2015 Recap

Filled with ups and downs, 2015 was a quite the year. One thing it lacked was consistent blog updates. Sorry. Elaine and I will try to a better job moving forward.

Portland continues to fit us and we to it. So much so that we bought a house and closed right before Thanksgiving. The house is a 90 year old beautiful home filled with charm, large windows, hard wood floors, and a fireplace (much needed on a day like today). It’s needed very little from us and have given us a lot. We still are in organizational mode with boxes around the house and finding ideal homes for things but the whole process has been incredibly smooth.

The boys love running in a circle around our main floor often chasing each other or just to run. They started a preschool a couple months ago and love going to it. It’s been fun having them come home with crafts and hearing about their day. Their superhero interest has yet to peak and there aren’t many days that go by without me getting blasted or joining in a story about heroes and villains. This year’s Mason’s days have revolved around playing outside, watching Wild Kratts (learning crazy facts about obscure animals that he’ll randomly spit out), dancing, and being silly. Caleb does his best to keep up with his big brother in every aspect. He usually is tied to his yellow blanket, loves watching Pup Patrol, likes crafts, and I’ve recent learned that he has a unique interest in Star Wars and Nightmare Before Christmas.

Ruby misses our old house and giant yard, but I’m guessing that she will love out backyard more in the Spring and Summer. She continues to hog the couch, carefully monitor everyone’s food, and has a nack for finding the sunshine in the house. Mason has become her best friend “needing” her to sleep in his room every night. Pretty cute indeed.

Elaine and I do our best to keep up with the world moving around us. Things get crazy at times but overall we are loving life and each other.

Cheers to an action packed year and here’s to 2016, more blog updates, and lots of smiles.

(photos coming later)
Mark

 

Super Heros and updates

Sorry that the blog has been on the back burner recently. The days start early, Elaine and I often wish that we went to bed earlier, and then it repeats. The days, weeks, and months have flown since we moved (11 months!).

The kids are all doing so well. Mason has grown and changed so much in recent months- losing more of his baby face, stretching longer, and chatting up a storm about whatever is on his mind (more on that later). Caleb is a little sweetheart and big copycat. He follows Mason around everywhere and needs to be doing everything that Mason is doing. Yes they push each other’s buttons at times, but they are very sweet to each other.

Which leads up to superhero…Mason’s current fixation. He found some small videos on youtube of adults playing with superhero action figures and then began binging on them. Then throughout the day he began talking about them. Next he requested that we tell stories about superheroes. Pretty soon Mason’s universe became D.C. and Marvel. We got a lot of Batman, Superman, Ironman, Joker, Wolverine, Robin, and Catwoman. But it continued to grow and seriously the kid was talking about villains and superheroes that should be C level for a 3 year old; Solomon Grundy, Captain Cold, Falcon, and Scarecrow.

This brings us to a couple of weeks ago. Elaine was out of town (a training in Chicago for her NEW job!) and Mason starting talking about wanting superhero costumes. It a little time, energy, and creativity Mason and I made some superhero items out of cardboard. Needless to say he was so excited and refused to take the Wolverine claws off to go to bed. It was a great weekend and fun to see him so excited and be able to explore his interests.

Boys weekend was a hit… superheroes, ice cream, and lots of play!

Sometimes it’s foggy

As we covered in the last post, it rains here in Portland. Sometimes it rains a lot. However sometimes it can be pretty foggy.
Two weeks ago Mason and I went to a neighborhood park on one of the foggiest days I’ve ever encountered. The great thing about the fog was that it made a fun backdrop for some photos.

Just to keep it even, here are some photos of caleb from last weekend. He had a lot of fun playing with an earthworm that we found in our backyard.

What to do when it rains…

One adjustment of being in the Pacific Northwest is living with weather. In Santa Barbara it rained for only a couple days a year and was pretty bearable. Now in Portland, it rains a lot.
If you ask Elaine or myself what we’d do on a rainy day and you’d probably hear “watch a movie, stay in our pjs, do a puzzle”. However toddlers have different ideas. Rain means getting wet while playing outside.
Case in point, today- thank goodness for rain boots and washing machines.

