This New House

To me, what has seemed like an eternal silence on the blog has probably gone unnoticed by most of you. In the intervening days, our little family has been all abustle. For the past many months we have had our house on the market, and when it finally sold it came as somewhat of a surprise. We jumped into house-hunting gear and looked and looked and looked until we found the perfect one. After days of signing, waiting, appraising, inspecting, waiting some more, signing some more, we were finally able to close on both houses and move in to our new home a week ago tonight. As I type, I'm watching Michaela pull old Calvin and Hobbes comic books off of the second-lowest shelf of our bookcase in the living room. I just put those books there last night. That is pretty much par for the course of how my packing and Michaela's "helping" has gone the last few weeks. To be honest, I kind of feel lucky the books had a home there for 24 hours. Many thanks to the family and friends who came to help - for long or for short times - on baby patrol 2010. We wouldn't be moved in without you!! We're very excited to be in our new home and glad for Kenji to have a bigger backyard to run around in. After she calmed down, she has spent a good amount of time chasing chipmunks and birds that used to call this backyard their home. Tigra spent the first two days on the very top shelf of our master bedroom closet, not coming down for anything. I had to carry her down to her litter box on night two to make sure her body systems weren't shutting down. On day 3 we moved our clothes into our closet and Tigra had to step out into the big world. She seems to be liking it quite a bit, and is exploring all the nooks and crannies. We look forward to many visitors, and I hope to get some pics of the new house on the blog here in the next few days.

Promise of a Pie

It all began this last winter when I was a new mother, housebound much of the time, and reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I was struck by the ideas of eating only foods that were grown or produced locally, and learning how to do so even in the middle of winter. Unfortunately, I wanted to begin by putting a garden in my backyard immediately, but it was January. Eating local produce in January apparently required getting ready for winter the summer before, so I had to put off my plan of implementation. This spring, however, we are taking some baby steps toward eating locally. We are taking our Saturday mornings to check out the local farmer's markets and compare for price, variety, and general fun-ness. Adam has graciously agreed to accompany me on these excursions, and on the first one to the Lake Oswego Farmer's Market, I told him that most likely the only things in season yet would be rhubarb, lettuce, and if we were lucky - strawberries.

If the above items were available, I promised him a strawberry-rhubarb pie, which I have never made before. This also required a little sacrifice on my part, too, because I try to get out of making a double-crust pie whenever I can by making meringue pies, or suggesting the pie was meant to be eaten with a crumb topping. Adam has begun to see through my ruse.

See for yourself the beautiful berries we found, which made for a tasty spring pie. It just may be a new family favorite. If I can make it with a crumb topping.

#1 Dominance

Kalina...This picture is especially for you. Although, it looks like we still need to work on the #1 Dominace sign so that it isn't confused with "loser." Then again, maybe Michaela knows exactly what she is doing.

Crawling Update

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Since I happen to have a free minute while Michaela finishes her morning nap, I thought I would finally share a little about our trip to visit my Grandpa and Uncle Dan in Kansas. We (our little family and my mom) went for just a couple of days at the beginning of May, and found the weather there to be a good 20 degrees warmer and sunnier, and just generally nicer, than home. It was a good weekend to be in Kansas. I mentioned earlier that Michaela did pretty well on the flights. She loved having her Daddy at her beck and call to play with her, though even she, little as she is, wished she had more leg room. She just might be a world-traveler-in-training.

Left- Michaela still peppy (and trying to take her sock off) as we wait at Portland Airport). Below- Adam and I also still peppy - and caffeinating for the day ahead.

We landed in the Tulsa airport on a Saturday night and just drove to Bartlesville, OK, where our hotel was, got some dinner and went right to our hotel. Adam and I tested out the pool and hot tub, but Michaela wanted nothing to do with the pool when Nana tried to get her to dip her toes in. I blame that more on the day of travel than on predicting a dislike of swimming - especially when considering the amount of splashing that occurs during Michaela's baths these days. Though none of us got any amount of good sleep that night because Michaela was awake, crying, and inconsolable between 1:45 am and 4:30 am, we awoke nonetheless the next morning and crossed the border into Kansas to meet Grandpa at his home and head from there over to church. Uncle Dan is a pastor to three small congregations in the area, and preaches at each of them consecutively on a Sunday morning. We hit the middle service, and really enjoyed hearing Grandpa play the piano for congregational singing and listening to Uncle Dan preach. Michaela enjoyed the service because there were chairs rather than pews, and she got put down to scoot around on the floor. Also, the hymnals had little colored strings in them (to be used for marking pages of different hymns) but Michaela thought they were just for her entertainment.

