James Learning to Walk

This is especially for my parents! Sorry its sideways... I don't know how to fix it!

Bear Paw Festival!

Every year in Eagle River (that's the town we live in- about 15 minutes outside of Anchorage) they have a festival called Bear Paw Festival. There are lots of things to do- relay races, carnival, 5k race, magicans, picnics, and lots of food just to name a few things. This year we decided to participate in the 5K race and the carnival. The 5k race basically killed me, but I am glad I completed with most of the other Maugers! Here are some pictures!

Here is what the carnival area looked like on Friday

Matt, James, Kristin, Amber, Ashley and Grandma Mauger went to a picnic on Friday while I was working- it was PERFECT weather for a picnic!

Saturday morning right before we left for the 5K- here is everyone in the family that ran- from left to right it is Matt, me, Grandma Mauger, Kristin, Ashley and Stuart... all of us with our matching outfits :)

This is a few pictures of Matt right before he crossed the finish line. Look closely at the girl (#246) on Matt's left and follow her through the series of pictures below (you may have to click on the third picture in order to open it and see it close up):

Here is everyone after the race... we did it!

Matt and I sweaty and in love :)

After the race we went home, showered and then went back for the carnival. James rode the merry go round and really enjoyed it. He kept bouncing his body up and down dancing to the music while on the horse!

We also went on the train with Aunt Amber. James sat quietly on the train, but didn't show any signs of really enjoying it. Overall it was a fun weekend!

Fourth of July Weekend

We really enjoyed the long weekend for fourth of July- here are a few highlights:

We went rafting on the Kenai river. Everyone went except for James and Grandma Mauger- we didn't know how strong the rapids would be so we played it safe and didn't take James with us.

It was such a pretty day while we were rafting! Here are two landscape pictures to show you a little bit of Alaska!

We met up with James and Grandma Mauger afterwards and took some pictures with James- this was one of the few pictures that Matt wasn't making a silly face in

Us with one of the rafts

Here is James thinking haha

For Sunday we made some yummy desserts- can you see the flag in this next picture?

Here are some "Oreo" cookies that I made with red, white and blue frosting... they were yummy!

With the leftover fruit we made some red, white and blue skewers. I dipped the strawberries in white chocolate. Mm mmm!

James' First Haircut

On June 24th we gave James his first haircut. We didn't cut off too much, just around his ears and what was in front. His hair covered his ear a little less than halfway and it also went down to his eyebrows, so I figured it was time for a trim. It was hard to get him to sit still, so we had to kept him distracted by giving him a bottle.

Grandma is cutting the first side!

He needed both me and Ashley to kept him from wiggling too much!

Diarrhea cha cha cha

Caution: The following is not for the wimps- view at your own risk!

Yup, James had the case of diarrhea- I blogged about it earlier, but here are the pictures- it is hard to see, but if you look closely you can see how soaked his shirt is. Everything on his belt and body is diarrhea, not food!

10 months old!

James hit his 10 month birthday on June 30th! He didn't have a doctors appointment, but we weighed him a few times and he is 23 pounds and 28 inches long! A pretty big boy if I do say so! Here are some random pictures from the past month :)

Here is a fun picture of Matt and James both smiling- such goofy guys!

One thing that James does is whenever he sees a pillow he goes to it and rests on it- we always so "Awww how cute!" and then he smiles :)

James is still learning to walk- he can stand up on his own but doesn't after about 5 seconds he slowly squats and sits on the ground. He can take about 4-5 steps before he falls. It will be any day now when he will be off and running!

This is what James looks like whenever he laughs :) I love how he sticks his tongue out a little bit!

Here is Matt playing with James and Stu! How cute! As you can see by James' tongue, he is laughing!

James loves going on walks as long as he has people in front of him that he can watch or unless we are jogging- in this picture he has two scratches on his nose.

James is getting into everything!!! He is in heaven when he is in the kitchen because there are lots of cabinets that he can get into! I am not sure why, but this is his favorite cabinet.

Model pose!

James hiding in the couch not wanting to go to bed!

Hiking Time!

With us being in Alaska, we had to go on some hikes! Here are some pictures from our first hike that was done on Memorial Day.... I know it has taken me a while to put these pictures up!

This is me doing last minute preparations before getting ready to hike! James was such a pleasant baby throughout the hike!

Here is everyone that hiked with us minus Kristin the photographer- you can't see James because he is behind me :)

At the end of the hike there was a viewing deck where we can look at some waterfalls- they were so pretty!

James' pants aren't high-waters- they are just all scrunched up at the top!

The entire family minus grandma Mauger posing at the waterfall area... except you can't see the waterfall in this picture!

There is the waterfall!

Matt held James on the way back down from the hike- the two most handsome boys ever! :)