Children say the funniest things!

More specifically, Pippa. This is how one of our conversations went today:

Mummy: Lets make French toast for lunch today.
Pippa: What's French?
Mummy: People from France are called French. I'm from England, so I'm English.
Pippa (looking enlightened): And I'm Spanish.

Thanks, Dora.

Happy Halloween!

This week has been a week of waiting for Halloween. Pippa remembered very well from last year how Halloween works: It gets dark, you go knock at strangers doors and you get free candy. Over the week she had to conserve her energy by taking a few naps here and there. She no longer naps in her bedroom with William, but she often still falls asleep either in our bed or on the sofa or floor. She seems to be transitioning away from a daytime nap. The other day she fell asleep sitting upright on the sofa. I moved her to my bed, and when she woke up 2 hours later she was upset that she wasn't on the sofa anymore. Toddlers!


Recently we bought Pippa a real bed frame off craigslist.org. Funny story as the anonymous ad I replied to happened to be put up by our friends, the Johnsons. Rob Johnson is Nick's work wife and Pippa loves Ginger and Wyatt, their young kids. Bend is a small town. Anyhow, the bed. It has a high clearance so Pippa and William like to crawl under there pretending it's a cave. One night we went in to check on them and we couldn't find Pippa. Yeah, she was blotto under the bed!


A big shout out now for GrAuntie Michele. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE COSTUMES! She made 3 costumes for my children; a bumble bee for Will, a teddy bear for Oliver and a princess dress for Pippa. Pippa was actually a ladybird/bug for Halloween (I had already made it!), but the dress will be for dressing up and boy, does she love it!




Now, here are some of the better Halloween photos. We went to the police station to Trick or Treat, then to Auntie Jess's house, then back to our neighborhood for over an hour of walking the streets and knocking at doors. The result: 2 buckets of full of candy and 2 hopped-up, tired but very excited children...

He's solid!

Last week I finally started Oliver on some solid food. I like to put it off for as long as possible partly because breast milk is perfectly adequate for the first 6 months, and partly to avoid the frustration of that tongue thrust reflex. Not to mention the longer you hold off the cheaper it is! For a while now Oliver has been able to balance really well when we sit him up. He grabs at our food if he's close enough and watches us eat like he's going to pounce on us.

I started him on some pear the other day. Oh my! He was practically climbing out of the highchair trying to get to it. Today I gave him pear mixed with baby oatmeal (I don't do baby rice any more because it didn't sit well with Pippa or William). He ate every bite I gave him. Then at dinner we gave him sweet potato mixed with oatmeal. Again he ate every bite. He seems so happy to be doing what the big kids do!

Today was also a big day for Pippa and William. My pediatrician has a Facebook page and around lunch time they posted that they have a small amount of H1N1 FluMist available for 2-4 year old children. We called and went in later that day. Pippa and William now both have had their seasonal flu vaccine and the H1N1 vaccine. Lets hope they work! Oliver has his 6 month well baby check up next week. He should be able to get his flu shot now and if they have any injectable H1N1 vaccine he'll get that too!

Here are some photos of the kids this week.

I'll just eat my thumb while I wait.

Mmm...delicious pear!

My little lookout pup.

Pippa 'helping' me make cookies.

William sat and played letters for ever! It you look carefully you'll see the long line of his favorite letter...OOOOOO

Pippa's first bike

Laura found a killer deal for a little girl's bike on Craigslist, so even though it's a while away from any gift giving holiday and the weather is getting colder we pulled the trigger and got it. As far as I know, Pippa has never ridden a bike like this before, but after ten minutes of practicing in the alley she was riding like a very tiny Lance Armstrong. Pedaling, turning, braking, you name it, she can do it. Okay, not always braking, but she's getting there!

While taking Cherry Bike out for a ride around the neighborhood to practice her skillz I shot some videos to post here. As I was going through them I thought it would be fun to cut them together and make a little movie out of it. But what song to use? What song, indeed.

Pumpkin fun!

