It's been a while!

Obviously it's been too long since I've posted!  This was the view out our window this morning, a little different weather than the pictures in my last post!!  Monte worked for 3 hours to get our driveway cleared out this morning, we got Isabella to school just in time for her late start.

 

Family Pics

In August, my whole family spent the weekend together to celebrate my parents' 40th anniversary.  My sister, brother, and my gift to my parents was getting family pictures taken.  It's nice to update our family picture on our wall, which was taken when Jaymes was only three months old.  He's grown just a little since then!

 

I had the photographer take some pictures of just Jaymes since he had just had his second (!) birthday that week.

My whole family!  Four little boys UNDER the age of three!  Honestly, it was a disaster, and I am amazed we got a good picture!  The almost three year old refused to be in the majority of the pictures, another little nephew was just SO not happy the whole time, and Jaymes was scared to sit on Grandpa's lap during the grandparents/grandkids photo!

 The three granddaughters, all the same age!  They are the best of friends!

 I love this picture of all the grandkids! 

Out of the mouth of a five year old

Last night Isabella and I were talking about how God gives everyone different talents.  She told me that she thought God made me a "good cook, good cookie baker, good singer, good at playing piano, good at teaching piano, and good at taking care of people."  I asked her what she thought God made Daddy good at, her response - "Um (long pause), he's good at backing the vehicles out of the garage."

I couldn't help but laugh, but then I helped her come up with some more, because Daddy's good at lots of other things, too!

Sometimes the best things are free!

One highlight of our summer was getting a "new to us" swing set for the kids.  I advertised our old metal swing set on facebook, and it was literally sold with in two minutes!!  Monte's sister's kids had outgrown this one, so they offered to give it to us!  Monte borrowed his dad's big trailer, and hauled it 60 miles to our house, that was quite the big load!  It has gotten SO much use over the summer, and I know it will get so much more for years to come.  The whole upper part of it Isabella uses as a play house, she's got a phone attached to the wall in there, and a chair.  Monte filled the bottom part, under the play house, with small rocks, so now the kids have a rock box to play in.  Since he made that, they hardly ever play in their sand box, and I love it, since it's so much less messy than sand.

Here she was being Rapunzel up in her tower.

Jaymes loves the rock box!

This was taken after I spent hours of precious nap times staining it!

Jaymes can't quite master the big slide, so Grandma and Grandpa got him an early birthday present.  I think I'm going to move it inside for the winter, too.



Trying to get caught up

I've got a long way to go to get caught up, but I'll give it a try.  As a side note, you might notice my blog is not private anymore, some people were having problems viewing it, so I'm giving going public a try again. 

Over Memorial Day weekend my brother and my dad came to help Monte fence in our back yard.  This is seriously a dream come true for me, to have a fenced in yard.  We love it! 

Monte got his Dad's loader to remove a lot of the bushes that used to line our yard.  His parents have a similar picture to this one, only it's Monte instead of Jaymes in this same loader.

Monte also brought back his old pedal tractor from his parents' house.

Putting up the fence.

                                                                The finished product!

It also makes a good back drop for pictures!





May

It's about time I updated my blog, I think!  We've been enjoying our summer here, which is going by way too fast!

This was taken at the mother/ daughter tea at our church, which I help organize every year.

I chaperoned Isabella's end of the year preschool field trip, we went to a horse ranch!

This was taken before her first school concert, it was fun to watch, but my little girl is growing up WAY too fast!

                                                               Fun days in the Jeep!

                                                Jaymes has to do everything Isabella does!

Enjoying lunch outside.

Mother's Day

Isabella and I made this fairy garden, we had so much fun, and I thought it turned out so cute!



Spring Day . . . and talk of milk

First, pictures of the beautiful spring day!



Everyone comments on the child's curly hair, but his big, blue eyes are a close second!



I have recently become a dairy free cook once again, boo!  I am so glad, though, at 20 months old, all the pieces of the puzzle are finally coming together.  First, there was the horrible issue of him not being able to tolerate my milk - he would constantly puke it up, and have his horrible episodes where he would stop breathing.  Then he did okay on a certain formula, but when the doctor wanted him switched to a "regular" formula at 5 months old, he started violently vomiting, stopped breathing several times, and ended up spending a weekend in the hospital!  A very gradual switch to whole milk was okay, but he has still had pretty loose stools his entire life.  Now recently, the vomiting has started in again, along with scary, raspy breathing.  The second time it happened, I noticed it was after he had eaten cottage cheese.  Doing a little research on-line, I found that cottage cheese is high in lactose.  And what else is high in lactose?  Human milk.  Even though, I had tried giving up dairy there was still lactose in my milk.  And the switch to a regular, full lactose formula produced the same reaction.  So as of right now, he's on a completely lactose free (while not totally dairy free) diet.  We're also waiting on some blood tests to come back later this week.  I'm pretty confident this is what's going on with him, he's otherwise healthy, yet on the small side, but so was Isabella for the first few years.  He's 23 pounds, and his clothes in the photos above are size 12 months, but he's growing well, and I'm guessing his growth will really take off now that we have made these diet changes.

