8 Months and Turbo Crawling and Standing!

This little show-off turned 8 months old earlier this week! I wish he would slow down in how quickly he's progressed in crawling and now standing. He's my baby!

August

OMG...I know I'm being the evil mean mom. But it's been a long day.

Christian, YOU DO NOT NEED TO MAKE A POSTER TO KEEP CATS OUT OF YOUR ROOM. We have no cats. No cats have come in the house. And even if they did, they wouldn't read your poster. And even if they could read it, they wouldn't care. THEY'RE CATS.

Okay, I got that off my chest.

Today is Chris's 41st birthday. Money is tight. I wanted to go out to dinner, but that wasn't a good idea. Therefore, we grabbed some "Hot n Ready" pizzas from Little Caesars, made a cake and we presented Chris with this funny T-shirt:

And thanks to the Kohls clearance rack and a "save $10 on $30 purchase" coupon, I helped dress him with some classy tops.

Mikelle had an enjoyable birthday 12 days ago:

And it's clear we're celebrating a "Summer in Hell" birthday, just based on AleXander not needing clothes (as pictured with his goofball sister). And by the way, I had NOTHING to do with the cake. Christian and Mikelle insisted on making it themselves. If you think that one is um, interesting, you should have seen the one they made for their dad today. Hence the first picture on this blog entry.

11 Years Ago Today...

This tiny beauty came into our lives. She had dark blond hair and quickly went from tiny newborn to pudgy cutie who had no problem moving along in life. Her independence and strong spirit was evident.

When she was 5, she started sprouting Henrichsen-side freckles.

She received the gift of blue eyes from both her grandmothers.

She grew before our eyes and she was not to be stopped.

Now she's a gorgeous tall young woman.

Happy Birthday Mikelle!

Brief Trip Out of the Oven....Part II

...(continued from Part I) Continuing with the trip re-cap, on Monday August 1st, AleXander and I went to Yaquina Head Lighthouse north of Newport. It is such a beautiful place! Christian and I went there too in June 2009 when he and I were there. The weather was so beautiful - a little too sunny for my taste, but the air temperature was perfect. It was also breezy.

View from back of the lighthouse.

AleXander and I next to the lighthouse. Can't you tell?

After we left Yaquina Head, we headed down to the market area in Newport where Papa, Grandma Georgia and the rest of the group was and we went to Mo's! YUM! And afterwards, right next to the restaurant, we watched a guy catch a very large crab! Cool!

Mmmmm......Shark!

The next day 8/2, around dinnertime, we all went down the beach for hot dogs and S'mores. YUM! The sun was intense. AleXander borrowed Mackenzie's hat. I love the beach. I love Oregon. I love the climate. I'm not a fan of sand. AleXander sure enjoyed it though. Thank goodness for Grandma Georgia's bathtub later. The next day, 8/3, AleXander and I headed home. :cry: At least we had a beautiful drive down to Florence and then over to Eugene. Look how gorgeous and misty it was. Bye Oregon! I already miss you, tons!

Brief Trip Out of the Oven....Part I

For about five days, AleXander and I took a trip up to the central Oregon Coast to see Papa and Grandma Georgia. I had been craving Oregon since the last time I was there, just over two years ago in June 2009. That time, it was just Christian and I (this link is the start of those posts: there are quite a few of them!). Papa and Georgia weren't there. They were in Wisconsin seeing Aunt Susie and her family as a finale of their cross-country bike odyssey, that time from Baton Rouge up to Milwaukee.

However, this time, Papa and Georgia were there, just coming home from their 18 month mission to South Africa! The picture above is AleXander at Governor Patterson's beach just down the road from Papa and Georgia's house. It was his first time to the beach!

Along with Papa and Georgia was Georgia's son Alan, his wife Jeanie, Georgia's son David, his wife Angie and their adorable three kids. Another fun tidbit? Georgia's kids are my third cousins. Therefore, Georgia's grandkids from her kids are my kids' 4th cousins. The easiest way to explain it is my grandfather Carwin "Buck" Elwood Rogers and their grandfather, Donald Fish Sr were first cousins. My grandfather's mother and Donald Sr's mothers were Tanner sisters. It's a fun heritage to trace. We're also related to N. Eldon Tanner and Hugh B. Brown, LDS General Authorities.

July 31, 2011 We had all just returned from Papa and Georgia's branch where they spoke about their mission. I have lost 15 pounds since last month, but it sure doesn't look it in this pic. Yuck. AleXander was asleep. AleXander and Grandma Georgia, the day we arrived. July 29, 2011.

Anyway, enough of that "related to who" and "so and so begot so and so" for now. I can get out a white board and I would have fun with that with all kinds of flow charts, but not everyone would be all that interested. Haha

Playing with David and Angie's kids was a lot of fun. I'm really going to miss them. And boy was AleXander on the move! He had been crawling a little in July, but by the time we were just days away from the trip, he was turbo boy. I must say, I loved visiting Oregon, but with AleXander's energy, I can't really say it was relaxing. However, it was SO NICE to have the option to take him on a walk OUTSIDE (can't do that here in hell this time of year), and I found I have more patience and I'm a lot nicer when the temperatures are in the 70s, 60s and below.

Just like in my blog entries from June 2009, I took AleXander to the same little neighborhood park Christian and I went to. It is right in the middle of the neighborhood, but looks like it's in a thick wooded forest! And the green and breezes was so nice on our walks, and just about every second of the day!

This Oregon re-cap will have to be divided into two entries, as I have turbo boy and we also need to get out the door - even though it's 110 today. Back to reality that is the 5-month conflagration.