BTS

(See Jonah under the canopy? He is not crying - he is complaining that the sun was too bright and we kept making him smile for pictures.)

It has been a two-day back to school launch at our house. Jonah had a small half-day (quarter day? He is in Kindergarten, so even on a normal day he only goes for a half day.) where Amy went with him for the first 30 min. Today is his first real day - and he rides the bus!! Noel started pre-school today.

I wish we could say that we had some really awesome back to school traditions, like father's blessings and thoughtful journal writing, or chocolate chip waffles cut into the shapes of ABCs and 123s. But we don't. We were mainly focused on trying to get the kids to eat breakfast at all and reminding Noel that he was excited about pre-school, since the mood was wavering between excitement and telling me that he would rather go to the ice cream store than school. (Side note: wouldn't we all?)

But we made it...Jonah came in the car to drop Noel off. It was fantastic to listen to him doling out brotherly advice. "Noel. When you get in the school, first you have to hang up your backpack." "The best class is gym." and my favorite, "If someone asks if you want to be friends, you should say yes. You can have two friends, or a lot of friends. I had a lot of friends."

There was a brief moment of "I don't want to stay" when we first got there, but I distracted him with hanging up his backpack (great advice, Jonah!!) and finding his name card. Then it was off to the gym (You're right again, Jonah!) I hung outside the door for a minute to make sure he was OK. He stood in the middle of the room for a second kind of looking around. Then he ran over and started jumping on mats, so I slipped away. He was fine.

And I am not ashamed to admit I got a little teary in the car.
This is Jonah on back to school day one. Notice the fun shoes. I think funky shoes are the key to a cool little boys wardrobe. (And those did not come from Oshkosh. Oops.)

Off we went to the bus stop. Which is at the top of our street.
The bus comes at 11:07am. You are supposed to be there 15 min early. They are picking up like 10 kids. How could they get so off schedule that they would be there 15 min early? But, Jonah (and me) is a rule follower so we were there plenty early. And we had to wait a bit.Jonah was very focused and serious. I think he was excited, but he knew this was a big day and didn't want to be distracted by idle chit chat. He. was. waiting. And that was all he wanted to focus on doing. There were quite a few false alarms, too. I think we are the last stop, so the bus passed us about 10 times as it zig-zagged around the neighborhood. Jonah thought it was really funny every time we would get ready for it...and then it would pass us by.

But at last, they arrived. And the bus driver knew his name, which did a nervous Dad's heart good. (I had fears that maybe this was some bus that would drop him off in downtown Vancouver.) And he climbed right on and went and sat next to some little boy. And was totally fine.
I, on the other hand, shed a few tears as I walked back to the house with Lila. At least she's still little.

Because No One Likes an Angry Grandma

Amy and I can't have a conversation with our Moms about anything without them mentioning that we need to update our blog and post pictures. So here we are. Updating the blog. And posting pictures.

Summer is nearly over...school officially starts tomorrow. So consider this the end of the summer wrap up. The big summer happening was the family trip to Bear Lake. And by "family" trip I mean Amy and the kids. My participation was limited to driving them 12 hours to Bear Lake, dropping them off, driving 3 hours to Salt Lake, catching a plane, flying back to Portland, working all week, flying back to Salt Lake, driving 3 hours back to Bear Lake, loading the car and then driving Amy and the kids 12 hours back to Portland (with a flat tire one hour before the end of the road trip. On a Sunday afternoon.) So I told Amy she had to write that blog post.

Here is what I've got. Lila is a giant baby. She is no longer a peanut. She spends most of her days talking really loud, chewing on her fingers and being attacked by her brothers. They like to read to her. Sometimes less effectively:
And sometimes they do a slightly better job:
She is getting pretty good at hanging out in her Bumpo, or Bumbo, or Bonnobo or Bobejo or whatever that thing is called.
As a side note, every time you see one of those aren't you KICKING yourself that you didn't invent that? How hard was that? And that lady is a bajillionaire now.

Lila has also enjoyed passing her time being dressed in fabulous fashions. You have already seen legwarmers, which she still wears frequently, but now that the north-western weather is cooling off a bit, sometimes she needs to rock some leggings and boots. Very Fall 2009.

Also in this fall: being really bald. Which Lila still is. (I am too, in case you are wondering.) The hair nubbins she has are still red, so we like that. We just wish they would grow a bit.

Jonah and Noel had some fun summer camps where they "learned to play sports." Really what they did was exasperate the lady who teaches ALL of the youth sports camps in Hillsboro, even though she seems perpetually annoyed by kids and has no concept of what they are or are not capable of. Noel had fun...but seemed like he would rather be playing video games:
Jonah has what I believe what you sports people refer to as "good hustle." He's pretty good, but he is super focused and dedicated. I think that will take him far. Here is some good baseball hustle (he'd make a great outfielder. He got every ball that was hit - if my Dad knows how to find and read this blog he just fell over that I know what an outfielder is and what they do.)
And some great Tennis hustle

Jonah also lost his first tooth. He started complaining about it hurting while I was brushing it one night and true to form, I told him to quit complaining before noticing that it was in fact, loose. He nursed if for a couple of weeks and on the last night in Bear Lake when I arrived for the pick up, it was hanging by a thread. So I brushed extra vigorously that night and it popped out.

We waited until we got home to put it under the pillow. Then we forgot about it. Amy woke up like a bolt at about 6:30am and said "Did we put money under Jonah's pillow?!" (SPOILER ALERT: The tooth fairy isn't real.) She got up, gathered up some change, went to put it under Jonah's pillow, and the tooth was missing. So we left the money...hoping we would find the tooth before Jonah. Which we didn't. He found it a few days later...I guess the tooth fairy dropped it!!

My mom really wanted to see a picture of toothless Jonah, which we tried to get...but trying to get him to smile like a normal person, as previously discussed in this blog, is tricky. So this is the best we got.

Coming soon: Bear Lake photos! First day of School photos! Other mildly amusing blogs! STAY TUNED!

For Kacy and Lisa. . .

We won Lila's leg warmers from this site months before Lila was born. She loves them.

Celebrate Hillsboro!

There's something about living in a certain state that changes you. As quickly as we set up residence, Josh and I became adamant recyclers, started riding bikes (albeit infrequently), and shopped organic whenever possible. We didn't even realize it was happening. It's kind of like how when you live in California you become vain, and when you live in Utah you become either hyper-religious or militantly atheist/agnostic. But as outwardly crunchy as Oregon may seem, I will remember it forever as the state that changed my life. In Oregon, I became a runner. In Oregon, I found a doctor who helped me with some health problems. In Oregon, I embraced, even craved, the wonder of the outdoors. So it should come as no surprise that when we found out last Saturday was "Celebrate Hillsboro!," we jumped at the opportunity.

Since the baby came, we haven't taken the boys on the "city train," as Jonah likes to call it. It's about his favorite thing in the world, so we decided to ride it to the celebration.


Turns out the celebration was little more than the farmers market attached to some bouncy castles. But that was fine by us. The kids had fun at the juggling/activity tent.




I mean, look at Lila. Doesn't she look like she's having a ball?

And I fell in love with the quaint charm of a small town, even one as kind of trashy as Hillsboro. We got an ice cream at the Hillsboro Pharmacy & Soda Fountain.


And browsed a fun, local toy store.
This was also the scene of Noel's monumental temper tantrum due to having to leave the toy store at some point in our lives. And also Jonah complained about his ice cream cone being too big. So another successful outing with the Bingham family.