Desperate Nester

We've lived in our new house for a little over a month. In retrospect I can admit that I have been in a desperate frenzy to establish our family in this place and feel settled. Living Nomadic for the past 10 years has finally come to a close. In all things there is no guarantee, but I have to hope that this time we can put down real roots that secure us and ground us here. I want to talk to the bank teller and know I might be seeing her in 30 years from now so noticing her and taking the time to get to know her is the formation of a long term relationship. I want the parents I meet at the school and sports events to be relationships that could have time to develop over the next few years. Nothing ruins that more than the feeling when you know you're moving soon. I like talking to the neighbors and knowing I could know them when their kids are grown.
I love our  house. It has bright white walls everywhere and wonderful light in every room. Our stuff we have collected our whole lives all fits so nicely together in this house like it was meant to be. We have the rooms we have always wanted to have. A room right near the kitchen that can be a homework, craft, mess room for all the family is something I have always dreamed of. Yes, I get that room. We also have a wonderful study that we bought some sweet new shelves for. I am in the process of decorating them and choosing the furniture for the rest of the room. Who hasn't always wanted library shelves in their study, raise your hand. Nobody, yeah, I thought so. I love them!
 These are the other things I have bought for the house:
A dining set for the back porch so we can eat outside
A new dresser and some end tables for our master bedroom
A new loft bed on craigslist for Eirik's room
A $5 filling cabinet for the study
A $10 dresser for Juni which I am going to put anthropology knobs on.
Two new small rugs.
It's been an expensive month, but I've had to buy surprisingly few things to get the spaces very functional and beautiful. When things all have a place and there are not unfinished projects all over, I do much better. Obsessing about the house is a teeny tiny problem for me and I keep thinking that if I finish these pressing projects I will be more relaxed in my home. It is working. I really want to get the exterior looking good too, but it is going to take some grading and some major work that I don't know how to do. I asked a landscaper to help us with those big things, but he has been pretty busy, (and I am impatient!) I also asked my contractor friend to build me a new rustic mantle. He bought a great chunk of reclaimed wood from an old Oregon Church to make into our mantle. I can't wait to see it. It's nice to see a list of all the things I have done in a month, because, of course, all I'm thinking about are all the things I still want to get done and forgetting to see all that is already done!

I suddenly got overwhelmed last night reading about the nightmarish ebola outbreak in Africa. I started wondering what it would be like to be quarantined in our new house for an extended amount of time. Would we have what we need? So, suddenly my list of things to do got a lot longer and canning lots of food started to weasel it's way onto my list. Oh, how I dread canning, but love eating canned food.  The canned tomato soup and pickles I made in Michigan were some of my favorite things ever. So, I'm trying to dare to can peaches with 3 littles this week. I think it might be a disaster, but onward march.

PS. Why am I being a desperate nester? I'm not pregnant!?!

A New Tradition Formed tonight

Today was amazing. Paul took his team from work on a guided kayaking adventure with Portland Kayaking Company. I got to go too! We set out from the marina right under I-205 and kayaked as a group under all the huge bridges south until we reached Ross island that we circumnavigated until we returned to the marina. We had great conversation and the weather could not have been more perfect! Paul works with such wonderful people. It was tons of fun but the day was not over! We payed the babysitter, the kids had naps and tv for a few hours then we all drive to Mount Taber Park that is an ancient forest and overlooks all of Portland all the way to the cascades! The kids loved the playground and we worked on monkey bars for a long time. Then we went to HOPworks which is a pizza place that exceeds all expectations. Awesome industrial exposed wood ceiling, rustic style with art that I loved on all the walls., great food that the kids all liked AND a kids area where the kids loved playing while we waited for their food!! Why don't more restaurants do this!!! We loved it! A new family tradition formed tonight. Portland is feeling more and more like home.

Joren's future life

I asked Joren as he snuggled into bed if he was achieving the goals he wants to in life.  He thought about it and then said, "No mom. I want to live in Hawaii and have soil everywhere with things growing all over and coconut trees. I'm going to have a turf backyard and I want to have palm trees in my front yard. I'm going to have a hammock instead of a bed. I want to live on a houseboat. I want to make my own houseboat so I can make it the way I want it. I want to have succulents and a pet parrot and a pet penguin and a pet dragon and lots of weaving and bracelets and a hacky sack.  Also a pet cat with a collar and lots of stuffed animals and real vines hanging from my ceiling. I don't want to pay bills. I want to use the water from the lake to water my garden. I want to have a bow staff and waterproof elephant boots.  I want a pet tortoise to ride on. I won't have a water bottle. I will have a canteen, and I don't like jeans. I don't want freckles, only red hair. I want a rock collection and shells and coral. Also I'm going to grow up to be an artist and I'm going to work in chalk.

