Sugar High

Our neighborhood is great for trick-or-treating. We gather with a mass of neighbors and just start walking. Since it is graduate student housing, there are so many homes with little kids, and even the students without kids get into it! We were only out there for about an hour - how much candy do you really need?! We had 3 kids collecting candy this year. Yikes.

This was Jordan's first year trick-or-treating. She was a skunk, and she was totally into it.

Above: Here is the mob of people going up and down the stairs. In our neighborhood, not everyone participates, so it becomes a treasure hunt for the kids to find the doors with decorations and are thus the ones with candy. It was fun to watch Naomi and Isaiah lead the crew for a while.

Above: This couple was a little more enthusiastic about it all than Danny & me. :)

Nomi is taking orders.

Above: Isaiah couldn't find his Spiderman mask, so at the last minute he grabbed this one, making him Spider-Batman. I'm pretty sure he was the only one with this costume.

...and Joel cruised in the stroller with his pumpkin top.

Joel was all about the candy, too!

Below: Naomi at her Halloween parade at school.

Above: Naomi's teacher & her identical twin both work at the school.

They dressed as Dr. Seuss' Thing 1 & Thing 2. Pretty cute, I thought.

Evening Fun

A favorite place to go with our good friends is the beach/park in Del Mar. It's only a 15 min drive from our home. (We're so spoiled, we know.) The kids can play in the park or climb trees and the adults try to talk a bit. This time our friend brought his sweet camera and took some shots of our family. Enjoy...we are biased, but we think they are cute!

Our crazy Isaiah, climbing and making faces--what he does best.

Just have to kiss these cheeks...

Jordan just has fun all the time.

Naomi with her best buddy following. They have so much fun together and it's a joy to see them interact.

Naomi is the best at making Joel laugh.

This toothless grin shows she's up to something.

Two

Jordan Kate is 2 Years Old!

This blondie is trouble - just look at those mirthful eyes! She is hilarious, affectionate, and tons of fun. Aaaaand a little manipulative. It is such a blessing to have her around the house; she adds so much to our family.

Lately Jordan has been talking so much. One of her favorite phrases is, "Come on." She tells me that when she wants me to go outside with her, or read books to her. We have to pry her off of 'Beebee Joel' because when she goes to give him a kiss she does it full-force! We thank God for this little one and pray for his grace in her life.

Jordan loooooves popcorn...

and pretty much everything else, too.

She gets so excited when she sees bugs,

so I made a ladybug cake for her.

One of her birthday presents.

Danny reading Jordie's new Elmo book,

while spectators crowd into the cheap seats.

Our day ended with Naomi 'decorating' Danny's hair. Nice!

Jordan just pointed to his head and said, "My clippies." :)

Around the house

Here are some super important things from the last month or so:

Danny and the kids caught an alligator lizard up at the family cabin and we brought it home to SD. The kids love catching bugs for it and watching it attack and eat them... (Well, Danny and Isaiah love it the most). It will eat nearly anything alive which is the right size - Danny has even gotten him to eat food out of his hands.


The kids had fun making these little flags to decorate for the 4th of July. We went out to a church picnic in the afternoon on the 4th, but missed the fireworks because we weren't willing to let the kids stay up until 10:30 to see them. Cranky kids all of the next day just so they can see some colored sparks in the air? Call us bad parents, but no way, Jose.

The kids each sporting their Red, White and Blue:

I promise Isaiah's hair doesn't look like this in public. Usually. His muscles, though, are always this big.

Naomi found this food idea in a book we were reading from the library, so we tried it one morning. Toast, jam, and raisins in the shape of pigs:

Here's the whole lot of them:

Joel is really starting to wake up from newborn-hood. It's so rewarding to coax smiles and occasional giggles from him.

Isaiah quotes:

[Laurie is looking at Isaiah's craft from church about Jesus ascending to heaven]

Isaiah: "That's Jesus with his hands up."

Laurie: "Why are his hands up?"

Isaiah: "So he won't hit his head on the clouds. That would hurt."

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Isaiah: "Dad, you're a SO-good dad, and...I'm getting used to you."

Danny: "What does that mean?"
Isaiah: [thoughtful pause] "It means I kinda like you."

Cabin 2009

Around the end of June we spent a week at our family cabin at Hume Lake. This involved a lot of firsts for us: the first time with just us (i.e., just the six of us! - usually Laurie's sister and her family join us), the first time we had to plan all of the meals ourselves, and first time we didn't bring our espresso maker (we're such compromisers!), among others. We had a great time, though. Lots of day hikes, a bit of frisbee golf in the pines, some relaxing time on the deck, BBQ'ing almost every night, cruising around like royalty in the golf cart, and of course corn dogs and milkshakes down at the snack shack.

