Month: October 2012

iPhone Photo Drop – Bend Style

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
We’re back from a lovely long weekend in Bend with our friends Steve and Leah.  Family trips, especially two families together, are hectic.  Dinner with 4 adults and 4 kids under the age of 4 is crazy – Sammy trying to feed baby Henry cheerios, Clare and Grayson alternating climbing under the table, multiple trips to the bathroom, spilled margaritas – Steve and I looked at each other and said “do you remember when going out to dinner was fun?”  But, chaos aside, it was fun.  It was three-year-old dance parties, drooly baby smiles, great meals with good friends, commiserating over parenting challenges, and beautiful fall colors.

Snow in the mountains 

 Clare and J love climbing on the rocks near the River House.  Clare has been calling some of them “Grandpa” and “Grandma” Rocks for a while.  This time she looked at a big outcropping and said “Oh good!  Here is my Rock Family!”

This was her Cave with Lions in it – fortunately they were friendly lions.

Life with Sam

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
This boy is going to keep us on our toes.  He has reached full blown destructive mode and spends his days rearranging to his heart’s content.  I’ve gotten to where I can tell which toys he’s playing with by the sound they make when he bangs them onto the ground.  That’s how toys are “played” with around here – by pulling, throwing, banging, rolling, scraping, dragging and more banging.  I took the pictures below walking through the house one morning.  Yep, this was a morning’s worth of playing.  

Yes, he’s holding a lime.  Where did he get a lime?  I have no idea.

That’s my bowl of oatmeal.  When I went to the bathroom the bowl was on the table, when I came back the bowl and the oatmeal were on the ground.  Note to self: Sammy can reach the table now.

Pumpkin Patch 2012

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
In what’s become a fun family tradition, every year in October we load up the kids, meet the grandparents, and tromp out into the mud to secure our Halloween pumpkins.  Last weekend was our annual visit to the pumpkin patch and, once again, we were reminded that it’s not about the pumpkins.  In fact, this year J and I decided that we would avoid the pumpkin field all together (too muddy) and grab a couple of pre-picked, pre-washed pumpkins conveniently located on the way to the car.  So what did we do for two hours at the pumpkin patch?  Had a fabulous time of course!
First stop was the obligatory pony ride.  Clare didn’t remember the pumpkin patch from last year and wasn’t all that keen when I told her we were going.  However, when we promised her a pony ride she perked up and pretty much talked about it for the whole 20 minute drive to the patch.  “I will ride a pony.  I will ride a white pony.  I want to ride a baby pony or a big sister pony, not a mama pony or a daddy pony.  The pony will go fast and I will ride it.  Sammy won’t ride a pony, since he’s just a baby.”  And on and on and on…

What a difference from the pony rides last year.  This year Clare didn’t want anyone to walk next to her, she smiled the whole time, chatted with the lady leading the pony, and was such a big, confident girl.  She actually got two pony rides out of the deal (ahem, Grandma) and loved every minute of them both.

Besides pony rides, we had a hay ride, got some lunch, and enjoyed a few hours out on the farm.  Oh yeah, and we got a couple of pumpkins.

  
Where was Sammy through this whole thing?  Well, he fell asleep on J’s back during the corn maze (yep, there was a corn maze too) and slept through the hay and pony rides.  He did wake up for lunch though, of course, and some grandparent cuddling.  Next year, I predict that he’ll be jumping in mud puddles.  

On the Go

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
We love our city for many, many reasons (the restaurants! nice people! the ocean! the mountains!) but one of them is how kid/family-friendly it is.  Every day there are more fun family activities that we could do than time to do them.  Just today I caught myself going “well, we could catch the kids’ musician at this coffee shop, go to open gym at this play gym, go to the painting class at this arts and crafts studio, or catch story time at the local library.”  Literally, on any given day there more kid-oriented things to do than hours between naps.  Each of the kid-oriented activities are filled with nice families and kids, and we always have a blast.  
We do have memberships to the Children’s Museum and the Zoo.  This is really nice because we can go and hang out for an hour or so, visit one or two exhibits, and then go do something else.  Clare loves the zoo (she’s fond of the elephants, lions, and the petting zoo) and Sammy really loves the Baby Room at the Children’s Museum.  

This last week we discovered a new kid-oriented activity, and that’s the local children’s theater.  We went and saw a production of The BFG, The Big Friendly Giant, and Clare hasn’t stopped talking about it since.  Yep, we may have a new little theater lover on our hands.  She was a little scared of the giant (which, as you can see in the picture above taken at Clare’s level, he was pretty imposing) but she loved the story, the characters, and the whole experience.  We’re entering a new world of parenthood, that of experiencing things with our kids and it’s really fun.

Three Year Old Fashionista

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
It should come as a surprise to no one that our little Miss Opinionated Lady has started to have an opinion about her clothes.  This summer has been a summer of outfit changes – often pants, shirts and socks are changed three and four times in a day.  I’ve just let any of my personal controlling tendencies go and let Clare wear whatever she wants to wear.  It’s been interesting to see what she’s come up with.

In general Clare really likes soft, comfy clothes.  She likes long sleeves instead of short sleeves, pants over skirts and shorts, and bright colors.  She insists on wearing socks all the time, even with her sandals.  She’s played a little bit with layers (see below) but in general she likes to dress simply, comfortably, and with clashing patterns.

Miss Sassafrass

Posted on by heather.e.d.mcpherson@gmail.com
Clare is very observant and very verbal, which leads to some funny moments around here.  

The other day we were on a walk and she said “Oh good, Sniffing Flowers!” when she saw some lavender and then looked up and said “it’s winding on me.”  

Out of the blue one night she told J and I, “tomorrow I’m going to be a Mama and drive my blue race car to work in Salem.”  

I wanted to get a picture of her outfit (complete with my shoes) and Clare ran to get a cracker to pose with.

 While I don’t tell a lot of stories about my kids bodily functions, I hope you’ll forgive me a poop story.  Last week Adam heard Clare and Gabe run into her room and slam the door.  This is pretty typical and he went down a few minutes later to open the door figuring he would find them jumping on the bed.   He walked in and realized he smelled something.  Clare looked guilty.  Then he noticed that there was a little pile of poop on the floor.  “Clare, where are we supposed to poop?”  “In the potty.”  “Why did you poop on the floor?”  “B-b-but… it’s a Halloween decoration!”

We’re also facing a fair amount of talking back and arguing these days.  It’s frustrating, but also kind of funny and I struggle to keep a straight face sometimes.  Today I found that Clare had ripped the pages of one of her books during naptime.  This has been an ongoing issue and a few days ago I told her that if she did it again I would take all the books in her room.  So today I had to do that.  She looked at me and said “No Mama.  I just ripped the one book, so you should just take away the one book.”  I told her that if she couldn’t treat her toys and books with respect then she would lose them.  “No Mama.  I respected the other books so I should keep them.”  While I appreciated her logic, we still packed up her books and she’ll get them back a few at a time in the next week or so.