Remember in the movie, Pulp Fiction, when Mia tells the tomato joke? How the baby tomato was lagging behind the mama and the papa tomato, so the papa went back and squished the baby and said, “Ketchup!”
Okay, that actually doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m going to post here tonight, except for that I am trying to catch up on my posting here. What’s that you say? I haven’t posted in… how long?! Are you serious? Oh no. Then I better do some serious catching up. But so as not to bore you all (all two of you who are still checking in here) to death, I’ll do it this way: I’ll post photos from the time since my last post here, with no more than two sentences to go with each picture. Sound fair and manageable? Well then. Away we go!
We had to take a family Christmas photo! But since we didn’t have Kane home with us to be in the picture, I decided it should just be of the three lovely girls.
Shaelyn introduced Eila to her belly button, and for the next many days, Eila was very fixated on it. Her fixation included altering her style of dress to ensure maximum access to said belly button at all times.
Eila may or may not have been spotted in her play pen, playing with a video game controller (don’t know the proper name for it) while a stuffed Kirby sat idly by, and a packet of Ramen noodles also somehow appears in the photo. I think Eila was missing her papa.
For the next four pictures, I have to share a story. As an awesome present, Bubba (Kate’s mom, the girls’ grandma), paid for Kate, Lori, Shaelyn, Davia and Eila to go on a special Holiday Express train ride through the wilderness of Portland. The train was decorated all Christmasy, and Santa Claus was even on board! By the way, it turns out that Eila, in no small way, hates Santa. Like HATES him. It was pretty funny. Had the whole train laughing. Not quite so funny, however, that I could bring myself to let go of the desperately clinging baby to dig my camera out of my purse and snap a photo. The kid needed hugs. So hug I did… while trying with all my might to carve that memory into my mind forever. What? It was wicked funny!
Shaelyn and Davia in the car on the way to the train.
Kate, also in the car on the way to the train.
Eila, yes again, in the car on the way to the train. (Before being terrified by the jolliest man on earth.)
There are Lori and Davia on the train. See the Christmas lights and stuff? Fun.
Speaking of Lori, she is something we have lost since the last time I wrote here. I mean, we haven’t lost her completely. She’s still alive and well. Got an excellent new job, which is fantastic. Unfortunately, the job is down in California, so we had to say goodbye to her. We miss her lots, but with Kane coming home right before she left, the timing worked out as good as it could have. And we’re so happy to know she’s working somewhere she feels good about and that’s treating her well. Go, Lori! (But come visit soon!) And actually, for the sake of this post, she’s still around until after New Year’s, as you’ll see below.
Went down to the SF bay area in CA for Christmas, and finally after way too long, we met back up with Kane!! Hooray! Here you can see Eila and her long lost Papa, reunited in baggage claim.
Now, I have to say here that a highlight of our California trip wad definitely the cookie decorating party and competition we attended at Kane’s parents’ house. Here’s a teaser picture of that for you:
And soon I will put a link to a cookie party post (with many more photos) HERE. (There are too many great photos from that to fit into this ketchup post.)
Also, way too many Christmas photos to post, but I’ll try to stick a few random ones in here. The above was taken Christmas Eve, at my mom’s house in California.
And a couple more Christmas Eve shots:
This one was taken of S and D and their sweet and awesome cousin, Rosalind, right as they were all about to (try and) go to sleep on Christmas Eve.
And here’s Rosalind again…
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Christmas morning now. Here you see the stockings, hung with care, and then stuffed with love.
Here’s our first riser of the Christmas morn, Shaelyn. Well, first after the baby and myself, of course.
A few days post-Christmas, some of us at my mom’s house were lucky enough to be offered a chance to buy tickets to a play! With some of our favorite performers in it, how could we resist?
The amazingly talented trio of cousins, Shaelyn, Julia and Davia, performed a spectacular show for us.
The audience had some spectacular characters in it as well.
Our beautiful Julia was a delight to see.
As the end of our trip neared, Kate learned that her brother, Jamey, had generously agreed to let her bring home this awesome, yellow ukulele (who now goes by the name of Sally). That’s just the best thing ever.
After a punctual yet grueling trip home, we were met back in Oregon by our dear friend, Lori, who had cleaned the whole house and arranged a lovely Christmas scene to behold. More Christmas!! (It was now New Year’s Eve.)
We have a long-standing tradition of celebrating New Year’s Eve with home spa treatments, and Kane is never one to pass up a chance to soothe his tired eye lids with some refreshing cucumber slices.
It can be hard to choose between the black tea bag eye treatment and the cucumber one. Davia wasn’t bothered though – she chose both!
After trying our best (unsuccessfully) to stay up until midnight, New Year’s Day was spent relaxing, watching a movie, enjoying a nice brunch, and – for Eila – getting tangled up in a string of lights.
SO… holidays have passed now, and we’re all settling back in to “normal” life. Kane’s back at work at Laika (hooray!), the girls are back at school, and Kate and Eila are spending their days playing with giraffes and fairies, reading books, doing dishes and laundry (etc.), trying to keep up with the demands of the house and family life, and looking forward to catching up with S and D (and then, later, Kane) when they all come home from their respective places of Responsibilities. Oh, and of course, weight lifting, as you can see above. Eila is very strong. Sometimes Kate can’t even lift a twelve pack!
And what’s going on RIGHT now, you ask? Well, I got a few hours to myself today when Kane took all three girls to an art museum in Portland. What is a mom to do with herself in her designated time off? Why, play with puppets of course. I would like to say that this picture is not representative of the majority of my time spent alone at home this afternoon. But that would be misleading. I spent more time than I would like to admit playing with puppets. What? They’re fun.
Anyway, it’s been a pleasure catching up you, and I hope to be posting more soon, as we’re getting settled back into what we very loosely describe as “our normal routine”.
Be well! xoxox
What you’re telling us…