Oregonian at Heart

January

2012-02-10T14:22:00.000-08:00

January was a nice relaxing month. We didn't do a whole lot out of the ordinary so these pictures are just some of the daily things we experience around our house...

The most exciting thing about January was having Grandma Jane come visit! The boys both loved playing with her... and they also liked their matching PJs!

Zachary LOVES hugging Zane. I try to explain that he needs to be gentle, but generally Zane just cracks up no matter what so I don't think Zachary really believes me.

Zachary is always thinking of something creative to try - this is how I found him one day after "nap time" - not a lot of sleeping involved during nap time these days. (Another example of this "creativity"... as I am writing this he took my very full glass of water and put it in one of this dump trucks and is driving it around the living room.... hmmm... I'll be right back!)

Zane is in that very fun, "explore everything" stage. I love watching him! He grabs anything he can reach... I'm glad he isn't very mobile yet!

Bath Time is always fun - When Zane needs a bath and Zachary doesn't he often gets stuck in the sink like this. I get to put my dishes away while he plays in the water and generally enough water gets on the floor that the floor gets mopped too!

Zachary and I have been doing a lot of crafts lately - this one combined craft time and bath time! Liquid water colors in spray bottles. Very fun! Very messy! Luckily Zachary still likes cleaning so he helped me clean the bathtub walls when we were done!

Bath time together is Zane's favorite. This picture captures his desire to be right by his brother! He was originally sitting and seriously lunged himself across the tub to be closer to Zachary!

Another one of those "creative" shots... oh and if you haven't noticed, Zachary believes in the "less is more" motto as far as clothes go! Oh, and yes, the underwear are on backwards!

One Saturday we took a family trip to the aquarium. Zane even enjoyed looking at the fish this time! Zachary's favorite part was getting to touch the sharks.

We have actually had a few rainy days this month so we've had to be fairly creative since we can only go to the park 99% of the time instead of 100%! ;) Zane has been exploring kitchen utensils.

I got this idea from a friend's post on FB. Didn't last too long, but it was fun. Later we added eyes to make a "fuzzy monster!"

More bath time fun. Submersible lights in water with color tablets in them. Pretty cool!

These last 2 pics are another fun project we tried - edible paint. Its sweetened condensed milk with food coloring. It tastes fairly gross (unless you like scm I suppose), but it actually turned out pretty cool. We drizzled it on with a straw and then blew it around.

Beet Soup

2012-01-17T14:30:00.000-08:00

When we moved to LA, one of the things I was most excited about was being able to shop at the Farmers' Market all year long! The more I shopped there, the more I realized that there were a lot of vegis I had never cooked with so I made a goal... cook 1 new recipe a week with 1 new ingredient. I have to admit I don't cook something new every week, but we have tried a lot of new recipes. Also, I don't always pick a new ingredient, but I try to every once in a while. One of the "new ingredients" was beets. Paul and I realized that we both really like beets and so as my goal has once again changed to "One new soup a week" I decided to try beet soup. I actually put it off for about 3 weeks because it sounded so weird, but after Paul and I had 1 bite each we both looked at each other and said, "Its a keeper!" (Note that this rarely happens with new recipes.) I found the recipe on epicurious, but totally changed it - here is my adapted recipe...

Ingredients:

1/2 large red onion, chopped

1 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium or acorn or butternut squash

2 carrots chopped

3 medium beets (1 pounds without greens)

1/2 red apple such as Gala or Braeburn, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

1 garlic cloves, minced

2 cups chicken or vegetable broth

2 to 3 cups water

salt, black pepper, white pepper & cayenne to taste

* optional: 1 tablespoons cider vinegar (This makes the beet flavor more savory instead of sweet

Directions:

1. Roast beets and half of the squash in the oven at 375.

2. Peel the 2nd half of the squash and dice into squares

3. When the beets are done, peal and dice same size as the squash.

4. Cook onion in oil in a saucepan over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until softened.

5. Add beets and apple, carrot, garlic & squash and cook for a few minutes.

6. Add broth and water, then simmer, uncovered, until beets are tender, about 40 minutes. Stir in vinegar if desired.

7. Purée soup in a blender until very smooth, (If you like chunky soup only puree part of the soup) then season with salt and peppers and reheat. If soup is too thick, add enough water to thin to desired consistency.

8. Garnish with cream, sauteed beet greens and a few beet chunks if desired.

Note: I choose to cook the vegetables in 2 separate sauce pans so I could use my immersion blender easily with the amount I wanted to be pureed. In the 2nd saucepan I cut my vegis into the size I wanted whole in my soup so it would be chunkier. That is why I only roasted half of the squash.

November - Part 2

2011-12-06T14:55:00.001-08:00

We got to spend Thanksgiving in KS. We were all very excited since we hadn't been for over 2 years! Zachary asked about going to Grandma Jane's house every day for the 2 weeks prior! He just didn't understand why we couldn't go and get on a plane anytime we wanted! Needless to say, he was pretty excited when we finally got to go!

Both Boys loved spending time with Grandma!

Zachary was pretty excited the day that we got to go to the fire station and Aunt Theresa's farm. He even got to ride in a tractor with Uncle Rodd! Uncle Rodd definetely became very popular that day! Here are the boys (Zachary and his cousins, Luke & Daniel) playing in one of the cool vehicles in the barn).

We also went swimming a couple of times, which both Zachary and Zane loved!

Luke stayed with us at Grandma's the entire time so Zachary got pretty spoiled having a playmate the entire time. And Luke was a very good sport about playing with his much younger cousin!

It was great to see everyone... and the boys even got a few Christmas Presents!

Daneil also did a great job helping with the boys!

We were sad to leave, but it is always nice to get back home & back into routine...

We decided to get our tree the weekend we got back since the boys and I will be in Portland for about half of December. When we lived in LA before I refused to pay for a real tree because there was no place to cut one down and I did not want to get one from a parking lot, so I always just borrowed a little fake one. This year, though, I gave in - we couldn't get a fake tree for the boys right!?!? So after a day of 80 degree weather we drove down to Home Depot and picked up one of the smallest trees they had. What a change from last year when we cut down the biggest tree we could find!

And you know what, it was still fun! Zachary ran around laughing a giggling... I guess he doesn't know the difference - it was a good reminder that we can always make our own traditions as long as we are together as a family!

This was pretty funny too - We have never had our tree wrapped before, but since it was so small (and we have our new huge mini van) we figured we would just stick it in the back of the van and that wrapping it would help the needles stay on a bit. But, I don't think they quite get the point of wrapping a tree in LA!

Paul and I set the tree up that night after the boys went to bed. I put the lights on it, and sorted through the ornaments I didn't care too much about. (Interpretation: Ornaments I was ok with being broken by small fingers.) Then, Zachary and I decorated the tree the next morning during Zane's nap time.

So, for as much as going to get a Christmas tree after a day of 80 degree weather doesn't exactly put me in the mood for Christmas, I have decided I can't complain, because the next day it was pretty awesome to be able to go outside and plant flowers with Zachary... with his shirt off! Last time we lived here I complained about the warm winter weather continually. This time I have decided to embrace it and just feel really thankful that it is the end of November and I can walk to the park every day to play and we only need a few light jackets!

And now as December starts, so does a month of new traditions... more cookie baking...

Ornament making...

and family time!

November

2011-11-30T20:45:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of November Paul decided to take a day off of work. We talked to a friend and she told us she could get us into Disneyland for free so we set off early the next morning. We had a WONDERFUL time... despite a bit of rain and one of the "coldest" days we've seen yet in LA.

Zachary's favorite ride by far was the roller coaster in Toon Town. This is my favorite video of all time!

Here we are riding on it together. Zane couldn't go so Paul and I took turns going with him. I love going on roller coasters so it was kind of cool to be able to take him on his first ride! It made me look forward to years of roller coasters yet to come!

We actually spent quite a bit of time in toon town.

And even got to see Mickey. I thought Zachary would be scared, but he wasn't at all!

When it started to rain we headed over to the train and road it for about a half hour. It was the most entertaining cover we could find!

And it was a good place for naps!

The next two are actually from the beginning of the day. It is funny because Zachary's first trip to Disneyland he went on Small World. On Zane's first trip he went on the rocket ships! I guess he is going to live a much more exciting first 2 years of his life!

This picture definitely captures how wonderful the day was!

October

2011-11-02T20:16:00.001-07:00

I have decided that my new goal is to post a monthly overview... So we'll start with October and see how I do in the months to come! :)

It has been a busy, crazy month for all of us! I can't believe that Zane is 5 months old already and as you will see from these pictures, he is growing up quickly! Unfortunately, I messed up and these pictures aren't totally in order, but I figure you'll all love me anyway.

Zane has been trying to steal our food for the past month so I finally gave in the other night (a little bit after he turned 5 months) and gave him some rice cereal. I just realized that these three pictures are in reverse (argh), but if you look at the 3rd one first you'll see that his initial reaction changed quickly (2nd picture)! He seems to prefer chewing on the spoon. Yesterday I mixed in some sweet potato and he seems to like that a little better...

Above: 2nd bite

Below: 1st bite

Zachary has been quite busy too. We try to keep busy baking healthy snacks together, doing crafts and just being crazy...

Here he is painting his pumpkin. We carved one later, but in LA you have to carve them the day before Halloween or they'll rot!

I got out our snorkeling stuff to send to my parents the other day (they are going to Hawaii - no fair!) and Zachary decided to try it on.

He has been talking a lot about ghosts lately, except he doesn't seem to think they are scary, which is good. We made up this spur-of-the-moment costume while Zane was taking a nap one morning. I sent this picture to Paul and Zachary kept asking me if Daddy was scared. :)

This is one of the boys' new favorite past times... rolling around on the bed. Zachary prefers to do so in just underwear and I think Zane is pretty down with that too! Zachary insists on putting all of his animals and all of Zane's animals on the bed with them so Paul and I often find various animals in our bed when we go to bed at night!

I decided to let Zane try the swing the other day and it was another one of those, "How did he get so big???" moments! He is pretty cute though!

This is Zane's favorite past time (besides laughing at Zachary) - FLYING! I wish I could find the picture my mom has of me doing this... I swear it is almost identical!

We had a great time at a pumpkin patch one weekend with some friends. There are more pictures at the end, but here is one of my favorites... my boys!

I had to put this picture in because this is how Zane spends a great deal of his time! Luckily he loves the Ergo and he takes decent naps in it too.

Zane got 2 different dragon costumes so we tried them both on at different times. He looked pretty cute in both! Here are some pictures from our trick-or-treating venture.

And here are the rest of the pumpkin patch pictures...

Above: Paul and some of our great friends here. Zachary loves spending time with their kids!

Below: This one should have been first, but Zachary and Zane have started taking baths together. It is pretty fun as they both love bath time. Now when Zane takes baths by himself he gets a bit made at me.

August

2011-08-21T16:03:00.000-07:00

The other day I was looking at a friend's blog and I started to feel all jealous of all the cool things they did. My initial thought was, "We never do cool stuff like that!" And then I downloaded all of my pictures the other day and I realized... I guess we do actually do some pretty fun stuff. I also realized that I better share some of those things on here before we go off for our next adventure and I have even more to catch up on!...

The first week of August we found out that Paul's sister and her kids were all going to be in LA. They said they wanted to go to the beach one day which was a perfect place to meet them! Zachary had the most fun I have ever seen him have at the beach! He dug in the dirt with his cousins (who were amazing with him)...

and he relaxed with them.

Zane had fun meeting Aunt Shary and all of the Noble cousins!

And to make it an extra special day, one of my best friends who has moved away from LA was visiting too! She got to help me lug all of my thousands of bags down to the beach! Thanks Marcie!

Zachary's favorite part by far was playing in the water with David, Jonathan and Aunt Shary. When it was time to go he begged to stay saying, "Can I pleeaase go bbb-aa-cc-kk in the www-aa-ttt-er?" He was shivering the whole time he was begging! :) For a kid who hasn't been taking very good naps lately he took an amazing nap that day and when he woke up the first thing out of his mouth was, "Now my cousins are coming to my house!" And he was right. We have a party as they all came over for dinner! It is always so wonderful having family visit!

Our daily routine isn't quite that exciting, although we have been going to the beach at least once a week. The other days usually consist of play dates, going to the park and hanging out at home. Zane is getting so big and so fun to watch! He loves to lay on his back and "talk" to anyone who will talk to him!

He is getting much stronger and his eyes are still that amazing blue. I wish I could say I thought they would stay, but looking back at pictures of Zachary I realized that he had blue eyes until about 6 months old... and now they are light brown!

Paul got to fly to North Carolina last weekend for one of our dearest friend's wedding. I wanted to go too, but I figured that letting Paul go by himself was the best gift I could give because then Paul could hang out with all of the guys more! Paul had a wonderful time... although between a red-eye and late nights I think he only slept a total of 8 hours over 3 nights!

One of our favorite past-times at home is hanging out in the "backyard" that Paul made for me. Zachary has his own dirt pile for his trucks and I have lots of plants that make me feel like I don't completely live on a cement pad (which in all reality we do.) We are even growing tomatoes and herbs which are doing amazingly well!

Zane also loves hanging out in the backyard with us. He sits in his chair and watches Zachary and gives me lots of smiles!

The last few weeks one of my dear friends, Irene, has let us come over to her place to go swimming. Zane got to dip his feet in this time which he thoroughly enjoyed. Over the 3 times we have gone Zachary has gone from being timid and scared in the water to loosing all healthy fear of the water... He jumps in and doesn't care if he goes under the water. He "swims" from Irene to me (really we just push him), he blows bubbles and this week he even tried going on a kick board without holding on to me at all! I think it might be time for swimming lessons!

This Saturday we finally got to have a family day. We decided to have a low-key morning which consisted of airplane rides and naps for Zane...

and story telling (Zachary's favorite new request is, "tell me a story about Thomas" - he could seriously listen to made-up stories for hours!) and balloon tossing for Zachary.

We let Zachary skip nap time to go on a cool (free) train ride not too far from our house. I think Zachary was in heaven! Zane got to go too, but I doubt he'll remember since he was asleep! :)

The day ended as any wonderful day should... with ice cream!

While he was eating his cone (which he was supposed to be sharing with me) I asked him if he would rather go on a train and have ice cream or take a nap. He said, "Go on a train and eat ice cream!"

So now off to our next adventure... a month in Portland! Zachary, Zane and I leave tomorrow and Paul will come for a visit over labor day. Then he'll be there again the weekend after and then we'll drive up to Seattle where he has a training for work... I guess life is always an adventure in the Wilkinson house. Sometimes I tell myself that I just want a nice boring month, but if I'm being honest... I don't think I do "boring" very well!

One more...

2011-07-29T15:38:00.000-07:00

For some reason I couldn't post this with the other videos. This pretty sums up Zachary... Talking and singing non stop!

The Boys

2011-07-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

How does time go by so quickly? My boys are both growing up right before my eyes! Zane is now 2 months old and Zachary is most definitely a 2 year old! Here are some of my favorite videos of the boys...

We have been spending a lot of time at the beach lately! A lot of times it is just the boys and me, but we have been trying to go as a family on the weekends and the evenings. Gotta take advantage of living only 10 minutes from the beach!

I think this is my favorite video! It warms my heart to see the boys "talking" and smiling at each other!

Zachary is very into singing lately! He is just beginning to almost carry a tune... but not quite. He cracks me up!

Family of Four

2011-07-28T14:51:00.000-07:00

So much has happened since Zane was born on May 26th, that I'm not quite sure even where to begin... so here is a very brief overview through pictures...

Mom and Dad came to visit. Mom came the week before Zane was born - good thing too because Zane came in the middle of the night and VERY quickly! I think Zachary would have been with us at the hospital if she wasn't here!

Sorry this is sideways and blurry, but it is an important picture.... Zachary got potty trained... mostly. :) Thanks mom and Paul - I don't think I could have done it alone!

Aunt Mary came to visit. She took some awesome pictures!

We flew to Portland... and then took the train to Seattle.

We went camping with Paul's sister and family... Noah took Zachary "fishing" with sticks and elastic!

Zachary loves his new little brother!

Zachary and I discovered a new evening activity... It began as watering the plants, but has now turned into "watering mommy... and Zachary!"

We celebrated the 4th of July with some good friends close to where we live. They live on the air force base and had an awesome view of almost all of the firework shows across most of LA!

My dear friend Kim came to visit and we went to the Hollywood Bowl for a concert!

We have attempted to squeeze in an occasional art project. This was "finger painting" turned "body painting!"

Grandma Jane came!

We have gone to the beach an average of 2 times per week since getting back from portland.

Grandma Jane was our last scheduled visitor... We will miss her and all of our other visitors very much, but life won't be boring for long... the boys and I leave for Portland again in about 2 weeks!

Our New Home

2011-04-02T15:44:00.001-07:00

The last month and a half have been a blur! In that short amount of time we moved back cross country, unpacked all of our stuff, baked a lot, went to the zoo, had visitors (Paul and Anna and the 3 grass boys), went to the beach, went to Disneyland, got robbed (yep, like someone broke into our house and stole stuff - fun times), had more visitors (my mom came), Z turned 2... at least the baby didn't come early or anything weird like that! Besides the whole robbery thing, its been a very fun few months!

We had to ditch the stocking caps and go buy sunglasses and a hat!

Paul has been baking a lot... Zachary has had fun helping!

We have been making a lot of "tents" and have had fun playing with Aunty Sha Sha!

I think Zachary's favorite thing about being in California is the opportunity to go around semi-naked! Here he is "reading" to gorilla.

We have also had a lot of fun with Chrissy, Gavin, Ann and Lydia. We had a great day at the Zoo!

Zachary even got to pet a snake!

I have been enjoying the farmer's markets here and at one of them I got a half flat for $7!!!! I was so excited at the good deal that I had to get them, but what to do with all of those strawberries? We made jam!

Paul and Anna and their three boys came to visit and we had a blast! It was so wonderful to have them here!

Zachary wanted to be just like his cousins and go in the water (see picture below - crazy kids!)... he got knocked down and didn't like it very much!

Paul and Anna treated us to a day at Disneyland (well, they had an extra ticket). We had a blast! Thanks Uncle Paul for going to work so we could go to Disneyland!

Zachary had a lot of birthday celebrations - he opened presents for 3 days in a row! But his "real" party was on the Saturday after his birthday.

Ok, so its not perfect, but I'm very proud of the cake my mom and I made for Z's party!

We had a very low-key party at the beach. Mom, us and 2 of Zachary's friends.

Saying Goodbye

2011-04-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

Both Paul and I have decided that we are tired of saying goodbye. In fact, our pastor mentioned something in church the other day about how sometimes everyone thinks it would be nice to just "start over" - move to another city where no one knows you and have a clean slate. Paul and I instantly looked at eachother and said, "No, we are done with that!" It was so hard to move yet again and say goodbye to more friends. We do feel very blessed though to be back to a place where we already have such amazing friends, but we'll always miss our friends we made in MD! Here are some pictures of saying goodbye.

We spent a lot of time the last month over at our "Kate's House." We ate dinner there, had "bath parties" there and spent the night a few times. I don't know what I would have done without them the last 3 weeks when Paul was already in LA - they even let me puke all over their living room while they took care of Zachary! I don't think friendship gets a lot closer than that.

AND yes, Zachary is dressed up in a snow white costume here... he is very comfortable in his masculinity! ;)

These are a few of my favorite pics of Zachary and Kate. The one above because getting them both to look so still and restful was ... well, this may have been the only time I saw them so calm together! And I love the picture below because it shows the "real" Z and Kate... full of craziness! We miss you Kate!

The other people that were incredibly hard to say goodbye to were everyone at Zachary's daycare. "Mimi" had a goodbye party for us on Zachary's last day and I just barely made it without crying.

Zachary LOVED his friend Naomi and this was one of his favorite games... to torture her with hugs!

I love the picture below... Almost all of the kids (missing 2) that loved playing together. Leaving Mimi was like leaving Zachary's 2nd family! He'll always miss his "big brother and big sister!"

There were so many other people that were hard to say goodbye to, but it is too hard to name them all, but since I finally got a good picture with my best friend out there on our last day I wanted to post it too. The last year and a half was an amazing time... and much of that was because of Kim!

Sledding Video

2011-02-01T12:13:00.000-08:00

Here is a video to go with the post below!

SNOW!!!!

2011-02-01T11:35:00.000-08:00

I really love snow... Oregon snow that is. Snow that comes, and then goes away. Here it comes... and it stays, and stays, and stays! BUT being that this is most likely one of our last winters in such a place I have been trying to make the most of it all and enjoy our time in the snow. Plus, Zachary really loves playing in it so that inspires me to go out as well. Here are some of our snow adventures for the month.

Snow #1 wasn't the first "snow" of the year, but the first of any substance. We got about an inch - just enough to delay school for 2 hours and let me go out and play with Zachary.

Snow #2 was a bit bitter - Maybe a little over an inch. They actually canceled school for it though so it was my first snow day for the year.

Zachary and I had fun making a snowman!

Here he is giving it hugs! After an hour in the snow we went inside for hot chocolate and cookies! YUMM!!!

Snow #3 - This was the BIG one for the year... at least I hope it is the big one. I think I'm done with snow! We got over 6 inches and I must admit it was beautiful!

As a side note, our patio is one of the things we are going to miss most about our house!

Zachary doesn't usually got to daycare on Fridays because I have the day off, but with everything that has been going on he has been hanging out there so I can do stuff around the house. Well, last Friday Miss Emily decided to take them all to play in the snow. It was the day after the "big snow" and it was all still there!

It started with a fun time in the snow fort. Then they decided to walk to Miss Emily's friend's house to go sledding.

I met them there in my car... Miss Emily walked there with 5 kids - 2 under 2! Much braver than I am! As you can see Zachary had some help from Miss Emily's daughter and her friend. Zachary loves Hannah!

At first I took Zachary down a little hill.

Then he went down with Hannah.

And finally he got to try the big hill with Miss Emily's son, Jack!

He loved it - even with all that snow getting blown in his face! Miss Emily's friend told me that we could come over and use their sleds anytime so on Saturday Paul and I took Zachary over.

First, Zachary went down with Paul... unfortunately the snow was a bit icier than it had been on Friday so they hit a few bumps and crashed at the bottom.

Although, the crash was a bit more exciting when Zachary and I went down together and he ended up face down in the snow... oops!

I thought Zachary had it made - this is how he got to go back up the hill. Don't worry, I didn't pull that many times, just a few so Paul could watch him go down too.

Paul decided that there would be less crashes if Zachary just went down by himself so in the end that is what we did and Zachary LOVED it!!!

Everytime he reached the bottom he would say, "Again, Again!!!"

It was a great way to spend our last day with Paul before he flew to LA!

Christmas Traditions

2010-12-17T11:37:00.001-08:00

I know, its been a long time! Our Christmas traditions started the Saturday after Thanksgiving! I used to mock people who drove around with a tree on the car the day after Thanksgiving, but I must admit that I am now one of them! My main excuse is that since we are always gone for Christmas day we have to enjoy everything as long as we can! But I am beginning to think that it is also my way of trying to speed December along a bit so I can fly home to see family!

We stayed here for Thanksgiving this year which turned out to be wonderfully relaxing! We had a very yummy Thanksgiving dinner with some of our good friends and spent the rest of the weekend just relaxing and making our own yummy food!

I have been wanting to learn how to make pasta for a long time now, so the day after Thanksgiving I told Paul that it was my goal! And I did it!!! I was very proud. For dinner we had spaghetti with homemade marinara and meatballs as well as butternut squash ravioli with a balsamic sauce. Luckily, Josh and Kim agreed to come help us eat it all! Oh, and I can't forget Paul's yummy french bread!!!
This is by far my favorite Christmas tradition! It is one of the things I love most about living here! This year Paul decided we should get a really tall and "skinny" tree since we have such tall ceilings in part of our living room. I was totally game so we picked out this amazing tree!

As we put it on the car we thought, "hmmmmm... that is pretty big..." but we were still excited!

Well, when we brought it home and put it up all we could do was laugh! We laughed even harder when we finally admitted there was no room for the TV and the tree in the living room!

This is also a new tradition as Paul hasn't ever helped me decorate the tree before! He had to climb up to the top of our (borrowed) ladder to get the angel on top! AND he put the lights on for me which was awesome because that is the only part I don't like doing. I think we'll have to get a ridiculously huge tree every year!

And here I am putting on ornaments. I mostly put this picture in just so you can see my belly. Its bigger now, but I don't have any more recent pics so this will have to do!

The idea of making Christmas cookies with Zachary has always been something I've looked forward to doing (even though I really don't like sugar cookies at all!). So I decided to try it this year and he did amazingly well! Making the dough was a bit messy - but not horrible...

And then there were the sprinkles - now THAT was messy! But it was well worth it!

And Zachary obviously agrees!

(This was his face after his first bite of his cookie! I guess he likes sugar cookies better than I do!)

Ok, so this has nothing to do with Christmas traditions and sorry about the red eye, but I couldn't resist this picture because it shows how much Zachary still loves bath time... especially now that he gets to take bubble baths! Whenever I tell him it is time for a bath he says, "bubbles!"

Zachary loves our tree. I was going to put all of the ornaments out of his reach, but then I decided that is just too sad so I put my old ones and "his" ornaments near the bottom. He loves playing with the "dumper truck" and the car as well as all of the nativity people that Grandma Carol got him last year.

This is a Christmas tradition that may only last one year, but we had to do it this year because Santa and Mrs. Claus are living with us right now! I'm totally serious! Here they are. They live on our second floor and keep very busy! In fact, we hardly ever see them, but they are two of the nicest people I have ever met! (And yes, the beard is totally real!)

Again, nothing to do with Christmas, but I had to show Zachary's favorite way to drink his water! When he finds two water cups he either says, "two!" or "another!" and proceeds to try to drink from the both - crazy kid!

The Story...

2010-11-07T10:46:00.001-08:00

As most of you know, these past few months have been a bit crazy for us. As much I will obviously never be thankful that Paul has/had cancer, I will always be thankful for the blessings that have been poured on us during this time! I wanted to take some time to write the story of the past few months in part because a lot of people have asked what exactly happened, in part because I want to remember the story, but mostly because I want to share the amazing experiences we have had the past few months.

I think the blessings really start in how we found the lump in Paul’s throat. One of our nephews was playing peek-a-book with Zachary. Our nephew was hiding behind Paul and Zachary tried to get him. In the process, Zachary hit Paul in the neck. Paul noticed that it hurt quite a bit so he looked in the mirror and noticed a lump the size of a golf ball. I know it seems like we should have noticed something that large long ago, but unless Paul stretched up his neck you really couldn’t see it. I thank God every day for that game of peek-a-boo!

From there it was fairly quick – Paul went to a specialist, he said it was large enough that he wanted to remove it without a biopsy. He said, that there was about a 20% chance that it was cancer. In retrospect I think the chances were a lot higher than that, and I think the surgeon knew it, but I think he wanted to keep us positive.

In preparation for the surgery I really felt like I might need someone there with me in case it was cancer. I prayed that God would tell someone to offer, but while praying I really felt like God told me that I was going to start having to ask for help on my own. If you know me, you know that I HATE asking for help! But I did and my wonderful friend Kim and Paul’s mom both came with me. I don’t think I would have made it through that day without them. The hardest time for me during this whole thing was when the surgeon came out from surgery and told us that it was cancer. After that Paul was still “out” for another 2 hours and having that knowledge without being able to even see him was one of the hardest things I have ever had to endure. In the end it was actually me who told him the lump was cancerous… a very strange thing to tell your spouse, but I suppose it was better that it came from me than someone else!

Paul’s mom left a few days after surgery, but my younger brother and his wife came that next weekend. I felt a bit bad that we didn’t take them anywhere exciting, but I cannot express in words what a life-line they were to me that weekend!

The time between this and Paul’s “therapy” was the time that Paul and I both felt God’s presence so closely! He gave us so many promises and so many blessings. It is this part of the story that I am most excited to share.

For starters, I’ll share about the whole baby thing. When we first found out Paul had cancer I felt like God told me that "it was going to be a long year, but there would be new life at the end of it." And when I thought of that "new life" I just felt this weight lifted off of me, like at the end of this year, my load would be light again. I have to be honest, I was hoping that “new life” meant a baby, but I really didn’t know… I just knew that God was promising life and not death. Well, unknown to me, Paul was doing a little praying of his own. He asked God for some sort of blessing – something to look back on after this was all over and remember that God was with us – a reminder of God’s grace. He specifically asked for a baby. (Actually he asked for a daughter so we’ll see what comes of that!) After both of these totally separate prayers, we found about 2 weeks later that we were pregnant. The whole time we were waiting for Paul’s therapy, the knowledge of this new life and the reminder of God’s grace was constant!

As much as one would think that would be blessing enough, I still had my moments of complete freak out! One of them happened around 1:00 in the morning when half of our electricity went out. It was really weird because it was only in parts of the house and the thing that I really noticed was that there was no AC. I was laying there in bed totally freaking out that our furnace had died and thinking that we were going to have to pay like $10,000 for a new one (come to find out they aren't nearly that much) and I literally lay awake freaking out for about 2 hours! Finally I was so tired I prayed and said, "God, I can't handle this... you've got to take care of it!" Now, I know this sounds weird, but again, I really felt like God said, "Peggy, I'm going to fix the furnace just like I'm going to fix Paul." And seriously, not 5 minutes later some truck from the electric company pulled up to our house and since I was awake. I threw on my robe and went outside at 3 in the morning and found out that it was some electric company problem and that they were working over night to fix it. I didn’t sleep much that night, but God did “fix” the furnace!

BUT then, about a week later our furnace really did go out! I thought, "God, I thought you said you were going to fix the furnace." And again I felt like God told me he was going to, but this time, I honestly didn't listen because I knew it was broken and I didn't see any way for God to fix it. I called my dad and was a complete mess! I knew it wasn’t just the furnace – it was everything – this was just one more thing and I couldn’t handle it! My wonderful dad listened to me and let me cry and then he said something I hope and pray I will never forget. He said something like, “Peggy, God tells us not to worry, because he hasn’t given us grace to walk through the what-ifs – he has only given us grace to walk through what is here.” I realized that I had so much fear welled up in me of all the what-ifs that could happen to Paul! Those words were like a switch that after the rest of the furnace stuff played out allowed me to let go of my fear and just walk one day at a time.

So, the rest of the furnace story… I called my pastor for a recommendation of someone in the area I could call. He gave me the name of a company, but told me that first I should call this guy in our church who works on furnaces. I called him (which was not easy – very humbling in fact – especially since I didn’t know him at all) and he told me he would come by a take a quick look. I told him that if he could just give me his opinion, that was all I needed! I wanted to know if we should fix our furnace or get a new one. He came by Saturday morning and had a look. Before I knew it he took a part out and said he would be right back. I had no idea what he was doing. When he got back he had the new part and he fixed the furnace. In addition to that, he wouldn't let us pay him... not a penny! Again I felt very humbled, but it didn’t really hit me until that night - after Z went to bed I was thinking about the whole thing and then I realized... God fixed our furnace! I realized that if I had paid one cent I never would have seen it as God fixing the furnace, but how else do you explain a perfect stranger coming into your house and fixing it for free?!?! At that point, I realized I better start believing God’s whole promise including the part of the promise where he said he would fix Paul too! Since then I have had this miraculous ability to simply walk one day at a time.

During the time leading up to Paul’s therapy we had so many other blessings given to us. Three nights a week girls from our church came to help me with Zachary while I made dinner. It would have been nice enough, but being in my 1st trimester of pregnancy it was one of the only ways I made it through having to make special food for an exhausted Paul (he was off of all thyroid hormones) and take care of Zachary all while feeling like throwing up and being completely exhausted after a full day of work! (Any single moms out there – I have NO idea how you do it!) Other little things like the fact that in the last year at Paul’s work he has found a close parking spot only about 2 times. During the weeks when he could hardly walk a block without feeling exhausted he found a great spot almost every day! And then there were all of the notes and phone calls from all of you who live so far away. I know it seems little when you are on that end – but it meant the world to Paul and I!

I have no idea why the blessings poured on us were so great. At times I look at others fighting much scarier cancer battles and think, “Why did we get off so easy?” But then I just have to let those questions go. All I can do is be thankful for the blessings we have been given and pray that God opens my eyes to see ways to bless those around me as I have been blessed!

We are now in a waiting game. We won’t know for another 6-12 months if Paul’s cancer was all killed by the radiation, but we do know that it hasn’t spread outside of his neck. If you know me well, you would think that this waiting would drive me crazy… always be in the back of my head, but I have to say, by some amazing miracle it isn’t! It’s that switch I talked about – I know that God has given me grace to walk through right now and will give me grace to walk through whatever hardships are ahead! Paul is feeling great and I have a new life growing in me. My prayer now is that I never forget the lessons I learned during this time! Thanks for listening!

Halloween

2010-11-03T17:24:00.000-07:00

This last weekend was quite eventful! In addition to Halloween Paul's sister, nephew and dad were here. It was a very busy, but very fun long weekend!

I was very excited this year to introduce Z to the art of carving a pumpkin - ok so I figured I'd do all the carving, but what kid doesn't like sticking his hand into that sloppy goo in the pumpkin right?!?! I opened the pumpkin and said, "Zachary, can you help me scoop out the pumpkin." Man, I wish I could have captured the look but it was basically a "ummm... are you crazy!?!?!?" look! Needless to say, I scooped all by myself. Zachary did offer to put the lid back on and even touched the spoon and a few seeds!
Zachary found the idea of putting stickers on a whole pumpkin much more entertaining. Grandma Jane had sent us the perfect Mr. Potato Head body part stickers so we used those. Zachary and Grandpa Royal did a great job!

Zachary LOVES his costume! He walks around in it making monkey arm motions and saying, "oo oo oo!" Its quite cute!

Zachary did get to go to trick-or-treating at a few of the neighbors houses. For a kid who has never eaten candy, he sure seemed to know that there was something yummy in those shiny wrappers! I let him eat one little piece before going to bed that night... the rest is hidden from both Zachary and me!

Since Theresa, Daniel and Royal were here we also spent a lot of time in DC.

Theresa actually set up a white house and capital tour for Paul and I to go on which was pretty cool!

Zachary was very sad to say goodbye to "Da-dle" on Tuesday!

And here is a silly picture of the three of them! :)

Farm Fun

2010-10-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

Since today was the first day in a while that Paul has been feeling decent enough to get out we decided to take Z to a petting farm. We ended up taking his friend Kate as well, which was very fun!

So Zachary was actually a bit scared of some of the animals, so here are 2 of me hanging out with the animals! I've always wanted to hold a baby chick - Its like a life-long dream and it was fulfilled today! Oh, and I also got to hold a chicken!

Zachary did warm up to the goats and sheep. He really enjoyed feeding them!

We also got to go on hay ride. Zachary was very serious about it!

And we got a free pumpkin! It was a great day!

