Lambing Barns

Well since I'm terrible at keeping my blog up to date I didn't post about last years trip to the Wahl family lambing barns, but I did in 2010 .  I posted it in May, but we must have gone just a couple of weeks before Kindi was born.  Last year Kindi was not quite one, so it was difficult for her to get around in the hay, but this year she was all over the place.  (I refuse to admit that she will be two on Monday!)  The kids loved to hang out in the bummer lamb pin.  (Bummer lambs don't have a mommy and are bottle fed until they can be grafted onto a ewe.)    Kindi would go in and start 'Maaaaaa'-ing at the lambs expecting them to come to her.  She kept freaking out and bawling, but it wasn't until we went back the next day that I realized it was because she was mad that the sheep weren't obeying her.  She was telling them to come to her so she could hold and pet them, but sheep are not very obedient creatures.  It really upset her!

Willing the lamb to come to her!

Kaden didn't wait for the lambs to come to him.  He just plowed in and picked them right up.  The tricky part was getting him to watch out for the other lambs sleeping in the pin.

She was so excited when I pulled one of the lambs out for her to hold.

Kaden watched me feed one of the lambs, but wasn't content to help me hold the bottle.  Here he is trying to wrestle a lamb into eating.  He was not successful.

When he got tired of the lambs he decided to throw hay.

And lay down and roll in the hay.

Then a couple of the girls brought out the puppies!  Oh my!  We were all three in love.  I'm seriously wanting a puppy right now.  Watching how much the kids enjoyed loving on the puppy was so much fun.  They were both so sweet.

Look Mom, a puppy!

He looks so much like a little boy these days.  His baby face is pretty much gone.

Such a gentle puppy.  He didn't mind one bit that Kindi was carrying him like a sack of potatoes.

Kaden couldn't get enough of the puppy.  He cuddled, and played and giggled.

Making friends.

Is this precious or what?!

A Blast From the Past.

Okay so you probably can't really classify it as 'the past' when your son is only 20 months old and your daughter is only 4 months old, but... I did anyways!  I uploaded the pictures from Jeremy's camera the other day.  That doesn't happen nearly as often, so some of these are fairly old.  (You know, like 4 months!)

Jeremy chaperoned a field trip to the Civil War Reenactment here in Lebanon at the end of last school year.  Because it was here he just met the bus there and was able to take Kaden with him.  Kaden went on his first horse ride... okay so he sat on a horse and promptly begged to get off!  Jeremy said that when they shot all their big artillery cannons Kaden didn't even flinch!  What a brave little man.

One of the first few days of Kindi.  Kaden desperately wanting to touch and play with her!  This was when she would actually sleep on Jeremy's chest, although she never liked the tummy to tummy position.  Much to Jeremy's chagrin.  

Kaden on the other hand, still loves to sleep on his tummy!

Me and my precious babies!  (Yikes!  I may not be losing it very fast this time, but thankfully I am losing some of the weight!)  Kindi cracks me up with her hands by her face.  She almost always sleeps like that.

Kaden checking out Daddy's new car with Grandma, Papa, and Lily.

Oh how he loves to give his sister kisses.  He is always crawling up next to her or squatting on the floor beside her, while I am warning him to be nice, just to give her kisses!  I've got him trained to give me kisses now too.  I get three!  One on each cheek and one on the lips.  I love it, he is so sweet!  (Sometimes I have to bribe him to do it though, he is always willing to kiss me for an Oreo!)

Kaden snagged my cell phone and then took off running.  Well feeling kind of aggravated that he was running away with my cell phone I followed only to have my aggravation melt away into smiles of adoration.  He needed to sit in his rocking chair so he could 'talk' on the phone.  It was too cute to stay irritated!

Apparently wearing Daddy's shoes is hilarious!

I don't get to play out in the sand box with Kaden very often, so when I do I am sure to teach him important things.  Like how to bury his leg in the sand, you know, crucial life lessons.

Kindi discovered she has a tongue.

And she is adorable when she smiles with it!

Gangsta rap star?

Please, no pictures!

