Photo Contest

I've entered Kendra in a photo contest. It's a nation wide thing, so I don't really expect much, but I thought I'd at least try. :)

Yesterday I spent two hours being interviewed (on camera) about children's clothing. It was a market research firm and they wanted to know all about my life, my hobbies, my attitudes, and of course my shopping habits. I had to have five household items that represented how I see myself at this stage in my life (computer, camera, wedding picture, Kendra picture, flowers/strawberries from my garden). I also had to show 3 outfits of Kendra's, and ultimately ended up bringing down about 15. They wanted to know why I shopped at certain stores, how I shopped (online or brick and mortar), why did I like some stores more, what did I look for in clothes... It was very thorough and ultimately pretty interesting. Kendra spent the time at the neighbor's house playing with their little girl so she had fun too.

We also had our last ever toddler class yesterday. Kendra will be too old to enroll in the fall :( We will continue to meet with our group over the summer at various parks in the area, but I'll miss going to the class.

Otherwise all is well. We've been really busy working on the house and the wall. Nothing major - just all those little jobs that need to be done. We are replacing all the light fixtures upstairs. The existing ones are dated, and ugly. We are putting the finishing touches on the bathroom (trim work, finishing work on the cabinets, etc.) and installing a new door that matches the others upstairs. We are also on our last pallet of bricks for the wall, so we are reallyreallyreally close to being done.

Next up - build an awesome deck!

Our Parrot

We have reached the stage where EVERYTHING is parroted back to us. Time to watch our language!

Kendra has developed some very cute habits recently. Besides parroting, she likes to simply "talk." She'll sit in the backseat of the car and just jabber away. It usually sounds something like "no beep, no beep, BEEP, wabber, wabber, bye bye wabber, more wabber, more wabber, bye bye wabber" and on and on. (Beep = Jeep and wabber = water).

She is also very good at copying tone and intonation, even if the words aren't there. It was hysterical to listen to her mimic the sound of the guy trying to get people to sign a petition at Costco. She couldn't say the words at all, but it was very clear she was copying him.

Since our potty training fiasco, we've pretty much dropped the subject for now. However, Kendra is pretty adament that diapers must always be clean. When she wants a new one, she will walk up and say "Ucky biper" and as we change her she continually chants "ucky biper, ucky biper." She has also developed the unfortunate habit of checking daddy's "diaper" if he farts loudly. Or checking other kids' diapers if they smell funky. She "helped" another mom change a little girl yesterday by offering her running commentary the entire time.

Tell me this child isn't ready to be potty trained.

Memorial Day - Thank You to Our Vets

First off - thank you to all the veterans and their families for all they do. It isn't easy to be a soldier, and they don't get the thanks they deserve nearly often enough.

Our Memorial Day weekend was wonderful. We spent part of Saturday wandering around Folklife. Folklife is a northwest tradition. It's basically a music festival but includes arts & crafts, dancing, street performers and ethnic foods. It's a fantastic time and a great way to hear/see hundreds of musical groups.

Sunday we hosted a BBQ at our house. Unfortunately Mother Nature didn't cooperate and it rained all day. We ended up a bit squished inside the house, but had a great time. Dan did a fabulous job grilling up ribs, brats and hot dogs. A few others grilled oysters, kabobs, and vegetables. The rain was light enough that under the canopy it was fairly dry, and a the grillers sat outside. The kids played Wii and the adults sat around and talked. It's always amazing to get groups of folks who don't really know each other together and watch the friendships form.

Monday started off gloomy and rainy, but by mid-afternoon the sun came out in force. I think everyone in Seattle dropped everything and ran outside. Kendra, Turtle and I headed to a couple of neighborhood parks and played. Dan worked on the wall and made good progress.

After all our cooking on Sunday we decided to go out to dinner at a local pizza place. We loaded Kendra into her new Deuter Kid Comfort III pack and headed out. It was only about a 2 mile roundtrip walk, but I'm glad we started slow. Carrying an extra 35 pounds on your back is tough - no matter how well designed the pack is. Kendra seemed to like it, though, and our goal is to do more hiking. I have a book called "60 Hikes Within 60 Miles of Seattle" that has some great places that are close enough to head out to after work.

Home Again

We are back in Seattle after another whirlwind trip to St. Louis. It was wonderful to see everyone again, although it's nice to be sleeping in my own bed again! Hopefully we'll actually get our suitcases empty and put away soon.

This photo was taken outside grandma's church on Mother's Day. Three (or is it four??) generations together.

Art From Portland

I mentioned in my previous post about some cool things we bought in Portland.

I got an awesome vase for flowers. I have several vases, but they are all big. They look great with big bouquets, but I don't grow enough flowers to always have huge bouquets. I wanted something smaller that would look pretty on the table with just a few flowers picked from our yard.

Here it is with some lavender, blue bells and scotch broom, all picked from our yard. Lavender grows like crazy here, and I am planting it everywhere. I love having it around the yard and in the house. The blue bells and scotch broom are basically weeds, but pretty weeds :)





Kendra's picture is something we both fell in love with as soon as we saw it. The artist was a woman named Sienna Morris (click here for her website and more examples of her work).

When we re-do her room from nursery to little girl room, I want this picture to be part of the focus of the room. It combines nature, a young woman reading and numbers - all things I hope Kendra will appreciate.

Numbers? Yes, the entire painting is made out of the numbers 1-12.


Here's close-up of the leaf on the far right of the painting. Pretty awesome, isn't it? I'd love to have more of her work.

Portland, OR

Dan went to Portland on Thursday to help an old friend with some computer work. He stayed at The Hotel deLuxe (if you want to see it). It seemed like a good time to go exploring, so Kendra and I took the train down on Friday to join him.

The train ride was fabulous! Beautiful, comfy and enjoyable. If time wasn't an issue I'd never fly again. Trains are so much more spacious and comfy. The scenery was amazing as well. Most of the time the tracks ran along the coastline, with the mountains in the distance. It's a trip I hope to repeat.

Today we wandered Portland, making sure to get a donut from VooDoo Doughnuts. I got the voodoo doll, and we brought a maple bacon back for Kai. They were every bit as good as their reputation. You know the food is good when the store is very tiny, located next to a live action porn theater that smells nauseatingly strongly of Lysol in the morning, and people are still lined up around the block for a doughnut.

Afterwards we wandered down to the riverfront for the weekly Saturday Market. It was huge, with tons of vendors. We each bought something (Dan got a new waterproof fedora-style hat, I got an earthenware vase and Kendra an awesome piece of artwork for her room). We had lunch there then headed back to the hotel to pick up my car.

On the recommendation of a friend, we went to a very pretty park, then drove just outside of Portland to Multnomah Falls. Both were gorgeous and well worth the visit.

Coming back into Portland so we could catch I-5 back home, we hit a MASSIVE traffic jam. It is normally a 3 hour drive from Portland to Seattle...it took us 3 hours to get through Portland. It took over 6 hours for us to actually get home. That part was not so fun.

All in all, a good trip, and one we'll be making again for a bit longer. I'd like to explore some more, and meet up with a friend of mine that lives there. She was out of town at the beach this weekend, so we'll have to try again.

Click HERE for pics of the trip. (You knew there had to be some, right :)

Bathroom Remodel Reveal

Our bathroom remodel was finally completed last week. I thought I'd post the before and after pics so you get an idea of how much work we did :)
It may have taken 5 times as long as we planned, but I LOVE my new bathroom!

Before...

After!