Fun Things

2010-09-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

I feel like everything I say lately is all about Paul and his Thyroid, but really we have been doing some pretty fun stuff in the midst of all of that! So here are some pictures of the fun things we have been doing lately! Now you'll know that we really aren't just sitting around all day feeling depressed! ;)

The weekend before Paul went "hypo" (that is the "in" term for going off your thyroid hormones) we decided to go for a hike at one of our favorite hiking places. It is a path between the Potomac River and what used to be a canal. We had a great walk - I think we hiked/walked for about 2 hours and Paul still had energy at the end so it was a great day!

Zachary likes to offer to share... and then take it back and say, "No!" Such a generous kid!

On of the highlights of the day was on our way home. Paul loves taking the backroads and on this particular day his backroad led us to this big puddle. Before driving through it Paul wanted to make sure it wasn't too deep or too rocky so he went for a little wade.

Zachary thought it was halarious until he realized that he didn't get to go in too. When he realized that he was pretty mad with us!

Two weekend ago we decided to join our amazing friends in Nags Head, NC. It was a long drive and Paul was already "hypo," but it was well worth it! We stayed with them in an amazing house and they even let me cook meals that followed Paul's lo-iodine diet. What better friends could we ask for!!??!!

On of my favorite things was the fact that our room had a private balcony with a hammock! I LOVE hammocks so every day before nap and before bedtime Zachary and I hung out in the hammock. We even read bedtime stories there!

Our 1st day there we decided to go to the small aquarium. Zachary had fun touching the starfish...

...and waving to the divers in the shark tank.

Of course we spent a lot of time at the beach as well. I was excited to finally get to see the Atlantic Ocean. People from here kept telling me that the water wouldn't be that warm since we were going in September, but for all of you west coasters out there... these people don't know what "cold ocean water" is!!! Their "cold water" makes LA's water seem icy so I won't even begin to compare it to Oregon's! Anyway, we had lots of fun at the beach!

The 1st day Zachary didn't want to touch the water, but by the end of the 2nd day we couldn't get him out.

And we got pretty wet by the end of the day.

Our last day there I got to do something that I have been waiting to do since he was born... take him out in a kayak. So I know this looks unsafe, but before you freak out I swear that the water was only like 2 feet deep - it was in some sort of bay-like area. Paul wasn't so sure, but I convinced him that if Zachary could stand up in the water we would be just fine!

So there it is, proof that we are in fact enjoying life despite the yucky stuff!

2010-09-01T18:35:00.000-07:00

So back in February Paul started dreaming about a new patio. And if you know my Paul, you know that he is a dreamer... with big dreams! This patio was a good example of this. It may seem small as you look at these pictures, but goodness, a lot of work went into this! At times I wondered if it would really ever be done! But it did and Paul did amazing job and I am very proud of him!

Here are some "before pictures." I had this ugly shed that took up about 1/4 of the area.

Here is Paul dismantling the shed. Below you can get an idea of the pavers that were layed.

Paul had to dig out a lot of dirt. One day our Pastory came over to help and to haul away a truck load of dirt. He let us borrow the truck a couple of times - it helped a ton!

Here I am pretending like I actually did somthing. :) This is at the very end. Somehow I didn't take any pictures of Paul laying the brick benches/planters that you see in the background. That was the crazy part! Each layer took about 2 hours! And he actually make 2 more planter boxes around the beds in front of the house - I don't have pictures of that right now though.

Here are two "after" pictures. Paul had some flagstone cut and put it on to make the benches. Then I had fun planning stuff in the boxes. There are two more planters by the house with herbs and such in them. Next year I am hoping to plant some vegetables. If you read the next post you can see another good "after" picture of Becky and Zachary dancing on the patio.

We LOVE our new patio and eat dinner and breakfast on it as often as we can! :)

Summer

2010-09-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been so behind in something that you just keep putting it off.... and off... and off? Well, that is me with this blog right now. So instead of posting in-depth stuff here are some quick pictures of our summer...

One of our good friends from UCLA moved out and inspired us to go watch fireworks on 4th of July. Zachary stayed up until about 10:00 which was crazy... but he did sleep in the next day! :) Here he is watching the fireworks.

We had a great time with the Combs and Noble boys but I don't have many pictures yet so here is one of Zachary and Jonathan at the zoo. It was our special day together while everyone else went to the Spy Museum. It was very fun! :)

And here is Zachary just being cute. He is very into putting on mommy and daddy's shirts lately! :) Also notice the big-boy haircut! I have cute pictures of it getting cut as well as our vacation in Portland, but they are on my thumb drive on my desk at work, so this will just have to do! :)

And here is a great picture of Zachary's 1st black eye... poor kid! (He "ran into" a bench outside... by "ran into" I really mean fell into... oops.)

During Paul's surgery his mom came to visit, but somehow I have no pictures of her when she was here! :( Michael and Becky and Eli came to visit the next weekend and we almost made it without any pictures, but one afternoon Zachary "asked" to go playoutside in the water so we took some fun pics of that. He LOVES his cousin and wanted to make sure he had his pacifier! :)

"Playing in the Water" pretty much means that I turn on the hose and spray Zachary with it... I know it sounds mean, but the kid LOVES it! Aunt Becky even danced with him in it - Zachary is lucky to have such a great Aunt! (lots of them ;)

And of course there is crazy Uncle Mikey! ;) The boys decided to trade shirts. Zachary thought it was quite funny!

North Carolina

2010-07-20T10:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry I havn't posted anything for so long! We have been so busy! Here are the 1st 2 things we did this summer... a trip to North Carolina and a trip to Pittsburgh. I'll eventually have a whole lot more to catch up on, but here is a start! :)

Paul spoke at a conference in Asheville, North Carolina so Zachary and I thought it would be fun to tag along. Most of the day Z and I were on our own. We had lots of fun...

We went to a nature preserve- the Chickens were his favorite! (That's for you Aunt Becky and Uncle Mikey!)

We ate ice cream!

We toured the city.

And EVERYDAY we went to the fountains!

Paul had one half day do we decided to do some "hiking" to see some waterfalls.

Zachary thought he needed to play in the water - He is definitely
my son!

He also thought that he should get to wear my sunglasses!

On our way home we took a LONG detour, but got to go on a real hike...

And stopped by a lake for a break. Again, Zachary was determined to swim.

He had so much fun that even Paul got in, which is saying a lot... Paul is not such a fan of water.

We also stopped at a farm to buy berries and peaches on our way home. Zachary and I shared the berries!

Visitting Friends

2010-07-20T09:50:00.000-07:00

To start with - worry about the underlined text - I can't make it go away! Oh well...

About 2 days after returning from NC, Zachary packed our bags again and drove to Pittsburgh to visit my wonderful friend Colleen and her son Jack. We had a great time and Zachary was once again a trooper on the long drive!

Jack giving Zachary kisses. :)

This picture makes me laugh because the whole time Jack kept wanting to "play" with Zachary by wrestling etc, in which Zachary would end of buried under Jack and pillow. This picture shows that Zachary can hold his own - ok really, he was just patting him on the back...

We spent Thursday at the Children's museum. How cute are they in their little raincoats!

Cloth Bum...

2010-06-19T04:58:00.000-07:00

When I was pregnant I had this great vision of using cloth diapers. My sister-in-law Anna did it, so why couldn't I! And then Zachary was born... and then one excuse after another came up. "Do I really want to use cloth diapers with a newborn on a month long trip?" "Only a crazy person tries to use cloth diapers while moving across the country, right!?!?"

And then, I actually went so far as to buy a couple of different types of diapers and try them out. But then, the excuses returned. "What if we have a place without our own washer and drier?!?!" "If I go back to work, no one will want to use my cloth diapers and so then I'll have wasted money on them."

Then, we bought our place... with a washer and dryer. And, funny enough, when I did go back to work I found someone to watch Zachary who uses cloth diapers herself. So my excuses were slowly fading away.

Recently I have become more and more tired of buying those stupid diapers. I've been getting irritated with silly things like how they sag when they get full and not so silly things like how many I have to throw away each day and how all of those go to a landfill... forever! And then the thought hit me that soon I'd be off for summer and I'd be using and throwing away about twice as many, so the research began. I found a diaper called the "gdiaper" that used to just have compostable, disposable liners in a cloth shell, but now they make cloth inserts. I talked to a few people who use them and decided to take the plunge. I got them this week... and I LOVE THEM! They make cloth diapering totally easy! (If any of you are considering trying cloth diapers let me know and I'll tell you what I love about them and let you know how you can get a good deal on them!)

Anyway, all that to say, here are some very cute picture of Z with his new cloth bum!

Good Ol' LA

2010-06-12T11:38:00.000-07:00

Its funny how you can want to leave a place so badly when you are there, and then eventually come to see it as "home." When we went to LA I realized it isn't the ugly cement freeways or even the beautiful ocean that makes LA, LA - its the people... and somewhere along the way, they became our family. It was so good to see them again!

We spent 2 nights with our wonderful neighbor, Shirlene, who had a big dinner for us complete with beans & rice, fried plaintains and fried red snapper. I think she was trying to remind us of what we left! She let me invite another great friend, Cori - it was great to see everyone!

Guily, one of our neighbors, used to help me with Zachary when he was really little. He loved having her read a few bedtime stories to him.

We got together with a ton of people while we were there - Paul spent a day at UCLA and I spend an afternoon at my old work. Here we are at our favorite restaurant (which I think we ate at 3 time while we were there) with some of our great friends.

Our pastor, Kevin, and his wife, Jennifer, let us stay with them one night too, which was also totally fun and relaxing. He even roasted hot dogs over a portable firepit in the middle of their driveway... gotta love LA! ;)

Our trip was so jam-packed that even though we were less than 5 minutes away from the beach we almost didn't make it there! Zachary and I managed to make it Sunday morning before church while Paul was at worship team practice. Zachary thought the waves and birds were pretty cool. He wasn't so sure of the sand or cold water though! :) Here are some of my favorite pictures.

We actually went to LA for a wedding, so while Paul and I were there, our neighbor Shirlene watched Zachary for us. Lucky for him, our other neighbors Julio and Susan were there for part of the time to show Zachary their amazing back yard.

Julio let Zachary play in his fountains - apparently Zachary got so excited that he even gave Julio a big kiss!

Eating Julio's plants! :)

And here is Shirlene (Auntie Sha Sha). We are so blessed to have her in our lives! Zachary had a blast with her! But the thing he definetely took away is his new ability to dance! Now if I say, "Zachary can you dance?" He starts hopping up and down and wiggling his shoulders! Thanks Aunty Sha Sha!

We spent our last night with our great friends Joel and Chrissie. It was so fun to see them and their growing boy, Gavin who is almost 4 months older than Zachary.

First Steps

2010-06-05T05:05:00.000-07:00

One day in California we were hanging out at our pastor's house in the grass and Zachary did not want to be in the grass so he decided it was time to learn to stand up... Well, this week the standing has improved and progressed into a few steps at a time. Still not totally there, but getting close...

In and Out

2010-05-12T17:17:00.001-07:00

Zachary LOVES going in and out of the house! One of his favorite games is to drop things over the edge of the door, go out to get them and come back in again. It is nice because I can see the door perfectly from the kitchen so he often entertains himself this way while I make dinner!

Almost Walking

2010-05-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

Some friends of ours gave us a little walker thing for Zachary. Although he is too "lazy" to step out on his own, he seems to love using the walker!

Z Loves his Cousins!

2010-04-19T18:08:00.001-07:00

So, the other day I started to play a video on Michael and Becky's blog. Zachary perked up his ears and crawled over the the computer. His interest made me wonder what he would do if he saw his cousins on video... Here is the result...

Fun Pictures

2010-04-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

Here are some fun pictures I have that I thought I'd share.

This first one I put in because I just love looking in at Zachary when he goes to sleep at night. He is always in the funniest position, but this was a new one. He's chillin' with his feet up on the side of the bed.

