Father's Day celebrations

We have celebrated Father's day in bits and pieces over the last couple weeks. But hey, Max deserves it so it works for us. I also realized that I never took pictures on Father's day to commemorate any events. So, I'll see what I can do.

On Father's day. When Max woke up and came downstairs he found that we had prepared him an amazing book with hand prints, foot prints, a letter, and pictures. I didn't take any pictures of the book and now Max has it at work. Here are the hand and foot prints. Charlie loved getting his foot painted.

 We were pretty proud how it turned out though. We had even gone to get it laminated and bound at the copy store and that was one of my more traumatizing outings alone with 2 kids. (We ended up waiting in the car most of the time)

In the morning, Max came downstairs to find his book and come Milano cookies on the table, I kindly served cereal and Milk on the table. (I always have intentions of making a warm breakfast but we always decide that sleep is more important in the morning)  After a quick breakfast and looking at our book creation, we headed to church. I was off feeding Miles for what seemed like, most of church. In Charlie 's nursery class they made special goodie bags with POPcorn, POProcks, otter POPs, soda POP, and POP tarts. It seemed like quite the elaborate gift for the teachers of the 2 year olds to put together but both Max and Charlie were pretty excited about it.

We came home and had lunch, I can honestly not remember what we had but I know it was thought out and something Max liked. Then we put Charlie and Miles down for a nap and decided to nap as well. It didn't take long before the boys were awake so I got up with them and let Max sleep longer.

Charlie and I worked on dinner which was a 7 layer bean dip that he has been asking for for years. When Max woke up he was so grateful that we had that time to rest. That doesn't happen very often for him. We enjoyed dinner. Then Max and Charlie went to drop off a gift for Max's dad. I stayed home with Miles.

As far as gifts for Max go we got him two gifts (one from each boy) that he received on random days. We got him The Incredibles which is one of his favorite movies. I got this a couple weeks early and stuck it in our glove box of our old car at one point when I realized it had been in my purse for days, Max ended up finding it when he was cleaning out our car after we got our new one. So...no surprise there! His other gift was a hammock. We have been talking about replacing our hammock that was "mysteriously" destroyed when we were away in California 2 years ago, That being said, I felt like I wanted to make sure we got the best one out of all the many styles and one that he would like. After all was said and done, we picked one out that we love but we didn't get it until nearly a week after Father's Day. So once again, we didn't surprise him. We have now spent various days enjoying the hammock and taking pictures in it...and these are those random pictures.

We weren't really planning on an official photo shoot but then Miles just started smiling so much at Charlie so the camera came out! These boys are my favorite!

Charlie likes to hold his brother at the most random moments, but he usually just leaves him alone.

He really is an amazing big brother.

These last two are my favorites.

And, I think everyone needs a hammock in their life and an awesome father like Max. 

Drive-in

We fulfilled a life goal this weekend. When Max and I were teenagers just starting to date we put together a date ideas list. I still have this list somewhere. One thing I remember that we wrote down on the list was go to the drive-in movies. Max had gone as a kid and I had never gone. There is a drive-in about 40 minutes away from our house (closer from the homes we grew up in) There are only 4 drive-ins left in Oregon. When we were driving home from the beach a couple weeks ago we passed the drive-in and decided that we just needed to go, even if we brought the kids.

We found out that they were playing How to Train your Dragon 2 and we knew that could be one that Charlie would actually sit and watch so we made plans to go. At this drive in they also do double features so the second movie was American Graffiti. We thought it might be fun to get the kids to sleep and stay and watch the second movie, it would be especially neat to watch an old movie at the drive-in.  Also, we were pretty excited to put down the back seats in our car and bring lots of blankets and pillows to cuddle up as a family while watching the movie.

Anyway, we left our house right at Charlie's bedtime, call us crazy, but we were excited! We arrived, found a parking spot and set up our car. Here are the random photos I managed to get.

Just before sundown.

This little goofball ran around a bit before the movie started.

Miles was the first to try out our cozy back seat.

 Charlie could not wait for the movie to start to eat his popcorn. Eating popcorn, after bedtime, while you're partially outside. Life can't get better for this kid!

My happy boys!

 We watched the movie and everything went pretty smoothly, Miles needed to eat and then Max got him to sleep. Max put him in his car seat to sleep through most of the movie. Charlie watched the movie pretty well. I don't feel like I paid too close attention to the movie as I was busying myself with making sure Charlie had what he needed or that he was comfortable or warm...(the worries of a mom) When the movie ended it was about 11:30. Even if they boys were both sleeping there is no way we could stay up and watch another movie so he headed home. We were happy we had this experience. We may just do it again in the future, maybe with just the two of us...or maybe we will just create a drive-in atmosphere in our own yard...that way, it's free and we don't need a babysitter.

Tryon Creek

 Last Sunday was a beautiful day and we felt like we needed to go for a nice walk after dinner. A couple weeks earlier we had gone to Tryon Creek State Park with Brent and Lisa's and family. It was then that I realized how close this park is to our house. I've been there before but the first time I went as an adult I got terribly lost so it didn't seem so close. With this grand forest just in our backyard we decided it would be a great place to let some energy loose.
Also, I love Charlie's age and seeing how he gets so giddy when he has a huge open space to run.

