Happy September everyone! I hope everyone had an awesome Labor Day weekend 🙂 As I mentioned on
Instagram, ours was pretty low-key, which was nice! Cameron was busy putting the finishing touches on our basement aka the project he’s been working on all summer and I’m happy to report that it’s finally DONE! It turned out SO great, and I’m really thankful for all the time and hard work he put in to making it happen! After having a pretty full summer and heading into another busy season where we’ll be adding a newborn to the mix, it was kind of nice to have a holiday weekend without too much going on for a change. And after having some very hot weather at the end of last month, it’s been cool and rainy here in Portland this week so I’m completely in fall mode. That’s not to say I wouldn’t welcome a few warm sunny days in September, but mentally, I’m 100% focused on fall! However, it has been a really fantastic summer, so I wanted to share a quick overview of our August to close out the season!
Part of the reason I feel I’m kind of over summer so early this year is because, here in Portland at least, we had a really warm May and so I felt like I’ve been in summer mode for awhile now. These days, I don’t necessarily have time to write a dedicated blog post about every little thing we do (like I used to do pre-kids!) but I wanted to write down some of my favorite things we did this summer so I don’t forget. (And I’ve linked the places where I did end up doing a post!) We did lots of hiking (Falls Creek Falls and
Ramona Falls were a few favorties!), Cameron and I celebrated
our seventh wedding anniversary and
Henry turned 18 months old! We took Henry
camping for the first time, and then camped two more times after that. Henry took swimming lessons at our local pool and we spent a lot of time checking out various splash pads around town. We took a trip to Central Oregon where we visited the
Painted Hills, Smith Rock, and spent time in Bend. We also took a trip to my family in Michigan, our last one before baby #2 arrives! Henry and I took a music class, we spent a ton of time at the park, had barbecues with family, and hung out with friends. And of course, I can’t forget that I was pregnant through it all, ha! My baby bump grew a ton, I had midwife appointments,
we found out we’re having another boy, and
we had some family/maternity photos taken. There were so many sweet memories made and Henry really grew up a lot, which is bittersweet.
Instagram continues to be where I primarily post photos of what we’re up to, and even though I share on there a lot, I probably take 10x more photos on my phone than I actually post – ha! So these monthly review posts are a way for me to get some more of my favorite photos that I never got around to posting on social media off my phone 🙂 My
May,
June, and
July posts all have a bunch of my favorite moments from the summer, but without futher adieu, here are some of my favorite memories from the past month 🙂
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| We started out August with a haircut for Henry – we go to this place in West Linn and it’s awesome! |
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| Trying to use up the abundance of zucchini from our garden! |
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| My little bookworm finished all his summer reading at the library! |
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| Portland has a great zoo and so it’s been fun taking Henry this summer – he loves it! |
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| I had the opportunity to attend the 2016 Street of Dreams for media night, and it was fun to go tour all these completely over the top model homes. This bathroom had a TV embedded in the mirror, Henry was pretty into it 🙂 |
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| Henry is very into vehicles lately – bikes, trains, buses, trucks, etc.- basically if it moves, he’s into it! Portland has a pedestrian bridge that people/bikes can go across and then there’s a lane for buses and the light rail train. We walked over it on a rainy day last month and I thought he’d be super into it, but it was a little bit of an ordeal! I didn’t bring the stroller thinking he’d want to walk, so of course he kept wanting me to carry him and to lay down on the bridge…or he just wanted to run the opposite direction of the way we were going. Plus, we went with another friend and her toddler and the two of them never wanted to do the same thing at the same time, so it ended up being a little like herding cats across a bridge – ha! But I ended up taking a lot of pictures from that day that make it look like he’s having the time of his life 🙂 (And there were lots of fun moments, it was just kind of exhausting!) |
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| All he wanted to do was walk on the edge like this and even though there was absolutely no way he could have fallen off into the river since there was a metal barrier, it was still making my heart race! But I know this is just the beginning for Henry doing things that make me nervous…ha! |
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| We got caught in a rain storm, which was kind of fun 🙂 |
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| My little city kid |
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| Barefoot Contessa’s peach and blueberry crumble recipe is one of my favorite things to make in the summer! |
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| Henry (the blondie in the blue hoodie) just LOVES to jump |
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| Park date with his gal pal Margot |
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| This made me LOL |
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| Enjoying a little baby-free weekend in Hood River! |
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| 30 Week Bump 🙂 |
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| Mt. Adams made a gorgeous backdrop for my friend’s wedding that we attended in Trout Lake, WA |
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| We’ve spent lots of time chilling on our deck this summer, Henry loves playing with his “duck pond“ |
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| Brain freeze! |
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| Portland has beautiful Japanese Gardens – I hadn’t been in a few years, but they’re seriously gorgeous! |
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| When your mom makes you take a selfie and you practice your fake crying skills… |
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| My cousin Michael lives in Michigan, but he was took a big road trip this summer to visit a bunch of different places out West. He came to stay with us for a few days and Henry had a blast! He literally would wake up in the morning asking for “Mike? Mike?” for like a week after he left! |
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| We had some really hot weather while my cousin was here so we escaped to the Oregon Coast to beat the heat! |
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| This pregnant lady cannot handle the heat and so I spent a lot of time under our sunshade – ha! |
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| There are always so many cool things to explore at the beach! |
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| I’m really glad Mike got to see Portland, even if he did come during the hottest weekend ever 🙂 |
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| I’ve been packing away Henry’s summer stuff recently to save for his little brother, and I’m going to miss seeing him in these plaid short overalls now that the temps are cooling down! There’s just something about little boys in overalls that’s TOO cute. |
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| Hardcore passed out with his balloon animal after a birthday party |
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| Lots of the different neighborhoods in Portland has street fairs during the summer and we went to the one on Hawthorne at the end of August. It’s getting more and more fun to do things like this with Henry the older he gets! |
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| This circus group had things sent up for the kids to play with and Henry loved it! |
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| Normally Henry won’t leave sunglasses on, so I was shocked (and admittedly, thrilled) when he actually left these little aviators on for pretty much the entire time we were at the street fair! |
So there you have it, another month, another chance to share a ridiculous amount of Henry photos 🙂 I’m so thankful for the wonderful summer we had as a family of three, but looking forward to what the rest of 2016 has in store! (Aka it’s starting to sink in that I’m having a baby really soon…ha!)
