Bath Time!

Bath time is one of the more exciting times in this house. Thomas really seems to enjoy his nightly baths, it was one of the first words that he could clearly say. And related to that - bubble!

The one thing I have always felt bath time was lacking was fun towels. I mean, his baby towels were cute enough, but he soon outgrew them and their pretty meager drying abilities. Then I just used our towels, which are more functional, but hardly exciting.

Not that he ever complained. He's happy with whatever. But I felt the situation could be remedied by someone that knew how to sew. Sure, we have a sewing machine that Matt's mom (Grannie) gave us, but I don't exactly know how to sew. Matt has actually done more sewing than me...

But Grannie was happy to remedy the situation in the form of a super cool birthday gift! And of course, it had to be Sesame Street! I couldn't get him to cooperate long enough to take a photo, but this one is obviously Elmo. And unlike the cake, he would actually admit it. :)

He really likes his Elmo towel. And he's a nice enough brother that he was willing to give one of the other towels to his younger brother. 

Henry is still a little small for a full sized towel, but he's just so cute in it - how can I resist?? There's also a Cookie Monster towel that got sent to school for water days. But honestly I think the Oscar the Grouch towel is my favorite. Those eyebrows are just ridiculously adorable!

Thanks for the awesome present, Grannie - not only does Thomas love them, so do the rest of us!

Four (25.5) Months!

Four whole months has flown by since Henry joined the family. And as much as I was convinced he was going to be a chart topper on weight, his check up this week showed he wasn't much above average on weight. But on height? Top of the chart! So either way, Henry is not going to be a small guy!

The doctor was telling me that since he was so tall, his weight to height ratio was actually really low. His following words were "but I don't think anyone will be calling him skinny..." Ha - look at those cheeks! If those aren't the pudgiest, most kissable cheeks... :)

I digress. The boys were both in a reasonably cooperative mood for photos today! You may have noticed that the chair has moved - Henry got the boot from our bedroom and is in his own room. This was driven by the fact he has been sleeping so well except when we disturb him moving around in the evenings or morning. So far, it's been great - this guy sleeps like a champ!

Thomas must have gotten tired of all the "Henry is so big" chat this month, he kept standing up to prove he is still the big brother! :)

Such a happy baby! Thomas took off on me again, so I got a few close ups of Henry. 

But then big brother was back and wanted to give his little brother a kiss. So adorable! Thomas hasn't quite mastered the kissing pucker and kissing noise, but he has at least started closing his mouth instead of coming at people with an open mouth slobber kiss. I'd call that improvement!

Thomas loves my camera. But unlike most things he loves, he doesn't get to play with it. But he's always super helpful about giving me my lens cap when I put it down and wanting to look at photos I've taken. We ended up giving him one of our old digital cameras and while he hasn't quite mastered picture taking, he sure loves trying and looking at the photos we helped him take. Give him time...!

So long for another month. I'm hoping next month we have a little less lean and a lot more "sitting up on our own" for the little guy. We'll see - I can't seem to remember when Thomas hit these milestones and haven't resorted to googling. It will happen when it happens. :)

A Kenai Weekend With the Texans

We (this usage of the word we reflects both the Hoyt's and Hyden's) hadn't seen our good friends Rachael & Justin since they had their baby shower back in August of last year. They had obviously had their baby since then, so we were excited to see all three of them. And they were pretty excited to meet Henry as well. :)

Brittney, Rachael (and obviously Theresa) and I all have the same camera - though they have the slightly newer model. I had a slight advantage on having been interested in photography since high school, so I've just needed to brush up on the skills needed to play with aperture, shutter and ISO settings. They both have mentioned wanting to learn more, so we all brought our cameras with the intention of practicing together. That somehow never happened, but it did mean that I brought my flash bounce along, so I at least got some good indoor photos of the kids. Doesn't James look dashing and so well lit??

