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Family

Kangaroo Farm

Tyla has wanted to visit the Outback Kangaroo Farm in Arlington for quite a while, so her birthday seemed like a good excuse to go. You pay $10/person an get a one hour tour around their facility. Imagine if someone you knew bought a kangaroo. And then another. And then 10 more. And then they bought some alpacas, lamas, donkeys, goats, tortoises, lemurs, peacocks, mini horses, ostriches and emus to go with them. You’d have the Outback Kangaroo Farm.

On the tour you get to feed and pet a lot of the animals. Tyla loved it and Elijah had fun too, though you can imagine that those animals look a lot bigger to him so he was a bit nervous at times.

It was a fun experience but probably not one that we need to repeat on a regular basis. It’s a great place to see some animals that you don’t normally see in the Pacific Northwest. And oh yeah, feeding the alpaca is done by putting a piece of food in your mouth and letting them kiss you…

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benmartens August 18, 2015 Family, Travel

We’re Going To The Zoo Zoo Zoo

Since Elijah was born, it has been really easy for us to get into a rut of trading off watching him on the weekends and “getting stuff done.” While that is important, it’s also important to take time to grow together as family. This past weekend, I surprised Tyla by suggesting a trip to the zoo. I’m pretty sure she’d go every day if she could, but I’m usually the holdout.

The day was a bit wet and cool (the opposite of everything we’ve had for the last two months), but that was good because it meant that the crowds were really low and the animals were very active. When it’s hot, they just hide away in the shade. Every single exhibit we visited featured very active animals! Elijah knew a bunch of animals that he wanted to see and impressed me by walking through the pretty big tunnel by the meerkat exhibit. He’s really interested in tunnels right now so that was a big hit. If you ask him what he did at the zoo, he says “Walk through tunnel!”

The zoo no longer has elephants, but the new (to me anyway) tiger exhibit was pretty impressive. The zoo also has some lion cubs that were born last fall and they were really playful while we were there.

We only stayed about 2.5 hours because he has been getting up so early and was ready for a nap, but it was a good family event.

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benmartens July 27, 2015 Family

Happy Birthday Elijah!

Our little man turns two today! He changes week to week, so looking back over an entire year is quite a trip. The biggest change we’ve seen lately is his ability to combine more and more words together into fragments or even full sentences. It’s so fun to understand a little more about what is going on in his thoughts. We love you Elijah!

benmartens June 15, 2015 Family

Uncle Dean and Aunt Sandy

A couple weeks ago, we had a great visit from Uncle Dean and Aunt Sandy. They came out a few years back with Mom and Dad for a week, but that was before we had our house and they had to rent a place to stay. This time we were able to be much better hosts and give them an actual guest room.

Thankfully the weather cooperated pretty well and we were able to go to Gas Works Park and the Ballard Locks on Sunday afternoon. It was great to see them again and introduce them to Elijah!

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benmartens April 28, 2015 Family

Five Years

Hey God, it’s me. Five years ago on this day, Tyla and I stood before you and promised our lives to each other. Just checking in to say that it’s all going well! Thank you for bringing us together!

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benmartens April 10, 2015 Family

Family Photos

While Mom and Dad were here, we tossed Dad the camera and took another crack at some family photos. This time we headed to Meydenbauer Park. Thanks for the help Mom and Dad!

familyphotos_2015_01  familyphotos_2015_03familyphotos_2015_02 And I’m pretty sure that Tyla needs to make this one her Facebook profile picture:

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benmartens March 19, 2015 Family, Photography

Log Boom Park

We had some gorgeous weather while Mom and Dad were visiting which made it convenient and fun to spend a lot of time at various parks in the area. Elijah loved playing on the different equipment and we loved sitting in the sunshine. One of the parks we visited was Log Boom Park and I thought I’d share some of the photos from that trip:

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benmartens March 18, 2015 Family, Photography

Kids’ Music

Caspar-BabyPantsElijah loves music. He especially likes to listen to it in the car and when each song ends, he immediately makes the sign for “more.” Finding kids music that doesn’t make my head explode is a challenge, but we’ve locked onto a couple good singers so far.

  • Caspar Babypants – This is Chris Ballew who is/was the lead singer for Presidents of the United States. He lives in the Seattle area and now spends most of his time writing music for kids. He does lots of small, free shows which Tyla really enjoys attending. One of our favorite albums is his cover of a bunch of Beatles songs that have a fun kids message to them. I love the idea that Elijah and I are both enjoying listening to the same guy as we grow up!
  • Raffi – This is more traditional kids music, but he has a good voice and does a good job with his songs.

What else is out there? What albums do you fire up when your kids want music? I’m especially looking for ones that adults don’t mind!

benmartens February 19, 2015 Family, Music, Uncategorized

Elijah’s Vocabulary

There are so many times during the day when I stare at Elijah and wonder what he’s thinking. He jabbers all the time, but what is he telling us? He picked up some baby sign language pretty early on (“more”, “all done”, “milk”) but now he’s building up his verbal vocabulary too. Here’s a list of what he has under his belt so far:

no apple cracker
thank you juice water
two hi car
truck tractor trash
diaper bye bye uh oh
oh no shoes cheese
slide ball keys
eye Jesus What’s that?
tree  Ike

In fairness, some of these words are only distinguishable in context by Tyla and I but others are decipherable by the general public.

The list of words he understands is much bigger. I’m always talking to him, and sometimes I’m amazed at the complicated instructions he can actually follow. For example, one day I said, “Can you please pick up this piece of paper and throw it into the trash can?” I turned my back not expecting him to do it and when I looked again, he was toddling over to the trash can across the room. One of our favorites is that he understand “May I please have a hug?” Sometimes he’ll say “No”, but that’s fine because it just makes the hugs more enjoyable.

benmartens January 22, 2015 Family