Birthday at the Beach

Be ready for an absolute picture overload. I'll use few words to make up for the picture mayhem.

 

Last weekend our Ruda family spent the weekend at the most gorgeous house in Newport to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. We weekend was wonderful!

The table fit all of us! We ate some good meals together!

Art time with Grandma

Great picture of Sammy and Seth (at least I got a natural smile out of one of them.)

We surprised my dad and hired a photographer to take family pictures. I cannot wait to see them! This is all the kids making funny faces to help their grandparents smile in the picture.

It was hilarious to watch! Such silly kids!

One of the coolest features of the house was a beautiful chess set. Ben and Nick were thrilled to use it to teach the oldest kids how to play. They all took to it, especially Miriam and Sam, who tried to play every free moment.

Peek-a-boo Josh

We did get down to the beach some, but it was a bit chilly. This is Katie's Clara.

Edmund loved the water, but hated the cold. Same with Josh. The poor boys were at the age where they would cry until we let them play in the water, and then cry because the water was so cold.

Such a special friendship these five have!

Ben's outfit illustrates how warm the beach was...

This was the house we stayed at! Isn't it amazing!

Love the clouds in this picture!

Papa pitying poor Joshy

Nick and Mom went back with soaked and freezing Edmund and Aidah. I was close to follow with Joshy, but Ben stayed behind and built a dam with the older kids.

This is before he's screaming because his feet are numb.

Dam in the making.

More chess.

Can you stand how beautiful these windows are in the house? What a view we had!

The "babies" were a lot of work at the beach!

Welcome to the Oregon Aquarium. (Seth otter, Sam the feeder)

Aidah and Seth. This picture is hilarious. These two were paired off all weekend and walked holding hands everywhere.

I was tempted to leave Josh at home while we went to the aquarium, but Ben wisely thought that Josh would love it. He was so right! Josh had a blast and we loved watching him discover and explore.

The whole crew in the fish tunnel.

Shark!

Seth, Sam

I love this picture. Ben and Josh have such a special relationship!

Josh LOVED the tide pools.

Another one of my favorite pictures of the weekend. Silly faces in front of the beautiful jelly fish.

Such a handsome picture of my dad!

Nick and Ben sitting on their thrones.

Papa opening presents. The kids couldn't crowd in close enough.

They all made him special cards.

Josh liked putting rocks inside the decorative canon.

What would a trip to the beach be without a fire pit? Ben is the fire master.

It was an amazing sunset. Thank you Lord!

The man of the weekend: Happy Birthday Dad and Papa!

Edmund helped blow out the candles.

A sign of a good weekend: Josh conked out almost the whole trip home!

These Boys

These boys: they have my heart!

 

Something about these pictures, with all their heads stacked up, just melts me. These are my sons! They have my heart.

 

Speaking of having my heart: my husband. What an amazing father he is! Even if he's tired from working all day, he plays with his sons until bedtime. He's so patient and loving. What a man he is!

 Joshy wasn't a huge fan of my idea of having all the boys stacked up on top of daddy. He's trying to push the other boys off in this picture.

 Here's a picture with a natural smile from Seth! Handsome boy!

 This picture cracks me up...from Rosey sacked out in the background, to Sam with his legs crossed in his underwear, to the random washrag on the floor leftover from folding laundry. This is real life!

 And finally, these pictures of Sammy and Josh. Sam was being so patient with Josh (who's new thing is sitting on the boys' back while they read). They are so sweet with him!



Joshua: 18 months

At 18 months, Josh has 3 true passions: balls, coloring, and brushing his teeth. Each of these little hobbies of his tend to cause some problems. For example, not everything that is round is a "ball" so throwing our neighbors decorative glass ball and shattering it on their lawn was a tough lesson. Another difficult and everyday lesson: you ONLY color on paper--not carpet, tables, or fridges. And while I applaud his passion for spending hours a day brushing his teeth, this has also been problematic in our household. He uses everyone's toothbrushes, and then throws them on the ground for our dog to chew on. He can barely reach the sink even with a stool, so there have been several tumbles. And, well, you'll just have to see the pictures to understand where toothpaste has left us.

