The Pioneer Woman Visits Portland

A few years ago I ran across this recipe (this is an old family recipe blog that we never really use anymore- sadly) and was first turned on to The Pioneer Woman- Ree Drummond. I have been hooked ever since. She is an amazing writer/blogger who started her blog 4 years ago as a way to keep her family updated on her children's and her life. And today she is blogging phenomenon who gets millions of hits a day! She lives on a working cattle ranch in rural Oklahoma.

She came out with a cookbook last year
and I have wanted to get it since I heard it was pre-selling! Unfortunately, it wasn't in the budget and she wasn't coming to Portland for a book signing so I figured there was no rush.

Until I hopped on her facebook page on day and there was a new post about coming to Portland!
Woohoo!

I may have peed a little in that moment!
Oh sorry, TMI?

So last Monday I tossed J in the car, I dropped G at a friends, picked up another friend Gretchen and drove over to Powell's to meet PW! (I had bought the book 2 weeks before on ebay)

I made this shirt (CBE= cutest baby ever) hoping to use J as bait. :)
PW LOVES babies! (yes I totally pimped out my kid- shameless I know!)

We got to the book store about 4. There had been people waiting to see her since 10 am!!
So we waited.

And waited.

She was supposed to be there at 6 but got a bit lost.
So we waited some more.

It made no difference though, she was as amazing as we hoped she would be! She was funny and sweet and very candid.

(there is a "WOOHOO" about 29 seconds. That was me- and I woke up Jax. hehe)

Her singing!


Here she is signing my book and a little something for Geneva who'd had a c-section the week before and wasn't up for the adventure.

And here she is taking J's picture! Bait may have worked! Check back later to see if I have updated with a link to her blog if she posts his pic... fingers/toes/eyes crossed!

Signing J's shirt.

Gretchen was in love too.

Powell's had given out 360 tickets to meet PW, and we were 151/2. It took just about 2 hours for us. There was SO many people there. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say 1000 or so. So when we were done we decided to clear out to make more room.

It was CROWDED!

Then we went down the hall in the mall and got Peach wave frozen yogurt. I fell in love all over again! 16 self-serve flavors and ALL the toppings, in HUGE cups for .36 and oz. I have a huge bowl and it was only $4! The one down the street I was eating when I was pregnant with Jax is $2.50 for a 3 oz cup, and they make sure they weigh it to not give you too much. Oy.

Honestly, maybe the perfect date. Now to get my husband to take me to meet my "girl-crush" and get frozen yogurt....
I swoon! LOL

Absolutely perfect night! Oh! and Jax was a fabulous adventure-r with us! He took a brief nap, fussed just long enough to nurse and played "cute baby" the rest of the time!

Here's another one: my head is about 3:13. LOL :-D

p.s. tell everyone you know about my blog! I wanna be her when I grow up! :)

Nothing Sweeter

As a Mommy this is absolutely, by far my most favorite view.

I makes my heart happy to know that I am growing this little person, both inside my body and out.


*Zack's pc is having a momentary lapse of kindness and letting me upload- so be prepared to read for the next week! :) Hopefully it cooperates a while.*

well another one bites the dust

Seriously, I have the WORST computer "luck/ karma/ juju" or whatever. I have been MIA still because we still have not come up with the funds to buy another laptop. And as everyone knows, I seem to kill them. The dinosaur (9 yr old desktop) hates me and refuses to load anything in less than 15 minutes so its more frustration then its worth. Who has that kind of time?!

So I have been using Zack's work pc. Until now. Apparently, they don't want me to anymore. I tried to upload some pics just now and got a block message. Le sigh. I guess its back to the drawing board. Maybe we'll win the lottery. Or Powerball. Guess I should go play...

I've been busy!

Because I have not been able to blog I have had more time to work on other things. And EVERYONE I know is pregnant or just had a baby so many of those things have been baby gifts.

Here is a few of them:

cloth diapers for Geneva/ Vivian

Vivian's blanket

burpies for Vivian

Vivi's burpies and 6 wipes

Diana/ Rachel's burpies

boopy cover I made for Jaxon's room.

this post was lost in my ooops forgot to post file. :)

Help for Serena

One of the yahoo group coops I am on, Notion Supply, is run by Serena who also runs an orphanage in China. She is an amazing woman who helps many tiny babies and she needs help now. She is pregnant and having a very hard time. She is about to be put on bed rest making it nearly impossible to run the coop, of which the profits go to China Little Flower- her babies. If you are interested in reading more about them and possibly helping here is her link.

Thank you! Off to hit that donate button myself. Time for us to start paying it forward.

**Update**
This is a post from the orphanage blog. I am completely awed by what these woman do. This baby is a testament to their love.

FROM THEIR BLOG: Sunday, March 28, 2010

Baby Wang Update

"Baby Wang arrived in mid-January in critical condition. This little one was abandoned with ambiguous genitalia, but his most urgent problem was a history of constant vomiting and severe dehydration. The orphanage was located in a remote area without access to a high standard of medical care. They had the baby admitted to the hospital, but after several weeks they still had no diagnosis or treatment plan. Not knowing what else to do, the baby was discharged back to orphanage care. It became clear after several days that the orphanage was unable to deal with the severity of this baby's problems, so they asked if we might help.

We agreed to accept the baby and transferred to our main medical home at once. When little Wang arrived, he was already 6 weeks old, but was barely over 5 lbs. When we discussed this baby with our medical consultants, the baby's unusual symptoms (ambiguous genitalia and severe malnourishment and dehydration) rang a bell with one pediatrician. She suggested we see if this might be something called congenital adrenal hyperplasia.

Because the test for this condition is both expensive and difficult to obtain here, doctors recommended that we assume this was the problem and treat as such. Baby Wang began drug treatment for the adrenal hyperplasia and has been under the watchful eye of an expert dietician who is working to combat many weeks of malnourishment.

We are delighted to say little Wang has responded wonderfully, which confirms the doctor's suspicions of the original diagnosis. At this point it is still unsure if Wang is actually a boy or a girl, but chromosome testing later will answer this question. For now, we are just so glad that Wang is on the road to a normal and healthy life. See how much he has changed!"

Hotdog and Hams

Another G baby is born

When Grayson was a baby I started using gDiapers and fell immediately in love.
I have talked about them before here and here.

A few weeks ago Jax and I had a chance to participate in another booth at the Better Living Expo in Portland. We had a great time and he took his job of 'model' very seriously and I think he did a great job. Especially considering he has big shoes, er, diapers to fill. :)
(haha- that's pun-ny!)

Here is a video of the show. Jax and I are in there about minute 1.09 and 1.22.

Jax a dot

I can't believe he was this tiny! (more on that later)
These were taken at just over 6 weeks old while we were at our Breast Feeding support group.

ahhh. so sweet.

Happy Easter!

I love watching my children(s) eyes light up when they see their presents on Christmas or Birthdays, and Easter is no exception. I loved letting the Easter bunny know what my children would love in their baskets this year. ;-)

We had told Grayson that when he was sleeping much like Santa, the Easter bunny would "hop" in our house and fill up his basket we left out (and Jaxon's) and then hide the eggs for G to find when he woke up. Grayson woke up and came into our room, a little fussy and climbed in bed with me, still grumbling. Until he realized what day it was. He immediately stopped whining and asked if the bunny had come.

Zack took him to the loft to look over the banister into the living room to see if his basket was filled. But imagine his surprise when he also saw these.
He was VERY upset the the bunny had not wiped his feet properly and made a mess.

AGAIN!

Silly bunny did it last year too. We told him it was okay and moved on to his basket. An Elmo dvd, Cadbury bunny that cheeps, and some egg shaped sidewalk chalk for G. 2 Monkey hangers and some new shoes for Jax.
After being a bit tentitive about going near the bunny prints he finally came around and moved onto his egg hunt. He was so excited to run around the house finding all the eggs the bunny hid. But he had some questions: how did the bunny get in the family room? hopped we said. But why aren't there "print prints"? (blank stares at each other...) because he got all the "dirt" off in the first few hops. Once we answered all his questions to his satisfaction, we "hopped" on to get ready for the rest of our adventure.

Having little to no family in the area does pose its challenges. Holidays for example. We have spent the last 7 years we have lived here being "floaters" on holidays. Many times we have spent various holidays with my childhood friend Bonnie's family in Vancouver, WA. Others were spent with a high school friends family or other various friends. I think I finally found a tradition I can wrap my family around for the duration.

We went to Mt. Hood's Timberline Lodge for Easter Brunch. It was A-MAZ-ING! The food was SO good. The atmosphere was very family friendly and because there had been a near blizzard for days the snow was piled high! It was gorgeous!

In this photo you can see how high up the building the snow is. The center above the black suburban is the entry way. They build a large metal covering over the stairs so the snow doesn't cover them. We have never been to Timberline before. You may recognize it from the Stephen King movie The Shining that was filmed there. And seriously this place is HUGE! I only really went to the bathroom to change Jax and I got lost.

We had a lovely lunch and then headed out for some snow play. This year we got little snow at home and I wasn't really willing to head the hour and half to the mountain at 9 months pregnant so this is the first large amount of snow for our winter... in the spring.

Jaxon is wearing Grayson's old bib's, that are huge on him. But warm is warm. Yes, he is in his carrier backwards, for those who are looking at it questioningly.

What kind of wife would I be if I didn't take a photo of my husband in his time of need. I did ask him if he needed help... after.

And because I like to torture my children...

We're off to see the Lions!

And so begins the catch up.

A few weeks ago my friend Alexis and I took the kiddos to the zoo.
Here is a video Alexis took of the "monkeys".

Grayson loved seeing the zebras. It's rare that they are this close to the fence so he was very excited.

We also finally got to see the new lion exhibit that we got late last year. We have three lions now at our zoo and more new exhibits to follow in the coming years.

Grayson and Morgan climbed all over these bronze statues of the big cats. They could not have cared less about the real thing.

Which is just as well for this trip.

Is it me or does she look bored. For what its worth I would be too, its was all of 14 seconds. :)

News of late

Isn't he the cutest? Jaxon is cute too. Just kidding. I love baby legs warmers. In this case Huggalugs. So cute!

That was a few weeks ago. My sweet little bundle now weighs in at a wopping 15 lbs 2 oz, as of yesterday. He has been gaining an average of 2 oz a day. Generally .5 oz is considered good gain. I apparently make butter milk. Last week at Jax's 2 month apt he was 14lbs 12 oz, 25" long (22 at birth) and 16.5" head. The doctor was even impressed. :)

The only down side to having a mini moose is that he has outgrown the few cute things I bought him! The one gymboree outfit I got, he wore maybe 3 times.

He and his brother are settling in nicely. They love eachother so much and it is hysterical to watch them laugh and play together. Jax is already becoming such a little boy at just 9 weeks old. He is batthing at toys already and loves to lie in his playgym, kicking his baby "wind"chime toy. I have so many pictures I want to share!!

We got the quote back on the laptop and it was $750 for a new motherboard. It was a cheap laptop to begin with so we chose to have them pull the info off of it and call it good. Now we have to wait until we have money to buy a new one. The dinosaur desktop upstairs "crashed" when I uploaded only 200 pics (an hour+ project in itself!) from my iphone and picasa the other night. It refuses to run anything or TURN OFF!

I need to pull the plug and cross my fingers for a reboot.

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In other news, Zack's job is going VERY well. I believe I posted that he got a promotion and 25% pay increase after 2 weeks. Well after a few more weeks he was given another 25% pay increase because the commision for the other position would have kicked in quicker because it was an established position where as this one isn't and he is putting all the processes in place first. He really likes it. And I think it challenges him, which is great. I see a long lovely future with this company. (fingers crossed and knock on wood!)

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Which brings me to another bit of news. I quit Target yesterday. I was scheduled to go back after the 13th. I had taken care of everything on my end with FMLA and the company who takes care of all of that type of thing for T. I had called every week since the 2 weeks leading up to being able to come back trying to get on the schedule and yet I have STILL not been scheduled. Always the promise of next week. With the increase in Zack's pay we decided it made more sense for me to be home with the boys than for him to come home early for me to go in and make minimum wage. We would both rather he possibly make a sale in those hours. Yay! I am so much more appreciative of my time home this time around. I realize how precious my time with my boys is and while there are many days I want to mail one or the other or both to the moon, I wouldn't trade that time for anything.

I mentioned here that I lost my nanny job as well. At the time I was feeling very overwhelmed with the whole thing and the prospect of being set back even further. But after the last two months I am much more content with the our financial future and feel like we might finally have turned the corner of all the crap of the last few years. Finally.

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And while I feel like we have turned a corner, I can't help but feel like I am waiting. Waiting for something bad, catastrophic even to happen. I can't help but feel like I shouldn't get too settled in to being happy and content. I know its crazy. Things have to get better right? And stay that way. We work hard to keep it that way. And yet, we have no choice in the matter really.

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If the dinosaur cooperates in the near future I will share all the pics I have been dying to get up... fingers crossed!