Today was probably the most fun I've had with the kids ever! There is something about watching your children enjoy an experience for the first time, and today was full of them. Sure, we went to the MAiZE in Terrebonne last year, but going this year was the first time Pippa has been really into doing these things. William sees Pippa having fun and just joins in.

We met our friends, the Johnsons, out there and the 4 kids just had a blast. We saw the chickens and the ponies, went on a horse drawn wagon ride, played in the small hay fort, danced to the band playing music, pet some goats and lambs, ate caramel apples and pushed a wheelbarrow full of kids and pumpkins all over the pumpkin patch. Actually, only Nick did the last one.

There were no damaging falls, no meltdowns and no grumpy children. They fell asleep on the 30 minute drive there, so that set them up good.

Walking to the fun.

On the wagon, ready to ride. Giddy-up!

William, Ginger, Pippa and Wyatt.

Mary and her little lamb.

William hugging a goat.

Riding in the wheelbarrow!

Eating cookies and riding again. This may be my holiday card.

Dancing to the band. They were going nuts, in a good way.

On a side note, Pippa says funny things all the time with the deepest sincerity. Just now she was calling me upstairs so I went up to see what she needed. This is how part of the conversation went:

P: Where's Daddy?
Me: Daddy's downstairs doing the dishes.
P: Oh, I wish I had long arms so I could do the dishes.
Me: So do I honey, so do I.

Now she's back in bed where she says she is going to dream about painting her pumpkin. Sweet, sweet Pippa.

Choo-choo!

This week has been a really good weather week. The snow quickly melted in the sunshine we had everyday, making for perfect park weather. It is now getting below freezing every night, so the day is slow to warm up, but it feels so refreshing.

This weekend is going to be an exciting October weekend for us. We spent a while this morning at an open house for the Eastern Cascades Model Railroad Club. It was free and we got to ride on one of the miniature trains. The line was long though and the trains small, so we only took one ride.

Tomorrow we have corn maze and pumpkin patch fun planned!

Oliver enjoying the sun on Friday.

Enjoying the ride!

Can we go again?

The indoor miniature track had a Thomas the Tank Engine train. William's favorite.

Summer, Autumn and Winter Abridged

The weather is schizophrenic. In the last 2 weeks we have fit 3 seasons in. We've had temps in the 80's and today we had a snow storm, which dumped about 4 inches of snow on us here in Bend. It's melting fast, but there was time for the kids to get some good playtime in. Pippa ran into our room when she woke up this morning screaming "snow, snow, there's snow outside!" William was right behind her squealing in excitement and jumping up and down shouting "snow, snow!"

A couple of weekends ago we decided to go back to Tumalo Falls for a little picnic and a short hike while we could still reach it. Last time we went, Pippa was just a little older than William is now. This time she was able to walk the whole way up by herself and William was leading the rock throwing. He is a boy obsessed with throwing rocks into water!

This weekend was Bend's Fall Festival. We went yesterday for a short amount of time. They had a small hay maze for the kids, some bouncy castles, pony rides and many booths with people selling their crafts. I didn't realize how cold it was out there though, and while we bundled the kids up, Nick and myself were pretty cold. What didn't help was that 3 steps from the car, Pippa, with her hands in her pocket, tripped and planted her face on the sidewalk. She cut the inside of her lip with her teeth causing a huge swollen and bloody lip, and has a big graze on her lip and chin. It doesn't look like she hurt her teeth though. She was very brave and didn't cry much at all, despite the amount of blood. After that she lost all enthusiasm for the festival.

Here are some photos from the last couple of weeks and a video of this mornings snow playing.

Tumalo Falls on the platform over-looking the falls.

Pippa and William were enjoying playing hide and seek.

Pippa spent a lot of time in the chest!

Oliver just wants to join in.

Pippa and William (wearing the hoodies) in the hay maze.

Pippa's wounded face. You should have seen the sidewalk.

Snow! Oct 4th, 2009

Here's a video of them playing in the snow. Nothing more, nothing less...



They love it!