We love our zoo...

As our two years in Portland draw to a close, I think one of the fondest memories I will take with me are of all the many trips the children and I have taken to the zoo. We live 7 min. from the zoo and have taken many, many opportunities to use our membership. Even in the winter, we would bundle up and brave the elements and practically have the place to ourselves.

One of the best parts of living so close, is that we just pop over there for an hour or so and we don't feel like we have to see everything.
One of our favorite games we play as a family is "I'm thinking of an animal" Someone will say "I'm thinking of an animal that has long legs and a long neck and lives in Africa." Heather and Ewan's attempts at the game are hilarious. Heather's will go something like this...

"I finking animal, has big feet, Elphant!"
When we moved here in 2006, Heather was just 10 months old and I would put her in a backpack and Ewan in a stroller and Cameron would walk. We have graduated from that to Heather being in the stroller and today was my first attempt at three kids with no stroller (aka device with which to restrain them).
We will really miss living here. I have loved the city, the neighborhood, the places to go and most of all the people who have blessed our lives.

Some of you may have seen the trailer for the upcoming movie BabyMama. There is a scene where a mom asks her little boy "Is this poop or chocolate?" I just laughed my guts out and thought...that is me! That is my life! Some of you may have heard me talk recently about how I feel this statement perfectly sums up this stage of my life, both literally and figuratively.
Some of what I do is pure poop. I will refrain from grossing you out about some of the disgusting things I have to do/clean up as a mother of three little children.
But so much of what I do is pure chocolate...reading bedtime stories with my own dramatic flare, getting smoochies, putting piggy tails in Heather's hair and listening to my children pray just to name a few. Today I was in my boys room and saw this mysterious smudge on the door jam of their closet. Hmmm...I thought. Mysteriously brown. (sniff) No smell. And I wondered...Is it poop or chocolate?

He'll kill me for this one day...

Heather had to try on Sara's high heals, because she's just that kind of girl. Ewan had to do what ever Heather was doing because he's just that kind of boy.

SEASIDE, OREGON

My friend Sara and I took advantage of the first warm day of the year (it got up to 85) and took the kids to the beach.

It was fun for them just to get their hands in the sand and dig.

Heather and Cameron couldn't wait to get their feet in the ocean. (Ewan worried the entire time that they were "going died")Ewan is strange. I just had to say it. I decided at the beach that there is something seriously wrong with this child. Take a look at what he's eating and then watch carefully for what comes next and decide for your self...


The sand goatee... oh, and don't think for a minute that the sand eating in the video was an isolated incident. The first three times we freaked out, cleaned him up and explained how gross it was. By the time I shot the video, he was on his seventh or eighth time.

I'm so glad I ignored my messy house, my piles of laundry, my grocery shopping and the hundred other things that needed to get done yesterday and played with my babies...They are getting so big and how many more days like this will there be?

WHAT AN IMAGINATION!

Cameron is so fun to watch sometimes. These pictures were taken one night when he was playing "Imaginext" Dinosaurs in our living room while the other children were sleeping. He built elaborate dinosaur communities consisting of "leaf eaters" on one side and "meat eaters" on the other. And then the battle began.

He spent easily, and hour and half acting out battle sequences between the dinosaurs.
You can see the carnage spread from one end of Dinosaur Land to the other...

He's the best guy...

My poor husband is just 10 weeks from graduating from Pharmacy school and I AM SO PROUD OF HIM. He is currently doing the "rotation from hell' and works inhumanly long hours and most weekends and is working under a preceptor who's idea of motivating her students is to threaten failure on a daily basis. When he has a rare Saturday where he doesn't have to go into the hospital (like today) he is picking up shifts at the Target pharmacy. Today the kids were really missing him and Ewan especially kept asking about him, so when Evan got home (after basically not having a day off for about a month) the first thing he did was go play "airplane" on the bed with Ewan. For those of you who know Evan, you know it's no small sacrifice that he's only seen a few of the over 60 March madness college basket ball games and it's almost over. Evan went back to school to make a better future for us almost 7 years ago and has shown up to all of our children's births with study materials in hand. He has had the astronomical task of passing unbelievably hard classes and when most of his classmates were at the library all night, he was coming home to help with baths and bed time. He is endlessly patient with me and the kids and I just wanted to take this opportunity to say..."I love you Evan."

OMSI

OREGON MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY

Putting together a stegosaurus model

Heather and the boys pose with an oviraptor

Heather-a-saurus
My friend Heather and I took the kids to OMSI. We braved the crowds and noise because they have an awesome traveling dinosaur exhibit from China right now. The kids had such a blast and we stayed for 5HOURS! Most amazingly-that was 5hrs. without a single meltdown!