Friday, November 25, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

This Thanksgiving weekend, we are SO very grateful for these beautiful, lively, healthy, entertaining, noisy, loving, forgiving, exasperating, hilarious, awesome kids. They each bring so much to our family! And aren't they cute?
And then it's probably about time (or way past time), to mention the other blessing that's coming our way, for which we are very grateful. We had been trying to wait until Christmas to tell everyone by showing up with a big bow on my belly, but about a week ago my belly rather inconveniently popped out and we knew we couldn't make it through Thanksgiving without someone ... or everyone noticing. So we came home early to tell our family about our upcoming arrival, expecting to make it's appearance sometime around March 19th. Yep, that makes me more than five months pregnant. And nope, we hadn't even told our moms yet. I know. We're a little bit crazy. It actually became a little bit of a game to see how long we could go with just us knowing our secret! Thankfully, it's been the easiest pregnancy and has almost flown by. For which I am very grateful too!
Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you had a great one with lots of family and yummy food!

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

First Snow!

 M was SOOO excited that it snowed today! She sat at the window for the longest time, giving me updates on how much it was snowing about every 10 seconds. She kept calling it a "big snowstorm," and asking if there was enough to make a snowman yet? Eventually, (after I looked at the weather report and realized it was going to turn to rain soon) we dressed up and headed out. Fortunately, she's very easy to please because later when I told J, who was at school stuck inside sadly, that we'd made a "little" snowman, M objected, and said it was a "BIG BIG snowgirl!" Glad she was so happy. May need to have her eyesight checked.
 Dude slept through our outdoor playtime, but thought it was pretty cool to wear my hat when he woke up.
 He cutely kept pointing out the window and jabbering something or other. After Coop came home and took M to school though, he got serious. He brought me his shoes and then proceeded to blow me kisses as I put them on him. He was headed out.
 Because he's great, when Coop got back for like the 5 minutes left of his lunch he took him outside to walk around the yard. Dude is usually pretty excited to do that actually. He walks around the square of grass a couple of times whenever we step out to get the mail or get in the car. That's all. Just circles it happily. Think he's proud of the fact that he can walk? Here he's blowing me kisses again. I think he was hoping to go to work with daddy. Sounds like fun, eh dad?
 And this one was just too cute to not include. Love my boys!

Monday, November 07, 2011

Hidden Gems

 On Saturday we packed up the kids, and ventured out into the cold and fog to explore new local treasures, and were rewarded with some serious hidden gems (sorry for those who read my art blog too as this is a bit of a double post, though it was all about art on the other blog and all about the kiddos here)! We started out at the Maryhill Museum, which is this charming art museum with some pretty incredible history (like that Queen Marie of Romania dedicated it and donated royal stuffs, which the girlies loved) out in the middle of nowhere. I mean it's seriously in the middle of nowhere. I won't mention my disappointment that the winery just down the road, which is also in the middle of nowhere, had about 10x the visitors. But it was actually a blast for all, except perhaps the little man who couldn't be allowed to roam free touching everything he saw. There was a sweet Rodin exhibit downstairs, a Native American exhibit, and a post-WWII French fashion show in miniature among other things.
Then there was this great kids room, which was a serious hit. Here they are working on their self-portraits.
 And here, dude is clapping at the mess he's making. Whenever he knocks over towers, dumps things out, or otherwise creates chaos, he looks at us with a huge grin and claps. Boy.
Squint smile!
 And the girlies created Rodin-inspired sculptures out of tin foil which they promptly named Diana and Aphrodite. It's a long story.
Can you spot their portraits on the wall? Clue #1 - J's has red hair. Clue #2 - M's is right next to hers.
 Then we enjoyed the sculpture gardens outside where J showed off by reading all the plaques as my hands went very numb. Dang it was cold!
 Then we drove down the street to this enormous Stonehenge World War I Memorial built by the same guy that did the museum long time ago. It is designed to look like Stonehenge probably did back in it's heyday. Man those are some big rocks! Little man looked even smaller than normal, though that didn't stop him having a ball running around like a drunken sailor on the unsteady gravel, peek-a-booing around the stones.
 Oh, I hadn't mentioned this yet. I brought this new legal pads in the cars to keep the girls busy while we drove. They got very excited about them and insisted on bringing them everywhere to write down everything they liked. At each new room, they'd plop down in the  middle of the room and go to town. J brought hers to school today to share what she did this weekend. I'll scan some if it and post it later because it's some good entertainment. Love the spelling. Love what was interesting to them. Here M just made herself comfy to write about Stonehenge. Doesn't look so comfy to me.

 Daddy and dude running down the hill to check out the train. We hear trains all the time in The Dalles. Dude always stops whatever he's doing, points in some random direction and says, "da?" And when given the chance, watches them pass by with some serious intensity.
 Nice view, huh?
 Looking back up the hill at Stonehenge.
One of the plaques. There was another big one that listed all soldiers from Klickitat county (where it is) that lost their lives in WWI, along with an additional one that lists soldiers from the county that have died in all subsequent wars and those who were taken POW. This led to some intense discussions on the way home.
Again, nice view, eh? Although it all is more impressive when the usual sunny skies are out. Maybe next time. But if you ever happened to be looking for things to do in the Columbia Gorge, we recommend both of these!

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Today's bestests

Top 3 things I heard said today:

3. J: "Oh yeah. Here's all the junk in the trunk." (apparently she'd heard the phrase on Gnomeo and Juliet and was just incorporating it into common usage, but fortunately she still thinks it means actual junk in an actual trunk.)
2. (Sung by M) I love yooooooou with your heart that beeeeaattts in your stomach! (A few more lines into her song, J came to me and asked, Mom, do you have any idea what she's singing about?)
1. "Hey, M-M! No stripping in a parking lot!" Solid advice.