Our Vacation

After a week in California with some extended family, I learned something. More people read this blog than I thought! :-) I was glad to hear that Sam's family enjoys keeping up on our lives up here in Yakima. So now I feel an obligation to keep them entertained and I plan to keep this a bit more updated than I have been. Following is a few (okay, a bunch) of pictures that help describe our vacation.

Great-Grandma McCoy with the girls

A beautiful day in Petaluma

Jocelyn swinging like a big girl!

Jenna with Great-Gam Gam (as she calls her)

Our condo in Windsor. Amazing!

Jenna "kicking the water" in the kiddy pool

Beautiful blue-eyed Jocelyn

Great-Grandma and Grandpa Doerr

Sam and Carrie wine-tasting without kids!

Great-Grandpa Doerr consoling a sleepy girl.

Sam and his girls in "the baby bus"

Sisterly love!

A resort cat that took a liking to us while we were soaking up the sun

Are you ever going to get into the pool Jenna?

I'm flying!


We had a wonderful time catching up with family as well as having some of our own family time. Both girls are excellent flyers (may have had to do something with the Benadryl I gave them before boarding?) Even though things were relatively uneventful while traveling with 2 youngsters, Sam and I are ready for a vacation...BY OURSELVES! :-)

2 weeks?

Wow! I didn't realize it had been that long since I had posted anything!
Let's see. No cool pictures to attach, so instead I will give a simple update.

Genevieve has become quite the little lady. She is very nurturing to both her sister and her many babies. She rocks her baby with a blanket and binki, in her pitch-black room, with the door shut. She then puts (throws) the baby into her crib and comes out to tell us, "baby went night-night." And before she is done with that sentence, she yells, "uh-oh, baby crying!" She gets her baby, (actually, I have to get it since she cannot reach into the crib) and tells her, "it's okay, don't cry!" And then she feeds her lunch from her play kitchen. It is all really entertaining to watch. You can tell that she picks up everything we do and say to her because that is how she treats her babies. Luckily, she only remembers the good, soft qualities we portray. We have yet to hear her tell her baby, "quit whining!"

Jocelyn is a momma's girl. Really, that's all there is to say about her right now. She may smile at you, but don't think that is an invitation for you to hold her or she will show everyone within a 3 mile radius her lungs!
Okay, she also has one tooth (yep, I am beginning to think she won't get anymore) and she can pull herself up on things quite well. But, when she realizes that I am not right there, she will cry. And she loves cheerios...as long as I am feeding them to her...do you get my point? Yeah, she is real fun!

We are venturing off to California this week to have some R&R away from Yakima and too visit with Sam's family. Jenna is very excited to go on an airplane and to see her great-grandparents. Sam's parents will be there as well and have offered to watch the girls one afternoon so that maybe we can do some wine-tasting. :-) Most of all, we are looking forward to visiting with the family that we don't get to see as often as we would like to!

Jenna's Party!

Today we celebrated Jenna's 2nd birthday, a week late! All of our family was here as well some close friends. With 18 adults and 14 kids, our house was packed to say the least, but we wouldn't have wanted it any different! Jenna was a real trooper considering she had only half a nap, was on a sugar high, and that her friends and cousins liked her toys as much as she did! :-) Here are some pictures to show how much fun we had.

Jenna's Butterfly Cake (don't laugh!)

Jenna eating her cake

Jocelyn and Mandi's son Kailer, eating Cheerios

Mandi's daughter Ashlyn with Juliana, playing outside.

Jenna is so big climbing in the swing-set!

Damian shows Jenna her new lawn mower.

The adults, kicking back, drinking beer. Come on? At a kids party? Oh yeah, I supplied it!

Probably her new favorite toy, a stroller and baby. Thanks Doucettes!

Clover Mites

So, about a week or so ago, I was really worn out one evening and after the girls went to bed, I decided to take a hot bath. This is not something I do regularly, but it sounded really nice, especially in a jetted tub. I got into the really hot bath, put my feet up and started to relax. After being in there for about, oh, only 25 seconds, I noticed something odd. At the water level, all the way around, there were little black things floating around. I looked closer and saw that these "things" were also climbing up the side of the tub, above the water level. So, I quickly stood up, jumped out of the tub and yelled for Sam. We examined them closely and noticed that they are actually red in color and really tiny, but they are alive and crawling all over. I drained the tub and washed them all down. I was fully repulsed as well as angry that I didn't get the bath I was hoping for.

Fast forward 1 week (this morning.) As I was getting ready, Jenna was still in her pajamas playing with her doll, blanket, binki, doll's bottle, and more. She told me that the baby needed a bath and wanted to get into our tub, so I put her in with all her toys to pretend to give her baby a bath. She was playing in there for a fair amount of time until I was done and I told her it was time to get out. As I went to pick her up, yep, I noticed them ALL OVER the tub! I freaked out, thinking that they were in her hair, jammies, on her binki, infested in her blanket, etc. And they probably were until I washed everything top to bottom. After I cleaned everything else up, I went to kill the ones still in the tub. I was watching the little suckers and noticed how fast they are considering how tiny they are. But even though they are small, they travel by the hundreds, so it makes them seem huge!

Sam did a little research and found out that they are called Clover Mites. It sounds like they are pretty harmless, but they like this new warmer weather we are having. And oddly enough, they usually are found on the south side of houses. Are bath tub is on the south side wall. So, now, everytime I walk by our tub, I get the heeby-geebies and check to see if I need to wash more down. Gross huh?