James is about 5 months older than Henry, but the two of them were remarkably close in size! I knew Henry was outgrowing his clothes faster than Thomas, but he looked like a giant this weekend. Of course, James had the much desired sitting up skill mastered. Can't wait for that one!

Henry has also discovered rattles. Thomas never much cared for them, but if I can get Henry to hold on to it, he will shake it around forever. The guy must like making noise. Not a surprise in this family....

While Rachael and I hung out with the kids all morning, the rest of the group went out fishing. They went out on the Kenai river with a guide and caught a ton of trout! Apparently it is bad form to keep the trout, so the guide was in a hurry to get them back in the water - which is why he is holding the fish in most of the photos:

Although the trout fishing was going super awesome, we wanted to make sure they got to take some salmon home with them (and I wanted some too!), so they did spend some time fishing from the bank and caught three sockeyes. Two and a half went straight to processing, but half of one came back with the fishers for dinner. Yum!

I was a bit bummed / jealous that I didn't get to go fishing, but I certainly didn't mind not having to get up at 4:30 to meet the guide. A leisurely morning was pretty nice!

After everyone was back and mostly napping, Thomas and I went out to explore the property. First he had to go see "dada's car" that Matt rode down on. It was the bike's first trip out in Alaska and it sounds like it rode like a champ!

Then we walked to the backyard - the Kenai river is literally right behind the house. It's very common for river houses to have a similar set of stairs and boardwalks along the bank of the river for fishing. 

The boardwalk was pretty awesome, but also a little nerve wrecking to have a toddler hanging out on. I made him sit down as soon as we got down there and he was fine with that for a little while. Once he got tired of it, we went back up to the house and played. I wanted him to see the river, but not end up in it!

Chilling on the boardwalk with our rain boots on. He loves his rain boots because they are the only shoes he has mastered putting on and taking off by himself. Not always on the correct feet, but whatever. :)

The danger of having friends who love to cook is that no one is there to reign you in when you plan out a ridiculous menu that requires multiple tubs of kitchen hardware, ingredients and coolers full of food. Matt tried to point out that we were out of control, but it fell on deaf ears. But in retrospect, I will concede we may have gone overboard. This stack of waffles were the leftovers from breakfast... Ha!

Fishing day on the river by the house. We planned on staying close by, so Rachael and I could try out hand at fishing as well as everyone else. Of course, the Hydens were the only ones with the good fishing gear - look at how professional they look!

Justin was actually so excited about fishing that he had gone to the store the night before super late and bought a pole. Thanks to the super long days, he was able to stay up until 1am fishing. He caught a few small fish, but nothing work keeping. Rachael did get to fish for a little while, but I did not manage to get any photos of it. Boo!

Me? Not so much on the fishing. I never got around to getting a fishing license, so I just hung out and watched everybody else. Henry seemed to enjoy hanging out in the fresh air as well. He even got to face outward a few times and besides drooling all over the place, really seemed to like the forward facing freedom!

And Brittney caught another fish! I know, it's a little hard to see. Next time we'll tell her to hold it on the other side away from her underarm... ;)

James looking ridiculously cute hanging out with his momma. He was actually super tired, I know it's hard to tell, but this is the level of sunshine at 8pm. Crazy Alaskan summers!

And last but not least, our fresh half of salmon we cooked up for dinner. We weren't quite sure how to cook it that we defaulted to our usual cedar planking method. We have got to branch out a little besides cedar plank and broiled - but at least we should have plenty of opportunities to try new recipes!

We had a blast with Justin, Rachael and James - they've made the trek up here twice since Brittney and Duncan moved up here, so I am betting we will see them again soon. Until then - it was great to see you all and we will miss you!

A Special Sprinkle Cake

Brittney's birthday is tomorrow! I almost always think it is on the 10th and end up wishing her "Happy Birthday!" on the wrong day. But this year I got it. Thank you, outlook calendar at work...!

When I asked her what cake she wanted, I expected something challenging. Instead, she wanted the cake Matt made me for my birthday. My favorite cake is delicious, but hardly a challenge once you've made it a dozen or so times. So I decided to jazz it up a little!

