The last month

Katie, Geoff, Mike and Adrienne hosted an amazing party on Saturday full of great food, a keg from one of Colin's favorite local breweries, multiple attempts at getting the kiddos together for their last photo shoot for the time being, late night shananagins, late night sing-alongs with Mike and Colin on the guitars and lots of great laughter (and tears) with friends we will miss dearly. We are so thankful for those who have made our lives so much fuller. We have such an amazing group of irreplaceable friends here, words cannot describe how thankful we are. Above Quinn, Lily and Harper sitting still for less than a seconds- my how they have grown.

Beck and Rosie smiling on command.

Quinn, Rosie, Beck, Noah, Lily and Harper.

Same shot, 1 year later, changed women all for the better - Celeste and Quinn, Katie and Harper and Julie and Lily.

Quinn, Alex, Rosie, Lily, Beck, Harper - yes they were starting to unfold very quickly.

Last week we had late night (7:30) rendezvous at the park- we all road our bikes there, played for a bit and road home. Lily LOVES riding on the bike.

A little out of order but here are all the kids together. You get the progression- pure chaos but it was hilarious.

3 days in Michigan for interviews and finding a place to live. I have officially excepted a position. We still don't have a place to live but it is still a week away so I am sure we will find something- hahaha.

Poppie Chuck and Lily

When we got to Michigan Lily had a birthday present waiting there for her from Meg, Theron and Nettie. She LOVES the chair and can't wait to be back in Michigan reading books in the chair. Thank you Dobson family.

My parents house backs up to woods and there are turkeys, chipmunks, deer and birds galore. Lily loves standing at the windows and pointing out all of the animals. For that matter Chevy is there now and he is loving being able to sit in the bushes on his leash and stalk turkeys- a dream come true. Roxie on the other hand is still with us panicking over a missing Chevy and panicking with every new box that is being packed. She will be so excited to see Chev in a week.

Look what we have been doing!

We have had a very busy few weeks since I last posted. This weekend Aunt Kalie came to visit and we had a jam packed weekend. Lily loved being with Aunt Kalie, telling her all about Eugene, her toys and all the different foods she is eating these days. We laughed all weekend long because when Lily asks for any type of food she asks for "yaya." When she sees pictures of food she calls it "yaya." So insert any yaya joke here and we probably said it, "hey we need more yaya from the grocery store."

Boon bath toy baby model anyone?

Picnic in the back yard - Kalie's only 20 minutes of sunshine in Eugene before she left - it rained and was cold all weekend.

We still spent a day up on the McKenzie- a group of us set up a sudo camp - we hiked, had lunch and a bon fire with smores! Lily opted for eating a whole strawberry on her own versus me cutting it up for her. It was cold and raining and she and Harper did awesome.

Part of the group- Kalie, Julie, Lily, Colin, Ana, Jeff

The whole group: Katie, Colin, Lily, Ana, Kalie, Jeff, Geoff and Harper

We of course had to show Aunt Kalie what to do at the wineries. Here Lily is sporting her new Joes (fancy jeans that Colin and I had no idea existed)! Thanks Aunt Carrie and Uncle Dave these jeans are adorable on Lily.

We had a picnic at Sweet Cheeks Winery, the kids loved it because they got to play and walk around while the parents drank wine- hence the parents loved it.

I know I missed a few weeks in between now and the middle of May but let me recap.....Lily's birthday party, then one year vaccins that resulted in a sick Bean with two long weekends of VERY high temps (103-105), then Harper's birthday party (above Quinn, Harper, Lily), a garage sale and a great visit from Aunt Kalie. We are trying to squeeze every last bit of Oregon out and soak it all up.

Talking

Happy Birthday Lillian!

Lillian had a great first birthday. It was sad for both Colin and I not to spend the day with her but that evening I made pizza on the grill (one of Lil's favorites) and of course broccoli, we sat outside on a blanket and opened up presents. Thanks to all for all of the calls, cards, well wishes and presents. We have had one of the most amazing years with this little girl.

She had her 1 year appointment Friday! Poor thing had 4 vaccines and has been sick from it all weekend. She wowed her pediatrician by smiling, blowing her kisses and talking to her. She is officially 30 inches long (78%tile), 22 pounds 5 oz (71%tile), and has a 18.5 inch head circumference (93%tile). It is crazy to think she has grown 11 inches and 14 pounds and 7 oz since last year.

