My birthday trip to Maine!

As an early 30th birthday present, Evan took meto Maine to see the fall colors!  It was unforgettable in in many ways.  Here are just a few of the hundreds of photos we took.

Emily at OT (Occupational Therapy)

We saddly say goodbye to Jen, Emily's OT for the past 8 wonderful months. She has brought new perspective and ideas to working with Emily and meeting her growing tactile imput needs.

fun pictures

(My apologies for the layout of this entry as it is the first time I am adding photos from my computer instead of straight from my camera and I am having trouble with the layout and rotation of the photos - I am happy for ideas from you blog geniuses!) Here are a few pictures from highlights of the past several weeks: 1. Tucker and I in our backyard pool 2.At the state fair holding a 3 day old lamb 3. Our dear friends, the Pitts family, upon return from Vietnam and adopting little Ian 4. At our new neighborhood park with our air rocket 5.Tucker in new PJs and tunnel toy 6. Tucker and his best bud Hunter 7.Emily thinks I make a great pillow 8.Tucker having a serious (pretend) conversation on my old cell 9.Emily sneaking a sip of Tucker's water 10.Our beautiful daughter and her favorite toy

update

ok, ok, I admit I have been seriously lax in updating this blog since Emily started school - I do have a few good excuses but you don't care about that, you want posts and pictures, right, so here are a few to update you all up till now. Note: posts to watch for - Carrie's 30th birthday and Tucker's 2nd birthday, both at the end of this month!

coffee boy

As most of you know, Evan worked for Starbucks coffee for many years and is still quite the fan. Sometimes we will take Tucker in a store with us and he will go straight for the cooler with the little milks in it or the bags of whole bean coffee and proceed to take it to the register and try to had it to the person behind the counter! (he has been well trained) Since we no longer brew drip coffee as we have an espresso machine that does it all for us, Tucker enjoys playing with our old coffee machine - we caught this shot this morning (=

Tucker's 1st time camping and playing at the beach

Well, this last week Evan, Tucker and I spent camping at Sunset State Beach with 26 other families from our church at "family camp." Overall, it went well, was fun and we hope to go again next year, especially since Tucker will be older! (he was the youngest there)

The week started by us setting up our tent that we purchases and last used before we had any kids, which I will add has been used twice, only to discover that there is NO way all 3 of us and our stuff will fit in the tent! So most stuff stayed in the car for the night, as the morning fog drenches everything left out, and the stuff was joined by Evan and his sleeping mat. We promptly went tent shopping in town after the morning bible study. There was slim pickings this late in summer but we were please with our new roomy bright green tent. (Our first tent would fit in the new one 2 1/2 times!)

Though we visited the ocean in southern California last summer, the shore break was way to intimidating for a 6 month old and yes we did just spend a week at Lake Tahoe, but as we keep trying to explain to our friends here in Sacramento, a beach at a lake is not the same as at the ocean!

Tucker was excited to play in the sand and the water in his buckets, oh and had no problem eating his sand covered cookies or drinking the salt water if he was thirsty. By our 3rd trip to the beach he allowed daddy to hold and dip him in the surf; carried his bucket of water up and down the beach on his own; and even played with the "big" boys some. He has come a long way from our timid little boy of a month ago.

Since Emily puts everything in her mouth, we have been very careful what toys we allow in our home. but now that Tucker is getting older we are starting to designate some toys for his room only. Bright mommy that being in the great outdoors would be entertainment enough but I soon discovered my error, so we bought Tucker his first cars - a BIG hit!

Before heading home we took a trip a little south to the Monterey Bay Aquarium - a favorite place of ours to visit! This was Tucker's first "theme park" and did quite well despite the short attention span and over stimulation. He loved the giant deep sea tank and talk non-stop pointing at everything that swan by and also the fresh water otter displays where he could stand up against the glass with the otters swimming right past him over and over again. (Unfortunately because of the low lighting and extra thick glass in all the displays very few of our pictures turned out well)

Water baby

Earlier this summer Tucker and I took a "Mommy and Me" swim class and I thought Evan would enjoy the class too so we signed up for another class. These pics were taken on the last day - I'll just say when he took the class with me I couldn't get him off the stairs and now look at him. (= They had a blast together! Grammy, Grandpa, and uncle Paul came to watch with Emily and I After swimming, we fed the ducks at the Elk Grove park. This was the first time we fed the ducks and Tucker didn't immediately run straight for the water. The ducks are so tame here they came running toward us before we even had food out. I grew up doing this as a kids and it is a joy to now share the experience with my own kids. We all had fun enjoying the experience with Tucker!

"run Forest run"

I have discovered one way to wear my son out enough to take a good nap - have him run back and forth across the yard! Gosh, and he looks so cute while doing it too (=