7.21.12
At almost three weeks postpartum, I was feeling pretty good and was wanting to get out for some fresh air and even a little exercise! I asked Brent to find us a little hike...somewhere we've never been before (a challenge!).
Cape Horn:
The Washington side of the Colombia River Gorge...beautiful!
Breastfeeding + hiking = double calorie torcher
most of the trails we have been on in the Gorge are pretty easy, quick jaunts to a waterfall or an overlook. NOT so much with this hike. It is a pretty long, pretty steep, pretty rocky switchback hike...but with GREAT views. NOT what I was expecting for us to do at 3 weeks postpartum. I didn't bring water or diapers or anything!
It ended up being about a three mile hike, which normally would be a great family hike for us...
if we were prepared. But also there was no signage on diverting trails, and so it wouldn't be too difficult to get lost. From what Brent read online, it was supposed to be a loop to an overlook, a waterfall, and then back to our car. We kept hiking and never found the connecting trail back to our car. We could have kept hiking for while and ended up down the busy highway from our car, but we decided to forgo the loop, and just head back to our car the way we came...even though it ended up being longer. At least we knew where we were going and when we were going to get there! Ah! Only stressful for a moment there until we decided to go back the way we came. But overall, a beauty of a hike.
we found the waterfall...almost no water this time of year.
Toby in front of Cape Horn overlook (the actually geological feature)...
I took a few pictures of the kids with my dslr camera...more practice!
Cape Horn
Uh oh! What's going on here? Deep thought? Boredom? Impending adolescence??
I'm a little worried. :)
the toddler is a very determined hiker...but hiking up a talus field is just too much for him.
...so he will ride on Brent's shoulders instead!
another serious shot of our big laddie
and our medium laddie
I really wanted to get a picture of Ollie's big round eyes, long lashes, beautiful lips and baby curls (before they were cut off).
Like I said we had a very lovely time on the hike, despite the moment or two of worry and stress...but the funniest part of this story happened the very next day.
Brent subscribes to this Portland hikers online forum, and the next day there was a review of this hike on the forum...which was obviously done by someone who passed us on the hike because they wrote about US!! Haha! Here's what they had to say:
"But I mentioned this is a new trail, right? Ouch! The rocks are pretty loose. Poles tend to be useless, as they plunge into the cracks with each plant. And some genius even designed one segment with seven or eight switchbacks down one of these slopes. I saw a family coming off that, two kids walking, each parent carrying another, one parent seemingly ready to scream at the other for "getting them into this mess!" "
Here's the link if you want to read it yourself! Which, by the way, I wasn't made at Brent for "getting us into this mess", but I think that either Brent or I may have been worried at that moment that we were not going to find the right trail back to our car. It was shortly thereafter we decided to go back the way we came. Still funny though!
Just for fun, I found this website where you upload a picture of yourself and give yourself a makeover. I had the most fun changing my hairstyles around! There are several celebrities' hairstyles you can choose from {not that I know of many celebrities!}.
This is the head shot I started with:
This is my natural hair color. It is much darker now than it used to be when I was younger. I was kinda curious to see what I would look like with different hair colors and styles...and this is what I got:
Hahahahahaha!!!! I was laughing over these for a good evening. I can now say for certain, that I am NOT a blonde. Don't you love the afro, though? LOl! Yeah, I am veto-ing super dark hair on me too. My two favorites were Julia Roberts' hair and Jessica Biel's hair. Can you guess which ones those are?
Try this out and post your pics somewhere...then send me a link. Very entertaining!
If you're looking for the fund raiser/drawing...click here!
5/17/11
Toby took his last kindergarten field trip to the Portland Children's Museum. Sadly, I was not able to go with him. I picked him up from the bus as usual, and was VERY surprised to see his face painting job. I *think* he was going for a "circus clown turned hobo" look.
What do these things have in common? They were all noteworthy happening in our lives withing the month of March.
Toby's Kung Fu souvenir outfit and Chinese fan from China town. We got a really great deal on them...but unfortunately the quality was dismal at best. He wouldn't take them off for two days and a bunch of the seams ripped. Now they are added to my pile of clothes that need mending.
I'm adding some more pictures of my new haircut because some friends on facebook asked for pictures and I never posted them. Just so you know, I am not ignoring your requests friends. I just do facebook from my mobile device and I can't add pictures from there. Anyway, I was kind of in shock over this haircut at first just because it was so different than I'm used to. You can't really tell from the pictures, but a ton of hair was thinned out...and add that to my already post-baby thinned hair and I kinda felt like I had nothing left afterward. At least compared what I am used to. But after a few days I really love it! It's nice not to have all that hair in the way (I've always had a lot of hair). And it's a change that I was looking for!
Last of note, is that my old lamp finally bit the dust. The reason this is noteworthy is because lamp and I have been through so much together. Lamp has been with me since I was 9 or 10! My mom bought lamp at a sleazy motel that was updating their furniture. We painted lamp PEACH to match the color of my newly decorated peach and teal bedroom {80's...sigh!}. Then when I was in college I painted lamp again. I did a starry sky paint job, with a cobalt blue speckled with light blue paint splatters. I thought it was super cool. After we got married, Brent knocked lamp down and lamp cracked. We had no money so we glued lamp back together. But lamp was never the same. After that lamp always had a crack and a hole where we couldn't quite piece lamp back together correctly. But lamp still worked great! After Brent finished school and we moved to Oregon, we finally had money to decorate our room. We bought bedroom furniture, a quilt, but we didn't need to replace lamp. I just covered lamp with a few coats of silver spray paint and bought a new lamp shade. The old one was ghetto. So very ghetto! Anyway...it was only about 2 years later that Toby bumped lamp off my nightstand twice in one month. Now lamp was broken. But I put lamp back and still used lamp. Then one fateful day I bumped lamp to lamp's utter destruction. Sorry lamp.
And I'm sorry to you if you just read this whole post.
This is a clip from the television show Portlandia. We've never seen the show, but we laughed heartily when we saw this clip:
The day before we saw it, I was picking up probiotics at a store in the uber-hip Portlandia neighborhood of Sellwood after Oliver's doctor appointment...and EVERYBODY at the store {I kid you not} had a bird or an owl {that's still a bird though, huh?} or a tree or leaves on their bag. Haha! Wow...those people TOTALLY have my style {I named my daughter after a bird!}. I loved nature stuff before it became trendy...but I don't care. Everyone in Portland can love it along with me!!
Oh heaven help us before everything in our house gets chewed to shreds!
Seriously though. Poor guy. He's really sad. He slowly chewed this down over the past couple of months and then cried about it. Then he decided he would put it in his pocket so he could still pull it out to see the time. Well...I accidentally washed it. I was 'waterproof' but I think the washer was just too much for the poor watch. Bye-bye favorite orange watch! RIP.
I know I need to stop talking about this subject. For one thing it only makes me sad. And it seems to make people around me feel awkward. Also I am happy that I have earthly boys. I need to be grateful for what I have. I have three wonderful boys and one beautiful daughter whom I get to raise later. My kids are great and I don't care if they are girls or boys. They just ARE. And I love them.
But this post is funny. It is a taste of some comic relief around here.
I have this outfit that my friend from France gave me. It was a baby gift for Toby. But when I opened it, I thought she had mistaken the gender of my baby. Either that, or they dress their baby boys in a more feminine fashion over there. But the outfit was ADORABLE, so I put it in with my baby stuff thinking that I would use it later when I had a girl. {SothenIgotpregnantandfoundoutIwashavingagirlandIwassoexcitedtousetheoutfit,
butthenshediedandIhadtoputitawayagain}.
Then I found out Ollie was going to be a boy. As my midwife and I were discussing the baby's gender, I told my midwife about the French outfit. She told me that I should go ahead and use it.
So I tried it:
What do you think?
(SO cute, huh?)
But then Toby saw Ollie in the outfit and this is what he said:
"There is NO way in OREGON that I want to see a BOY dressed in GIRL clothes!!
NO thank you!"
I guess the outfit goes back into storage. {Le sigh!}
So I have a little request to ask of my friends. Since it will be too late to determine the gender of my baby AFTER I get pregnant, can you please say an earnest prayer for my future baby now? I think I need another girl.
They've been enjoying building and painting the $1 model kits from Michael's. I'm still not sure if I like the mess. I guess I can handle it every once in a while.
In other news:
we had our Primary Program in church last week (where all the kids talk and sing for our church service). It was a wonderful meeting. Both of our kids did great. Joshua spoke about his baptism. Toby spoke about how Jesus has the power to heal. We couldn't see Toby from where we were sitting, but it was reported back to us that
1) He was the best singer of the bunch (which REALLY surprised me)...he sang his little heart out, apparently.
