A Visit from Family

Last week we had the opportunity to have family come visit.  My dad, his wife Ruth and her daugher, Raquel, as well as my brother and his family came for 4 days to Oregon and played with us.  Because i' super lame and I forget my camera all the time, I have very few picture to show you.  So, I will just have to paint with my words their visit...
We tried to give them a true "Oregon experience" by taking them to some worthwhile places.  First was the beach.  We went to Oswald beach about an hour and a half a way from us, which in my opinion is the nicest beach that I have been to in Oregon.  It is a nice cove surrounded by a beautiful forest that has a sweet little water fall and lots of small sea creatures.  The only pictures I took are of Nate and Matt, although there were lots of family members there, just not in my pictures (because I am really lame).

My two favorite guys walking along the beach

Matt is actually terrified of the beach (biggest understatement of the year). So, as they were walking, Matt pretty much cried most of the way.

He spent most of his time far away from the water building "sand castles".

This would be one of his sand castles.  Notice the impressive architectural detail.

Adorable!

There were some really cool trees on the hike down to the beach.

On the way back home, Lydia was sad, so Matt held her hand. He is such a good big brother!

I should also mention that My aunt Karen came up with my dad and we were able to spend the day at the beach with her and her son Jason who lives in Portland, as well as his very nice girlfriend Julieanne.

Some other activities that we did with my family while they were here were berry picking (of course), canning strawberry jam that we made with our berries, having fun at Out of this World Pizza and lots of playing at the parks.  It was a really fun visit and we're glad that everyone was able to make the trip up to see us!  It's always really fun to see family since we live kind of far away.

Swimming Lessons

Now that Matt is 3 1/2 we decided that now is a good time to put him in a more structured activity so someone else can entertain him, where he can learn something new.  We enrolled him in the two week course for at the local aquatic center, where he goes Mon. through Fri. for a half an hour to swim.  He was really excited to go to the first lesson, but when he realized that it wasn't just playing with toys in the water, he decided he didn't want to do it anymore.  The second day he cried through his whole lesson.  Luckily his teachers are young and don't have any kids really patient and they worked with him a lot to help him be happy in the water.  After the third day he was pretty much loving swimming lessons.  We have only completed the first week and have one more week left to do, hopefully this week Matt can work on listening to his teachers instead of just wanting to start water fights with the girl next to him :)

He loves to bob up and down on the side of the pool, and that would be the little girl who he loves to splash. My children are classy.

Summer Goings On

Having Nate home for the summer has been a lot of fun.  It's been nice to have time together and lots of fun activities as a family.  Although, there are those times when Nate is a work and we have to be really creative how we spend our time so as to not get insanely bored!

So, we plan with dish soap, milk and food coloring and get really messy!

And make really cool bubbles

And have entertainment for an hour!

While Lulu watches and laughs at her brother :)

Having Nate home also means that I am able to go to the berry farms by myself and pick 9 lbs of berries to make jam.  

I love living in a place where I can go to a farm and pick such yummy fruit!  I love summer in Oregon!

Teeth!

Our sweet little Lydia is such an angel!  So, when she was having a hard time sleeping at night and not letting anyone but mom and dad hold her we knew something definitely was up. We knew she was teething, but it seemed liked it had been since she was 4 months old that she was teething.  She has always been drooly and chewed on her fingers nonstop, so we really weren't sure this time it was the real deal.  Luckily, for everyone's sake it was!  Within two days of each other, she had two teeth come in; one on top and one on bottom on the same side.

I always thought that I loved a toothless smile the best, but now seeing such a happy smile all the time with her little top tooth, I think I love that even more!  Seriously, adorable!  She has been so happy with her two teeth, especially since now she gets to eat so many new things: watermelon, banana (not pureed), apple pie, pretty much all of Matt's cracker snacks, just to name a few.  That's right, this little girl loves food, so anything that lets her try new foods is amazing!

Just because I know you all really wanted to see another picture of such an adorable baby!  

Camping! (Well, sort of...)

Here at the Steenblik house we like to bring the outdoors in; like the zoo, and now camping.  I'm pretty much a baby when it comes to camping.  I really cannot see the point in sleeping on the ground and using gross bathrooms when one can sleep in a comfortable bed and use a clean bathroom, free of spiders and mosquitoes.  Don't get me wrong, I love nature, hiking, walking and campfires.  I even like cooking and eating outdoors, but just not sleeping outside.  Matt has been wanting to go camping lately and I know we'll eventually go this summer, but fun dad decided to pop the tent in the living room and have a close to camping experience in our own home.  We made beds inside for Matt and Nate (I slept on my own comfortable bed), and put the t.v. inside the tent to make it a fun movie night!

Matt, pretty excited to have a tent in his living room!

Matt and daddy, excited to "camp"

Curious George went camping with us.

We even made s'mores....in the microwave...not as good as the real thing.

But hey, this kid doesn't know the difference!

Chair Redo!

