Pancake Breakfast

This weekend we hit the Tualatin Crawfish Festival Pancake Breakfast. This was a major treat for Gabe, as those of you who've heard me talk about the GAPS diet we're doing - pancakes are definitely not GAPS! But I was going to be headed off to a day long team meeting, so I figured if Gabe freaked out, it would be a good experience for John in understanding why I'm so committed to GAPS...  In the end they had a fab day, so I think that doing the GAPS is really starting to help heal our guts!

We hit the pancake breakfast at 7:30 when it opened, so our main company were a few of the hardcore boaters and the runners who were going to participate in a 5K race. Ben was fascinated by these folks who were RUNNING down the street early in the morning - how cool! We got through the race line up area and into line for pancakes. Ben was jumping up and down frantically screeching, "Pancakes, please!" repeatedly. The gal serving told him that he needed to eat some eggs and bacon too for protein. Ben replies, "Yes, it's very important to eat your protein." Guess the GAPS discussions are rubbing off on the kids...and he flabbergasted that gal going from crazy monkey to serious dietitian in a split second!

Everyone enjoyed their pancakes of course. They were small, so it probably wasn't such a huge excursion on the diet front as we had worried...and it was so nice to be sitting outside, enjoying breakfast by the lake. We'll certainly go back next year. Max was just thrilled they had Bacon - it's one of his favorite foods. Maybe one of these years Ben will be a runner too!

Kindergarten School Shopping

We were off to Target bright and early this morning to get our Back To School supply list filled. Gabe starts kindergarten September 6th. It's still weeks away but it feels like it's just too soon. Don't get me wrong - some days I'd love to send him off to school for a bit, but as the big day gets closer it feels like such a big turning point for him. Going to preschool wasn't as big a deal, I guess, and he is changing so much right now!

Here's Gabe with his new backpack. In the past there wouldn't have been any question - it was Buzz Lightyear all the way. And even though Gabe doesn't watch any superhero TV - never seen Spiderman, or Batman, or Ironman, it's like little boys have some kind of built in sensor that goes off and makes a biological imperative to love all things superhero. He knows how Spiderman throws his webs. He corrals Ben into attacking invisible villains. He protects Baby Max from the forces of evil. Where does he learn this stuff?

By the way, on a side note, apparently I am often a villain, as when I am not giving him his way, he often yells, "Bad Mommy! Eeeeviiiil Mommy!"  I'm trying not to take that too personally....plus I don't know too many 5 foot ex elementary music teachers who are addicted to scrapbooking, coffee, and Pinterest who qualify as a force of evil. Just saying....

In any case, Gabe thoroughly enjoys shopping his school supply list. What better way to spend the morning than hanging out at Target putting glue sticks into a shopping cart. Note that in choosing his new backpack he managed to get the only boy backpack on the aisle that is actually glittery. The fabric behind Spiderman is very sparkly, and even a rainbow colored sparkle. Sweet!

Ben got a new backpack as well. I wasn't planning on it, but he was starting to feel a bit left out as Gabe was "choosing" the items from his list:

Me: Do you want the red scissors or the blue?

Gabe: I Want Purple.

Me: They don't have purple.

Gabe: Yes, They do. They are right there. (Points to kid scissors costing 4.99. I am holding the 50 cent sale scissors.)

Me: Those are only for kids who are ten and older. Now, red or blue?

Eventually Ben made it known that he needed school supplies too. Now, considering he's not going to preschool, nor has he had a dry underpants day in, well, what seems like forever, I think his point was debatable. But it did seem unfair that I ended up taking him on a shopping spree just for Gabe, so Ben got his own new Lightning McQueen backpack and a 20 cent pencil sharpener. He took an unreasonable liking to the pencil sharpener, especially considering that he A) doesn't know what a pencil sharpener is, and B) it's not his favorite color (green). There was a green one, but he inexplicably chose red. Hey, man, I didn't argue with this face. He hugged the sharpener all the way through the shopping and up to the checkout line. Any 20 cent item that can get him to sit quietly in the cart through 30 minutes of shopping can come home with us anytime! 

Luckily Max was asleep, since he now echos everything the big boys say. Tonight at dinner I laid the plates on the table and MAX screams out "keee-puuup", which is 18 month old for ketchup. Really? Man do they ever learn fast. Perhaps by next week Max will be Perler beading alongside Gabe too. Until next time...

National Night Out

We had such a fun night out with our friends, the Webbers! They invited us to attend the National Night Out festival in Forest Grove. The city departments host the event there, police, fire, water, etc... and it's such a wonderful event.

The boys slid on a bouncy slide (even Max - that pic of a boy climbing is BABY Max!), jumped in a bounce house, ate popcorn and hot dogs and cake, got their faces painted, won prizes at little games, got balloon swords...it was all so exciting. We even got a surprise visit from our other friends Tina and Nathan.

To finally put us over the top with happiness, the fire department brought out a fire truck...and sprayed water from the top of the huge ladder so that the street was bathed in a gentle rainy mist, perfect for our web footed Oregon children. A good time was had by all - thanks for inviting us, Webber Family!

Where, oh, where did the time go?

I don't know how we ended up with about 6 months between posts...I guess between buying a new house (yea!), dealing with car accidents (boo!), painting and moving into the new house (yea!), and dealing with Max getting ALL of his stinkin' baby teeth in at once (double BOO!!!), it's been a liiiitttle crazy round here.

Quick recap:  Bought a house in Tigard with super duper help from awesome sister Heidi. Moved in at the end of April. Painted every single room. Many pics of that process on face book. You're not on Facebook?! Join us...we'll get you a farm! It won't hurt a bit!

Took Gabe out of preschool before the end of the school year because it would be too far a drive from the new house. Started doing the GAPS diet with him, and that requires a lot of cooking everything from scratch. I'd say (BOO!) only it's made a huge impact in his social skills. He seems a lot calmer, and he even talks to people and (gasp!) makes eye contact with people now. So now we're a low carb, gluten free family....most of the time.

 Ben is growing into the funniest little 3 year old. He asks me the silliest questions all the time. "Was that fabulous, Mom?" "Am I hilarious, Mom?" "Was that cool trick AWESOOOOME, Mom?" "I'm cross at you now, Mom." He constantly cracks me up...except he can't tell a joke to save his life.

"Knock Knock."
"Who's There."
"Tree-ee"  (because adding an ee sound to the end of any word is apparently super funny.) 
Max has gone from baby to boy in a blink of an eye. Kid teethed 20 teeth since November - count em! No, don't count em - he'll totally bite you if you try. He went from crawling to walking to climbing everything in sight in no time. Now he won't even sit in a high chair anymore. He's got to be in a big boy chair, even though he falls out close to the end of most meals. Maybe that's a compliment to the chef?

Here's a few new pics they took a couple days ago with Grandma at Portrait Innovations. More regular blog post to come...or so I hope!

Max in a hat!

 I know I already shared some of the Portrait Innovations photos from our shoot last weekend, but I was going through them again and saw a couple of shots they took right at the end where the gal plopped a hat onto Max's head. He kept taking it off, and he almost looks like he's dancing with his little black hat and kicky feet.Since he wouldn't keep the hat on, we don't have many of these. Maybe we'll have to get him his own little fedora for home, though - what a cutie!