Faffles

Dressed in Easter Best

Zaeda is talking a lot! She is stringing more words together and it's fun to listen to what she comes up with. Here are a few:

"I like faffles (waffles)."

"Mommy's hot foffee (coffee)."

She knows most of the parts of her body. She can identify various animals and mimic the sounds that they make.

It's hard not to compare your children but I love it when Zaeda surprises me by doing something Oliver never did. It reminds me that she is her own person and will do different things than Oliver or the same things as Oliver but in her own time.

Zaeda skips when she is happy. Not your typical skip -- more of a little hop over and over again across the floor. She dances when she is happy or being silly. When she told me she liked "faffles" she did a little shimmy from side to side. She sometimes walks just on her tippy toes. She is more interested in what she wears than Oliver was/is. It isn't to a point where she is difficult but occasionally she seems to have an opinion on what coat (the big white furry one) or shoes (gold lamae) that she wants to wear. Sometimes we get her dressed and turn around to find that she has taken everything off.

We've also started to reach a tantrum phase. Sometimes it's quick and in some instances it seems to last forever. She's also been fighting another diaper rash so that probably plays a part. But one thing did seem to snap her out of her most recent massive tantrum-- the recently earned Tootie Cushion.

Easter

This year we did the egg hunt in Fernhill  Park and then went over to the Prices where the kids can hang out with their cousins Luke and Cami.

Egg hunting with Luke and Cami

This isn't an egg....

Cami shows them how to open eggs and organize the candy

Sweet siblings

Oliver's Dragon drawing

Oliver practicing his numbers with the calculator

Tired and giggly after wrestling. Bedtime!

For some reason Oliver loves to wiggle his butt at people and smack it. He managed a toot just as the shutter went  off on this picture

For most of you reading, this item is commonly referred to as a Whoopee Cushion. In our house, passing gas is referred to as "tooting" hence the Tootie Cushion. Before we get into all the great fun we're having with the Tootie Cushion, it's important to explain why Keith and I (mostly Keith) would choose to purchase such a thing for our children.

The Tootie Cushion was purchased as a reward to Oliver for pooping on the toilet. We've been struggling with this piece of toilet training for some time. We tried everything except punishment and we knew there wasn't any physical hang up. As mentioned in an earlier post, Oliver is fascinated with passing gas. What better 'carrot' to offer in exchange for successfully pooping on the toilet. At first he wasn't interested. This went on for weeks. He didn't even want us talking about it. The other night Keith came upon Oliver on his little toilet-- he had pooped on the toilet! Once we confirmed the obvious, the first words out of Oliver's mouth were, "I want the Tootie Cushion". Oliver loves this thing. Fast forward maybe 30 minutes and Zaeda is in the throes of her tantrum. What pulls her out of it? You guessed it-- the Tootie Cushion.

The Tootie Cushion is non-stop fun for the kids. Fortunately, Keith purchased the Whoopee Cushion that inflates itself so we are not having to constantly blow one up. The funniest part for us is watching the kids react. Zaeda has taken to copying her brother's response which is sitting on the cushion and then falling backwards laughing.

Meanwhile, Oliver in now regular and confident about getting himself up on the pot.

House for Sale

Earlier this year we decided to finally get serious about selling the home we bought ten years ago, into which we’ve put so much time and effort fixing it up. Now it’s early May and we’re weeks away from listing it. The evenings and weekends have been entirely occupied with getting the house ready for month. We’ve packed up many of our belongings, repainted, installed new hardwood floors, sealed our basement walls, and attended to a hundred little odds and ends we’d lived with, but must address before selling.

We’re just starting to look for a new home that better suites our little family. We haven’t found a new home yet, or even settled on a new neighborhood. We’ll still be in Portland. We want many things in a new home, and it’s a tough decision. We must weigh schools against the size of dining rooms and the layout of kitchens. Like so many major life changes, it’s a bit stressful, but also fun.

They're dots

This is the longest we’ve gone between blog postings. Too long. Everyone is doing fine. But time has been hard to find!