Jeremy is making it a tradition to take Kaden to work with him on the last day of school.  Everyone knows that the last day is basically just a big party day anyways, so Kaden just adds to the festivities.  The kids love him.  And as you can see he makes himself right at home...

...Getting into everything!

Kaden loves to make 'forts' under the table and barricade himself behind all of the chair legs.

Kindi's first trip in the belly pack.  She did great!  She even managed to make it all the way to Grandma's house!!!  

(Okay, for those of you who don't know... Grandma's house is the blue one behind me and I am standing by my fence exactly one block away.)

Look at that poor face!  If I remember right the long scratch and bruise on his forehead was from falling and hitting a book that was standing up open.  And then the cut under his lip I think came from the coffee table... but it's hard to remember what owie is what!  That boy gets new bumps and bruises almost daily!

Luckily they don't effect his attitude.  He is still full of smiles and laughter.  The sunshine in our days along with Kindi!

A Boy's Best Friend

Meet Maggie. 

She is Max's monster of a Mastiff dog.  She is easily waist high on me, and definitely WAY bigger than Kaden even though she is a few months younger.  This is her perch on the front porch, an old wooden pew that she can guard the door from.  That way no one gets in or out without her knowledge.  Kaden loved to go in and out that door, partly because he could open it himself and partly because 'd-ahh' (aka dog) was always waiting there to greet him.

Why am I standing back and taking a picture while that dog eats my son's hand you ask?

Well I don't know exactly what is going on, Kaden is probably feeding her something, but Maggie was so amazingly gentle with Kaden so I wasn't worried.  She treated him like he was her puppy. 

She's as big as a horse!

Kaden and Maggie just hanging out in the shade and talking.

So the first time I saw Kaden tackle her like this I was a little freaked out.  I was sure she was going to say enough is enough and lash out at him, but she never did.

He got a little scratch (and I stress little) here and there from their wrestling matches, but Maggie never got him on purpose.

Jeremy is trying to help them get untangled.  Sometimes they would get all twisted and it was difficult for them to separate without Kaden getting a little bit banged up.

We really want to get Kaden a dog, but don't feel like Kindi is old enough for that yet.  I don't want to have to worry about a dog stepping on her, I already do enough of that with Kaden!

Looking at this picture you would never know that he was a bit intimidated by Maggie the first night we were there.  He learned quickly that Maggie wasn't allowed on the cement BBQ area though.  He would run out onto the grass and wait for her to come near then he would run back to the cement and look at her, teasing her.  It was pretty sweet.

I don't really want a dog as big as this, but I sure did love watching them interact.  For several days after we got home Kaden would get so excited whenever he heard a dog bark.  He'd point and exclaim, 'd-ah!'.

Apparently Maggie had a dirty face?  Or maybe she was drooling like sissy does?  In either case Kaden felt the need to clean her face.

Then try out some grass just like dogs do!

So this:

irritates me... a LOT!  I tried and tried and tried to upload a great video of Kaden and Maggie wrestling.  I tried making it shorter, I tried saving it in different formats, and different places, but all I ever got was 'failure to upload video'.  Grrrrr.  It was a really fun video too!
Well I think this concludes our Milton Freewater adventures (Although I can't be positive until I go home and double check my files.) so I hope you enjoyed, or were at least slightly amused by them!

Buckin' Bronco Rider

   Jeremy's brother Heath works at a prison in Pendleton.  One of the activities they allow the prisoners to do is wood working.  They are amazingly talented!  Heath took some pictures of his grandpa (Max's Dad) and had them make this rocking horse and then paint on it different scenes relevant to him.  It is beautiful, strong and it is all hand done.  Best of all (if you are a 19 month old) it works!

Kaden loved to rock out!  Kindi was more like, 'Whatever guys.'.

Kaden, being the sweet big brother and super helper that he is, graciously pushed Kindi when it was her turn.  And again, she was like, 'Whatever.'!

We were so impressed with him as he could climb up all by himself and really get to rocking pretty hard.  Then he decided it was Lily's turn and obviously she isn't big enough to do it herself, so Kaden once again stepped in to the rescue!

Here is a video of Kaden rocking... hopefully anyways!

