Grandpa's Workshop: Where magic happens

 My nieces and nephews love to go to grandpa's house. He gives them the power to create.

 With tools and paints, cameras and computers, there is endless potential for creative projects, toys, videos...

 Of course, he does most of the work, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't mind.

 The end results are always worth it.

Driving across the country and what we saw

On our drive across the country we saw lots of family and a grandpa's farewell.

We drove on Route 66 and were singing the song for days. In Kingman we saw this awesome train.

We saw lots of cool rocks, cliffs and mountains. I like to call this vertigo canyon. It's about an hour away from Las Vegas.

We saw forests of flowering cactus.

We saw cities, big and small, but the arch in St. Louis was a highlight.

We saw lots of hotels. I think we stayed in 8 different hotels on our trip.

Finally we saw our new house. I will dedicate a different post to that as soon as I have good pictures. Stay tuned!

All About Henry: 9 months

 Weight: about 20 lbs (we haven't had a doctor appointment 'cause we're in transit.)

Here are some fun things to remember about Henry at this age:

• He is army crawling with perfect form and impressive speed. Unfortunately this leaves the belly of his shirts and onesies filthy. He wants to walk and loves to stumble between Scott and me all by himself. He laughs every time he realizes he's standing without support.
• He says mama and dada with some consistency. He babbles a lot.
• He loves playing with balls.
• He eats like a champ. I don't know how he can eat some of these things without any teeth! We gave him a doughnut a few weeks ago and he took a bite! There was a crescent bite mark left in the doughnut. We looked at each other with amazement and laughed a little, then he did it again cause he had already eaten the first bite! He really loves food and if we're ever eating without him, he'll crawl to us and whimper or grunt until we share with him.
• Recently he's decided he doesn't have the patience to get his diaper changed. He will squirm and sit up at every step in the diaper-changing process. It's a constant wrestling match.

(These pictures were taken two weeks after he turned 9 months, at which point he had abandoned army crawling for knee crawling.)

All About Grace: 3 years

3 year stats:

Weight:

Height:

(I don't remember. I'll look it up later and update. They are all around where she's been in the past--slightly under average.)

• Grace is not a "big girl" and if you call her that, she will correct you. She is a "little girl" and when she grows up, she will always be little, according to her.
• She makes up stories and loves to listen to you tell or read a story. If you read a book she knows, she will correct you if you read it wrong. She prefers made up stories by Daddy (so do I).
• She told this story on a road trip: "Mommy, I'm telling a story... (pause)... about someone falling... (pause)... AAaaahhhhhh!" Scott and I laughed heartily at that one.
• She often requests stories about Gracie Goldilocks and the three bears and requests the topic be about what we are currently doing. We each play a character. She even has started calling us by the nicknames Mama Bear, Papa Bear and Baby Henry Bear on a regular basis.

•  She can sing hundreds of songs, has a great memory for music, and makes up her own songs. The songs are often accompanied by dance. Sometimes she randomly breaks into dance without music like in the above picture. I wish I had had a video camera instead of a still one. Her dance lasted several minutes.
• She is a very selective eater, always requesting PB&J even if she won't eat it. She likes to lick the jelly.

• She's experimenting with independence and power struggles much more now than when she was 2.
• She's completely potty trained and has never had a night accident... yet.
• She loves to jump off things (while exclaiming "SUPERHERO" or "SUPER HELLO KITTY"), but she is scared of most slides.
• She still loves animals but has developed a healthy fear of animals that are bigger than her. Thank goodness!

• She loves being with other kids and people. She makes friends easily and is really genuine. She's a really good sister to Henry, too. She doesn't play well by herself, though. If I ever try to persuade her to play by herself, she curls up on the floor and sucks her fingers, sometimes falling asleep.

• On a good day she can count higher than 25.
• She can recognize store names by their logo/sign, specifically Costco, Target and Macey's grocery store, among others.
• She's a bright girl, ever changing. It's amazing how every few months I feel like I've got a different girl on my hands. She's wonderful and I hope I can be an adequate mother and teach her well.

Budding Artist

 Henry is going to be the next big thing in baby chalk art.

 He saw me doodling with the sidewalk chalk and hustled on over from the blanket in the grass to get in on the action. (Btw, he is mobile with a determined little army crawl.)

 And he actually got in on the action! He didn't just eat the chalk, in fact he hardly tasted it. He acted like a pro, like he had been sidewalk chalking his whole life, leaving little yellow and pink marks all over my doodles.

 And of course, leaving not so little yellow and pink, blue, green and orange marks all over his body.

Big Happenings

A lot of big things are happening around here. First and foremost, we have a Doctor in the house! Congratulations, Dr. Peterson. Graduation was in May and we took a family road trip to Missouri for the occasion.

A couple days later I celebrated 9 wonderful years of marriage to the perfect man.

p.s. If anyone is looking for a cheap wedding dress, it is available.

The next big thing is our move to Michigan! After walking away from negotiations on a foreclosed home, we decided to rent this house for now.

We haven't seen it in person so we can't say how long we plan on staying. It may be just a couple months, or it may be a couple years. The housing market there is pretty depressed which means we have our pick of hundreds of houses on the market, but we would also have to resell in four years in the same market. Buying is risky. More pictures will come after the move!