New Growth

I love spring/summer. It has been so much fun having a vegetable garden. I love to watch things grow. I wish that I had Forrest build me one when we first moved in!
These are the tomato plants that I grew from seed.
Sugar snap peas.
Check out the size of those spinach leaves!
This is my bed that currently has the most things growing in it. There is lettuce, radishes, carrots, spinach, onions and one lonely cabbage in the bottom right hand corner.

Memorial Day

Ohio Trip Day 3 &4

Friday was hot. Hot, hot, hot. 90 degrees and 90% humidity. I now know why Southern girls do their hair - they have to or the humidity will make them look like poodles! Once again the kids did great and played in the grass.

Ryan clearing the pole vault. He cleared 14-7.5 inches! Right after pole vault Ryan went to the ambulance for an IV. He was dehydrated, a little out of it, and had some minor heat exhaustion.
Ryan finished 11th at Nationals with a personal best of 6501 points. Here he is with his coach John Smith and Joel Krebs, the other senior.

West Virginia. It was very pretty.
After a hot day the kids got in the shower. Ephraim wanted in, but I didn't trust him on slippery tile without an adult in the shower.
How many people can you fit on a king sized bed?

These two pictures are to prove that Ephraim has actually been in Illinois. He slept the entire time we were in the airport on Saturday.

Ohio trip, Day 1 &2

Ephraim, my mom and I left on Tuesday afternoon to fly to Columbus, Ohio to cheer for Ryan while he competed at Nationals in the decathlon. Ephraim did great on the flight to Denver and loved the big windows while we were there.
We arrived in Columbus around 12:30 in the morning and had a bit of difficulty finding our hotel. Lola, my GPS system couldn't locate the street or the hotel because it was brand new and not in her system. We ended up calling Frank and Lona and instructed him to "break in" to my email account and get the instructions off of the hotel email.
We picked up Colleen, Elisa, and Sadie the next morning (they took a red eye) and drove down to Marietta. Our hotel was actually in Parkersburg, West Virginia and we just hung out and let the kids run around for a while in our large hotel room.
Thursday was the first day of the track meet. The weather was warm - upper 80's, but the kids all did great and enjoyed playing in the grass.
We ate dinner with the team and then went to bed. We kept the kids on Mountain Standard Time, so they all went to sleep around 9:30-10 and didn't wake up until 9 the next morning!

Ohio or Bust...

Today my mom, Ephraim and I are boarding a plane to Ohio to watch my brother compete at Nationals in the decathlon. We will be joined Wednesday morning by Colleen, Elisa and Sadie. Please pray for safe travels - especially Colleen - she is bringing the girls by herself on a red eye. There are also 5 or 6 students that are driving across the country to be there to support the George Fox team.

Go Bruins!

Need a Great Florist?

My mom recently graduated from the Florist Institute in Portland and has been busy designing bouquets.
If you live in the greater Portland area - and are in need of a florist - contact me and I will get you in touch with my mom.
I think this arrangement is neat - those are mushrooms and potatoes.
I love the limes in this arrangement.
I was unable to get any pictures of her wedding bouquets and boutonnieres, but I wish she had graduated 5 years ago. Her work is fantastic and we would have saved money on my wedding. My mom has a portfolio of her work if you are interested.

Mommy's Little Helper

Ephraim loves to "help" me out. He recently discovered my mop (I guess I haven't used it in a while) and has been taking it everywhere with him. He even tried to take it up the stairs.
He then tried pushing my mop bucket around while carrying the mop at the same time.

Cranky

This is a post that will be full of me whining. If you are wanting to read cute stories of Ephraim, such as how he has started stomping his feet when he is either really excited or mad - you have come to the wrong place. However I might put cute pictures of him in this post just so it makes it seem more interesting.

I am cranky today. I don't like being cranky. My crummy sleeper of a son has been really on (or off) of his game the past week. I am talking not normal behavior which equals really crappy sleep for both of us. I have gotten really good at surviving on sleep that is interrupted every few hours, but I lose all patience when he stays awake for long periods of time (last night he was up from 1-4) or seems to not be trying to go to sleep (stubborn - you bet).

We have a great bedtime routine. Forrest reads him stories, I nurse, we snuggle/sing and then he goes down in his crib. He sometimes falls asleep nursing and other times fall asleep after being laid back down several times. We don't do a night time bath because that seems to energize him and not relax him. Ephraim seems to have a really hard time shutting his brain off and relaxing enough to go to sleep without help. He is a crummy self soother and always has been. He doesn't take a pacifier and hasn't attached to a stuffed animal or other "lovey." On a good night Ephraim will sleep in 3-4 hours intervals. On a great night he will go 5-6. Great nights happen every couple of weeks. I try to let him fuss/cry for awhile before I go into help get him back to sleep, but 9 times out of 10 he needs help.

I know that eventually will sleep through the night. I know that when that happens, I might actually miss the late night snuggling (buy probably not for awhile). Most days I am content to continue with things the way they are (he sleeps 10-12 hours a night, just not consecutive, and is a pretty decent napper.) Today, though I needed to whine - so thanks for putting up with reading.