August

Wow, summer is going fast! We have had so much fun with Jonas this year; I hope we're able to keep him occupied this winter. He has such a good time every day with his Mormor, she does a great job keeping him busy. Like last year, she took a job working at the cruise ship terminal on Fridays, so Jonas has been going to an in-home day care each Friday. At the beginning of the summer, every Friday was a cry-fest. But now it's no big deal, and he actually gets pretty excited about going. It's probably pretty good for Jonas to be around other kids a little more.

So, what Jonas is doing now:

He talks up a blue streak, and almost all of it is intelligible! He's still dropping the 's' sound at the beginning of words, and jumbling the middles sometimes, but mostly he speaks pretty clearly.

He calls himself baby, as in "Baby do dat!" when he wants to brush his teeth or pour the milk or whatever it is you are doing.

He knows a ton of colors: red, blue, black, brown, purple, orange, yellow, green. And can correctly name them 90% of the time.

He's becoming more enamored of CLIMBING, which keeps mommy and daddy on their toes. He's climbed out of every pack n play they have at the day care, but never tried his crib at home or the pack n play at Mormor's.

He still loves music, and loves to dance! He likes to turn on the metronome on the keyboard really loud and jam to it, which is only a LITTLE obnoxious. :-)

Best of all, he's completely day time potty trained! Hoooray! He's been in cotton training pants all day for the last two weeks, and not a single accident. We still put a diaper on him for naps and nighttime, but half the time he wakes up dry from naps!

Next up, 2nd birthday party! Holy moly, how'd that happen?

Mommy's little helper

Okay, last post for now. These were from tonight. Jonas was helping me cook dinner. He's pretty good at scooping, dumping and stirring - everything else he leaves up to me.






Notice the paint can on the counter - our house is CONSTANTLY under renovation. We are currently trying to muster up the gumption to sand and paint our kitchen cabinets white. Ohhh, but we hate painting so much! The orange and the yellow will be gone soon too . . . . I hope.

Marathon Bowl

On July 3rd Nick and Jonas and I, plus a group of friends and family, took advantage of a ridiculously gorgeous day and hiked up into the Bowl on Mt. Marathon. It's not a real far distance, but it's got some decent elevation to it - make you work your leg muscles! Absolutely incredibly breathtaking. We try to get up there at least once every summer, just to remind ourselves how amazing our area is. This is basically our backyard!

The photos are actually in reverse order, but I didn't want to take the time to mess with them - I'm running out of time before my bedtime. So, start at the bottom if you want!

Lupine

Hard work coming down some of the steep parts with a kid on your back! This section wasn't bad at all, though.

That's our town!

Paradise

Jonas and Laif quickly zeroed in on the cold snow-melt river. Throwing rocks is so much fun!

Jonas can't wait to get a pack of his own!

Look ma, no hands! I think he's going to be a great hiker.

I wish someone had told me to take off my hat and sunglasses - could have gotten a great family picture. Oh well, these are good too I guess.

The whole group! Family, friends, and random people my mom met at church and invited along!

Are you jealous of my home?

Shameless

The weather has been fabulous this summer, which of course means: OUTDOOR NAKEY TIME! Granted we have some mosquito issues, but Jonas thinks it's totally worth it.

We gotta get our Vitamin D somewhere!

He'll thank me for those privacy patches, someday. :-)

Whiskers Holler

Nick and I recently went in with my folks and my brother Matt on some land in Hope. Hope is a tiny town about an hour north of Seward, absolutely gorgeous. It's always been a favorite hiking and camping spot for my family, and now we own a little piece of it! It's completely wooded right now, but we hope to get it cleared enough for a rough driveway and some tent platforms by the end of summer. Long term goal is to have a miniature yurt 'village' - one large central kitchen/gathering room with smaller bedrooms scattered around. We're really excited about it! But it's going to take a lot of work. We spent some time out there working a couple weeks ago, and Jonas of course had a blast. Unfortunately we haven't perfected our toddler-in-a-tent scenario. Hopefully that improves soon!

Little does he know that this place is going to be a staple of his childhood, and hopefully the basis for incredible memories for years and years to come!

He definitely enjoys hanging around the camp site! Actually here we're on the little access road between our property and the next - there isn't this much open space anywhere on the plot, yet.

Mmmm, grilled margarita pizza! It doesn't look like it yet, but after you smash those tomatoes on there and add fresh basil and mozzarella, believe me it's GOOD.

Here's the rough cut of where our driveway is going to come through. Nick and Dad and Matt cut and cleared all those trees by hand! I hauled some wood, but they definitely did the majority of the hard labor. Hey, someone has to watch the kid!

Of course we chose the lot with the most privacy, which also means it's going to be very difficult to clear - but I think it will be worth it in the end!

Oh yeah, I have a blog!

Ha . . . would you believe I completely forgot about this thing? Poor Wendy. :-)

Life has been good. Jonas is growing like a weed, and learning new things every day. He'll be two next week, which is nearly unbelievable. He's talking up a storm, putting words together into two and three word sentences which I of course LOVE! I like putting my speech and language background into play and tracking his development. He drops a lot of initial sounds like S, socks becomes ocks. He also swaps sounds - he calls our dog Cooper -Booker. Pretty funny!

Jonas LOVES being outside, he's been having the time of his life this summer.

He started off a little unsure.

But quickly decided he liked it. Look at the pure joy on his face!

He got to drive the boat with his uncle Matt - he still talks about that every time we pass a boat on the road. "Boat! Boat! Matt?"

We call this place Pringle Beach - it's got the BEST skipping stones you'll ever see.

Jonas really wanted to go in the water, but I didn't want him to get his clothes wet - solution: nudity! He waded back and forth for a long time, then put his arms back and did a face plant straight into the lake! All you could see was his tiny bum floating in the water . . . I got wet fishing him out. Hahaha Didn't even faze him.

Poor kid CRASHED on the way back.

November

In November we took a trip over to Homer to visit Jonas' little friend Laif and we went down to the beach. He was secure enough walking at this point that he really got a kick out of it! He ran up and down the sand, picking up rocks and watching the waves. Too much fun!