Exploring His Crafty Side

After my cornstarch paint fail, I thought I’d try and do something a little easier, and harder to mess up. I made him some playdough and he LOVES it. I was hoping it would keep him busy, on his OWN for awhile…and after only a couple of minutes he tells me to come sit next to him and play. As much as I could use the time to get things done, I try and remind myself that these days will be gone before I know it, so I pull up a chair and play with him. I’ve been giving him different things to play with, and his favorite ‘tool’ for the playdough is an old spice jar.

On Pinterest, I saw an idea to stick a dry piece of spaghetti into a ball of playdough and let your toddler string cheerios onto it. I wasn’t sure Rowan would be able to but we tried anyway. He did pretty good, but was more interested in eating them, and then breaking the pasta up into pieces. You can see his poor little eye in this picture too.    Another fun Pinterest idea I came across was to fill muffin tins with shaving cream and food dye, and let your kiddo “paint” the bathtub. Rowan thought this was pretty much the coolest thing ever. It’s great for rainy days, and we will definitely be doing this again. “Hey Mom! I’m so slippy! (slippery)”

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Last year we took Rowan to Jubilee Farms Pumpkin Patch in Carnation. We had such a great time that we decided to make it a tradition. It was even more fun this year now that Rowan is older and loves to explore everything. His favorite activities at the patch were: splashing in the mud puddles, and the tractor ride out to pick out pumpkin. Isla slept through the whole thing in the Ergo, and it’s crazy to think that next year she’ll be toddling around. I absolutely love this time of year and all of the beautiful landscapes in WA.

In the car on the way…we haven’t taken a pic of just the 2 of us like this for awhile. <3 He wasn’t too into the hay maze On the tractor. So much to see! I told Russ that he’s been looking so stoic in pictures recently so he posed all over the top for this one.. SO, I’m posting it, lol. Sweet girl all bundled up Washing off our pumpkin and now washing off Rowan, who was completely drenched in mud. Good thing I had an extra pair of pants with me! Now we just have to carve our pumpkin!

Bob-O!

Rowan LOVES anything to do with tools and fixing stuff. Part of it is from watching “ Bob the Builder,” the cartoon…. (He walks around singing “ BOB-O, I fix it!” all day long. But the bigger part is because Russ is an ironworker and is his real life “Bob-O"." Russ comes home with his big tool belt and construction helmet and you should see the look in Rowan’s eyes. It’s pretty cute. Russ also asks Rowan to “help” him with a lot of household projects.

Here are a few pics of Russ at work on Husky Stadium.

Perk of starting work so early..beautiful sunrise

Welding. Love that my hubby works with his hands. Hard worker!

Ugh, What a Week!

We have not had the best week. Last Sunday night we had our good friends, Susie, Jessie & their sweet baby girl, Claire over for dinner. That part was great, but before we even sat down to eat, Rowan was getting down from a kitchen chair (the way he always does, belly down, feet first) and just happened to bonk his brow bone just right. I could tell he hurt himself by how he was crying and after only crying for about a minute, I was able to check out the damage. He had a cut right under his left eyebrow and it was split. Not very much blood or anything, but one of those things where you aren’t sure how seriously to take it. We paged our doctor and when she called back, she asked us to email her a photo. Gotta love technology these days! She said that it might be best to get it checked out… especially for cosmetic reasons. So… we decided to head to Seattle Children’s urgent care in Bellevue. Poor little guy… thankfully it only required some glue and butterfly bandages. He keeps telling us, “ My owie! (pointing at his eye) Dok-ter, sticker!!” He got a sticker after they took care of his wound, and I guess that’s all he pretty much remembers which is good. The whole thing was much more traumatic for me. It was our first “ big injury” and I”m so glad it wasn’t worse.

Here’s a picture BEFORE we headed off to urgent care. Happy 30th Birthday Susie!The cut: not super gruesome, but you can see it split. It started to swell after this.   Such a brave boy!! Giving his special sticker to sister the next morning. Such a sweet boy!    Then a couple days later Isla was fussy at night, which isn’t normal for her. The next morning she was really warm, and congested. She had a temp ranging from 99.5ish-100 the entire day. I was SOO scared. I’ve always heard/read that a baby under 3 months should NEVER get a fever. I know they have a lot of mandatory tests they do at the hospital for babies that age as well. I have no idea how the poor thing even got sick since the rest of us weren’t. We prayed and prayed all day long (a long with friends and fam we called), and the temp never got higher. Thank you Jesus!!! Of course we called our doctor too, and she said not to come in unless our thermometer reached 100.7. I was worried it might since fevers generally spike at night, but it never did. She’s been a bit stuffy and has had a little cough for the rest of the week but has been a trooper. Love my sweet girl so much. These pictures make me want to cry!

Looks like we’re on the mend now. Looking forward to a much more mellow week! :)

Playtime!

