spring skiing in central oregon

If life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
If it snows in April, go snowboarding.

It was about 65 degrees at Willamette Pass on this particular day, and I was absolutely boiling in that long sleeve t-shirt. I think spring might FINALLY be here!

dining like adults

For a town its size, Bend has a lot of really great restaurants.
As in 4-star, haute cuisine, gourmet-type-great restaurants.
As in the type of places we no longer get to frequent with a toddler in tow.

Yesterday being our anniversary, and with a babysitter appropriately scheduled, we decided to try one such place that we've been hearing about for ages but had yet to visit: Ariana . (See that rack of lamb? That's what Reid ordered...YUM!)

It was goooooooooooood. Mind-blowingly-good. The ambiance, the service, the food, everything, WOW. I left in the most stupendous food coma I can remember in ages. Sort of puts a damper on the rest of the evening when you can't move from a recumbent position, but oh well. It was worth it!

two years

Come anniversary time, I can't resist posting pictures of our dreamy wedding day in Mexico---especially when there's snow on the ground here in Bend. So here's a shout out to all the peeps who made the journey, and those who couldn't as well:


Somehow it seems like yesterday, yet so much has happened in two short years. All good, all exciting, and much more to come! Happy Anniversary, Reid!

vocab

What makes a word a 'word', and not just a sound? Using it in context, I think.

Per that definition, Sadie has accumulated quite the little vocabulary recently. This morning, when I went in to get her out of her crib, I said "hi!" and she said "hi" back. Now, I know it's just one syllable---two letters---but it seems monumental to me. Sign language has been an effective form of communication for the past 6 months, but verbal dialogue? Wow. One little word flashes me forward several years, and I start to imagine all the amusing, clever, and potentially embarrassing things that she'll say. And I can't wait!

So in no particular order, her impressive mastery of English includes:
- mama
- dada
- nana (banana...and this was technically her first word)
- hi
- bye
- ball (sounds like 'bowhl')
- more (ebonics-style, 'mo')
- out (as in, get me out of this carseat)
- uh-oh

It's so strange and amazing how someone could go from not-talking to talking practically overnight. I guess that's the cool thing about being one!

what month is it?

March---and April, come to think of it---has come and gone so quickly that every day I wake up in total disbelief of the calendar. Despite the fact that it's spring, it feels like the snowball effect: Easter......Tax Day....Anniversary...Birthday..BAM! Suddenly it's May 1st and I'm buried under a drift of emails, a camera full of photos, and a non-updated blog.

It will be impossible to recount all the day-to-day happenings so I won't even try. But let's touch on a few of the highlights:

Easter. We're completely secular when it comes to holidays, and Easter's no exception. I'm all about the pagan rites-of-spring spirit of the season, and I find the bunny-candy-eggcoloring-hiding ritual irresistible. So we invited our friends the Cochranes over for brunch (complete with mimosas, of course), "hid" eggs in the backyard for Sadie and Avery, and immortalized the event with the requisite Easter Bunny photo:

Now, we weren't entirely sure what Sadie's reaction to the ol' EB would be....fear? shyness? excitement? Well, I'm not sure there are words to sum up her reaction. Luckily there were no other kids waiting, because she sat on his lap no less than 15 times. Every time he (she? it?) would set her down, she'd grab his leg and try to climb back up, all the while signing "more" "more" "more". She invented some sort of game with the foil-wrapped chocolate eggs in the basket next to him: remove one, place in bunny's hand, take back, hand to mommy and/or daddy, take back, give to bunny, remove one from basket, etc. I'm fairly sure this could have continued all day if we didn't finally pay the highway-robbery-photo-rates and get the heck out of there. Needless to say, Sadie was disappointed but fulfilled. She even got a bite of chocolate egg.

On to the hunt. It was about 40 degrees and windy outside, so it was pretty short-lived. Also, Sadie had an unfair advantage over Avery, who was not yet walking. Note that she shared the loot, though!

Why all the egg-shaking? Well, just look at what wonderful treasures were inside:

Somehow I have a feeling Cheerios are NOT gonna cut it next year.

And in other big news:
We're still in the highly experimental stages of potty-training, involving mostly fun and games and sitting on the potty fully clothed. More on that as things develop. For now, I gotta get back to work (when else I am supposed to get this blog updated?).

the modern mom

I envy this woman. She's just got it so pulled together. Where does she find time to hot-roller her hair, match her shoes with her handbag, and keep her VW Transporter so impeccably clean (in the rain, no less!) all before dropping the kids off at school? All that, and now she's off to some secret meeting in the mysterious door beyond the ivy...what a life!

Ok, I admit this is a cop-out post. I've been traveling for work, busy playing on the weekends, and now sick with a death of a cold. And unlike the modern mom, I am still in my pajamas. So there.

More real-life content to follow, I promise.