Passionate is a good word for Joshy. He's intense. He's usually happy, but if he's not, he's screaming. If he gets an idea in his head, woe to the person who tries to change his mind. Thank goodness he's finally starting to get better at communicating so that he can say things like "help" (sounds like hout), "eat" and "out mama." These simple little words have minimized the screaming. He just wants to do anything the big boys are doing, so if they are doing school work, he's coloring (sounds like cararing). If they are playing basketball, he's trying to dribble like them. If Ben is raking the lawn, then he will drag an adult-sized rake out and "help" out along side of him.

He's not a great independent player inside, mostly because all he wants to do is color or brush his teeth; however, outside he's a champ. He's content for hours and wants to go outside first thing in the morning. Dirt, sand, balls, water, tools...he's definitely all boy.

His language has exploded: mama, daddy, Sath (said for both boys), eat, foop (poop), help, out, doggy, hi, oh wow, doggy, all done, more, Edmund, car, shoe, foot, hand. And when he's not expanding his vocabulary, he's jabbering like we can understand every word he says.

Grossest moment of the month: discovering him stealing half-eaten ice cubes from our puppy and sticking them in own mouth. Disgusting!

We sure love this little boy: passion, fits, sharing toothbrushes and ice cubes with dogs, jabbering, dirt, trouble and all!

 He learned how to put hats (or boxes) on this month

 Go Blazers! 

 He pulled his chair next to Ben and sat down very proud of himself.

 Josh is SO helpful during Ben's work at home phone calls

 

Day #1 of tooth paste on the face

 Day #2 he got a bit more creative

"What mom? You have a problem with this?" Such a rascal!

Warm Winter

We were blessed with the warmest February that I can remember (Hence my hiatus from blogging! Too much to do outside to be inside on my computer!)

 

We filled our days with friends and family visiting, playing at parks, and even a quick day trip to the beach. Here's some pictures recapping February:

 

Ok, so I think that this was January, but here's our dear friends, the Willards over for the morning to play! We really miss living close to them, but still try to see each other as much as possible.

 We were also visited by our cousins on the Morris side who live about an hour away in Estacada. When Alicia and Kasie visit with their kids, my twins are the oldest--out of 8 kids. It's busy to say the least. Notice the amount of use we get out of the sand pit.

 My dad came over for President's Day weekend and helped us get a kick start on all of our yard work. He's such a hard worker and just who we needed to see!

 Seth and Rosey

 We got to host a lunch for Aidah's seventh birthday here at our house. As always, the cousins loved being together.

 My parents gave Aidah a book on fairies, and here's a picture of all the big kids searching for fairies in the pages.

 The birthday girl

 Josh spends his days trying to be like Seth and Sam, which of course means wearing a helmet when riding in vehicles. Note all the chairs and the hand truck behind the wagon: this is Sam's motor home.

 

 The boys and I visited a "new to us" park in St. Helen's. It is right on the river and boasts spectacular views on a clear day. Josh LOVES slides and does not hesitate at all to go down all on his own...I just better be there to catch him!

 

 Sammy

 Seth wasn't too keen to have his picture snapped

 

Here's a few pictures from our Astoria beach adventure

 Sam ready to fly his foam airplane.

 Seth sporting a new double hat fashion trend

 The boys headed out to check out the ship ruins

 

 

 Rascal

 Yep, just make yourself comfortable, Joshy

 This is not the greatest picture, but the story behind it totally cracks me up. Seth found this piece of firewood and was determined to bring it home like a souvenir. "Mom, we can use it for our fires at home!"

 

This past weekend, we were blessed to host all our Morris family in order to celebrate Caleb's 18th birthday together. I cannot believe he turned 18--he was 4 when Ben and I started dating!

 Seth and Sam made him some pretty spectacular cards and "gifts" such as writing him a song and a homemade ornament. He's so patient and kind with them!