Here to stay

We'll it is now official...we will be staying in Portland, Oregon, at least for a few more years. After a great effort over the last 14 months by our Realtor, Carol Froeber, we have decided to pull our house out of the For Sale arena. If you call me in the next week or so and I don't answer your call, apparently you are not listed in my contacts and I am assuming that you are a realtor calling to get me to relist my house with you....they are vultures and I hate those calls, hence why they go to voicemail.

Jeff has a new opportunity coming up (which we will devulge details at a later time) and so we have decided for now to stay here and put our house back in order. It is really hard to try and sell your house. My house is generally pretty clean but when someone calls to show the house I feel as though I have to go the extra cleaning mile, sometimes within a few minutes, and then they walk through in 5 minutes, it really gets frustrating. For the last week or so I have been going through all the rooms and made a GoodWill run, fall cleaning instead of spring cleaning. We have had at least half of our house boxed up in the attic of the garage and I am looking forward to going through those boxes and finding all the things that I have been missing as well as another GoodWill run I am sure.

Pumpkin carving

Last night we carved up Ethan's "kins". He had a great time and really like to play with the seed mush, even eating a pumpkin seed.

Mommy finally decided to break down and get some rain/mud boots. Ethan decided to test them out to give his approval. They have rubber duckies on them and he really likes them.

It has been raining for most of the week, so yesterday we decided to make some cupcakes. Ethan was a great helper.


This morning Ethan and I took advantage of the only dry day for this week and went to the Pumpkin Patch at Sauvie Island. Ethan is really liking the pumpkins and has been carrying around his little pumpkin everywhere. We are planning to carve up our pumpkins tonight when Daddy gets home so more pictures to come later this week.

Pumpkin Patch #3 - Liepold Farms

This morning Ethan and I met Nicole and Peyton at Liepold Farms in Boring, Oregon...yes, that's right, Boring, Oregon. The boys had all kinds of fun climbing on all the "tar tars" (as Ethan calls them) as well as many other activities including picking out a baby pumpkin. We are hoping for one more dry day before Halloween so that we can make it to Sauvie Island Pumpkin Patch but we have had a lot of fun so far.



Peyton and Ethan playing in the corn kernal box.


Ethan attempting to ride a John Deer bike, but his legs are no where long enough.

He picked out his own baby pumpkin after climbing through all of them.

Pumpkin Patch #2 - Lee Farms

This morning Ethan and I took a ride out to Lee Farms & Pumpkin Patch to get his pumpkin. We have an annual trip to the Pumpkin Patch at Sauvie Island with the Springer family, however, it is supposed to rain all day this Saturday, so Ethan and I went to get his pumpkin today just in case we got rained out until Halloween. He had such a great time seeing all the farm animals, climbing on the pumpkins, eating apple cider donuts and he got to ride his first pony as well.

Watch out rain puddles here comes Ethan...

Just have to give a shout out to Susan from oakiwear.com (Outdoor Adventure Kid Co.). Last week I bought Ethan his first pair of rain boots off of Ebay from her company. I ordered a size 8 thinking that they would be just a little bit big for him, however, when we got them yesterday in the mail his toe was a lot closer to the top that I had expected. The company just happens to be based out of Vancouver, WA, so yesterday I emailed the woman and asked if by chance she had a size 9 and would trade me so that he could get a longer use out of them. She met me this morning and when I was telling her that the 8 would work for a while but that I wanted the 9 so that I wouldn't have to buy another pair again in a couple of months, she was so wonderful and generous and gave me both pair, saying that she has 3 little ones of her own and knew exactly what I meant. Her and her husband own the company and manufactor the shoes themselves. So if anyone is in need of rainboots or other outdoor kid gear check out their website or find them on ebay...www.oakiwear.com

Say Cheese!!

This past Saturday we went for a photo shoot at Bishop's close in Portland. It is such a beautiful place. Our neighbor/friend Michelle is just starting a new adventure with photograph so we decided to show our smiles for her and got some really cute shots. We enticed Ethan with his favorite, peanut M's, and he only had one goof when he climbed in a pond as we were getting ready to leave.