craftin'

Check me out!

I met up with my mom's club last night for a clip making party. oh.my.gosh. So much fun. I think they got a glimpse at my competitive side. I was a clip making machine. What's funny is that I am so NOT a crafty person. I would never set out to do something like this by myself, but I really got into it once I figured out how easy it was. It helps to have awesome company as well.

I think I may have found a new hobby. You know, in all my spare time ;-)

8 months amazing

Look who turned EIGHT months on the 22nd. Such a love. Not much new in terms of development, still working on crawling, but not quite there. He has discovered that he can roll all around the family room, so that get's him from toy to toy.

We are working on the top teeth, I don't see anything yet, but sleep has been a little disruptive lately and we are back to putting everything in the mouth (and a little fussier than normal from time to time).

Love you benny. 

Erin and Jonathan are in town, so we had lot's of family fun this weekend. Pool time, dinner, farmer's market. Wednesday I'm heading over to sunriver with the kiddos to meet up with the fam and matt will meet us friday after class is done. I am SO excited to have him all to myself for 5 weeks. This break from school could not come at a better time. GFU must have known that 8 months in everyone is due for a break! Some more pics from the weekend.

hi-larious

It was a long day week. Matt has class tonight, so come Thursday I'm tired, a little edgy and going into my "single mom" day (shout out to single parents, they are amazing & I don't know how they do it).

I divert. Today. Brooklyn had me in tears from laughter on more than one occasion today. We were getting in the car to go to a play date this morning and as I am loading Benny up she takes off to do something in the garage. I walk over and she's covered in chalk. Fabulous. So, I take her hands and wipe them on her pants but I know I was sighing or grumbling or something because she says "just calm down mommy, just calm down". That is what I always say to her when she gets all worked up over something little. Amazing that she knows the context to use that in!

I've been wanting to visit the Oroweat outlet down the street, so we went after our play date this morning. We're standing in the store and I'm talking "bread" with the clerk. Brooklyn is standing in front of me with a bag of some sort saying "mom, mom, mom" "mom, can we get these, can I have these". I said "just a second brooklyn". She finally got so frustrated with me she grabs my arm and looks me right in the eye with a serious tone and says "MOM! UNDERSTAND ME"! hahaha

The last one killed me. We are once again in the car (sure sounds like I'm gone a lot) and almost home. Brooklyn's new thing is to make her brother laugh while driving home. Music to mama's ears. They get each other going, he's cracking up at her and she's so pleased she's making him laugh that she's belly laughing too. Serious beauty. I divert again. So, they're back there laughing and she's making all these funny noises when she starts doing this really loud word over and over. I finally say "brooklyn, what are you saying". She goes "I'm saying NANNNC!!" me "you're saying Nanc?" her "ya, I'm saying NANNNC, you know, like your mom mimi!".
Oh my gosh, I was crying. Quick explanation. My mom's name is Nancy, my dad calls her Nanc. My dad is constantly hollering to the top of the stairs "NANNNC" when he has a question or is trying to get her downstairs. Brooklyn has obviously seen this enough that she was imitating him!

These pics have nothing to do with this post, but I snapped them the other night during some daddy snuggle time. She is SO smitten with her daddy. She asks him routinely when he gets home "so...how was your day today daddy?" or out of the blue she'll look at him after he's been home for a few minutes and say "I missed you so much today while you were at work". melt.my.heart.

tis the summer

I have been coveting a lot lately...

Everyone I know is either gone on vacation or just getting back, planning one or heading out for one soon. We have a few trips over to central OR planned, but that's about it for this summer and I definitely have the travel itch. I want to hop a plane and head down to cali or the east coast to visit fam or go to disneyworld with the kids, hawaii or bali with the hubs, australia for a surf trip, grand canyon, ect etc.

The reality is, we don't have the money for lot's of extravagant trips or the will power to make them with a two (almost three) year old and a 7 month. It sounds wonderful and relaxing and exotic, when in reality it would be terrible.

So, tis the summer to stay at home and enjoy this wonderful life I've been blessed with. We'll go to the pool, bbq on the patio, pick raspberries, chalk out front, play in the fountains, enjoy the concerts in the park and take a few road trips! I know there will be a day that matt and I will be enjoying that european vacation and look back nostalgically at these days of hunkering down, living on a tight budget and just enjoying our babies.

two of a kind

I found this picture of Brookln and it reminded me so much of one I had just taken of Ben I wanted to compare. They are definitely brother and sister. Which one looks more mischievous?? hmmm

the falls

We decided to go do something adventuresome and OUTSIDE this past weekend because the weather was amazing!! So saturday we packed everyone up and headed to breakfast then multnomah falls. Such a perfect morning.

ice cream treat at the end

Then on sunday we went over to "gwampa and gwampa's" aka Chuck and Lisa's for an awesome dinner and swimming. I really had no idea what to expect from her in the pool. She wasn't really into it last year and absolutely HATED the cute little floaty raft lisa had bought for her...so I went into it with zero expectation. Sometimes that just has to be my motto with her. Then I am delightfully surprised when she's a rock star the next time. Just being honest.

