Harvest Time!!!

Wayne planted our first garden this year. When we lived in California, we grew a few things on the balcony of our apartment, but this is our first REAL garden. Turns out it's a lot of work...no problem for me since Wayne did it all. And it turned out GREAT!!! Unfortunately for Wayne, he had to go back to work in Barrow before it was time to harvest. He did all the work, and now the kids and I are enjoying the fruit of his labors. Thanks, Honey!

This is less than half of the garden. It was pretty big for a first attempt!

Cheesy face. It never gets old. :)

Chase and his cousins were so excited to hold the vegetables! They recognized what each vegetable was and were practically dancing in their pants waiting for me to cut them off the plant and hand them over to their eager little hands. So cute! We had a FABULOUS dinner that night with all our fresh veggies.

"We love our VEGGIES!!!!"
I will remind them of this when they are teenage boys living on pizza and Cheetos.

Part 2

These pictures are in reverse order...someday I'll blog often enough to remember to select the pictures backward so they load in the right order. In the meantime, here's our life in reverse.

Chase hanging out in the airport on the way to Calgary. It was a long trip and all of us showed up INCREDIBLY tired, but we got a good nap in before the big family dinner. I don't think I've ever seen my eyes that bloodshot...even after hours of swim practice in overly-chlorinated water. It was bad. Sharon (Wayne's mom) was an angel and stayed up with Saryn all night the first night we were in Calgary so that Wayne and I could get some sleep. That was so wonderful. :)

My little swimmer.

Baking peanut butter cookies with Aunt Jaime...yum!

Saryn's bath time...she fits just perfectly for now!

Jacob and Chase rafting at Ballaine Lake. It looks like we sent them out on the lake alone, but rest assured there is a very capable adult on the other end of that rope. :)

Saryn was napping in the life jacket bucket while the big boys went rafting.

Chase taking care of "Baby Ruby". He sat down on the mat in the corner to snuggle her to sleep.

Once again....pretty sure she's the only person in the world who thinks this is comfortable. :)

Picture Dump (part 1)

Here's a few pictures of our kiddos this summer. I've been sick for several weeks now and I'm pretty tired, so this post is mostly pictures with very little explanation. :)

Out at the Chena River one night...Chase wandered back behind these trees to "do his business"...I think he was expecting privacy but I found him with my camera. You can't tell from the picture because he had just finished and was heading back to the water, but it was pretty funny to me that he went in the trees to do it where no one was watching. He's still in diapers, I didn't think he cared yet.

Chase discovered rain boots and wore them all day...inside....with his soccer shorts. Such a cutie.

Pretty sure she's the only person who thinks this is comfortable...

Train ride at Alaskaland with G&G Henrie. Chase loves trains...and cars, and airplanes, and helicopters, and boats, and motorcycles, and firetrucks, and backhoes, and tractors, and excavators, and....

My little model.

Suddenly my little boy appears to be a GIANT. Amazing how a newborn changes your perspective. :)

Saryn was about a week or 10 days old here. Grandma Henrie made her this quilt, I love it!

Chase was practicing his balancing act with my emesis basin from the hospital. He got quite good at walking all the way across the living room without letting it fall off.

Just because he's cute. :)

Baby Time

Our little one finally arrived! She was actually born 2.5 weeks ago, I'm just slow in blogging about it. Anyone surprised out there? Didn't think you would be. :)

So, here's the info:

Saryn Joye Henrie
7 lbs. 11 oz
20 1/2 inches

She's really, really cute and a total snuggle bug. She already hates sleeping by herself...hopefully that doesn't become a big problem. Chase seems to like her quite a bit. He gets the cutest little sad and concerned look on his face whenever she cries, and immediately looks for her "plugger" to make her happy again. He's going to be a fabulous big brother, I'm sure of it. :)

These are totally out of order...I always forget that blogger loads the pictures backwards. Oh well. Also not sure why my first part is blue and underlined, but I can't get it to change and I'd rather sleep right now than try to figure it out. :)

Daddy and Saryn at the hospital.