Danny has an annual tradition of doing a few cabin-improvement projects. This year he and the kids removed a stump, installed a small stone revetment wall along the driveway, and did a good deal of general tidying up. Here he is terracing a level walking path around part of the deck. Little work, big improvement. Jordan is helping with some of the heavy lifting.


One of the favorite activities of all younger kids at the cabin is quality time spent in the dirt. Here, Jordan is involved in some type of dirt reallocation project. At one point, the dirt was reallocated scoop after powdery scoop into her happy mouth.

Prepare yourselves for this: here's Isaiah, a day after he took a spider bite (at least we think that's what it was) to the upper eyelid/brow region. It was really disturbing to look at him for a day or so, but the swelling just went away on its own.

Grandma and Grandpa Frese came to visit us for a day while we were there. Grandma was pretty excited about extracting some happiness from Joel:

Another of Danny's annual traditions at the cabin is trying - and failing - to make fire using the bow/drill method. As in, you start with a pocket knife and a shoelace, you carve some pieces of wood, and make one piece spin against another fast and hard enough to produce a smoldering pile of dust, which you then use to start a fire. Danny thought this was his year, since he learned that Cedar is the only type of wood in the area that will work for this. He had a few nice tries - lots of smoke - but again failed. Danny swears that this is one of the most extraordinarily difficult (and frustrating) things one can ever attempt. The event involved Laurie's encouragement (with a twinkle in her eye that was pure mockery) and videotaping.

Getting ready (with an audience):

Smoke. No spark.

Consolation was found with some hammock time. Ahhhh...

All of our time at Hume, of course, was scheduled around the demands of this little human:

Fat-n-Happy

We just love this picture of Naomi holding Joel. She and Isaiah ask to hold him pretty regularly.

Isaiah is the cutest with Joel. He's always talking to him, explaining stuff to him, telling him what they're going to do together when they get older, etc. Here, Isaiah decided on his own that Joel needed to have a book read to him.

...even though Joel is fast asleep.


Below is the justification for the title of this post. I think these pictures make Joel look chubbier than he really is, but there's definitely some serious growth happening. He has the classic baby chub on his cheeks.






We're working on snagging a picture when he's smiling (his smile is adorable!), but for now this will have to do.

First Month with 4 Kids

Our first weeks with 4 kids in our house have been a whirlwind. Here are some pics of our daily life: reading books, spending time outside, etc.

Jordan decided that the doll carriage would be a nice place to sit and read. We're not exactly sure how she got in there on her own.


Yes, Isaiah is actually asleep in this picture. Yes, he's defying the laws of physics.

Isaiah's new favorite activity is cutting out cool animals from our Zoo magazines. He's really learning to use the scissors well. He insists that we have to keep every cut-out in a huge envelope, hidden in the closet - so no one can get them.

5 kids watching Bear Grylls.

Jordan continues to love to read books and say all the words she knows.

Devouring ice-cream sandwiches at our new kid table on the porch.


Isaiah's way of getting on a swing.

Jordan loves to just relax in the swing. (I love her there since it's one less kid to watch constantly. Sometimes I forget to push her, though.)

Our climber. (He still has his helmet on from riding his bike to the park.)




Naomi's been a great help in our household. She will often clean all the things off the floor in one room, just to help out. On Mother's day she did all her responsibilities quickly without me asking her anything. Then she made scrambled eggs for me for breakfast. She came up with the idea and was so proud that she could do it. God knows that I need her!

An Isaiah conversation: "Mom, do you know if there is any place on the earth where there are NO animals?" I reply half-heartedly, "I don't think so." He quickly responds, "YEAAAH. The Dead Sea!" "You're right Isaiah." Yeah, my not-quite 4 year old son showed me up. Pretty bad since I lived there and he's only seen pictures.

Jordan is becoming quite a handful lately--but a super cute handful. Sometimes it seems like she just looks for things to destroy--food, Naomi's art, Isaiah's magazine clippings and Joel's face. She is talking constantly. She's getting pretty good at saying, "Uhh Uhh" (=No) and/or shaking her head. She calls buckles (on car seats, etc.) 'buckies' and loves to click them together. Her favorite toys are dolls and strollers.

Joel is doing fine. He's getting a little bit of fluff on him, though he still has chicken legs (have you seen Danny?). Isaiah recently pointed out that Joel already knows how to eat, poop, pee, spit up, cry and sleep. So there you go.