Family Visits

 October is so fun with the oncoming Fall, harvest, and Halloween activities.  Our month started with Kyle's birthday.  He got a bike and is super excited to ride to work. 

I found a farm where I can get raw milk.  I went on a tour with the kids.  Hazel called everything a dog, then she called everything a chicken.  Apparently she doesn't know her farm animals, especially goats, but I set her straight.

Danny came for a visit.  While he was here we went to OMSI (science museum) and I participated in my first Turkey Shoot.  I've been resisting using a shotgun since I was 12 years old and we started shooting in my grandparents' backyard.  I finally did it this year, and I didn't break any bones!  I did hit several clay pigeons, and my armpit was sore for days after.  It turns out Kyle's been holding out on me. He got 12 out of 12 in the competition; I didn't even know he could shoot!  His gun-toting friends were all shocked as well (because he beat them).

Then Hazel got this crazy virus.  She threw up once each evening, for 9 days.  I was super grateful for the doctor who told me it was just a virus, because the once-a-day thing had me thinking of very creative explanations, none of them good.

Dillan got to participate in his first primary program!  He didn't sing at all, but he felt comfortable in front of the congregation and did a great job with his line.

 Kyle's is the BYU, Dillan wanted a scary pumpkin, then Hazel (she drew the nose herself), then mine (the nose is the stem, so you can only see it's eyes and eyebrows in the dark).

 I separated out the pumpkin seeds to roast later.  She was eating them raw out of the bowl.  I tried one, they are so chewy and fibrous.  And she was just munching away!

Dillan (below) wanted cheeks cut out, then he wanted ears, so we used toothpicks to hold on the "ears" that used to be cheeks.  It turned out great.

One tradition we have is to go to a pumpkin farm each Halloween season.  The kids love to ride in a wheelbarrow, see pumpkins in their natural habitat, and pick out their own.  We carved them a few days later.  The kids scooped out the middle and told me what they wanted their jack-o-lanterns to look like.  They also got to draw some feature by themselves, then I cut it out for them.  They all turned out so fun and different.  And they rotted so fast in our rainy weather!
Next we were graced with the presence of my parents and my sister Shelly!  We had lots of fun stuff planned, most of which was botched by the rain and fog and a closed highway.  But!  We went to Powell's Books for the first time, Dillan got a skateboard, and Hazel got some legos, and we enjoyd playing games together each evening, and swimming in the hotel's pool.  They love their presents, thanks Grandma and Grandpa!  We even went to a skatepark, and Dillan was able to sit on the skateboard and roll down the slopes.

While they were here Dillan got the same virus as Hazel.  I have never done so many loads of laundry in the middle of the night!  I was sure grateful for our own washing machine.  Luckily, that was the end of it--one night, and he was fine the next day.

 Hazel is becoming very musical.  She loves to play the piano (especially after she sees me do it), dance, and sing.

 Dillan's new skateboard, he's totally in love.  This is what he is always grateful for in prayers.

 The kids are sleeping and the visiting adults resting.  We are good at wearing out our visitors!

This is the day before Halloween on the way to the church party/Trunk or Treat.  Dillan was allowed to eat 3 pieces of candy.  We offered him $5 to throw away the rest of his candy.  He loved it, and I loved watching him dump a bucketful of candy into the trashcan.  Candy was such a treat and he bought a Lego Space Rover.  Yay!  I'm excited to continue that tradition.

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.