Ev's visit - his photos

And here are a few of Evan's picture from our visit. He didn't have his camera out much because he was so busy working on our beautiful fence, but the ones he did take are great. I especially love the ones of Oliver and the merry-go-round.

our handrail, the original project

our fence, thus far

more fence, with our existing handrail on our lower stairs. this will eventually be replaced to look more like the new one.

Nick is currently working on building the gate

O

"motorcycle man", as he calls himself

love this one!

bike parking: Oliver parks his bike on this same tree every day at the playground

Elliott - month 8 clips

A few clips from last month. Enjoy!

Uncle Ev's visit

Uncle Evan's visit was short and very busy. He flies home early this morning, much to Oliver's dismay. Fortunately, I'm heading back down to California next week with the boys so Oliver will get to see his favorite uncle in about nine days.

Evan's original goal in coming up here was to visit with the boys and build/weld us a hand rail for our upper front steps. Thanks to his love for welding and my begging for a gate and fence for our upper yard, the project quickly morphed into just that. On Saturday the boys (minus Elliott) headed down to a steel shop to pick up a ton of steel (turns out they over estimated how much material they would need and Nick plans to use the leftovers to build Oliver his first go-cart). Nick, and especially Evan, have worked incredibly hard for the past few days trying to get as much of the fence completed as they could before Evan flies out. The fence is up, and looks great! Evan has better pictures on his camera so I'll post them when I get them from him. Nick still has a lot of work ahead of him though, including building the gate and sanding/galvanizing/painting the entire fence before it rusts. I am so thrilled to finally have a fence and soon a gate, as the concrete stairs leading down to the street have made me so nervous ever since Oliver first became mobile two years ago. Now the boys will be able to play more safely in our front yard, and Penny will get to enjoy it more as well!

masked men

welding

the welding mask quickly became Oliver's motorcycle helmet!

assessing the situation

Oliver will kiss his favorite uncle any day, even when he's wearing a huge mask

Uncle Ev and his cutest nephews! It's amazing that everyone is looking and smiling for me!

trying on the earplugs

little boy in a clover patch

preview

Here's a sneak peak of what Nick and uncle Evan have been up to all weekend!

tooth!

Elliott has finally cut his first tooth! It started making it's appearance last Saturday and today it's finally come in enough that he doesn't appear to be bothered by it. He is still getting used to the feeling of it in his mouth. Last night he was eating an apple and I could hear him scraping his tooth on it.

beating the heat

Here are a few of the ways Oliver stayed cool in the heat today!

licking the ice cream maker's beater!

i guess it's a good thing I took his shirt off

i'm not sure any ice cream actually made it in that mouth

a bath in the garden tub!

And here's a video of Uncle Ev washing the ice cream off of Oliver:

nectarine

Yum! Elliott has recently discovered nectarines!

blueberries

We had a great time picking blueberries today at Bybee Nims Farm! After about two hours in the sun, and eating our fair share of berries, we left with about 18 pounds of freshly picked, delicious blueberries! Now what to do with them all. We have already given some away and made blueberry ice cream (Oliver's request). A blueberry crumble is on the agenda for tomorrow, and after that we'll probably eat some and freeze the rest. We can't wait to go back next year!

our lead blueberry picker

Oliver's bounty

Nick's bounty

Elliott and I helped when we could

caught red-handed! stealing blueberries from daddy's bucket!

going in for the pick

our little blueberry man

a little disappointed that this farm didn't have cows or horses (he was picking blueberries for them)

my little rockstar

Oliver sings:
Open and shut them
Twinkle, Twinkle
Little green frog
Red caboose
Run baby run, by caspar babypants
More Moles, by caspar babypants

8 months old

This little man turned eight months old yesterday, how the time flies! Some new achievements this past month include army crawling and clapping! He's starting to get into everything, and has already managed to pull over Penny's water bowl. Poor Penny, just when Oliver grew out of the phase where he plays with her water, someone else gets into it :)

Elliott loves books, especially touch and feel ones.We recently ditched the infant bathtub as he started standing in it! Into the big tub he goes! He loves music, watching me dance to keep him from fussing, and Nick's guitars. He also loves anything and everything about his big brother. Oliver is definitely the best at getting Elliott to laugh, which he does quite often. No teeth yet, and if I remember correctly, Oliver was late as well. He enjoys tasting new foods but still has a fairly strong gag reflex, so he isn't eating much in the way of solids. Broccoli, blueberries and beef seem to be his favorite right now, but yep, his rolls are 100% breast milk.

Here are a few cute naked pictures of him that I took yesterday: