Going to the Park

So I'm sorry about the excess of posts lately. I just don't have a lot of things to do and blogging makes me feel at least somewhat connected with all you guys that I love so I keep finding excuses to blog! And these girls are so cute, that it's easy to find a reason, even when we're just walking to the little park down the road:They just chose to hold hands the whole way down the street all on their own. And then had the following conversation. Meri: "Jell, will you hold my hand always?" Jell: "Yeah, I will Meri. I'll hold your hand the whole time." Meri: "Even when we're at the park and you made a new friend?" Jell: "Even then. I'll always remember you." They walked a few paces in contented silence and then Meri exclaimed excitedly to me, "MOM! Jelly says she won't never ever forget me even when she makes a new friend!" Love it!
We're loving playing in the sun! Yeah for summer! And I've had a change of heart - yeah for all the wind that cools us down so it's not too too hot!

Wahoo!

So I entered a few pieces in the LO Festival of the Arts again this year. When we got to the artist's reception, we started to wander through the 1,000+ artworks, and Jenelle was the first to spot mine. But what was hanging beside it was quite the fun surprise:
I've never got one of those before!! I won an honorable mention ribbon award thingy! (The funny thing is, this is the painting that was the last minute decision to put in. The other two were going in for sure, but we kept going back and forth between entering this one or a different one. Guess we made the right choice :) ) We were pretty excited. Well actually, the girls didn't care too much. They were much more excited about the free buffet tables of yummy food for the artists. Nothing surprising there :) Here are the other two I entered:Sadly none of them sold but it was exciting and fun to see them up regardless. By the way, these are some others I've done recently that I just entered into a juried competition:
I'm really happy with the first. I really don't like the 2nd but Cooper loves it. I've been having fun trying to be a lot looser lately although I haven't got it figured out at all. I spend a heck of a lot of time just staring at the page with a brush in my hand, accomplishing nothing because I can't figure out how to make it work. What can I say, sometimes my brain just doesn't work. The lack of AC doesn't help either. Regardless, the one positive side to all the time Coop has to spend applying to jobs in the evening, is that I have some time to paint. More to come :)

Getting a little crowded in here

We're ALL ready to go on a walk to the library! I was promised that the girls wanted to pull the wagon, so I allowed them to fill it with their stuffed animals. However, it was about a block and a half into the walk when, "Mom, can you pull it now and we ride in it with all the dolls? Please, we're SO tired!"

The Fish Hatchery or "where they make lots of fish babies"

On our way home to Portland for Father's Day we decided to stop at one of the places we always speed past and say we should stop at some day. Thus we found ourselves at the fish hatchery with no idea whether it would be of interest to the princesses. But they loved it! After splashing about in a fountain, we wandered over to the sturgeon pond, where we could look at the "stoogins." Those things get freaky huge! Up to 20 feet!Naturally, the girls wanted to know if the "stoogins" could eat them. They thought it was hilarious that they suck up their food like a vacuum instead of using teeth. Meri kept watching them through the underground windows and saying again and again, "this is just fabulous!" Oh, and we decided it's a good thing we clothe Meri. Apart from the normal reasons for wearing clothing, she's so white that it appears she would disappear altogether in the sun if she didn't. Either that or she's a lot more angelic than we give her credit for being!
Then we meandered over to the trout pond, to see the "tramps, I mean what are those called again?" "Are they slimy mommy?"
Jell got so excited about seeing them swim and jump out of the water that she began to levitate.
After convincing the girls that the fish didn't want them to throw little rocks at them to eat, Mom miraculously found a quarter in her purse to purchase a handful of fish food! Thrown one at a time, this provided like 20 minutes of entertainment, which makes it 25 cents well spent in my book. Here's quite the wind-up for a throw that travels 6 inches:She seriously cracks me up. The whole outfit ... it just works.
By some stroke of luck nobody even fell in the water, nor were they eaten by "stoogens" nor "tramps." So we walked off in time to take a quick look at the dam to discuss why water looks white when it's going really crazy. Can anyone help me with that one?

"You gotta see this"

Last night as I was getting ready for bed, Coop checked on the girls and then came back out of Meri's room laughing. He told me I had to come and see what she'd done. He pointed at her pathway of books and the balancing act she'd completed on her rocking chair:I, however, having already seen what she thinks books are good for (she did it during quiet time) looked at her. Here's a closer look:And here:
We're so proud of our daughter, who is going to give birth to a baby giraffe! I can't believe she fell asleep like this! On a similar note, the other day while I was browsing around Lakeshore Learning and the girls were playing happily, a lady came and asked if I was their mom. She was trying to hold back her laughter as she told me she'd just overheard Jell say, "There we go. I feel SO much better when I'm not pregnant." So basically, being pregnant is a little bit on our minds these days! I also just overheard Meri say, "My baby is a monkey." Jell replied, "Oh, yours is a monkey? Mine is an elephant. Are they going to get married?" This mommy hopes her babies don't grow up quite that fast. Oh and yesterday Jell informed me that "baby brother can't grow up ALL the way inside your tummy! He needs to come out sometime!" I would agree wholeheartedly. In fact, I insist he come out sometime. Preferably September 2nd. We can't wait!

Just playing around

Last week when we were still ... enjoying rainy spring weather, we had to get creative to find things to do! So the girls decided to go "camping at the beach." I love all the friends they brought with them. They sat there while I read Pollyana to them "around the campfire."
Then, miracle that it was, they didn't take all night to eat dinner! And as we've said a million times, when you eat quickly there's time to do fun things, so, since it had cleared up nicely, we went on a walk down by the river and found one of Lewis and Clark's campsites, nicely marked with interesting stories for Mom and Dad. And, of course, there were plenty of rocks to throw in the river!
As you might be able to tell from wispy one's hair, The Dalles is rather windy. So much so that the previous couple that lived in this house had a big BBQ that frequently blew over and off the porch into the neighbor's yard. We're not so sure about the wind. It's nice in that we don't have any AC and if we open all the windows, a healthy breeze blows air in and cools things down nicely. However, it's usually more than a healthy breeze and I have doors slamming shut of their own accord left and right and loose papers, toys, picture frames dive-bombing each other all day long. I guess something to get used to? Or another reason to keep my house less cluttered?

A weekend to ourselves!

So my parents have the girls for the weekend - which I think is a win-win. Or more like a win-win-win-win situation. My parents are happy to be spending time with the girls that we so rudely moved away from them, the girls think it's super special to be spending the night without us and were thrilled to make it to a friend's b-day party and cousin's baptism that they would've missed, Patti and Jim got to babysit them which they love, and we get some time alone. I don't know when the last time was that they spent the night elsewhere without us. We totally slept in this morning! It was GREAT! The house is oddly quiet, but I got some painting done in peace earlier and then we went exploring our new surroundings. We drove up this one unpaved road, got to the top and saw this looking one direction:And this, when we turned around to look the opposite way:WOW! WOW! WOW (Let's play name those mountains ... we're not sure about one of them. Anybody know what it is?)! Then the bumpy road threw out our power steering but that's another story (fortunately it recovered after a bit of sweat and worry). Then we drove a ways up the Gorge, up to Rowena Crest viewpoint, and decided to take a 3 mile hike through Tom McCall preserve. I'm not sure hiking around in loosely rocky, steep pathways is part of the pregnant exercise routine but I survived. And these were some of our views:




We kept startling wild life, like lots of birds, crickets, toads, snakes (just as startling to us), chipmunks, probably some mice, and deer, like this one:
Our hike brought us right up to the edge of this crazy plateau cliff overlooking the entire world, although in the picture, our heads our too big for you to see much of anything:
Oddly enough, the hike wasn't supposed to bring us there. It was supposed to take us on some loop ... which we never found. We tried after we were headed back (you couldn't go any farther off the cliff), but ended up discovering we had taken some deer path that kind of disappeared into thin air. Crazy deer. So we broke the law and created our own shortcut back to the trail in order to avoid backtracking because it was hot and we were sweaty and I was out-of-breath. And now I can't move. I might have overdone it a bit. Oh well, since the girls weren't here to see, I had a big bowl of ice cream for dinner to help my sore muscles feel better. Tee hee. And we get to sleep in again tomorrow! Thanks mom!

Preschool graduation!

