Happy Anniversary to Us!!!

Oopsies!  Sorry to any of you who tried to view this video before I realized I had accidentally left it set on private.  Should be fixed now.  It was originally made just for Kane, to be sent to him in an email, but I am technologically challenged, and somehow this way ended up being easier.  So now he can see it (hopefully) and so can all of you!!

Two years ago today, Kane and I were married.

Here’s a video about that.  Sorry about the quality.
Hope you like it!

Happy Anniversary, Kane!!  I love you forever.

so much love,

kate

Shhhh! I’m trying to blog.

Quick!  Everyone be silent!  No one call “MAMAAAA!” from the next room, or make my phone ring (I probably can’t find it anyway), or fall off a chair and bump their head, or ask me where their other shoe is, or scratch at my door, or pull someone’s hair, or knock at my door asking (again) if the grounded child can come out to play, or anything like that!  Just SSSHHHHH!

Just wait a second.  I need to update our blog.  (P.S. If anyone knows how to pause time, that would be an awesome help, since so very many of my time-suckers don’t even come near any of the situations mentioned above.)  But I think maybe… just maybe… I have time to tell you what’s been going on around here.

But who am I kidding?  No, I don’t.  What I have time to do is haphazardly slap a bunch of recent photos onto this post, hopefully even with captions, and then get back to it.  Life is busy.  You all know that.  You’re busy too.  I know that.  How anyone manages to keep up with telling their life story (or even a fraction of it) while living it (or even a fraction of it) is beyond me.

Wait, what was I saying?  I had to go check on a dog-barking, door-knocking, kid-questioning situation.  I lost my place.

Anyway, here are some recent pictures.

on the way to a brunch at our friend’s house

Davia and Shaelyn

Eila crawling in friend’s yard at brunch thing

Hammocks are still fun!

So fun!

Baths are still fun too.

And bath toys are tasty.

Kids like walking dogs.

Girls and Lori at Lake

Girls and Kate at Lake

Eila at the lake

Yeah, we’re all mad here.

 

 

Eating dinner out of doors!

 

We were lucky enough to be joined by President Obama for patio dining.

 

Daytime balcony fun. (Shaelyn and Eila)

 

Walking at sunset, with friend.

 

A bunch of girls pose on a walk during sunset.

That’s it!  No, that’s not all the pictures I have.  That’s all the time I have to post them!

I’m off to wrangle children and other mammals, put this house on lock-down for the night and eat some tapas before turning the bedtime on myself and hitting the pillow.  Hard.

Goodnight, all!

love,

kate

Third Grader Girls!!!

Guess who’s started third grade now!!  It’s Shaelyn and Davia.  They’re amazing.  Only three days into the school year, they’re rocking it.  I’ve already received positive feedback from both of their teachers.  And I’m optimistically looking forward to volunteering in both their classes this year.  They’re both happy with their new teachers.  Things are looking good, school-wise.

This picture was taken as the girls walked home from their first day of third grade.  Aren’t they radiant?  We’re all so proud of them.
Meanwhile, the feel of summer lingers, and playing with neighborhood friends, whether after school hours or on weekends, remains a priority for our growing girls.  Here are a few pictures snapped this afternoon of Shaelyn and Davia with some of their favorite neighbor friends….

Here’s wishing Shaelyn and Davia both a productive, successful and happy third grade year.  May they learn things that inspire them.  May they make new friends and keep the old.  May their intense curiosity and hunger for knowledge continue to characterize them.  May they achieve all their goals and make new ones boldly.  May they discover new things about themselves and love what they find.  May they see themselves and each other with the same awe and appreciation so many of us see them with.  May their enthusiasm, reverence and passion continue to touch and inspire all of us lucky enough to know them.  I know all their friends and family are rooting for them, waiting eagerly to see what’s next to come from these two such special girls.

Shaelyn and Davia!  Best of luck in this new school year.  We all believe in you.  Love you girls.

The Swing of Things

What do kids love more than a hammock? Almost nothing.

Thanks to Lori, we now have a hammock on our back deck, and Shaelyn and Davia just love it.  Here they are lounging in it on Friday evening…

 

 

 

And here they are sharing the fun with their baby sister…

 

 

You might have noticed that S and D are wearing strange words on their fronts.  I don’t mean the words are strange because they’re in Spanish, although they are.  I mean they’re strange, because they’re Spanish for “Rabbit Monkey” and “Goose Poop.”  But I can explain.  We’ve started a Friday evening tradition of having a festive dinner themed around a place or country.  This week it was Spain, and one of our festive activities was choosing names for ourselves in Spanish, and then making everyone else call us that the whole evening.  If someone forgot, they had to do a funny dance.  I feel like I was doing funny dances all night long, but I now realize that’s because, as the mama, I’m the one who always has to say “Hey So and So!  Stop that!”  Often in a hurry.  (Like “Don’t drop the baby!” or “Don’t fall down the stairs!” or “Stop!  That’s hot!”)  So there’s no time for remembering strange names.  But luckily, I’m very good at silly dancing.

Fun times.

In other news, Kane comes home to visit for a couple days today.  He should arrive at the Portland train station at 3, where he will be greeted by a bunch of smiling girls.  Can’t wait to see him!

Here’s wishing everyone out there a happy weekend!

love,

lava la ropa

Babies Galore!