Bulls are dangerous

"I know why bulls are attracted to red. If you hold up a bottle of red paint to a bull he will charge you and kill you and then lick the paint."
Teig

Juni 17 months

Paul just commented how amazing it is that Juni can talk so much without saying a word. She is 17 months old and she vocalizes all day long but she really only creates about 4 sensible words. She says Daddy for sure and for at least a month her one and only word was shoes. She's very concerned with shoes. We were trying to leave one day and I said "Juni, can you find my shoes?" and she did!! She brought both of them to me. I was shocked. She said ball for the first time yesterday and she can say hi (sort of). Her other sure word is Lucy. We have been watching Jeanette's dog for almost two weeks and Juni loves to give Lucy her food and eat Lucy's food out of Lucy's dog bowl. In fact there isn't much Juni won't eat as long as she can find it on the floor, in a trash can or some other gross place. I know she is not the first child to suck on a used cigarette butt, (the horror), and it's not uncommon to find rocks and dirt in her mouth. If she can sit down in the dirt and put it in her hair and eat it, she certainly will. She puts anything and everything into her mouth, except at mealtimes. Feeding her is a challenge, not only because she drops her food on the floor for Lucy, but because she has an uncanny ability to mutilate any food item into the smallest stickiest morsels, spread them everywhere and not end up eating a thing! She likes cheese sticks and hot dogs the best. Ugh. She loves her milk. She loves candy and if anyone in the house is eating candy its like she can smell it in the air and she is at their feet begging. Clever girl. She hates to be fed and will always grab the fork or spoon from me to eat if I try to help her. she also loves to eat erasers off of pencils. I swear there is nothing she likes more. She can find a pencil anywhere and just starts gnawing. She has been doing it her whole life. It's so habitual I would call it one of her favorite things in the world.
Joren is very protective of his room and his stuff. He organizes and lays out all his belongings very precisely which makes Juni's presence in his room a recipe for a seriously volatile situation! Juni seems to know how much he hates her moving his stuff around so she tries to do it more. It drives him crazy! Joren has this little stuffed chair I covered for Teig when he was a baby that he has claimed for his own. Juni loves it and daily will go in Jorens room and take the things off it that he has carefully placed there and sit in it. Joren just loses it!
Juni loves her brothers! She banged her head repeatedly on the headboard this morning to make us laugh. She is super good natured. I have to wake her up from her naps all the time to go to swimming or soccer or Tae quan do or arts camp and she always just smiles and goes along. What a trooper! She is always up for having fun. She smiles all the time, unless of course she's giving you her famous stink eye. She has a pout face that can melt anyone. The boys sometimes try to say mean things to her to get her to give them the pout face because it's so cute. I've been putting her hair in pigtails for a few weeks and I'm not kidding; she's too cute for words. She's so lucky to be a baby, she gets to wear sundresses just about every day. She loves to swim and at the pool she is a constant danger to herself because she is so adventurous. No fear! She's recently stopped pulling everything out of the cupboards, but she is still a whirlwind. I just walk behind her trying to keep up with the giant messes she is capable of constantly making. I know this exploration stage does not last that long and I am committed to laugh through it. That's the only way to survive! :)

Eirik's summer adventure

I'm picking Eirik up from the airport right now. He got to go on a trip with Jeanette and Jake. They took off 10 days ago and traveled through the Tetons, through Yellowstone and down to Utah. Along the way they got to ride horses, run from herds of bison, get dangerously close to a grizzly mama and her cub, kayak, and sleep in tents and under the stars. Knoowing Jeanette there were probably plenty of treats and spoiling on top of that. After Jeanette dropped him off at his cousins house in Provo and swam
in their pool for an afternoon, my mom picked him up for another weekend of camping adventure with my parents, my sister Amy and her family and Michael and maybe day and Tera, (I have to check) on about thursday, Eirik's excitement about being away from home was whaning and by Saturday he was definitely ready to come home. He caught a serious cade of "homesick" so we flew him home early. To be honest, it was too long for me too. He was scheduled to drive back with Jeanette tomorrow and take 3-4 days camping on the way back. We all miss our Eirik too much to let him stay that long. I'm excited to see him. (and might I say, a bit jealous of all his amazing adventures!)

