Adventures in Babysitting

This weekend we attempted a challenge, taking care of five kids under 5 for the day. We had the Rikalo kids over Friday night while their parents had a getaway. We had pizza, bathed and got them to bed relatively unscathed, though we were tired afterward.
On Saturday we woke up and had eggs and pancakes for breakfast before the real challenge began when the Day girls joined us. We somehow managed to gather all of our stuff and load up in the Suburban by 9:30 for a trip to the beach. Five kids, two adults, and a wagon of stuff. We arrived and sunscreened all the kids as they excited the vehicle and sat in the back. The it was off to the beach, while Judah helped pull an Charlie helped push the wagon. What helpful gentleman. The girls held hand and led the way and Jamie brought up the rear with the lunch cooler.

After some rolling in the grass hills we hit the sand. The kids all were in bathing suits and immediately headed to the water to get their feet wet in the waves. Joe was able to join us after awhile and it was really helpful to have another adult for potty runs. We had a picnic lunch of pizza and grapes. Then the kids took a walk down the beach. Sadly Jamie and Charlie stepped on something pokey which made Charlie very sad. Be snuggled with me for awhile after that while the kids headed back to the grass. Soon enough it was time to pack up. We only had to stop once on the way home to get water out of the back for Brynn and Chloe. The boys went right to sleep and the girls had quiet time.

After quiet time the girls and I headed out to the pool and sunshine. They ran through a makeshift sprinkler and tried to swim. It was too cold though so I tried adding some hot water to no avail. These were the same kids in the sound that morning. After awhile they got dressed and the boys started waking up. Jamie made popcorn for snack and we continued to play and enjoy the sun. We ended in the front with wagon rides and chalk when Jentry arrived. We made dinner for the rest of the kids and did baths as Rikalos arrived.

Friday also happened to be my Birthday. So to celebrate Jamie arranged for Mallory to babysit so we could go to the iPic theater in Redmond for Iron Man 3. It was a great end to the day!

Judah Update

Judah loves playing in the car. After he gets out of his seat he wants to play for awhile all over the car. So we have to budget some time for this. It actually works out quite nicely if I have to unload a lot of groceries or stuff from the car. Yesterday we weeded part of the garden adn found some left over carrots. So we dug them out and brought them inside to eat. Tonight I made a carrot soup using the smoked chicken broth I had made and froze, it was amazing. We also had homemade artesian bread, the fact that that is just mentioned in passing shows how awesome the soup was. Judah told me “good soup, mommy”. Judah had his bath and was running around naked after. I warned him sternly to come back to the potty if he had to go peepee (after learning the hard way that he just will pee on the floor). So he ran right back when he had to go and sure enough went right on the potty. Jamie has been sending video updates each morning and Judah loves to get a video from Daddy, he thinks it’s like a video chat and responds back to his Dad. He just started watching Veggie Tales and tonight wnated to watch “Bob”, I think he knows the characters from reading the books. Or maybe because he’s red, like Elmo. All things red are Elmo. On Monday I heard him count to three for the first time. We were listening to his music on the way to Stephanie’s, and they sang “here come the one, two, threes!” and Judah repeated it. He always had gotten stuck on two, repeating one, two, one, two. Yesterday he also said Charlie and Kaci for the first time in my hearing. When they had to go home for nap he cried very sadly and said, “my friends, my friends”. Good thing they came back over for bath, dinner, and playing.

Cleaning - The Oven

OK, so I've been trying to find a way to really get my oven clean for several months now. I tried a few things including the baking soda paste and elbow grease. Last night I tried something I saw on Pinterest, I know Pinterest, and it actually worked! I was amazed. I totally laughed while doing it too, at the fact it was actually working. I'm super bummed I didn't get a before picture in all it's hideous glory. I got a pic mid-way to try to show what the WHOLE glass area looked like before. The second pic is my clean oven door, really, that is my oven door. The magic tool in this cleaning experiment? The razor for scraping, it did the trick where rags and scouring pads wouldn't. Here's the link to how to do it. 
-Michelle

Snow Camping Adventure!

Here's some fun pics from our first snow camping adventure.

So, I had been wanting to go skiing all winter and I thought I wasn’t going to get a chance when it was already the end of March but I was wrong! We ski really late in Washington it turns out. Our friend, Chet, is a ski instructor up at Snoqualmie Pass and mentioned he was going to take his kids up the first weekend in April if the weather/snow cooperated. Hearing this we hatched a crazy last minute plan to take the trailer up and give it a go on the winter camping, plus show Judah real snow and maybe let me ski. It was a bit back and forth all week on whether to go, since the weather was more rain than snow. 

