Vacation Part 1: Camping

Jake had two weeks of "vacation" for the last week of July and first week in August.  It really was just a rotation that allowed him to be home to monitor and report Audree's development.  So, we took advantage and got in some camping. 

We've both been dying to go camping for awhile now, but there are a few things that just take some time to figure out before we could do it.  The first is Audree: we wanted to figure out a way to keep her warm enough, but are scared about co-sleeping with her.  The second is Josh who hasn't been camping in over a year and really hasn't figured out the sleeping bag thing yet.  And third is figuring out what kind of tent we were all going to sleep in that would fit us. 

So to get through all those problems, we made our 3+ man tent work instead of buying a new, big, expensive, family one (even though we really drool over those kind of tents).  We also zipped mine and Jake's bags together and put Audree in Jake's while Jake slept in a spare that we had.  Josh ended up sleeping on our kid cot, which was really a mess the first night that we went, and then the second night slept on the floor sharing blankets and sleeping bags with Jake to stay warm.

So the first night, we headed up to Grand Targhee for a ride up the ski lift and a beautiful 2.6 mile hike down the resort.  It was a lot of fun with great views and we definitely enjoyed this first hike of ours in over a year (funny how kids hinder those kind of things you know) and the first hike with Audree.  Once we reached the bottom, we headed to get a campsite near the resort and ended up finding something great. 

I fed Audree while Jake whipped up some Mac & Cheese for dinner, and we ended our evening outside with some Smores.

It was soon time for bed, so we all piled into our tent and settled down the kids for bed.  Audree went to bed pretty quickly, but Josh just wandered all over the tent.  I really kind of felt bad for the kid.  We tried starting to get him in bed around 9:30, but he just wandered aimlessly around the tent trying to settle himself down, but didn't really know what to do.  He'd climb on us, play with his animals, lick Jake's arm, and turn his soother on and off.  After a long time of this, we decided it was time to just let him fuss in his cot and get him to sleep.  It took over an hour to get him to bed, so needlessly to say I was tired.  After a few hours we had one wake up from him which lasted about 30 minutes, and then all was good.  He was insistent about not sleeping on the cot, and we all ended up squeezing on the floor, with the cot still up.  I don't know why it never occured to us that we would have more room if we took that down.  Anyways, Audree slept the whole night with only one little wake up to eat.  So, overall the first night was a little rough, but still a success I think.

The next morning we slowly woke up in the tent, watched cars, and went for a short walk/hike near our campsite and then packed up and headed home. 

We forgot the pillow that attaches to the kid carrier to give cushion for him and this is what happened.  Poor guy!

We decided to come home that day instead of camp two nights in a row.  One being so that Josh wasn't foul and could get a nap in that day.  And so that Jake could get to scouts that night.  So we ended up heading out again on Thursday night. 

We started our night by eating at Trails Inn (formerly Falls Inn) getting their famous Chicken Fried Steak.  It was ginormous, fabulous and definitely not good for you, but good nonetheless. 

After that we headed up to Mesa Falls to see if the Lower Falls Campground had any sites available which they didn't, so we had to drive back down to Warm River Campground, and we actually found a great site there too.  We set up camp, threw rocks with Josh in the river, roasted some marshmallows, and settled in our tent for the night. 

After reconfiguring the sleeping arrangement so that Josh was on the floor, we ended up having a pretty good night.  Josh still took a little while getting to sleep, but once he decided he was tired he was out.  Audree also did just as well as she did the first night, and so I think is definitely something that can still try doing this fall when time permits.  The only issues that we did have through the night were the little critters.   Before climbing in the bed for the night, we ran in to a fox.  We also were right in a thicket of trees and bushes, which didn't help the animal control.  At one point we had a skunk come up in the vestibule part of our tent and I was pretty darn terrified.

The next morning we went to see the Falls and Josh was so fascinted by the "wa-wa".  It was sure cute.  We also stopped to feed the fish at Warm River and that is always a lot of fun.  We saw lots of big fish fed them a whole lot of cheerios.  :)

We really had a lot of fun getting out with just our little family.  It seems like with everything going on with Jake's schooling, we don't get much time to get away and enjoy some time outside of the house.  So this was much needed and very enjoyable.

Power

I find it amazing how the Lord puts in front of exactly what you needed to hear. Powerful chapter this morning. 2 Nephi 28

Litte Miss Audree - 5 months

Audree is now 5 months old and I can hardly believe it! She is growing up so fast and just over the past couple weeks has had a lot of milestones. 

