Whidbey Island...and beyond

Basically, this post will cover all of our March activities.

We took an extra long weekend at the end of my spring break/beginning of Dave's (b/c of course our spring breaks don't overlap...that would be too convenient) and headed west to Whidbey Island outside Seattle.  It was a 10 hour travel day - car, train, airport tram, shuttle bus, rental car, ferry, car to the cabin!  Both boys did great on the trip there and back...O really liked the variety of the travel modes we got to explore...plus the 3 hours of Thomas the Train videos on the plane ;)

Greg and Kate drove down from Vancouver to spend the time with us.  It was great to see them, and have them see O again, and meet little E!

headed for the rental car...yup, that's E car seat precariously balanced above his head.  We were like a travelling circus with all our stuff.  I was pushing the stroller (with 2 kids) with the perched car seat, carrying the diaper bag, a backpack, and one of the bags, Dave had the other car seat, a packnplay, and the suitcase...it was a bit of a gong show!

 Napping on the car ride to the ferry

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missed the ferry by 3 cars!  But had time to stop for ice cream and clam chowder as a result...not a bad compromise!

Whidbey Island, full steam ahead!

ice cream goatee

dopey baby!

driftwood = excellent excavator!

breakfast time!!

chillin' with Auntie Kate

quality beach time

Auntie Kate is an experienced storytime reader!

insisted on putting Osa in the baby carrier

a little chilly, but beautiful

 O and Kate were the only 2 who had gumboots.  Unfortunately, O got a little overzealous running into the water and turned his gumboots into more of a wetsuit as the water overtopped them.  His pants had wicked the water all the way up to his thighs by the time we got back to the cabin!

"hmmm...maybe this guy's alright"

hammock time

headed for a walk on the beach

walking with Uncle Greg

clamming!  Sort of...minus the shovel and bucket

it took a couple days, but El warmed up to Uncle Greg

And then we came back to reality...which was nice for a couple days before the snow came again (it's warming up again next week though!).  We took advantage and spent some time outside while we could.

sandbox is back open for business!

we spent a lot of time sending his trucks and
a marble we found down the slide

El actually enjoys the swings...unlike O

And in other news, El is on the move!!  His crawl is still a bit more of an army crawl, but he manages to make his way across the room...and relatively quickly if he has a location in mind.  And, he finally cut his first tooth!!  That one came in while we were on Whidbey.

watch out Flax, you're not safe anymore!

so many photos...so little time

So much has happened in the past couple of weeks!
We went skating, have had lots of playing time (of course!), had a visit from Gran, Gramps, Uncle Tom, and Aunt Claire (which was tons of fun, even if a bit cold here!).
Elliot is still a no go on the teeth front...and on the crawling front, although he is getting closer as he keeps getting up on his knees and rocking!

yup, that's my giant mitten thumb photobombing in the foreground

peeling the fish off the top of his rice...b/c who wants rice, when there's raw fish to eat?  ah...after my own heart!

he's learning early...sitting with his "tea" on the potty

my happy, mellow guy!

insisted on wearing his "painting hat" (?) and gruffalo apron to do some pre dinner painting

With Auntie Claire!

with Uncle Tom

sharing a love of trains with Gramps

enjoying some cuddle time with Gran!

I'm so behind!

These pictures are from 2 weeks ago...I just haven't had time to post them...I blame starting back at work.  sigh.

Luckily, I don't teach on Fridays this semester so I get to hang out with the boys instead!  Our Friday activity a couple of weeks ago was a nice romp in the backyard...back when we still had snow.  Then we didn't have snow for almost 2 weeks, but now we have snow again.  Apparently we are in a snow deficit here...which I'm okay with as it means less shoveling.

Anyway, we got suited up, and pulled out the sled.  O loves to be pulled around the backyard in the sled (AKA the train), and we pretend we are making stops at various train stations, where he flings himself off the sled into the snow...it's fairly hilarious.

all aboard!

El seems far less enthralled with this.

lying down on the job

and of course back to eating snow...his favourite winter pasttime

El just likes eating fingers...

note the drool patch on his chest

and here are O's 3 year stats (a month late, but so be it!)
height: 37"  40% - he has not yet hit his growth spurt
weight: 29.87lb  31%  - or put on much weight...despite his good eating


And in other news...it has begun.  I found my first grey hair(s).  It started about a month ago, I found one small one in all that weirdo new hair growth that has come in since the post-pregnancy hair loss (what I have dubbed "The Great Shed").  So I did what any normal parent would do...I blamed my kid (El to be exact, as it was in the new hair growth since he arrived).  Then about a week later, I found another one...then a week after that, I found a whole patch!  To be fair, it's more of a streak, hidden underneath, so not super noticeable until I went searching...and it's long.  So I guess El is off the hook...I'll blame O instead ;) And there's a matching streak on the other side of my head too.  Perhaps if I go grey, my students will finally believe me when I tell them my age.  I feel more distinguished already.