county fair.

 

I grew up going to the Davis County fair. Some of my siblings would enter 

"things" (sewing projects/baking goods/the non-animal things) in the 4-H section.

I think the size of the Alameda county fair is closer to the size of the Utah State fair.

They are big on entertainment here (or money).

After talking to my mom on the phone we checked out the gardening section for her. 

There were some sad beets getting a ribbon. 

Oh and some tiny tomatoes. 

Probably a little early for some prize vegetables. :)

 But they do have a lot of animals to see.

The kids enjoy the sheep (that is until one baaaa-d at Jane and scared her to tears).

 Zac got to go inside the petting zoo, but didn't let go of my hand the entire time. 

He liked the lama the best and went back to pet it twice.

I didn't blame him for holding on, it's crazy having pigs running at your feet, and deer to pet.

We also watched the piglets do a little race and saw some chickens that Zac liked.

The model trains are always a hit too!

We skipped all the rides and food, but enjoyed a picnic before hand and

liked the free things to play with better. :)

On Saturday (June 23) we went to a parade for the fair.

It was a perfect day for one.

And great warm up for the 4th.

Both kids enjoyed the hour parade. 

Jane loved to eat her flag that we brought to wave hi to everyone.

June 26

 Other Randoms: Lee got these BBQ prongs for Father's day, but they have yet to leave 

Zachary's room. He likes to use them to get his cars out of the box. I'm happy 

to have them stay because he lets Jane play with the cars on the floor while he 

concentrates on getting them out the box.

Zac peddling his bike. He uses them a lot more these days,

but still not enough that I'm getting him new shoes. :)

Jane. Can she be any cuter?

She has us all wrapped around her finger.

She loves to play with balls. 

And loves to roll the ball back and forth. 

She also says "ba" for ball.

We will be in the kitchen and I will ask her were the ball is,

and she will go crawling into the living room to get them.

It's pretty cute.

Up the slide

 

Jane is surprising us everyday with the things she can do.

She watches Zachary a lot and does not want to be left out (even at 10 months!).

They were super cute playing at the park this day.

They would both walk up the slide and then head over to the

twisty slide and go down. 

(I would have to help Jane get on her tummy to go down.)

They did this over and over.

It was fun to see them playing together and laughing.

June 25

more fun.

Another packed post!
I don't have much time these days to be on the computer,
but I'm trying to catch up! So hopefully you will see a few posts happening these days.

FairyLand
We joined some friends in our (new) ward to a trip to FairyLand in Oakland.
I had never been there before, but Lee had gone there as a kid.
It's a little park all based on fairy tales. It was built in the 1950's and was the first theme park in the US that was for kids. Even Walt Disney got ideas for Disney Land from it. 
Zac and his friend Lucas just liked running around like crazy there. They had tons of paths and things to climb on, slides, and rides.
Zac road his very fist marry-go-round and Farris wheel (all by himself!). It was awesome. Nothing had straps for the kids, so I just had to tell Zac to hold on tight and to stay seated. Ha.  

May 22

Games.
We were at Grandma's house when Zac kept telling me he wanted to play the cho-cho game.
I had no idea what he was talking about, so I told him to go get it.
Come to find out it was Ticket to Ride. We made up our own rules to play. :)
Battleship while Jane has been asleep has also been a favorite.

Father's Day. 

We had a great Father's day. We enjoyed the day at the Cooper cabin. One of Lee's favorite places.

We think the world of our dad. (And our Grandpa's!) We love them all!

June  17

 

Playing with Colby.

We miss our friends in our old ward.

So it was fun to see Colby again the other week. Zac loved playing on Colby's

toys (Jane too!) and jumping on the tramp. We need to get together more!

June 18

Water fun!

We miss our pool right out the door that we had at the apartment, but we are glad that

Grandma has a pool at her house to go to! I have such water kids. Zac was in heaven in his tube (or two tubes). He even jumped off the side and went under. Jane is such a fish. She wants to be in the water and not just playing on the steps. It was a lot easier to take them both swimming then I thought it might be. They were both sad when we had to go home.

We also went to the pool here in Livermore with Lucas. It's nice to have a good friend for Zac.

We also went downtown one day and just played in the water fountains there.

June 11, 12 & 20

Other.

Jane just about to eat the wood chip at the park (I'm always scooping them out of her mouth).

And Zac having me hold onto a 12 inch ribbon while we walk to the park. Funny kid.

Jane is 10 months!

At 10 months:
-hangs on my legs all day.
-her four teeth are the cutest things. We laugh about them lots.
-her breathing is so heavy. We always know where she is because of it.
-sleeps so good! All night and two naps.
-has started to balance some.
-has taken a few steps. Getting a lot braver walking around furniture.
-likes to tease. She will pretend to go to someone and turn around laughing.
-has such a happy crawl when she is excited.
-has such a cute babble of ma ma and da da.
-she can be very loud when she wants attention!
-loves mouths. Will reach for anyone's.
-rice cereal and oatmeal is such a hit and miss. 

(She really needs it bc of her low iron found out on her 9 month appointment.)
-prefers real food over baby food.
-loves water. Especially out of our cups. Oh and watermelon!
-thinning out (you might not notice ha!) because of all her moving.
-found that toilet paper rolls are super cool.
-a little fish. Not only does she like the bath tub, but pools are a hit. She wants all the way in!
-clothes anywhere from 12-18 and 18-24.
-gets excited when Lee gets home.
-takes in and out her binky.
-she does not like grass or even sitting on a blanket on grass.
-stairs are pure joy for her.
-bites a lot. Today she bite her own arm and started crying.
-likes to reach out with a toy like she is giving it to you, but she really still wants it. 