These next two are from Easter. We went to our pastor's house for dinner and Zachary thought it was great fun playing on the trampoline!

We finally made it out to take Zachary's "one year" pictures last weekend. Unfortunately, the day before we went he got his first big "boo boo" on his head. Oh, well...

(Nicole, notice his stylish shirt!)

These last two are my favorites because of his big smile! I wish I could say he is smiling at me, but really, he is just smiling because I am holding his ball!

Summer is Here!

2010-04-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, so technically it isn't summer, but last week we had 3 days of 90 degree weather! It was crazy!!! So, one day I decided to stick a big bowl of water out front and let Zachary play in it. He had so much fun!

First he tried to drink it...

Then he decided to splash in it... oops, I guess it was a bit chilly! :)

Next he thought it would be a good idea to stick his foot in it - you know, kind of like getting in the bath tub!

And then it was "All Gone!"

Eating with a Spoon

2010-04-16T07:38:00.001-07:00

Since turning one, Zachary has become a bit more opinionated! :) One of his opinions is that he should be able to feed himself... with a spoon. It has been a very fun... and very messy adventure! I didn't capture it in this video, but it cracks me up because often after he gets the spoon to his mouth without loosing the food he gets all excited - its like he is saying, "I did it! See, I'm a big boy!"

"I think I need another hand!"

2010-04-16T07:35:00.000-07:00

Since Zachary was so excited about the shaker he got for his birthday, Grandma Grass came up with the great idea of making Easter eggs into shakers. We did and Zachary thinks they are the greatest thing ever! This video cracks me up because he has 3 of them and just can't decide which ones he wants to shake!

Zachary's Real Birthday

2010-04-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

Zachary's real birthday started with a video call from Grandma Jane. Zachary got to open his present from her then. He was very excited about his Duplo's (which we just call Legos around here)!

Grandpa even taught him how to build a house... although I must admit that he is much better at taking the Legos apart! Still, they are one of his favorite new toys. When I say, "Zachary, go get your Legos?" he darts straight for his lego box! :) Thanks Grandma Jane!

After his morning nap we went downtown for the Cherry Blossom Festival, which was amazingly beautiful... and crowded! That Wednesday was the first nice day since my parents had been here so it was the perfect day to go! Here Zachary is hanging out in front of the Jefferson Memorial.

And here we are with the Washington Memorial in back of us and of course, the amazing cherry blossoms! If you can't tell, it was quite windy!

A very nice lady offered to take our picture. She tried to get Zachary to smile, but he was much more interested in watching her somewhat rambunctious children!

After dinner Zachary got to open MORE presents! Grandma and Grandpa Grass got him a cool train set.

Paul and I got him some musical instruments. He especially likes his shaker and the harmonica... which he can't play yet, but don't worry Grampee, he'll be ready to play with you this summer! :)

It was a wonderful birthday... and we all miss Grandma and Grandpa Grass a lot!

Happy Birthday to Z!

2010-03-28T07:18:00.000-07:00

I know that Zachary's birthday isn't until Wed, but I figured a party on Saturday was much easier than a party on Wednesday and besides... Zachary didn't care right!?!? Anyway, I strategically scheduled Zachary's party for noon because he usually naps until around then. I figured he would wake up just as people were getting there an be in a great mood and it worked like a charm! This isn't the best picture because I had my camera on the wrong setting, but I wanted to show that Zachary seemed genuinely surprised to come downstairs to a house full of people and balloons after his nap!

Our friends Josh and Kim know that Zachary is obsessed with balloons lately so that was his gift from them. He was very excited to have his own balloon bouquet!

And of course, what birthday party would be complete without juggling from grandpa? This was totally unplanned, but everyone loved his little juggling show!

Kate seemed especially excited. Both her and Zachary also tried some juggling of their own as they kept trying to steal the juggling balls and clubs!

And then it was time to open presents. We appreciated Kate's help opening the gifts since Zachary is still more into eating the paper than paying attention to what is inside!

We told everyone not to bring gifts, but they didn't listen very well. It was pretty funny because two of our guests got him the same gift. We all laughed and figure that now he has a phone for the car and one for the house! I think Kate was secretly hoping that one of the phones was for her.

One of my favorite memories growing up is choosing a cake for my mom to make. I could choose anything - one year I even had a Rainbow Bright cake! So the one thing I was determined to do was make Zachary a cute cake. Since the only thing he loves more than balloons is dogs, I figured I'd make a cute puppy cake. I was very grateful to have my mom here to help me with it! I think it turned out quite cute, don't you?

Which brings us to birthday cake time!

Zachary was very intent on putting out the candle, but he wanted to use his fingers to do it. Luckily I got it blown out before we had an accident!

At first Zachary was a bit tentative with the cake. He sort of touched it... tasted the frosting... then touched it again.

Then he realized that he could break off a whole chunk and stick it in his mouth. (By the way, NO he did no eat that whole piece... I took most of it away after the photo op!)

And soon any thought of cleanliness was gone! He just dug in.

By the end, we all agreed that he had just "a bit" of a sugar rush! :) That combined with the fact that he has been refusing to take an afternoon nap the last few days made for a "fun" evening... actually he was fine - just a bit hyper!

It was a wonderful 1st birthday party... we wish you all could have been here!

Ahhhh.... Spring!

2010-03-22T17:24:00.000-07:00

The warm weather is finally here! This weekend was actually in the 7o's and even though I know it won't stay that warm, it also shouldn't (at least I hope) fall into the 30's again! We even have leaves on our tree and daffodils in our front yard, which was a great surprise since I didn't even plant them!

We all enjoyed being able to open our front door wide open - with a gate blocking Zachary's way out of course.

Zachary still loves swinging so we also went for a walk at a nearby park and let Zachary swing for a while. He had a lot of fun and Paul took some great pictures! Oh, and in case the whole no shoes or socks thing offends you (see pictures below), I'm really sorry, but the kid won't keep them on so I've given up!

I can't believe how much he is growing up! One week from this Wednesday and he'll be turning one! How time flies! Oh, and I almost forgot - thanks for the opinions about his hair. I think that in honor of his wonderful child care provider (see Emily's comments on the hair post) I think I'll let it grow a bit longer and have grandma cut it this summer! We'll see if I can handle it! :)

Lets Take a Vote!

2010-03-10T17:58:00.001-08:00

Zachary's hair is CRAZY most of the time these days. This picture doesn't even do it complete justice! He has these totally cute curls/fly-aways on both side of his head. It is quite cute, BUT he is sort of starting to look like a girl!

I just can't decided... do I cut it for his upcoming 1st birthday or keep it... what do you think????

Grandpa's Newest Juggling Partner

2010-03-10T17:52:00.001-08:00

Zachary's newest favorite word is "up." When we say up he looks up or, if he has a toy he holds it up in the air. His favorite toy to do this with are his balls. He holds them up as high as he can and then throws them.

This week he started doing this with 2 balls at a time!

The balls did not make it in this picture, but can't you tell he is trying to juggle!?!?!

What a Bad Mother I am...

2010-03-10T17:42:00.000-08:00

I am not a oober health freak, but I always figured that I would avoid giving my children sweets as long as possible. I figured that someday I would have to yell at Grandma or Aunt Becky for slipping the kids sweets... but alas, it was me that corrupted Zachary!

Pat-a-Cake

2010-03-04T17:54:00.000-08:00

This week Zachary started clapping ... He's been sort of clapping the past few weeks, but on Sunday he just started clapping a ton and wouldn't stop! He thinks it is very fun to play Pat-a-Cake (which I actually pronounce patty-cake - doesn't everyone?). I try to sing other clapping songs when he starts clapping and he just looks at me like, "Really???" Once I sing "Patty-Cake" he starts laughing and smiling. He's a little distracted in this video, but you get the idea.

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Grass!

2010-03-04T17:21:00.000-08:00

Grandma and Grandpa Grass got Zachary an early birthday parent which is just perfect for him! The day it came in the mail Zachary had been crawling around like crazy and I was exhausted trying to keep him out of trouble while staying off of my broken foot. He was so excited about his new toy that I finally got a little break! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Our Growing Boy

2010-02-16T18:00:00.001-08:00

I think I already mentioned that this kid is growing like a weed, but I just can't believe it. Its like every day he does something new. Anyway, I've been trying to take a lot of pics lately so here are some that I thought you might enjoy...

Zachary currently loves crawling over things... He thinks he's cool stuff because he can crawl over obstacles in his way.

Zachary was very excited for a chance to help daddy with his work. He pretty much gets excited at any opportunity to stand up!

We were at a friend's house and Zachary found these. I think he is going to be a musician! He already sings along sometimes. He makes this cute high pitched "ah, ah, ah" sound sometime when music is playing or when Paul or I are singing. It is totally different than his "talking" voice so we are pretty sure he is genuinely trying to sing along... what can I say, he's a genius! ;)

This picture demonstrates his never ending curiosity. Its like everyday he notices something new around the house. Recently it was the fact that he could look under things - the fridge, the couch, the TV stand, the shoe rack. His curiosity makes for a very busy mom!

Yum, Yum, Yum

2010-02-14T18:40:00.000-08:00

Zachary LOVES food! (He is a true Grass I guess.) Although, if truth be told he pretty much tries to eat anything he can. Hence the picture below...

Paul and I keep tracking in snow and Zachary keeps trying to touch it so I finally went out and got a bucket full and brought it in. Zachary didn't like touching it so I decided to see what he would do if I put some on a spoon... and shocker... he ate it!

There is almost always some sort of snack under the table (thanks to Zachary, not me). He has learned to crawl under the table in search of cheerios and bread chunks. Speaking of bread, he goes absolutely crazy when Paul bakes bread - he insists on eating some!

Paper is one of Zachary's other favorite things to eat! In this case it was a very cute Valentine's card from Granmee and Grampee.

Our recycling bag was sitting out and Zachary thought that this looked yummy, but don't worry... it is completely empty!!!

As you can tell, he is very passionate about his food! He especially loves his avocados which is good since according to Momo (that's Aunt Anna), avocados make your brain grow!

Sometimes he grabs his soccer ball in his mouth an crawls around... This is as close as I can get on camera though!

Zachary's Favorite Toy

2010-02-14T18:08:00.000-08:00

I have no idea why, but Zachary LOVES the vacuum! If I leave the big vacuum or my little one out he totally tries to play with them. And as you can see in this video, he gets quite excited when I turn it on!

My Foot

2010-02-07T18:12:00.000-08:00

In my last entry I mentioned that my friend Marcie came to visit a few weeks ago... and I think I mentioned that I sprained my ankle... well, it turns out that I was wrong. My ankle is officially broken. I am notoriously bad about going to the Dr. but Paul pretty much made me go about 4 days after I hurt it. The Dr. assured me that it was just fine and that I just sprained it. Well, that next Monday it still hurt and Zachary was sick so I couldn't go to work anyway so I went back to the Dr. and requested an X-ray and MRI. (I was very proud of myself for being so on the ball!) I din't have time to go get the texts until that Friday, so 2 weeks after hurting it I found out that I broke it. According to the orthopedist the break isn't bad enough for a cast, but I bruised the bone and injured the cartilage so I am supposed to use crutches for 3 weeks. I am trying very hard to be good, but it is sure hard with a baby around! Here are some beautiful pictures of my foot! :)

More Snow!

2010-02-07T17:48:00.000-08:00

Well, it snowed... again. Now don't get me wrong, I really do like snow, but I have to admit that when my sister-in-law told me that she had been swimming in an outdoor pool in California the other day I was feeling a bit jealous!

Apparently this was the most snow they have gotten here in 90 years. There is over 2 feet piled up all over and as of this afternoon there was too much for the snow plow to make it down our street so my manly husband decided to shovel a way through. Before doing that though, we decided to go on a little walk and he took this video which you can see at the very bottom of this post. (Notice that I was being very bad and not using my crutches.)