We were so fortunate to have been able to enjoy two full years of Mother Goose Time preschool (Joy-school style, at-home preschool where the moms rotate teaching responsibilities using a curriculum and materials we got online through Mother Goose Time) with the same wonderfully giggly girls. Jell has loved, loved, LOVED her school and association with her friends. We were just so lucky that it worked out for everyone for two whole years, especially because now that it's done, we seem to be scattering. But after all these fun times, we celebrated with a graduation party! The girls donned their pink graduation caps that they made themselves, walked (down the stairs), performed some of their favorite songs from the last 2 years, and got their diplomas. Good times! Good friends!And good work to all the moms! Next stop - kindergarten (since when did I have a child old enough for kindergarten????)! Can't wait to find out where we'll be sending her to school!

Couldn't have been cuter

The girls got to take a dance class from a friend who did an awesome job. They loved every minute of it and we sure loved just watching them (as opposed to normal dance studio's recitals where you watch other kids for hours) perform 4 whole dances at the recital. They even had a solo number :) which was hilariously adorable. I'll add the video later for family that didn't get to come but here are some too-cute-for-words pictures for starters!
The whole gang:
Sisterly love:
Aah! Too much love!
Nice smiles and excellent form girls (this is just too funny not to include):

We're sure going to miss the dancing and all of our friends!!

Our summer home

So there was a request to see what our house looks like. I have kept putting off taking pictures until I had the house looking decent but I find myself rather unmotivated to get it fully unpacked and/or to keep it tidy when I have. Sigh. The knowledge that it's just for 4 months is not helpful. Nor is the lazy part of me. So here are the pictures in all their messy glory, starting with Meri's room, which requires a bit of an explanation. When Meri gave up naps we instituted quiet time, where they both have to stay quietly in their own rooms for at least an hour by themselves. They are welcome to read or color or sleep if they so choose. Meri's room always ends up looking like this or much worse by the end of quiet time:
Who knows what she does! Then there's Jell's room:
We don't feel like investing in curtains for 4 months but if her window isn't blocked off she wakes up with the sun. Oh, and the grandma rug? Our rooms are in the basement with cold tile for floors. This will be fabulous for keeping us cool throughout the summer months but the floor is COLD, so we borrowed Coop's grandma's rug that was in his parents' garage. Not our style, but again, not going to invest in a rug for 4 months. Like her red moving box book shelf on the left?
Then there's one of the bathrooms. There are 3 in this crazy big house, and the ridiculous thing is we use them all. The smart thing to do would be to close one off and keep it clean, but who's smart? Now we are SO grateful for this house and all the space but there are a few quirky things about it, take this bathroom for example:
It is very small because of the huge closet seen at right, which has space for a washer and dryer (although 1/2 inch too little space to fit our washer and dryer naturally). The door opens in, which it can't do much with Meri's stool in the way. However, every time I try to move her stool, she moves it back because she can't reach to wash her hands without it. Hard to blame her really. I should applaud the fact that she's actually remembering some hygiene! But do try to imagine going in the bathroom, forgetting to turn on the light (the switch is in the hallway), going back in, trying to get a towel out of the closet (no door handles on those doors and you have to close the other door first), wash hands or do much of anything without running into a door. This is getting increasingly difficult for my prego belly to manage. It's awkward indeed. Sadly, this is the main bathroom available to all.
Then there's the kitchen with it's fantastic counter space:
Also pictured here is my arch nemesis: the fridge. It worked for our first few days in the house, stopped for nearly a week, worked for a week, and gave out a few days ago (the freezer hasn't worked more than a day the whole time). The repair man came yesterday and confirmed that it is kaput. So currently our milk and a few other perishables I'm trying to salvage are in a cooler and I kick the fridge every time I walk by. But I do love the counters.
And standing at the edge of the kitchen, this is the rest of the room:
And all of our favorite, the play room:
I LOVE that the toys have a home and for the most part, stay there. On good days, it is clean ... for a few minutes here or there. Mostly I try not to look :)
And then the office/guest room which is supposed to be the master bedroom, but is on the main floor (20 degrees warmer than the basement. no air conditioning in the house) with curtain-less windows everywhere:
So anyway, this is where we are currently hanging out. Sorry for the novel. I didn't include pictures of our bedroom, because it's piled high with all the clothes I need to go fold and put away now. Nor of the other bathrooms, which I have yet to unpack. One of these days, right?