Sianara '09!

2009 certainly had it's ups and downs! And by ups I mean throw up and downs I mean toddler throw downs! Just another exciting year for the Striley's!

Everett is finishing the year at a whoppin 25 lbs and Corbin is not far behind at 17.5lbs

Baby's first Christmas

Coco the sneak... trying to get into his presents before Christmas!
If only he could read, he'd know that present is for Everett

Two year old birthday cake face (the boy is 2, not the cake)

First time playing in the snow
(last time mommy goes in the woods to cut a tree down with 2 little babies!)

Our house after Santa came

Christmas party at Grammi and Papa's house, he looks like the next Tony Soprano... he can really wield a bat!

This is the only half way decent picture of the boys on Christmas Eve...

Ev was not in the picture mood

TWO!

Happy Birthday sweet Evy!! Thanks for beginning our family! We are blessed every day to have you in our lives! We are so excited to see you grow and learn.

Love you!
Mommy and Dada

...And for My Next Trick

Happy Halloween!

We went with the Monkey and Banana theme this year. Ev really got into the trick or treating (although he couldn't get out the phrase "trick or treat", just held out his bucket for candy). When we finished with that he got into his skeleton jammies and helped mom and dad pass out candy! After a while he would yell "BYE!" and shut the door right in people's faces, it was great :)

Wiggin Out!

Pumpkin Patch Extravaganza

We took the kiddo's to enjoy a beautiful sunny day picking pumpkins and enjoying the activities at the Pheasant Farms Pumpkin Patch. We fed the goats, sheep, bunnies, and chickens; went on hay rides and pony rides, and ate caramel apples with spiders on our faces.

Bright Lights of Tinseltown!

We took Everett to go see "Where the Wild Things Are"! His first movie on the big screen. We had no expectation about how he would do but he was awesome... his eyes lit up when his little bum sat in that big ole seat with popcorn and licorice in hand (we knew that success would likely depend on how much junk food we ate). I wish I would have taken some pictures of him in the theater but here's one of him before we left.

I love that it gets dark before Everett's bed time!

es, the days are shorter... the mornings have a chill, but kids sure do sleep better! Its too dark to see the toys in the toy box or rummage through the closet and pull out all the too small clothes that mommy is too lazy to box up... might as well go to sleep! Now if only Corbin would take Ev's lead (as he is screaming in the next room... cry it out little man!)

So here are the highlights of our October so far:

We braved the 4.5 hour car ride and headed up to Portland for a little Cyclocross racing action, and family time. We got to introduce Corbin to the Aunts and both boys got some much needed Gma time! On Sunday Doug raced his first Cross Crusade Race, he and about 1600 others! It was quite the experience since we are used to competing against a much smaller crowd. It was wild... my ears rang cowbell for about a week!

Everett fell in love with Uncle Rick!

Ev helping Gma wash the veggies picked from the garden

Elliot showing off his chunk!

I envy Anne Geddes... baby photography is not easy!

Now that the baby factory is closed down (Yeah!) I needed something to motivate me to get back into shape and find those ab muscles that once existed, so I started a bootcamp class. Now this is not your sweet, ease into your new fit life class... this stuff is hard core (this is my trainer)! After my first class I dry heaved into the garbage can outside. Its fabulous!

Corbin's 4 month stats are:
14 lbs (25th Percentile)
26 inches (90th Percentile)
He is smiling all the time, laughing every once in a while and loves to play in his excersaucer.




We took Ev to the train park in Medford for the first time, he's been really into Thomas and trains in general so it was a great way to explore. He rode the train twice and even had the guts to let go of mommy's hands the second time around!

Ev and his friend Annie, peeking out the window

Feeling the freedom of ridin the rails

Everett received an early birthday present from Mama and Daddy. We'll just say he definitely takes after his daddy!

Just so you know, these "scoot" bikes are the latest way to teach a kid how to ride a bike, you'll notice it doesn't have pedals, this so the child learns to balance first... pedaling is the easy part!

End of Summer Wrap Up

You wouldn't know it by the 100 degree weather outside but today is officially the first day of Fall. Another Summer comes to a close... It's been an eventful one!

Summer Summarized:

MTB and Road bike race season come to a close with Doug winning another OBRA gold metal! Yeah!




We did a lot of hiking and camping with the boys this year, trying to get them excited about nature early on... Lets hope they don't turn into weird mountain people or anything.


Corbin is almost 4 months old! He is growing so fast and is developing quite a personality. I think we are going to have another character on our hands. He definitely will ham it up for the camera!





Everett is approaching 2 with a vengeance! He is loving throwing fits and screaming. We all love this stage, its fun. He is saying new words everyday which hopefully will lead to less screaming and more reasoning. He newest word is "pee pee". Yep that's right! The only body part my son knows how to say is his pee pee... I'm hoping this will lead to pee pee in the potty soon!


I'm looking forward to the routine the Fall seems to bring. I hope you all are too!

Trailer Trash Goes on The Road

Last weekend was the maiden voyage of "The Meteor" (for the Striley's anyway). We trekked up to Lake of the Woods and ate junk food, drank beer, and got incredibly dirty (at least Ev did) for 3 days. We had a great time and the trailer did great. It was a whoppin 38 degrees on Friday night which made me realize that the key word in tent trailer is "TENT" it was a bit chilly, but we got through it. Both boys did great, Ev had a blast roaming around all day exploring and Corbin loves the outdoors! He just would look and look and look... it was adorable :) Here are some pics of our adventure:

Not camping, but this kid loves corn on the cob!

Helpin mom make cookies for the trip

His very own smoothie on the way up the mountain

We've arrived!
Family portrait... with the top of Corbin's head

Mama and C
End of the trip amazingly dirty and now sticky

Corbin had is 2 month check-up last week, time is flying! He is doing great, his 2mo stats are:

10lbs 5oz
23 3/4 inches
Long and skinny just like his brother.