Janae

Earlier this month, Jeff and Janae Campbell came for a short visit to my lovely Washington.  Janae was one of my college roommates and remains one of the people that I love and respect most in the world.

While here, the clouds parted long enough for a walking tour of Gig Harbor, my adored hometown.

Here are Nick and Rigby looking at a sea anemone.  I think I'll provide a link for all of my land-locked friends.

Posing for the camera...
Gotta love Kelly's ice cream.  It's worth the visit.  I believe this is Cotton Candy flavor.

Jeff is an audio guru by trade and has the most creative collection I've ever heard of: other people's amateur music.  He records friends and family doing whatever kind of thing they do, so while here he pulled out his mac and his microphone.  I'm going to see if I can figure out how to play our little collaboration on my blog.  Here's a link if you'd like to download it and have a listen.

Family Hone Leaving

Bethelle is a staller.  And she's good at it.  She can walk all over you at bedtime.  The routine can take an hour.  It's been getting bad lately, so Nick and I have been trying to trim it down.  I think at best we can only get it to 20 minutes.

Last Tuesday when we announced that it was bedtime, Bethelle countered that it was actually time for "family hone leaving".  This is generally a Monday activity, but she just kept going:

"Welcome to family hone leaving, everybody.  Daddy will say the prayer and then we'll sing 'I am a Child of God'."  How could we stop her?  She's too good.  Nick prayed, we sang, and then Nick or I usually give some kind of a simple gospel lesson.  Bethelle went right into the lesson.  It was about Jesus.  He's nice, he wants us to be nice, have families, live on earth, be happy.  It was so adorable and just the right thing to buoy a parent right up.  She then called for a closing prayer and another song (actually, the same song again) and we were done.

Coming in the midst of a renewed effort to thwart her stalling efforts, we were put in our place by a 2 year-old, but it was well worth it.

This is Bethelle's Family Home Evening Chart.  We cut it out of the January Friend.  It gets her pretty excited.  We use its suggested topics and when we're done, she gets to flip that piece over.  It's making some kind of a picture about different activities.

Four if by Air

The Rushton family is getting ready for a family vacation.  Nick and I recently realized that this will be the first time that we have ever been on a plane together.  We have only traveled together by land or by sea.  Stay tuned for some great blogs about Las Vegas and Phoenix!

My question for my readers is, what book should I read if I find myself waiting out a baby nap in our hotel?

Easter Eggs with Grandma

Grandma Patsy came over with egg dye.  2 year-old heaven.

The results:
Thanks for the much needed time without my adorable shadow, Patsy!

It's not Chick Pox... It's a Sticker Obsession

To Catch a Thief

Last summer we planted a much-needed hedge on top of a little mound on our property line.  Recently the hedge has been deteriorating one little tree at a time.  Is it the neighbor?  Little Charlie Brown, the 7 year-old boy on the other side of the hedge?  Can dogs do this?

On the far side of the mound, we finally found this.  Notice the fresh pile of thuja sticks just below the hole.

 We have ourselves a mountain beaver.  We don't want a mountain beaver.

Five years ago when we got married, I had just one clause added to the typical marriage contract.  It was that if there was ever a rodent/pest problem, it would be taken care of.  Quickly.  By Nick.
What a good man!
Well, the trap worked!  That is, if we were trying to catch a bird.  Better luck next week.

A Call for Blogs

If you are a friend or family member who reads this and has a blog that is not listed to the right in our links, please leave a comment on this post and tell me your blog address.  I am enjoying them so much and would love to enjoy them more!

Rigby Bamboo

I've been hearing lately of mothers who have to limit the time their babies spend in various toys and swings, especially the kind pictured below.  With my two children, such a concept has never crossed my mind.  I think that the family record for patience with anything of the kind is about 7 minutes.  This record was set by Rigby, beating Bethelle's previous record by 6.5 minutes.

Earlier today I had him playing in it.  When I turned to look at him, he seemed to have discovered the mirror on it.

I didn't have my camera on me in that moment, but I swear he was looking into that mirror and making this face:

It looked surprisingly mature on him and caught me so off guard.  I couldn't seem to capture that maturity, so he must get it from his father.

I think Rigby is going to get fat.  We just started rice cereal and a little oatmeal and the dude is an eater.  He gets so happy when he knows it's time to eat.  The craziest part is when Bethelle feeds him.  She's actually pretty good at it and even wipes the spoon off on his gums.  Rigby seems to understand the comedy of a 2 year-old feeding a baby, because he cannot stop laughing when she has the spoon.  Then she cracks up and I crack up and cereal is flying...

Bethelle's Flower Bed

The Goods

The Help
The Plan
The Progress
The Break
The Results

Our Little Pirate - Aaar Matey...

If I hadn't known that Rigby was my son before, I've certainly got it figured out now.  Although I wasn't cross-eyed myself, it does run in my family.  Here is Rigby not looking quite his best.

It's not always that bad.  We took him in to a pediatric opthamologist (type that ten times fast!) today and his strabismus is now official.  Here he is after his visit, sporting a new, 2-hours-per-day look.
This will be the mode for the next seven weeks.  If his eyes still cross, it may be surgery time for our little man.  Let's hope the patches work!

From the mouths of babes

We've been watching a little American Idol.  Last year we watched a lot of American Idol.  We vowed this year to skip the try-outs; they're really not about singing well as much as jest.  We even thought we'd watch less of the competition, but then we met David Archuletta.

This little Murray, UT boy can "blow," as Randy would say.  He has been incredible so far, so now we're hooked again.

Bethelle has been watching some of this with us (DVR style, of course).  As one girl sang, she said, "I want to sing like that when I'm bigger."  As Amanda Overmyer sang, however, she said, "Why that girl can't sing, Mommy?  Oh, her throat is bad."  I'll leave it at that.

For historical purposes, I'll just add here that Rigby is now proficient at rolling over and blowing raspberries.  He is beginning to reach out to us when we pick him up.  We think he has inherited crossed eyes from my (Elke's) side of the family and has an appointment with a specialist this week.  Yesterday he made a sound as I changed his diaper that sounded a lot like "I-love-you."  I know he did not really say it, but I also know that he really does.