2) He kicked his shoe off during the program. Huh? How did I not notice that? When I asked Toby about it he said that his teacher caught it with catlike reflexes. Ha! That Tobe!
I love it. It speaks oodles toward Toby's personality. His monster shirt. His ORANGE goggles. Spinach, his new favorite food (since Brent checked out Popeye movies at the library...thank you Popeye! My kid is now loving his vegetables because he wants to be strong like Popeye.) His scratched up face from one of his many climbing/jumping stunts. His funny little expression. Yup. Love that kid. (Even though I'm remembering that he was driving me crazy earlier today...well now he's in bed, so I love him again.)
Joshua ran into the room to tattle on Toby. He said "mama, Toby said the F-word"!
Oh gasp! I thought: where did my boys learn the F-word??? Where did Toby learn it?? He hasn't been to school yet. We do not have any movies with the F-word! We block all television above a PG rating!
Joshua interrupts my frantic thoughts to let me know that the "F-word" is "F-A-R-T".
Hahahahaha! That Toby is going through a potty mouth phase.
Admittedly, I have felt guilty every day since Saturday (which was Elsa's 5 month day) because I have not posted an update. I am a very busy mama this time of year, taking boys to lessons and on outings, helping with homework, solving mid-winter behavior problems, and whatnot. Saturday was a very busy day in particular. Brent was working, while I took the boys to the chiropractor (where we all got adjusted), to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (which I had promised to do if they were good at the chiropractor), and luckily after that we were not fried yet...so we did a much needed Costco run. With two boys in tow (which I usually NEVER do). And they were both great the whole time!
Now don't think for one second that we still don't have Elsa on our minds around here. Because we do. A lot. But we're trying to be happy with that which we are currently blessed, and that is each other and the life that we share. We had such a great time together on Saturday. We played with the earthquake simulators, the water tables, did experiments in the chemistry lab, dabbled in paleontology and earth science, saw the animals, and we spent quite a lot of time in the life science exhibit room...looking at the babies. They have an exhibit of real babies who were lost at various gestational ages...anywhere from 4 weeks to 35 weeks. They have boys and girls...some are still in the uterus and some are not. They are all beautiful and captivating and I am grateful to the parents who donated them so that we can see what these babies look like. My boys were full of wonder; asking lots of questions; imagining Elsa at each of these gestational ages. The babies are all amazing. We have been here a lot in the past since we've had a membership for almost 3 years, but this is the first time we've looked at the babies since Elsa died. And I must admit that I have never really looked at them so closely before. At 10 weeks old for example, a baby (newly graduated from the embryo stage to the fetal stage) is a teeny tiny fully formed little baby, almost one inch long. Amazing.
Anyway...as keeping up with my past tradition, here are some pictures of Toby around the age of 5 months:
At this time in life, we were living in Brent's parent's basement apartment, and it was really nice to have grandparents around a lot while Brent was still in school. (I think Toby still has separation anxiety from moving away). Anyway, Brent's parents have chickens. Lots of them. This particular picture was taken after little 3 year old Joshy caught this black and white chicky, he put her in his Tonka truck, and poured Italian salad dressing on her head. Grandma Jane came to the rescue (I must've been at work...or something, something to have not caught this!). Anyway, as you can see from this picture, Toby was at the potato stage of baby-hood. Both of our boys were very chubby cherubs in their first years. So I can only imagine that our little Elsa would be squishy and well fed also.
This is the dear Aunt Lizzy holding a sweet sleeping 5 month old boy at a family gathering of sorts.
What can I say? After 5 months, my head is intact, my heart is still functioning, I hold my family close, I miss my angel, and I'm excited for what gifts the future will bring us.
Toby displays the effectiveness of his new Christmas gift:
We forced Toby to wait until a week later on New Years Day to try out his perfect brownie pan...and even then we were still a little too sugared out from Christmas.
Brent was so eagar to help Toby make his first batch of brownies, since he bought it for him!
So Brent was trying to let Toby do all of the work, but when Toby cracked the egg some of the shell got in the bowl...so this is Brent picking it out. What a nice pa! But other than that, Toby did it by himself. It's so nice to have two guys who enjoy cooking! This is definitely a good interest to foster.
Waiting...
...
...
Ta da! The finished project! And it is set out on 'The Perfect Brownie Perfect Serving Tray.' (You should hear Toby say that...SO cute!)