Boys are different than girls

"Mom can I watch a movie where someone gets killed in a war or something?" asked Teig the day before his 4th birthday. "Hmmm.. have you ever seen a movie like that before?" I asked. "no, I just want to." he replied.
Hmmm... A day later I am still trying to decide how to process this request.

Heavenly Father! I love that guy!

Teig just yelled, " Heavenly Father! I love that guy! He makes movies and ... US and ... Everyfing!"

I'm a vegitator. I vegitate

"I don't do chicken mom. I'm a vegitator. I vegitate, but I don't eat poisen ivy."
Teig age 3

"What is the tooth fairy?"

"What is the tooth fairy?" asked 3 yr old Teig.  "It's a witch to take your tooths away." replied Joren.

5 weeks into our new home

We bought a dresser with carved drawers and matching end tables. So pretty!
Paul was home all weekend and for the first time since we moved in we did not have company or have to go anywhere. Paul took a big interest in getting the house together. It is the first time he has had any chunk of time since we moved in to help. I have felt pretty alone in the whole thing and was starting to getting pretty frustrated, but I'm back to being a very very happy and lucky wife.  I just like to have my husband around now and then and he has been pretty busy. He gives so much at work that he comes home and just shuts down most days so I loved getting some real Paul for the weekend. We worked on the yard and brainstormed ideas for the garden. This weekend was the Old Time Fair for our little city of Willamette. We got up Saturday and walked literally one block and sat on the curb to watch our parade. Then we walked one block home, had breakfast and then walked down the hill to the fair. It was magical. This community is amazing. We got neighbors in a cute rental next door. Its a family from Florida and I met right after they arrived from a cross country drive from Florida with two babies. I made them dinner and took it right over. They could not have been more appreciative. I think we will be good friends. I also love the people across the street. She let me help her choose some paint colors for their remodel and they loved my choices.

I feel like I have been living for tomorrow since Paul and I got married, scrimping and saving and never buying anything while preparing for the future.  Now suddenly all our work is paying off and we are living for today!  It is suddenly the future and we are buying the things we always wanted to buy but haven't. Paul is getting a Harley this weekend. I bought my oil paints. Paul bought a guitar, we are buying gorgeous furniture. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. My house is coming together so wonderfully.  I love it!

I got called to be singing time leader in primary. I love teaching senior primary. I had those kids having so much fun today. We had a blast. I'm not so great with the younger kids, but the big kids love me. :)

Teig has been tantrum king lately! Joren is getting weirder every day, and Eirik could not be more whiney, but on the other hand, Teig looked at me today and said, "Mom, when I grow up, will you marry me?" Joren asked me to build him a jungle in his room so I cut out felt leaves and tissue paper leaves and hot glued them to green twine and made him a wall of jungle. Eirik is so tender and earnest and right at the crossroads of making big life decisions about what he believes.  Every day I wonder if I am being patient enough and taking enough time with him, and everyday I know I have come up short. I helped him unpack his room today finally. He had no interest before and didn't miss anything that was still in boxes so we took a long time, and it was painfully tedious. It was all I could do not to do it for him, but I wanted him to learn to put things away. I wish I was a better, more patient person!  I love that kid so much and sometimes I can't see past my own nose to be empathetic to 8 yr old feelings. Why is it so hard for me to understand  that 4 pocketknives are not enough, or that my boys can't go to sleep until they tuck every stuffed animal in with tissue paper wad pillows and kisses before they can go to sleep? They are precious! The tantrums will pass, Joren will be weird, but he is authentic and brilliant. Eirik may need a lot of attention, but when he gains independence at something his level of capability is extremely high. What he does, he does very well. He is an incredible leader. I went to scout camp with him this week and he was always the one with the flag leading the group. He always knew were to go, where things were, always had a plan. He is capable, trustworthy and I would be happy to follow him when he grows into a man. I learn so much from him. Daily I have to check my pride and try to be worthy to be his mother. Sometimes I am appalled while reflecting on my behavior.  I pray they are all resilient because I catch myself rolling my eyes, acting put out by their requests, and throwing tantrums when they make messes. I ask myself when am I going to pull it together and cut out that crappy behavior.  I started a hot air balloon chart and it is working great. Their balloon rises as they make good choices and have a good attitude and it lowers as they fight or have tantrums. Teig will loose his star wars blanket if it gets to the bottom. Oh No...! Eirik is so worried he will really lose it that he goes to great lengths to try to help him get points up. So cute.
Juni is into everything! She did something to the computer that made a sweep of the whole hard drive and erased all the programs! luckily it did not erase any documents or photos! She loves to play in the sink. I think I change her clothes about 5 times a day. she has been the voice of one word for about a month, "shoe". She loves to bring people shoes, find her own shoes and throws a fit if she can't find her shoes or get them on. Well, a fit for her is like a 1 on a Teig tantrum scale. She's really a very easy baby! I've been putting her in high side pigtails that are slaying me with her cuteness! Ahh, SO CUTE!!!!
Joren and Teig got gymnastics camp for a week last week. They loved it. Teig is in soccer and swimming lessons this week.
I can't believe summer is almost over! NOOOO

Teig:

How old is mommy? 27
How old is daddy? 7

"I was wike dis. (scared face). I just shot a huge ice berg at them and and and and um um dis aliens name is just ice. I shot around de town and ven I I I jumped over it an an I shot an ice frew the bad guys heart. See this disk right here. It helps me turn back into a human."

Teigs cookie recipe

"First you put 2 bags of chocolate chips and ven some powdered sugar and stir them around and ven 4 rotten eggs and stir it around and ven add the magic infrequent, more cookie powder. Scratch claw loves these kinds of cookies. I give one to scratch claw and the rest to his teammates. He shares them. One time on Thursday he got sick 8 times by eating too many cookies. Like from the grass to the cloud of cookies. Then I buy him 6 million more medicine so he will not get sick and then he gave me back my money and I said, "what, scratch claw gave them all back and I still have money!"

Law Family Reunion May 2014

My Brother caught himself a beautiful bride.  We got to fly out to celebrate with him at their wedding. They had it at The Bungalo in Pleasant Grove. They had a very diverse and fun crowd. Tera chose a song by Motley Crew to walk in by.  She had all the kids run in first and they did lots of circles around all the congregation while the song played. Dave waited up front in his sunglasses being cool. The kids loved it and were sweaty and tuckered out for the vows which were short and sweet. They decided not to share the vows with the crowd, but to put them in a handmade wooden box that Dave built and seal it up for 50 years from now with a bottle of wine. 

The wedding was lots of fun and I am so happy for my brother that he has a wonderful wife. I think she's pretty amazing. 
Also, they were nice enough to stick around for a day to have one day of family reunion before they left for their honeymoon.  I thought that was pretty cool of them. My mom reserved a really cool day camp up diamond fork canyon where we could take the 4 wheelers and dirt bikes and have a fun day. The kids did water balloon baseball and we had hoola hoop contests and a great picnic. There were some amazing red rock cliffs to climb. That always makes me happy and the kids loved it too. Joren snuck through this crack in the mountain that was pretty impressive.  The kids got to try shooting Grandpas guns at targets. We got to swing in Aunt Katie and Uncle Danny's hammock and play sardines.  Davy brought his slack line to try too. That was a ton of fun.  Paul and I enjoyed going WAY back in the mountains and discovering some amazing places.

Hey, I’m Eirik Aanderud!

Today I just got home from Utah and we had a wedding/family reunion!

 It was REALLY fun! Some of the examples of the fun are… 1. WE climbed the red rocks![up to 1020 f.t.] 2. WE climbed mount TIMP [the hardest mountain to climb in Utah!] 3. WE shot….1. A revolver, 2. A 45 Cal, 3. A rugger 10 22, 4. A pump shot gun, and 5. A 357 Cal! I also got to ride a quad and a dirt bike! At my uncle Davy’s wedding we had to dance down the aisles with GIRLS!!! With my GIRL I just ran down the aisle shrieking as loud as I could! I finally sat down before they could call the cops!

1,2, 3 Magic... I love my kids!

I don't know exactly what it is, but this week I have been just completely overwhelmed by how much I love my kids. It's weird how much more I can love them today when I thought I loved them fully just yesterday, but I somehow love them more. I feel so completely devoted to them it almost hurts. I am watching my little Juni walk and climb and point and do so many things by herself and it's killing me that she is already 15 months old and she is my last baby. I want to snuggle her every minute, but she is busy being baby busy with so many awesome things. She is curious and easy going and indipendent and does not throw fits yet. She smiles all the time. She loves to clap for her brothers at their baseball games. She loves to laugh with them. She thinks Joren has the coolest stuff in his room and Joren is always trying to keep her out of his stuff. She loves to climb the stool in the bathroom and brush her teeth. She imitates all of us. She loves animals. She obeys well and doesn't do dangerous things. She loves to drink from a cup, although she's not great at it yet. She feeds herself. She does baby signs for more and drink and eat. She gives hugs and blows kisses and is all around the easiest baby and so much fun to be around!! Seriously, she is so stinking cute I can't get enough of her.