She is moving like crazy now. She never wants to sit, she is always pulling to stand and walking along anything she can get her hands on. She continues to have full conversations with herself, blow kisses to everything and everyone she likes and clap and cheer with excitement whenever appropriate (which seems to be about 75% of the time). She still loves when we sing to her and now she is the one instigating peek-a-boo. She is becoming more opinionated which means her temper tantrums and getting funnier. She likes to arch her back and she ends up in a bridge position with just her feet and head touching the floor. She will even look out of the corner of her eye at you to make sure you are watching.

She had to stand the entire time to open her presents.

Lillian's 1st Birthday Party

I am sorry for such a late post. The week got away from us with late night meetings and preparations for the next day. Lily had a great birthday party! We had 17 adults and 6 kids at the house for a morning brunch. Unfortunately it rained and we were all stuck inside but we had a great time and Lily loved every second of it - she just loves being with other kids. She smiled, clapped, squealed and cheered the entire time. We have such an amazing group of friends and family here, it was nice to feel smothered in love for the day. Both sides of the family were represented as Aunt Dottie and Garret and Brendon made the trek from Portland and Rosanne gave up her Saturday morning to represent my side of the family.

As with every child's 1st party, Lily had just awoken from her morning nap when everyone arrived. So instead of playing with all of the kids she took her time eating her breakfast. Everyone was in awe at how she just kept asking for more cold, cooked broccoli.

I finally cleared her food away and we brought over the cake and sang 'Happy Birthday.'

Here she is still admiring the singing and the cake.

Here she is trying the frosting, which she didn't like and tried to feed to the dog. When we had her actually try the banana cake she loved every bite of it.

"This is great mom!"

mmmmmm

No more cake left, just frosting!

Most of the kids were getting ready to leave and I wanted to get just 1 quick picture of the kids together. Many of them were starting to unfold but it worked out ok. You can't tell from the picture but the entire time Lily was clapping and putting her hands up over head in excitement. Left to right: Quinn (1), Beck (4), Harper (1), Rosie (4), Lily (1), Alex (3)

To make you laugh

This picture makes me laugh out loud every time. Copy and paste this link below to your url to laugh even harder. This is from last weekend playing outdoors after the half marathon. Please notice her outfit in the video, yes those are her slippers. We had a great time! (Birthday party pictures are on their way for all of the frequent checkers......hopefully tomorrow night.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u44FrxqUwCY

First Half Marathon

It seemed somewhat fitting to be running my first half marathon in the running capitol of the USA just short of one year after Lily was born and during our last month or two here. It was amazing with 8000 runners and walkers and many, many more cheering us on along the side of the roads with their guitars, drums, car stereos, and some even with their industrial size sound systems. There was even one young man with his 80's mustache holding a tray of eclairs with a sign that said 'Free Eclairs.' I did pass them up, it just didn't seem right at mile 8. Colin and Lily dropped me off at 6:15 a.m. so I could walk to the start. They met me at mile 2, 8 and at the finish-line. It was amazing how many friends came out to cheer me along and Mike, Rosie, Katie, Geoff and Harper met us at the finish line. My goal was to run in under 2 hours and I succeeded by running 13.1 miles in 1 hour and 54 minutes. I felt great the entire time and it was a beautiful day with clear blue skies and a balmy 35 degrees to start the race out, though the day did make it to 70 degrees.
It was funny because the night before Colin and I were recalling how last year we walked from spot to spot to watch our friend Brian run; Colin said it took us forever to walk because he had to roll me up the hills. This year he was rolling Lily in the stroller up the hills as I completed this race for myself. In all of my hours of running I have thought much about all of our adventures out west, the friends we have made, the new discovers we have made both about ourselves and the land. Many firsts have occurred here. I am saddened to be leaving such an amazing place, a place with people that join you at 7 am on a Sunday with their guitar to sing you a song as you run by smiling. I am saddened to be leaving our family of friends that are irreplaceable. I pray that the day never comes that I call anyone of them and they don't pick up the phone because 'it has been too long and the conversation will take too long.'
However after hours and hours of pondering this big decision to move I know we have made the right one. The days that I may waver a bit in our decision something overtly obvious reminds me why we have chosen to move back east. I embrace this next adventure that awaits us. I am excited for what is to come: the opportunity to have dinner with our parents and siblings on the fly, to sit on the dock at our cottage for hours on end and not worry about the next person we need to go visit, and most importantly to share this amazing little girl with her family.

Ana is a close friend from work and she also ran the half. Jeff her husband, Colin and Lily watched the race together.