The return of vacation

My parents bought a vacation home on Camano Island several years ago and we've enjoyed it as a family every summer and occasional winter weekends. Last Christmas ('07) they tore it down to the ground. It has been rebuilt over the past year and a half and is now ready for occupation once again! Hurray! Now the Robblees have a beautiful beach house with a guest bedroom just for Aaron and Beth and a grand kid's playroom complete with colorful bunk beds and a sneaky ladder up to a sunlit loft! In April we took just a quick weekend during the week (you can do that when you work for yourself!) to reacquaint ourselves with the vacation home!
Oh, and even the sun showed up. . .

the view of the 5 foot compass I painted for the entry. . .

it turns out one of our children loves the beach!

And the other one too

Nathan also celebrated a birthday on April 2nd. We had a great double party with Riley (who's parents we met in birth class and who was born the day after Nathan in the same hospital room at Overlake!) at the Children's Museum in Seattle. The day was crazy, with so many friends in a tiny room, but the kids loved it!






We also celebrated on Nathan's thursday night birthday with another dinner at Red Robin- go figure! This time we took over the "patio" in Factoria where Nathan and his cousin, Emilie played together in the mostly empty mall hallway.

Since you asked. . .

I apologize for being terrible at updating the blog. . .here are the photos from some special birtday celebrations this spring.
Josh turned One on March 23rd and was dedicated at church on the 22nd. We celebrated with a party after church at our house.




The following night we ate dinner together at Red Robin- truly, what is more celebratory? - and played on the boats in the mall! Josh's first year was probably the fastest year of my life! Josh brings us so much joy with his sweet snuggles and mischevious smile.

The Cake archives.

It all started with Nathan's first birthday. Who knew I'd love being creative this way? Nathan's birthday was a balloon party with balloon cupcakes:

Then I made a caterpillar for a one year old friend of Nathan's soon after:

Then came Elmo for Christopher's 2nd birthday:

That's when I started really enjoying this cake making thing. I don't claim to be professional, by any means: you have to be a perfectionist to be professional. I do love to be a little crafty though! Nathan's 2nd birthday (4/2/08) train cake:

Christopher turns 3 with Mickey Mouse (11/13/07):

The cupcakes from Aaron's 3rd anniversary of his 10th birthday (2/1/09):

The grand venture into fondant for Josh's first birthday- a baby block with his initials and age:

Cute cupcakes for Lynn's birthday- idea was totally stolen from a friend's blog (right down to the tiny MnM ladybugs!:

More experimenting with fondant; a record for our Flame Anew CD release party:

Ten days after his brother turned 1, Nathan had a 3rd birthday. We had several parties. I made the car cake for the family:

He also had cupcakes for his friends party at the Children's Museum:


And finally the latest cake, THE BELLY, made for Stacey's baby shower:


I have one more baby shower cake lined up and then we'll see- it sure has been fun!

An "Under"view

All these photos were snapped in a matter of days. This is the perspective our youngest likes to explore. At least he is generally still loud enough to be found. . . don't know what will happen when he can be more sneaky!

Budding photographer.

I left my camera on Nathan's chair one day and he told me later he took a picture of Josh. I discovered he took about 25 pictures, all different angles, of his room. Here is a look at Nathan's world through Nathan's eyes!
Train Table:

Room with a View:

Picture of Josh:

Self portrait of Nathan's nose:

Into the closet (I'll be honest, he could've used better lighting here. . . I'd like to give him a few pointers, but he doesn't take criticism well):

Last one. He titled this "Falling Down":

Joshie lately

Baby Josh is growing so big! He still has no teeth and refuses to eat much (how can he be my child?!)

He tried out the snow but prefered to be inside, playing in the ball pit.

Josh generally hero worships his big brother and can mostly be seen following!

My baby is really quite happy but does not enjoy facing backward, not seeing his brother, on a car ride in the dark. A binky usually does the trick and as you can see, he's very cleverly learned to stick his thumb in the hollow part, thus efficiently sucking both the binky and the thumb.

Josh finally decided to use his hands and knees for crawling instead of the army slither. Both are quite effective in reaching the desired destination.

A chair just right for a Joshie.

Being the littlest Soderlund has its pros and cons: being dragged along to all events is probably top of both lists, although who wouldn't want to be snuggled with their mommy against the cold?

9 Months old!