We’ve been in this tiny old NE Portland home since 2001. We’ve remodeled every corner, put three coats of paint on some walls, and accepted the fact that we, our kids, and our pets have all made our mark in terms of wear and tear on the building. After ten years, we’re itching to change things a bit. We’ve starting fixing and boxing and storing with the intent to sell this place soon. We just finished putting down new hardwood floors (thanks to help from Dad and my brothers!). We’ve added new paint here and there. It’s coming together, just never as quickly as we wish it would. Just as I wrote this, Zaeda took a heavy wooden toy and chucked it at the new floor, leaving a dent in the finish. Such is life. But we need to get out of here before we destroy the place. We don’t know where we’ll settle yet – but certainly someplace in the Portland Metro area. With our bit of spare time on the weekends, we try to get out and get to know some neighborhoods and school districts.

Underpants + socks + head = dog costume (O's idea)

Oliver is quite the clown these days. He’s very into discussing bodily functions and slapping his rear end. We’ve had to institute rules about the words “toot” and “fart” at the dinner table. He forgets a lot.

He’s been attending soccer classes at Portland Indoor soccer. If you were to ask what they do from someone who can only sits watching from the sideline, you’d think they just ran back and forth across the field booting the ball as hard and as often as they could. But Oliver tells me they are following rules and learning soccer skills. He seems to really enjoy it.

Oliver quotes (kinda Family Circus, I know)

(looking at the sky) “Hey look! A school of geese! But I can’t figure out which one is the teacher.”

On the question of what boobies are (as a follow-up to the difference between buoys and boobies – because he is the expert on both.) “Boobies are dots. Boys have dots. Daddy and I have dots. Mommy has bumps and dots.”

“Can I please watch [Wonder Pets, Little Einsteins, Backyardigans, etc.]” (We never wanted to be the kind of family that watches too much TV. Can I blame the lousy weather?)

The magical day a mustache kit and other goodies arrived from Mimi and Grandpa

Zaeda Quotes

“Tae-too (thank you), Mommy!” -- she’s in a phase where she issues a very clear and polite thank you to anyone who gives her something. It’s terribly sweet and cute, but it won’t last.

“Funny” as in “Ducky funny” when saw a duck on a cartoon.

“All-ver” (her brother)

And many many others. She is stringing multiple words together. She’s even singing the ABC song.

It snowed lightly for about two days. Portland crippled.

Daddy wrestle time, our family sport

Superheroes (obviously!)

Random posing in hats

A birthday party for one of Oliver's classmates

Last week was a multiple disaster in Japan, first an earthquake, then a tsunami, and finally problems at damaged nuclear reactors. The hardest hit area was about 100 miles north of where Jenny and I lived from 1996 – 1998. Even where we were, people are dealing with severe problems now. Some friends have contacted us to let know they’re ok. There are many people we knew near the tsunami-ravaged coast with whom we just haven’t stayed in touch. Seeing the news there is heartbreaking.

A Chef's hat for Christmas.

Oliver's new bicycle

Baking cookies

Christmas day walk.

Zaeda's hair is finally long enough for pigtails

Christmas morning


After dessert.

Making fun on rainy winter days. This cardboard "Spaceship" filled three whole days!

Catching Up in Early December

At the tree farm (as Daddy grunts and curses under the tree with a hand saw)

Levi's Wedding

In mid-November we went to Chicago for Jenny’s brother Levi’s wedding. It was the first chance for the kids to meet Levi. Meeting him helped Oliver fill an important picture of this uncle he’d been hearing about. Karri joined us for the flight over. The kids managed to nap through the middle of the flight. It generally went pretty well. Like her big brother, Zaeda insisted on wearing her own backpack (“bah-pah”).

In Chicago we rented a minivan and a condo. Mike joined us later that night. For the kids room we took a queen sized mattress off the box spring and just put it on the floor. That way they could climb on and off easily and wouldn’t roll off in the night.

We had a free Saturday to explore Chicago, so we went to the Navy Pier and visited all the tourist-oriented shops. Travelling with Mike and Karri, foodies who had done their homework on the best grub Chicago had to offer, allowed us to try some things we may have otherwise missed. We hit a hot dog place at the pier where Jenny just asked me to get her “Something that represents Chicago.” That was their Chicago Dog, a beef hot dog covered with hot peppers, sauerkraut, mustard and several other things. Weeks later, she can still taste it. Later, we drove and searched until we found a crowd surrounding a little pizzeria famous for a butter crust deep dish and a technique of layering long-sliced sausage in the pan. That was my favorite.