She now rolls back and forth and is all over the floor when I set her down there now. 

She loves pulling on her feet and sticking them in her mouth. 

She now pushes up on her arms when we lay her on her belly. 

She is SO smiley and is just starting to know her name.  She turns her head when you call for her. 

We tried rice cereal for the first time yesterday and she actually did pretty good.  She kept making this grunting noise as I would bring the spoon to her face.  It was quite funny!

I recently switched her over to formula, and I'm thinking that she is going to start chunking up pretty quickly.  To make a long story about nursing short, it was just time.  My body wasn't quite keeping up (I would nurse both sides and she'd still be starving - downing a 4 oz bottle minutes later).  Since I was always worried about whether she was getting enough it was causing me a lot of anxiety and frustration and I hated feeling frustrated every time that I fed her.  Plus, I wanted to be able to get out of the house every now and then and pumping wasn't quite getting enough for her.  So, it was time.  And I was perfectly okay with it.  I was ready.  Even though every now and then I miss nursing her and clung on to it for a long time, I'm a lot calmer now and less anxious about feeding her.

Anyways, Audree is really growing up too fast.  It's amazing that it's already been 5 months.  Here are some recent pictures and videos of her.

My Growing Joshua

 Joshua is such a pleasant and fun child.  He is growing up so quickly and over the past few weeks has matured more.  His is growing very quickly in his language.  It came late, but he's coming quick.  He'll repeat just about anything you say,  counts from 1-10, knows all of his letters, knows a handful of colors and shapes and is so social.

My favorite things about him right now:

He is still so fascinated about anything that moves.  Here are what he loves and some of the sounds he makes for them: Semi-truck, tractor "grack-or", Car "vroom", Racing Cars "Meaoooh" (as if it's the sound of a car driving by fast), plane "me-ane" while signing airplane, bike "bie", motorcycle "ci-gouh", train "choo-choo", etc.

Like I said before, he is extremely social.  Shopping trips, or all trips for that matter, are filled with "hi", "bye-bye" and lots of waving.  We are trying to teach him "good"  because most people when you say him to him they ask how he's doing. 

He points out all water (lakes, rivers, streams, ponds, glass of water, swimming pools) as "wa-wa"

He is so proud of just about everything that he does.  If he is proud, whatever he did is followed by a round of applause by himself, both hands raised in the air, and saying "a-di-it!" a.k.a  "I did it!"

He is timid about just about anything that is new.  New places, new foods and he is a very cautious kid.  Most of the time he still backs down the stairs and crawls up the stairs.  Even though he loves trucks, motorcycles, monster trucks, etc. he usually won't go stand next to them.  As a story, we thought he would really enjoy the army tanks that are at the Veteran's Memorial Park near our place, but he didn't want anything to do with them.  He could look, point, and awe over them from a distance, but as soon as you get close he freaks!

He loves to push/pull things around the house.  His most favorite thing is to pull the laundry bin around the house.  I try to get our room door closed before he finds them because otherwise they are super loud as they wheel around on our tile floors.

There is an endless list of things that I love about this kid and I really could go on forever, but in short for now, he's pretty awesome.  He's so full of energy and love towards everyone.  He's a little buddy and shadow that will follow you everywhere and loves to be involved with whatever you are doing.  He's just my little growing Joshua...

Here are some recent videos:

With the sparklers on the 4th:



Watching the big fireworks:



His plane ride landing:



At the Pioneer Day Petting Zoo in Pocatello:



His counting and a little bit of "a-di-it!" a.k.a  "I did it!":


What he does on a long car ride with baby crying:

Starting him out young

Jake took Josh to the putting green at the golf course a little while ago.  Josh sure enjoyed setting up the little balls in front of daddy's clubs and picking them out of the hole.  As one guy at the golf course mentioned, we are starting him out young. I think Josh definitely had fun.  Looks like those two will be heading out there more often.

Our little artist

As part of my little summer bucket list, I wanted Josh to paint his own bird house.  He started out painting very nicely.  But then he got into the black, and we all know what happens when any color touches black.  It's basically all black... Oh well, he enjoyed it. 

 He started to dip each of his fingers in these handy little paint containers.  Aren't they perfect size for those little fingers?

He ended up looking at his hands saying "Oh no..." After a little bit of saying that, he'd go back to dipping them fingers right back in it anyway.  I'd say, it was a success.

His house now hangs on a tree in the backyard.  We haven't seen any birds yet, not sure if we will at all, but atleast the bird seed is being eaten  (by earwigs...)  ha!