March Picture Downpour

Trying to get caught up with the pictures. Life is busy with these 2 adorable boys.

 At OMSI dressing up in the play kitchen. Looks a little mad-sciencey.

 At Max's birthday party.

 

 A picture of Jake's Legos, completely organized. Sadly, only 50% of them are currently organized that way. Need to have another organizing day!

 This is when you know spring is coming...

 Being ninja creative with duct tape.

 Tree in the park up the street from our house. The boys love sitting up there.

 With Skylar.

March Zoo Day

Jake recovered but then Mama came down with the flu. So Mike took the boys out of the house for a day at the zoo. 

February Hike

Went to Washington Park to do a bit of easy hiking on the trails around there. It was a cold day! The best part of the hike was seeing all the plants, bushes, and trees that were labeled with their names and reading them and talking about them with Jake. We can now recognize by sight some of the native plants around here (even if we don't remember their names).

The funny thing about this hike is that it is incredibly close to the zoo. And we have zoo membership which means we can pop in anytime. We spent almost the whole hike with both boys saying "Zoo now? Can we go to the zoo? Is it time for the zoo? I want to see the animals! Animals! Animals!" Mama really just wanted to enjoy the hike. Oy, the life of a parent. So we did walk to the zoo and see some of the animals. The best part was when we were about to leave and I decided we should just take a short peek at some of the Pacific Northwest animals and we happened to see the black bears just as 2 of them were playing/wrestling! It was very cool. 

So we went for that nice hike/zoo... kept doing our daily life... and then the last week of February this happened - Jake came down with the flu. The norovirus AND the flu in the same month? Poor kid. At least he got a new Lego set to do in bed.

Valentine's Day 2013

Valentine morning. Jake worked on the last of his Valentines while I made heart-shaped eggs for breakfast. 

 That afternoon we opened up cards and presents.

Mike and I had an actual date on Valentine's Day, the first in years. A mama friend and her daughter came to babysit the boys (and they LOVED them and even had a successful bedtime!!). Mike and I started our evening at SouthPark restaurant downtown.

The food was DIVINE, especially after we'd spent nearly 2 weeks eating mostly bland food while recovering from the horrible GI bug that was the norovirus. I had an organic green salad with candied walnuts and manchego cheese.

My salad and Mike's French onion soup.

 King salmon for Mike

Butternut squash ravioli for me. 

We had to skip dessert as we ran out of time before we needed to head to Portland Center Stage to see a play, 'Venus in Fur.' The play was amazing (and we were so lucky that one of the two interpreters happened to be a friend of ours, and thus the experience was even better).

Came home to sleeping boys and took a picture to show us as a happy couple from a great night out.

February Noro

February 6th - Ryan started puking in the middle of the day. At midnight, I started vomiting and just an hour later, we had to get up in the middle of the night and change the sheets on Jake's bed. The norovirus had hit us. It was ugly - for about 8 hours. Then we were nauseous and fatigued. Mike took care of all 3 of us for a full day before succumbing to it himself. That first day Mike was sick was rough  - I was still feeling poorly but Ryan recovered rapidly, and thus was running around in full toddler mode. 

We took this picture on day 3 or 4, feeling much better but still spending lots of time being horizontal.

Day 4 or 5 we HAD to get out of the house. So we bundled up and made a short trek up the street to the little park to just be outside (yet away from anyone else so we wouldn't infect others -- this virus was known to be contagious for 3 days AFTER you start to feel better).

Happy to be feeling better!

January 2013 Picture Mishmash

Boys playing with more presents received from Christmas. Jake got a cool body parts tool that came with cards naming different body parts. There were cards in about 5 different languages, including English and Spanish.

Ryan has spent hours with this wooden barn. He's much more into animals and "houses" than Jake was - Jake preferred to play with vehicles. 

More with the body parts toy.

 Mike and I were given the opportunity for a spontaneous dinner date one night. We like to document those because they don't happen often while we have little boys.

We made gingerbread cookies with lemon glaze using the ninja cookie cutters given to us by my sister. 

 We went back to Black Butte for MLK weekend, just the 4 of us. There was still snow, although it was pretty crunchy snow. Made for fun building a little "snow fort."

The boys never get tired of the little under the stairs space at Black Butte.

At OMSI with Daddy one day while Jake was in school and Mommy was working.

While at Black Butte (which has cable TV, which we do not have at home), Jake saw an infomercial for "Glo-Bs" these Lego-like building blocks that glow in the dark. So he used his own money and purchased them from the website. When they arrived, Mike helped him make a shield of armor. 

 Giddy-up, Daddy!

 Just being cute.