Our nephew/cousin is here!!!

Welcome to the world little Riley Eric Thomas Chadwick. Riley arrived yesterday the 27th at little past 10 pm. He weighed in at 8 lbs. 11 oz. and 21.6 inches long. He is simply adorable. We were able to head over today and meet our new little nephew/cousin. So precious....look at all that hair

He's awake :)

Olivia and her photography skills. I think she was a little bored :) It entertained her for awhile though taking pictures.

Proud daddy Kevin and Riley.

The awesome mommy Anna and sleeping baby Riley.

Daddy and Claire.

Anna, Claire, and Riley.

Anna, Olivia, Claire, and Riley.



Anna (Hans' sister) had a fast and furious labor once it decided to kick in(he was 8 days late). But she did awesome and brought this little baby into the world without the aid of drugs. They are all doing well and we were just so excited to get to see this precious new baby. Olivia as always humored us throughout the day. When she saw Riley's picture this morning on the computer she said, "Look Claire, your best friend." She often tells Claire who her best friends are and they are always other babies. Then Olivia vividly remembers bringing me cookies in the hospital when I had Claire so she kept saying we need to bring Anna cookies. She also had many different names for her new baby cousin, "Shylie", "Charlie", and sometimes Riley. She did awesome over there and was very patient even though there wasn't much for her to do and it is a little bit of a trek over there.

Well Congrats Anna and Kevin we are so excited to have Riley here and look forward to watching him grow and learn right along with our kids.

Birthday Party

On Friday, Hans had the day off so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and head over to the playground to let Olivia play. She had a great time although we had to fight her to get her to put pants on and the minute we got home and in the door she had those pants off and her skirt back on. I don't know how I am going to get her to wear any pants outfits this winter.

Playing in the straw.

Marissa the birthday girl

Saturday night we attended a birthday party for our friends Marissa (6) and Kyle (2). Olivia had a great time playing with all the kids. Her favorite part was diggin through the straw to find all the prizes. She was so funny because she was so precise at picking up one thing and then putting it in her bag, being sure to get no straw in her bag. By the end she wanted to find more things but they were all gone because there were so many kids and she was kind of slow. But all in all she had a great time as did I visiting with all the moms.

Getting Big

The girls just had their six month and three year exams on Thursday. They are getting so big. Sometimes I am still amazed that I have a 3 year old and a 6 month old. Claire weighed in at 16 pounds and 25 and 3/4 inches. Olivia weighed 28.4 pounds and was 3 feet 1 inch tall. I had a hard time trying to convince Olivia to even get weighed or measured and to let the Doctor look at her. Even though she has never had a bad doctor experience or even been to the doctor in over a year for herself she repeatedly told me that doctors are scary and mean. So she didn't want to hold still at all. Claire was great besides pooping her diaper right before the doctor came in. She was only in her diaper and it was loose enough at the top that it came flowing right out all over the chair and floor where we were sitting. I then had to change her what a mess we made. Overall a good appt. though I really like our doctor and she said they were growing great.

Claire in the last few days has continued to amaze me with her strength. She is crawling a lot and now goes from crawling to sitting up. She has been sitting up pretty well for a few weeks now, but now she hardly falls over and just seems much more stable. She even tried to pull herself up last night on the coffee table although she wasn't quite able to get her feet completely beneath her.

Olivia has been missing dad as he as been gone a lot for his class and work. Last night she had fun playing outside with him spraying him with water and running around. Her new favorite game to play with him is to be wrapped up in a blanket and carried around. She keeps asking for it which drives us crazy, but then I remember that she is just missing her daddy and needing some time with him. It is definitely hard to have small children and balance everything. Meeting your children's needs and your need for a little time to yourself can be very challenging. This time in our lives is so short though that I continually have to remind myself and Hans that we need to enjoy every minute of being with our children.

Batteries were dead

Our weekend started out pretty boring. Hans had Friday off and we spent the day just getting tasks done around the house. Even though it was gorgeous outside I barely made it out there. Hans did get outside with the girls and again mowed with Olivia and Claire's help.

On Saturday we were again being quite boring, but getting a lot accomplished when our good friends the Mills called and invited us to go boating on the lake with them. We agreed and had a great afternoon out on the lake. We swam off the boat and Hannah rode in the tube, Todd did the wakeboard and Hans did some kneeboarding. I went to take a picture of all the fun that we were having and found that the batteries in the camera were dead and I didn't have any extra with me. I was totally bummed. Olivia had such a great time that that night she prayed and thanked God for letting us go boating and the next morning as we were getting ready for church and she said, "and later we will go out on the boat." She even decided to tell about the boating trip with Hannah and Hunter yesterday at school for show and tell.