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,200 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 37 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

A long time coming…

Hello. It has been a while. I feel like I need to reintroduce myself. My last blog post was July 1st and there have been a number of changes in the last five months… in fact that has prevented me from writing. There are too many things to capture.

My goal here is to start slow, give a few updates, share some photos…. nice and easy. Nothing to it.

Here we go…

In mid July I accepted a job in Portland, Oregon. We spent a crazy few weeks packing, soaking up sunshine, seeing as many people as we could cram into our free time, and chasing around two little kiddos. We moved in mid-August and are renting  a wonderful, quaint two bedroom house in the North East portion of Portland. The house has an great yard with an amazing play structure with swings, a slide, and things to climb. We love having the fenced in space and are out there almost every day.  Ruby has been in beagle-bliss and loves patroling the parameter and chasing squirrels and other animals that live under the house (I don’t want to know what else is under there).

The transition hasn’t been seamless, but has gone incredibly smooth. The kids have done a great job, family and friends have visited and stayed in a small trailer on the property, and we are learning our way around our new community. Yes we get lost, but we have seen some very cool things by mistake. Portland has been good to us, even if it does have nasty weather at times.

Mason is an active 3 year old, full of spirit, spunk, and opinions. Over the last few months he’s transitioned away from an obsession with My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake. An interest in dinosaurs (especially Land Before Time) has been a consistent hit and Daniel the Tiger has been a recent request. He loves being outside, coloring, and building with his blocks. Caleb has changed so much in recent months. He started walking before his birthday and has the balance of an acrobat thanks to Mason’s glancing blows and nudges. He loves following Mason around, copies him constantly, and tries to keep up with the big brother pace. He is teething something serious right now (not much sleep for us in recent months) and is getting more verbal with his words, requests, and animal noises.

Everyone except for Ruby has had a birthday since we moved here. I turned 35 in August,  Caleb turned 1 in September, Mason turned 3 in October, and Elaine just turned 30 in November. Each birthday was special, a little quieter than last year, and memorable in its own way. The same was true for Thanksgiving, which consisted of picking up soup at a deli, making pies (pumpkin and apple), baking bread (whole wheat and broccoli cheese cornbread), and sweet potatoes. The food was simple and stress free and we are planning Christmas to be the same.

More update will come with time. Now some photos…..

What Mason Enjoys

I like to ask Mason questions. Usually they focus on dreams, the best part of his day, and his favorites.
Tonight he was standing on a chair in the kitchen so he could watch me prep some dinner and we were chatting. I asked him about his favorite food and he immediately responded “watermelon”. Now typically his favorite food is whatever is in front of his eyes, but this time the watermelon was in our fridge out of sight. I got it out and started slicing it. Before it even fell to the cutting board the giant slice of juicy watermelon was in his hands. He inhaled a few pieces and the jokingly began eating from the larger main piece I was cutting it from. I caught a few photos, but they really don’t do his juicy smile justice.

Playgrounds are another favorite. Even though we didn’t go to any today here are some photos of swinging from the weekend.

Another favorite is making tents. Usually these happen during the day but tonight Mason asked for a tent right before he went to bed. He’s never done this before but here is his bedtime tent. He’s a fun kid…

A Moment

Life has been in full swing over the last 6 months. Elaine and I have had opposite schedules for the last few months so in case you haven’t noticed the blog has been put on the back burner.
A blog post is a blog post however I miss the time and creative process. Right now most of our updates are short and filled with photos… but it is still an update.
Here are some photos from last night after dinner. It was moment. A normal and routine time of our day, but so mundane that I decided to document it. Each stage goes incredibly fast and each phase means new moments.

Here you’ll see Mason was outside playing in the garden and Caleb cracking up with his baby giggles in the living room.

A day at the beach & Singing (!)

We live so close to the beach that it is a shame that we don’t go as often as we do, but we made it out yesterday to El Capitan State Beach. We all had a great time and here are some photos of our adventure.
Also below is a video of Mason singing some songs… 2 minutes of fun with “Big Water” from Land Before Time 2 and Twinkle twinkle….plus tattoos!

  If the Video doesn’t load… click HERE

Oops!

A little nod to all you teachers out there… This is what happens when you don’t proofread before hitting publish 😉
Check out that post again to see the correct captions matched with the correct photos.

Caleb’s Photo A Day