Just Another Day at Gramsi's

I know, I've disappeared off the blogging grid. Here's a fun video from Gramsi. :) Dominic and Alex chasing each other with their new tunnel.

First Easter

It seems that we have not done a huge family Easter in years. When we were kids, the Jentzsch's and Rollins used to come down to Oregon (from Washington) and we always had the best time. I have missed that. I am glad that having babies around can bring back these fun times long overdue!

What we used to do: Like any event with the Ford's, Jentzsch's and Rollin's we have a knack for being crazy and having too much fun. We would decorate and dye a gzillion eggs and our parents added a ton of plastic-candy-money-filled eggs to the mix too. There was always a small hunt for the younger kids and then a more intense, harder hunt for the big kids. I mean seriously, our parents were cruel - hiding eggs in snake holes and way up in trees and in berry bushes.

After the egg hunts, we got to search for our baskets... all cleverly hidden by our parents in the woods. My parents have 9-acres so we always used one section of the property that was made into a motorcyle trail. It had a lot of dense brush and was hard to find even the brightest sunniest of baskets. Each kid's parents could help us with "hot/cold" hints. Easter had nothing to do with the candy. It was everything to do with the "hunts". I can't wait for Dominic and Alex .... and I'm sure more siblings and cousins of the next generation to add to the mix.

Dominic & Daddy

Missing Summer

I am so missing summer. Are you?

Fat Bottom'd Girls Make the Rock'n World Go 'round

I was browsing some pictures and just had to post this because it made me laugh so hard in my brain. Fat, Pregnant girls in bright solid colors! :) This was at my baby shower.

Fun Fact

Baby Shower - April 5th
Alex was born - April 7th
[Oh poor Robyn! She was such a trooper this day helping out!]

Dominic came around on the 26th (like 2 1/2 wks later). They had just put me on bed rest the day before. It was lame. Hardly anyone came to my shower supposedly because they thought something was horridly wrong, yet no one called or asked what was wrong. LOL Annnyway.. those who came were much appreciated.

... I just can't believe we were this fat almost a year ago. How time flies!

Backed Into A Corner

Dominic was yelling at the top of his lungs (not crying) so I went to check on him and he had somehow trapped himself.

Expressions for Lunch

There Is Always A Dad's Way

"It's so simple! When he's done eating, roll him over to the sink, shake him out over the sink, hook the high-chair up here and wallah! Clean seat."

"Banana's Have No Bones"

"Sad Clown Face"

Dominic does is really into making funny faces. He seems to be doing them as small reactions to things or just generally testing out his facial expressions. He does the "Sad Clown Face" twice in this video. I'll have to get a better shot of it, but this was pretty funny. If you can make the video larger, you will have better luck at seeing it.

*update: I've re-uploaded this video from YouTube instead of Picasa for quality purposes. Not sure if you can catch the expression still.

Helping Daddy Get Ready for Work

A Day with the Three Musketeers

Last Wednesday we decided to go to Storytime at the Jacksonville (Oregon) Library. I met a new friend, Ulana ("you-lane-uh") at the grocery store and she had invited me to come. She has an 8-month old boy named Lawson. Robyn decided to come, but she was also babysitting, Gavin, her other nephew. Gramsi also came along. I don't think we would have survived without her there! So here we are, each with a baby. Gavin is about 10 1/2 mos old, Alex is about 10mos and Dominic is about 9 1/2 mos. They are all about 3-weeks apart basically. ha-ha. What an adventure.

The moment we showed up, Alex charged right to the center of the room and sat next to a little girl like he was her buddy and just soaked it all in...."WOW KIDS! I'M IN HEAVEN!" He was being really good and non-bashful going around "meeting" all the kids. Gavin of course started to join in although he was more interested in the "Happy Birthday" sign up front than meeting any of the kids.

I didn't get any good pictures of Dominic at Storytime. He was just chill'n in Gramsi's arms the whole time other than trying to chew on someone's crochet book in front of us. Here is our new friend Lawson. He is 8 months old and not yet crawling. LOL

After Storytime we decided to go out to lunch. GREAT IDEA! ha! Three of us, three babies and lunch in a tiny little tea shop. It was actually not that bad. I imagine Fiona managing two babies by herself and I'm sure our adventure was a breeze. Aside from the extremely grumpy waitress and 30 minute wait for sandwitches, we had a great time and delishous food.Left to Right: Alex, Robyn, Gavin, Gramsi and Dominic.

After lunch we checked out a thrift shop. Not that great. And this toy shop.... super great! Dominic threw trains around while Robyn played the puppet master with Alex and Gavin.

Robyn is the true artist when it comes to making puppets come to life. Gramsi should have a pretty funny video coming soon with their new monkey friend Herman.

Gramsi and Dominic played kick ball.... so of course mommy had to buy Dominic a ball. I figure it's one of those toys that will never become outdated. He loves to throw balls too.
We are planning on going to the Jacksonville Storytime again this week, but Brooke, Gavin's Moma is going to come instead of Gramsi. It should be pretty fun.

