Sunday, April 27th, 2014
Happy 5 Months, Gideon!
Both boys got pretty sleepy after dinner. Magnus is in a difficult time, sleep wise. He can get a little cranky when he doesn’t get a nap, and it’s not unusual for him to curl up on the couch at 5 or 6 and sleep for 2 hours. But he sleeps much better at night when he skips the daytime nap. So it’s a toss up.
Saturday, April 26th, 2014
We went on Safari into Portland today. We parked by this fountain and it was even warm enough to explore the water a little bit.
Friday, April 25th, 2014
Happy DNA Day!
Magnus preparing for a trip. I don’t know where he’s going, but it looks like he’ll be pretty well supplied. This is the stick known as “Marshmallow Man.”
Thursday, April 24th, 2014
Nap time. Gideon has been pretty needy the last several days. As in, “I need Mom to hold me and no one else.” I think he’s got teeth on their way in. Whatever the reason, it’s nice when he allows Dad to snuggle him for a while.
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014
Getting ready to go to Farmor’s house. I get ready by gathering the laundry. Magnus got this collection together including a piece of driftwood from our trip to the beach that he named, “Marshmallow Man” and refers to as his best friend forever.
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2014
Happy Earth Day!
The weather at the coast today was not as good as yesterday. We headed in and up to this waterfall. It had a rock fall a couple of years ago and so the cliff behind it has some good basalt columns on it; you could get a good view of it from the suspension bridge spanning the gorge. Magnus even did the 3 mile hike himself.
Monday, April 21st, 2014
Sunday night after dinner we drove out to Newport to have a little vacation. We stayed in a nice hotel right on the water and could see the waves from our balcony. It was very nice. Monday we went out rock hunting. We went to Ona Beach where we found lots of cool fossils and a big rock that looks like the moon that Dana carried/pulled back to the car for me. We stopped to see the cobra lilies in bloom. And we marveled at the Sea Spout at Cape Perpetua during a very wet storm.
Sunday, April 20th, 2014
Happy Easter!
We had Easter in Salem. We got to meet our new little niece, Audrey. She is 8 days old in this picture. We thought we’d do a comparison shot with Audrey and Gideon. Of course Magnus had to get in on that.
Saturday, April 19th, 2014
Driving around the Oregon countryside we saw a field of pigs, which thing neither Dana nor I had ever seen. We thought pigs stayed in a pen. These ones seemed very happy, though.
Friday, April 18th, 2014
Our church has a Life of Christ event every Easter. In the kids room this year they had costumes. We were trying to get Magnus to try some on by having Gideon dress up too. Magnus was not convinced.
Thursday, April 17th, 2014
Dana bought some beautiful Ukrainian eggs to bring home from his mission. He bought 9 eggs, and only 3 survived the airplane ride home. When we got the Easter decorations out this year, Magnus smashed one of the remaining eggs. We considered many different options for salvaging the egg and decided on a mosaic. So this is one of our new Easter decorations this year.
Wednesday, April 16th, 2014
Wearing my hat and sunglasses. It makes me wonder how silly I look in this combination.
Tuesday, April, 15th, 2014
Happy birthday, Else!
Early this morning, our attention was drawn to the sky to watch the total lunar eclipse. The eclipse started late Monday night, but the complete eclipse was just after midnight. We had pretty good skies to watch it until the clouds finally came in and covered it at the very end. It was pretty cool.
Monday, April 14th, 2014
We went to the tulip festival this morning. Some of us were more pleased with the outing than others.
Sunday, April 13th, 2014
We celebrated Else’s birthday tonight. I made her a fruit pizza.
Saturday, April 12th, 2014
Another adventure with Wil Iverson brought us to the entrance of Falls Creek Cave, which isn’t even on the map. It is an incredibly large lava tube that you can climb down into and then hike through. We enjoyed experiencing the large caverns and interesting rock formations. I also showed him Panther Creek Falls, one of my favorites. It was a good day in the forest.
Friday, April 11th, 2014
I busted one of the wheels on my rollerblade several months ago and finally got the parts (I thought) in order to repair it. I tried today to get it all put back together only to learn that my skate uses its own kind of bearings and spacers. The nice man at the online skate shop said he’d try and figure out what I need. But that would mean ordering more stuff online. :-/
Thursday, April 10th, 2014
Got some cleaning supplies today and Magnus lined them up for us when we got home.
Tuesday, April 8th, 2014
We all just love it when Gideon smiles! He does it more and more often. Magnus is pretty good at getting Gideon to smile.
Monday, April 7th, 2014
Happy Birthday, Grant and Grantpa!
Magnus went to bed but needed a special toy. This is often a ploy to stay up longer, so we try to keep toy retrieval trips short. Tonight, however, he couldn’t find the right one and was very sad. Until we got him his transformer race car.
Saturday, April 5th, 2014
Happy First Contact Day!
I made Greek yogurt biscuits with Magnus tonight. I love these!, but they don’t turn out very biscuity.
Friday, April 4th, 2014
Happy Birthday, Emily!
Photo c/o Magnus. He likes taking pictures of Gideon.
Thursday, April 3rd, 2014
We borrowed this dance game tonight and Magnus liked this one song with “the guy dancing in the robot.” It was a pretty good song.
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2014
Magnus likes to trace things, including his hands. He also likes to write us messages.
Tuesday, April 1st, 2014
Happy April Fools Day!
Painted rocks today. Magnus wanted to paint his green like the Ninja Turtles. We still haven’t put the masks on them yet…
Monday, March 31th, 2014
A spontaneous trip up the Washougal River let us see some very pretty things. We really liked this spot with the very colorful water. We also saw some nice waterfalls and a lizard.
Saturday, March 29th, 2014
Magnus caught Ruth diligently copying her best recipes into their new notebook.
Friday, March 28th, 2014
A friend of ours from church has decided to run for the State Legislator (Anson Service). He invited us to his campaign kick-off and it was fun. Magnus really liked this comfy chair next to a plate of cookies.
Thursday, March 27th, 2014
Gideon is starting to perfect his grabbing and sticking in mouth skills.
Wednesday, March 26th, 2014
Getting ready for Easter included Ruth making this little Easter Tree, complete with little eggs to hang on it.
Tuesday, March 25th, 2014
Tolkien Reading Day!
A random Magnus photo today. We did have a picture from a video of Magnus telling us all about his elephant friends that live in his room. The story and descriptions were quite elaborate, but it was all on one of our phones and the file got corrupted (we have been trying to fix it, causing a delay in posting). This is not the first time our phones have done that; so we are thinking of getting new phones soon. Though choosing a new phone is its own challenge.
Monday, March 24th, 2014
Happy Birthday, Daniel!
I tried to make some yummy sweet potato latkes for dinner with lemon cream sauce and ended up getting very frustrated with the whole thing. The latkes were very tasty but VERY sticky. Magnus helped juice the lemons and wanted to taste it. After getting the juice we needed we let him try some. He made an interesting face.
Saturday, March 22nd, 2014
We went up to Mt. Hood today to sled. Everybody got to go down the hill. It was fun!
Tuesday, March 18th, 2014
Magnus made this neat ship out of Legos and wanted to share it.
Monday, March 17th, 2014
I made nutella! I feel very powerful now. This recipe was pretty good. I will post it on my food blog soon.
Sunday, March 16th, 2014
Gideon felt safe because a ninja turtle was protecting him, complete with shoulder strap for his sword.
Saturday, March 15th, 2014
Elina and I went to Amber’s baby shower today. Even Magnus and Gideon came to visit Grandpa. Amber got quite a load of goodies!