Chase opening the present "sister" got him. :) Nothing like starting out on his good side, right?

Chase meeting Saryn for the first time.

I love her little nose and pouty lips!

One day old!

That's it for now. More to come someday. :)

Mommy Rhapsody

This is a cute video for all of us moms out there. I found it on Wayne's cousin's blog (thanks, Jennifer!)

Hope you enjoy it!

http://vimeo.com/11621957

Fairbanks Fun

First of all, I just have to say that blogging is WAY faster with the internet in Fairbanks than it is in Barrow. Maybe I would do it more often if we lived here. Probably not though. :)

So we've been in Fairbanks for the last 10 days or so, and it has been wonderful! We have had lots of fun and are really enjoying the warm weather! It's been sunny and above freezing almost the whole time! Here's a few pictures of our trip. Most of our time has been spent hanging out with Mike, Amanda, Kaiya, and Camdon, so that's what all the pictures are!

Chase wrestling with Uncle Mike. He was THRILLED to have some rough and tumble boy time since he's been away from Daddy for almost 2 weeks.

He found a screwdriver on the table and immediately went over to the changing table and started trying to take the screws out. This kid knows his tools...his Daddy is raising him right! Haha...between his dad, his uncles, and his grandpa he will DEFINITELY be a little handy man.

I love his concentration face!

We got to visit Grandma and Grandpa Engebretson as well...Chase came close to tearing their house apart, but they were very patient with him! I think this is a great picture.

Oh, and I love this one too. I couldn't get one of Chase looking at the camera, but he and Grampa were having LOTS of fun playing in the snow together. Chase adores his Grampa....as do I.

Michael built a cool little snow tunnel for Kaiya a while back, so she showed Chase how it works. It took him a little while to realize that he was actually capable of MOVING in his snowsuit, but he figured it out and was pretty proud of himself for crawling through the tunnel!

He got a new swimsuit this trip, and the other night it was really warm in the house so he just wore his swimsuit all evening. Kaiya loves to wear her swimsuit any time, any place, any temperature. Last night she wanted to go outside but did NOT want to put on her clothes, so Michael finally convinced her to put on a coat at least and let her go outside like that. I wish I had a picture of her, it was so cute...she was just wearing her Little Mermaid swimsuit, a coat and hat, and a pair of boots. (I'm seeing a lot of Jaime in Miss Kaiya!!) She walked all over the place and all was well until she tried to crawl through the snow tunnel...then she realized that it was pretty cold in the snow without her snowsuit, so she asked her Daddy to take her inside to put on her snowsuit. So cute. I guess some things we just have to learn by experience. :)

Eating apples on the kitchen floor. Not OFF the kitchen floor, ON the kitchen floor. Just wanted to clarify.

Kaiya has a little train conductor hat that Chase wore around one morning. Pretty cute stuff.

Well, that's it for tonight. Hope you enjoyed the pictures! I realized while posting that I don't have any pictures of Camdon or Amanda, so we'll have to remedy that tomorrow before we head home to Barrow. :)

A few pictures to share...

I always forget that blogger loads your pictures backwards...this isn't the best picture to start the post with, but some people (mistakenly) have the impression that Chase is a perfect child. He's really, really close, but he does get grumpy on occasion. Here's the proof:

I still think he's cute, even when he's wearing his grumpy pants. :)

Chase LOVES the bathtub! I'm wondering if he will be a swimmer because he LOVES to lay down in the bathtub and kick his feet around like crazy. Most kids hate getting their ears wet, but he loves it! Funny kid.

This is a random picture of the bread sticks I made a few weeks ago...I took a picture because they turned out so perfectly (which NEVER happens!), so I wanted to document it. I was really proud of myself that night. :)

I asked Chase to get me a diaper. He did.

Winding down, watching Signing Time with Tigger and his car blanket. He loves these things!
That's all for now...I probably need to import the pictures from my camera so I can post more recent ones, but that's what I've got for you tonight. I really am trying to be better about blogging!