winter into spring

I always feel that springtime is the hardest time to live in Oregon. I can deal with the endlessly rainy winters. It's the months from March to May when I feel claustrophobic and sun-deprived. It's sunny today, but my iPhone shows rain after tomorrow for the foreseeable future.

We took advantage of some late snowstorms to hit Mt Hood for some spring skiing with the Blaines.

Lucy was a champ skiing with Jess.
(We love the Blaines.)
Even in the rain, the wildflowers all over the place are so lovely. Trilliums always make me think of my mom - these delicate flowers grow all over the mountainside where I grew up and my mom loved them.
We took the kids hiking to Mt. Pisgah recently - these girls valiantly stomped through the mud and took many breaks for z-bars.
Lucy got well hydrated wearing the camelback.
And Melissa and I were happy to let the kids get all their ya yas out - outside of our livingrooms.
Lucy and Lulu love the park (and each other), rain or shine.
We'll get there. Warm sunny days are just around the corner.... Patience.

chronology be damned

I had a great plan to do a holiday 2010 recap, starting with Thanksgiving, going into Christmas, etc. But I can't access the xmas pictures my sister sent me so I'm letting go of that and moving on. 2011 is the year of forward progress!

So, in the spirit of always forward, never back - here is a smattering of what we've been up to recently, in no particular order at all.

Skiing! Milo is doing the Willamette Alpine Racing Program (WARP) every Saturday at Willamette Pass. So we've had a great excuse to head up the hill once a week.

Last weekend I took four boys up to the mountain, leaving Joel and Lucy at home. Here's Liam and his best friend Elijah on the chairlift.

(I will admit, I was feeling a little smug, like supermom, until we lost Milo. After the WARP day was over the four boys wanted to do a few runs on their own. "Stick together" was my only rule. Well, three of them listened, but Milo ended up going off on his own. After realizing that the others hadn't waited for him at the bottom, he happily did a few more runs by himself before he finally showed up at the lodge wondering why I was making such a fuss...)

Rohanna is working on her snowboarding skills this winter.
Kavi spent a whole day after christmas teaching Liam how to snowboard. Kavi's a snowboard instructor and coach at Mt. Hood, so Liam got first class instruction. He was proclaimed a natural, but complains about it being slower than skiing....

Even Lucy has hit the (bunny) slopes. She liked it, but prefers walking on the long tables in the lodge, if you want the truth.

We've also been hanging out a lot with these sweet girls. Our dear friend Melissa from college recently moved to Eugene with her three girls. The two older ones are going to Camas Ridge, the boys' school. Here are Aya and Ena celebrating the first day of school with the boys at Humble Bagel.

And here are Lucy and Lulu (yes, I know - Lucile and Lucia - but what did you expect from two friends both named Melissa?).

"Oh, hey Snow White, it's me, Darth Vader."

Liam has been working on lots of projects at school. This was a poster presentation and paper on the Navajo Code Talkers from WWII.

And this was a finger puppet of Sean White for a biography project.

And finally, we've been hanging out a lot with Gramma. She fell and broke her shoulder right before the holidays, so we have been helping her convalesce at home. Here we are a few days before her fall at a local production of Bing Crosby's White Christmas.

Groundhog Day is over and it's almost Valentine's Day now. Maybe I'll manage to post the christmas pictures before Easter?

holidays 2010, volume 1 - thanksgiving refugees

Strep throat (Milo) and a snowy Siskiyou pass prevented us from heading to the Bay Area, as we had planned. We were consoled by a sweet invitation to spend the holiday with the Blaines, at Birdy and Gary's house in Portland. I stole these pictures from Mark for a long overdue ode to our hosts, and adopted family. (If Jess and Mark are our children's godparents, does that make Eloise and Gary their godgrandparents?)

We loved every minute of the weekend.

We loved the cooking and the conversations, the music lessons, and the generosity.

We loved the lounging,

the "Manufactured Log Cabins" - our bastardized version of a Log Cabin (where the heck can you find maple liquor anyway?),
and the napping in a cozy livingroom while PNW rain drizzled outside the picture windows,
We always love the brussels sprouts a la Marquis,
and Eloise, we love Eloise. We love her sweet smile, her calm approach to entertaining - whether it's seventeen adults for dinner, or three children for dutch babies. I didn't actually grow up knowing this family, but going to NW Gordon Street feels like coming home.

