Need some help... PLEASE READ AND COMMENT!

Some people have told me recently that our blog is not coming up with the pictures, yet others say they can still see and read everything. Will you please leave me a comment and let me know either way if it's working for you? We are trying to figure out what's wrong with it.... Can you see all the pictures in my previous posts?? Thanks!!

Portland Sight-Seeing with Aunt Shan

While my sista was here visiting, we did some sight-seeing around Portland, when John got back from his training, in an attempt to convert her over to being a Portland fan and in hopes that she will come back again soon! We took her to the Portland Mormon Temple, out to the Nike Campus, and for a drive East along the beautiful Columbia River (with Mt. Hood as some of the gorgeous scenery), ending at the very pretty Multnomah Falls! It was nice for John and I to get some long overdo sight-seeing in for our own pleasure as well. We had driven by Multnomah Falls in the dark before on the way to a campsite, but this was the first time we stopped during the day and made the short journey right up to it, and it was SO worth it! If you are ever in P-town, you MUST go see the Falls! The drive itself is very pretty and it's only about 20-30 minutes away! Plus, you could always stop by Valley Inn- where Prom in Twilight was filmed, since it is on the way! We really wanted to check that out, but ended up not having enough time since Shannon had to catch a plane home :( Next time....

Nike Campus

Michael Johnson and his gold shoes

running around the track

Multnomah Falls

Top of the falls

Bottom

the whole thing!

Jackson taking a picture of the waterfall with his Buzz Lightyear fake camera

the .2 mi trail is that bridge in the middle of the falls and is pretty easy and walkable with a stroller so we went up there and it was SO pretty! The rest of the hikes are pretty much uphill and looked really hard... something to train for when my knee gets better perhaps!

Jackson's Birthday and a visit from Aunt Shannon!

Jackson is finally 3!! At first I thought, I'm glad he is 3 because he looks like he is about 4 or 5 and so it was always annoying to have to explain that the reason he is not in school or reading or can't tell you his favorite flavor of ice cream is because he is actually only 2! But he has been 3 for less than a week and I've already had someone say "How old are you? 3? Are you turning 4 soon?" The kid is just so darn tall. And he is really getting smart! He always amazes us the things he knows!

Anyways, Jackson had a GREAT Buzz Lightyear birthday!! My sister, Shannon came up to help out and to celebrate with us since John was out of town at a training until Friday night. Thursday night, (even though the 19th is his actual b-day, we celebrated Friday so John could make it home for cake & ice cream!), after the kids went to bed, Shannon & I got busy decorating our front room with streamers and all kinds of Buzz stuff. We wrapped all his presents too, so he woke up Friday morning to all the decorations! Then, after he opened his presents (Little Buzz, big huge tall Buzz as he calls it, Buzz fake camera, Mr. & Mrs. potato Head + Baby Potato, Buzz pj's, Buzz & Woody t-shirt, some sweet sweatpants/coat, a new sweatshirt, and some cars of course!), we took Jackson to the Portland Children's museum. It is the cutest museum ever with so much to do! We spent a few hours there, grabbed some Five Guy's Burgers and Fries for lunch, and headed back home. Then, Jackson helped make his own birthday cake (we thought that would be more fun for him then me trying to make something all fancy and creative), and he LOVED doing that! He picked blue frosting and put LOTS of sprinkles all over and decided that 3 candles was not enough, so he added a lot more! It was definitely the ugliest cake I have seen, but he was really excited about all of it! Daddy made it home from his training in San Francisco just in time to sing to Jackson and give him his last present- a new airplane from the airport that Jackson LOVES. (It's his Big Jet for all you Little Einstein fans). Later that night my sister and I went and saw New Moon... so good! More on that and the sight-seeing we did with Shannon will come in the next post. :)

So Jackson had a great birthday! Here's pictures for proof:

this is what Jackson woke up to

taking a picture with his new Buzz camera

taking a picture of the baby "tato" that he made (he got the best set of 3 from my parents- Mr., Mrs., and Baby Potato Head). He of course loved it since it was from Toy Story

Grocery Shopping at the Children's Museum

Checking out my food for me

Driving the ambulance

Decorating the birthday cake!

