Finally here!

 After a last-minute debacle that delayed our closing, we finally own our new home!  We love it!  (Mostly).  Things that are still irritating Jerel are:  the stairway wasn't big enough to get our queen-size box spring up.  After a few nights sleeping on just a mattress on the floor, we thought of taking off the hand rails and that gave us just enough wiggle room to get it up there.  So, all is well now, but Jerel's holding on to the irritation for just a little bit longer.  Also annoying him is the fact that our top-of-the-line fabulous furnace isn't working correctly.  It has two zones and downstairs hovers around 67 while upstairs is around 80 (even though both are set to 68).  The repair people are coming (again) today so hopefully that'll get fixed.  Things that are still annoying Mandy:  it is not an big, old farmhouse with a wraparound porch.  That's okay; who wants to get their ultimate dream home in their 30's?  It would leave you nothing to dream of!  Really, though, we are delighted with our home.  It's almost twice as large as our old one at 3200 square feet, has an enormous garage, a huge playroom for the kids, and some beautiful features we were able to select.  Of course it's still half empty, but that's okay.  This is a home for us to grow into.  (And by "grow" I am referring only to quantity of stuff, not quantity of children, lest any false rumors start flying around!)

The kids seemed to have inherited their photo shoot dispositions from Jerel.  They just were not interested a bit!  We were able to get enough good shots, but there are so many where the kids just plain refused to look at the camera.  My fault--I only offered them the promise of m&m's when we got home; I should have had them right in my pocket to bribe them for each shot.  I'm all for teaching delayed gratification, but I'm also all for having darling family photos.

 I wanted a shot of both kids together.  This is as close as they would get to one another.  Silly gooses!

Me and my boy.  Love him!  For our Utah friends and family, be aware that this photo is being used on some posters for an autism study.  Don't worry--Isaiah doesn't have autism!  It's just that our photographer's sister needed a picture of a mother and son, and seeing how Isaiah is so adorable, this is the one she wanted.  So no, no family secrets here (I don't think they can even diagnose autism in someone as young as Zay can they?) it's just the beginning of Isaiah's career as a super model.

Oh Eliza, just smile!

My favorite of the whole photo shoot.

Almost there

Here's the new house, just about finished.  The last few weeks seems to have dragged along waiting for our closing date to arrive, and it still isn't here.  Some things I won't miss after we move:

1.  Living by the dump.  For the most part it's been fine, but there are days now and then when it just smells all day.

2.  Not having air conditioning.  A true trial for me.  I think I was born with extra & overactive sweat glands or something.  And of course we had like the longest, hottest summer ever while living A/C-free in the rental.

3.  Having a kitchen junk drawer that is only 4 inches wide.  

4.  Carpeting in the dining room.  What a dumb idea.  I vacuum it way too often, but it's never often enough. I've found, though, that if the kids spill food it's better to just wait 24 hours for it to crust over and then it vacuums right up instead of mushing into the carpet.  They sure spill a lot too--I think our vacuum bag probably counts as a 72-hour supply of food.

5.  Tiled kitchen & bathroom counters.  Those are the most annoying thing ever.  The grout lines are never clean.

6.  Sliding glass doors and their accompanying screen doors.

7.  Having half of my stuff boxed up in the garage.

8.  Parking outside

9.  A dishwasher that melts our plastic plates (which my children cry about), and refuses to wash sippy cups without turning them upside down and filling them with dish water.

10.  Making visitors sleep on the floor in Isaiah's bedroom.  Usually on an under-inflated air mattress, and often while freezing because the blankets are lost (see #7)

I'm sure there are more things; I'll add them to the list as I think of them.

Isn't she lovely?

A Car & A Day at the Beach

 Zay wanted to make a car from a box. Jerel got a marker and drew a steering wheel on it.  Not bad, but someone with my breadth of Pinterest experience had a few more ideas.  Paper plates became the steering wheel and the tires, an empty toilet paper roll became the exhaust pipe, a cereal box was turned into a license plate, and two clear plastic cups were painted yellow for headlights.  He played with it for a few days and then tore it up.  Here he is, car parked in the kitchen, pretending to be asleep but letting a little bit of smile slip out!
 

