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.



Colorado

In the many times I’ve flown, there has always been an unhappy child somewhere on the plane. I consider it part of the experience. The discomfort of air pressure changes are a big deal for little kids, a strange ear ache that arrives in a crowded and unfamiliar environment. But those crying children were never mine, and while I seldom felt annoyed, and even felt empathy for the children, I never experienced feeling responsibility for those unhappy kids – until this week.

In the flight to Denver, we managed to keep Oliver busy with a sticker book. Zaeda fell asleep just before we boarded and so she snoozed a good part of the way. Oliver was concerned with just one question: ‘Are we in the air yet?” I realized as I looked out the window at the passing tarmac, the blurring landscape, that he couldn’t see any of it; his point of view was just too low; it was all sky for him out the window. So he had to take our word for it that we were in the air. When we hit turbulence and the plane dropped a bit, he was thrilled and said “Whoa!!” and giggled in a way that some people on the plane may not have appreciated.
The kids were only challenging the last 10 minutes as we heading in for landing. They were just squirming in the limited space, and that ended soon enough as we got out of the plane, and soon enough, the kids were with grandparents to spoil them.
The flight back seemed to take three times as long. Zaeda was tired and well past her naptime, but she didn’t sleep. She crawled over the three of us, either squealing and giggling, or moaning and crying. Oliver was fidgety. He’d placed all the stickers he was going to bother with and he wanted to move. He was kicking the seat in front of him. “Are we in the air yet?” he asked, again and again. We were all exhausted by the time we got home.

Back to Colorado: While in Denver the kids played in the back yard. We got out to a Natural History Museum (Dinosaurs!!!)

Jenny and I spent a couple days in Estes Park in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Beautiful. Relaxing. We slept in. We ate. We goofed off. Just right.

Goofing off at Restoration Hardware

Walkin on Sunshine

We proudly attended a local chili contest in Vancouver’s Esther Short park, where our own Mike and Karri brought home an award. We stopped by the local farmer’s market and bought some produce, including my favorite, Gravenstein apples, which have a limited window of availability because they don’t store well once picked. We had Gravensteins on the family farm and I try not to miss a chance to buy them when I find them. I took a bite and of course Zaeda saw me eating and was at my side in seconds, waiting for her turn, so I gave her a bite. Then Oliver saw her eating, and in no time the two were passing my apple back and forth, and though I’d lost my apple, I’d gained an adorable moment.

A Sunday at the World Forestry Center -- that place between the zoo and the children’s museum that we hadn’t been to in years. It was actually a lot of fun. Unlike the other places, the WFC was practically empty, and they had plenty of stuff for the kids to play with.

In general, Oliver and Zaeda are playing together more and more. She’s at a stage where they can have little games together, like hiding in the closet or a bit of wrestling. Recently we had some kid music CD playing in the house, and when it ended, the next CD started and it was “Walkin on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. The kids immediately started dancing.

What can I say? The song is classic!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to Oliver

They sometimes survey the kids in Oliver's class on the meaning of words. Last week's word was "Respect."  What does that mean?  Before that, the word was "Love."

Oliver's Dino Land artwork. He writes his name now on most all of his creations.

10th Anniversary

Thursday, August 12th was Keith and my 10th wedding anniversary. Hard to believe that it's been 10 years already. Once again we headed up to the Rose Garden for a picnic. We're fortunate that our anniversary falls during Portland Parks and Rec's free summer concert series. This year we listened to African Drumming.

The family

Oliver posing.

Zaeda chowing down. She ate the entire time.

Zaeda's photo shoot

Here are some shots from Zaeda's photo shoot. We've been going to the same photographer for about 6 years and after each session I always wonder if she captured anything. I was really doubtful about this session with Zaeda. Zaeda was fussy, kept running away and was overall a bit challenging. Once again Kellie came through with some great shots.

Kellie really captured our sassy little girl in this shot.

Every girl needs a tutu or

two!

Zaeda in one of my dresses in the rocking chair Keith got for his first birthday.

Zaeda nows says "yeah" and nods her head vigorously. "Mine" is still a favorite and she is starting to use a fork. I love that I can ask her to put clothes in the hamper and she does it!

July July July

Earlier this month, Oliver and Zaeda went to stay with their grandparents in northern California. It was rodeo week in Fortuna, with parades and horses and carnival rides. It was also a chance for Zaeda to meet some family down there. Oliver spent many hours riding an electric quad around their property. Both kids had a great time.

Jenny and I had a weekend alone and we worked a bit more on repairing the ceiling in the living and dining rooms – a messy job of plaster and dust. We spend more time prepping and cleaning up than actually doing the work. There is still work to do, but we’re getting there. Midweek, we drove down to the San Francisco area to see our friends and family for a few days. As much fun as we had, we missed the kids so much by the end of that week that we could barely wait to see them as we drove back up the coast to Fortuna.

Popsicles on a hot day

  

Zaeda now explores the house with confidence. Today Jenny turned her back for a moment and discovered that Zaeda had gotten up onto an end table and was going through her purse! Her vocabulary is pretty much “mine” “Mamma” “Dadda” a complicated but consistent set of syllables I’m pretty sure is “Oliver” and a lot of indistinct babbling. She dances to music. She helps fold the laundry. Best of all, she’s really engaging her brother in play. She likes to hug him and really likes to wrestle. She’s usually the instigator of a wrestling match with him, and he’s surprisingly gentle with her. There are far more giggles than tears with the two of them these days.

Oliver is exploring all the answers to the question “Why?” It’s a stage I always looked forward to, and it’s fun, except when the why? is more a reflex than an expression of genuine curiosity. Giving honest thoughtful answers is a test of our ability to explain the most fundamental aspects of life.

• “Daddy, why don’t you drive off this cliff?
• “Why is this bread?”
• “Why does this bridge go up?”

Other quotes:

• (Struggling with the last piece of drawing paper on a roll) “How do I stop this paper from turning into a telescope?”
• “When I get growed up, I want to be a diver” (or a pilot, a girl, a dinosaur, etc.)
• "What do pterodactyls eat?"

Camping

We set up a tent in the yard last weekend to give the kids a taste of camping. It was a test-drive – the kind with a DVD player. Once the tent was full of mattresses, sleeping bags and pillows, it was a nice little romper room for them to play. Meanwhile, we set up the grill to cook hot dogs and roast marshmallows. I think the experience was useful for me and Jenny most of all. We learned that camping with the kids at this age is a lot of work, and that we should bring lots of napkins and patience. Oliver and I slept in the tent that night, and he didn’t go to sleep till midnight. I also learned that the pad I used to sleep on when I camped in my early 20s just doesn’t cut it any more. I need to get something more comfortable. I woke up sore – and alone; Oliver was up at the crack of dawn to get his breakfast with his mom.

Fishing

Yesterday we took the kids to meet my parents at a fishing pond for kids near Estacada. Dad is still healing from his foot injury a couple months ago, but he managed to get down the trail on crutches with a minimum of cursing. Uncle Joe was there to help. Oliver had a new fishing pole and we took some time getting it set up and baited. Then we cast it into the pond and handed it to Oliver with instructions to wait and watch – not the easiest things for a 3 yr old to do. He made it about 2 minutes before the pole was dropped and he was tossing rocks into the water. We didn’t catch anything.

Oliver drew the story of the lion and the mouse (note the thorn in the lion's paw)

A T-rex chasing a duck