These things are apart of me

Kate and I drew a lucky card when it comes to people who love us.  While the Morgan girls choo-chooed North to Montana for a few days to see Gramma DeAnn and Grampa Pat - many helpers made the trip possible.  Among them are: Ryan, who volunteered (see also: agreed to) stay with Robby in Oregon. Grammy, who also tended Robby for two days.  Maile who, again,  tended Robby (on his roughest day).  Many thanks to all, I wish I could have shared an ice cream soda at Norm's and built a snow man with all of you. 

Here's some of what we did: 

Norms News, a good old-fashioned soda fountain. and a superb place to celebrate anything.  Birthdays, arrivals, departures, anniversaries, loose teeth, train rides, anything!

Think bookstore meets candy shop meets soda fountain, meets high school reunion and you've got Norms.  Of course I saw one of my high school teachers there.  It was great.

There's a fantastic mural on the brick wall depicting norms news through the years.  The mural was behind us, and a big mirror was in front of us.

I got a ice cream sundae with fudge and nuts and whipped cream and a cherry.  Yum.

Kate got bubble gum ice cream.  Yuck.

 Plenty of sledding. Grampa set the world record for distance when he carved a track about 1/4 mile long.  I know I exaggerate sometimes, this is not an exaggeration.  It was a amazing.  Even the deer were amazed.  This is an exaggeration.  They had to keep running to avoid freezing to death.

And a snow man/ UFO, minus the flying bit.  His name was frosty he was lovely until his nose fell off the next day.

A word on parents, addressed to my parents:

Some of you may have heard the term, "eternal round."  I think this phrase and the word parenting should be listed as synonyms.  Life is often one great big circle of loops, peaks and valleys; parenting included.  My parents may have projected, like me, that after their youngest moved out they would shout, "finito!"  Or maybe in their case, as English-speaking Americans, "done!"  Not so.  As the youngest, I thank you for your continued dedication to us, your kids.  As a remote child you continuously call, you mail, you transfer funds, you send your love, and you pray fervently.  As a visiting child you bought be breakfast.  You helped pay for my train fare.  You purchased new mascara for me when I forgot mine.  You called the doctor for me when I needed a prescription.  You chased down a new prescription for me after a fiasco with the original.  You let me borrow your book I hadn't finished when I left.  Even after all you did, you continued to urge me to disclose what else I needed and comfort me as my still child-like tears spilled over the distress of growing up.  Ryan's parents, neither of you, and no one I know is perfect.  Thankfully we have a big round life housing examples like you to soften the nudging elbows of mistakes and misdeeds. I love you both.

Sayonara Goldilocks

Robby's little pony mane crossed the river styx.  Instead of continuing the internal battle to put it in a ponytail, I removed the temptation. With my scissors.  Bye, bye little hair.  Bye to that little part of babyhood.  Sad.

 Before

 During

After

Looking at these pictures now, I realized two things:

1. I'm not very good at cutting hair.  Despite all the years of playing "hair."

2.  I need a hair cut.

Inferiority be darned

I have to admit, I was having some inferiority complex issues with blogging. Generally the passive, non-competitive type, I have found that the number of comments I procured at the bottom of each little post was beginning to haunt me. Rationalization set in, and continued to set in, to the point of unhealthy; until I realized I was not blogging to document and share, I was blogging to see the comments from others. Which is totally great, I love reading comments from others about my posts. It's like a really slow, very short conversation. Even if I'm not the most popular, creative, or fun, I will continue. Even if I receive a million comments, or zero, I will continue. Because I like to write. And I like to write about my family. And I still like to read what you say. Amen.

Trick-or-Treat at Nordstrom

The story is: The kids and I were killing some time while waiting for Ryan by pretending to shop the Nordstrom downtown. (The closest I get to Nordstrom is the clearance racks at The Rack. I do wish I could get closer. But there's a big fat budget in the way)

Anyway, the kids happened to be dressed up for trick or treating at Daddy's office and a lady approached and said we should have our picture taken. Assuming nothing is free, I politely declined. She approached us again later and asked again, I was a little annoyed at this point, which I apparently didn't hide very well because she said, "it's free!" I said "sign us up!" So we got this picture and got to be chic models for sperry topsiders. I think Kate hit the mark with her faux fur jacket, Robby might have been just a little too high fashion for topsiders in his care bear costume.

In other halloween news: we dressed up 5 of 7 days in Halloween week (my enthusiasm to dress up the kiddos waned with each event, by the last time Kate simply had on leotard with raincoat as a Oregonian ballerina), heavily stocked the bribe box, saw a great halloween puppet show, and Robby was the cutest little care bear you've ever seen. You should have seen him walking in the costume, it was somewhere near a cross between an e-wok and a puppy. CUTE! Kate was simply glamorous as Cinderella. Even with all this cuteness, I think I'm done with Halloween.

Oh and here's Kate's preschool class. The little Barney in the front is her best buddy.

You just have to...

Post on 10-10-10, when does that happen? Besides today I mean.

Eat one ( or two or three) of the warm cookies that come out of the oven on Sunday morning.

Some mornings don't allow any other option, you just have to go back to bed.

Sometimes you just have to rock your baby to sleep and hold them for a long, long time after they've nodded off and drown out the voices from your fear-mongering parenting book saying you'll raise an incompetent, overly dependent child if you do.

Fall asleep on the couch.

Clean the ailing corners in your bathroom. Those dark-looking ones.

Buy the pair of boots you've been eying your whole life, or at least a year or two.

Come to grips with the fact that couponing is not your calling.

Eat the last container of homemade raspberry jam from the freezer, knowing it is the very last one until next summer.

Say happy birthday to your sister. Happy birthday Gabe!

Until next time...

He's the ONE!

Robby turned one on Friday, September 24. This one little sweetie boy has 8 teeth, walks on 2 feet, goes down the stairs backwards on all 4's, is growing an innumerable amount of white hair, rides the trike on 1 bottom, sleeps 10 hours at night, naps for 3, bites 3 times a day (we're working on it), gives 15 hugs all the time, sniffs every flower he sees, raises two hands in the air whenever he's proud, drinks 12 oz of milk at every meal, eats all the groceries (not joking), spins in 15 circles when the music is on, and ate 2 cupcakes on his birthday. Oh and loooooves is 1 sister. Happy day to our little boy, the sunshine.


Here's breakfast in bed for Robby, a little long, but cute.

These are the fun little monkey cupcakes we had. We had lots and lots of other treats too, I wish I had pics of all of them!

Robby got a little banner for his b day. It's right above his high chair and he loves looking at the pictures of himself as he eats.

Rob's b-day was great, with lots of sunshine, just like him.

Livin is Easy

Summertime is messy.

Summertime is little dresses.

Summertime is corn on the cob.

Summertime is smiles.

Summertime is messy.

Summertime is birthdays for Kate and Ryan.

Summertime is fireworks.

Summertime is fresh berries. mmmm.

Mode switch: a few highlights from the last little bit.

We made this badge for Kate for the times when Ryan works from home. She is the protector of his office so no intruders keep him from brining home the bacon. She would never dream of being one of those intruders, that's why we put her in charge :)

Playing the piano while Grandpa works.

Kate made a hummingbird feeder.

Peek a boo. Kate and Robby are beginning to play so well together. Robby is definitely beginning to have his own agenda and voicing his opinion more and more often. Kate's not sure what to think of someone else having an opinion.