moving site

Does anyone mind if i switch from a blog to a fliker account? I find myself seriously unmotivated to post here these days, but i know people still want to see photos of what is going on with the kids. If you want to see future pics for a while go here. http://www.flickr.com/photos/lesliesews/

Dormant Volcano

A while back, Harvey asked if we could go see a volcano. At first I said no, but quickly changed my mind because - why not go see a volcano? PopPop Doug and I took the kids up to Mt. St. Helen's to see some lava tubes. Harvey and Cecilia were not particularly impressed with the giant mile long one. It was too cold, dark, and scary they said. Harvey was a trouper and walked most of the 2 miles in the scary tunnel, but Cecilia was carried most of the way by either PopPop or myself. That was when i found out two things. One that i needed a new baby carrier. Slings don't cut it for Flynn sized babies. Two, If I really have to, I can carry one baby on my front and one on my back at the same time. After all of this we took them to see some smaller lava tubes, which everyone seemed to like better. Except again, Cecilia became tired of walking, sat down, and refused to move. This time though, I told her to make a sad face and just started taking pictures. She quickly became irritated and continues the 100 steps back to the car. The last part of our trip was driving up to a view point to see the actual volcano. Harvey was so tired by this point; I had to bribe him with pop-cycles to persuade him to take a photo. Pop-cycles inspire good behavior in the Smith household year round.

Tuesday Morning Jammies

Some days we don't bother getting dressed until we want to go outside. These tend to be the same days where mom wants to sleep longer than her kids do.

Flynn's New Trick

Flynn is learning the joys of spit in his face.

Puppy Power

Right now we have the chance to play with puppies most days. This batch has 10 fluffy bundles of sharp teeth and claws. They are very kind puppies and let us share their pool in the hot afternoons. That is till someone starts throwing rocks. Puppies just don't appreciate fetching rocks. 

Hair Stories

Once upon a time there was a little girl with beautiful golden hair. Then she slept on it and it turned into a mass of sweat, tangles, and mats. The end.

Itsy Spider

We came across some spiders when we were over in Lake Forest Park. Harvey and I had fun watching one eat a fly. Then we wanted to trick the spider into thinking it caught another one. Bubbles didn't work. When Harvey threw a flower in the web the poor spider decided he'd had enough, picked up his fly, and hid.

Baby Flynn 4 months

My chunky baby is now 4 months old. He is at least 17 pounds at this point, reaching for things, starting t o roll over, and wants to try ALL MY FOOD. He is also cutting two teeth right now to better help him eat said food. Mostly though it all winds up on his shirt.  I'm hoping that sometime soon he will decide for himself to sleep through the night and that we can forgo the awful week long scream fest while we train him.  Either way, his mama could use some more sleep right now.

Bonneville Dam

We visited the Bonneville Dam. It was pretty neat. There were child sized fish swimming and jumping through the ladders that we watched. They also had displays of how the generator and insulators work. Harvey pushed a button and made a light bulb glow and sparks run up two wires. Cecilia's favorite part were the giant rainbow carpeted stairs in the fish viewing room. She thought they were great fun to run up and jump down. Flynn basically slept through the whole thing except for the part where he wanted to eat. 

multnomah falls

We took the kids to see a waterfall. They were pretty excited. Not as excited as they were for popsicles afterwards, but more excited than they were for pizza. If you look closely you can see Harvey and PopPop waving in the second photo.

Hike

Right now we are visiting my dad. The weather has been too warm to stay home in the afternoons so one thing we have been doing is going on hikes. Today we went to Beacon Rock State Park. We hiked up to Rodney falls pool, which was about 2.5 miles round trip. Made the mistake of trying to take a stroller UP a mountain. We are still not sure if pushing it over all those tree limbs was worth not carrying Cecilia. The kids were great. Harvey walked the whole thing. We had to put Cecilia in the stroller most of the way down because she just wanted to run. I kept having visions of my little 2 year old slipping and rolling off the edge. Next time I will borrow a backpack to put her in. Still, we had fun and it was a nice way to spend an afternoon.

Happy Birthday Arianna

We went up to my for my neice's birthday party. Little Arianna turned 1 on September 11th. We had a nice time visiting with family. Stella had wonderful food prepared that my kids refused to eat. We spiked Flynn's hair up to match Christopher's Mohawk. Cecilia got into EVERYTHING. Little Arianna was absolutely adorable. The whole thing was topped off with a super awesome cake. It was carrot with a light saber wielding dragon on top.

Family Reunion

Last Saturday, we went to a Harvey family reunion. It was nice seeing relatives again.