I'd Like to Thank The Academy.....

Looky. I gots me an award!
Trish over at Suds to Love gave this to me. It is a pass along sort of award....an "I am entertained by you" sort of thing (I'm guessing). So I am passing it along to:

Clara at The 5C Family
Elizabeth at Gassner Custom Soaps
Jen and Matt at We Will Want Sausage
Anne-Marie at Soap Queen

These are all 5 (including Trish) blogs I check daily, comment on occasionally, and am greatly entertained by. I'm glad you to know you all.

*update: apparently I had the wrong link to Clara's website. It should be fixed now. Oops...sorry about that.

Green Acres

So as I promised, here are some pictures and a short video of our Sunday trip to the Great Oregon Steam Up.
There were many many antiquated tractors driving around:

I have no idea how old these are, what they are called, or what their original purpose is. I'm sure Jason or Gail or Dan know, but unfortunately for you, I am what you might call citified. I pretty much just thought they looked cool.... and tetanus -y.
There was also a thresher, which Lena really liked. She spent much time collecting straw:



Pilar pretty much just slept.Lena and I also rode a very cool model train. Jason took many pictures but I look like a fat, grumpy FBI agent ( I brilliantly wore all black with black sunglasses) and even usually photogenic Lena looked weird, so no pictures for you. While Lena and I trained, the rest of the family watched a tractor pull. A tractor pull is such a strange idea. It's as if a bunch of bored farmers got together one day and said," Bet my tractor can pick you up..." and thus was born an event.

Lena's official birthday was Tuesday and we had saved some family presents for the occasion. Gail made delicious brownies with icing, and Lena opened her gifts. Grandma and grandpa Stiffler gave her some pink clothes, a notebook for her artwork and a box of stickers (most of which she and Pilar have already used). She got many books, a puzzle, snacks and a lunch bag from Uncle John, Aunt Ruth and Cousin Cynthia. I have now read the Magic School Bus about 2 dozen times. They also gave her 4 one dollar bills, which excited her to no end. Finally, her best friend Aidan and his mommies, Kate and Melissa, sent her the GIRLIEST thing on the planet:
The official Sleeping Beauty princess dress. She is wearing it as we speak. Now there's some birthday love for ya.

6 Things About Me

Okay, so thanks to Trish at Suds to Love I've been tagged. Here are the rules:

1) Link to the person who tagged you
2) Post the rules on your blog (this is what you are now reading)
3) Write 6 random things about yourself (see below)
4) Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them (This is only a game so I assume there are no hard feelings if you don't reciprocate. Also, I'm only tagging 3. so there.)
5) Let each person know they have been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6) Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

6 Things About Me:

1.) I CANNOT Dance. Much like Elaine from Seinfeld, my dancing consists of twitches and jerks which are likely disconcerting to most observers.

2.) I will not eat any food that contains tomatoes or beans. Ironically, this includes most Mexican foods, or as Jason likes to call it, "the food of my people."

3.) I love Christmas ornaments. I did not realize this until I started dating my husband and his family included me in their tradition of giving each family member an ornament for Christmas. I'm very picky though. I only like glass ones, like the ones offered by Old World Christmas.
If given the means, I would collect ornaments like normal women collect shoes.

4.) I will watch almost any movie about vampires. This also explains my devotion to the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, even though the last couple of seasons bit. (bad pun intended.)

5.) I have an unreasonable fear of cockroaches and crane flies. Cockroaches, because...EWWWW. They're just creepy. They scuttle along way too fast. And crane flies have no respect for personal space. I cannot abide a bug that will land on your face. I know neither of these creatures will actually hurt a person, but still. They give me the willies.

6.) I am lactose intolerant. Enough said.

And the 3 lucky people I am tagging are:

Clara at The5CFamily
Jen and Matt at WeWillWantSausage
Anne-Marie at SoapQueen

Any other blog I both read and comment on has already been tagged (or has tagged me). So...There you go. Now you know.

I'm Back

It's been a busy couple of weeks here. Many good thing have been happening. Jason got at least one and possibly 2 courses at local community colleges, He's taking a second GIS course, which means just 4 more until his certification, and I got the job I wanted. YAY! We've also been out and about, enjoying the weather and events around Portland. Last weekend we went to the annual Sand in the Square downtown. There were many sand sculptures, and a sand pile for the kids to play in. Guess where we spent the most time. Unfortunately, we forgot the camera, so we only have after-the-event pictures. There was free face painting and balloon creations, which we took full advantage of....Lena loved walking around dressed up (although she was wearing a different, less colorful tutu). She garnered many waves, giggles, and hellos from passersby. She was in attention heaven.
She napped when we got home, but Pilar, since she slept through much of our outing, had some pudding. She must have decided she was under-decorated.....
Later in the week we took the girls to see and hear a woman sing about bugs. I inadvertently confused it with a bug show (as opposed to a bug song and puppet show) so it was not really what either she or Jason expected. Oops. Lena had a hard time sitting still. This was the best she managed......Finally, yesterday I participated in a craft fair with my yarn foods. I did better than I expected and may be selling them in at least one local store and on-line. I'll post more about that when I have more info. I thought the display turned out nice...and the face painter who had a table there was excellent.....Today we went to the Great Oregon Steam Up. We saw many tractors and other scary, dangerous farm machinery. Lena loved picking up the straw on the ground and we came home with a piece of rope Lena made and a tiny bale of hay. We also rode on a model train and watched a tractor pull. She is now napping (finally). I will have pictures or our "farm day" up on flickr soon.

