Hunter's Fifth Birthday - Part II

On Saturday, we kicked off the birthday celebration with breakfast at McDonald's before Hunter's soccer game

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After the soccer game, we headed up north to Santa Cruz, for a ride on the Roaring Camp Railroad. We were treated to a ride through the redwood forest on a 100 year-old steam engine

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So glad Mom and Dad were able to join us!

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Checking out the engine with Pappa

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Too hard to resist taking cheesy pictures!

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Timeout!

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Entrance to Roaring Camp

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My fourth cake creation (Hunter's third birthday cake was courtesy of Costco since we were out of town!) Hunter requested a Toy Story 3 cake, with Buzz, Woody, and Jessie "because she's pretty" :o)

It was a chocolate fudge cake with Reeses peanut butter frosting filling. The outer frosting is homemade almond butter cream. All the decorating was done with the butter cream, and the figures are from Toys R Us.

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Once I saw Hunter's first impression of the cake, I instantly forgot what a pain it was to make :o)

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Awesome alien party hats! I laugh out loud every time I see this picture. Morgan was thinking 'I hope they don't make me wear a goofy hat on MY birthday!' and Hunter was thinking 'LET'S EAT!'

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A complete set of cooking tools from Grandma and Pappa - no kiddie stuff here, this is the real deal!

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Really cool recordable birthday card from Grandma and Grandpa (Nilson) (in addition to an awesome pirate book and sea monkeys!)

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Justin is teaching Hunter Arabic (I'm trying, but dang it's hard!) so he gave Hunter a big Arabic picture dictionary, and wrote him a special birthday message on the inside-

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Justin, reading the Arabic to Hunter

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Our good friends and former neighbors, the Farmers (you'll remember them from last years camping blog!) sent Hunter a set of build-it-yourself monster trucks!

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Hunter had a great birthday, and we can't believe he's FIVE! Hunter has celebrated his five birthdays in four different homes, and as of now, we aren't sure what state we'll be celebrating in next year!

Happy Birthday little man, we love you, and we are so proud of you. You make us laugh and smile each and every day, and we can't wait to see what you're going to do next!

Hunter's Fifth Birthday, Part I

Since Hunter's birthday was on a Friday this year, we split the celebration into two parts, so that Justin could be around for all the fun stuff :o)

After Justin got home from work on Friday, we went out to the beach at Moss Landing

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I was wearing a jacket with lots of buttons, and it was too chilly to be without a jacket, so Justin stepped up and wore Morgan in the wrap for me. I love this picture :o)

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Hunter, searching for buried treasure

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The four of us - taking pictures was a little tricky due to the evening sun

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When Hunter was about Morgan's age, we took a footprint in the sand picture. Now, with another member added to the family, it was time for an update

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Five Years Old!

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Are you ready for some FOOTBALL?

The house is adorned...

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The jerseys are ready, the tattoos have been applied, the game face is on...

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The hair bow is neatly in place...

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It's FOOTBALL SEASON!

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Here are some shots of the week 2 festivities:

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I'm pretty sure this is a penalty of some sort...

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Soccer and Swimming

Sports season is upon us, and Hunter is going full strength! Soccer practice on Tuesdays and games on Saturdays, and swimming M, T, Th, and F!

Some pictures from the game yesterday:

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So glad one of the moms facilitated getting the kids' names on their jerseys!

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Hunter exemplifies team spirit, seen here as he celebrates another boy on the team scoring a goal:

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Huddle - GO GREEN HORNETS!!!! BZZZZZZ!!!

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Hunter takes swimming lessons on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and does aquatic phsyical therapy (which amounts to private swimming lessons), on Monday and Friday Mornings. He started swimming back in May, and has come so far in terms of both comfort and confidence in the water and skill!

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Needless to say, it has not been difficult to log enough P.E. hours!

Roots

On Sunday, September 5th, we decided to get in touch with our roots, so the four of us drove up to the bay area for the Caledonian Club of San Francisco Scottish Highland Games. We spent a full seven hours at the games, the kids were amazingingly cooperative and well-tempered, the music was awesome, the food was great, and the ale was cold - what a day!

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Our first stop was the Clan MacLean tent (Justin's clan, his grandmother was a MacLean).

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My family (Arnott) doesn't have a current clan, as there is no present-day clan chief. We are however, part of the Fife District Clan, as that is where the Arnot(t) family seat has been since the early 12th century.

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After checking out the clan tents, we headed over to the grandstand to watch some of the heavy athletics competition. We watched the weight for height competition, and of course, the caber toss.

From there we headed over to the Children's grove, where they had face painting, and some cute games for kids.

Here is Hunter, channeling his inner William Wallace:

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Playin' a little golf...

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Hunter earned 12 tickets at the golf game!

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Next was the haggis toss...

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Check out the 'haggis' Hunter is about to throw-

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After Hunter played his games, we decided to grab a bite to eat and sit down to watch some pipe-band competition.

We shared a steak and mushroom meat pie, as well as a Scotch egg

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The scotch egg is a hard boiled egg, inside a massive sausage meatball, breaded and fried. Amazing.

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The pipe bands were awesome, we could have sat there and listened all day!

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I wasn't sure if the loud sound of the bagpipes would bother Morgan, I'm thinking it didn't :o)

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After hearing some pipe bands, we headed back to the grandstand for the closing ceremonies. When we got there, Marine Band San Diego was playing.

And just as we were laughing about Justin not being able to get away, we looked behind us....

The Marine staring at Justin ended up coming up to us, and thanking Justin for his uniform - turns out he's a Bear's fan :o)

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The highlight of the day was the mass bands at the closing ceremony. All of the pipe bands that competed stood together and played 'Amazing Grace' and 'Scotland the Brave' in unison (that's over 600 pipers at once!) It was so awesome, I had a hard time not tearing up!

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Marine Band San Diego, interspersed with the L.A. Scots Pipe Band, one of only three grade I pipe bands in the United States

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We had a great time at the games, and we hope that wherever we are next summer, there will be a Highland games for us to attend. (until then, the mission will be getting kilts for Justin and Hunter!)
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Morgan is 3 Months Old!

Our sweet baby girl is three months old, can you believe it??
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I don't know all of her 'stats', as she isn't due for another dr's visit until October. When we weighed her at home last week, she was just over 12 lbs. Some tidbits:

- Morgan has mellowed out A LOT in the last few weeks. She still functions much better when she gets good naps in her bed (as opposed to cat naps in the car seat), but she is super relaxed and happy more often than not!

- She is sleeping 6 - 7 hour stretches at night, the last few nights she has been pretty consistent, having her last bottle between 11 and 11:30, and sleeping until somewhere between 6 and 7am. ahhhhhhhh :o)

- Morgan eats 3oz, every 3 hours

- Justin made her giggle for the first time the other day. With as much as Justin has to be away from home, I am so SO glad that he was here for, and was the cause of, her first laugh :o)

- Yesterday she started reaching. Justin was dangling his keys in front of her, and she reached out and got them. This took a lot of effort and concentration for Morgan, but she persevered!

- She is still wearing a lot of her 0-3 month clothes (rompers, onesies, and dresses), with footed sleepers and pants she is wearing 3-6 months because she is looooong

So that is three month old Morgan in a nutshell - we are still cloth diapering and loving it! Having diapered one in disposables, and having done the cloth thing for a full three months now, we can say with confidence that we LOVE our cloth diapers, and wouldn't do it any other way!

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Here are some pictures of her sweetness: