Half of Four

I am really not sure how it happened, but somehow my baby turned two today. Over the last few days people have been asking him how old he is. Occasionally he says "two", but more often he says "four". I think he is in a hurry to grow up and be four like his cousins. As a solution to our problem today Papa told him to say that he was half of four so I guess he is not two, but half of four.

We celebrated his half of fourth birthday by having a Caillou birthday party. Merrick is WAY into Caillou and we thought it would be the perfect theme for his party. We started the day by giving him a Caillou shirt and trucker cap to wear at the party.



When everyone arrived we kicked off the party by letting the kids finger paint with pudding. I think that the pudding made it to the mouth over the paper at a ratio of about 3:1. The kids also thought it was really fun to mix the colors so by the end everything was a nice shade of army green.





Once everyone was thoroughly cover we moved on to our second activity, playdough. Most of the kids kept with the party theme and tried to make Caillou, but Lauren decided to test her artistic skills a little more.





We then decided to take a break from the activities to have a little lunch. We had hamburgers, hot dogs, watermelon and sweet potato fries. The food was really yummy and we all ate too much so we decided to open presents before dessert.

There was no surprise here, but Merrick was totally spoiled by family and friends both near and far. He enjoyed opening the presents and his cousins enjoyed helping him.








After presents we were all still too full so we had our last activity, rocket balloons, which were really fun but did not really translate in the pictures.



We finished the party with Caillou cupcakes that I made and homemade blackberry lemon ice cream.





I think Merrick really enjoyed dessert.





I wish I could stop Merrick from growing up, but that does not seem to work. I guess the next best thing to do is thoroughly enjoy the moments we have and that is just what we did today.

Merrick, Mommy and Daddy love you more than anything and are so grateful you joined our family!

Labor Day in Paradise

I feel like since the foundation of my blog the blog theme has always been how awesome my baby is. Over the last few weeks I have felt the theme has shifted to how awesome my baby is and how awesome the place we live is. If you don't like it I am sure it will shift again someday, but for right now I feel like I am living in paradise and I can't help talking about it. Let me just give you an example of our weekend so you will know what I am talking about.

Friday we ate lunch outside in beautiful 70 degree weather and later in the afternoon went to the park. I was sad when we left Arizona because we had a great park right down the street, but this is the park we now have right across the street.


We had a great time there as a family before Jeremy had to go to class on Friday night.





On Saturday most of my family went out to a campground where Ben and Becca's family was staying, but Jeremy and I decided to take Merrick just down the road to the river beach


We went and explored down by the river and Merrick like chasing the ducks. I was shocked that they let him get as close as they did. After we had spent some time down by the water, we walked along a trail that overlooked the water. It was beautiful and perfect in every way.





Today, we went blackberry picking. I am kicking myself for not bring the camera, but it is amazing that without even leaving my parent's subdivision we could pick blackberries to our hearts content.

It has already been such a fun weekend and the fun will just continue tomorrow when my baby turns two and we have a party to celebrate. Check back in a few days for an update on all the birthday festivities...I can't wait!

Lessons on Preparedness

Okay so yesterday afternoon the power went out at my parents'/our house. It did not really seem like a big deal at the time, but as the hours went on and it started to get dark I started thinking about how we would make it through the night without power. As it turns out we are really dependent on electricity and woefully unprepared to live without it. We had a few, poorly working flashlights and our cell phones that would eventually die without power to charge them, but that was about the extent of our supplies. It got warm in the house, but I was counting my blessings that we were here in Oregon and not back in Arizona and we spent much of the evening outside where it was cooler and lighter.

As the evening wore on we decided we needed to get Merrick ready for bed. It was interesting changing a poopy diaper by the light of a flashlight and of course he would pick that moment when his diaper was off and we could hardly see to decide he needed to pee. We also had the challenge of finding batteries for his sound machine which could not be plugged in as usual and the question of whether we brush his teeth in a dark bathroom or let him skip one time.

In the end the Merrick did get to bed and after six hours the lights did turn on, but I was left with a lot of concerns. We are living not too far from a huge volcano and on top of a large fault line. Experts have said that a massive earthquake is LONG overdue here. While I don't have any desire to live in fear I would like to know that if something were to happen, we could be okay. Last night I learned that we have a long way to go. Since we struggled to make it through six hours my confidence in our long term sustainability is shaky at best.

I am not sure where we go from here, but probably some good working flashlights would be a good first step.

Portlanders

As most of you know, Jeremy and I were both born and raised in Arizona and are basically Arizonans to the core. Given that, we are trying our best to acclimate and adjust to our new home. Oregon, and particularly Portland, is very culture rich with lots to do, see, and explore. Thus far in our almost month of living here we have experienced some of what Portland has to offer and what we have experienced makes us even more excited to find out what being an Oregonian or Portlander is all about.

One of the major rights of passage in becoming a Portlander, and one of our first to experience, is eating at a food cart in downtown. On the way to the food cart we had the full downtown experience with busy streets, difficult parking, interesting people, and one-way streets. We did, however, eventually find both parking and a cart we wanted to eat at.

Our cart of choice was The Sausage Shack. They lured us in with all their signs for their award-winning bacon and it definitely did not disappoint.
Here are Jeremy and Merrick in front of our luxurious dinner accommodations


The food was really fun, interesting, and bad for you. Jeremy had a boring burger with bacon and an egg, I had a philly cheesesteak dog with German smoked sausage, and Merrick had a bacon wrapped corn dog.


This was our view while we ate.



It was a fun experience, although we decided that dealing with downtown in general would be more enjoyable without a two-year-old in tow. We are already planning our next food cart experience. I guess becoming Portlanders might come more naturally than we had thought.

Adventures in Food Part II

Ok so I know that I have done at least one post in the past about how much Merrick loves to eat, but I think it is time for an update. The day before we left for Oregon my sister weighed Merrick and her son Kai (who is 11 months older than Merrick). Merrick weighed 28 lbs and Kai weighed 31. Since coming to Oregon, Merrick thinks it is so fun to hop onto Nana's scale and weigh himself everyday. He has been hovering somewhere between 28 and 30 lbs, but that seems especially crazy when I think about the fact that both of my 4-year-old nephews weigh in the mid 30s.

Don't get me wrong, Merrick is not chunky at all. He is just really tall, solid, and loves to eat. For the most part he is also a really healthy eater. I think he is the only almost 2-year-old in the world who has been talked into eating his meat at dinner with the offer that if he ate his meat he could have some more broccoli.

On the other hand, he also has never been known to turn down a sweet. Over the past two weeks we have had a couple of chances to splurge on some yummy treats. Merrick has been so cute with them we could not resist taking some pictures.

These are from last weekend and our visit to "Heavenly Doughnuts"





And these are from our trip to McDonald's for ice cream after a particularly hard day last week




I have had lots of experiences with a picky eater since we got to Oregon so whether it is broccoli or ice cream I am just really grateful that he eats.

6 and Counting

Yesterday Jeremy and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. We started the day with a shopping trip at the local outlet mall. As we drove we talked about how quickly the last six years have flown by and it truly does feel like it has passed in the blink of an eye.

In the evening my mom and dad (when he was not at the hospital with a friend) were kind enough to stay with Merrick so that Jeremy and I could go out on a date. We went to downtown Lake Oswego for dinner. We stopped at several fancy restaurants before ending up at The Tillamook Creamery. I had halibut and chips and Jeremy had a bacon cheeseburger and we shared some ice cream. We laughed about how even on our anniversary that kind of place was more our speed than a fancy restaurant.

After dinner we did venture out of our typical routine and went to a play at The Lakewood Theater in Lake Oswego. We saw "Boeing Boeing" and it was hilarious.

The first six years of our marriage have been relatively calm. We had our struggles in getting pregnant with Merrick, but for the most part life has been smooth sailing. The next few years however are going to be an adventure. We have done the school thing as a couple before, but never like this. We have all our eggs in this basket and life is going to be different than it has ever been. I take comfort, however, in the fact that I get to tackle this adventure with my best friend. In all honesty I can't wait to see what the future holds for Jeremy and I as a couple and for our whole family.