Lastly, I took these shots with my iPhone which is a complicated matter when shooting babies as they move lightening fast. The iPhone doesn't have a quick "shutter speed" on it so some can be a little blurry. I thought they were pretty decent though.

A Day at the Park in February

We have a small neighborhood park just a couple of blocks from my house (within the 'hood). Since we live in Pleasantville it is of course a quaint little place for the kids to play and [doggy]poo-free too. I have been meaning to post this for over a week now but couldn't decide om the photos. The result of which is now a fast-scrolling sideshow of the 135 photos we took! ha-ha... enjoy!

BTW - The credits blasted by so... I downloaded the music from www.freekidmusic.com. The SqueeGees "Apples, Oranges, Peaches". Sorry, it's almost 2am and I couldn't really pick the music too well, hope it's a good song! :)

Truffle Shuffle 2009

This past weekend (Sunday) we took the short trip to Eugene (Oregon) and participated in the Truffle Shuffle, a benefit fun-run held at Alton Baker Park every February. We completed this run in 2007, skipped 2008 because I was prego and now have 2009 under our belts. It's just a short, 4-mile run with no competition (some people feel the need to compete I suppose but we do it for fun).
The running crew (Left to Right): Hilary, Jeff, John and me (Molly). Jeff is my cousin and Hil's is his lovely wife. I think Hil's is the only one that tried to make good time today. John had been sick for two weeks prior to today and was STILL sick during the run with bronchial/chest/cold stuff. So no fun for a run, especially when cardio is important. Jeff had started feeling ill that morning too, but still participated. I hadn't ran for a week and a half as it was (my fault. sympathy sick with John ha-ha) ... so John, Jeff and I ran together while Hil's blasted ahead and finished a bit ahead.

Our missing team member is Serena. Unfortunately she hurt her knee in college sports the week before the event and ended up having surgery the Friday before. :( We were quite sad that she could not make it. Hilary used Serena's number and didn't bother to change the name on the roster so Hilary's time is under "Serena Lee". (See "Sir Weiner" you can vouch that you had surgery on your knee on Friday and ran a great on Sunday. ha-ha!)

Here are the times

We would be a little embarrassed, but keep in mind, we weren't running at all close to what we are capable considering our unprepared selves. LOL John, Jeff and I conversed the entire run. Good times!

Taking a walk before the race. Everyone thought the race started at 12:30pm so we were all ready and then heard the announcer say that our's didn't start until 2pm! Seriously?! So we hung out for a bit until then. We got to spend more quality time with Sam, Emily and Daniel so that was cool.
Getting pinned and ready!
"I'm not touching youuuu!"

Hot Tub Buddies

Family Networking

A lot of the family has started to appear on Facebook. I think this is great. We all have graduated from blogging to networking on FB. To me this is really exciting because we are now getting more of a back-and-forth communication with each other.

Connect with me on facebook

And.... For those of you who might be thinking that being on FB is going to be an entire ordeal of taking up more of your precious time... think again. Yes, getting initially set up with adding all the friends and family COULD take more than 5-minutes, but the long-term maintenance is pretty simple. I actually don't do much with my FB other than the occasional hi or hello via the public "wall". It is definitely a great way to quickly and easily communicate with the friends and family that I don't often (or never) call, email or see in person. Anyway, it's a good resource for quicker communication. It's nothing you have to do daily either.... so make an account, connect up with some of the fam and your friends you havn't seen in 10+ years and you will see what I mean.

NOTE: PLEASE don't be offended if I have or will ignore your action if you've sent me chocolates, hugged me, invited me to some game or other external FB application. I barely have time to make a blog post as it is. Although all those extra gadgets are funny. I find the "Birthday Calendar" and "Related To" to be nice enough apps. :D

Dominic 9-Months Old

I know that I've skipped posting between 6-9 months! What can I say, I've been so busy. Like everyone else hasn't. I just keep telling myself, "I'll do a post tonight or tomorrow" and poof it's 3-months later.

Dominic is, holy cow, NINE MONTHS OLD already?!! I can't believe how big the boys are getting.

He is currently in the 25th Percentile. But not to worry, babies start to take on their parents genetics around 6-9 months. As John and I are Hobbits, it makes sense. He was in the 90th Percentile in the beginning.

9-month stats

Height: 28 in.

Weight: 18.5 lbs.

Head: 12.75 in.

Yeah, he's not as hefty as his cute cousin. Notice Alex's head is a whole 5.5 inches bigger than Dominic! haha! Robyn is quite lucky that he GREW to be that big and was not ORIGINALLY that big coming out! eek! Alex was quite tiny when he first arrived.

Here are some cute mug's from a recent rock climbing adventure at Rattlesnake. Daddy and Uncle Bean were the climbers, Gramsi and Mama were hikers. My mom posted on this day too. Dominic was a little Yoda for the day in my ErgoBaby Pack.

RunKeeper for my iPhone

My newest iPhone app for my running-hiking-biking activities is Runkeeper. The results of our hike up Roxanne on MLK Day/ Monday.



*I realize I haven't posted in months....and this is what I give you? lol. I have a lot to catch up on for us and of course Dominic! He's gotten so big and active! For now, this is all you get! :)