I wasn't sure that rainbow sprinkles on cake was really "a thing", so I decided to look it up online. Not a super common combination apparently - the only thing I saw were people making a number on top of a kid's birthday cake with the smaller sprinkles. But then a related image caught my eye - a chocolate donut with rainbow sprinkles - my favorite donut!!

After that, it was just a matter of deciding how many sprinkles to put on this cake. I decorated it very tastefully and then took it to Matt for his opinion. "It needs more sprinkles!" So it kinda snow-balled from there until the whole cake was covered in sprinkles - as were most surfaces in the kitchen.

Once Thomas discovered all the colorful things on the floor were sprinkles (possibly his favorite 'food' in the world), he plopped down and started eating the off the floor. I was a bit surprised that a child with my genetics was doing that...!

But then it soon occurred to me that it might not be my genetics that was promoting such behavior. At least Matt stopped Thomas from eating the things that were not sprinkles on the floor - once Thomas reached for a piece of dirt, Matt called the sprinkle hunt off until the next decorating craze...

Happy Birthday, Brittney! Hope you love your cake as much as the boys did! :)

Now That is Love!!

I have the best parents ever! :)

I think that several people envisioned we were moving to a true wilderness by moving up here. Anchorage is by no means a wilderness - regardless of the random bears and moose roaming around the place. But there are certain things we just can't get because we live up here. Shipping is one thing that drives me crazy - Free Shipping* (to the 48 contiguous states) or "No shipping to Alaska, suckers!"

The biggest thing we all complain about though - is food. Mostly it's restaurants. We would love to have a Chick-fil-A, Whataburger, Waffle House, On the Border, etc. anywhere near us. But I also love to complain about the lack of Mrs. Bairds and Tastykake baked goods. I've tried to fall in love with Hostess chocolate donuts, but I just can't. And the other brands up here? Meh...

So I've taken to instituting "If you visit us from Texas or go to Texas, you must bring Jen a bag of Mrs. Baird's Chocolate Donuts" policy.  So far, it's been a huge success (for me!) and then mom and dad surprised me in the dearth between visits with a baked goods care package. They really are the best! (The parents and the goodies!)

Hope

Hope sits almost directly across Turnagain Arm from us, but we hadn't made a visit there yet. While driving back from Homer, we looked for it and thought we saw it across the arm. We looked on google maps to see if we were right (we were!) and realized it was only about a 90 minute drive away.

So my first three day weekend at work, we decided to head down for a drive and eat lunch there. With such a short drive, there weren't any meltdowns in the car and it was a nice, peaceful drive. There isn't much to Hope, but it was a very pretty little town. If it hadn't been so windy and raining on us, we probably would have tried to explore a little more.

But since it was, we just had lunch and Matt took Thomas for a walk down toward the arm. The food at the little cafe was pretty good and our server there was super friendly. Thomas had his road trip usual of clam chowder - that's definitely not a staple in Texas... 

I would imagine we will go back to Hope later this summer and explore some of the hiking trails. Until then, thanks for the yummy lunch!

Three (24.5) Months!

Another month flew bye and I have to go back to work tomorrow. But we won't dwell on the fact I don't get to snuzzle with my boys all day, we will focus instead on just how darn cute they are right now!

Thomas refused to put his brush down and smile for photos. Not that he ever smiles on request, but especially not with a brush in his mouth. And it's not like he had been brushing his teeth recently - he managed to find his old toothbrush he had thrown under Henry's crib. Awesome. Henry even looks super skeptical about the whole toothbrush thing. ;)

Henry has gotten sturdy enough that I didn't freak out when Thomas decided to stand up next to him. Probably also remained calm because Thomas has done super about being careful around his brother. I mean, he's a toddler so he's still a bit of a wrecking ball, but not usually around Henry. Whew!

And that was the end of cooperation with the toddler Luckily Henry is a bit more of a captive audience and couldn't bolt away. 

