Late summer fun

As I write this post it's raining - actually a welcome event after a very hot and dry August.  But it's driving home the point that summer is winding down here in Portland.  We have been busy harvesting and canning peaches, making applesauce, and otherwise trying to preserve the best of the summer.  

Not pictured - 16 pints of applesauce

We've also been enjoying as much outdoor time as we can before the weather turns relentlessly gloomy. Here are some highlights.

Clara has become quite adventurous at the playground.  She wants to do everything Grady can do, and she is getting closer and closer.  She made it up to the second rung under his tutelage here.

Although tree climbing is still a thing of the future for her, Grady is getting pretty good at climbing up.  Climbing down is trickier, especially in his crocs, which seem to stick perfectly in the tree limbs.

Besides the swing, the slide is Clara's favorite - can you tell?

We had a fun Friday up in Hood River, where we did some apple picking, met my newest Portland-transplant friend Alyssa, had a scenic picnic, and fed goats.  Clara wasn't quite up to picking apples, but was pretty adept at getting picked applies into the bin - although she doesn't have the lightest touch!  Grady was his usual careful and helpful fruit-picking self, and together we got about 35 pounds of apples!  Apparently it is about 2 pounds of apples per pint of applesauce.

"Ball!"

Inspecting his pick

Getting a hand from Alyssa

Mt. Hood in the background, a bit obscured by clouds

"The goat kissed me!  It didn't kiss anyone else, just me."

We've had a few milestones and firsts in the past few weeks.  Grady drew his first "person" - actually a monster- with arms and legs.  He has been really enjoying the watercolors.  We are looking forward to having Nana come out to paint with him at some point!

I also took Grady to see his first movie at the movie theater - Monsters University.  He has been quite taken with the first Monsters movie - Monsters, Inc.  He especially loves to pretend to be Randall, the mean monster, I think because it allows him to say things like "Get out of my way!" and otherwise be slightly rude without us getting too upset (although we have made the rule be if he wants to be mean Randall, he can't be mean to other people).  Anyway, we made it through most of the movie before he wanted to go home.  It got a little scary at the end.  It was fun to have a special Mommy-Grady outing.  Grady particularly enjoyed the popcorn.  We're hoping Daddy can take him to see Planes later this summer.

Clara quite suddenly decided she was done with her highchair this past week.  She now has a seat at the table.

While it is fun to have her at the table, it is also slightly horrifying in that she is not the neatest eater.

Post-dinner hair

Clara also sang her first song - "Bubble Bubble Pop!"  She was pretty proud of herself, and we could hear her singing herself to sleep with it when she first learned it.

Otherwise Clara continues to be a little tornado.  She is picking up a lot of words.  Her most recent word, if it counts, is "Meow," which she really enjoys saying to/yelling at the cats.  They aren't thrilled by this.

And she has learned to "kiss."  Here she is demonstrating with her favorite fella, Daddy.

Grady and Clara continue to both love each other and get incredibly annoyed with each other.  The biggest struggle continues to be over property rights.  Who cares what it is, if the other one has it, it's worth having.  These feelings apparently run pretty deep.  The other night, Clara woke with a start around 2 in the morning, cried out loudly, yelled "MINE!" and then promptly went back to sleep.  It's hard to predict how their relationship will be at any given moment.  A few days ago when Grady woke up and came downstairs, Clara ran over and gave him a hug.  Today when he came downstairs, she screamed "MINE" before even seeing what he was holding in his hands.  Those two.  Here are some of the sweeter playful moments over the past few weeks.

Taking a break from pillow room

Chalking

Getting a push

Post-dinner popsicle

And not-so-sweet

The "mine" scowl

 A few other cute shots -

Grady riding a "horse" at the zoo

Clara in her special spot in the garden

Me and my baby

We are excited to welcome Matt's parents here later this week.  It's been a long time since they've seen the kids.  I'm sure they will get a kick out of how much they have both grown.  Hope to have some photos of that visit up pretty soon.

Catch up part II: the rest of July

It has been a totally crazy week - Grady sick, a trip to the ER, all while Matt was away for his 20 year high school reunion and then to NYC, Clara got sick upon his return, etc. etc. etc.  So the next installment of catch up took a bit longer than intended to get to you!  Sorry about that.  (Kids are both fine now.  ER trip was due to concern that Grady might have a kidney-related infection because his virus presented as a fever that went away and then came back with accompanying stomach ache - he did not have an infection and we got sent home in record time, 2 hours door to door, totally unheard of.)  Anyway, on to the good stuff.

After we got back from the beach, we still had a few days until we had to return to work and school.  We had been meaning to go to Oaks Amusement Park for a long time now.  We often run by it, and Grady has been pretty interested in it.  So we decided to finally give it a try.   They have a preschool area that has maybe half a dozen rides, mostly train, plane, or automobile related.  So basically Grady's dream come true.

We weren't sure whether Clara would be big enough for any of the rides, but we decided to give one a try that she and Grady could ride together.  Big hit.  We forked over more tickets two or three times before we finally pulled her off, literally kicking and screaming.

We will definitely be back!

We've also done a few more rounds of blueberry picking this month.  We've got bags and bags in the freezer, which at the moment seem like they will last forever, but will realistically probably take us to December.  These kids love their frozen blueberries.

