A "From the Wild" Road Trip

Tobias loved having a few days with his Grandpa VW at home, "helping" with oil changes and other outdoor chores. We really liked seeing DadVW too, and appreciated the help he gave us towards being ready to move. For the weekend we packed up and headed to Lynden to meet Jenna and celebrate her baptism! On Saturday we went to Semiahmoo beach at low tide. In the video you can't see it so well but Tobias and his Grandpa made it a long ways out! Tobias spontaneously fell asleep while sitting up on Grandpa's shoulders, so it must have been pretty peaceful out there. Later the kids (maybe the adults too) had lots of fun with streamers. We were blessed to be reminded through baptism of God's love for us, and also blessed to spend time relaxing and enjoying family!

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. -1 John 4:10

Fork lifter

We didn't deliberately teach Tobias to use a fork (although I believe he got a short tutorial from some of Rebecca's friends?). One evening he swiped one off the table and proceeded to stab his food with it. I guess it is one of those examples of how much kids absorb just from watching! It is fun and pretty amazing to see him learn so many new things.

The Great Outdoors....and Associated Equipment

1st year by the numbers

To Tobias:

In the past year,

you have slept all the way through the night, bedtime until morning, 0 times

you have overrode 1 anniversary supper

you have gained 2 uncles

you have summited 2 mountains

I have spent $7 on disposable diapers and wipes

you have sprouted 8 teeth

you have stayed fairly calm through 9 airplane takeoffs

we have traveled to or through 10 states (IA, NE, SD, WA, WY, ID, MT, CO, OR, UT)

you have starred in 11 videos

you have charmed 65 ladies of varying ages (Ok, that one's an estimate)

You have caused 146 laundry loads worth of cloth diapers

I have spent $250 on cloth diapers
I have put 1296 miles on the car coming home on my lunch breaks to feed you

It would be difficult to measure or even estimate other things, such as the number of times you spit up, the number of Cheerios you've eaten, the number of times you've fallen down while learning to walk, the number of times we've said "No, Tobias", or the number of times I've thought "for not liking babies, Nate makes a pretty good dad". It has been a great year and we can't wait to see you grow and learn more in the coming years! Love you!

Happy Birthday-(coming)-(up)-(yet)-(this)-(Friday) Tobias!

Toddling

Buddies

At times I suspected that Tobias's Grandma VW had gone overboard when she bought so many baby items, but I wanted to post this picture so she could see we're putting stuff to good use. This picture is from a few weeks back (April Fool's Day, I believe) when we took one of our first walks of spring (Jayna and her mom came along!).

Strolling Musician

OK, so he's not quite a strolling musician yet, but he's improving on both fronts! I did include some video of him trying to play the wrong end of the recorder, and falling over, just so you all know that he's only a little bit of a genius baby. He's 9 months old in a few days!

8 months

Tobias changes so much each week that it seems these video clips are out of date by the time I post them! He's getting to be much more of a talker- imitating sounds and babbling. He also loves to make fishy faces and/or kissy sounds (maybe Holly can post her video of that). His other new tricks are "give me five", turning book pages, and turning off light switches (although he needs some help to reach them, of course). He is getting to be a speedy crawler and has mostly left the army crawl behind. We all had a lot of fun on Holly's spring break visit enjoying the spring weather, good food, and just hanging out!

Baby Buxtehude?

We caught some of the very first "real" crawling on video, as well one of the first organ solos.

Around the house with Dad and Grandpa

We all enjoyed a visit from this video's guest star, known to Tobias as "Grandpa Vander Wilt". He is a man of many skills including stopping the organ squeak and rocking a crabby teething baby!

Sit-ups and Squash

Tobias is 6 months old so we're letting him try a few bites of food that hasn't been pre-processed by mom. And I know, rice cereal is the traditional first food, and probably not a bad one, but for a variety of reasons, I picked squash. (One of the reasons being that Walmart was all out of my first choice of pears.) It has been fun and quite messy. You will notice that in the first food clip, he is wearing clothes, and by today he is eating in diaper and bib only. We're all learning. What do you think he should he taste next?

Blessed

Today we're celebrating the greatest gift in history, and also enjoying being "snowed in" with people we love very much. It's been great to see and help with the progress on the new apartments, and Tobias is loving all the new faces he's met. We hope that the rest of our family can travel safely and get here later this week!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Let the Childproofing Begin

Tobias has figured out how to roll to get things. Fortunately, he has not yet figured out how to roll to get places. I think it will be soon, though, so we better start child-proofing.

Jayna, Johnny, Jokes

(photos by Nate)

Last Friday we went out in the drizzle to rescue some beautiful grapes. We picked 6 bins worth and over that day and the next turned them into over 50 quarts of grape juice using Terry and Jan's steamer. One of my favorite parts, besides the tasty juice, was seeing the colors of the grapes. On the vine they were a handsome navy with a dusty gray coating, in the steamer they gradually turned neon purple, and the juice was a deep, staining, almost black color.

P.S. The stains did come off the countertop with bleach, the fate of the khaki pants that came into contact with grape-stained potholder has yet to be determined

Oc-TOB-er

Here are a few video clips of Tobias's favorite activities. It is hard to choose clips where the parents don't sound too silly, especially since we know these videos get watched so many times! Enjoy!

Tobias discovers humor

Tobias started laughing this week- first at dad, then later at mom. I think he's going to grow up to be a goof, like his dad, or his aunts, or his great-aunt Pam.

Bear Creek Mountain

On Saturday, August 22, Nate and I and Tobias went on the now-annual church hike. We walked through cool forests, sunny meadows, steep rocky hillsides, and stunted shrubs up to the peak. The 360 view, including Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier, was almost too much to take in. When I think of God being omniscient, my limited mind thinks of a view like that, even though I know his eyes see big and small things, past, present, and future, as well as things not visible to the human eye. Tobias slept through all the great views, riding in his comfy carrier. Unfortunately, the day marked not only his first mountain peak, but his first sunburn. I felt badly about it, but it didn't seem to bother him. He was the youngest person on the hike (7 weeks old), and the oldest person was Tony B. at 84 years old. We took a picture of them together at the top!

6 week noises

Tobias working out

(and a little smile at the end)