it!  I hadn't realized how big those train engines were!

 Hazel loves blueberries!

 This is a rubbermaid container I emptied so they could cool down on a hot day, in the parking lot of our apartment building.

 Hazel's adorable dress is brought to you by Grandma Hardy!  Hand-Knit, amazing!

 Earlier in the month I flew down to Southern California for a vacation with my parents and the kids.  My Grandma, June Tanner, celebrated her 95th birthday, this is her pool party.

 During that vacation we went swimming at the resort's pools a lot.  In this picture my dad and my brother Daniel are throwing Dillan.  It's hard to see him, but he is flying just above the chairs in the background.  He loved it!  Hazel also loved going swimming, she would try to climb in whether or not we had her swimsuit on!

 As part of this vacation we celebrated the 4th of July (yay America, I love you!) at my Aunt Cindy's house.  They rented this enormous slip and slide.  Mostly the 20 year olds played on it.  Dillan only went through it this once with his Uncle Daniel, other than that he just stood in the little landing pool. 

It's full, it's exciting, it's June!

Wow!  Quite a month June was.  We started off with Josh's temple marriage (Kyle's brother). In case you're thinking to yourself that Hazel's dress is adorable you may want to know that I made it.  Cheapest way to get a toddler's dress to match the wedding colors!  This hotel was the first time all 4 of us have slept in a room together.  Even though it was late (9 o'clock) the kids wouldn't sleep.  Kyle left to a "bachelor's party" and I got in bed and pretending to sleep.  I was really playing Wheel of Fortune under the covers.  It took 10 minutes, but Dillan finally stopped talking to me and to sleep.  By the way, Kyle and I looked good too, I don't know why there aren't any pictures of us.

 

 I love it when my kids find alternate uses for their toys.  I that often those alternate uses make a big mess.  Hazel used this container as a helmet all month.  It hold letter magnets that every mom for the last 2 generations has had on their fridge.  I got so sick of picking them all up!  Hazel was a pretty good helper at putting the letter back in the container, but she was so fast at dumping them out again afterwards.

 In June we also celebrate Dillan's half-birthday.  His real birthday is 2 weeks before Christmas, so we decided not to celebrate it then.  This year we did a joint party with his cousins at a water park.  Dillan's first gift was goggles, opened early so he had them for swimming.  The park had a section that was 2 feet deep and Dillan was like a fish.  He'd go under, swim for a few seconds, come up to drain his goggles and do it again!  Here the kids are exhausted after swimming.  Hazel loves the water also, I make sure to dunk her under once or twice each time we go and she doesn't mind!

 Opening presents.  He loved those goggles so much he wore them to church the next day, all 3 hours.

Hazel is riding Dillan's new bike. We wanted to get a bike that was the right size and that Dillan was really excited about, so we took him with us shopping and even bought the bike with him. We told him it was for his cousin and then we left it at his cousin's house for a few weeks until his party. This sweet boy was so excited to pick out a bike and give it to his cousin! The funny thing is, this was the most expensive birthday present he got, and I think it is the least used so far.

 One of Dillan's birthday presents was a remote control dump truck.  He made this track out of kids encyclopedias.  Hazel thought it was the perfect balance beam for her.  There was a lot of crying and fits, but they had a lot of fun with this setup!

 The end of the Pinewood Derby Saga!  Isn't it cool?  By itself it wasn't very fast, but it was an Elder's Quorum race, so Kyle didn't have to follow the rules.  He tied a string to the motorcycle and pulled it down the track, beating the fastest car.

 No, she can't really see.

Another exciting adventure in June, berry picking season started!  In one hour we picked 14 pounds of berries.  It doesn't look like much because that is an enormous pot, 2 or 3 gallons.  The kids loved picking and eating strawberries and playing outside.  When we got to the bottom of the strawberries I found several that Hazel had taken a bite out of and put back.  Strawberry jam, strawberry fruit leather, fresh strawberries, frozen strawberries...I love it!  More berries to come!

 Happy Father's Day to Kyle!  Dillan cut out most of those letters by himself!  Who knew I'd be so proud of him for that?  All new skills are something to celebrate!  Thank you Kyle for being such a wonderful dad!

 Dillan wanted me to make an "Up" button for him.  So I did.  Then I taped it on him, just like he wanted me to.  Then he pressed the button (white circle on his shirt).  He didn't go up, the button didn't work as expected, what a let down.  Darn physics (and gravity). 

 I don't know what he is, but it's pretty sweet. 

I did her hair for the first time!  Because she sat still for the first time ever.