4th of July

The start of residency for Dal was no joke. His first month was internal medicine and the hours are long. He even had to work from a 15 hour day on Saturday (the 4th of July). Lucky for us, there was a big firework show in Lacey the night of the 3rd so we were still able to celebrate as a family.

Dallin got off a little early on Friday. I took Mae with me to get our oil changed while Dal mowed the lawn and Cal napped. Kids making running errands like this painful sometimes. This day, it was a long wait but we got to wait in our car. I had so much fun with Mae! I had an hour and a half that I could do nothing but sit in the car and play with my baby. She was being really funny. She kept looking out the window until one of then workers would look at her, then she would smile and bury her head in my chest. It motivated me not to want to hurry through my days, even when I have to do dumb errands like getting my oil changed.

We went to event in Lacey that evening. Both of our kids fell asleep on the way there, so we drove around for a while (since we were pretty early anyway). We just went a mile or 2 down the road we were on and we ran into a forrest! When in Washington, I guess. We ate dinner at a little burger place, went around to the booths, then waited to watch the fireworks by a cute little pond and catching frogs with Patrick and Danielle. Calvin loved running around with Tristan and LOVED the fireworks. He is at such a fun age for stuff like this. I kind of missed the firework show because I was watching him. Cal, Tristan, and their other 2 friends yelled, "boom!" and laughed for the entire half hour show.

Cal loved the snappers

Calvin thought putting a frog on Mae's head was the funniest

Both Mae & Cal went to bed at 11 pm that evening, which is why i was really surprised at my 6:00 wake up call from Mae. We missed Dal, but we had a really fun day at the lake with some nice people from our ward. Calvin loved playing on the beach and some of our ward friends were nice enough to watch Mae while I went with Calvin around the lake in the row boat. Seriously obsessed with our ward. I spent the tail end of my holiday cuddling with Calvin to 'Big Hero 6' and eating popcorn + m&m's while Mae slept (Dal caught the tail end, even!). 

Mae @ 9 months

My baby Mae is 9 months. I feel like this month her personality is really showing through. I like her personality.

At 9 months, Mae...

-Moved across the country! Well, across the country might be a bit of an exaggeration. She did move 19 hours away, from Las Vegas to WA. Besides her sleep schedule she seems to be adjusting wonderfully (much better than her older brother). 

-She still army crawls, even though she can get up onto her hands and knees. Just really recently she learned to go from crawling to sitting up on her own.

-Just this month, Mae decided she loves eating food! Her favorite foods are raspberries, avocado, and french fries (oops). Even though she eats 3 meals of solid food per day, she still nurses every 3 hours (besides night time). We love to nurse.

-Other than 13-hour road trips, Mae loves the car now!  and the jogging stroller! and wrap! Woohoo!

-I got a gym membership this month. Most days the first week, they would call me over the intercom to come back because they couldn't get her to stop crying. She is a little bit of a mama's girl. She has learned to tolerate it... mostly.

-Still obsessed with eating Hobbes hair and lint. She's gross.

-She's spitting up a ton less, but since she is eating so much solid food it is super disgusting when she does now. 

-Mae's favorite things are Calvin & Hobbes, being thrown in the air, being tickled or sung to, swimming, nursing, eating puffs (soooo many puffs), and swinging. Especially swinging!

-She is a pain in the butt to change or get dressed. She hates it and tries really hard to crawl away, making it take at least 9 times as long.

-She was waking up a lot during the night when we first moved, but I don't really blame her after staying out until midnight for a week, dragging her to Mexico for a week, then SLC for a week, then making her be in the car for a whole day and moving to a  new place. She is used to it now and sleeps from 8 until 5 in the morning, nurses, then goes back to bed until 8. Her morning nap is usually in the car, which seems to be working for us. She takes a really good nap from 2 to 4, which is mostly when Cal naps! It's great. 

I walked in a couple of times this month on Cal and Mae sort-of-playing together! He knows how to make her laugh and might be her favorite. Excited to see their relationship progress. 

A day at the Oregon coast

For Dallin's last Saturday before his intern year really starts, we decided to go to Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast for the day. It turned out to be one of those awesome trips where you plan things and the kids actually really like everything! I decided that on outings it seems like I can only be as happy as my least happy baby, haha. Well both Mae and Cal were so great on this day and we had the best day with our family. 

The beaches here do not have the same feel as Hawaii, but they are so, so beautiful. It was nice weather, but still pretty cold to get in the water. Calvin loved playing with his new kite and building sand castles. I brought all sorts of toys for Mae but she was having none of it and only wanted to eat sand. We met some nice people (seriously, everyone is so friendly here!) and hung out for a while. We went and got the stroller after a while and took a walk along the beach until we got to the tide pools. Calvin loved looking at the pools seeing the big rocks. On the way back we tied the kite to his backpack... when the wind picked up it was blowing him all around.

We got some fish and chips for dinner, then went to Ecola State Park. It was super pretty and we ended up being really glad we went. We went on a little hike and had the most beautiful view of the beach below. The hike down to the ocean was really steep and rocky, so Dallin took Calvin down there while I took in the view from above with Mae. Afterwards we went and got some ice cream in Seaside. It was crowded, but fun to see the little town. And the ice cream was delicious.

 Aaaaand, on our drive back there was a super cool sunset! Perfect day.