Hawaii dreaming

Have I mentioned that we’ve been married for ten years as of August 12?  To celebrate, we are hopping over to Maui for five nights after Thanksgiving – sans kiddos (well, except for peanut).  Thank you, Oma and Papa, for keeping watch over our little ones and giving us this chance to reconnect and get centered in our marriage!  I am so grateful for this time together – unplanned, just plane tickets, hotel and car reservations, travel book, and time.  Less than one week to go. 

   8.12.2000

    9.10.2010

Fiona turns 2!

For Fiona’s birthday, we decided to highlight her two favorite foods: ice cream and noodles.  Matthew made her a beautiful and delicious ice cream cake (shaped, somewhat like a noodle), which also featured my homemade strawberry rhubarb jam.  It was a hit!

   

We hosted a birthday noodle party the next day, which featured LOTS of noodles – Matthew bought boxes of noodles from our local cash-n-carry (we are seriously set for the year at least, if we can stomach more noodles after this event).  We dyed some of them over the week to ensure that we had lots of colorful noodles to make noodle art and jewelry, and we also created a noodle table to explore, dig, measure, and pour noodles.  At one point in the party, Matthew made noodle maracas and led a march around the house!  It was festive. 

    

Of course, we served pesto bow ties, homemade mac and cheese, and baked ziti.  Our sweet birthday girl, for much of the party, stayed in one spot, first eating several courses of noodles and then making a necklace and artwork.  It wasn’t until after cupcakes that Fiona finally got up from her chair to socialize with her friends.  She loved the noodle party!  

    

   

And now we can finally take a deep breath as we are through with birthdays for 2010.  Enter holiday season now.

p.s. though I’ve fallen behind on most extra-curricular activities lately, I actually managed to finish Fiona’s baby album just before her second birthday!  phew.  Now if I could just get back to our wedding album…

October Album III: Halloween

One giraffe + one monkey = so incredibly cute.

Matt and I decided to go as zookeepers, which was not too much of a stretch.  The coveralls actually make the job easier.

 

Dean wanted “one happy face and one silly face”, and voila!

October Album II: Dean’s birthday

Oma and Papa came to celebrate Dean’s birthday, and we visited the farm together to pick pumpkins and climb the hay pyramid.  Dean had a party at Sound Roots the next day, which was a raucous musical event not to be missed!

 

Four candles!

     

Dean created his own trap set with three bookshelves at Sound Roots.

Daddy and Fiona play some music at the party.

 

Fire fighter costume and accessories from Aunt Ayme!

October Album I: Harvest and Matthew’s birthday

We spent a beautiful October day at a pear and apple orchard in Hood River.  Highlights included pressing apples, eating fruit straight off the tree, riding in a cart (see Fiona with the cartful of boys!), and pretending to drive a tractor.  Our harvest  this year (from visits to the farm, our CSA, and even our garden) yielded lots of yummy jars of dilly green beans, sweet pickled beets, Kosher dill pickles, pear butter, apple butter, applesauce, pie apples, three-berry jam, rhubarb ginger marmalade, strawberry rhubarb jam, and strawberry raspberry jam!  This is the most we’ve ever preserved!  We were excited to take it all out of the pantry and look at it together. 

We also celebrated Matthew’s 34th birthday this year with my first-ever cheesecake.  I made caramel and chocolate sauce to drizzle on top – it was a hit!

September Album

Here's our September album, a few months late.  Lost Lake was definitely the highlight, but here are some other images from our end of summer.  Top to bottom:  reading and singing from our Silly Songs book, falling asleep on our way back from Lost Lake while Anya looks on, swinging together with Daddy, and playing “Go Fish” (one of Dean’s favorite games) with Mommy on the couch.

     

it's November already??

Alas, I've neglected my bloggy-blog.  I knew this was possible.  There's a lot going on en la casa, in fact, but I guess my mind was on overload.  So, let's get the obvious out of the way:  I'm pregnant!

Details:  It's a boy!  Due March 15, and Matthew and I have less than 18 weeks to duke out the name.  The kids are excited.  Dean loves to kiss my belly.  Fiona likes to poke my belly button and talk about the baby, but I'm not sure if either of them knows what's coming.  I'm not sure I do, either.  Three?!  Breathe...  So, here's a recent picture, taken today.  And now I have some more blog-related catching up to do.  Stay tuned.