Finally, Friday morning we pulled the trigger on going. The benefit of going so late in the season was that we didn’t have to worry about crowds and getting a spot with the trailer, and parking. This was somethign that was concerning when we looked at Steven’s Pass and where they park trailers (up a switch back hill, parked within feet of each other, and requiring a turn), plus it fills up very fast. In fact, there was no one there when we arrived, we got the pick of the lot! So we put it right by the on/off ramp into the parking lot, over looking the slopes from our kitchen window. 

At this point it was pretty much just raining and we got pretty soaked in our venturing outside to unhook everything and play in the snow. So we started learning quick about how to deal with wet and cold while trailer camping. We had a dedicated door blanket for boots and gear. Wet stuff was taken off and hung on hangers in the shower to dry. It was definitely smart to have multiples, especially of gloves. I was really happy that I found some great kid gloves for Judah at the REI clearance rack, they held up really well to puddle splashing with the hands. Judah got to watch his very first ever full length feature film, Shrek, on the computer at the table. We made tacos for dinner and settled in for the night not expecting snow or skiing in the morning because it was still raining pretty steadily. 

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast adn played outside. The rain had started to turn to snow! By the time the Kaufman’s arrived it was snowing nicely. We all bundled up to go skiing while Jamie and Judah watched from the warmth of the trailer. The conditions were pretty hard, lots of wet snow that was hard to turn in and started catching your skiis as you got lower down and it was slushy. It was also super wet, definitely a multiple hat and glove day. I ended up hanging my absolutely drenched coat in the car to dry over the weathertec mats. Odessa was done after one long run and a few turns on the lower slopes on the magic carpet, so we skied right up to the trailer and she joined the boys for hot cocoa and movies. Chet, Dexter, and I did a few more runs before lunch. We had lunch and warmed up in the trailer while the kids watched movies. 

I took Judah’s tent out of his bunk and they enjoyed playing in there for awhile. I headed back out for a few more runs after lunch, while Kaufman’s decided to call it a day and Judah headed down for a nap. Judah had a hard time falling asleep, but ended up sleeping until about 5 when we went out to play a bit more. He wanted to run with the kids the next trailer over, but they were bigger and too fast to keep up with. We had a yummy dinner of mac and cheese and green beans and then Judah headed to bed. 

We woke the next morning to snow...lots and lots of it. About 6 inches. Oh, and avalanche cannons, lots of them, thankfully they started after 8:00. At this point, having not driven our Suburban in the snow really at all, much less towing a trailer, Jamie started to get a bit worried about making it out of the parking lot. We had a quick breakfast and then started packing things up. Just as people were starting to get there to enjoy the snow we got the truck all hitched up and headed out...with no problems at all. Our Suburban did great! Turns out the bigger concern is not getting blocked in by all the arriving skiers. We got right out onto interstate and less than 2 miles down the road the snow was all gone. So we didn’t get stuck, but had we gone the next weekend, they ended up with tons of snow, closing the pass, several avalanches, and a few people lost their lives. So always good to be prepared to stay a few days, extra food, clothes, and maybe some survival gear in the car?

Easter Weekend in Friday Harbor

Early Friday we headed up to SJI to visit the Zaehring clan for Easter. After a super foggy ferry ride over it cleared up and became beautiful for the rest of the weekend. We spent lots of time outside on the deck. The kids got to use the water table and ended up completely soaked in water. Ally was awesome in the yard, she stayed super close and always came when called. Sadly, her table manners left much to be desired as she grabbed food off the counters several times. Friday evening we planned dinner, making the Pioneer Woman’s Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork. Jamie fried up corn tortillas and Bryan made salsa fixings for them.

Saturday we got to have a farm adventure at Mike Carlson’s (Andi’s boss). We saw a baby calf which Judah got into the pen with Mike to pet very gently. They had a great dog that Judah also liked, as well as horses, more cows, and chickens. They also had tractors, buses, and trucks - oh my! Judah was in heaven, he got to sit on the tractor and drive it. He sat on Mike’s lap to drive another piece of equipment which was running which scared him quite a bit, so he went back to the non-running tractor. During nap Jenn and I loaded up the eggs and hid them in the backyard. Then we ran away from home for a little while and found Judah a monkey backpack at the Sand Pebble and got some more groceries. When the kid woke up we did a cooking craft and made Resurrection Rolls (also called Empty Tomb Rolls) which I found on my friends blog here.

While they were baking we took the kids out to hunt eggs! We assigned all the kids their own colors which helped since they hunted at different paces. They loved finding the eggs and opening them and eating the candy! We then had a lovely salmon dinner that Bryan prepared on the grill.