The wedding on Sunday afternoon was at a beautiful Catholic Church where my new sister-in-law Megan’s father, a local deacon, officiated. Afternoons are an unpredictable time for the kids. Both of them were dressed in their best and found themselves in a strange place meeting new people. Mid-ceremony, Oliver fell asleep in the pew. Zaeda decided to get chatty during their vows and had to be whisked to the back of the church so she could gesture at the “babies” (angel and cherub statues) and run around making interesting tapping sounds with her shiny shoes.

Afterwards, everyone went to a nearby restaurant where we did our best to keep the kids clean before it was our turn to join family photos. Once the photos were taken, the food arrived and the clean kids we’d been preserving all day disappeared. Zaeda took a single French fry and dipped it into a bowl of ketchup 20 times, sucking it clean until the fry itself gave out. She looked like a vampire.

Here's the ketchup vampire. Sadly, I relied on the camera in my new Blackberry, not knowing I'd later have technical trouble getting them off the camera, and they looked lousy anyway. So no more pics from Chicago!


On the dance floor, Oliver joined the boogying partygoers and found himself a corner where he seemed to be doing how own Tai-chi routine, completely separate from the rest of the crowd and much slower too. When I finally asked him what he was doing, he said he was playing Spiderman.


Christmas Time

Yesterday we went to a fundraiser at the kids’ daycare. “Breakfast with Santa” included pancakes and a chance to talk with the big man himself. Oliver told Santa he wants to be a chef.

Guess who enjoyed this more....

After that we went to Karri and Mike’s restaurant where they are celebrating 10 years being open. Congratulations to Philly Bilmos in Vancouver! They recently had visits from morning TV shows around Portland and word is out that they’re the best. We’ve known that for ten years! Also, balloons for the kids!

Aunt Karri at Philly Bilmos

Balloons!

We got our Christmas tree last weekend and everything is set up. It about killed me cutting it down and carrying it this year and I wondered if I’m just getting old. It wasn’t till we got home and I measured it that I realized it was several feet taller than we gotten in the past. I needed to cut off a huge piece of the trunk just to get it in the house. At least I had my power tools here at home. Much easier.

My helper

Everyone had great fun decorating the tree. Zaeda surprised us with her focus and patience. Time after time, she took an ornament for the tree, carried it across the living room and either hung it up herself or asked for help. For Oliver it was like seeing old friends. “Look! The guitar!” or “There’s the Pinocchio I broke last year!” What I like are the ornaments the kids have made, or those with their pictures in them. It’s nice to open a box once of year and enjoy those little surprises.


Recent stuff on the kids

When Oliver doesn’t want to do something he now proclaims that he will “never ever ever” do it. For example, “No! I won’t hang up my coat. I’ll never ever do it. Not in a million years!”

Zaeda has a thing with rain boots. She constantly lines a pair up side by side and tries to put them on. Sometimes she aligns them at our feet and says “help me.” Once she has them on she walks across the room and kicks them off. Repeat.


Making cookies with the kids. Of course they licked the mixer beaters!

Not long ago, we moved Zaeda into the bedroom with Oliver. So far it has worked out much better that we expected. While they don’t go to sleep at the same time (Oliver stays up late, Zaeda wakes up early), they show an amazing ability to sleep through one another’s noise. We also now have more of a family bedtime routine; Zaeda dishes out kisses and hugs at the end of the night. Oliver demands a story that he will help steer if he doesn’t like how it’s going.

Oliver is now in pre-kindergarten. It’s the big kid class at their school and he’s pretty proud. They are learning about graphs and writing in journals. Oliver is now reading simple words and we hope to work a lot more with him on reading skills.

Zaeda loves to sing “Row Row Row Your Boat” while being rocked back and forth on her heels. She comes up to us, takes our hands and says “row row!” She is very interested in declaring who people are. She points at mommy and says “Mommy!” Same thing with “Oliver!,” “Daddy,” and the many other people and pets she knows. She’s combining words too. For example, the little kids’ backpacks were a big deal on our last trips and she really likes the word “backpack.” Last week, she looked at my mom’s purse on the table and said “Nanna backpack.” I was so surprised. Her other favorite word is elephant, an animal that can be found in every other book the kids have. When we see one she says “Ella!” really loud. She likes to grab a book (usually one of her favorite 2 or 3 which we’ve read a thousand times) and find one of us parents, yell “book!” and then turn around so we’ll pick her up and read to her.

