Happy Fall Y'all!

 

FIRE!!!

Last week, we visited a fire station in our neighborhood. All of the trucks and ambulances were lined up and  open for us to explore! The boys came prepared in their gear, ready to work.

Lazarus was obsessed with making sure every seat belt was clipped properly.

The boys got a lesson about  going to the ER in an ambulance. They were fascinated.

Ever since our visit to the first station, EVERYTHING has been on fire in our house. Thankfully, I've got two strong boys who know how to put a fire out! :)

Lazzy's Berf-day!

Well, it's official. We have a three year old in the house for the second time. Something tells me this particular three year old will be MUCH less dramatic than our first, although he is more rambunctious than our first. Ahh, balance. 

Lazarus is simply just a joy to be around and we loved celebrating him on Saturday! We started the day with donuts. We let a few people go ahead of us because it was so hard to choose (hence Lazzy's "wuh woah" face)! Eventually, the boys settled on a chocolate covered doughnut with sprinkles and GUMMY WORMS!

After fueling up, we went for a walk/hike around Whatcom Falls park. Just minutes off a main road in Bellingham, you are quickly surrounded by lush green trees and moss and a beautiful rushing water fall!

Grampy drove up from Seattle and joined us there.

 Opening presents!!

I made lemon blueberry cupcakes (with lemon cream cheese frosting!) from scratch! Y'all, stop reading this blog post and go make these right now!!!

Sweet little boy waited for the birthday song to end and then blew as hard as he could! Dang little candles wouldn't go out and he got a leeeetle too close to the fire, but eventually got it.

It was a full happy day. After church on yesterday, we got visits from grammy and Aunt Tammy and Dan's cousin Edward. They were only here for dinner and more cupcakes (go make them!!) and then off to catch a ferry. Though it was short, we all enjoyed visiting and celebrating crazy Lazzy again for his third birthday. Such a fun weekend!!! Now, we're off to our fourth week of homeschool. Wish us luck!

We've found our beach

There's a small rocky beach just 3 minutes from our house. It's not the soft beautiful sandy kind where you lay there all day with a book. It's the rocky kind with crabs, oysters, muscles and other cool things to explore. We've been a few times now and love it! This time, we visited at low tide and made some HUGE discoveries!

I saw a pile of these giant oysters and thought they were drift wood at first.

We also spent some time digging for clams.

I've decided I prefer this type of beach to a sandy sunny beach. There's so much to explore here!

Pickin' Blueberries!

There are so many farms near us in Bellingham. Many of them are U-Pick with great prices. Blueberry season is in full swing here, so the boys and I went on an adventure. Of course, I instructed them to put on long dark pants and find a dark shirt to wear. They came downstairs, proudly dressed in khakis and white shirts with ties on. Although they were SO HANDSOME, we had to compromise:

Elijah was very diligent about picking. He refused to eat any of his harvest until we weighed them all. He was convinced he could pick 500 lbs, ha! Imagine his disappointment when we learned he had picked only half a pound. Lazarus, on the other hand, ate every single blueberry he picked and brought none home, ha!

It was such a nice way to spend the morning with my boys. We took home 3.5 lbs of blueberries for only $4, got to chat and snack all morning and be outside. I think we'll go it again next week, too!

Bellingham-landia

Bellingham has already proven to be different from Seattle in many ways, but people, it's still very much the North West. These Portlandia clips perfectly describe the funniest two experiences that I seem to re-live every day since moving here.

While you might possibly get run over in St. Louis, you'll never get to where you're going in the NW with these annoying super polite drivers. No one can find the gas pedal!!

Most stores do have bags, but you pay for them. The first time I went to Target, I had made the big pantry/household shopping trip. When the cashier asked me if I needed a bag, I literally laughed, looked at all the stuff on the line and said "um, yeah, i think i'll probably need a bag". I was so confused!!

Since then, I've gotten used to keeping my bags in the car and even have a compact bag in my purse at all times. I've learned never to go anywhere without a bag! Sheesh!