Sunday we all headed to church and made it there all looking put together, so we took a family picture. Our Easter lunch was yummy sandwiches back home before we headed out to catch the ferry. Judah was super tired on the ferry since it was nap time and he just sat and hung out in the booth with us. He fell asleep in the customs line which took an hour to get through and stayed asleep all the way home! Almost a 2 hour nap in his carseat, pretty awesome really. He woke up driving through Anacortes and said, “what you doing Mom?”, to which I answered driving and he fell back asleep. When we got home, our friends graciously invited us over for a dinner of ham, not just any ham though. This was from the pig we bought with them, that Jamie helped to brine and that was smoked on our smoker. Judah gobbled it up and kept going back for more. It was a great end to our Easter weekend.

February Arizona Visit

We headed south again this year, this time because my sister finally got some vacation after 6 months of her new job in CT and was going to visit with Jason too. We hadn’t seen the Asuzu’s in 6 whole months since they moved so it was definitely reason to go south again. Jason was 11 months and almost walking so we were excited to get the boys together to play. We had a whirlwind weekend, jamming in lots of activities around naps. We got in on Thursday afternoon and got to spend some time with Mom, Dad, Gma, and Gpa that evening.

One awesome story that must be mentioned was that Grandma took Judah out to have him help fill the fountain. Somehow Grandma surrendered custody of the hose to the two-year old and the next thing I knew water was hitting the kitchen window. I ran over to see Mom running around the backyard, being chased by Judah’s hose spray. I debated for a few seconds whether I should go out to rescue her, thinking I’d rush Judah, thankfully she was much quicker thinking then I and in that time went for the faucet.

Amanda and Jason arrived on Friday and Mom and I were able to go pick her up. Judah and Jason hit it right off, wrestling and playing with Aunty Mandy and Grandpa Mike. Grandma had also gotten some new lego toys to enjoy which Judah did. On Saturday we were able to go with Dad to the shooting range and check out his new guns. It was pretty fun to try them all out, we spent more than an hour on the range. Over the weekend Jamie, Mom, and I were able to enjoy two 9 hole rounds of golf over the weekend while Amanda and Grandpa graciously watched the monitor during napped and hung out with Judah when he woke up.

Sunday we got to go with Mom and Dad to church. The boys went to the nursery and had a great time. Afterward Grandpa Great made us a lovely brunch including an awesome egg bake. Monday was a huge day of shopping at the mall. Grandma treated Amanda and I to Pandora charms for our bracelets and the boys to new shoes at Stride Rite. Judah also got a fun new pair of cowboy boots on an outing with Grandma and Grandma Great. After shopping we went back to the gun range and shot again, this time with some gun rentals so we could try out some other types of guns. Tuesday came too soon and we headed back to the airport to go home super bright and early. We were able to help Amanda and Jason to their gate before heading to our gate.

Saying Goodbye

January 11th, 2013, at 8 am, Michelle Beaver Zaehring was 17 weeks pregnant and we were both excited to soon be sharing our expectant plans for next June on Facebook.  By 11 am, we were weeping in an Ultrasound room on Capitol Hill, as our future dreams and our family of four became a grieving family of three.   
These photos are the only glimpse of the precious hands and feet of our son we'll get to see this side of Heaven.  Our unborn son, whom we'll never get to hold, will never be forgotten.  
That day in a darkened room, when that nice doctor man told us our baby was no longer alive, we felt such an aching loss and were overwhelmed with a moment of panic.  How can we make it through this?  The grief, sadness, and shattered dreams hit us like chaotic waves, yanking us this way and that while time seemed to stand still.  And yet, in the midst of it, almost covered by the darkness was a quiet voice of total confidence whispering.  Jesus is in the boat with us.  We live, and love, because He first loved us by dying for us.  He brings peace to our stormy hearts.  
Matthew 8:23-27 was so encouraging to us during that first week:
"And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. 24 And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. 25 And they went and woke him, saying, Save us, Lord; we are perishing. 26 And he said to them, Why are you afraid, O you of little faith? Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. 27 And the men marveled, saying, What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?"
We are healing now, one month later, and wanted to share the joy of the brief life of our son with all of you, as well as share our love for Jesus for loving us enough to "ride in our boat."  
We’ve been reflecting on Psalm 42 and learning a song called “Satisfied in You” as we wrestle with this loss.  Please take 5 minutes and listen to it while you think of us. 
The words of this song say our feelings best: “Let my sighs give way to songs that sing about your faithfulness, Let my pain reveal your glory as my only real rest, Let my losses show me all I truly have is you.”  We are learning to trust and worship Jesus in this, even if those two ideas just got a lot harder and a lot more real, from our perspective. 
We ask that you hug and cherish your little ones who made it into this world safely a little extra tonight.  We certainly will.
More thankful than ever for God’s unfailing love,
Michelle, Jamie, and Judah Zaehring