Randomness

I haven't updated our blog in quite some time partly because I'm a slacker and partly because I didn't think I had anything exciting to blog about. Then I was looking through pictures I had taken this month and realized that there were some fun and some random things to put on here.

Probably one of the most exciting things to happen this month was the long awaited arrival of Skyler's new friend, Jackson Bippert, born on 10-9-10. Jackson is such a little cutie and we are so excited that he is finally here!!

Here Skyler is at the hospital checking out his new buddy

Isn't Jackson just so precious!! I love new babies!!

The fall season always makes me hungry for anything pumpkin. We have enjoyed getting the pumpkin smoothies that Jamba Juice has right now, I just got to have pumpkin fudge for the first time (thanks again Alisa!) and I recently made these yummy pumpkin creme pies. (You can find the recipe for them here if you are interested) I think I'm also going to try making pumpkin bagels and anything else pumpkiny and delicious that I can think of :)
George is Skyler's BEST, BEST friend and has been since he was about 6 months old. It started off that Skyler got attached to sleeping with him, which I was all for, anything to make bedtime easier! Lately though, Skyler makes George do everything that he does. When Skyler eats he likes to "feed" George, when Skyler sits on his potty George has to go potty too. The other night I spent like 5 minutes watching Skyler get diapers out of the closet, then he laid George down on the living room floor next to his container of wipes, which he proceeded to open and pull out so that he could wipe off George, then he tried really hard to figure out how to put a diaper on George. It was very cute!! All of these adventures have taken a toll on George and he was looking very, ummm, shall we say, well loved. I decided to look on ebay and see if I could find a new one and I got lucky!! Now we have a spare so that when one gets all dirty and gross we can put him in the wash and pull out the clean one and Skyler won't have to go through the day without his best friend. Skyler has no idea that there are now 2 George's and we plan on keeping it that way!

Here they are together, "well loved and dirty George" and "brand new fluffy and clean George"

Skyler loves, Loves, LOVES being outside!! So, since we've had such beautiful weather this week I decided to take advantage and we've gone to the park a few times. He's gotten to go with his cousins twice and also yesterday he got to go with his friend Owen. Skyler loves swinging on the big kid swings and he holds on so good. He always wants to go really high, higher than I'm comfortable with, I like to think that's he's still too little to be doing things like that. He's growing too fast!!

I took this picture on my phone the other day and it has become one of our favorites. Just look at that adorable smile!!

One big project that has been nagging at me for quite some time was Skyler's scrapbook. I decided if I didn't get it done before this baby comes it was probably NEVER going to get done. Well I'm happy to report that it is DONE!! I only committed to doing a scrapbook for the 1st year of his life and it turned out really well, I am quite pleased with it! However, I noticed that while I was going through the pictures to put in it I had successfully evaded having pictures taken of me while I was pregnant with him, so I only had a couple to put in there. It made me think that maybe this time I should make an effort to have a few more taken of me along the way.

So here I am sporting the "baby bump" at 24 weeks

And last but certainly not least, most everybody already knows that we found out we're having another boy! We are very excited!! Our boys will be almost exactly 2 years apart which I think will be a good age difference for them and I'm hoping that they will be best friends!! I'm very happy that we get to re-use all of the adorable clothes that Skyler has outgrown and that will save us some serious $$$.

The day of our ultrasound this little boy was being stubborn, he was happy to flash us so that we could find out that he's a boy but he didn't want to cooperate and give us a good profile shot of his adorable little face. This was the best one we got...

We've decided to name him Dylan Cooper Marlatt and we're excited that he will be joining our family in 12 short weeks!!

This pregnancy has been quite a bit different than my first one. I'm having a lot of pain from all of the scar tissue that developed after my c-section with Skyler. If I take it easy most days are ok, but waiting tables and being on my feet running around like crazy for 5 hours at a time just recently got to be too much for me. My boss was super understanding and told me to take off as long as I need, so, it looks like I get to be a stay-at-home-mommy for a few months. Yay!! I'm grateful that Rich's business is doing well and he is staying VERY busy! Hopefully that means we'll be able to scrape by for a few months without my income.

Well, since you're all updated I guess that's it for now.....