Here’s Isla getting her daily workout. Bonus, you can see her red hair!

Rowan is predicted to be one tall dude!

 

We recently took both kiddos in for their well checks. Rowan was due for his 2 year appointment where the doc gave him a clean bill of health. They also weighed him and checked his height. He’s always been tall and skinny. Here are his stats:

Weight: 27 lbs (25th-50th percentile)

Height: 37.5 inches (over 95th percentile)

I’ve always heard that once a toddler reaches two years old, you can predict their adult height. So…. Rowan is predicted to be 6’6'”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They say this is usually 90% accurate within two inches. I can’t even fathom that! Russ comes from a line of tall guys (and girls!) and we aren’t shorties either so I expected him to be somewhat tall, but this seems crazy! Maybe a basketball player? :) Guess we’ll see…

Isla is 2 Months!

I don’t know how two months flew by so fast but I’m already kind of sad the teeny tiny stage is quickly vanishing. I kept waiting for Isla to hit the “fussy stage” but it never happened. She is such a delight. The kind of baby that makes you want to have ten more. ;-) She is doing 3-6 hour stretches at night and still sleeps a lot during the day. She’s smiling now and looks at me really intently but hasn’t cooed yet. She loves to lay on her play mat and kick around or be held close in the moby wrap. Rowan always gets a smile out of her too, and he likes to hug her, hold her, and tell her “ I love you!” in his cute little voice about 20 times a day.

We had Isla’s 2 month appointment and it looks like we have another tall one in the family! Here are her stats:

Weight: 12 lb 11 oz (75th percentile)

Height: 24 1/2 inches ( over 98th percentile!!!!)

She is doing great, super healthy and we love her to pieces!

A Few Great Recipes

We had about 7 weeks worth of meals brought to us by family, friends, and church community. How amazing is that??!!

I am now back into the swing of cooking (which I love) and I just want to share a few recipes we’ve enjoyed lately.

W.O.W. Enchilada Casserole- http://www.traderjoes.com/recipes/recipe.asp?rid=33

I got this off of the Trader Joe’s website awhile ago and have made it a few times. It calls for pork but we don’t eat pork, so i substituted a pound of organic lean ground beef. Russ loves it and says it makes great leftovers for work.

Beef Gyros -http://www.food.com/recipe/ground-beef-gyros-30081

  We don’t actually eat a lot of red meat but this recipe is so good, if you love gyros. The meat is super flavorful and I love the tzaziki sauce. Instead of using pita bread for wraps, I’ve been using the whole wheat naan bread from Trader Joes.

I didn’t take pictures of the next two recipes but I love them even more than the first two I posted.

BBQ Chicken Salad: http://life-as-a-lofthouse.blogspot.com/2011/07/bbq-chicken-salad-with-homemade-bbq.html – we eat a lot of salad in the summer and this salad is loaded with corn, beans, cilantro, green onions, etc… I made it twice last week!

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas: http://life-as-a-lofthouse.blogspot.com/2012/05/honey-lime-chicken-enchiladas.html?m=1 – I will NEVER make another enchilada recipe. These were super easy, and different than others I’ve tried. MAKE THEM!

Rowan is TWO!!

I really can’t believe it. In one way, it feels like he’s been in our lives forever because I just can’t imagine him not being around, but at the same time, I remember the day he was born like it was yesterday. I know there are a lot of changes throughout the first year, but I feel like I’ve seen a TON of changes in him in just the last few months. He went from this little guy, toddling around and babbling, to a toddler who I can carry on a conversation with. The talking has been SO much fun. He makes me laugh all the time. I just feel so thankful that he’s ours. I love you Rowan, happy 2nd birthday to my rambunctious, fun loving, yet sweet and sensitive little man!!

I’m pretty sure Rowan has had his fill of birthdays and is becoming quite a pro in how it all goes. My previous posts show that I had two birthday celebrations, and one for him with my parents before their trip a couple weeks ago… which means a lot of… cake! Now he wakes up saying, “ My birfday? Ice crim?”

Here he is on his actual birthday morning ( Russ was at work, since it was on a Friday). I let him open up one present from my brother, Ron.

Then Isla and I took Rowan on a special little date to Starbucks where he had his first hot cocoa, and first cake pop.      

Sister wanted to dress up for the occassion. (Thanks Hillary, Derek, and cousins, Jojo & Tiana for the gorgeous outfit!)On Saturday we celebrated with Russ. We recently bought a memebership to Woodland Park Zoo. It had been a year since we took Rowan, and this time he LOVED it. He kept running and yelling, “more animals, more animals!!” I think Russ and I would like to try and go once a month.   When we got home we celebrated with cake. I made a new frosting recipe: lemon butter cream made with cream cheese. It turned out delicious!

Love you Ro!