Speaking of loud, Zaeda likes to scream for pleasure. She gets excited and just belts out a piercing, glass-shattering scream. If you ask her to stop, she smiles very big and does another one louder. I think this is a girl thing.

Jenny’s License

It’s official: Jenny was recently presented her Broker’s License at the US Customs building in Portland. It’s been a long process and I’m so proud of her!

I haven't added a video in a while. This was a practice run for trick-or-treating back during Halloween.

Birthday Cake and Pumpkins

4 years old!!!!

We asked him what he wanted on his cake and he showed us his Batman book

 Computer problems have led to a delay in posting, so this is another photo and anecdote dump!  The household is as busy as ever. Last weekend we celebrated a birthday party for Oliver, so the house is filled with new toys. Oliver and Zaeda spent the next morning aligning dominos and knocking them down (with Zaeda specializing in the second part). There are Lincoln logs and Playmobile pieces all over the place and the kids couldn’t be happier.

 

Oliver turned 4 this month. His specialty these days in the medley, where he bursts into a song, then transitions to another song and another. He does this all the time. Popular Oliver medley songs include “Davy Crockett Theme” (TMBG version), intro songs for “Little Einsteins,” “The Cat in the Hat” and several other cartoons, the ABC song, a Frankenstein song to the tune of “My Darlin Clementine” and the big one – “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves.

 

Questions question questions.

• Why? What do ___ eat?
• How does (something improbable)?
• How do we get bacon? Do pigs poop bacon?

Here’s a typical recipe question: "What do you get if you mix chocolate milk and broccoli and eggs and toothpaste together?"

 

Zaeda has reached the same breakthrough age that Oliver reached around her age; she is suddenly communicating lots of single words like these: milk, juice, mommy, daddy, Ollie, please, help me, up, no, yes, bounce, bubble, night night, goodbye, hi, etc. The big surprise has been that she is using sign language. It’s something they teach her class at school. Jenny and I had the books, but we didn’t really work on it with either child. Now we’re catching up with Zaeda as she gestures very specifically. This physical and verbal explosion is tons of fun to watch. We’ve broken out Eric Carle’s “From Head to Toe” book, which encourages kids to mimic animals with specific motions, like wiggles their arms and stomping their feet. Oliver has always enjoyed the book and now his sister is watching him and doing her best to keep up. They make quite a team.

 

The downside to her new confidence and physicality is the trouble she’s getting into around the house. The newest example is pushing or carrying her little kiddy chairs around the house, setting them up somewhere and climbing up to get at something.

 

Yesterday, Zaeda joined Oliver’s medley by singing bits of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, with all the gestures and a pretty clear “Up above…”. Very cute. They get along so well, except when they don't. Next weekend, we'll move Zaeda into the bedroom with Oliver. We expect that neither will get to sleep the way they do now.

 

Pumpkin Farm with the Petersons

We started our Halloween preparations on a beautiful fall day. We met our friends the Petersons in a great little bakery in Aurora . Then we all went to a nearby pumpkin farm. As with so many of these farms, it was really more of a theme park experience, but I’m gradually learning to appreciate the ingenuity and fun these farms have in executing these big weekends. The farm we went to had a log cabin filled with hazelnuts! You just tossed your kids in there and let them play in all the nuts. The nuts themselves were empty shells – the results of a bad crop, I suspect. Or maybe they were the duds mechanically culled from nut harvests. In any case, the kids had fun.

 

 



 

Oliver and William hopped around and got dusty on some inflatable horses

 

 



 

YMCA Daycare Halloween Party

 

All the kids dress up and parade around Portland State University before coming back to the school for a snack.

 

 

Carving Pumpkins with the Robars

 

 

Halloween Night!

Tinkerbell ready to get some candy!

 

 

 

Tonight is Halloween. Captain Hook and Tinkerbell aligned forces to seek out candy in our neighborhood.  We went up and down the block and gathered enough sugar to keep us all hopped up for a month.