My perfect sweet two year old

It's unbelievable to think where we were two years ago, this little one and me. Wow! Gil had such a dramatic entry into this world, but that dramatic entry is laughably inconsistent with his personality- he continues to be the most laid back, fun, and funny little human I've ever known. He's so different from vake and so much to me like his father in terms of personality.



I've been a little under the weather and Christmas really snuck up on us, so we kept the birthday a little lower key. Started the day out with church, then had take and bake pizza and the most...


...glorious Thomas the Tank engine cake the world has ever seen. Truly, it was something.


And of course, Gil loved the cake (the one way that he's like me is the sweet tooth).


And big brother thought it was pretty yummy too! What a treat!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Pacific Ter,Klamath Falls,United States

Dirty dirt merchants

Daddy's away (good for him, not so great for the rest of us) and won't be back until tomorrow night. We are hanging in there, but I didn't quite have the energy to say no to brownie baking/eating. Look at my dirt merchants. Straight into the bathtub with you...








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Fall in the Falls- part one- first day of school!

 It's only taken me since August, but I finally got batteries in the camera and got a bunch of pictures downloaded.  I cannot remember if I posted all of these, but here we go!!!!!!!

This was Vake's first day of school.

 You can tell that he was so excited about having people to hang out with other than his mother- please ignore the attractive dry cleaning bag on the front porch....

 And my sweet little baby Gil, ready to walk his brother down to the school.

 And this, again, could be the most magic thing to us about the entire town- the 90 second commute to school.

Biddy Ball!!!

Vake's experience with soccer was ok.  At the end of the day, it was hard on him to have his father as his coach- he just got too worked up and excited.  Nevertheless, Eric and I asked Vake if he wanted to try "biddy ball" which is basketball for the 3-4 year old set.  Vake was interested in it, so we signed him up.

As we signed him up, there was a place to check if you were interested in coaching or assisting.  I, frankly, am interested in neither but also think that it is very important to support your child's activities.  So I signed up to assist, thinking that there was no way that would happen.

Well, assisting in fact did not happen.  Now I am the HEAD coach for a biddy ball time.  YIKES!!!!  Wow. 

I'll keep you posted.  The good news is that the ball is only 5'6" off the ground.

Small town living!

This is how you know you are small-town living! When the husband gets a full page ad in the paper!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Yahoo and ptl

Now I can down to the real business of finding a job! Yippee!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Pumpkin Patch

What a fun weekend we had with Grandmary last weekend! I have great pictures that I need to upload and post from crater lake. We could not have had better weather- truly truly amazing- warm- unseasonably so- and sunny.

After Vake had his soccer game, we went out to a local pumpkin patch- such a pretty pretty drive.


The two boys by the pumpkin patch sign...





Out picking pumpkins.


Vake is getting so so strong.





Sweet little Gil.


And then last Sunday, we carved up our pumpkins.





We are ready for Halloween around here. Vake is going to be (big shocker) James, the red engine from the Thomas series. Poor Gil is going to be his brother's tender. Good times.

Location:Pacific Ter,Klamath Falls,United States

How's it going: Alison's job hunt

Well, about that.  I am now entering hour number two of cold calling lawyers in town.  Talk about depressing.  I think that what probably makes sense now is to send out resumes and see what starts to come back in to me.  Ugh ugh ugh.

Something perfect is going to work out.  Sometimes it just takes some time!!!!

How's it going: the housing situation

Ok. So when Eric moved here, we bought a really small (really really small) house in the neighborhood we knew we wanted to be in. There are a number of reasons that we made that decision, but mostly the rationale was that we wanted guests to feel as though they could come and hang their hats for a little while.

Suffice it to say that when I got here, that little house was bursting at the seams with too much stuff and then too many people with all four of us- which was actually not all that fair to this poor little house. So. This is where we truly got lucky. About three days before I moved, a house on my deal street in this same neighborhood but bigger came back on the market- and the woman who owns it was willing to let us rent it from her AND she accepted a contingent offer-so now all we need to do is sell the Boulevard house.

And I love both of these houses now. We got all of our stuff into the bigger house, and we are living with "rental decor" and a few less sofas than I'd like but it is ok because we are not stepping on each other! I've been able to totally repaint the little house and can now make some design decisions! Yeehaw!

Please please please 6 N. Boulevard find someone new to love it so that we can get fully settled here!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Pacific Ter,Klamath Falls,United States

How's it going: Vake's school

So there have been so many moving parts to this move that it makes sense to talk about one of them at a time.

Vake's school has been a great transition so far- he loves Miss Lisa and Miss Jenna and the paraprofessionals who work with the class.  Miss Lisa is an old pro, which I find very comforting.  It is a little bit different from what we were used to at First Baptist, where the focus seems to be on getting the children into Richmond's private schools, but this change isn't a bad one- I feel as though I may have "baby Vake" for one more year. 

If I could change one thing about the school, I'd make the school morning a little longer and have it be five days a week, but then again, when I think about the changes that Vake's had in his life in the past six months, I think that maybe this time that he and I are getting together while the world is moving a little more slowly is ok.

Can you believe it?

I've been working like a crazy lady to get the house ready for Mom's visit, but thought I'd take a short break and show you who looks totally grown up now!!!!!  This is Vake in his preschool picture!  My big guy!!!!!!

 

Medford Train Museum

Obviously, we are always looking for fun activities that keep the boys busy and moving. This weekend, I saw that the Medford train museum was up and running. We had no idea what it would be like. We decided to chance it and head to Medford, about an hour away, and give it a whirl.

What a hit! There were model trains that could pull passengers- and Thomas was pulling one!









Vake thought he had died and gone to heaven...


And there were tons of model trains- both outdoor and indoor.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Pacific Ter,Klamath Falls,United States

Soccer star!

Guess who had his first soccer game this weekend? With Coach Eric? And they won! The final score was either 5-3 or 6-3, but no one was actually keeping score all that closely....

Here is my little soccer star before the game started...


...and the main benefit of having your father coach the team is that you get your pick of the numbers, and of course we picked 8. And note too that the soccer socks are red (that's my favorite color, mommy) and his cleats are blue (that's my action-paction color) (who in the world knows what that means...)

We had Gil with us, who was dying to take the field with his brother.


A close-up of the great number 8.


Waiting on the sidelines. Coach Dad's philosophy on rotations during the game is pretty straightforward: he plays the same five children for one 6 minute quarter. Six minutes is longer than you think.


Here is number 8- he definitely is trying to figure it all out.





Happy coach and boys at the end of the game.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Pacific Ter,Klamath Falls,United States

It is the little things

Slowly but surely, we're starting to get things settled. It would be nice if we could sell our house in Richmond. But I've got to believe that's going to work out for us.

We're hitting a rhythm though. I've got laundry machines. Vake's in school. And I got the great news yesterday that I am pretty close to getting admitted to practice in oregon- it looks like I just need to take some cle credits.

On Saturday, we walked down to the farmers market. My little one loves strawberries....




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

First day of school

Finally! The Internet is hooked back up and I can now post to the blog using the iPad and pictures that I take on the iPhone now synch to the iPad. Feels as though a new era has dawned.

Without further delay, here are the pictures of the first day of school at Roosevelt Elementary! Vake is going four mornings a week- he starts relatively early- at 815. Unfortunately, that also means that he's done by 11.











I am saying cheese, mommy.


The craziest thing (also best) about this school is it is on the next block. Yippee. So on the first morning of school, we walked the block and a half.


We stopped at the corner.


And like that, another year begins!





There's a sweet mural of storybook characters in the hallway.


And here is a portrait of Teddy himself!


And he didn't even notice my leaving.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad