What makes you happy?

Lately... It's been this little girl...

Kacy is 9 months old!

Well, actually she is now closer to 10 months, but for the sake of tradition I wanted to post her stats from her 9 month appointment.

Wt: 16 lb 14 oz (20%)

Ht: 27 in (25%)

Head: 45 cm (80%)

Kacy's favorite thing to do lately is to climb stairs, pull herself upright, scoot along furniture, and empty out drawers.
She is such a cutie and she knows it!
She loves to snuggle up with you, but when she is ready to move - nothing can keep her still.
She is starting to discover all kinds of sounds she can make with her mouth and voice box: coos, shrieks, "ooh's", "uh-oh", and loves to 'sing' along with you (which really means making noises and smiling while you sing a song).
We love our little girl!

On another note - our old friends, Mr. Sunshine and Mr. Blue Sky was out this morning!

Nice to see you fellas! Feel free to stick around more than a day...

East Coast (part 4 - Syracuse, NY)

The final stop on our East Coast Adventure was to North Syracuse, NY to visit Jim's Grandma and Grandpa Churchill.

Unfortunately, we all had a bit of a cold by this time in our trip, so we had to take it a little easier than normal. However, that didn't stop us from getting lots of visitors!
Bridger loved playing with Great Grandpa!

Here we have the kids with Great Grandpa Churchill, Jim's cousin Lollie and fiance, Chris, and Jim's Aunt Deb (Cappozzi). Chris and Lollie were naturals with the kids and Bridger loved to have new playmates around!

BC came down from Vermont to join in the fun.

Halloween morning we went to "Mother's Cupboard" upon the reccomondation of Jim's cousin, Tess. Here is their clan - Michael, Tess, Alan, Elliot with Jim.

Mother's Cupboard was a favorite of the cousin's because of their BIG, yummy breakfasts. Here is Jim's 2 Blueberry pancakes he thought he could handle in one sitting. Turns out these pancakes can feed a family of four for 2 days straight. :) These were true "mancakes".

Kacy and Elliott are two months apart and were excited to have someone their own size to make trouble with.

We also had a special treat when John and Kristy Farar came for breakfast and play. John and Kristy are friends that we met in Lake Oswego, but have moved to Rochester, NY for work.

It was so great to see you guys! Thanks again for coming out!

We also got to briefly visit Jim's Aunt Peggy and family. Short, but Sweet!For Halloween, Bridger and Kacy were Thing 1 and Thing 2. In true Thingyness fashion, they didn't want to sit very long for pictures.

Jim sported The Cat in the Hat's hat and I just had another crazy wig on to match the kids. Next year, Jim and I will represent a little better, but at least the kids looked cute.

We went Trick or Treating with Tess and her family. We truly had a great time, and only wish we would have had a little more time with each and every last person we saw.

Thanks again everyone for a great visit and making it such a wonderful trip for us.

East Coast (part 3 - Warnerville, NY)

After a short plane ride (but long delay at the airport) to Albany, NY we were off to visit Jim's Grandpa Schaffer in Warnerville.

Great Grandpa had ordered up thousands of leaves to jump in! We spent a whole morning raking up then jumping in HUGE piles of leaves. Ahhh.... the simple pleasures.

Bridger was thoroughly entertained.

We also stopped by "Pick a Pumpkin" Pumpkin Patch with Great Grandpa Schaffer. This pumpkin patch featured some fun wood cutouts, a Jack and Jill hill (which Jim talked me into rolling down and I was dizzy for a half hour afterwards), hay rides, hay mazes, barn yard fun, pumpkin doughnuts, apple cider, a huge tree house, pedal carts, and - oh yeah - pumpkins!

Needless to say, we had a great time. This pumpkin patch is owned by Jim and Lois VanDerwerken, who are the parents of Jim's Aunt Debbie (Schaffer). Jim's cousins would spend their summers and falls helping run this Pumpkin Patch, and Jim and his family would visit here growing up whenever they visited Grandpa Schaffer.

Can you find Bridger in this 3 story tree house? I totally want this in my back yard!

Cheese!

We really enjoyed visiting with Grandpa Schaffer. He is a WWII vet and we talked a little about his experiences, his life and family history.

East Coast (part 2 - Ocean City, MD)

The next stop on our East Coast Adventure was to Maryland to spend a few days with Jim's mom and sis. Nancy and Audrey ordered some great weather for us and and we hit the beach!

This is Bridger and his "beautiful hair". I got these wigs at a garage sale for a dime each and Bridger is so fun, he doesn't mind sporting it when we want a chuckle.

Audrey, Jim and I (after some coaxing) got in the water and boogie boarded. Bridger was content chasing the waves while Kacy tried to eat sand and got snuggles from grandma.

What do you build on the beach in October? A SAND-O-LANTERN!

We also enjoyed walking and pedaling the surrey along the boardwalk. Bridger loved riding the rides and we loved eating all the unhealthy goodies along the way.

Another highlight was crabbing. Grandma Nancy took us all fishing for Maryland Blue Crab.

Bridger really had a good time doing this, especially after we started catching some! Jim was the only one brave enough to touch the crab to put them in the bucket.

I think we caught 8 or 9 crab in all, but only 4 were big enough to keep. We took our spoils home and had them for dinner that night.

We had a great time with Grandma Nancy! Thank again for a fun week!

P.S. Sorry we left your house infected with germs and got everyone there sick after we left! :(

East Coast (part 1 - Washington DC)

Sunday evening we returned from a 12 day trip to the East to visit lots of family and see some sights. I am still sorting through the 400+ pictures from the trip as we recover from colds, get our house back in order, and adjust back to the Pacific Time Zone, I will start posting a little each day to try to get the trip covered over the next few days. In the meantime, THESE pictures will give you a little glimpse of all the fun we had.

We flew to Baltimore and got picked up by Jim's mom and sister and headed to Washington DC for a 2 night stay.
I had never been to DC before, so was very excited to go. Just before the trip, Jim and I had also read "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown - which is based in Washington DC. (You better believed we pretended we were Robert Langdon, looking for hidden symbols and messages.) :)We quickly realized that you can spend a week there and still not see all there is to see.

We did get to go to:

- The Mall (the big park-like, grassy place you can walk around)

- The Jefferson Memorial

- The Lincoln Memorial

- The Washington Monument

- The White House

- The Capitol Building

- The National Archives

- Washington DC Temple

- Arlington National Cemetery

Bridger was most excited about riding the subway rails - aka "The Twains".

Kacy was a good sport, but was spent from all the sight seeing.

Hello Mr. President! This is about as close as you can get to the White House.

Jefferson Memorial:

Grandma and Audrey took the kids for an afternoon and Jim and I were able to tour the Capitol Building and see my cousin, Mark, who is doing an internship in DC. We loved seeing Mark, but it was definitely a too-brief visit before it was off to the next adventure! We got to have a personal tour of the Capitol Bldg by an intern working with Senator Wyden. It was cool to go in the underground tunnels, see the different rooms that leaders and representatives have met in throughout the years, look at the various statues, and we even got to sit in on the action happening in the House of Representatives and Senate. (Even though it was a lot of talking and not a lot of listening).

Another neat experience was visiting Jim's Grandpa, Alfonso Espinoza, buried in Arlington Cemetery.

Last, but not least, we also got to stop by the Washington DC temple.

It was so much fun to go to Washington DC! Next time we go, I want to take a history course beforehand to be even better prepared to see the place where so much happened.

For those of you who have been to DC, what was your favorite thing to do/see?