7 Years and Counting

Yesterday Brian and I celebrated our 7th anniversary, and it was the BEST ONE EVER! In the past, our routine has been the same: dinner and a movie. As boring or cliche as that sounds, it was always magical because neither of those activities is something we do without our kids other than the one night a year basically.

This year though, we decided we'd better take advantage of having only 2 kids for a sitter to watch and Devon's unmarried availability (until this March) and Devon stayed with the boys OVERNIGHT! Brian and I headed up to Portland yesterday and had an amazing 24 + hours child-free.

We started at McGraths before leaving town where Brian's boss graciously comped our meal for us. Brian surprised me with the hotel and I was delighted to see this:

Alright, so technically, that's the back and I never saw it from that side. But any pictures of the front (see below) don't do it justice. This was definitely the nicest hotel I have stayed in that I can remember. (Note to unmarrieds - pick an anniversary date that's off season) It had the grand piano in the entry and and a fancy restaurant that looked over the river. The Red Lion Hotel at Janzten Beach was like it's own village. Very large. Our room looked so luxurious and the bathroom was at least twice as large as ours at home, plus generally much nicer.

This was the view from our room, a little foggy because I couldn’t get the door open.

After checking in, Brian and I found our way to the Max station – the local train. I should mention that Brian’s “gift” to me was to come without his laptop. Unfortunately our GPS crashed and burned minutes before we left for Portland earlier that day, so this was a technology-free trip. It was actually pretty fun to get ourselves around with one map (of Portland Downtown only) and rough it like that. Thank goodness I married a boyscout because I never had any idea where on earth we were or how the heck Brian managed to get us anywhere. Anyway, we found the train station and rode it into Downtown Portland.

It was FREEZING cold outside (we reminisced about Rexburg quite a bit) but we made our way to Powell’s City of Books where we thawed out and bought a couple books. Downtown was beautiful with the Christmas tree and grand buildings and lights. We loved it!

Back at the hotel we ate dinner at the restaurant overlooking the river and called it a night.

This morning we had our delicious breakfast at Denny’s (o.k, first of all, we love Denny’s anyway, but they have for a limited time a “cranberry orange pancake” which I highly recommend. I think we’ll start making our own pancakes that way all the time!) and found our way to Lloyd center. We wandered around the mall for a while then got our slick on for some ice skating.

All in all, we agreed this was our most favorite anniversary ever. I love my wonderful man I’m so excited for the next many, many anniversaries to come!

Hey Grana, your box came today :-)

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Boy for Sale

For sale: 1 boy, age 2 and 11/12ths. As is. Will deliver.
Very cute and sweet. Enjoys getting into markers and drawing on furniture, clothing, slippers, hardcover books, bedding, doors, laptop, and carpet in parent's room - at 11:30pm while you doze downstairs.
Follows up the previously mentioned activity with climbing onto the bathroom counter and getting into lotions and toothpaste.
No returns or refunds. Make offer.

Children are Funny

Asher

Asher cracks us up! Some time soon I hope I’m going to write an update on him and try to capture with words what makes him so darned irresistibly cute. It won’t be easy, but in the mean time, here’s an Asherism.

Not every night, but occasionally – and more often lately – Asher will sneak out of his room at night. I usually hear something suspicious, like an extra loud sneeze, and know that he’s out, but I generally leave it alone. He usually goes back into his room when he’s ready to sleep, and while he’s in the hall he just plays or hangs out near silently. He has a special spot, you see. In our small hallway we keep a communal laundry hamper which sits very close to the boy’s bedroom door, about a foot or less away. This is Asher’s nook. When he is being sneaky, it’s where he hangs out. Brian and I have always gotten a big kick out of it.

Twice in the last week though, Asher has fallen asleep there. The first time was a night when Brian was at work, and he asked me if he could be the one to move him after he got home. Asher woke up too soon though and I helped him to bed. The other night, Asher did it again and this time Brian and I didn’t know it until we walked upstairs to go to bed ourselves and heard soft snoring amidst our conversation. That kid is just too fun. For some reason, we love finding a little boy sleeping in the hallway, tucked into his nook and blocking his door. It just makes us smile.

Brennan

Brennan has been making this Christmas season… interesting. The child is trying SO hard to reconcile the idea of Santa with his understanding of the gospel. He constantly asks questions that make me have to think way too hard to make it all fit together for him. “Will Santa ever die? Then how can he be resurrected?” “Why did Heavenly Father make just Santa’s reindeer able to fly?” “Did Santa visit Adam and Eve?” “Who were Santa’s parents?” Don’t even get him started on elves! I mean, where do they fit into the plan of salvation?!? In general, he’s always been a worrier about “what ifs” too, so I get a lot of questions about possible scenerios that Santa might encounter (and not just your usual, “what if there’s no chimney?”) I don’t think he knows anything about the concept of “global warming,” but on his own he seems concerned about things like “what if the North Pole melts?” Brian and I both don’t remember having such a problem with the existence of Santa, especially without a tip-off, which Brennan hasn’t had. I never thought including Santa in our Christmas celebrations would confuse a child or make my brain hurt so much!

And the Ugly Tree Award goes to…

The Stevensons!

As usual, I had rather high hopes for my tree this year. It started off on our traditional search for lights of a certain color. Several stores later, no avail, so I had to stick with what I had including white cords and several different ones being hooked together. Once I got the lights up, Brennan and Asher excitedly attacked the tree with ornaments and I didn’t have the heart to stop them. Brennan stood on the stool and placed all his ornaments in one spot, while Asher stood below doing the same. In the end, the tree had one vertical stripe of ornaments and a bead/chain thrown up half-hazardly in another spot. I intended to “fix” it after they went to bed, but was too tired. It’s been almost a week and I’ve just left it. In the mean time, Brennan broke 2 bottom limbs, disrupting the lights among other things. I’ve always let the kids hang up soft crocheted ornaments on the bottom even though they don’t match. They like to remove them just as often so it never really made the tree look all the worse, but this year the clashing colors seem more obvious with all the other disasters going on. (Incidently, the tree looks even worse in person. Being a super cheap artificial tree, it’s not actually as “full” as it looks in the pictures, and it’s a pretty gross color green.)

In the end, I’ve decided to just leave it alone. After Christmas I’ll get us another (and better) tree on clearance, and hopefully the lights I want online. In the mean time, I have no plans for company and we’ll be out of town over the Christmas weekend anyway, so I’m going to let this just be The Year of the Ugly Christmas Tree (which the kids love just as much;-)

November Adventures

There’s no school today. Not because of Thanksgiving, after all there will likely be school tomorrow. But, because it’s SNOWING! It started last night and kept Brennan awake hours later than otherwise. His bed sits right up by a window, even overlapping it a couple of inches, so he can see right out while laying down. What I love about our neck of the world is that we get a couple of snowfalls each season, but it doesn’t stick around in the meantime so we don’t get tired of it or have to drive in it much. The whole town shuts down if there’s about 2+ inches or an ice storm, then a day or so later it’s back to real life. I love these isolated snow days!

Growing Up

Our usual wake-up routine is that the kids are allowed to play in either their room or the play room across the hall while I doze as long as I can. The result is usually that they’re incredibly noisy and I get up several times to shush them and remind them that they cannot hang out in the hallway, they cannot scream and fight, and they should keep their door mostly closed.

A couple days ago after a long night, I finally relented and agreed to let the boys go ahead and go downstairs while I took a few more minutes to wake up and prepare myself mentally to get through another day with young kids and too much to do. When I eventually wandered downstairs I was a little nervous about what sort of destruction I might find. Sure, they had pulled out a bunch of blankets and toys and made the living room look it’s usual wreck, but I did get a little wave of pride when I saw the dining table. Brennan had gotten cereal for both of them, INCLUDING the placemats. Sometimes having a 5 year old is actually pretty cool :-)

Oh I am so overdue for an actual family update. It's been a busy few weeks and months.

Last month my parents VERY graciously invited Brian and I and the kids to join them at the resort town of SunRiver. It was amazingly fun and busy yet peaceful and relaxing... just what we needed! Unfortunately, I only whipped out the camera long enough to get some hot tub shots, but other activities included:

Swimming in the pool - Brennan wore a life vest and proudly announced to everyone that he knows how to swim now*. (*Brennan, until last summer, has always been phobic of swimming, so he hasn't had lessons since he traumatizing took waterbabies at 14 months. This was like his third time ever in a pool beyond the stairs.) He loved it!

Standing on a bridge over the river, located just beyond our backyard.

Browsing the "mall"

Brian bringing his telescope and stargazing

Bike riding and going on walks

A canoe trip, thanks to Dad and Brian's expert rowing

Watching the small planes take off and land in the small airport/Seeing the horses

And of course, the hot tub

Not bad for two days. The con: Asher had asthma the entire time. Thank goodness I'd learned my lesson from the camping fiasco last summer and brought the nebulizer with me. That thing tends to come in handy anytime we stay somewhere else. My poor little baby boy. I don't know what was setting him off (too warm for fireplaces to be the culprit) but he was fine once we left the area.

Sleep Walking?

Last night Brian and I were in bed and watching a little TV. We heard the door to the boys' room open, and waited for the inevitable sound of Brennan crying. Instead, our door opened and Brennan walked in without a sound.

He and Brian looked at each other. "What's wrong?" Brian asked. No answer. "Do you need to go potty?" No answer as Brennan looked around and glanced at the TV. Brian picked Brennan up to give him a hug, then Brennan laid down next to him on our bed. He laid there watching the TV like this was a normal thing... just coming in to hang out. Brian and I joked about it for a while, then Brian picked Brennan up to carry him back to his own bed. Brennan looked a little startled but still didn't say a word as he was carried out of our room. Very strange.

What makes this weird is that neither of our children has ever slept in our bed with us, or even attempted it. It's a personal preference not to open that door, so to speak. (You know, "never start a habit you're going to have to break.") The only reason our children come in to our room at night is if they need help going potty or were having a bad dream or something. Anyway, Brian and I got a kick out of it. We're pretty sure Brennan was sleep walking.

A Stevenson Family First

A momentous occasion. After a busy day, the boys and I were playing at a friends house when Asher had an accident that caused him to reopen the gash in his forehead from 4th of July. Once again, the blood was gushing down his face like Niagara falls! Since the friends live just about around the corner from our Dr.'s office, I just went straight there. I think the gash was a little wider apart this time, as gluing was not really an option. So, the family first is STITCHES! Somehow Brennan has survived his first 5 years without even getting close to needing any. Asher couldn't even make it to 3! Interestingly, In-between these injuries on the same spot, he cut a second location on his forehead - not bad enough to need any treatment, but that makes 3 cuts in his head in a month's time! If this kid isn't the death of himself, he's going to be the death of me!!!

We're having a great time with Peter and Jill here!!! Yesterday we visited the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the beach... a special treat for these Idahoans.





(This was not on purpose... we were in the shark tunnel and I was just trying to get a few decent shots.)

Weather Report

Corvallis temperatures today: 97*F

Newport coast temperatures today: 62*F.

What a difference 50 miles makes!

The boys and I headed over the mountains today to escape the heat. It was fun, though not exactly what I expected. It was incredibly foggy at the coast today, so much so that we didn’t see the ocean itself until we were just about standing in it. Pretty chilly too. That didn’t stop Asher from lovin’ the ankle-deep stream running parallel to the beach though ;-)

Brennanisms

Geography Lessons

While visiting Mesa Falls in Idaho, Brennan and I were standing at the overlook at the top of the falls, and watching the river below running swiftly away and around a bend. I commented to Brennan, "Look at all that water! Where do you think all that water is going?"

Brennan thought for a second, then sighed matter-of-factly, "China."

(I'm quite sure he has no idea what or where China is, but how did he even know the word?)

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A Good lookin'Group

A bunch of us grown-ups were sitting around the family room of my inlaws when the conversation came to a lull and we all silently watched Brennan, also sitting in the circle. Suddenly and sweetly, he broke the silence with, "You guys are all so cute."

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Miscommunication

This morning I saw a small spider on a door in our house. I grabbed a kleenex then walked into the living room where the boys were and asked, "Who wants to get a bug for Mom?" Brennan looked at me curiously, then walked over to me and gave me a big hug. He pulled away and asked, "Why did you want someone to give you a hug?"

Havin' Fun at Grana & Grandpa's

We've been having a nice time in Idaho so far. I snapped some pictures of the boys playing outside on Wednesday... it was really bright out so I started playing around with the different settings on the camera - everything from foliage to aquarium to color swap. That's why the coloring looks a little different on some of them. Anyway, the boys were having a great time.




Brennan has also been very excited about all the legos Grana has.

Another Graduate in the Family

Last week Brennan finally graduated. It was a long, hard season of his life, spending a few hours 3 days a week glueing, running, clapping, playing, and learning. Ah yes, we’ll never forget those precious preschool years.

Having witnessed first hand both of his parent’s graduations, Brennan was a little nervous about his. When I excitedly told him that he would be having a preschool graduation, he worriedly asked, “how am I going to know what to say?” What? Didn’t they tell you you’d be the key-note speaker? He was also concerned about knowing where to go and basically how to do the whole thing. I remember thinking the same things at my own commencement ;-)

Asher was always happy to enter the walls of the preschool, and this day was no exception. He mostly hung out in the designated young-sibling area, but the highlight was the cake I think.