February 3, 2010
Daddy writes:
It looks like Evie is really thriving at preschool. All day yesterday after school Evie was running around the house saying “Hooray for joy!”.
I love it!
January 31, 2010
Daddy writes:
There have been a great number of shots of taken with my Nikon over the past few months which I haven’t had the time, energy or space on our computer to load up and post them. I backed up a bunch of files and made some space on our laptop and finally got the shots off the memory card and onto the computer!
I spent a lovely day yesterday with Evie at the home of my cousin Sarah and her family in Tacoma who had a farewell party as they’re moving to Idaho. It was wonderful to spend time with her as well as her brother Matt and my Uncle Terry (great to see Terry as grandfather!), Aunt Cindy, Aunt Molly and Uncle Bob, all who apparently read our blog regularly! I had no idea anyone outside of parents read this thing! I figured I should get these pics up to keep our readers happy! Here they are, going all the way back to October. Enjoy! And by the way, if you think we’re backed up with pictures we need to put up, you should see the pile of laundry wanting attention!
Penny and Evie just loved their baby pumpkins!
"Hug Evie! Hug Evie!"
"How bow dis pukin?"
At the Japanese Gardens in Autumn. Beautiful!
The always entertaining "Uncle Hansie"
Old friends
One of my favorites. My sweet, tender girl.
"Look what I found!"
Lovin' life
One out of two kids smiling for the camera ain't bad
Cuddles
Happy Birthday Eileen!
Trick Or Treat!
Evie in front of The Palace Of Fine Arts in San Francisco, where I saw Eileen for the first time over ten years ago.
My favorite time of year
The birthday girl! She loves her cupcakes.
So does she!
Everybody smile!
At Evie's big third birthday party!
Jen and Pen
Our friend Marian with gabriel and Penny
The girls love the rain
The belle of the ball
"I built a snowman!"
Mmmmm snowman
"We're on a train!"
January 30, 2010
Mommy writes:
We got the cool, funky Multnomah Village house! We’re really excited. It’s a great part of Portland, and it’ll be nice to be there for a year or two and decide if that’s where we want to buy. It has a huge backyard, and planters all set up for planting. By God, this year I’m going to get a real vegetable garden going. I need to research what to plant now. It will be so nice to live in a house that doesn’t have 40 year old grout in the bathroom. And it’s another good backroads commute location to most things on the Westside.
Evie and Penny, doing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star together, with a smooch at the end!
Today I got to spend 8 hours alone with Penny: Sean and Evie drove to Tacoma, to say a bittersweet goodbye to Sarah, Mark, Henry, Morgan, and Max, Sean’s cousins, who are moving to Idaho next week. We’d all planned to go, but Penny has been a little sick and having some fevers, so I stayed home with her. I’m very bummed to miss the Tacoma farewell–we don’t get to see Sean’s Washington family nearly enough, and now to have them move even farther away!–but today I got a gift: the longest stretch of time I’ve spent alone with Penny in her entire life. Which seems jaw-dropping and understandable all at once: she’s a second sibling. She’s never had much one-on-one time with either parent. So today was a real treat. She was in a great mood most of the day, plus a little extra clingy because of being sick, which is mama-nirvana. We nursed a lot today. We’re trying to work on manners with both the girls, so Penny now sits on my belly and says, “Mama pweese dis boufe.”
I didn’t get to nurse Evie as long as I wanted to: my milk dried up in the middle of my first trimester of Penny’s pregnancy, and Evie and I hung on until she was about 13 months old, until one day she looked up at me as I was trying to get her to nurse as if to say “You know there’s nothing in there, right mom?” So the experience of nursing a 20 month old is new to me, and sometimes cracks me up. Penny is not in the least dissuaded from initiating a conversation while nursing. She talks, laughs, asks questions, orders me around, giggles, all without breaking her stride, shall we say. Today I got to cuddle her close and look into her beautiful blue eyes, and really get to know them, how the color in her irises changes, how it’s subtly different in one eye than the other. She was a lap baby today: “Mommy hold you just!”
Everyone in our family has had a version of this nasty cold. Mine has left me with a persistent, hacking cough–and I got my Pertussis booster in ‘06, so that can’t be it. Dexromethorphan is crap. Now I’m waking everyone up in the middle of the night with my coughing. Just what our sleep-deprived family needs!
January 28, 2010
Daddy writes:
Evie: “Daddy, do you have a pagina today?”
Daddy: “Not today honey.”
January 24, 2010
Mommy writes:
Another eventful week awaits here–we should hear about the rental we’re really hoping to get in a few days. It’s this very funky house in Multnomah Village, which is as funky as SW Portland gets: the village has some great restaurants and a cool toy store, and I think it’s much more of a community neighborhood than where we’re living now. The house is great–smallish, though bigger than the shoebox we’re living in now, but great spaces abound, and nicely set up for visitors (3 full baths!). It’s got a huge fenced backyard with raised beds for an organic garden, and a big play structure with a house and a steep slide that both the girls adored. The owner is a designer, so the place looks gorgeous, and it would be great for entertaining! And it’s the same rent as we’re paying now.
We found another option today that would also work well for us. Not in as cool of an area–it’s in a very safe, old, quiet neighborhood, but nothing really in walking distance as far as food, coffee, etc–but a really nice house, again with great indoor-outdoor spaces, and nice for guests. Of course, nothing can top a detached guest cottage like we have here, but we’re unlikely to duplicate that for a long time.