We loved the food and the company,
the sweetness,

and of course, the wine.

Thank you for putting up with the Davises for the weekend. We had a wonderful time. We'll be back soon.

how to make a holiday card

First, you realize that even a really nice camera is going to have trouble in the dark.

Then, you think, let's go out in the front yard and build a wall out of firewood rounds to sit on.

Next, you try to get the toddler to smile, but she won't, and someone has their eyes closed in every picture.

You might get kind of annoyed.

Several adults make asses of themselves trying to make the kid smile, it threatens to rain, and you promise they can have hot chocolate later if everyone will just hang in there for a few more shots...

And then a couple of lovely pictures emerge from Mark's magical camera.

This will be the first year in memory that we have managed to get our holiday cards designed and ordered before December 1. We hope you'll like what you see in your mailbox in the next couple of weeks. We worked hard for that picture!

Thank you Mark - the Davises love you!

silver lining

I've been traveling a lot this month. A lot. I have two projects that require me to drive to Salem a few days each week (about an hour away). For two weeks in a row I was on overnight trips Wednesday through Saturday.

The kids (and Joel) suffer for it a little bit. Our family life is not a totally well-oiled machine. We really do require two parents for the many pick ups and drop offs, soccer games, sleepovers, and preschool snack responsibilities - not to mention all the filling of lunchboxes, washing of soccer uniforms, managing of homework, etc. that has to happen throughout each day.

So, yes, it's been a little crazy (and, yikes, the holidays are on the not-too-distant horizon...).

But a recent silver lining was a visit from our dear friend Kirsten. We work together at Public Knowledge, and last week my trip was to Portland for our company retreat at McMenamins Edgefield Lodge. She came home with me for the weekend. The kids love Kirsten. She has known the boys since they were one and three - we met in graduate school in Austin. It's fun to have a visitor that's here as much for the kids as for the adults - and out of town guests always inspire us to do things we normally avoid - like the Saturday Market. We ended the weekend with a walk to the park before she had to fly home to Bozeman. We miss her already.

halloween

They were a motley crew, my children.

Liam, an evil scarecrow. We found some overalls at the Goodwill, and used rafia for the straw so it wouldn't be itchy.

Milo, a white ninja. Enough said.

Lucy, a ladybug. I had a lion costume for her, a hand-me-down from her friend Jun. But she insisted on being a ladybug and another friend came to our rescue the day before Halloween with a costume from last year. Lucy got to be her ladybug and she loved it.

Lucy also loved trick or treating. She was less interested in the candy than in walking right on into people's houses when they opened the door for her.

The boys complained about Halloween being on a school night - and I agree. I have a feeling that 25 fourth or fifth graders with sugar hangovers aren't exactly productive students the day after Halloween!

nine

Joel and I went to the boys' parent-teacher conferences the week of Milo's birthday. His teacher told us that when Milo told his class he was turning nine, no one believed him. They all guessed eleven. She was quick to say that it wasn't just because he's 5'1" and 110 pounds, but also because he's well-spoken and sure of himself. He's the youngest in his class (he started Kindergarten a couple of months before his 5th birthday), but he's also at the top of his class. He is in the accelerated math group, and was just designated TAG.

Superlatives are required to describe Milo because he stands out - and his fourth grade smarts are only on piece of that. He's also known by his friends as being fun, fair, and good at foosball. He's goofy and sweet. He's a good athlete, but doesn't get emotionally attached to winning or losing, and chooses sports experiences based on how much fun he'll be able to have.

Sometimes in our family Milo gets caught in that "middle child" no-mans-land between baby and big kid. But in many ways he's also the glue that holds us all together. He reminds us to play board games and Uno in the evenings. He takes Lucy out to the trampoline or to the couch with a stack of books when she's grumpy and dinner needs to be made. He's our good natured, sweet, smart boy, and he makes us all better people.

Joel made an ice cream cake for Milo's sleepover birthday party.

Nine boys played capture the flag and watched two movies

before finally falling asleep at midnight...