On Sunday we went to church and had fun watching the Broncos. We have been pretty bummed since living in Washington that the Broncos are rarely on TV so I suggested that Hans find a webcast on the internet and sure enough he found one and we were able to watch. It was a crazy game. Hans loved being able to watch the Broncos and he didn't have to run back and forth between the TV and computer to check his scores. It was really nice and we will be able to watch the Broncos all year this year. I have also started my first year of fantasy football. Unfortunately at the last minute one of the guys in Hans' league had to drop out as he found out bad news about his wife's health, so Hans asked me to step in for him. I didn't think I would have fun doing this but so far it has been fun. The first week I lost by about 10 points but still had a really good score. This week I won by 40 points and had a score of 144.9(high score for the league). It is pretty fun to win. I now understand how Hans has felt all these years when he wins and loses.

Claire in her Bronco shirt. We got this shirt from the Kelly's when Olivia was born. I love it. Go Broncos!!

Daddy and Claire watching the Broncos win on the internet.

A shout out to our friends down under

Congratulations to the Turner family on the birth of their sixth baby, Shiley. Justina is my good friend from grade school who married Kane (from Australia). They have six gorgeous children, Mariah, Chelese, Jazlin, Riance', Zanda (the only boy), and now Shiley. Shiley has a few health issues so we will be praying for you little Shiley and the rest of the family.

Pictures

Us Girls
Claire- 6 months old

Olivia- 3 years old

So I took the girls in for pictures today at Sears. It is always a ton of work, but the end result is great pictures of my babies. Olivia did a really good job posing and cooperating this time as I promised her a new pair of her very own sissors if she was good. Therefore she was really good. It is always hard to get good pictures of a baby I think but quite a few of hers turned out really well too. The couple pictures of the two of them weren't the greatest but still cute and she even got me to get in on the pictures so that was fun too. I can't wait to get them all back in a few weeks and get my new ones on the wall. What I really need to do is get my scrapbooking room all organized so that I can get started on Claire's scrapbook and add some more to Olivia's as I am falling behind.

Firsts

Olivia had a great first day of preschool on Monday. She was a little shy when I first dropped her off and cried a little bit (which almost made me cry) but then they were off to singing time and she was fine. When I picked her up she wasn't near as excited as I thought she would be to see me because she was having so much fun there. She kept saying, "Why did you pick me up?" She told me about how she got to sing and shake a bell thing and stand on her tipytoes. She also told how she told everyone how she went to the fair for show and tell time. So cute! She had a lot of fun to say the least and I know she will enjoy this all year (well all the time that we are here).

Sept. 8, Olivia's first day of preschool.

Claire has been having lots of firsts as well. She is becoming quite the crawler and I really need to baby proof the house soon. She is actually crawling on all fours sometimes now although she still resorts to the belly to go fast. She turned 6 months yesterday and next week we have an appt. with the doctor to see how big she is getting. She is such a sweet girl and her smile just lights up my day.Sisters in their matching shirts.

We have lots of videos of Olivia doing things so here is a quick clip of Claire crawling.

Baby Shower

So precious.

On Saturday we spent the day at home. Hans did some studying and I as always had lot of chores and things to do. But I managed to capture a few sweet moments. Of Claire after her bath with daddy. And of Olivia helping daddy mow the lawn with her mow motor as she calls it.

Hans carrying Claire.

Anna, baby, and Olivia.

Kevin's cousin and her friend.

Kevin opening the hooded toddler towel we gave them.

Anna with a very cute homemade jungle blanket.

Auntie Anna and Olivia with the sling we got for them.

Kevin playing the poopy diaper game.


On Sunday, we headed across the water on the ferry to Bothel for Kevin and Anna's baby shower. It was a couple baby shower put on by Kevin's Aunt and Uncle. It was really fun and there were a lot of people in attendance. Olivia was the only little preschooler, but she had fun as she loves to hang out with Auntie Anna. She was so cute when we first arrived she was so excited for the gifts that we gave that she told Anna "Here is a present for you, it is books!" We had a yummy dinner then they opened gifts and Olivia helped. Then Kevin played the poopy diaper game where you guess what kind of candy bar has been melted in the diaper. He did pretty good and got about half of them right. After that we had dessert and then we had to head out as it takes a couple hours to get home and Olivia had preschool the next day. She was so sad to leave as she really wanted to go hang out Auntie Anna's house again, but she fell asleep shortly after we got in the car and slept the whole way home. We had a long but really nice day.

Just Stuff

Our life has been hectic and crazy it seems like forever, but pretty much ever since Olivia was born and even more so now that we have Claire. But I have a hard time remembering what it was like to not have kids and get sad any time I think of them all grown up and my life being somewhat normal again, so I guess that is a good thing. There are days I want to scream and/or cry but most of the time I am just happy being a mom and living this crazy life. For two weeks now Hans has been taking a professional engineers class over at the UW two nights a week so I have been by my lonesome with the kids as he does not get home until midnight Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have 4 more weeks to go. It has been hard but I know it could be worse he could be just gone for months on end like many navy wives have to deal with. I also know that this is just the beginning as in December Hans will be heading to Japan for a couple weeks before Christmas(horrible timing) and then in January we will all be heading to Japan for up to four months. Well Hans has to be there for 4 months and I don't know if I will stay the whole time or not yet. So it seems that there is no end in sight for the craziness to end, but that is ok, I know we will have lots of fun along the way.