Yes he did smash his head into the horse.  He has a tendency to get a little bit excited and, I'm sure you won't believe it, but he tends to get a little wild and hurts himself, a lot!  I know, crazy huh!  And you all thought he was so cool, calm and collected all the time.  :)  He is tough though.  He bashed his head, cried and kept on rocking, refusing to crawl off and cuddle with me even when I walked up to him to help him down.  Such a brave little maniac!

Kindi's First Trip to Milton Freewater

   We went to Milton Freewater for the first time with Kindi over 4th of July weekend.   Jeremy and I were so worried about taking her for such a long drive (5 1/2 hours if we drive straight through and don't have bad traffic, usually more like 6-6 1/2).  Her typical reaction to being strapped into the car seat is to scream bloody murder (I've never really thought about it before, but that is a weird saying.)!  You would think we were pinching her as we clicked those buckles. 

   Jeremy had to teach summer school that morning, so I packed and kept Kindi awake as much as possible.  When we got ready to leave around 1 or so she was exhausted and had already stopped screaming by the time we got her out to the car, even though she was in the car seat already.  She passed out before we made it out of Lebanon and get this... Kindi slept all the way to Pendelton!!!  Hallelujah!  For those who don't know Pendelton is less than an hour from MF.  Of course when she did wake up she was incredibly hungry and very upset to be stuck in that chair still.  She started with her normal I'm unhappy, fix it, cry but before we could pull into Pendelton to stop at McDonalds, so I could feed her and Kaden could play, she was screaming this high pitched almost hyperventilating cry.  It was terrible and I had never heard her so distressed before.  Thankfully after a break at McD's she only cried for a few minutes before she went back to sleep and made it the rest of the way! 

   Kaden was an amazing trouper!  We usually stop at least a couple of times for him to get out and stretch a bit, but since Kindi was still sleeping we just kept driving.  He napped for the first hour and a half or two and then played quietly for awhile.  We also had a portable DVD player that Grandma had given to him at Christmas so he would have something to do on his next trip to see her.  He was amazed and captivated with the Veggie Tales for oh... 15 minutes!  The truly captivating part was the fact that he could reach the DVD holder with his feet.  So he kicked it for hours, I finally had to take the player away and just let him kick the case!  We did our best to entertain him and he made it with only a minimal amount of whining.  

All the cousins!

Emma, Kindi, Lily, Jacy & Kaden

   Max is a very talented... I don't know what you call him, but he is good at building and beautifying!   He built a fire pit and barbecue area that is absolutely gorgeous!  We ate most of our meals out there and spent the evenings by the fire.  I thought I had a better picture of it in here but maybe that is in one of the other posts.  Because there is so much that I want to share with you all the trip will be a series of posts!  Anyways, that is where we took these pictures.  :) 

Heath and Alyssa with their three beautiful, way to grown up girls!

Kaden wondering why they are all standing like that.

So our kids were so not into having their picture taken at the moment!  Luckily in this small version you can't tell too much.  Maggie (Max's mastiff puppy) decided to join us since she adopted Kaden.

Max had a picture of him and Kaden from last year's 4th of July that he loved and wanted to duplicate with Kindi.  She's not terribly impressed.  :)

Snuggling with Grandma.

Meeting Uncle Heath and cousin Emma.  I am ashamed to admit that I didn't get any pictures of Kindi with Aunt Alyssa.  :(

Great Grandma Remboldt

Kaden loved to stand at the gate from the house to the fire pit and be the door man.  He was quite the little gentleman opening and closing the gate for everyone.

And of course being the monkey that he is, Kaden spotted a ladder and just had to climb it.  He didn't ever get too high on it, but if we were there today he would be at the top in a flash!  He has been practicing climbing ladders at the park.

Jacy is going to show this little heifer at the Walla Walla County Fair this year... I think... it might be next year.  

Kaden didn't care to much for sitting on her back.

These last two pictures are just a couple of me and Kindi.  Kindi is so adorable and since it was her first time there we had to have a morning modeling session each day as we came in the door.  :)

It is so much fun having a little girl to dress up in all kinds of pretties!