Twinners

We were watching a few family videos that we have on Sunday and we came across this one on top of Charlotte when she was Peter's age. Peter happened to be asleep in his diaper, so I took another video of him at the same age, looking very much like his sister. (I'm not sure why the quality of Peter's video is so bad.)

Endless Summer

 The pleasant weather here in Seattle just won't go away - at least not for more than a day or two (okay, so today was rainy but it's the first in a long time). We've been taking advantage of the nice weather and Brad's break from teaching to go on lots of adventures, such as:

Downtown Seattle

Remlinger Farms

Today we went to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium which was amazing. 

Ocean

This is another guest post by Brad. Victoria's been 'grammin' it up with her iphone so I figured I'd update the blog. We went on an amazing trip to the ocean yesterday. Since I'm on break for a month we'd been talking about doing it, and then yesterday morning when both Peter and Charlotte were up at 5am we decided it was a great morning to get away. It was such a beautiful drive! And both kids did great - Peter slept almost the entire drive, both ways, and Charlotte slept for part . . . and gave a non-stop stream-of-consciousness commentary on life for the rest. Here are some pictures from the drive there:

We went to Rialto Beach first, which I don't think I've ever been to before. It was lovely; the morning fog was just starting to clear from off the beach and between the trees.

We had a little picnic on the beach (we were the only ones with that idea, somehow) and Charlotte LOVED the strawberries (her white coat loved them by default . . .). Peter dozed.

The beach was covered in these amazing, perfectly smooth grey stones:

Victoria tried to get Charlotte to put her feet in the waves, but the Pacific was too cold for her . . . so she collected rocks, which is one of her favorite beach activities.

Then we headed to La Push! Some interesting foliage we saw:

La Push is one of my favorite places on planet Earth. It might actually be my number one favorite. And it was so beautiful yesterday! Like Rialto, the mists were clearing while we played on the beach, so you can see how the mists give way to the brilliant colors. There's also a short video to watch here.

(yes both of these are me looking super epic)

Victoria has recently taken up watercolor painting, so she brought her paints and made this while Peter and I were napping (and Charlotte was rolling in the sand): 

She would never have posted a picture of it. That's why I'm doing this. She said she had to keep redoing the clouds and sky because their color changed almost minute by minute.

So here is my really lame attempt at a collage of what the beach looked like when all the mist was cleared:

And then some more beach pictures:

And the sun was setting while we rode the ferry home. What a beautiful day!

Peter Blake Gerhardt 7.10.2014

Peter Blake Gerhardt made an early arrival on July 10. At my last OB appointment I mentioned that my skin had been itching and my doctor seemed a little concerned and wanted me to have my blood tested for a possible liver complication that could cause distress to the baby. I had to be fasting for the test and wasn't so I took the test a few days later because the 4th of July was the next day and we had to wait another few days for the test results. It was a little stressful. We didn't find out the results until I got a phone call from my OB at 6:30 in the morning on July 9th. She said that the levels were elevated and that it would be best to induce me as soon as possible. Wow. We scrambled to get Charlotte taken care of and everything ready and headed into the hospital at 11:00am. It took a while to get things started, but he was born the next afternoon at 3:23pm, which happened to be right during my scheduled clinic visit time of 3:20. He cried from the moment that he came out and didn't stop for a few hours. No delay in lung development there:) He calmed down after that though, and he has been a very sleepy baby. So far the newborn stage had been going alright and our level of sleep deprivation is nothing compared to how it was with newborn Charlotte. He's been a great eater and just a really good baby. I can't even count how many times a day we just say how cute and how sweet he is. We love having him around. 

Me looking a little tired after quite a few hours of labor. I had an epidural, which was great once it was in, but they had to make two attempts and I almost went without it because it hurt so much to get it in.

Although you can't really tell in this picture, Peter was a little guy and weighed only 6 lb. 4 oz.

Charlotte has loved having a new baby around. She has just started to hold him and help feed him bottles, but has given him kisses since she first saw him. The other day I went into her room after her nap with Peter in my arms and she said," That baby is really shy around me. He doesn't talk very much. I will help him to talk and to march." (She's been really into marching since the 4th of July.) She's a great little helper.

Granny Kerry has been visiting and helping us with everything. Charlotte had loved it.

Cute little Peter hanging out at home with me while everyone was at church on Sunday.

Tulip Festival

We went up to the Tulip Festival on Saturday. Charlotte had a blast. She had to run everywhere. The tulips were gorgeous. They were almost all in bloom. Luckily, we had an early start and got there before the real crowds started. Everyone was there with their fatty cameras trying to get the perfect picture. I'm sure Charlotte made it into many of their pictures. Good thing she's cute! She also wanted someone to run with her to all the tulips and wanted to help me take pictures with my phone. You can see from these videos how much energy she had that day.

Instagram

Sorry for the long break. We have been having lots of adventures. I got a new phone and have been taking most of my pictures with that and I haven't figured out how to get them on here, but you can see my instagram photos here. I'll keep working on getting the pictures up on here.

Charlotte's School

Charlotte has been really interested in school lately. She even got her backpack a couple of days and wanted to go with Brad to school, so I decided to do some sort of school at home and see how she did. She loves it. We started with colors and did a rainbow day with rainbow jello. She had a blast.