Olivia reading her Bible.

Claire is wearing her camo shirt that she is borrowing from her BFF Clara, it is so cute.

So amidst all this craziness what have the kids been up to? Well Olivia is going to start a preschool next Monday that is for homeschool kids. She we will have class every Monday from 9 to 12:30. We are considering homeschooling our kids and this is a great program that is close by that helps with extra curricular things and it will be good for Olivia to start socializing more. She is talking so much and pretty much never stops talking. She loves to read her books and has a really good memory as she can pretty much tell the whole story from the pictures once we have read it once to her. She throws in lots of filler words like "soon" is the latest one and there have been others that I can't remember right now. Her favorite book lately is her little Bible which has no pictures but she loves to flip through the pages. She plays pretend really well and the newest thing is to be the mommy and cook food for me and Claire or take care of Claire. I know that she will really love playing even more once Claire gets big enough to play pretend with her. She is very into doing things herself, like buckling her own car seat, putting on her own shoes, and whatever else she decides she is big enough to do and can do by herself. She still likes me to feed her most of the time though.

Here are a few phrases Olivia has been saying:

"where is the 'liscious pie we mad yesterday for camping?"

"I don't want to go out in the woods, it might be a little dangerous I think."

After we returned from camping:

"Are we going camping this weekend?"

"What you saying to me, mom?"

Claire is our little laid back baby. She is totally belly crawling now and has been for a couple weeks. She is getting faster too and gets into lots of things she is not suppose to now. It is a challenge to keep all of Olivia's toys that are too small out of reach and get Olivia to share with her the toys that Claire can play with. She is sitting up pretty well although she falls over some still and is usually on her belly crawling anyway. She has become very interested in watching us eat. She is really good at grabbing food from our plates and is super fast and reaches much farther than we are ever expecting. She hasn't actually eaten much yet although she has tried a little bit of avacado and banana. I can't believe she will be 6 months next Tuesday, it really has gone too fast.

Claire eating a little banana.

Huh?

I had to put our passport pictures that we got taken last night on. They are just too cute. We had to bribe Olivia with ice cream though to get her to look at the cameraman. Claire's passport will be so cute and funny once she gets older. I don't know how long they are good for but I think it is quite awhile.

Here is the lawn. Hans actually mowed it this last weekend. It is looking pretty good a litle sparse in areas but we have extra seed that we will throw down and get it all filled in. I can't wait for it to get a little more mature so that we can actually go out on it. I am still watering pretty much every day as long as it is warm out. But hey I won't complain we will soon get enough rain.

Olivia's Explorer Song

Camping

Hanging by the fire.

Claire just fell asleep watching the fire in daddy's arms

Claire liked the fire even when the smoke got in her eyes and made her tear up.

Good morning Olivia!

Good morning Claire!

Livy the explorer.

Taking a break.

Packing up and Claire was just sleeping on my back.

Livy enjoyed reading her books in the tent until the very end.


We had a great time camping this Labor day weekend. Hans had Friday and Monday off so we decided it was a perfect time to do one camping trip for the summer. The last time we went camping was when Olivia was 15 months so it was time to get back out there. Although I greatly dislike the preparing for camping and the unpacking when we get home, it is all worth it when we are out there. We arrived Friday afternoon around 2:30 after it had rained and set up camp. Then we roasted hot dogs and marshmallows and went to bed. The first night of sleeping was a little rough as Claire woke up a lot and Olivia was whiny going to sleep because she had not had a nap, and I was grouchy since I had been up at 7 preparing all the food for the trip and Hans had to sleep on the flat air mattress. But we made it through and all managed to get enough sleep to be happy the next day. The next morning after breakfast we headed out on a hike to the ocean. We made it a little over half way of the 3 miles to the ocean and had to turn around as we had not packed any food to bring with us. Olivia walked part of the way and was really cute singing a song about us being explorers looking for deer. I love how creative she is these days and makes up the cutest songs. When we got back to camp we had lunch and then naps and then dinner and bed again. So we spent a lot of time in the tent, but it was so nice to just relax with our family and not have anything to distract us and just enjoy each other.

One of the funniest stories of while we were there was the first night when Olivia was not wanting to wear her sweatshirt or get into her sleeping bag and was just crying very loudly, Hans told her that if she cried the bears would hear her and come and eat our food and then we wouldn't have any food to eat. So she stopped crying so that the bears wouldn't come. And this continued to work the whole trip whenever she was crying she would stop because she didn't want the bears to come. Aweful I know but it did work. It even worked to get her to put pants on the last day, which if you ever see Olivia she is practically always wearing dresses. She absolutely hates pants which I am trying to figure out how to fix this as winter is coming and she can't wear dresses all winter.

The last morning we actually saw a deer right next to our camp which was cool since we had been looking for them the day before and the sun came out while we packed up. Olivia did a great job just reading while we packed and then helping us at the end once the tent was down. And Claire slept very contentedly on my back the entire time.

It was a great trip and hopefully we will get in a few more trips next summer. I know as the kids grow it will become more and more fun.