Keeping busy while Vince was away

Vince left on June 19 for his third (and final) summer down in Ashland, OR. While he was away it was single parent time for me and the best way to cope was to keep busy. We finished up the school year, zipped up to Lopez Island for a few days, did play dates and trips to the zoo, and generally ran the kids to exhaustion every day so that all would sleep peacefully every night....and by "all," I mean me.

Lopez Island (6/25-6/27)

Woodland Park Zoo (6/29)

(You can hover your mouse over the slide shows for captions.)

Miles gets a "big boy" bike

This spring it became obvious that Miles had definitely outgrown his big-wheel-style trike. So, after perusing Craigslist, we bought him his first two-wheel bike at the end of May. He was SOOO excited when we surprised him with it.

Admittedly, his first venture out was a trying time for all of us as he got very frustrated quite easily. He hasn't been too excited to get it back out a lot yet. But with the weather finally turning nice around here we're hoping that plenty of time outside will allow for more practice, confidence, and fun.


Dad puts on the training wheels.


Helmet on, ready to go!


And he's off!

A houseful of kids

A novel idea...pick three Saturdays in a row. Coordinate with two other couples who also have kids. Each couple takes all 6 kids for four hours on one of the Saturday evening. Result = over the course of three weeks, you get two nights "off" and one night of a packed house.

Here are some pics of the evening we had the gang at our house on June 12. We kept them busy with a little project outside.

Updated Pictures

Jillian turned 9 months last week. She's crawling all over the place, has a mouth full of choppers, and pulls herself up on everything.


Looking up at daddy.




Miles is nearing the end of his first year of preschool. He can spell simple words (mom, dad, Miles) and is working on writing his name. (The black tongue is thanks to some Transformers candy. Nice, eh?)


Oh, and we're letting Miles' hair grow out from the #2 buzz cut he's had for the last 3 years--we'll see if the cowlicks calm down when it gets a little longer. In the meantime, it just gets puffier and puffier.

John Hancock

Well, the jury is still out on whether Miles is left-handed or right-handed. He uses both pretty interchangeably at this point. However, he is showing some pretty typical "lefty traits" in how he writes his name. Guess we'll just have to keep watching and waiting. In the meantime, here's a sample of a worksheet he did at Grandma Barb's; he wrote his name all by himself. So cool!