This is a hard on for Zac. He always takes the toy.
-likes to empty things. I love it when she throws things over her back into a pile.
-scared of the vacuum. Even if she sees it not on.
-loves to chew on my phone.
-good at keeping a hat on.
-so hard to change diapers.
-keeping her strawberry blond hair.
-tries to wave.

-I have a feeling we will have a walker on the next month. 

Hopefully that will make going outside more enjoyable!

Life update.

April, May, and now JUNE! 

The blog has been on the back burner. 

So here is a little update:

Lee

Lee is no longer on two projects. But unfortunately for all of us they took him off the closer of the two. Booo. So now he has a "lovely" commute. We loved having him close! Lee is working on a college in the south bay. It's about a two year project. He just hit his 5 year mark with his company in May. 

When he has the time lee has been working on little projects around the house. It's nice that he is a handy man (or in his words "too cheap to pay someone to do it"). Our house is getting a little more done, but slowly. Our kids like attention. So they usually win. :)
He had been enjoying his calling as the 12 & 13 year old Sunday school teacher, but about a month into it, he got called as the Scout committee chair. We laugh, but not really, because scouting is not one of his favorite things. On top of that he is going to be teaching the teacher training class. Now he just has the fun part of figuring out what he is really supposed to do in both callings.
He has done a great job at taking care of us. The kids (and I) love it when he is home. He may get them all wound up, but that's what dads are for, right?

Allie

I'm just doing "mom things." I feel like some days I don't get much done, but everyone is fed, alive and happy. I have been enjoying the running trails by our house. The kids and I had been making it out almost everyday, until I needed to take off about two weeks because my heel was hurting. 

The warmer weather has been super nice. There are lots of parks close by, so part of our days is usually picking on of the parks by our house to walk to. 

I would love to work on extra things (like decorating, sewing, or sometimes just cleaning a room) but having Jane crawling and Zac getting bugged by her finding his toys, not much gets done. I have tried to get a little more involved in our ward. Park days have been a good weekly socialization. A month into moving here I thought Relief Society. And then I was called into Young Women's as the Beehive adviser (I was the Laurel adviser on my last ward). I actually will be helping with the Laurels (they are a bigger group) for a few months while the YW president heals her back from a horseback riding accident.

We are joining a little joy school group in the fall for Zac, so I'll get to teach the little class every once in a while. It will be fun to get my teaching brain back on. 

I'm excited for the summer to plan more activities and things for us to do.

Zac

Oh man. He probably needs his own post! That kid. He is a handful and headful lately. He wakes up at six. Yes, SIX, everyday and wants to get going. If the sun is up, so is he. There is no talking him out of it. It's "morning time!" He does not like to watch very much TV. I'm lucky if he will do a half hour a day (many days we don't even turn it on.) Why does he have to be like me!? It's nice that he is not obsessed with it, but sometimes you just NEED a break. Ha. 

He has found the joy of his cars again (We did trains for a long time!). Now he lines them all up in lines and calls it traffic. He does not like anyone to move them. This causes a BIG problem with Jane. She LOVES his cars. And heads straight for them. We try to have him play up in his room, but what fun is that? The middle of the family room or hallways are the favorite places. We also play lots of traffic and parking with his cars outside in the back. He made a road all by himself with chalk that we would play on.

We have been working on peddling. He FINALLY got it! But he is supper slow and wont do it lots. I have been wanting to get him new shoes, but can't until he stops dragging his feet. His are SUPER bad. I feel like he is homeless wearing them.

He loves to talk. I need to start writing down some of the funny things he says. He makes us laugh all the time.

He loves the abc's. He knows all the sounds to all the letters and loves to stop at signs and say the letters and sounds. He thinks it is so funny when Jane says, "ah" like the letter A. Or when Jane says, "mmmmm" like what M. He thinks she really knows what letters she is saying and like to tell her what letter she is sounding like.

He is the worst. Worst. WORST. at going to bed. It takes a good hour some nights. He just always had something he needs to tell us, or that hurts, or whatever.

He has so much energy and is really fun. I just wish he would play better with other kids. It drives me crazy because he used to be this sweet boy, and now sometimes he is a pill. He will not share, he will grab toys, he will not give in! Oh and the holding his ground and not moving for people. Drives me crazy. I'm sure it's a 2/3 year old thing, but hopefully it changes soon!

He is super good at playgrounds. He can climb anything on them. Even the scary things. He does them all! It is crazy to see the difference from just the new year. And he had decided that he can now do the big swings. Why does he have to grow up?

Jane

Pretty much her monthly posts sum her up! She is a busy girl. Her and Zac have such a love/hate relationship. She could watch him all day. They laugh lots together. It's really cute. 

She gets into everything. I have to have an eye on her at all times I feel like. 

She is now balancing a little on her own. It is fun to see her get excited when she is not holding onto anything.

She LOVES the stairs. She made it all the way up them (15 stairs) without me knowing. Can you say scary?! She gets sad if I block them to go upstairs. 

She does not like grass. I wish she did. Parks are getting harder with her because she just wants down to eat the wood chips. She will do the swings thankfully.

She is such a cutie. We can't believe how big and smart she is getting. 

"Don't even think about touching my puzzle." The stare down.

Love.

Natalie and Jane. Friends showing up at the park in matching outfits.

Sibling Love

We laugh when we see our neighbors with these tiny garbage cans. We are impressed they only have that much garbage, but you have got to fill funny pulling that out to your curb. It's smaller then Z!

I had to fix this before her brother woke up.

Trip to Tildon Park. On steam train.

Best Mothers Day Picture with the two of them.

2nd attempt.

Picnic at park

BIG boy!

Towed his wagon all the way to the park.

Typical. Zac with two drinks. Jane begging.

Napping.

Love him.

Colored Parking spots.

He doesn't even need money.

First time out on the boat this year!

Watching her brother throw rocks. She love him!