Post-pie

We've also begun to harvest our garden, thanks to Matt's hard work. The carrots are a definite favorite.

Clara has a grown a lot this month, mostly in vocabulary.  I haven't counted them out, but she probably has 20 words or so now, including "poop" (quite useful, since she actually tells me when she has) and "mine" (also useful but much more annoying).  "No!" continues to be a favorite.  And, I swear this is true, she once emphatically said "No avocado!" when I was trying to force some on her.  Point taken!  She is imitating lots of sound ("ow!" "woof!" etc.).  She understands a lot too.  She will go to the toilet when I tell her it's time for a diaper change, and once went upstairs when I said it was time to get ready for bed - although the usual response is to cry and throw herself on the floor at that one.  A favorite word of hers right now is "baby."  We're still working on her care taking skills, but she's practicing!

She wants badly to be independent.  She has been working hard at learning to put her pants on.  She's gotten pretty good at getting one leg in!

She is also becoming quite the pro at the jungle gyms.

All by herself!

Grady's pretty good too

Grady is coming through a rough patch after feeling pretty sick for a few days.  He is happy to be feeling better, but missing the perks that go along with being sick.  He came downstairs a few days after feeling better complaining of a stomach ache.  "What does that mean?" he asked me.  "Well," I said, "that means you can lie on the couch and I can get you some water."  "What else does it mean?"  "That's all it means," I said.  "But.  Can I watch a movie?"  Nope.  Miraculously felt much better and proceeded to eat a huge breakfast.

I've been really enjoying hearing him communicate his take on the world.  The other day he got up from his chair and cried "My foot isn't cooperating!  It feels like sparkles!"  What a great way to describe your foot falling asleep!

Grady and Clara have been alternately loving each other and getting on each other's nerves.  The "mine" thing is certainly not helping.  But, despite some rocky patches, there is lots of sweetness.

Fourth of July snuggles

Peek-a-boo!

Post-sick ice cream treat

Summer reading champs

Negotiating chair rights

And some more ice cream shots to end with.

Catch up part I - beach vacation

After starting to go through over 180 photos and videos from the past few weeks (!!!), I've decided to break up our adventures into two parts.  This first part will be about our trip to Newport, OR over the 4th of July holiday.

The trip did not start out auspiciously.  We had been ramping up the kids for our trip for days.  Finally, Sunday arrived.  Everything we could possibly need is in the car.  We timed everything perfectly so that both kids would sleep within 15 minutes or so of setting off.  Kids are strapped in their seats.  I take out the instructions for the house we are staying in to plug the driving directions into my phone.  "That's weird," I say to Matt.  Isn't today June 30th?  Yes it is.  "Huh.  Our check-in instructions say July 1st-4th."  I called the owner of the house, who, nearly as flustered as I was, assured us that we had in fact booked for the 1st through 4th.  A quick look back at our emails confirmed that I had totally misremembered the dates.  (In my defense, we were originally hoping to rent from the 30th, and the email header remained the 30th, but her house wasn't available until the 1st.)  In any event, Grady cried.  I cried.  And then Matt had the brilliant idea to get ice cream and all was saved.  Ice cream is truly magical. 

And messy.

Her clothes could not be saved. 

The NEXT day went off without a hitch.  The rental house we were staying in was perfect for us.  When we arrived, Grady said "This is a special place.  I think we're going to be really happy here."  The best part about it for Grady was the bunk bed!  Super cool! 

We planned to stay in Newport because that's where the Oregon Coast Aquarium is.  

We went last year as well.  It is a great aquarium, with seals, sea lions, octopus, rays, sharks, and all sorts of other underwater creatures.  We went twice in the three days we were there - both times right at opening when there weren't many people there at all. 

Run of the place

The kids enjoyed looking at the otters quite a bit- the otters, in turn, enjoyed being looked at and put on quite a show.

My favorite was the octopus.  No kids in this video, but worth watching nonetheless. 

Both kids also really enjoyed this tank. 

Nope, you're not missing anything.  Nothing's in there.  Every once in a while a bird would swim down.  It was just a nice, quiet spot that they enjoyed.  

Other highlights of the trip included a visit to downtown Newport.  Newport village is part tourist mecca, part working fisherman's village.  It ends up being an odd combination of burly men driving forklifts full of fish and kids eating ice cream, but it works.  Here we are enjoying the views. 

"I'm never gonna let you take my picture!"

photo crasher

Speaking of views - here's the view during an early morning walk with Ms. Clara.  Not too shabby. 

The one real downside of the trip was that the weather, though sunny and in the 60s, was almost unbearably windy.  The mornings weren't bad, but come afternoon, you couldn't walk in one direction without feeling badly beaten at the end.  We made a few afternoon attempts to get to the beach - which was just across the street and down a long flight of steps - but neither the kids nor the adults could stand it for more than a few minutes. Finally, on our last day, we went in the morning before the wind got completely out of hand.  You can still hear it bearing down in the videos.  

Thousand yard stare

Boy, stick, and ocean - what more do you need?

Our adventurer

Small boy, big ocean

Yes, by golly, we will use these beach toys

Here is one attempt at ocean landing - 

And our fearless baby. 

All in all, it was a really fun trip.  Both kids were incredibly well behaved, and even slept - which is never a sure thing when traveling.  

I will try to get through some more photos and post later in the week.  Thanks for your patience!