He's turning into quite the cutie, huh? I love that he's full of smiles and giggles right now. Full of gas and burps too, but I'll take the bad with the good. :)

Get-away to Homer!

For our last big trip before my maternity leave was up, we decided to head down to Homer. It's the longest road trip we've attempted with the boys, so we figured there would be plenty of stops and we would be fine as long as we didn't pretend otherwise.

Stop one was actually a family agreement - we were all hungry! We found a campground after the turn-off to Homer from Seward highway. I think it was called Quartz Creek or Crystal something. I should probably just google that instead of guessing...

After we ate, I fed Henry while Matt and Thomas walked down to the nearby creek and then found the bubbles I had packed in the car. Thomas *loves* bubbles so much - of course he was excited to chase giant bubbles around a deserted campground. I think this trip was right before the summer season really takes off up here. Things were open, but there weren't any services available.

Of course, I had to run down to see the creek for myself. You can see that things are starting to get green, but there are still a few brown holdouts!

The next stop was 'requested' by the boys. One was antsy and one was hungry - you can probably guess which was which. So we stopped at another campground. This was mostly driven by the fact Thomas could stretch his legs and that we just bought a park pass and want to get our money's worth!

We walked down to the lake, but booked a quick retreat when we saw the vast number of mosquitoes that were already hanging out. I think we managed to get away bite free (these mosquitoes are indeed bigger than the Texas ones, but much slower), but we weren't taking any chances.

First stop in Homer was to check in to our cabin. Second stop was (obviously) for some food. We were told to try the Salty Dawg as it is an institution in Homer, but it really is more of a bar and we deemed it not the best spot for an overly tired 2 year old and baby. But the place we did find was outstanding - Thomas was even eating clams and halibut. With a name like Captain Patties I was kinda thinking Spongebob Krabby Patties, but the food was actually super good. I highly recommend it.

Thomas chowing down on the rest of my clam chowder. If I had known I had to share, I would have ordered a bowl, not a cup.

Our cabin was just down the hill from the Alaska Islands & Oceans visitor center. I read online they are a conservation entity for birds and sea life, so I was thinking it would be like the Seward Marine Center. Not quite... It was ok, but Thomas wasn't as interested in the hows of conservation as he would have been in looking at birds. 

See? Bird sculptures were enough to make him smile!

Just outside of the center were a few trails to walk down to the beach and those were probably our favorite part. Henry and I came back and walked them again when Thomas was napping - had to get enough steps on my fitbit for the day!

These reminded me so much of the bluebonnets back home that I had to share them. Not enough to do the classic "kid sitting in a field of bluebonnets" photos, but Thomas kinda hated that last time anyhow...

He much prefers pushing his stroller than riding in it most of the time. We figured it would wear him out and let him blaze his own path. He, of course, chose uphill when we needed to go down. Toddlers...

The end of the Homer Spit - it's not technically the end of the land, but it is the end of the highways in this direction.

Hanging out on Bishop's Beach. It was a little windy, which Henry didn't much care for...

But made it perfect for kite flying! I know you can't tell in this photo because the kite is so awesomely high up in the air, but it has minions from Despicable Me on it. Thomas didn't appreciate this at all, but I think the minions are adorable and had to get it!

He also didn't quite get the concept of holding on to the string, but he loved looking at the kite and got all excited when it was going up or coming down. 

Another park stop on the drive back home. We are pretty sure that volcano is the same one that we can see from our upstairs landing when the sun is just right. I am pretty sure it is Mount Redoubt, but it's hard to match up the Google Earth imagery with the view from across the inlet. We'll go with it until proven otherwise. And a plane landed on the beach down the cliffs while we were there. Pretty awesome!

And a second stop at the same location as the drive down. This time we didn't drive all the way back to the campground and the scenery was actually way better. And I googled it - it is indeed Quartz Creek. Well worth a stop just to take in the scenery if you are already driving by (especially if you have kids who could use a break!)

