A (Summer) Day in the Life: Dutch Edition

8:00 AM Breakfast (banana and milk) and some Curious George

 

 

9:30 AM Pants off. Time to play in the toy room (yes it always looks like that, I give up).

 10:45 time for Elevensies. More milk and a strawberry waffle.

 11:15 Helping mom (and sister) make playdoh. We've been making a lot of playdoh around here as someone seems to just eat most of it. I don't know this for a fact but am hopeful that homemade Jello flavored playdoh is a little less harsh than the canned??

 12:00 Of course.

 12:15 Mom puts the play doh away and a tantrum ensues.

 There's only one cure for tantrums in this house: Cookie Monster videos on YouTube.

 1:00 Lunch (left over chicken enchilada quinoa casserole and blueberries with watermelon).

1:30 Cleaned up and out back.

 Where we play on the deck

 and in the water.

 And search the skies for airplanes.

2:30 Clothes get wet so our boy takes them off (and this of course gives him a good reason to pee off the deck).

 3:00 Snack (Frozen gogurt--still no clothes)

 6:00 Dinner time!

 

That's all folks!
(You will have noticed of course, that no where in this series did you see that this 2  year old closed his eyes or drifted off to sleep for any amount of time. And that's for good reason. He never naps for us!!! Something happens to my children at 2 that turns off the napping button for good. It's really distressing.)

Sundays are for adventurin'

(Pics from two recent Sunday adventures)

 

 Dutch at Rasar State Park. One of our favorite places. Dutch and I fell waaaay behind Cam, Clem and Taco due to his love of identifying every rock, stick and leaf.

 But finally we caught sight of our beloveds!

 On the way home from Rasar I noticed that all the cars were pulling over to the side of the road. We originally thought there was an accident but then folks pulled out their cameras. This is what was happening: a herd of Elk had run across the highway and was prancing and enjoying their freedom in this open field. There were HUGE bucks in the herd of about 30 elk. We watched for awhile before heading home.

 On a particularly hot Sunday we hit up a new to us park where Clem discovered her love of rolling down hills and Dutch discovered his love of swings!

Fox Hollow Farm

 A few weeks ago, I drove down with my kidlets to our old stomping grounds in Issaquah (I miss you Issaquah!). My homey Emma had enticed me down there with pictures of this amazing farmyard, knowing it was my dream come true! And it didn't disappoint in any way. The kids and I had a fabulous day.

 In the farmyard, there are tons of animals to pat, they are just super used to human contact!

 In my all time favorite Dutch story of the summer, he walked up to this mama sow--yelling as they sauntered toward one another "HEY PIG!" She was not fazed by his noise one bit. When they got face to face, Dutch threw both of his arms up and said "Hey PIG! Why are you so messy??!!??" It was classic Dutch.

 In all honesty, I thought about taking one of these polka dot piglets home with me. They are not only adorable, but incredibly friendly!

 Then we explored other parts of the farm as well! There was a HUGE bin of dried corn kernels. Clementine and baby Penny LOVED the action in there. Dutchy, not so much. There was a mini-fit, actually.

All around the farm, there is a new nook to explore, more animals to gawk at and TONS we didn't even get to see! There was a little playground with beautifully landscaping all around. I love this rock bed (get on it Cam would ya?) and not until I posted the pic did I notice the peacock. Do you see it?

I LOVE this Fair!

 Every year I end up taking Clem to the fair on the HOTTEST DAY OF THE YEAR. This one was no different. Yesterday, Sissy came up with her boys and we took 75% of the kids to the fair (Dutch was at school). The temperature when I left the fair at 3:30 was 95 degrees. It was nuts.

 First we sweated in the barn, checking out the animals.

 Then we took this party outside to sweat on all the rides.

 Nolan took a while to warm up but not Clem, she was ready to go on every single ride. A few times, Nolan hung back to watch Clementine the first round, then he would join her for a second or third ride.

 They seriously went through this little fun house 15 times (at least)

 Miles used the power of NO! when it came to sharing strawberry lemonade. Thank goodness for $1 refills! We probably abused that system a bit.

This is when things got REAL hot. You can tell it's hot by looking at poor Nolan's face!! It was too hot to take any more pictures so we called it a day.
I am SO glad my favorite nephews came up to enjoy the fair day with us! What a blast the big kids had!!!

Silver Lake

 

We were able to check another box off the Summer Bucket List with our first--definitely not last--trip out to Silver Lake. This play/camp-ground is about halfway between our house and Mt. Baker. We had a blast and will definitely be back!

 In addition to trails, lake and camping spots, Silver Lake had a great playground! Our kids loved it--although on this hot day there were spots that were just too hot to really enjoy (like the scorch-your-butt slide).

 

 There was a lovely, picturesque walking path with a bridge that took us up and over the lake. Paddle boats and canoes passed under us as we went across.

The water there was very clear and lots of folks were either on or in it. This mama didn't know that it'd be such a great place for swimming! Our poor kids were directed to go no higher than their knees. (Guess how long that lasted??) 

Our Annual August Artist Point Trip

August is hot around these here parts. And this August seems to be hotter than ever. So for our most recent Sunday adventures, we headed up high. As high as you can get round here. We drove to the top of Mt. Baker!

Speaking of hot, look at my mountain man! Hubba hubba.

 Clementine has been carrying around this squirrel with her for the last few days. He loved the adventures in nature on top of the mountain, for obvious reasons.

 Dutchy is still just too unpredictable to trust on top of a mountain with trails that twist and turn. So this little fellow got to ride on my back--probably for the last time up at Artist Point!

 Because he is the tenderest tender soul from tender town, he kept kissing the back of my arms, rubbing my back and letting out a big sigh as he rested his head against me. He's incredibly loving.

 Which is good, because tenderness doesn't make this load any lighter.

 We were surprised at the amount of snow left over at the top. There were kids sledding and throwing snowballs up there. It was pretty much the best way to cool down on a such a hot day.

And the views were pretty beautiful, if I do say so myself!