This is a bit of a tangent from the snow topic, but Zachary has been growing up like crazy this week! He now crawls like crazy, he learned how to crawl up 1 stair, he can pull himself up in the bathtub and is getting into EVERYTHING!!! As exhausting as it is crawling after him (yes, I did mean crawl... you know, the whole broken foot thing) I am very proud to have such a curious son... As a teacher I have come to believe that curiosity is what makes a good student!

Back to the whole snow day thing... if you look back on our blog you will remember that during the last storm we got snowed in at our friends' house. Well, this time they got snowed in at our house because they lost their power. I don't have as many pictures, but I did take one of Kate and Zachary playing with the pots and pans... one of Zachary's favorite toys.

Here Paul is after digging for about 2 hours. Behind him is our wonderful neighbor. One of the best things about this weekend has been the time we have spent with our neighbors. 2 of them came over last night for dinner and they another couple came over for cocoa today. When we were trying to found a place to buy we prayed a lot about moving into a place next to the neighbors he wanted us by. A weekend like this was a great reminder about how amazing it is to reach out to your neighbors... If you haven't done it, you should! It is so rewarding.

Tonight another neighbor had us over for the superbowl. Zachary made himself right at home spilling Cheerios all over the floor and pulling all of the movies off of his shelf. Hmmmm... think we'll be invited back? Oh, and I couldn't resist posting the picture of Zachary with Cheerios on his bumm!

And finally... here is the video

Marcie Comes to Visit

2010-01-22T11:09:00.001-08:00

My wonderful friend Marcie had mentioned coming to visit a few times so when I saw an amazing price on flights from LA I told her about it... I was so excited when she called me to say that she had booked a ticket!

It was a quick trip, but well worth it... of course I wasn't the one who had to fly and change time zones. :) On Friday we relaxed and on Saturday Paul, Zachary, Marcie and I all went downtown DC. On Sunday Marcie and I had planned to leave Zachary with Paul and brave the rain to go visit a few of the Smithsonian Museums so even when I sprained my ankle we went - I still say it was well worth it, although my ankle isn't so sure!

She had to leave on Monday and we were sad to see her go. Zachary seemed very intranced by her! :) So here are a few fun pictures from our adventures...

Here we are by the Jefferson Memorial with the Washington Memorial behind us.

Here we are hanging out in front of the White House.
(Obama invited us in for dinner, but we were too busy. :)

Ok, Oregonians, don't worry, I took a picture with Oregon too, but I look cuter in this one so I put it up instead. You have to have your priorities you know! :)

Crawling... Finally!

2010-01-15T08:10:00.000-08:00

So we have been saying, "He's going to crawl any day now!" for about 2 months! Zachary has become very proficient at the army crawl though, and hasn't seemed to care too much for learning the crawl the "traditional way." This week though he started taking 2-3 crawl steps at a time before going for the army crawl so last night when we were getting him ready for bed he was in such a great mood that I figured I'd see if I could get a few of those steps on video. AND THEN ... while I was taping him he crawled all the way across the room!!! So, what you are watching is really his first crawl! It was pretty cool to get it on tape. I must say that as a reading teacher I am incredibly proud that the reason he finally decided to crawl was to listen to Paul read one of his favorite stories! What a smart kid I have! :) Oh, and thanks Aunt Mary for sending this book back to us! Who know, if we didn't get the book back maybe he wouldn't have ever crawled! :)

Christmas!

2010-01-15T07:22:00.000-08:00

Well, its Zachary's nap time and I should be cleaning the house, but this seems like so much more fun! Plus I am way behind! There are so many pictures I could put up from Christmas, but for now I'll just put up some of my favorites and tell you our crazy Christmas sotry...

I don't have any pictures for our most adventurous part of this trip. You see, it all started when we got to the Baltimore airport Christmas Eve Morning. We got there extra early and then found out our flight was delayed because of "weather" in Dallas. We ended up leaving only about an hour late - plenty of time to catch our next flight. When we got to Dallas they informed us that due to the millimeter of snow on the ground our flight from there would also be delays. Well, about 8:00 they finally boarded us and to make a VERY long story short, we sat on the plane for 3 1/2 hours then deboarded at 11:30 pm after they finally decided to cancel the flight. We spent the next 2 hours trying to figure out how we could still get home by Christmas, calling my parents and brothers, and most importantly searching for diapers as we only had 1 left by that point!

Despite the horrible fact that we had to spend Christmas Eve on the floor of the Dallas airport (which was freezing cold by the way) and my various freak out moments I think we all made the most of it and I learned a lot that night. I learned that there are some truly caring people out there like the security guard who scounged to find us 3 diapers - I had just told God that all I wanted for Christmas was a few diapers. When she gave them to me I started to cry and gave her a huge hug! I learned that Christmas is about family and that I was so happy that I was with Paul and Zachary Christmas Eve - no matter where we were! I learned that the rest of my family loves us soooo much! Anna even booked and paid for a hotel for us - in the end we had to cancel it for various reasons, but it sure made me feel loved! I knew that all of them would have done anything to help out that night! And probably most importantly sleeping on the floor made me realize how that 1st Christmas was not a night of ease and relaxation... Mary had a baby in a barn for goodness sake - and she didn't have an epidural!!! I figured sleeping on a carpeted floor was way more comfortable than giving birth on a pile of hay! In all seriousness though, it still brings tears to my eyes thinking of the little ways God provided for us that night and showed us his love! Oh, and after that experience I'm all ready to take Zachary camping this summer!

Well, we finally made it to portland after something like 35 hours of traveling! We even made a pitstop in Minneapolis along the way! When we got to the airport we were greeted by the best surprise EVER!!! My entire family was there with signs to welcome us... They gave us their Christmas morning traditions to come a see us. It was by far the best give they could have given us!

And, as you can see it brought tears to my eyes... again! And if I am entirely honest, it is bringing tears to my eyes as I write about it!

Thanks all of you crazy Grasses! AND I just want to say, that I know that if we had gotten stranded anywhere close to Paul's family they would have done the same! We are truly blessed by our families!

Caleb, Andy and Jacob were soooo excited to see "baby Zachary!" They sat right down and started playing with him while we began the search for our luggage... which was finally found about 24 hours later... but thats another story! :) Jacob was very confused about what happened to "the other baby Zachary." He couldn't figure out were the cute little baby that let him hold him went! He even asked Paul, "Uncle Paul, do you have 2 baby Zacharys?"

I know this picture is a bit fuzzy - but its cute so I thought I'd stick it in! :)

We skipped Christmas on Christmas day as all three of us were completely exhausted! Even the three little boys didn't complain (too much) about waiting until the next day to open presents from Grandma and Grandpa. So, our Christmas was really on the 26th. Zachary loved hanging out with all of his Uncles and Aunts.

He was very excited about his new books...

and toys. He LOVES this rubber duck. Since being home he has figured out that he can hold it under water in the bath tub and squeeze it to fill it up. They he hold the hole up to his mouth and drinks out of it - I know its grose, but cute all the same! :)

One evening I decided that Zachary should try "finger painting." So I put some yogurt on his table and he went for it! It was quite messy, but very fun as well!

We also went up to Seattle to have Christmas with my family up there. Zachary got to meet his... ummmm... something like his 3rd cousin or 2nd cousin once removed... not quite sure, but either way, they were pretty cute together! We also got to see the Combs, but somehow left their house without any pictures! I'll have to post pictures of Zachary with Grammee and Grampee later as they are on a different camera and I havn't downloaded them yet!

If someone asks me what the highlight of the trip was for me I would have to say seeing Zachary play with his cousins! He has so much fun (and I swear he is laughing in this picture, not crying)! They loved him so much and wanted to take care of him! I can't wait until there are 5 little boys all playing together next Christmas! (The 5th one will belong to my younger brother - NOT me or Paul and Anna!!!) Andy was even overheard saying, "Caleb, 2 cousins are going to be a lot of work!"

Our last night there Caleb, who is generally too "old" for baths asked if they could all take a bubble bath together. So mom and I had a very fun and very wet 20 minutes with the boys.

It was a great Christmas with so many memories... I am so excited that Zachary has sooo many cousins (11.5) to grow up playing with!

Snow Fun

2009-12-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

If you are reading this you really should read the post below first... it tells all about the beginning of our snow adventure - this is day #2. We drove home from our friends' house to find our drivway piled with snow so I ran in and put Zachary down for a nap while Paul shoveled it all out. This photo make is look like I did some work, but I didn't... I really put it on here so you can see how much snow is on top of the trash can!

Here is our lovely clean driveway thanks to Paul! :)

After Zachary woke up from his nap we decided to go on a "walk" at the nearby lake (its really a large pond). I liked this picture because Paul is standing on top of a picnic table and you can see how crazy deep the snow is.

Being the crazy person that I am withe need to jump in any form of water, be it snow or the liquid form, I decided to jump from the table to make a snow angle... Here I am as I just landed...

Making the beautiful angel...

And very, very snowy!

Ok, so some of you may think we are mean parents, but I swear Zachary enjoyed these next few pictures! He laughed the whole time! We decided to see if he could stand in the snow... and he could, although I don't think he actually reached the bottom.

He got so excited he accidentally did a face plant... oops! :)

But no tears - just a funny face.

And then I came up with the idea of letting him make a snow angel. He though it was very fun!

And here is his 1st snow angel - pretty darn perfect eh!?!?

The last thing we did to corupt our poor son today was to try to show him how to eat snow. This is Paul demonstrating. Zachary tried a little and was not impressed! He made a very funny face and when Paul tried to offer him some more...

He thought is was very funny but wouldn't get his mouth anywhere near it!

It has been a wonderful day!

Slumber-Party

2009-12-20T11:29:00.001-08:00

On Thursday the weathermen predicted over 20 inches of snow between Friday night and Saturday night... and amazingly enough, they were right! Our good friends Kim and Josh thought it would be fun to get snowed in together so they invited us over to their house. We showed up before there was too much snow Saturday morning and ended up spending the night because the prospect of going home and shoveling over 20 inches of snow out of our driveway did not sound very fun!

I felt right at home at their place because the whole day pretty much revolved around food! :) Paul and I made lunch - chili and cornbread - a perfect snowy day meal!

Zachary thought he was in heaven having Josh play the violin for him! Paul and Josh even played together for a while which sounded very cool - hopefully they'll play together again soon!

And below is Kate - Josh and Kim's very cute 2 year old daughter. Zachary thinks she is halarious! He just watches her and laughs! They got to take a bath together later on that night, but we forgot to take any embarrasing pictures. :)

And.... back to the food! :) When the kids were taking their afternoon naps (which miraculously happened to coinside) Kim made the yummiest (and largest) mugs of hot chocolate EVER! It had real whipping cream with crushed up heath bar on top - YUM!!! We drank it while playing a round of apples to apples... Thanks Josh for playing (and even having fun I think) even though games aren't really your favorite things!

After nap time we thought we would try braving the snow. It was still snowing at that point, so it was pretty cold - Zachary wasn't so sure about the whole thing but he stuck it out.

He even let us pull him on a "sled" (otherwise known as a laundry basket)!

And here is our snowy family photo. It was an awesome and very memorable day. As much as I miss all of you in Oregon and California, I am very thankful that God has blessed us with new amazing friends here. Now if we could get all of you to go with us to the Northwest life would be grand! :)

Our Christmas Tree

2009-12-12T08:34:00.001-08:00

I finally had Paul take a few pictures of our Christmas Tree... so here it is. I wish we could have a tree in our house all year long!

Peek-a-Boo

2009-12-12T07:04:00.000-08:00

Zachary has finally started thinking the game of Peek-a-Boo is funny. I figured it out because he is also at that age where he gets quite upset if he can't see me when he wants to.... soooo one of the times he was crying I peeked out over the couch and he thought it was quite funny. He is a little distracted in this video though because he also thinks that daddy and the video camera look interesting. All in all though, I think he looks pretty darn cute in this video!