I love the Bluegrass

One of the best things about living in Portland is the incredible number of things to do in the summer. It seems like after all the rain in winter and spring, Portlanders feel the need to take full advantage of the wonderful summer weather. Jason and I made a list of all the free (or cheap) things to do this summer and my calendar is FULL.

There are concerts in the park (any park, just pick a park and there will at some point be a concert), Regal theaters has free G and PG movies at 10am on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Tryon Creek has "stories and a walk" on Friday mornings, There are noon concerts and free movies at Pioneer Square, and any number of story and song times at the county libraries. One of the best resources for stuff to do with kids is a website called Urban Mamas. I check it pretty much daily.

The calendar creation was instigated by a trip to Mt Tabor park to see a Bluegrass (Yes, Bluegrass...what!? I can like Bluegrass) band called Jackstraw. They were awesome and we wanted to find out where else they are playing. Many places it turns out.

So that you understand why the desire to see them again, check out my girl boogying down:

So Busy

I am trying to do this while nursing so forgive the inevitable typos. (YES...she is STILL nursing...)

My parents left for California on Sunday. I was sad to see them go mostly because it will be so long until I see them again. The girls had a great time with them. I'm not sure Lena Really remembered them at first, but she is now asking for them to come back. so I guess it really made no difference anyway. Pilar definitely did not remember, but she warmed up pretty quickly. We mostly hung around the house, but did have a couple park days.The big event was Lena's 4th birthday party. We held it at Irving Park, which is a great walking park but has no parking. The theme was pirates and princesses to appeal to both Lena's adventure prone spirit and her new girly fascination. She was also finally old enough for a pinata!Pilar...not so much, But she still got to play. Yay for big sisters!She got some really wonderful gifts. Uncle Jared and Aunt Emily gave her some fun dress up stuff.....
and caterpillars! One metamorphosed in the jar and flew out when Lena opened it!All in all Lena (and the rest of us) had a wonderful time with friends and family.

Portland and Beyond

My parents are visiting from California. They've been here since the 25th and are staying until the 13th so they can be here for Lena's birthday party on the 12th. They are currently in Heppner, Oregon visiting my great aunt and uncle. We've had a good time just relaxing and checking out Portland with them. Lena was a little wary and confused at first, but now she climbs all over them and asks where they are when they're gone. I've tried to keep them in her memory by showing her pictures of them from my flickr account, etc. However, in all the pictures my dad had long hair and he cut it all off the week before they left. (good timing Dad!) After the first day with them Lena and I had this exchange:

Lena: Grandpa's hair is funny

Me: funny how?

Lena: It's a circle.

Me: What do you mean?

Lena: It's little...

Me: You mean short?

Lena: Yes. It's too short.

I figure since both her father and grandfather (the Oregon Grandpa) have long hair she expects it.

So far we've mostly eaten our way through the city. Although, last Wednesday we did go berry picking. The Meeker raspberries from Albeke Farm and hood strawberries from another farm I can't remember were very good, although the hood strawberries have a VERY short shelf life. I think it might have been too much like work for my parents, but I enjoyed it. I made several pints of jam. (Just let me know if you want any.)

For the fourth of July we went to a Beavers game. The girls did very well considering how long they had to sit still. There are carnival like games that Lena enjoyed and a baby/toddler suite that Pilar enjoyed. The game was pretty average until the 8th inning when the Beavers (I can't remember which player) made a grand slam. They won the game 8 to 3. It was pretty exciting and Lena really got into it once the crowd started doing the wave. The fireworks afterward were not as spectacular as I wanted, but I'd go back just for a regular game.

This next week we will probably be visiting the zoo for the free Wednesday concert, and likely doing some more city walking. We'll see what we're in the mood for as the week progresses.

Moo Juice

My parents are visiting, so I hadn't planned to post until later, but I had to share this before I forget.
Lena watches Dora, Diego and the Wonder Pets in the morning, over breakfast. This morning the Wonder Pets saved a baby cow. If you're familiar with this particular show, then you know the wonder pets all share some celery at the end of their successful rescue. For the baby cow, they had milk from mama cow with their celery. When mama cow gave the milk, Lena yelled, "milk comes from a cow's BUTT!?!?" To which I replied, "no, it comes from her udder." Her answer: "milk is COW PEE!!!"