Happy Easter!

The best toy she's ever had!

With Isabella's birthday and Christmas in back to back months, she usually goes a long time without getting anything new, and Jaymes' birthday is at the very end of summer. So we decided to get the kids a new outdoor toy they could use all summer long. I think it's going to end up being a good decision! She did actually tell me that it really is the best toy she's ever had, and she spent the entire day playing with it, and it didn't even have any water in it! I can't imagine how exciting it will be to actually have water in it! Jaymes thinks it's pretty neat, too. Now we just need the weather to warm back up, so we can put it out on the porch.

I love how excited Jaymes is in the next couple pictures.

Oh, and thank you for the tips on the Ergo, they were very helpful!!

Spring Getaway!

This past Sunday through Tuesday we went on a mini vacation with Monte's parents. The temp on Sunday was 94! I could not believe how many people came up to us, upset with us that our kids were getting sun burned! But in reality, they were not sun burned, just hot! We had plenty of water, and tried to keep them in the shade as much as possible, and were only outside at the waterfalls for about an hour. My kids just get really rosy cheeked! Despite the rude comments and stares, we still had a great time. :) Oh, and is Jaymes in proper "form" in the Ergo here, does anyone know? This is the first time I've had him on my back, and he seemed uncomfortable. Maybe he just prefers to be in front, or maybe it was just the heat.

Rosy cheeked boy.


The highlight of the trip for Isabella, they went down this slide SO much!

Our little hand holder, he always has to hold one of our hands when we are outside now, or someplace different. That makes this mama happy (and relieved, and much less nervous about him darting off!). :)

Well that feels better!

Many have been wondering why I switched my blog to private, so here is the explanation. I could see, through my sitemeter, that there were people getting to my blog through a search engine in Kenya, and when I went to that page, my blog was listed on a drop down menu!! I have no idea how that happened, but it was enough to freak me out! I use this blog (for the most part) as a way to record childhood memories for my kids, and I don't need people in Kenya, or who knows where, keeping up with my kids. While I've always tried to be careful when posting pictures, and haven't given too much info out about where we live, or our last name, etc. it has always kind of bothered me that my kids' lives are out there for the whole world to see. On the other hand, I've gotten to know so many wonderful people through their own blogs, and if they had had private blogs, I would have missed out on some great "cyber" friends! I really do treasure my friendships with all of you, whether we know each other in person or not, and I hope you will continue reading now that I've gone private. :) Who knows, maybe I will switch back to public sometime, but I feel like this is where I need to be for right now.

Email Me!

I've decided to go private with my blog. If you would like to continue reading my blog, you just need to send me an email at ang_mont55@hotmail.com (ang underscore mont 55 at hotmail dot com) and I'll get you added. If you are not familiar with private blogs, the only difference is that you will have to sign in to read. Logging in to my site meter today made me realize I need to do this as soon as possible, so I would really appreciate if you could send a quick email ASAP. Thank you! :)

Spring

We have to keep reminding ourselves that it is only March, it's never this nice in March here! It's amazing how much faster the days go when you spend them outside! The kids and I have been getting lots of long walks in every day, which we all love. My double jogging stroller I got at a rummage sale last summer is still one of my very favorite items, as Isabella can still fit comfortably in it, so I can go on extra long walks or runs with both kids, and she can get in the stroller if she gets too tired. She's recently become more comfortable with riding her bike (with training wheels) as well. Up until this year, she's been a little timid about riding her bike. Jaymes is going to give me a heart attack with as much as he runs around and falls outside, I have visions of him falling on the concrete in the driveway and splitting his head open! That is why I prefer to be in the backyard, in the safety of the soft grass! And I am counting down the days until we completely fence in our backyard (hopefully the end of May) so that ball of energy can be completely contained! I cleaned and organized the garage, which was in horrible disarray, and last weekend we found a nice, carpeted storage area in the attic above our garage (and we've lived here for 6 years!!). Yay for more storage!

Yesterday we met Monte's parents for the morning at the zoo. We don't have many pictures of all of us together, so it's nice to get this updated one.

I LOVE this picture of Jaymes and Grandma! They were checking out the monkeys here.

Looking at the alligator snapping turtle.



Isabella loves to play baseball with Daddy, and she's quite good at connecting with the ball!

Jaymes is scared of the dinosaur rocker, if it moves he runs away.

I had to throw this picture in, he has an unhealthy obsession with just this doll of Isabella's! Maybe he feels a connection because it has curly hair! :)

They are the best of friends!