SNOW!!!

2009-12-11T12:57:00.000-08:00

The weathermen predicted that it would snow last Saturday, but like any good Oregonian, I have no faith in the weathermen so I didn't believe them! But to our surprise, when we woke up Saturday there was snow falling from the sky! It was pretty wet at that point so I decided to go running in it - it was cold... but BEAUTIFUL! And as the day went on it just kept on snowing and snowing and snowing! There must have been at least 4 inches by that evening! (Which is a lot coming from California!!!)

Since it snowed all day we didn't take Zachary outside, but I decided to bring some snow in to him. His reaction was pretty funny. It was like he wanted so hard to touch it, but every time he did he was shocked at how cold it was! :)

Photo Shoot

2009-11-29T09:07:00.000-08:00

Mary did photoshoot with Zachary and took some great pics. I don't have them all yet, but here are a few of my favorites from the ones I do have.

I like this one because you can tell that he is soooo ready to crawl! Not yet though...

Our Christmas Tree

2009-11-29T08:52:00.000-08:00

I'll have a bunch of Thanksgiving pictures to post later, but since Paul's family takes so many pictures we have stopped taking our camera with us when we go to visit them. We just get their pictures later! :) So in the mean time, even though the posts will be out of order, I thought I would put these pictures up.

Ok, so these are out of order, but it is a pain to change them so, oh well! :) Here is our tree after it was all cut down. It doesn't look all that tall with Paul carrying it, but I think it is the tallest tree I've ever cut down. It looks cool with our high ceilings - I'll have to put up a finished picture later. I had fun decorating it last night!

Zachary was a very big help in holding up the tree after daddy cut it down! :)

Yeah! We found our tree! I tried to convince Paul that in true Christmas Tree cutting fasion we needed to argue more about what tree to get, but in the end, we both found and agreed on a tree quite quickly!

And last, but really first, here we are all excited to be at the Christmas Tree farm. This is one tradition I missed a ton while we lived in LA!

Eating Leaves

2009-11-29T08:47:00.000-08:00

For all of November I kept thinking, I've got to get some good pictures of Zachary playing in the leaves... Well, this is the best I could do and I am not sure if eating the leaves counts as playing...

More Bath Time Fun

2009-11-17T17:33:00.000-08:00

I know this is like the billionth bath time post, but it really is one of our favorite parts of the day! When Zachary hears the bath water running he gets so excited he starts waving his arms and legs! His new favorite thing to do in the bath is to splash as hard as he can. Yesterday my entire thigh was soaking wet after bath time! Sometimes the water reaches half way accross the bathroom. Being that you don't get wet from watching these videos they don't really give the full experience, but you can kind of get the point!

Da Da Da Da...

2009-11-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

Zachary was really into saying, "da da" last week. This week he is into saying "ma ma" which I, of course, think is much better! :) Although, I swear sometimes he is yelling at me when he says it. If he is irritated that I'm not paying attention he often starts saying "ma ma" very loudly. Now I know it is most likely a coincidence, but it is still pretty funny! All in all, it is just fun to hear him "talk!"

Grandma and Grandpa's Visit

2009-11-05T18:37:00.001-08:00

My wonderful parents came to visit last week and spent the first half of their "vacation" helping us paint the downstairs. The biggest obstacle was figuring out how to paint the tall 2-story portion of the room. Dad used his experience in riding unicycles on high wires to climb the VERY tall ladder and paint at the top ... mom and I were too chicken!

This is my favorite part - I've always wanted a yellow kitchen with wainscoting!

These frames are Paul's creation and my mom's hard work!

It took her almost as long to paint these frames as it took me to paint all of the yellow... well maybe that is an exaggeration, but it was a lot of work!

When our hard work was over we finally got to have some fun. On Friday we went on a beautiful hike by the Potomac River.

On Saturday Paul joined us and we went to the Arlington National Cemetary.

And then we went to Alexandria for lunch and a walk along the River.

Most of all though, it was just wonderful to have my parents be a part of our every day lives! What a treat to have grandma help with bath time and grandpa juggle for Zachary!

Halloween

2009-11-05T18:22:00.000-08:00

I had fun finding a cute (and inexpensive) costume for Zachary. I think he looked quite cute! AND he didn't cry any of the times I put it on the poor kid! :)

Fun Videos

2009-10-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

So the other night Zachary was sitting in his chair and put his hands on his head. It was sooo cute! So when he took his hands down Paul started putting his hands on his head to see if Zachary would copy him and he totally did! It was the cutest thing ever. I caught the tail end of it on video - before this he had been doing it even more, but this is still pretty cute!

Last Monday Zachary realized he had a jaw and started just moving it up and down. Then on Tuesday he figured out that moving his jaw would make him say all sorts of sounds. In one day he started saying "b," "mmm," and "p." The "b" sound is definitely his favorite though! Anyway, the teacher in me is very proud of him! :)

Grandma Jane Comes to Visit

2009-10-18T14:02:00.001-07:00

Paul's mom came to visit about a week ago. She told me that she wanted me to get as much done as I could while she played with Zachary. It was wonderful having her here! I got to paint Zachary's room and just get a whole lot of "stuff" done. AND she came to swimming with us so I finally have some pictures of that to put up!

Zachary had a lot of fun hanging out with Grandma Jane!

Zachary has been working hard on floating on his back. You can see a video of it at the end of this post. He is getting better ever week, although sometimes he tries to roll over in the water. He hasn't quite figured out that he does not like the result!

We have loved our swimming lesson, but only have 2 left so I'll have to find another indoor pool where I can take him by myself!

Fall is Here!

2009-10-18T13:53:00.001-07:00

Well, we finally get to experience fall again! Its been 6 years without changing seasons and we are loving having them back! Although, I do have to admit that I have become a bit of a wimp and think this fall weather seems an awful lot like the chill of winter. It makes me feel better though because everyone from here is complaining about the cold so I must not be totally crazy! So for the most part Fall has been amazing - the beautiful trees and even the rain has been enjoyable! Last weekend was beautiful and sunny so we took Zachary out for a 6 month photo op. Here are some of my favorites...

"Hmmmm... do you think I can get these in my mouth???"

I'm sad that the lighting is off in this pic because I totally LOVE it!!! Anyone know how to fix such things?

This is Zachary's new half-smile - he does it all the time now. Do kids really learn how to fake smile this early????

Zachary loves nature so it was pretty hard to get these pics because he kept wanting to look at the trees and pond behind him.

Our New Home

2009-10-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that it has been almost a month since I last updated our blog! So much has happened so I'll try to fill you all in through these next few posts...

Ok, so one of the "most exciting" things is that we bought a house!!! Well, really a town house, but its our place and we are loving being here! Although, we are already learning about all of the "joys" of being a home owner! Every weekend so far has been filled with some sort of project. Anyway - here is our place...

This is the view from the front. I love that we have a tree right in front! :)

So our place has a LOT of stairs!!!! I get a lot of exercise caring our 20 pound "little Z" up and down them all day!

Above - looking up

Below - looking down

The first floor is the living room, dining room and kitchen. We just got our new couches last weekend which was pretty exciting after sitting on the floor for over 2 weeks!

This is the view from the kitchen looking to the front door.

And here is the view from the front door into the kitchen. All of this downstairs stuff needs to be painted. We are excited that my mom and dad are coming out soon to help us paint! :)

The 2nd floor is supposed to be the "master suite" but instead it is our office, craft room, guest room and of course, the recording studio. This "room," which is actually a closet, was our project this week. We painted Paul's closet (recording studio) and he organized all of his stuff. He is very excited about his closet! When I told him he could have it for his music stuff you would have thought I have him a million dollars he was so excited!

Here is my craft corner... the rest of the room still needs to be painted.

And the rest of the office. The guest futon is in a little side "sitting room." If you come and visit you get to stay there, but I don't have a picture of it right now.

This is the first room that I got totally done. Paul's mom came out a week ago and played with Zachary while I got to paint! I am very happy about how Z's room turned out.

Being able to paint Zachary's room inspired me to paint ours as well. So we painted it last weekend - well, I painted it while Paul and Zachary played.

And that is our new house... I'll post more pics as we finish up the rest of the painting.

No More Hanging Out on the Bed

2009-09-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

Since Zachary started rolling from his back to his stomach a month or so ago I've been waiting and waiting for him to learn to turn back over. Well, yesterday I was cleaning while he was hanging out on the bed and all of a sudden I realized he was on the edge of the bed! It seems that he has simultaneously learned to roll over - both ways - and scoot. He appeared to be having the time of his life! :) I guess I won't be leaving him alone on the bed any more!

Everyday Life... Everyday Life E

2009-09-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

So, staying home with Zachary has helped me to realize (or finally admit) that I am a workaholic! I love keeping busy and having a schedule. So I try hard to have some sort of schedule during the day so that I don't go crazy. There are a few things Zachary and I do together most days. Here are some of them...

We took a break from the whole solids thing for quite some time since the last eating picture I posted, but I started them up again last week since he kept drooling whenever Paul and I started to eat. He is all about eating now! He always tries to take the spoon from me though and that generally results in a big mess! :) He seems to like everything - even green peas! :P

Sometimes when I am still just too tired to get up I try to get Zachary to sleep longer by pulling him into bed with me in the morning. He's just so darn cute! Sadly, I haven't been able to get him to go back to sleep lately - he's awake at 5:30 and wants to eat at 6:00!

He is at that stage where he really wants to sit, but can't without help and I'm too cheap to buy one of those Bumbo seats because I figure once I do he'll start sitting by himself! So I have discovered that putting him in the laundry basket works pretty well. Plus he's pretty cute playing in it!

Labor Day

2009-09-08T11:18:00.000-07:00

Since Paul had Monday off we decided to go on a very low key hike. It was beautiful and we all had fun! We can't wait to go again once we get our running stroller out of storage!

Roadtrip to Pittsburgh

2009-09-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

Paul went to LA last weekend for a wedding so I decided to use the opportunity to visit my friend Colleen in Pittsburgh. She is the friend that got me through that hard 1st year in LA. For a very long time we joked that we would call home and say, "I talked to my friend today... and yes, I mean my one friend!" It was amazing to get to see her and her very cute son Jack and it was especially wonderful since I haven't seen them for a year! And Zachary did an awesome job on our road trip. It took about 6 hours to make the 4.5 hour trip - not too bad!

I don't know how Colleen feels about this picture, but I LOVE it! We decided to take the boys for a quick walk at the park and decided that the huge black cloud would never open up on us! Oh, how wrong we were! We were completely DRENCHED after a 5 minute walk. It started out sunny and by the end I could hardly even keep my eyes open! When we finally got the boys back in their car seats and got in the car ourselves we just started to die of laughter! It was quite a memory!

Jack seemed very intrigued with Zachary. Of course we were determined to get the "perfect picture" so we kept trying to make them pose... These 2 pictures are the best we got.

Colleen's dog Wilson is a very "special" dog and so maybe that is the reason he is the only dog I can say that I have ever loved! He doesn't like most people, but he loves me! Even though I hadn't seen him for a year he was still excited to see me. It made my day! I can't wait to go visit Wilson... I mean Colleen and Jack again!

August Fun

2009-09-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

I can't believe August is over already! That means we have been in Maryland for an entire month!!! Zachary has grown so much while we have been here, I just can't believe it. His 9 month sleepers hardly fit him any more... goodness, good thing this boy has a lot of boy cousins or he would be costing me a lot of money in clothing! Its been a fun month. The biggest excitement is that Paul and I think we have found a house to buy. The appraisal and inspection both went through so I guess that is a good sign, but I refuse to post any pictures until I am 100% sure it is ours. We are hoping to move in by September 18th so I'll post some pictures then! In the mean time, here are some of my favorite pictures of Zachary from this month.