Pictures from the Bernard's visit

Our good friends Tristan, Jodi and Ethan Bernard were in town for the last 3 weeks. They currently live in Louisiana :( but we're hoping they'll be living back up here soon :) It's always so great to see them and we wish they could stay forever!! Unfortunately, they had to get on a plane today and head back home (sniffle, sniffle). At least we were lucky enough to get to spend some quality time with them while they were here. Skyler and Ethan got along great and had so much fun just running and chasing each other around our house. Here are some pictures of the boys having fun together...

Ethan & Skyler playing outside

Wrestling around with Tristan

Time out for a hug

Ethan and Tristan rolling down the hill

Time for more hugs. Skyler is good little a hugger :)

Ethan turned 1 in August and got to have a birthday party up here last weekend. We were so glad to get to be a part of his special day!
Jodi, Ethan & Tristan at Ethan's b-day party

Skyler loved this swing, he kept saying weeeeeeee, and he DID NOT want to get out of it!

Time for some swimming. Ethan is a swimming pro since he lives in Louisiana where it's hot. Skyler, on the other hand, wasn't so sure about swimming.

Ethan loved the slide

Skyler went down only once and was ready to get out. I love how it looks like Ethan is helping him down!

Skyler wearing a party hat

Ok, that's enough of the hat. It didn't last long!

Happy 1st Birthday Ethan!!

I didn't take as many pictures of the boys together as I would have liked so I guess that means they'll just have to come back soon so that I can get some more :)

Thanks for the fun visits Bernard's! We love you and miss you already and can't wait for the day when you'll be living back in the great state of WA!!! Let's hope it's sooner rather than later!!

Take our baby poll

2 weeks from today, that's Sept. 23rd, we have our ultrasound appointment scheduled and will get to find out if we are adding another boy to our family or a little girl this time. We're curious to know what everybody else thinks we're having so take a second and cast your vote on our baby poll. Is Skyler going to have a little brother or a little sister to pick on? Do I get to go shopping for blue or pink? What do you think?

Random cute pictures

This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago. Skyler and I were all ready for church and I noticed that we were matching so I couldn't resist getting a picture.

This is the funny face he makes when you tell him to "smile"

This was about a month ago. I had Skyler all ready for church and I was taking a shower and getting ready too. When I got out of the shower this is how I found him. Apparently I was taking too long to get ready and he got tired of waiting for me so he fell asleep in the hallway.

This was just taken today, while I was upstairs getting ready for church the boys were downstairs watching tv. Looks like I was taking too long to get ready again :)

Sand in the City 2010

Yesterday we went and checked out Sand in the City in downtown Olympia. It's a really fun sand sculpture contest that is held annually to benefit the Hands on Children's museum. This was our 3rd year going and it's always so amazing to me how talented the sculptors are! Just like the last 2 years, this year did not disappoint. Here are some pictures of our favorites...

Kids playing video games

Toy Story

Camping gone wild

Finding Nemo

This was the master sculpture. It's a fire truck and ambulance. They were still working on it when we were there so we didn't get to see the finished product. It looked like it was going to be pretty cool though.

Born to be wild

Skyler had fun playing in the giant sand box this year

They had lots of other fun activities and crafts for kids to do. Skyler really liked playing with this sand table!

They had some animals there too and the cow was Skyler's favorite!! He kept mooing at the cow, it was pretty funny!!

We had a great time and can't wait for Sand in the City 2011!!!

Fun day in Seattle

Yesterday we decided to spend the afternoon in Seattle with Chris and Christie. We had a fun day wandering around the Pike's Place Market. Skyler and I shared the most delicious peach that weighed a whole pound! I have NEVER had a peach that big before, it was amazing!!

Here is a funny store that we passed on our way to the market. The name of the store is "Free People" and their advertisement outside says "Tons of New Shipment". We were wondering if a new boat full of illegals had just come in...

The flowers at Pike's Place are always so beautiful! Chris and Christie couldn't resist buying a beautiful bouquet for her mom.

Since it was Skyler's first trip to Seattle we had to get a picture of him on the pig

We found a little bakery that had the most amazing looking cookies. Rich couldn't resist getting a giant snickerdoodle. That thing was the size of Skyler's head and boy was it yummy!!!

Of course, my little cookie monster LOVED it!

We decided to end our day with a trip to the Melting Pot. Here we are enjoying our yummy chocolate fondue.

Here's my little double-fisted chocoholic :) Yep, he takes after me!!!

Chris and Christie enjoying their chocolate smores fondue

We had such a fun day I think we'll have to go back soon and take in some of the other fun stuff that Seattle has to offer!