Olympia Trip

As I said last week, we went out to visit Birc's sister and husband and her two adorable kids with Nana and Gran the last week of August. It was such a great time! Wonderful company, perfect weather, easy traveling, and much-needed family time.  We visited in Olympia first, where Birc's sister's family lives right on Puget Sound, and it was so beautiful! We went to the Farmer's Market, Children's Museum, Tumwater Falls, swimming, eating, the capitol, and lots of playing!  We traveled to Seattle on day 5 and spent 3 more days there (last one was just travel though) going to the zoo, aquarium, walking through Pikes Place market and just sight-seeing.  The 2-hour time change was really actually tough to adjust back to when we returned home, but we've finally gotten everybody back on their schedule.  I'm putting all of my pictures below of Olympia and will do the Seattle portion tomorrow-ish.

Thank you, Stephie, for the GoGoBabyz cart recommendation. They were lifesavers. And we got SO MANY looks and comments on them!

Twinsies!

Oh, we went on a boat ride on Uncle Candy's boat and it was a NO-GO.  Both our kids HATED the lifejackets so badly they couldn't stop the screaming. It was horrific!

finally calm as we stop the boat to get out. hah.

Their beautiful view!

playing 'baseball' one day in the front yard

so beautiful and peaceful!

we went to the Tumwater Falls and that was awesome to see!

can you see Mount Rainier in the way distance? It's right in the center but looks very tiny in this picture.

checking out an old tugboat

Mount Rainier in the far distance (a zoom from the above picture)

more Tumwater Falls 

another look at their view out the back door

above is one of my most favorite pictures of Savannah ever!! (if I could get that balloon-maker's shoe out of the pic...)

On to Seattle next!

Walker at 11 MONTHS!

I just CANNOT believe my little tiny baby is about to be a whole year old.  It seems like yesterday he was born and yet I cannot imagine our lives without this sweet boy.  Walker has the absolute happiest disposition and is just so smiley and loving.  He is so smart and so strong.  He has been through so much in his tiny life that I look back on and get teary just remembering all of it.

Walker is a whopping 23.6 pounds, and has grown probably half an inch since last month because all his shirts are too short (or that could just be his belly growing OUT) He's wearing 12 and 12-18 month clothes and size 3 shoes. He is drinking about 5 bottles daily at 6 oz each of soy formula.  We've started giving him bottles of breastmilk again just to get rid of it out of the freezer and it doesn't seem to be giving him the belly problems that it previously was.  He's just stopped taking his zantac for acid reflux (we ran out while out of town and didn't refill it and he seems fine!) and so all he is taking is his vitamins every morning.  Walker started eating more this month. He eats yogurt, cheese, graham crackers, mandarin oranges, raspberries (a few), mum mums, puffs, cheerios, and anything else really small that we can get him to try.  He's using a sippy cup here and there but not really well yet.

Walker started to *army* crawl a few days after turning 11 months old! He's loving pulling up on everything and standing on his tiptoes a lot.  He's not very motivated to move, however, as with all those adorable rolls it is hard for him to move around a lot!  He can say mama, dada, cat, hot, bye bye, ba ba, ba (ball) and he can wave, smile when we ask him to "say cheese" is very ticklish under his arms and around his neck, loves to be upside down, and loves to be held.  He is a very easy-going baby unless he's hungry or has a poopy diaper.  He sleeps from about 8:30PM to 8AM. He loves his sleep. He takes about 3 hours or less of naps per day.  Sometimes broken up between 2 naps, sometimes 3 naps.

He's just altogether so very adorable and I am so thankful he's mine! Let's get ready to party in just a few weeks!