All his Buzz presents, including new Buzz PJ's.... look at that smile

this is his "Big, huge, tall Buzz" as he calls it from Uncle Colby

Halloween Costumes

I know Halloween was 2 weeks ago, but here's some picture of the boys in costume... they are hard to get to sit still. Friday I dressed them up and we went trick-or-treating at John's office with the other spouses and kids. Baron decided there that he was going to officially walk from now on and therefore walked around the whole office in his pirate costume! Jackson was extremely excited to get a lot of candy and afterwards they had the kids decorate some cookies. He also loved seeing the other kid's costumes. We saw The Jensens at the building (they were treat-or-treating Tom's office a few floors up!), and Jackson was at first a little apprehensive to see his best bud, Jack, dressed as a monkey, but got over it once he realized it was his same old friend.

Halloween night, The Jensen's were nice enough to let us come hang out with them and watch the Ducks kick some Trojan butt and go trick-or-treating in their neighborhood. The boys (Jack & Jackson) had a great time running from door to door getting lots of yummy treats! They were a little scared of some houses with scary decorations, but all in all they had a blast and scored on the candy!

Sadly, Baron for once in his life wasn't being super smiley when we went to take pictures of him Halloween night.... and I forgot to take any pictures the day before when we trick-or-treated John's office :(. My bad.... here's what we did get:

Giant Pumpkin Regatta Festival

Every year around the man-made lake we live around, they have a giant pumpkin regatta festival. What is that you ask? It is a great Fall Festival held around halloween with lots of games and events including free face painting, pumpkin painting, a ballon man, a clown show, live music, and some food! But the biggest event is the Giant Pumpkin Races in the lake! The local growers gut out their ginormous pumpkins, dress up in costume, sit in them, and row through a course in the lake! It is a lot of fun to watch and we had a great time! It was so nice just to walk out of our apartment and take a very short walk and we were there at the festival! Even if we are not living here next year, I think we will be back to visit and watch the giant pumpkin races again!

Here's some random pictures of Bear later that day... I just thought they were cute

Pumpkin Patch '09!

We found a GREAT pumpkin patch less than 3 miles away from our place this year! Jackson had a lot of fun.... Baron was mad the first 1/2 hour we were there because we had to wake him up after a 5 min. nap to be able to go and get back in time for the Duck Football game.... hence all the grumpy faces from him in the photos. After awhile, he brightened up though! The day was filled with hay rides, pony rides, petting zoos, a corn maze, a slide, and it ended with some apple cider and cider donuts. Mmmmmm..... so yummy :) And even though it was raining all week, it was a beautiful day, resulting in lots of great pictures!

Baby Bear... or should I say Baby Monkey Update

It's been a while since I've done an update on the little guy. He is 10 months now!! At his 9 month Dr. appointment he had finally gone down in weight percentile to 60% (as opposed to 95% + that he has always been in the past) and he was in the 81st percentil for height and 88 percentile for head circumfrince. That's what crawling around at lightning speeds and walking around the furniture will do for you.... if only that worked for me! Anyways, Bear is sure A LOT of fun to have around. He is always in a great mood, loves to giggle at anything his brother does( and i mean full-on belly giggle), is still a great eater and has been loving real food as of late-probably due to the fact that he was 5 whole teeth now! Baron sleeps about 12 hours straight every night, recently learned to stand-up in the middle of the room without using any furniture, has been WALKING about 10-15 or so steps between John & I or from the TV all the way to the couch, and he is my little monkey climber! Seriously, this kid LOVES to climb and will use anything ( boxes, pillows, containers, big toys, his brother, etc. ) to get to higher levels. He is a master at going up stairs, but no so much at coming down (he accidentally fell down some the other day! yikes! Thank goodness he is ok!) Also, Bear has one little curl right in the middle of the back of his head which I think will be joined by more curls when the rest of his hair finally grows out. He loves to clap for himself when he walks or does anything new, and JUST 2 WEEKS AGO, HE SAID HIS FIRST WORD..... which was BALL of course.... just like his brother. They are both ALL BOY. He loves to pick up a ball, say it like 5 times and then chuck it... which is something else he loves to do... chuck everything. Along with throwing things, he also loves to wrestle and has been known to take down a fellow crawler or 2 at church and during story time at the library -which always makes the other kids cry, which in turn confuses him, because he is just playing and thinks it is great fun! I have to admit that I think its pretty funny.

Well that's about it! We sure love our Baby Bear!!