We have been practicing sitting up and playing the "drums." He needs a lot of support, but with his pillow he can sit up pretty well!

Ok, so this picture cracks me up. For those of you who met the Zachary who would put himself to sleep sitting in front of a window, that Zachary is long gone! Nap time is not so fun anymore. In this picture he is trying so hard to fight sleep that he is literally grabbing his feet in his sleep!

Paul was very exciting when the 1st Bears game was on the other day... so excited that he even got Zachary ready for the game. This outfit is a size 12 months, and although it is large, it isn't nearly as large as I thought it would be! :)

Here is the standard daddy / son picture. I know there is one of these with my dad and every one of us kids! :)

Again, a picture that makes me laugh! When Zachary wakes up in the morning he typically just lies there cooing and talking to himself. Well, this particular morning when I went to get him he was staring at me like this with his nose pressed against the bars. It was pretty funny! (And as a side note, this is the hotel bumper not mine - that is why it clashes with the sheets - not my fault!!!)

This picture is just too darn cute, plus he is wearing an outfit given to him by his wonderful Aunty Christine. Thanks Aunty Christine!

Water Baby...

2009-08-19T17:49:00.000-07:00

Zachary and I have been taking time swimming lessons for 2 weeks now and it turns out he is a star swimmer! This week the teacher kept saying how good he was doing and he can almost float on his back in the water all by himself! I'm so proud! I haven't been able to take any pictures of that though because I'm in the water with Zachary.

So, almost as good is watching him in the bath. He loves bath time as you can see in this video!

Fun at Home

2009-08-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd post a few pics of what we've been doing around here on a day-to-day basis. We are currently living in temporary housing and looking for a place to buy... That is another story, but it is feeling a bit discouraging at the moment. Paul is loving his job and I am having fun hanging out with Zachary. Our temporary housing is awesome in that it is across from a duck pond, Target and Ann Taylor Loft - need I say more! :) Paul and I run around the duck pond and I walk around it with Zachary at least once a day. Its been great!

There is even a train that you can ride around the pond, but we haven't tried it yet.

Zachary got a new toy the other day - one of those bouncer/entertainment chair things. He likes to try to eat it... well really he likes to try to eat anything in reach.

... Which is why I decided to try giving Zachary some solids tonight. He did amazing! By the 4th or 5th bite he was opening his mouth wide to let me put in the spoon. His first meal was very diluted rice cereal with a little bit of sweet potato for flavor.

The other new and exciting event is his ability to roll over. He does it all the time now. Last night he even woke himself up because he somehow rolled over in his sleep and woke up on his tummy - he didn't like it too much. He did is again during nap time so tonight might be a long night!

Last weekend some friends from LA were in town so we met them in DC for a bit. We had fun riding the subway out and seeing a few museums.

And I just had to put these 2 pics in because Zachary absolutely LOVES his baths! He can be in the worst mood and when he hears the water running he starts to smile! I think he would stay in the water all night if we let him.

Friends

2009-08-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

Moving out to the DC area we knew 1 other couple and it just happened that they had twins 2.5 weeks before Zachary was born. Well, we finally got to hang out with them on Sunday. It was pretty funny to see how much bigger Zachary, the youngest, was! They all had fun rolling around on the floor together.

The twins were just a bit more agile than Zachary though so at times they game close to rolling right on top of him. It was pretty funny and very cute! :)

Jammy Time

2009-08-17T12:21:00.000-07:00

After our seemingly never-ending travels we finally have a bedtime routine. And, even more miraculous is that it is working! Paul, Zachary and I all look forward to bedtime. Zachary's favorite part of the whole routine is "jammy time." Paul started singing a silly song to him every time he puts his pajamas on and Zachary laughs hysterically. Unfortunately you don't get the real-life version in this video because, as always, Zachary wants to stare at the camera, but you can get an idea... and its pretty darn cute if I do say so myself! I think I laugh almost as hard as Zachary every night because he is so fun to watch! Oh, and sorry the video is so dark...

Laughing

2009-08-09T18:13:00.000-07:00

Paul and I LOVE listening to Zachary laugh! It seems like every time we try to record it, though, he just stops! This video shows a little big of him laughing before he realized that there was a camera to look at! :) As for the silly things I am saying, it is from his favorite song, "Victor Vito," by Laurie Berkner - he laughs whenever we sing it! :)

Silly Z...

2009-08-09T17:58:00.000-07:00

I wasn't really sure what to title this entry because honestly, I have no clue what Zachary is really doing here, but it seems like he is wanting to move somewhere! Unfortunately, he only moves his head into the floor when he does this! I cant' believe how big and strong he is getting! Oh, and he finally rolled over from his stomach to back - no video yet though. He still needs to figure out how to get his hand out from under him once he is on his stomach. Once he does that I'll get a good video!

Our Big Move: Part 3 - Other Fun Pictures

2009-08-06T07:07:00.001-07:00

Well, I pretty much told the story with the "food" post, but here are some other fun pictures from our trip...

Paul and I tried to take a picture like this in every state we went through since we were on the 40 almost the whole time, but towards the end the states no longer posted their name on the signs... so sad! And I had such great plans for scrapbooking all of them!

Zachary is soooo close to rolling over, but he just won't do it! Well, I guess if I am being honest he has sort of done it twice, but once he rolled right back because he didn't really get all the way other and the other time he was sitting up on a pillow and kind of fell off/rolled over all at once... so neither really counts. Anyway, after those 2 experiences with rolling over he has pretty much stopped trying. I guess he figured out that being on his tummy isn't really what he wants... who knows, but one of these days I will have a video to show off!

Our only other tourist stop besides Memphis was at Meteor Crater in Arizona. It was pretty cool - here Z and I are in front of one side of the crater. (It was REALLY windy up there!)

Paul and Zachary standing by a REAL piece of meteor.

These are just 2 cute pictures of Zachary. He was so amazing on the trip! It is funny because we thought that by the last day he would be so sick of the car that he would scream going in his seat. Instead he now seems totally excited when we go to the car. I think it became his routine and he didn't know what to do when that routine all of a sudden ended! :)

These are pictures from our time with Paul's family. The boys LOVED playing with Uncle Paul and of course Zachary enjoyed hanging out with Grandma Jane!

The National Civil Rights Museum is in the Hotel where MLK was shot. We wanted to take a photo of the front of the hotel, but when we left it started POURING so we settled for a picture of the sign.

We didn't have time to go into Graceland so here I am standing by the sign outside of Graceland.

Paul and Zachary outside of the restaurant where we ate 'gator and catfish.

Zachary made me very proud ... he seemed to love the rain! It made him laugh, actually. What a true little Oregonian I have (even if he hasn't ever lived there - its in his blood!). In this picture we are running through the streets of Memphis trying not to get too wet before dinner!

Our Big Move: Part 2 - Telling our story through food...

2009-08-06T06:43:00.000-07:00

As I looked through our pictures I realized that really the most exciting things on our trip revolved around food... so here is the story of our move through pictures of food!

Paul insisted that we have in-n-out one last time before leaving. Our plan had been to leave early and get lunch in Barstow, but we left late so our yummy lunch ended up being in good ol' Redondo Beach

We tried to drive as much as we could while Zachary slept and by the end of the trip we had it down pretty well - we figured out the perfect time to get him up in the morning so he would take a 3 hour nap in the car before lunch! The day always included some sort of snack either mid morning or mid afternoon so that Zachary could get out of the car and stretch for a bit. Above is the picture of snack #1... it turned out to be much bigger than we anticipated so snack #1 turned into breakfast the next day and even with that we still didn't eat it all!

If you know Paul, you know that even more than ice cream he REALLY LOVES milkshakes! (And that's saying a lot because he LOVES ice cream!) Anyway, many of our snacks were shakes - But mostly I posted this picture because it cracks me up! I think it looks like Zachary just tried a sip and spit it back out! :)

One of the biggest treats was the night that Paul's mom and sister and her 2 kids drove to Tennessee to meet us. We all camped in very cute cabins and had a ton of fun! I can honestly say that it was a huge highlight of the trip for me! Of course we had to make s'mores and so here is an excellent picture of Daniel and I! :)

One of my greatest friends in LA visited Memphis last year so we called to ask her what things she recommended for us to do with only about 2 hours. We decided to go to the National Civil Rights Museum, which was amazing, and then we went out to eat at a place called Rum Boogie. It was great, my friend, Sanseria, even told us exactly what to order - the Southern Sampler for Two! We had beans and rice (amazing, but not as good as Shirlene's!), gator gumbo (very interesting - Paul said it tasted like chicken, I thought it tasted like clam chowder!), ribs (the best either of us had EVER had!), pulled pork and catfish (it was AMAZING!). There was other stuff too, but that is all I remember, and honestly I can't remember it all!

Here I am eating the catfish - I actually ate mine and half of Paul's. He said that even though it tasted great, he couldn't mentally stop picturing the nasty duck pond people caught catfish in back in KS. It was fine with me, cause this was amazingly delicious and farm raised - no duck poo inside this fish! :)

Our Big Move: Part 1 - Saying Goodbye

2009-08-06T06:28:00.000-07:00

Well, I have a ton of pictures from our vacation in June and July that I want to post, but they are all stuck on our computer, which is currently in storage somewhere in Virginia so, instead I will post about our last few weeks and the big move!

First I want to say that having people actually pack all of your stuff for you is amazing! I thought it would be weird, but no, it pretty much was the coolest thing ever!!!

On Thursday 2 nice guys came and started packing all of our stuff up. By about 3:00 EVERYTHING (well, except our bed) was in boxes. The next morning a HUGE truck pulled up and loaded all of our stuff. Luckily we have... I guess it is had now :( ... amazing neighbors so we hung out at our neighbor's place all day so we wouldn't be in the way.

While we were waiting another one of my favorite neighbors who is going into 7th grade came to hang out. The picture below demonstrates what an exciting day we had playing with the moving stickers! :)

And then of course we got to hang out with Shirlene. She made an AMAZING dinner of beans, rice, plantains and fried Red Snapper. What will we do without Auntie Sha Sha??? I've tried to tell her to move out here with us, but alas, she said, "NO!"

And finally came the true "goodbye." We drove to the beach where I used to go running and waved down a car to ask them to take a picture of us. (Which is why it isn't the best picture ever, but I felt bad asking for another one!) It was a sad and exciting moment for the both of us!

"Talking"

2009-06-30T14:23:00.000-07:00

Zachary has been "discovering" his voice over the past few weeks, but this week he is even more into it. Instead of making those cute baby cooing noises he now makes very loud noises that I think sound a lot like a cat meowing. He loves it when Paul and I "talk" to him - he starts to laugh and "talks" back. It is most definitely our new favorite past time when he is awake!!! The adult voices in this video are Paul and Aunt Theresa... Paul is very excited for you all to hear him saying "a-goo" repeatedly (that is Zachary's favorite phrase at the moment!)

Stop #1 - Family Reunion

2009-06-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

Our crazy month long vacation has officially started. Our first stop was Steamboat, Colorado for a family reunion. It also Paul's grandparent's 50th wedding anniversary so it was very cool to get to be there. Zachary got to meet all 7 of his great uncles and aunts as well as many many cousins (I don't know if they are 2nd cousins or cousins once removed... never understood that whole thing!) Here are some fun pics from that part of our trip... Zachary and Grandpa Royal - Grandpa enjoyed putting him to sleep a few times while we were there.

Zachary and his Great Grandma & Grandpa Wilkinson

Here is Zachary with 2 of the Nobles. He had a great time spending time with the 4 Noble cousins and his Aunt Shary and Uncle David, who was convinced that he was Zachary's favorite uncle... you uncles can fight over that!

Dancing

2009-06-09T21:53:00.000-07:00

Zachary loves to move his hands and legs... I think it looks like he is trying to do an Irish Jig!