knew you could do it

Josie: "Mama, where's my sweater?"
Me: "In your closet."
J: "You get it for me?"
Me: "No, I think you can do it just fine."
J: "But I want YOU to do it!"
Me: "I know, but you can do it yourself."
J: "No! YOU get it for me!"
Me: "Josie, I am not going to get your sweater. You need to get it yourself."

...Pause, pause... grumble, grumble... long pause...

J: "I did it! I got my sweater myself!"
Me: "Awesome. I knew you could do it."
J: "I knew YOU could do it too."

spring break, day 5: to the water

Two blogs is clearly too much for me to handle, because I'm never sure where to post what. Or what to post where. But since I know there are people who couldn't care less about my side blog, and since I have that crazy spring break tradition going on, I figured there was no way I could leave out the best part of our spring break '10 (which isn't really saying all that much, sadly).

Much like last year, we took a day trip to Pacific City. Much unlike last year, the weather was quite possibly the best beach weather we've ever experienced. In Oregon, that is.

The kids had an absolute blast climbing the sand dunes (Cayden was burning up because he refused to peel that darned sweatshirt from his torso--seriously, he wears that thing every day), sliding down the dunes, and heading right back up again.

When they weren't getting filthy sliding bum-first down the dunes, they were burying themselves in the sand:


Very good call to bring 2 sets of extra clothes. It's only taken me 9 3/4 years, but I'm getting the hang of this gig.

spring break, day three*: back to the alma mater

Our high school is maybe half a mile (at the very most) from our house. Even still, today was the first time in almost 15 years that either of us have gone down to the front entrance (the kids' favorite park is right next door so we've been on school premises countless times, just not right down by the doors). I was feeling a little fisheye-happy after many weeks of neglecting my new favorite lens, so many photos were taken.

Such a pretty building...

*an extremely brief recap of day two can be found here.

spring break, day one

I have apparently started a tradition (3rd year now!) by blogging about every boring detail of our spring breaks. I'm not sure why it even started; we never seem to do anything fun. But, it gives me something to think about other than those pesky kids of mine.

This morning I was feeling pretty crummy about our prospects for this week off. We had no real plans, the house was a mess, and it sure felt like everyone else in the world had something grand going on. I've got friends vacationing in Sunriver, Seattle, Palm Springs, San Diego, NYC, Hawaii, Utah, Arizona, Florida, Mexico, Serbia, Australia, Italy, at the coast and at Disneyland, and at the hospital enjoying brand new twin boys!... and then there's me, stuck here in a messy house with nothing fun to do.

But of course, it didn't take long to snap me out of my funk. Just a simple dinner out and a quick trip up to Mt. Tabor to watch the tail end of the sunset. It's impossible to fret about such insignificant things after seeing a sight like this:

healthcare reform, in a nutshell

Andrew was watching some video of crazy concerned Americans protesting today's vote on healthcare reform ("kill the bill! kill the bill!"). Avery asked if this was the bill that would make it easier for everyone to get health insurance, and then asked, 100% sincerely, "Why would anyone want to protest against that?"

Precisely, my dear. Precisely.

another year, come and gone

Sometimes it just boggles my mind how fast time is going by. It literally seems like last month sometime that Avery was performing in her last dance recital. Granted, it was later in the season last time, but it was still 10 months ago. Crazy.

This year, Avery got to perform in 2 dances... the token "kid" dance (maypole, shown below) and then the slightly more advanced "intermediate" dance (candy dance, shown above). The rehearsals have been weekly since Christmas and then daily for the past week. It's been a brutal schedule, with bedtimes sometimes as late as 10. Not good for my girl who thrives on 11 hours of sleep!

Sleep deprivation aside, Avery did a great job. If she had any nerves, she never let it show. She was thrilled to go to rehearsal each day, mostly because of the camaraderie she has with the other dancers. Most of them are at least a couple years older than her, so she is in heaven hanging out with all of them.

'Til next year... (I'm sure it will be here in no time.)

ch-ch-ch-changes

Something has happened to my little 2-year-old lately. Somewhere in the midst of being sick and getting better, I think she's aged about 6 months. She's paying so much more attention to letters and numbers and the sounds they make (the cutest is when she sees an address on a building and asks what that spells) and remembering much smaller details when she relays a story. As frustrating as some of her new habits are (wanting to change clothes 500 times a day to name one), it's exciting to watch all the new things she's learning to do.

Today was trash day at our house. Josie watched the garbage truck slowly make its way to each house, something she's never paid any attention to before. She was very interested in the whole process, clearly wondering why on earth that guy would want to take our trash. Later in the day we were almost side-swiped by a FedEx truck and Josie started yelling, "F-E-D-E-X spells garbage truck!" Apparently every white truck is a garbage truck in her mind.

Then this afternoon we were looking at a book with a picture of 8 ballerinas all lined up. She set off to count them and I got distracted by something. When I asked her how many there were, I expected her to say 13 or 4 or maybe 7, but she said there were 8. Intrigued, I asked her to count them again and, pointing from one to the next, she clearly counted 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8. That was the first time that I have witnessed her counting that many objects without getting lost along the way.

josie's explanation of her (non) school day

Daddy: "Josie, how was preschool today?"

Josie: "I didn't go to preschool today."

Daddy: "Oh, why not?"

Josie: "Because I was screaming too much."

Daddy: "What were you screaming about?"

Josie: "I didn't want to wear my jean pants."


Sad part is, that's just about how it all went down. The clothes-pickiness factor is through the roof these days. Sigh.

bend recap

Megan totally beat me to the punch with the Bend Weekend Getaway post. Please, you really must hop on over to Casa de TiVo to read her take on our shuttle bus driver, Todd. Oh, Todd.

Bend is a beautiful city. We totally lucked out on the weather and our hotel was fantastic. And yet, despite all the lovely surroundings, I took about 20 pictures over the course of the whole weekend, most of which were of this guy:

It didn't help that I was sick as a dog and having a tough time getting used to the antibiotics (I'll spare any details). Even still, we managed to have a delectable activity-free weekend. Aside from eating and sleeping, all we really did was walk to get food. Thankfully, food was often far from the hotel, so we got in a couple of good walks. On the way back from getting cupcakes, we accidentally (honest) stumbled upon a huge candy shop. Our jaws dropped when we entered... it was quite impressive.

Of course, the kids scored big time with all sorts of ridiculous candy treats from said candy shop. A candy apple (three-foot-long!) snake for Cayden, and a couple of lollipops for the girls. Ah yes, it was good to be home, sugar crashes and all.

it's a girl!

The five of us are overflowing with excitement because we just got word that there is a new baby girl on the way!

A cousin!

Seriously, I think I might be more excited for this baby than I was for my own (okay, maybe a slight exaggeration). We can't wait to watch her grow up... Joe & Julia are going to be the best parents!

r-e-d

Josie, upon spotting the above poster at a restaurant: "R! E! D!"

Me: "Do you know what R-E-D spells?"

Josie: "CHICKEN!"

teenagers

As we were driving by the Arista Ballroom this afternoon, there was a long line of folks waiting for a concert, apparently. Or perhaps it was a KISS bandmember-lookalike-contest they were lined up for, judging by some of their outfits. Full-on face make-up, leather pants with chains, mohawks, the whole shebang.

"Why are those people wearing costumes?" asked Josie.

"No, Josie, they aren't wearing costumes," answered Cayden. "They're just teenagers and that's how teenagers dress because they think they're cool."