So...she LOVED the pool. She was slightly timid (for like 5 seconds) and then quickly realized how fun jumping in and swimming "by myself" was. We put the floaty wings on and she was off. She must have jumped off the edge 100x. Then she got really daring and wanted to jump off to no one's arms- seriously, she thought it would be cool if she jumped "by myself" into the pool without anyone there to get her. Insert giant sigh and eye roll here :) She was so excited every time we would let go of her that she would start hyperventilating and then suck a bunch of water in. We made up a code word "mom" that she would yell when she was ready for us to put our hands back on her. She got such a thrill out of floating without anyone touching her, but then she would get water in her mouth or start to tip and had trouble expressing herself, so finally she just started shouting "mom!" when she was ready to be grabbed again.
We were out swimming for well over and hour and she's been talking about it ever since. Here's hoping the sun comes back again. Great memories made last weekend.

brooklyn chatter

I was in our room the other day folding laundry, matt, brooklyn and ben are in brooklyn's room hanging some pictures. I hear matt yell "brooklyn! get off your brother!" Brooklyn says "I'm just riding my cow!" most emphatically, matt "he's not a cow brooklyn, he's your brother...and you don't ride cow's you ride horses". Bwahaaaaaa. I was dying!

The other day brooklyn said "mom this is my most famous brother!" I asked her what famous meant and she told me it means "magnificent" which is one of her favorite words. Ice cream is magnificent, the color pink is magnificent, skirts are magnificent...you get the point.
Speaking of skirts: I went to peek on her like I always do before we head to bed a few nights ago. I very quietly open the door a crack, so as not to wake her of course.....only to find a little brooklyn silhouette crouched down on the floor in front of her dresser. I flip the light on and catch her red handed gripping skirts, yes that's right she was trying on all of her skirts! She must have been in there doing an after hours fashion show because they were all laid out in a line on her floor. Sometimes when I'm writing these stories I realize how ridiculous they must sound, but anyone who knows her knows I couldn't make this stuff up! She is just that much of a character.

And oh the will of this child of mine. I am embarrassed to tell you all this, but she is so strong willed that we finally decided to give in on this area. She is eating a frozen fish stick as we speak. Yup, a totally frozen fish stick accompanied by a cup of frozen peas. She insists that's how she likes/wants them, so after putting up a fight (talking about me) I finally caved and so, she eats a frozen fish stick and she sticks to her declaration...it's good that way.

dress up

Brooklyn was playing dress up last night and I had to grab the camera to catch it. She was standing in front of the door getting ready to go to the "magical ball". I can't help but pause for a moment and marvel at the difference between boys and girls. She is such a girly-girl in so many ways, but at the same time loves to play in the dirt and is tough as nails when it comes to getting hurt. Playing dress up and make believe that she's going to a ball is ALL girl though. No trucks or basketballs here.

4th of july

What amazing weather we had this 4th of july! Oregon is known for having pretty unpredictable 4th weather, so it was a tremendous blessing to have the sun shining down almost the entire three day weekend!

So friday night we played in the yard.

On Sunday we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday! I forgot my camera, but got a few pics on my phone. Great evening with the whole fam.

it's impossible to get one of the two of them both smiling AND looking at the camera :-)

Then monday brooklyn and I met our friends britt and olivia down in lake oswego for the parade. so chaotic, but oh so fun.

how cute are they? watching the fire engines and the boy scouts throw candy

Then after nap we headed to our friends, the carnahan's, for some afternoon fun. I have to note what happened. Brooklyn woke up first thing monday morning telling us that her ear and her neck hurt. She had been complaining that this same ear hurt two weeks ago, but then i never heard anything else about it. Clay (bruin's dad) is a PA and offered to take a look at her ear for us. ummm, can you saw awesome! So, he busted out his trusty thing-a-ma-jig (there is a correct term, i just don't know it) and sure enough she had a full blown infection. He wrote us a rx for amoxicillin and that was that! So awesome. Not the infection, but the finding out right there on the 4th in their back yard and then finding a 24 hour pharmacy to fill it.

bruin and brooklyn "cheersin" to the holiday

After we picked up her rx we headed straight home and went to bed. no fireworks, but that's ok! It was a great weekend.

birthday- birthday

Our main man turned 34! It was a great weekend filled with yummy food, lot's of singing and "celebrating daddy" as brookly would say (which meant cake). I felt very good at the end of the weekend that we had made up for the atrocity that was father's day.
Friday (his actual b-day) we surprised daddy with a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy, cheezy eggs and the most amazing melt in your mouth bacon I've ever had (thank you whole foods). Then it was off to golf with some co-workers at 1, so he didn't get home til 7, but I had steak ready to grill, gorgonzola mashed potatoes, fresh corn and one of his favorite IPA's chillin in the fridge. Ben went down shortly after he got home, so we sat on the patio and watched brooklyn run for a solid hour u and down the backyard while enjoying a delicious meal. The weather was perfect, great end to a great birthday. But wait, that's not all ;) I told you, we had making up to do.

Saturday afternoon we came home from a family trip to the park to find matt's sister at our house. Matt was so confused "why is tete here?" we walked in the house and I told him, go get ready, I'm taking you on a date! He was so confused but very pleased. Buff stayed to watch the kids (thank you sis) and matt and I were off. First stop, drinks down by the lake with Chuck and Lisa, then onto a picnic that I had very sneakily made and packed up without his knowledge at foothills park. It was PERFECT. We sat and enjoyed a delicious meal with the sound of nature in amazing weather and talked and talked and then talked some more. Great night.

Monday matt's mom made fried chicken (one of her specialties) with coleslaw and potato salad and my parents came with dessert  and we enjoyed a family party at home.

Great weekend full of sweet memories.

mommy & daddy dessert time after babies were in bed

birthday boy before he left for golf with his future caddy's

picnic date

pasta arugala salad I made for first entree

oh my golly, this picture cracks me up!