Children's Museum

I had plans of going to the zoo and Children's museum a lot during the summer while Charlie was home. We went to the zoo the first week of Summer break and it was so stressful for me. My children seem to like to get separated from me and are oblivious to where I am. It made me not want to go to busy places with them for awhile. So the last week of summer I thought we should at least use our children's museum pass once, so we made it happen. Of course it was busier than ever and it was still stressful but the boys had fun. And it is exciting that Edwin can play more. And here are a ton of phone photos. 

"nose"

We were playing hide and seek tag in the maze...this is the boys hiding...

 And this is Edwin copying them after we found them.

Anyway, we're looking forward to more outings. And we are excited that the big boys have some different "no school" days so I'll be able to have some more focused time with each big kid at the zoo/museum.

Shaving cream

Miles will soon start preschool at the same preschool Charlie went to two years ago. Charlie has been preparing Miles by telling him all the fun things he will get to do. One of these things is water day at the end of the year where they have a pool with shaving cream. I had also been wanting to blow up our pool one more time and clean it out before storing it for the dreaded winter. Thus...inspiration hit. We were on our way to a doctor appointment and I bribed my children. I told them if they were good listeners at the doctors, I would get them each a bottle of shaving cream on our way home. It worked like a charm. Luckily we ended up doing this while Edwin napped. it was super slippery and Edwin probably would have been injured. The boys had fun for the most part except when it went it went in Miles eyes. He needed to rinse off in the shower about 3 times but then went right back at it...filling his eyes with shaving cream! So there's that!

Day Trip for Grace

My brother's family just moved and we are so excited that they are a whole hour closer to us. they were previously in the Tacoma/Seattle area, and now they are in Eugene! Maybe not a huge difference but it seems so much less daunting to just take a day trip to see cousins!

We made our first visit this last week to celebrate Grace's 7th birthday and to check out their new house. My photos are random. But Whatevs

We left early in the morning, my boys were so excited that it wasn't even hard to get them to wake up and get dressed! Whew...(I'm dreading pulling them out of bed for school) Anyway, We arrived a bit early so I let them get some wiggles out in the open mall area before taking them into the painting pottery place! I was a little worried about taking my 3 bulls into a china shop so to speak,  so we waited until the last minute to go in.

Thankfully the pottery shop had a toy baket that Edwin was pretty interested in for awhile while my big boys worked on their projects.
Everett! He used to cry when I looked at him! I'm so happy he likes me now! At least tolerates me!

My boys made ice cream bowls, apparently there are no photos of Miles or the birthday girl. I told you the photos are random. 

Edwin was losing it and needing a nap so we left before the others were done so we could take a drive and Edwin could sleep. We explored James and Elizabeth's new neighborhood, eventually when Edwin's brothers woke him up, we got out to play in the front yard...and put the kids to work!

My boys were in heaven. They love their cousins and look up to them so much. 

 We ate lunch, and birthday brownies, took out a dementor pinata, and opened gifts. Each of my boys had picked out a puppy stuffed animal for Grace. And then there was tons of playing inside and outside and I even got to visit with James and Elizabeth for awhile. Can't wait to go down again in a couple weeks for their new baby boy to be born!

Nothing can Stop the Baertleins

Charles,
I found myself able to spend some much needed one on one time with you this afternoon while your brothers slept. I wanted this short moment to be special so we jumped on the trampoline, you spent some time jumping with Siuma since your old mom can’t jump as long as she used to. When Siuma went home we did some weeding, watered the garden, and then went to pick blackberries. We protected each other from the thorns and spider webs and found lots of “jackpots.” When I found a group of berries covered by a web I said the web wouldn’t stop me, to which you responded. “Nothing can stop the Baertleins!” I loved that! I love the important roles you play in our family. We continued to pick berries and discuss the upcoming changes, mainly soccer and 1st grade. You mentioned you were nervous. We talked about your amazing talent of making friends wherever you go, and being a good friend to anyone you see, and how that skill will always help you in school and sports. We walked back to the house with our berries and found one of your brothers had awoken. Charlie, it was a short and simple time we were able to spend together today, but I can see that you have so much good in your strong small, creative, and energetic body. Sometimes I don’t know how to help you direct your energy and excitement for life. Sometimes I forgot how willing you are to help and how you are just waiting for guidance! You are an amazing child with so much to contribute to this world. Thank you for teaching me to be a better friend, and to not be afraid of spider webs, as to reach for my goals because “nothing can stop the Baertleins!”

Love,

 Mom

18 month Edwin

Edwin turned 18 months this last week and I never took "official" photos for him because life is busy. But I still want to document him at 18 months. (as if I don't have enough photos of him, hah)

He is a happy child, from the moment he wakes up until the moment he realizes he's tired!  He is an amazing sleeper. He has been sleeping until 9ish all summer and this last week he has had 4 hour naps. Apparently he's growing. My kids are all actually amazing sleepers. I don't say this to brag, I just never want to take it for granted because I know how important sleep is for sanity. And I'm incredibly grateful that I have this moment in my life where we can all sleep great!

He is my most timid child. He takes awhile to warm up to others! This doesn't stop him from running away from me in public places, but he does return to me as soon as he spots a stranger. I guess this is kind of good.

He LOVES animals more than any of my other children seemed to at this age. He has pretty good chicken and puppy impressions. He really loves to make people laugh, especially his brothers, I feel like I'm raising a bunch of clowns! I blame Max.