Whale Watching Tour

Our real plan with coming to Seward was to go on a whale watching tour. I heard an advertisement on the radio and thought it sounded super fun.  the glacier tour last year was a bit of a bust on number of glaciers, but it was still a great time. So I figured Matt and Thomas would be game for looking for some whales. Henry, of course, had no say in the matter... ;)

Since we had some time to kill after breakfast, we headed over to the town park right off the bay. Thomas never says no to time at the park!

He was super excited about being at the top of the slide - less so once he was halfway down... But he must have liked it well enough, because he kept going back for more!

Someone offered to take a photo of all four of us at the park. It's rare we get one with us all, so it was a super nice gesture. (And I seriously doubted a lady with her two grand kids was going to try to run off with my camera.) How nice is the view from this park?

On to the whale watching! We started seeing whales right away. There was one whale frolicking around right next to an otter. The captain on the ship was great at spotting the sealife and letting everyone know where to look. And since it was a weekday, it really wasn't that crowded on the boat. We could actually get photos without having to fight for a spot at the railing. (Yes, I'm referencing you, glacier cruise!)

Thomas even got in on the photo taking action. He may be most talented at shots of his forehead but he sure was trying hard to get a photo out the window like everyone else. :)

Henry really didn't understand what all the fuss was about.

I was super excited to see the "blow" when the whale surfaced. In my mind it was going to be this huge cloud of mist 50' up in the air. So it wasn't quite like the childhood drawings of a whale... but it was still pretty cool!

And the best part - the tail up in the air. This is apparently called a fluke and the dives where the fluke comes out of the water are the deep ones. So when you see this awesome sight, don't expect to see that whale again for awhile!

Thomas did super good on the tour, but he did start to get bored after awhile. We weren't too keen on letting him walk around outside though, so he mostly stayed inside with one parent while the other one took photos. Matt busted me bargaining with Thomas that he could play his Elmo alphabet game if he would stop trying to run across the boat... 

Other than the whales and otters, we saw bald eagles!

And Sea Lions!

And Harbor Seals (oh my)!

And we finally lost the kiddo. He seemed to have a good time looking for the wildlife and even nodded off to nap time without too much trouble. A successful day all around!

Alaska SeaLife Center

We decided to try and make the most of the last two weeks I have off from work by doing a few short trips around Alaska. Brittney and Duncan graciously offered to watch the girls for us, so we could do an overnight trip and not have to stress as much about long car trips with the boys - well at least not two long ones in one day.

First destination - Seward!

Captain Thomas is at the helm of the Sea Life Center fishing boat - he really liked turning the wheel! I think he looks like the most adorable boat captain ever! :)

Posing in front of the sign. I always struggle to get good photos in dim places like museums. I figured it was a good chance to try and play with the settings myself instead of letting the camera try. It always wants to use the flash and I try not to use the flash if it's avoidable. Especially in a place with a lot of people and reflective surfaces like an aquarium...

Thomas is super into birds right now, so we spent a good deal of time in the bird enclosure.

The sea ducks even swam right up to where we were standing and put on a show for Thomas. You can see his reflection in the glass - he was pretty pumped!

He had zero interest in the marine touch tank. I can't imagine why not, don't you just want to touch this squishy guy??

He did enjoy the sea lion tank though - the big guy was happy enough to swim around in laps to keep Thomas entertained. He would consistently do three laps, surface for air, do three more laps, etc.

The seals were a little more unpredictable, so he kept running up to the tank and looking for them.

After awhile, it became clear to us he was more interested in playing musical chairs at the various exhibits. He would run to a set of chairs, crawl up at one, then point at the chairs next to him and say "Momma!" "Dada!" until we sat in the correct chair. Then he would get up and run to a new set of chairs...

And of course, back to the birds for one last visit before we headed off to dinner. He was quite a trooper on the drive down to Seward, then was in a super good mood at the SeaLife Center - much better than our visit last August!