I spy a little guy!

He took a tiny break to walk with daddy but then started running again.

When he saw the signs on the trail, he would yell "letters" then go and point and say the letters he knew.  

My little Oregonian tree hugger.

I love living in Oregon!

Super dad!

Showing off his muscles!

Blowing around cotton! :) 

 I think I'm going to like this summer. Each year seems to get better in the way that Charlie can participate in more activities. I love it. He is wonderful little guy that finds excitement in everything around him!

Beach Day

With the weather getting nicer and me being a shut-in by choice...I have really been getting anxious to go on a beach trip. I have kept my two year old indoors too much lately and I get excited to see how happy he is with all the space he has to run when we go to the beach. I kept throwing the idea out at Max but I know how much he loves to do yard work and property projects on Saturdays which we are very grateful for. Once we got our new car it seemed that we needed to take it on a good long drive. Our decision was finalized  when Lisa told us she would be in town and was looking for something fun to do. 

We started the Saturday like usual, Max worked on the property and I entertained the boys. I was abe to get everything ready for the beach and provide the Elders with lunch after they so graciously helped Max build this wall. 

We were planning on leaving at 12:30 for the beach but with my chatty husband and a baby that dictates feeding time it was nearly 2 when we actually left. and then as we were going down our street, our neighbor who has 5 year old twin boys, was having a garage sale. We had to stop. We were sure they had things we NEEDED :) We, of course, chatted with our neighbor for awhile then went away with some awesome steals. As in, things that I had at some point in my life almost paid full price for. We got three puzzles and a pair of shoes for Charlie. All in excellent condition and all specifically types I had shopped for. Anyway, enough about our garage sale finds, you know we get pretty giddy about those. 

Anyway, Lisa had gone up the night before and stayed with her sister for her nephews birthday. They were at Newport but were traveling up to Lincoln City because Newport was so cold and windy. 

We met them at this amazing park on the bay in Lincoln city. It was exactly like one my parents took me to when I was little somewhere here in Portland. I must find that park now! 

We only played for a little while because it was already getting late and we wanted to have enough beach time. We headed to the secluded spot that we found last year hoping it would be just as secluded this time. Max took Charlie down with Lisa, August and her niece Ellie. I stayed in the car to nurse Miles but he kept falling asleep and I felt like I wanted to see my boys playing on the beach so I bundled him up and we walked down to the beach. Oh, boy it was cold and windy. I sat down and held Miles close in a blanket At one point a huge gust of wind got him in the face which was probably the most frightening thing he experienced in his short life. I stayed bundled up with Miles on our chair so it wouldn't fly away (the chair... and Miles) I took pictures of Max and Charlie running around and in and out of the freezing water and loving every minute of it. I had ambitions of taking family photos and pictures of Miles' and Charlie's feet in the sand but that just didn't happen. I didn't want to let Miles out of my tight arms. I loved watching these guys run and play though.

In case you are wondering why Max is wearing a bright pink sweatshirt....It's because it's mine but I was plenty warm with Miles in the blanket so I shared it with Max, he can definitely pull it off though!

This boy was so happy, even with numb feet!

Don't let the sun and shadows fool you, it was cold!

And we didn't even stay for a full hour. It was so cold and windy. Miles was getting fussy again and after a lame attempt of nursing him in high winds I decided to go back to the car. August was pretty much done too. Charlie probably could have played for hours and hours.I fed Miles in the car and in the meantime Max and Lisa cleaned up and brought the kids back to the cars. Max cleaned and changed Charlie. His lips were blue and we hoped he would warm up soon.

We then went through town looking for a place to eat dinner. I love eating at Mo's but Lisa and the kids had gone there for lunch. They said they would be alright going there again. We looked in town to see if anything else looked promising but somehow we were led back to Mo's. I blame it on my fear of change. I hate the idea of wasting money on a lame meal and I knew Mo's would be great!

We ate our seafood watching the bay. 

This kid is awesome!

And that's my little handsome man!

We filled up our bellies and got some saltwater taffy to go. We parted our ways, put pajamas on the boys, fed Miles, buckled up and headed home. The boys slept most of the way and transferred nicely to their beds when we got home. 

The drive was enjoyable finally having time alone with Max to discuss life and the future and hopes and fears for our boys. Those are precious moments. One of my favorite moments from the drive home was when we were about 10 minutes away from our house driving through the heart of Tigard, our home town. It was nearly 11pm on a Saturday night and a car pulled up next to us playing loud music. It gave my a very real flashback of our high school days when we would drive down that same road together with loud music going to the random restaurants, or the movie theater, or grocery store. Then I compared that with our current situation, and how we spend our Saturday nights now. Max and I sitting in our quiet car with our two beautiful and healthy boys silently sleeping in the back while Max and I discussed grown-up topics in our new SUV. 10+ years ago I could never have imagined my life turning out this good. I feel so blessed and I love our little family adventures. Life truly does continue to get more rich and wonderful!