So, like 3 or so months ago I bought some chairs on craigslist for $10.  They were definitely in need of some lovin', but I knew they had some potential; they were all a little different, long backs and some great character.  However, I bought them before we went out of town and after we got back I didn't really know exactly what I wanted to do with them.  So, I decided to wait and then Nate was nudging me a couple of weeks ago to do something with them or sell them.  That was right around the time when Ace was giving away free paint.  So, I picked out a color and started sanding the chairs. The chairs have an upholstered seat and were in desperate need of new fabric and padding.  Luckily I went on the right day to Joann fabric and got a really awesome sturdy fabric that would have been $30 for only $7!  I have only done 2 out of the 4 chairs so far, but I'm really happy how the 2 have turned out!

Here is one of the chairs before the redo.  On each of the chairs there were like 4 layers of  really gross fabric and lots and lots of staples.

And here is the finished product!  I still want to add a finish them, like a polyacrylic or a  wax so they don't scratch as easy.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out!

Fathers' Day

Well, this is embarrassingly late...Oh well, you do what you can.  In case people didn't know, Nate is working at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Course for the summer.  It's a pretty fancy golf course that is actually a PGA course where Tiger Woods has played.  Since Nate gets his golf for free he has been playing whenever the sun is shining.  Matt LOVES Nate's golf set and gets so excited when Nate plays with him in the house; which is pretty cute to watch the two of them play together. Nate and I had the same idea one evening to get Matt his own (plastic) set so that he could play while dad plays.  The morning of Father's Day, Nate was a sweetheart and played golf with Matt.  Matt pretty much thinks Nate is coolest, and really he is!

Nate showing Matt how to hit the ball with his new set! Look at that grin on Matt's face!  Ignore the unfolded laundry on the couch...

I think Nate is a bit too tall for this set.





  

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Nate really is an excellent dad; many times I find myself wishing I could be half as fun as he is.  Matt loves spending time with his dad, and gets excited when he knows Nate is coming home.  He is the one who comes up with all of the creative ideas of activities for our family and makes our life more fun and interesting.  I can't imagine what our life would be like without Nate, I do know that it would be a lot more stressful, since he balances out my type A tendencies.  He is a great example not only to our kids but to me of how to be a hard worker and also balance out having fun.  During the school year Nate did his best to get good grades (3.9 GPA!) as well as spending time with us.  It was tough sometimes for him, but he did a great job and we appreciate all that he does for our family.  Our children are so lucky to have him as a dad and I appreciate all of the sacrifices he makes for us.  This really is the tip of the ice burg when it comes to all the things that he does for us, but I just wanted to publicly acknowledge what a great dad Nate is!  Happy Fathers' Day Nate!

We Made a Zoo!

You would think that living in Oregon, we would be so used to the rain that nothing would stop us from going to the zoo on a rainy day.  You would think, but you would be wrong... we're not the type of people who could withstand the rain outside with a 6 and a half month old.  I know, we're wimps, but oh well.  I told Nate that he would have to be the one to break the news to Matt, especially after I got him all pumped up to go see the giraffes.  Nate, of course being the much more awesome parent than I am decided to make our house into a zoo (as if it's not already one all the time).

This would be the elephant that I drew in like two minutes!

We had Matt play in his room for about a half an hour while Nate made stove popped popcorn, and set up the zoo and I drew pictures of the animals to go on the walls.

The Insect Tunnel.  this is where Nate and Matt put on the insect masks and pretended to be bugs.

The Bear's Den.  We couldn't get a real bear on such short notice, so Whinnie the Pooh had to stand in.

The Tiger House.  Tigger was a good sport to be our fill in tiger.

I think one of Matt's favorite things about the zoo today was the train.  Nate was a good sport and took Matt on a daddy train ride (Matt rode on his back) touring the zoo, all while holding his popcorn. So, even though it was disappointing not going to the Portland Zoo, we still had a great time!

Thrifting in Oregon!

Hello all,
I realize that I'm really lame and I will not consistently update this blog, but what the heck, you might get a few updates here and there.  Really truly, our lives are  not very exciting, but we live so far away from family, so I will try to exaggerate give you an accurate account of the goings on in here in Oregon.  First thing's first, and I'm not going to exaggerate on this one: thrifting is the BEST here in Oregon!  Let me educate all of you who do not live in the bounteous land.  Why pay full price, or even a discounted price at a retail store when you can reap the rewards of very frivolous people who donate extremely nice clothing to thrift stores?  After going thrifting to my favorite places nearby I have acquired an almost exclusive wardrobe for my children of Baby Gap and Gymboree in perfect condition, Nike, Aeropostle, American Eagle, Gap, Anne Taylor Loft, Nautica, and many other brand name clothing for Nate and myself.  How much do I pay for said items you may be asking?  29 cents to $2 a piece for each.  Being on a very tight student budget with an appetite for well made clothing can be tough if it were not for AMAZING places like Thrift City, and the Goodwill "Bins".  Although, thrifting is one of my hobbies, I feel incredibly blessed to be able to have this available to me.  It also provides for a fun activity to do with friends, and I always have a good time with my fellow Optometry wife, thrifty ladies!  Maybe sometime I will post pictures of my awesome finds so those that haven't experienced the thrill of a truly great buy will understand :)  Oh, and by the way, all of the clothes that we are wearing in our family photos were thrifted, just thought you might want to know that...