I want to make every little minute with Teig, the terrific count because too soon he will be off with someone else spending his days making them smile instead of me. Oh, he is sweet. He is smart and confident and strong. He never questions himself. He has a firm, steady grip on reality, but allows himself the extravagance of having an imaginary pet named Scratchclaw that is to blame when anything goes wrong and he is also super strength and any other number of miraculous things. If we need extra money, don't worry, Scratchclaw has some extra. If we need to move our house, don't worry, Scratchclaw is stronger than the whole world and can easily move our whole house. Also, he is gentle and can snuggle at night if you need a snuggle. Teig is also a great negotiator. He has figured out that he needs to fill up on healthy food before he can have treats so he keeps careful track of all the good food he eats and tallies it up to tell me so he can qualify for a cookie or something. His idea of what is healthy can also be pretty humorous. Teig also will negotiate by letting us know that he will stay with us for the rest of our lives if he can have a cookie, or he will let me snuggle with him or play with him if he can watch just one short show. He knows how to work me for sure. He's not one for dressing up or playing pretend much. He's very practical and determined. He loves play dough and lately we have been painting together every day.  He knows all his letters and is learning to sound out words. I think by the end of the summer he will read and ride a bike with no training wheels. He gets to go to Friendship Farm, one of the greatest places on earth. It's a green barn where kids his age meet for preschool. They are called farmers and every day they get a job to take care of one of the animals there.  They work in the garden and play in the yard. The teachers are awesome and the whole thing is just magical. I love that he gets to go there twice a week. He's only done it for 2 months and next week is his last day. He will start again in the fall.

Joren has continued his love of creating things out of paper. It is beyond hobby and borders obsession. His teachers had to ban him from making paper airplanes. He is so good at it that all the kids were always hiring him to make them airplanes and he was going through too much paper at school. In place of airplanes, he has started a collection of what he has named "Harsheburg" Aliens. He has invented worlds for all the different species of aliens and he has been bringing home a few new ones every day for weeks. They are pretty interesting and very creative. He gives some of them names. I started hanging them on his walls and they look impressive together. He's passionate about them. He asked me to make Harsheburg aliens with him one night. I took a toilet paper roll and some green painters tape and started making a creature. He started flipping out. He was so mad at me. He said, "How do you do that?" He did not want me to make something cooler than his aliens. His teacher has told me again recently that Joren does not work well in partnerships or groups. This is not news to me. He has never been good at letting me help him with ANYTHING. He is MR. independent and does not want guidance or help. It was kind of a big step for him to let me show him how I made my alien and then he made one exactly the same.  I have a feeling school is going to get more and more challenging for him. His is a creative soul trying to squeeze into a school that requires non-creative work.  I feel extremely grateful to be in the awesome school district that we are in because already the teachers have been good enough to recognize his gifts and given him time to develop them.  I know he will need to do some uncomfortable conforming to be successful and I am squirmish thinking of how that will be for him.  He is so unique and an absolute brilliant, determined, passionate, gem. I adore him.

Eirik is my heart. He is working so hard to be a man. He is so good. His heart is gold. He wants to serve, and please and love everyone. He loves people so unselfishly. If someone gets hurt he wants to give them his favorite possession to help them feel better. I told him of a former teacher that I feared was lonely and he went to his room and drew a treasure box and wrote on it, "we treasure you." and brought it to me to mail to him. He did not even know him, but did not want to see anyone in pain. He is truly gifted at working with younger kids. He is a true motivator. He understand people really well. He works hard, and sets a great example for his younger siblings. He had what they called, Kids town at school where they could create, sell and buy things. He chose to be a Doctor. He got little tupperware jars and put candy in them and made up fake names of drugs to sell to his kids to help them with their headaches and stuff. With the money he made at his profession, he bought art for me, a necklace for me and a box he made with mice he made inside it.. for me. Why did he spend all his money on his mother. He is so kind to me, it blows me away!

I do have to say that I have been reading 1,2,3 Magic. I love it. I have been using it for a few weeks and I think my relationship with my kids is improving because of the refinements in our interactions from this book. I really like it!