Guess who else can wakeboard?

Yours truly, thank you very much. I got right up on my first try also. Pretty awesome if you ask me. And luckily for me Janet was there to be our personal photographer for the whole trip so there are actually pictures of me for once.

Wakeboarding lessons

We decided it was time to try wakeboarding (we do have a tower on our boat after all) so last weekend we borrowed wakeboards from our friends and took a trip out to the lake. Frejya went first and had no trouble getting up at all. I was very impressed! Gabe got in the water with her to help her get a feel for the board and to help her hold it in place while she got going her first couple of times. So that meant I was in charge of pulling her up. And somehow it went perfectly. It was very cool to watch her learn. Plus she caught on way faster than I did when I first went waterskiing as a kid. I guess we'll be buying ourselves some wakeboards soon.

Baby fever

I got to go see little Jack on Friday night and he is so cute!! There is just nothing better than holding a new little baby in your arms. Mary looked great and it sounds like they had quite the adventure with the birth. Our babies just come out way too fast! But they made it to the hospital and had about 20 minutes there before he came out. I can't wait to go back to visit them soon.

Fish guts

Warning: this post is going to be extremely disgusting. I hesitate to write it even, but I'm going to anyways.

Gabe has actually had time to make it out to the bay twice in recent weeks. Which means we have halibut. Halibut!! Yummy!! But it also means we have fish guts. Ok, so we don't still have them. It's not like we hold onto them or something. That would just be gross. But while Gabe is cleaning the fish, we definitely have fish guts. And Frejya seems to really enjoy learning about the inside of a fish. She shows me what is in the fish's stomach (usually a smaller fish of some sort, in case you were curious) and looks at all the other fish parts. The eyes especially seem to interest her. Maybe this means she will go on to be a doctor or something awesome like that, but for now it is really just nasty. And she ends up looking like this:

I told you it was going to be disgusting. You were warned. But seriously, is that not the grossest thing ever? It freaks me out a bit. And then I make her strip and not touch anything and get right into the shower. So yucky.

Now for some completely non-gross news. Baby Jack was born last night!! Hooray for baby Jack! And for Mary and Chris and Iris too!! And he decided to come fast and furious just like all the other babies in our family. Once they decide they want out, they make no hesitation in getting out as fast as they can. Too fast I think.

I'm pretty sure that's not what it's for

Gabriel was given a train table last weekend. We still don't have any trains for it (they're coming soon!), but Gabriel doesn't seem to mind. He actually has no idea that anything's missing. He loves his table. I'm not quite sure he understands that it's not a bed, though. And it's sort of become my laundry folding table in the meantime too. But Gabriel had had enough of laundry time and threw all the clothes on the floor yesterday afternoon so that he could have a little rest. He's a funny little guy.

He also found a marker (in Frejya's room probably; that's the most un-toddler-friendly room in the world I think) and decided to decorate himself with it. And boy was he proud. I've never seen him smile so big as when he was showing me how he writes on his tummy. But he was not happy when I took the marker away. And please ignore his red, puffy eyes in all of these pictures. He inherited the awful curse of the sensitive blue eyes from me. He rubbed a little sunscreen in them after playing in the hose and they stayed red and puffy for hours.

Now that school has started, Frejya is doing a whole lot of homework every day. So mostly this is what she's doing in the evenings while Gabriel is running around coloring on things that shouldn't be colored on and climbing on things that aren't meant to be climbed on:

And so I am getting an awful lot of looks like this from her:

Bubble bath pool party

I really have no idea how this got started but the kids seemed to really enjoy it. This cheap little pool has gotten a lot of use in our backyard this summer. Last weekend Frejya and her friend Charlie filled it with mud, this week it was filled with bubbles. It's anyone's guess what this thing will be used for next week. 

The family dinner

They say that eating dinner together as a family greatly benefits your kids. But sometimes I wonder what exactly my kids are getting out of our family dinners. Because dinner time at our house is always just such a treat. For example, last night at the dinner table Gabriel learned how to spit. Seriously. I didn't get a very good shot of it, but here he is trying.

Frejya was not amused.

We distracted him from his new talent by trying to get him to make silly faces instead. He thought it was hilarious.

Frejya tried to teach him some different faces.

And he's a pretty fast learner.

Don't you wish you got to eat dinner with us every night?

Just dance

Just Dance for the wii might be one of the greatest games ever. New Years Eve last year was spent dancing the night away with all of our friends. Because what better way to end the year than by doing ridiculous dance moves while everyone makes fun of you?! So when Joshie brought over Just Dance for Kids yesterday, we knew it would be a fun afternoon. And Joshie and Frejya didn't disappoint. They were hilarious to watch. And they take it so seriously. The whole time they were discussing who was winning. I think in this game, the only true winners are the ones who are watching.

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

We went out to dinner to celebrate Frejya winning the 7-8 girls high point award for swimming (meaning that she scored more points for the team than any other 7-8 year old girls). How awesome for her to have won this award?! And it was the second time that she's won; she also won high point as a 6 year old. We are just so proud of her! And she's pretty proud of herself also.

Gabriel did a pretty good job of entertaining us during dinner.

Silas and Gabriel

These boys were just too cute together. I thought Gabriel was big for his age, but Silas is enormous compared to him. He made Gabriel look and seem like a baby. Gabriel is so not close to knowing all of his colors yet. He actually doesn't know any of his colors yet. But they were fun to watch. They mostly played on their own and wanted what the other was playing with. And there was some hugging when they decided they did want to interact. What little cuties!! As we were walking Kara and Silas out, we discovered that the sprinklers were on in the front yard. The boys had fun getting wet as they said their goodbyes.

Monday madness

What a busy weekend! We hung out with friends every single night and got nothing done around the house but it was so worth it. All of Saturday was spent out on the lake in the boat. Janet and Brent finally got to come out with us. We did some tubing and kneeboarding and I was super excited to get up on the kneeboard finally. I also drove the boat off of and onto the trailer. I'm finally starting to get the hang of this boat-driving thing!

Gabriel enjoyed hanging out on the boat as always. And he really enjoyed the chocolate chip cookies Janet made for the trip.

We spent Saturday night hanging out with our dear friends Jim and Adrienne. They have the most fun backyard ever and they just added to the fun-factor in their house this weekend by buying a 3D television. Frejya thought it was the coolest thing ever.

And now it's Monday and a new week has started. I'm super stoked to get to hang out with one of my oldest and dearest friends today. Hopefully I'll remember to snap a couple photos of our little cuties so that I'll have something to blog about tomorrow.