A few weeks ago I decided to surprise the kids with a trip to the beach.  I told them in the morning that I was going to take them somewhere special.  I snuck and put all their beach toys in the car, and since they only have like two beach toys I also snuck in any regular toys that could be fun at the beach.  We stopped at the library on the way and the librarian pulled a bunch of picture books about the beach for me. I kept giving them to Zay and he'd tell me what they were about but he still hadn't caught on.

About halfway there he figured it out and was super excited!

Here's Eliza demonstrating what happens if you cry with sand all over your face.  She's at an awkward age, not having grown enough to ride Isaiah's bike yet, and not having one of her own.  A downside to having two kids so close:  Zay is not yet big enough for the next size up but Eliza is ready for his bike.  Soon enough the weather will turn yucky and by next summer he'll get a new one and she'll get his balance bike.  In the mean time she cries and cries until I finally wear down enough to put her on his bike and push her around in circles.

They had a good time.  It was in the 90's at home and I checked the forecast before leaving and for the town we went to it was supposed to be in the low 80's.  It actually didn't even get up to 70, so it was yet another cold day at the beach.  In all my secret packing I forgot their jackets so they ended up wearing two sets of clothes at once to keep warm.

Just when I was starting to think the kids would never want to go back home, I noticed the tide was coming in a bit and mentioned that if it came up too high it would get us all wet. Zay was already wet up to his waist from splashing in the water, but for some reason this terrified him. He ran over and starting pounding on the car door begging me to let him in so he wouldn't get wet.  I guess he doesn't understand that the timing of a tide coming in is not as quick as a tsunami coming in.  The poor kid was in a panic while I packed everything up!

On the way home, Zay told his exhausted mother he would rather have gone to the splash pad (3 miles from our house).  I am continually reminded that just because I think something will be enormously fun for my kids doesn't mean they'll actually enjoy it!

Week 16

Things to notice:  Even though it is wet Oregon, we had to do this wooden fence.  No option to upgrade to a durable man-made product.  Every house in our entire neighborhood (100's of homes) has to have this soon-to-rot nightmare.

There will be a railing around the porch soon, but in the mean time Isaiah loves jumping off.  It's a good size porch--10 feet deep and, um, you know, sort of long.  15 feet long maybe?  Plenty of room for our patio set.  Oh wait, we don't have a patio set, but someday when we get one we'll have a place for it now!

 The yard, although *TINY* by Utah standards is definitely a typical new construction Oregon size.  It's a bit bigger than the back yard in the rental we're in, but tons smaller than our old house.  We keep reminding ourselves:  There is a park just around the corner!  (This doesn't actually substitute for a large backyard because I can't supervise my kids at the park while doing the dishes (or watching TV) but that's okay.  My kids actually go in our teeny rental backyard and play for a long time with no space at all.  They just need some dirt.


The side yard is my favorite.  Whatever is the minimum allowed by code is what we have.  Seriously, if you open our kitchen window and the neighbors open their kitchen window, I'm pretty sure we could hold hands.

Utahns may laugh, but this is the space we're going to use for our garden.  Keep in mind that I can't grow anything anyway, and even if I could, no one in our house eats very much stuff that can be grown.  Zay is only interested in planting mac & cheese.  So this space will be quite suitable.  It's the other side yard, which leaves the back space wide open for the kids.

 Zay showing you how BIG the porch is

Probably the most important upgrade for our new home.

 Right behind Eliza is the door that goes out to the porch.  I will definitely not miss having a sliding glass door--I hate those!  This pic shows the "great room."Great room from the other angle.

Week 15

The kids' favorite part is playing in the dirt everytime we go over there.  I'm hoping those little blue flags don't mean anything important because not a one of them is in the same spot it was before the kids got there...