Penny

This girl loves the camera! I have been teaching Penny to be my lap dog and Oliver wanted her to try sitting on his lap. She's definitely figured out that she gets a lot of treats for taking pictures.

Elliott videos

Now that preschool has started, I have a bit more one on one time with Elliott (Wed-Fri afternoons). Here are a few videos of him from this past week:

muscle-up progress

Here is one of my first legit (meaning starting with arms fully extended) muscle-ups! It isn't clear from my previous video, but I had been starting them with bent arms to get me closer to the turnover, which is the part that gave me the most trouble. This week I attempted it with straight arms, thus allowing me to get a much bigger kipping swing. Success, and they are much easier to do this way. Now I just need to get rid of my chicken wing arms. . .

Elliott's clothing swim!

Elliott had his clothing swim yesterday during his swim lesson and did a fantastic job. We dressed him in tennis shoes, jeans, t-shirt and a heavy sweatshirt so he must have weighed twice as much when he was wet. Oliver sat in the pool after his lesson and cheered Elliott on. The first 2:30 of the video are clips from Oliver's lesson, he is learning the sidestroke.

blueberry picking 2014

At the end of August we did our annual blueberry picking at Bybee Farms in North Bend. This was the first year I was able to contribute a significant amount of berries to our haul since Elliott is now old enough to occupy himself. The boys were doing a great job of putting berries in their buckets until they tasted them. After that, the ones they picked went into their mouths and they stole from our buckets to fill theirs :) We ended up with a whopping 28.6 pounds of blueberries, nearly 10 pounds more than last year! The most amazing thing is that less than a month after bringing home and freezing these berries, they are nearly gone. We are down to our last bag of them in the freezer as the boys have been inhaling frozen blueberries by the bowlful everyday.

the bushes were really dense this year!

smiles from Oliver

our bounty

And here's a cute little video of Elliott saying "pick, pick, pick..." as he picks blueberries.

first day of preschool 2014-2015

The boys were excited to start back to school yesterday at the preschool co-op that we are now entering our fourth year with! Oliver (who will be 5 next month!) started in the toddler's class four years ago and he has now started his last year of preschool before kindergarten! He's considered a "Friday" kid this year, which is a special day where just the oldest 10 or so kids attend Fridays throughout the year in preparation for kindergarten. Elliott (2 3/4) is entering the Two's class this year and will go one day (for two hours) with me, and one without.

The boys had quite a case of the crazies while I was trying to get these pictures. You'll notice that Elliott is dressed in his current uniform of train shorts and a Redwood Railway T-shirt (it's a good thing we have two of this exact shirt that fit him right now because I cannot quite keep up with his laundry requests).

Bouldering

The boys got to try out a bit of bouldering today at the climbing gym that Nick and I just started going to. They were instantly hooked!

summer videos

I'm trying to give this blog some attention! I have so many photos and videos to post and summer is just about over! The kids start preschool back up next week. Here are a few unposted videos from the past two months:

Jim and Cynthia bought Oliver a new bike! He had outgrown his 12" several months ago and took to the bigger bike like it was nothing. He enjoys going much faster now!


The boys love to have me make a video of them. Here they are sliding together:


Here is a song they made up one night after eating dinner with Jim Baer. Oliver was quite obsessed with the corks Jim gave him, and when they got home, they sang this song. The words are: I will dream of corks, I love Jim Baer!


Hiking with friends at Twin Falls:

muscle up

One of my biggest accomplishments this summer was getting my first muscle up! I had been working for months to get this, so I was ecstatic when it finally happened in July: