Explosion

Doesn't everyone's office look like this?

Lots of Pictures

Here are some pictures of Jon, Micaela, baby Olive, and the occasional Higerd girl.

Jon wanting to be more like his dad

Jon wearing the shirt grandma weaver bought him

Maybe he wants to be more like grandpa

He figured out how to climb the ladder in the playhouse on his second try

Lets hope he doesn't crash like his dad

Micaela and her little niece

Dad and Jon at the Fair

Mom is a saint for taking these two tweens with her

I didn't want to hold/contaminate Olive so I settled for being in close proximity

Dad and Olive

Mom and Olive

The proud dad

Caroline and the most patient dogs ever

Summer Vacation

I kind of forgot to take pictures while we were in Virginia, but believe me that we all had a great time. Micaela had play-dates every day and even had two sleepovers! Kurt and I got to play poker twice and had some excellent dinners thanks to our friends. We helped Georgia set up for Will's birthday party which was quite the success. Will and Jon didn't really know what to make of each other, but Jon did enjoy all of Will's toys. Georgia has a funny video of Will singing and playing his guitar while Jon is playing the drums. I'll try to get it off her and post it here later. We certainly miss living in Virginia.

While Micaela really enjoyed seeing her friends in Virginia, Jon is definitely more into the Pennsylvania lifestyle. As soon as we got out of the car ran into the yard and started playing. Jon has been very easy to entertain between wandering around the house and playing with his cousins trucks, swinging under the tree, playing in the small play structure, riding his cousins tricycles, and just running around in the grass. It helps that everyone has been sleeping well here and that the weather is just perfect right now. And don't worry about Micaela, she just LOVES her Grandma and Pappy and all the attention they give her. She's been playing in the woods, picking berries, climbing trees, playing in the 'crick', and she spent her first night tent-camping with her Aunt Kristen and two cousins Nicolas and Kendell.

Aside from a brief encounter with a bat, I'm having a great time as well since the kids have been so easy to take care of. I haven't really gotten any schoolwork done so when I get home in August I'll have my work cut out for me, but I work better under pressure anyways :)

I don't really feel like providing captions, maybe Mari will help -

We bough Jon some matchbox cars and now he is learning how to make car sounds, can you hear him spitting? :)

Mari's Pictures

So I guess Mari forgot that she was going to blog about Sesame Street Live, or maybe she just wanted to wait until she had the pictures, either way, here they are. I chose the pictures where it looked like they were both being perfect angels, but who knows what really happened. Good job with the elmo outfits Mari.




The next series of pictures are of Caroline's cool cousins. Apparently she likes hanging out with older kids.

Micaela and Caroline at Disneyland

Caroline and her cool cousin Beth


Isaac showing Caroline his videogames

This is definitely payback. Mari got these yellow polka-dot high heels for Micaela the last time she was out here (Micaela asked me to get them for her and I refused). All I heard for the next few days was clack-clack-clack. She wore the stupid shoes everywhere and asked me if she could wear them to the park, the grocery store, etc. I finally gave in and she stopped wearing them only after falling off the little 6 inch concrete wall we have in the back yard. Now it's Caroline's turn to wear them and make Mari's hair go grey.

I like these pictures of the kids because they look so calm and it seems like they play together so nicely. We all know it doesn't exactly work like that, there is a lot of pushing, a lot of "sorry anabelle" hugs, and lessons to be taught in sharing all around, but it is definitely more fun with more kids (especially when they are someone elses).

New pictures

We fixed up the backyard a little and set up a pool that mom and mari got for $15. It's been pretty fun so far. Jon is almost 1 now, so I thought I'd take some pictures to show how big he is getting. His favorite activity is opening and closing doors, so that's why you see so many of him behing them.

An oldie, but a goodie

I found this while browsing through the files on my computer... Mari is quite the fighter :-D

When Uncle Doug Babysits...

I left for 10 minutes to go get some lemons and when I came back this is what I found... at least he has good taste :)







Doesn't everyone have a baby with an empty beer bottle picture? Wait, it was empty, right?