Speaking of Max....Edwin is the biggest Daddy's boy ever! All my kids like Max better than me, and I don't blame them. Haha! But Edwin is quite vocal about being in Max's presence whenver he senses that Max is near!

He is selective with his speaking. He has a bunch of words that he will say. (down, car, chickie, uh oh, owie, bike...etc.) He has many more things he says that we don't really understand. But he communicates incredibly well without being able to speak much and he is demonstrating his incredible understanding when we talk to him. This age really blows my mind with how much they are able to learn and develop.
(not that I compare my children but I went back to my blog post when Miles was 18 months and he was chatting up a storm, interesting how kids are all different)

Anyway, this age keeps us busy as I always have to keep a close eye on my busy climber of a son, but he is well loved in this family, and we're glad he's ours!

And here are photos of him leading up to his 18 month day!

Family time on the Ranch

Generally we have a yearly family rafting trip, this year we found out that Max's Uncle Jay wouldn't be able to go due to some deadlines with building his ranch house in central Oregon. Jay basiccally told Max and his brother that they could head up the trip if they wanted. Max thought of the idea of having the family come to the Ranch house and help with some of the projects instead of rafting. I got excited about this since we could take Edwin with us. It was a bummer since it was going to be Miles' first rafting trip but we were super excited about the fun we could have on the ranch. Also, we found out that Max's cousin from McCall Idaho was coming with his family and we rarely get to see them!

We arrived Sunday evening and met up with Max's cousin's family and Lisa, Emmett and Annette. Brent and the older boys joined a little later. The Ranch house is not finished yet so there wasn't running water or electricity so it was pretty much more camping. But there was a structure that provided shelter so we found a room (with no walls) and set up camp in there. Jay arrived a little later and showed us how to use the toilets and some electricity. We all slept well enjoying the cool desert breeze coming in the windows. The next morning, Lisa, Krystel, and I played with the little kids while the men and big kids went out on the ATVs to find the baby cow on Jay's property. There is a motherless baby calf that gets to be bottle fed.

In the meantime, the ATVs proved to be an awesome playground while parked.

Edwin took a nap and I was able to prepare lunch in peace with my big boys off with Max. It was quite the relief since an unfinished house is far from baby friendly for a 1 year old!

 After Lunch we all went out to where the baby calf was and brought her bottle. The kids took turns feeding her. Miles rode on my ATV and screamed the whole time because he wanted to be with Max so eventually he switched with August.

 Charlie seemed to be quite the thrill junkie and begged for the ATVs every waking moment.

Uncle Jay had this nice taxerdermied bear he liked to sneak into different places to surprise people. Miles and Edwin thought it was so funny!

In the later afternoon, we drove/rode ATVs to something called big tree..and it was exactly like it sounded. It was a big tree. And there was also this crumbling cabin where I naturally had to take a million photos of Edwin and Emmett. Emmett was always checking on Edwin and giving him hugs! (Sidenote, the day Emmett was born was the day I found out I was pregnant with Edwin)

And once we got to big tree...we needed to stop and smell it. 

 And then we went back to the ranch, had a lasagna dinner and got to enjoy the lovely desert sunsets.

The next morning we scrounged up a breakfast and then made our way to the painted hills. We were told it was one hour and 5 minutes away (on dirt/gravel bumpy roads) it ended up taking over 2 hours. Pretty worth it though.

 It was beautiful, I would have loved to spend more time here but it was so hot and we had a lot of kids (and some elderly) with us so we made our way to a little oasis of a picnic area.

It was the prefect shaded green patch with sprinklers, so we ate an amazing lunch from Lisa and then ran wild in the sprinklers! (I mostly supervised)

Edwin tried his first Cheeto, and boy was he thrilled about it!

Miles had already had his ration of chips but River Grandma Annette kept sneaking him more Doritos 

And then we made our way to a perfect little bend in the John Day River. This was really our favorite part of the whole trip. The water was slow and the river was pretty shallow and it was so warm. I took a couple photos at the beginning then put the camera away and played. We had all sorts of floaties and we were able to wash our hair for the first time in awhile and the boys loved it. Edwin was the first to start whining and we then decided to go home. Max and I could have stayed for a lot longer.

We made our way back and found that another large group of the family had finally arrived. Krystel made an excellent taco dinner! Max then set up a projector movie in the great room, Edwin went to sleep the boys stayed up to watch the movie but Miles only made it halfway through. After the movie, we put the boys in bed and went out to look at the stars. It was partly cloudy and smoky so we really couldn't see that many stars but it sure was nice outside. We then attempted to sleep but with a full house with no walls, it was near impossible.

The next morning we packed up all our stuff and ate breakfast. Max still wanted to help Jay with some house projects so I was fully supervising the kids, which can be stressful at a non kid friendly house. Thankfully Brent took my big boys on the ATV to go feed the baby cow again. I followed Edwin around making sure he didn't touch anything dangerous. Max worked for awhile and when he found a stopping place, we took the boys on a quick little ATV ride where both big boys got a chance to drive then we jumped in the car and went home. We are super excited for Jay's property. He has great plans and it is going to be an amazing getaway!

We had a good drive home and got home with plenty of daylight so we were able to completely clean out the car, start some laundry, go to a car wash and vacuum the inside, (back to back camping trips were making us feel super unorganized and messy by the end, so this was super satisfying)

Anyway, we had a ton of family fun but we've been so excited to get back into our normal routine before school starts in a couple weeks.