Category: Photos


Back in September, we had some professional photos taken while we were at a pumpkin patch. Because of the package I bought, I was entered into a drawing to win a free 1 hour photo shoot. I found out around my birthday (between all the seizures, hand foot mouth disease, and car accidents) that I won the drawing. We scheduled a date for early May, but Edward’s little accident made us need to reschedule for a later day in May. We finally got it scheduled and went and had them done in downtown Snohomish. Jon with Jon Kaplan Photography was amazing! Morgan was not feeling into anyone taking his picture and we tried a bunch of things before needing to resort to suckers. Overall though, he got a bunch of great photos. These are some of my favorites.

We had a fairly chill February. We didn’t actually do much. Our wednesdays are our busy days. Edward has school, then swim lessons and then we head over to the rec center to go swimming for a few hours. It’s a blast and the boys usually sleep really well that night.

We had a decent day and Daddy had a really long dentist appointment, so we wandered down to Woodinville and played at a park there. The boys also got some fun riding their bikes around.

We went down to the Bellevue Mall and attended the Chinese New Year Celebration. It was fun and the boys liked all the music and dancing. Edward especially liked doing the crafts.

We also took a trip up to Burlington. I found a post on Facebook about a company who was opening up their showroom for kids to come and ride their bikes. They had all sorts of balance bikes available for the kids to borrow. Edward was struggling switching from the trike to the bike, so we figured if he saw other kids, he would maybe get the feel for things. He was a little unsure of at first, but after a couple hours, he was moving with the kids. We went ahead and got him a balance bike and he is loving it and is all over the place with it now. Still not confident enough to get the pedals going, but he is fast on the balance bike. Morgan got to try a little bit at the company, but he was still a bit small. He keeps trying at home. Maybe this summer he will be out there with the bigger kids.

And of course, we spent time around the house just doing our thing.

We did a bunch of playdates with friends this month. First up was a quick run to Thomas A Sullivan park with Ryder and Nicole. After some very wet days, we needed to blow some energy and it was great even though we got soaked and muddy. 🙂

Next up was a trip down to the zoo. We try to go at least once a month. There was a baby giraffe born at the end of June, and the boys like trying to find her when we go by. Darrell’s favorite animal is the otters, so we always try to get a picture for him. Our usual schedule for the zoo is arrive, go to the zoomasium to play for a few hours, go to the cafeteria for lunch, and then wander around the zoo and get some more energy out outside. We usually try to leave by 3 so we can be at the forefront of the traffic.

And of course, we had our usual fun around the house. Edward has been obsessed with Magic the card game and has been playing it nonstop with Daddy. He is doing so well at playing the game and we are seeing him improve a ton with his math. Morgan is just being a toddler and exploring all of his surroundings. He is getting really good at climbing things and has the best balance. He is running and is expressing his thoughts and wants. Not quite talking just yet, but he does let us know what he wants. He loves to go to bed and will take a book with him. Doesn’t let us actually read it to him, but he will flip through the pages.

We weren’t super busy this September. Just a lot of relaxing at home recovering from a really long and busy summer. We finished out the summer (and the first weekend of September) with a trip out to Idaho. We took Lorna out to Idaho since she was going to visit and we hadn’t been out there in over a year. We try to see all the family once a year. So we headed out on Labor Day weekend. It was a lot of fun. Uncle Adam taught Edward how to chase the wild turkeys, we spent a full day down at the river with a whole bunch of family and Edward even jumped off of the dock into the water. He was really nervous and doesn’t usually do this, so this was a HUGE step for him. He loved being able to play with two other cousins who are close in age to him. Morgan got to eat his first whole peach. We fed him some lunch, but he obviously didn’t like the sandwich we gave him as he dug into the bag and got out a peach on his own. It was a nice relaxing trip which is one of our favorite kinds of trips. 🙂

The only other thing we really did was head out to The Farm at Swan’s Trail. They had a pumpkin patch, a corn maze, a bunch of kid play areas, a corn box (sandbox with corn basically), a barn maze, a bunch of food, duck racing, and so much more. It rained a bit while we were there, so we didn’t get a chance to do everything, but it was a ton of fun and I think we found the pumpkin patch we will go to a lot. 🙂

Also, at The Farm, there was a professional photographer (Jon Kaplan Photography) set up and since we hadn’t had photos done in a very long time, he had good prices and we went for it. I love the photos that we got! Morgan wasn’t super sure of it, so we didn’t get many with him actually smiling though.

August was full of traveling. First up, we headed down to Eureka for a former roommates wedding. I lived with her for 4 years, so we were pretty close. Her and her husband were both MLJ’s as well. We stayed at a hotel and Edward loved the fact that he got to go swimming a whole bunch. Unfortunately, it was a quick trip, so we didn’t get to do everything we wanted to do, but still fun. Lorna met us in Eureka just before we headed out and we gave her a ride up to Seattle to visit. We of course stopped at Uncle Kenny’s before heading up through Bend and seeing a different part of the states we hadn’t seen before.

The weekend right after we got back from California, we left Lorna at the house watching the cats while we headed up into Canada to go visit Darrell’s family on Sechelt. We got up there Friday night and left on Sunday morning. We spent time walking along the beach, playing with the dogs, and I even went with some of his Aunts to a local artisan fair. It was nice and relaxing.

On our way home after Sechelt, we stopped in Stanley Park at the Vancouver Aquarium. It was Morgan’s first Aquarium visit and boy was he enthralled. He loved seeing all the fish, otters and whales. We even stopped by Stingray cove and the kiddos got to touch the stingrays.

After getting back from Canada, we spent some time around Seattle with Lorna. Mountainview Blueberry Farms, where we pick our blueberries, has a larger size blueberry that became ripe while she was here, so we went out to see how picking those were. We had only got the smaller ones last month. It was so much easier and nicer (especially as the weather was a bit cooler). We ended up picking another 20lbs or so. Morgan really got into picking the blueberries this time and was just trying to eat as many as he could. He was in the pack on my back and everytime I leaned over to get some blueberries, he grabbed the closest branch with some on it and shoved it in his mouth. We also checked out a little playground in Renton.

After picking blueberries, we headed out to Monroe and went to the Evergreen State Fair. We love going to fairs and last year was our first year taking Edward, so we were excited to take him again. He remembered a few things like the petting zoo and the rollercoasters. He got to do some new stuff this year too. The first was he got to go on one of those trampoline jumps. He was nervous at first, but he slowly warmed up. He wasn’t quite comfortable doing any flips, but he at least was jumping a bit higher and smiling through it all by the end of the second time. The last newish thing he got to do was we let him go on all the rides by himself. He wasn’t quite tall enough for a single rider on the rollercoaster, so he chose Grammy to go with him, but we told him how much he had and let him choose which rides he wanted to do. He chose a couple fun houses, the burlap sack slide, and a couple other ones. He was really bummed to be leaving, but we promised him we would take him again next year.

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