Back up has arrived.  (For Kate, anyway.)  Our dear, beloved friend, Lori, and two furry friends have come to stay with us while Kane is gone, and we couldn’t be happier (unless, of course, Kane was home).  They got in Wednesday night.  You can read a little more about that at our Eila blog here.

The two furry friends are a cat named Max and a dog named Roxie.  That’s adding a dog and a cat and a grown-up to a house with a grown-up, a baby and two 8-year-old girls.  What could be more fun than that?  Oh, and I almost forgot, we also added our mantis babies yesterday.  What’s that?  you might be wondering.  Mantis babies?

Oooooh yeah.  All 200 (+ or -) of them.  Here’s their newborn portrait:

And if they don’t look crawly enough in that photograph, please check out the following video:

They hatched from a weird, pod thing that we’ve been keeping in a jar with a couple sticks for the past few weeks.  It seems like just yesterday (when actually, it was the day before), I was looking at that pod, wondering if and when the babies would ever come.  And then all of a sudden, the jar was alive with squirming little exoskeletons!  We rushed them outside, fearing they might start to eat each other or fight to death, all cramped in such a tight space.  In the above video, you see our fearless Shaelyn holding the jar, with no lid on it, as they crawl out by the dozen, hopping first on to her hand or sleeve or dress, and then onto the tree she’s sitting in, off into the world.

We did keep a few, as she suggested we do in the video.  They have a very nice home.

Besides caring for our sex-legged friends, the girls are very much enjoying those with four legs.  Their new favorite activity is accompanying Lori on dog walks.

Fun times, and many more to come!

How to Say “Happy Birthday!”

Today is August 19th, a very important birthday!  What special person was born on this day?  Was it ex-president Bill Clinton?  Well, yes, but we’re talking about someone else.  Was it rapper Nate Dogg?  Um, yeah, but no… who else?  Ogden Nash?  Yes, but fine, I’ll tell you.  It’s the wonderful, marvelous Grandpa Jim!

For this special occasion, we’ve compiled a collection of translations of the words, “Happy Birthday, Grandpa Jim!”  That way all his favorite friends can wish him a good day.  Enjoy!

We hope Grandpa Jim, an amazing father, grandfather and father-in-law, and an avid birder, had a perfect day today.

We love you!!

Out Today, it’s Paranorman!!!

The day we’ve been waiting for is finally here!  Paranorman, the movie Kane was working on at Laika and the reason we moved to Portland in the first place, is out in theaters today.  Yay!!

NPR is talking about it here.

Time is talking about it here.

Wired.com tells you 10 things you should know about it here.

I could go on, but you can Google it yourself if you’re interested.  There’s a lot of buzz, and from what I’m seeing, it’s almost all good.

And I have to say, this is totally atypical for us to be pushing a movie Kane worked on.  And we’ve never been counting down the days ’til one opened like this.  Some of them we don’t even watch at all.  But this one’s different.  And you should really, really see it.  Not because Kane worked on it (he works hard and flexes his genius for ALL the movies he works on), but because this one really is amazing and awesome and totally worth seeing.  Hmm, I guess I should admit here that I haven’t exactly seen it myself yet… However, I did see some of the making of it, and I do know how much time and energy and creativity went into it.  And… oh, just see it!

 

P.S.  For the record, Kane’s pay for this project is not at all affected by its success at the box office, and he has nothing monetary to gain from you (or anyone else) going to see this movie.

 

In case anyone’s still not convinced, I’ll leave you with this:

 

People, you can’t make this stuff up!  (Only Laika can.)

 

Vancouver, B.C., in August

 

 

 

 

 

 

I keep trying to post about our trip to Vancouver last weekend, but it’s already almost Friday, and it’s not happening so far.  So I’ll do a picture post, with captions, in hopes that that’s sufficient for now.  Above, you’ll see a picture of Kane, Eila and Kate in a Vancouver park near Kane’s fancy, temporary apartment, courtesy of his employer.  (The apartment was courtesy of his employer – not the park.)  Below, you’ll see Shaelyn and Davia, enjoying that same park, atop a fountain.

Kane’s apartment building had a swimming pool on the 6th floor!  Did I mention it was fancy?  We all swam at least once during the visit.

And as if a 6th-floor swimming pool weren’t cool enough, there was also an 8th-floor terrace!  One early morning, Shaelyn, Eila and Kate ventured up there to catch a nice view of the city.

And back to the park we went.  Shaelyn and Davia climbed on a rock thing.

And more fountain action…

Sisters swinging…

Davia (the monkey of the family) climbing…

We also got to see Kane’s lovely new, longer-term apartment before we left, and we met his wonderful new roommate, but we didn’t get any pictures of that.

On our way home, Shaelyn and Davia ate ice cream by the border, paid for half in Canadian currency and half in USAmerican, and then they ate that ice cream outside the duty free shop where Kate bought maple candies, so as not to leave the country with more money than she wanted to put in a scrap book.  She was forgetting that we’ll probably be returning in the somewhat near future, and that Canadian money is not completely useless if not spent on maple candies.  (But mmm… maple candies!)

We weathered the 40-minute wait to re-enter the United States, flashed our passports, and then revved our oil-leaking engine, on our way home again.  For now.

We miss Kane a lot.  It was wonderful to see him.  Hope it’s not too long until we meet again.

Love to all!

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.