A spate of 3 day weekends is spoiling me. I would so love to have a 4 day workweek. It feels so much more balanced than 5 days. It’s possible once I graduate–for less money, of course, except for the HMO job, which is a 4 day work week (4 *very* busy days).
Evie cuddling with Mia
She insists on wearing this headband. Let's get physical!
January 19, 2010
Daddy writes:
Penny did a #2 on the potty today. After flushing she delighted in watching her creation circle the drain and said “see you later poo”.
In the car after picking Evie up from preschool she declared “Daddy, I really love my little sister”. This could win the best Quote Of The Week award easily!
January 17, 2010
Mommy writes:
45 days’ notice to find a new place would seem like a lot. Especially in Portland, where there are so many houses for sale that aren’t selling–surely some of them would like some nice responsible tenants with cute children…
Adorable, aren't they?
Pumpkin Love!
Penny at the Japanese Gardens on a perfect fall day
The girls with Fluffernutter
…even the dog is cute! But there’s not a lot on the market right now, and a lot that’s on Craigslist is put up by agents and totally unhelpful: it’ll tell you the county where it is located, and show you a lone picture of guest bathroom. WTF?? not helpful, people. Might as well say “Somewhere in Oregon”! And we still haven’t found the perfect neighborhood–that mix of lots of young families, lots of things to do within walking distance of home, with the funkiness of the East Side but the commutablity (and lower cost, sq ft for sq ft) of the West Side.
And the timing just stinks. I’m 5 months away from a much better job, and the possibility of buying has more than crossed our minds. But we wouldn’t be able to buy yet, with my current, indentured servant wages from fellowship.
Four local options on the job front. It’s nice that after a decade of training, I’m going into a field where there *are* jobs, especially in this economy. It’s nice to be wooed. Big Interview this week with one, another is putting its offer on the table on Friday. Must re-up my CA license this week or pay a huge fine. We don’t want to close any doors.
This winter we’ve only had one snowstorm–it was awesome but short-lived, and we’re feeling gypped! We’re especially hoping for another one up here in the hills before we leave (but not, please Jesus, on moving day). The snow really broke up the rain last year. This year it’s just… a lot of rain. Which is ok in the fall and spring, when it’s so gorgeous here, but less delightful when it’s comparatively bleak in winter. The price we pay for year-round green, I guess.
January 13, 2010
Daddy writes:
A bombshell dropped today. Our landlord called today to let us know that he was putting the house we rent on the market. We knew this was going to happen, we just weren’t sure when. We were hoping to stay here until Eileen ended her fellowship in June. Turns out we need to vacate our current rental by the end of February! We have a lot of work to do. Sleep deprivation and moving aren’t an appealing mix. Just looking at our pantry makes my back ache.
January 9, 2010
Mommy writes:
Evie and Mommy in winter hats
Penny and Mommy in our first (only? sniffle sniffle) snow of the season
I love spying on the girls while they’re playing, either separately or together. Together, they often convert something–the couch, the stairs, the bottom drawer of the armoire–into a train, which is inevitably going to “California!” Someone is assigned the conductor’s hat–often Daddy or Evie–and Penny is the train whistle, pumping out enthusiastic “Choo-Choos!” Another thing they love to do together is spin like Sufi dancers until they collapse in a giggly pile on the floor. Dressing up is fun–each wearing several hats and scarves at a time. And, of course, the thrill of Chase.
You will *not* be going to medical school, young lady
Evie enjoying her felt food present
the giggle fits
On her own, Evie will make up long, stage-whispery stories about her little people or animals. They often feature Huckle, one of Evie’s favorite Richard Scarry characters. She always seems to have some toy that makes her blush and giggle, like a teen in a chance Robert Pattinson meeting. It used to be Grover. But Grover’s been thrown under the bus. Currently, she’s hot for Thomas. She sees him on the train table first thing in the morning and giggles, “Thomas, you sneaky tank engine!” and she buries her face in the couch, unable to tolerate his full smiley-faced magnetism.
Spellbound by that Thomas the Tank magic
Penny’s language explosion continues. Recent acquisitions include “Here you go Mommy” (for anything she finds on the floor–often, a stray clump of dog hair) and “I do it!” (God forbid you offer the insult of assistance) and “Godyammit!” (for which she can thank her father). This morning I was changing her diaper and she had rather a large burst of flatus. We both giggled, and she started calling out “Toot! Toooooot!” at the top of her lungs.
For a while there, I thought I might have weaned Penny, but with our ongoing sleep hell, I didn’t want to knock old reliable “Boufe” out of the equation. We have a routine now. She sits on my tummy–if I’m not sufficiently reclined, she commands me to “Yie Down!” Then I say “Which boufe?” and she points to “This boufe… no, this boufe!” And then she just faceplants on me in a way no one woman who’s considering breastfeeding but nervous about it should ever, ever see.
She's crazed for the binky lately
We took down our very thirsty-looking tree yesterday. This morning, Penny’s asking “Where’s Santa?” Daddy and Evie are still asleep at nearly 8 am, a sure sign that they, too, were up a lot overnight. It goes without saying that whoever is with Penny has had a shittastic night, although last night was not one of the worst.
I’m hoping to make the girls some more felt toys this weekend. I’d really like to make Evie a felt Huckle, and Penny a felt Cookie Monster. I found a book that has a pattern for, yes, felt poo. Evie is insisting I make that, too.
