pickle is as pickle does...

I guess it should come as no surprise that my children love pickles since Zack and I both LOVE pickles but there is something just odd about an infant with a giant pickle in his hands. :)

My baby is growing up

How did it happen?! Where has the time gone? All I know is not so long ago I was hugely pregnant with a sweet little boy named Grayson, I went to the hospital and 77 hours later I gave birth to my sweet little bundle of joy. And NO that was not a typo!

Reason #1 why I am NOT a fan of induction. But I digress.

My baby is now three and a half!! He will be starting preschool 3 days a week in only a week and a half. His first day is the 17th but I get to be there with him on that day, then, after that, he is on his own. All alone. Well, not really. There is a teacher and 3 parents there at all times but he is without me. Or Zack. Most of the time.

the classroom and art room

We (I) chose a coop, which means that the a parents run the school in all ways except the teacher. Teacher Penny has been teaching at our preschool for 20 years, before that she was a parent in the school for 7 years. She is very sweet and G is very excited to be in her class. I am excited to meet new friends and watch my little boy grow and learn.

It's such a mixed blessing.

That was two weeks ago and I am just such a slouch. :( boo for delayed posting.

Teacher Penny came to visit Grayson at our home the week before school started. He asked her to help him write his name and she did, even giving him a card that had his name typed on it with a leaf next to it. She told us that the leaf is his symbol and anywhere his name is in the classroom the leaf will be too so he can easily pick out his name (everyone has a symbol, G can pick his 'G' out of a lineup and most times his name but now he can always identify it by the leaf.)

He also received a book from her. The Kissing Hand. It is a sweet book about a child raccoon who is headed to his first 'night' of school (they are nocturnal you know) and is a bit anxious to leave his mama so she puts a kiss in his hand for him to hold onto. He goes to school knowing how loved he is. :)

Tomorrow is G's first day of school without me. We had a test run first day on Friday where I stayed the whole time so he could see how things went and what was expected. I will make sure to leave him with his kiss to hold onto. He did great and picked the expectations up quickly. He loved playing with all his friends.

Happy Birthday Jesse!

My little brother turned 24 on the 15th. We had dinner for him tonight at our house. I made a yummy sunset chicken (which was peppers and chicken and Catalina dressing in the croc pot) salad, deviled eggs and Italian bread.

We sang.


Then for dessert we had chocolate chip cookies and rice crispy treats with sprinkles and ice cream. (Jesse didn't want cake)

Happy Birthday Little Bro!
*our gap in age is closing!*



*cause I am 29... *



*again*



*and again*

Oregon Coast- pic heavy

We were supposed to leave for San Diego on the 27th. We were supposed to be there for over a week and then while Zack flew back the boys and I were supposed to drive back, visiting my friends along California on the way. That didn't happen. We had quite a few large expenses come up last month and had to postpone that plan.

I had mentioned that a day at the coast might be fun so Zack started looking around, actually finding a nice hotel in Seaside with a room available on Friday night. We headed over in the morning. It was a bit overcast and breezy so instead of playing on the beach we went to the carousel for a ride,and play in the toy store.

and have some coffee and lunch of delicious clam chowder. That is where I found this flier- for you Dad... I love that you can rent HarDleys. LOL

After that rented a peddle car. The boys got a kick out of that, that is until we hit the first bump and Jax realized he was not in his comfy car seat. We went back to the hotel to get the Ergo. We drove around the side streets getting upclose views of the cute beach bungalows and little downtown of Seaside. It's a very sweet town.

Saturday we woke up to some blue skies peeking through the previous days clouds and knew that the weather man had lied, again. Happy for us! We headed to the beach.

Grayson got to fly his first kite with Daddy. He loved that, since he had been begging since his 1/2 birthday party to fly any of the 3 he got!

That is until the wind calmed down or they stopped running and the kite would attempt suicide by nose diving into the sand. Then we had a sad boy on our hands. Turns out he doesn't care how it stayed up, just that it did and wind be damned it better not fall from the sky dammit. It was a short lived kite flying time, put away in favor of the less tears inducing buckets and shovels. :)

Meanwhile, Jax was attempting to nap since he had refused in the hotel room.

We had to head back to the room to pack up and check out so we left the beach a bit later.

After we checked out and left Seaside we decided to go to Canon Beach and hang out bit at the tide pools and Haystack rock. It is such a gorgeous beach and amazing day, a rarity at the Oregon Coast. G had a great time splashing in the water and digging in the sand. He loves the beach almost as much as his mom does. It's not San Diego but today, it will do.

Zack, Jaimey, Grayson, Jonathan and Jaxon. Happy Labor Day!


(that sand writing thing is WAY harder than it looks! I am very thankful that To Write Their Names in the Sand is so talented in that aspect! Mine looked nothing like theirs when I tried to be all creative.)

Jaxon loves his gstyle

My little man looks so grown up to me here. Where has the time gone?! He was about 7 months old in these photos I took. We had just gotten our gstyle outfit, which consists of a cute little g pant with bikes on it and a shirt with the word RECYCLE and a tricycle on it. I LOVE this outfit and the fabric is SO soft. I really hope gdiapers does more of these! (hint hint. :)