That afternoon we enjoyed lunch/brunch at a local diner and an afternoon of conversation and catching up. Grandpa made dinner for us that night - we felt like honored guests! On Monday we went on a driving tour of Caney (doesn't take long!) and then went out to see the Little House on the Prairie. Considering that several years of my childhood were given to dressing like Laura Ingalls and playing pioneer, the cabin is always a big hit. But the big event of the day was yet to come. Did you know there is a brand new Super Wal-Mart in that corner of Kansas?! Yes, it's true! So we went there to get some photos developed and just soak in the ambiance. But really, the big event was eating at Braum's, a wonderful burgers and fries kind of restaurant with AMAZING ice cream delights. Adam and I have long joked that our relationship is built on ice cream, so this was a special moment for us to share with family.

We learned more about the Carr family tree from Uncle Dan, the family's resident historian, and ate one more meal together before saying our goodbyes. It was a short visit, but great for Grandpa to get to meet his grandson-in-law and his new great-granddaughter.

Nine Neat-O Months

Whew! Life has been speeding up around us and so I will get back to the details on our Kansas trip in my next post. For those of you in the know, however, you recall that Michaela turned 9 months old over the weekend. We were spending the weekend with Adam's family up in Washington as we always do this time of year. It's a time of birthdays and Mother's Day (this year being my first one - it turns out it's a pretty sweet deal to be a mom!) Thanks to my super-sweet daughter and thoughtful husband!

Michaela posing in the family rocking chair (Daddy has a photo in it, as does Papi - when they were smaller, of course)

While we were up in Seabeck, Michaela did her first real crawling, and since that was on her 9-month-birthday we'll chalk it up to her accomplishments during month #9. She weighs 16 pounds, 10 ounces and is 27 inches long. That puts her on the small side, but the doctor says this is common and perfectly fine for breastfed babies. She also flew on her first airplane, which was more or less a success. Her ears didn't seem to bother her and she was so into the other people and chewing on things that the time went by pretty quickly. Her first hotel stay after said airplane ride, however, was really rough for all concerned. Michaela woke up at 1:45 am to eat, and was unable to go back to sleep until about 4 am. We were loathe to let her "cry it out" in a hotel, envisioning angry phone calls to the front desk, so she finally fell asleep on Nana's shoulder and we all got a little more shut-eye.

During our weekend with the Puckett/St. Clair clan, we visited the Woodland Park Zoo (Seattle). Now, Michaela knows all about zoos because we took her to the Oregon Zoo when she was just 4 or 5 weeks old. This time she was a pro. She kicked back in the stroller we borrowed from Aunt Abbey because we had forgotten our own (we received many compliments on its "zoo-appropriate" pattern) and took in the view. I'm pretty sure she saw about zero animals, as she was so involved in watching the people and children cruising by. She also experienced her first sunblock (as the photo reminds me) and didn't seem to mind a bit. After a couple of hours hanging with the animals, both Michaela and Abbey needed a nap. Luckily it was time to head back home and get a wonderful dinner on the table. Lots of good food and good company made this weekend a great one!

Kansas Pictures

We recently returned from a quick trip to Kansas to visit Brook's grandfather and uncle.  Since Brook is the better writer, I will let her tell you about the trip, but I wanted to get some pictures up on the blog to share.

Michaela helping Mom pack her bag.

Grandpa Carr's House in Caney, KS. 

Left: Michaela enjoying the swings at a park just across the street from Grandpa Carr's house. Right: Brook, Grandpa Carr, and Bev taking a stroll through the family photo albums.

Uncle Dan, Brook, Michaela, Grandpa Carr and Bev (Four Generations)

Little House on the Praire Visit.

bathing suit

Yesterday was kind of a crazy day to be this mama and baby. Fussiness, lack of sleep, four (yes, count them -- 4) dirty diapers. After the last especially dirty one, bath time came early. Michaela loves her baths now, so that's not a problem. The problem was with parental focus. Filled the tub... added the toys.. checked the water temp... took off Michaela's diaper and plunked her in... then I decided I should probably take off her socks, too.
Ooops!

Learning to crawl or learning to do the seal dance?

Sayonara Tax Season...Hello Long Weekends

After months of never ending work, it is finally time to play. And what better way to kick off the season than with a four day weekend. We went hiking in the Columbia Gorge, went to the season opening Timbers soccer game, watched a Blazer playoff win, played Wii, and my personal favorite, rolled around on the floor with Michaela.

Enjoying a Saturday hike in the woods. A special thank you to the Magee family for the great child carrier.

A panoramic shot of the view from the top of our hike.

Michaela just hanging out and relaxing.