Upcoming Reunions and Fun!

We’re so excited!  Or at least, I know that I’m excited.  I’m pretty sure Eila is excited too.  We get to see the big girls in less than a week, and then we get to see Papa shortly after that!  Yay!
Shaelyn and Davia will be coming home from their wild and crazy adventures in California Tuesday or Wednesday, hitching a ride with their beloved Bubba.  I can’t wait to see them!  Hope it’s not a major let down to go from all the excitement they’ve been enjoying in California to the hum drum routines of our lives here in Oregon.  But I think they’ll be okay.  And I’m just so excited to give them big hugs.  And to see their new haircuts!
Then we get a visit from Bubba for a few days, which is always a treat.  Then on Friday, if plans don’t change, we’ll drive up for a road trip and visit to Kane in Vancouver.  Can’t wait to see him either.  We all miss him tons.
Lots to look forward to!  Notice this post is about things I’m anticipating, rather than things that are actually going on here and now.  I’m not bored, and Eila’s not (too) bored… but I think if I told you how our days go, YOU’d be bored.  So I’ll just leave you with this picture of us at the park the other day.

love to all,

Kate and Eila

Just Us, Kate and Eila

It’s a quiet house here with just me and little Eila.  If you’ve read our “About Our Mountain – 10 Months Later” page, or if you’ve otherwise heard the news, you know that Kane left yesterday for Vancouver BC.  He’ll be gone 5 months.

Shaelyn and Davia are still down in California visiting family and friends.  From what I hear, they’re having the time of their lives.  Doing more fun stuff in a week or two than they’ve done in the past 10 months up here, I think.  I miss those girls a lot, but I’m glad they’re having so much fun.

So what do a Mama and an Eila do when left home alone for 9 days?  Well, it may be too soon to tell, as Kane just left yesterday.  But so far, we’re not doing too much.  We did both have a rather fitful night of sleep last night.  Woke up early.  Got to Skype with Kane before he went to work.  I think Eila seemed a little confused by that, but also happy to see her Papa.

The very first thing I did upon arriving home from the airport, after dropping Kane off, was the only thing that made any sense to do in such a situation.  I changed a switch plate on the wall leading up our stairs.  Grandpa Jim brought the girls one from Alaska, and Kane didn’t have time to put it up before he left.  But it ended up being the perfect way for me to prove to myself, if only symbolically, that I will survive without my man of the house, and that I can take care of things myself.

Though I’m missing my girls, I’m comforted by things that remind me of them.  Like their garden out front, which is actually doing quite well.  Let’s see if I can keep it in a viable state until they get home…

 

 

 

And I keep looking sadly at our “Time to Take Tea” sign, which normally is displayed during our daily “Tea at Three”, where the big girls and I share tea, cookies, and conversation.  (Usually for about 10-15 minutes, but it’s still a dear ritual to me.)

 

Eila’s handling all this missing of people well, I’d say.

 

I’m interested to see how this next week goes, just me and the baby, missing all kinds of people, north and south of us.  We’ll keep you posted.  So far, I think we’re going to be okay.

 

2012 Family Camping Trip

We’re back home now from a fun adventure, camping in McCloud, CA, with some of our favorite family and friends.  What a time we had!  Dirt and swimming, mosquitoes and beetles, tents and sleeping bags, scary stories, marshmallow roasts, a talent show, campfires, strangely cooked food, musical accompaniment, little girls with nets, a baby in a box, banana boats, a waterfall, pirates and fairies, Bubba’s famous chili, Lauren’s famous tofu, Davey’s famous ravioli, hammock wars and much, much more!

Here are some of our favorite pictures from the trip.

Here, Lauren, Rosalind, Bubba, Eila and Davia lounge at the campsite…

Here, Kane shakes the giggles out of Eila…

Here’s our camp…

The hammock was a source of much joy and also contention this year…

Happy campers…

Lots of good cousin bonding time…

Mari, the dog, came too!

Eila was sometimes kept in a box.  She didn’t mind!

More happy campers…

Pirate treasure…

Swimming…

Camping is wonderful fun and so exhausting!

Eilastones

(How’d that title work for you?  Get it?  “Eilastones”… like “milestones?”  No?  Oh well.)

Eila is hitting all kinds of milestones, being the best baby she (or any baby) could be.  She crawls… kind of.  Okay, she crawls backwards.  But that’s still moving!  And she signs!  Okay, she only signs one sign.  It’s the sign for “more” (the easiest sign to teach babies, since it inherently involves a reward).  And technically, I suppose she does it wrong, because she just does a one-handed version of it.  But that’s not her fault.  It’s for one of two reasons:  One, her left hand often seems to get stuck behind her in her high chair.  Or two, whenever I do the sign for more, I have a spoon with food in it in my right hand, so it probably looks like I’m mostly signing with my left hand.  Anyway, here’s our brilliant baby signing “more”.  (P.S.  You can see that at one point in this video, she actually does do it with both hands.  That’s the only time I’ve seen her do that, but I guess that shows that she knows the correct sign.  Maybe she just has a lazy arm.)

 

 

And here is Eila, working on her “standing up”.  It’s her papa’s favorite game to play with her.

And here they go again…

I especially like that one, because you can see Shaelyn’s art gallery on the wall behind them.  She’s got some amazing pieces up there, and she’s adding to it all the time.

But back to Eila, since that’s what this post is about.  Here she is, working on her pincer grasp.  That’s just fancy child development talk for picking up small things.  Look at her go!

 

 

 

Also, she has teeth!  Want to see?

See:

And see again…

And finally, here’s Eila wearing a new bib that came in the mail just the other day from her aunt Jenna in England:

We continue to be amazed by and overjoyed with Eila every single day.  She’s such a lovely little person.  Becoming more and more so (which didn’t seem possible) the older she gets.  What a baby!