HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Well..... we had a pretty successful fright night here in Portland. Between the parties and candy hunt on Mississippi Ave and late night (OK late for kiddos) trick or treating and imbibing (for the parents) in Irvington we all did pretty well. As you can see from the photos Kathe was a saucy witch and Ike was a furry pumpkin, although the pumpkin suit did not stay on too long.

Ike during his short stint in costume.

Kathe and Gillian (the twin witches of Monroe St). This was taken outside of Black Wagon (our friends store) just as the madness was beginning.

Working on their scary faces.

Showing off her pumpkins.

Calvin and Ramona

We hit every store and restaurant on Mississippi.

Asa the tiger!

Ike assessing his loot early on.

Ike and Caleb (the chicken) comparing their candy collection.

We don't know this kid, but he made a pretty cool Headless Horseman.

Kathe & Isabelle.

Monroe St Mafia seen here. From left to right: a black widow, a ladybug fairy, Prince Caspian, Peter Pan, Ike as himself, Asa the Tiger and Kathe the Witch!

After a couple hours trick of treating on Mississippi we stopped for pizza w/ our posse and then moved on to Irvington where we hooked up with Kathe's school chums. Irvington was madness! We traveled in a big group - lots of parents and kiddos. All the houses had candy (we even went to Kathe's teacher's house) and one house even had beer, wine and grillables.

Today the kids are counting and organizing their candy.

So, how was your Halloween?

Happy Fall

It's almost Halloween, but so much has happened since summer that we want to bring you up to speed! First off, Kathe started Kindergarten at Irvington School, her daddy's alma mater. It has been a great experience so far. She's making lots of friends and really enjoying herself. Here she is on the first day of school.

Here she is showing her school pride.

Ikey's getting in on the action too!

Ikey is 3!!!

Ikey turned 3 this summer and boy did we tear it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It would have been great if all of our friends and family could have been here, but it would have been a tight squeeze. One of the beauties of a summer baby is that you can always throw the bday party in your backyard.... except of course if there is a torrential downpour, which is what happened to us. So we had 40 or so people in the house, 1/2 of them kids, 1/2 of them found hiding in my closet. Chaos reigned, but we had a great time and Kathe taught Ike how to open presents.

That's our neighbor Scott holding court with the kiddos.

How cute are Jason and his little sister Beth? And tell me she's not working that party hat!

Ikey loved having his big cousing Jordan at the festivities!

Getting busy with some cupcakes!

Cute little birthday boy!

Summer 2009!

It's been way too long, we know, but we are back, hopefully for good. We have spent the summer very close to home barely venturing outside the city limits. We did have a nice hike on Oak Island just outside of Portland on Sauvie Island. We are hoping to make a new Sunday tradition out of it. If you come for a visit we promise to take you!

Exploring the marsh off the Oak Island trail

Looking for herons

Racing to the beach

Aryne has been toughing out the rough economy by working her tail off and trying to sell as many houses as possible. She's even started a real estate blog. Check it out at http://www.arynesblog.blogspot.com/. Kathe has been bouncing around the camp circuit since mid-June - zoo camp, theater camp, Spanish camp, soccer camp and just plain ole campy camp. She has taken a couple weeks off to spend some quality time hanging out with Aryne & Jason and be bored at home. There were a few adventures to the Chinese Garden, a hike at the Audobon Society and the Japanese Gardens, and some fun time spent swimming.

Kathe at Portland's Chinese Garden

Kathe and her friend Mavis hiking at the Audobon Society

Kathe workining on her kicks at swimming lessons

Jason teaching Ike to swim

We have spent a lot of time in the garden too. Jason has done a great job planting and harvesting our crops. We had delicious blueberries - you can see Kathe hiding behind the bushes above - peas, cukecumbers, lettuce, kale, herbs and we are just starting to get ripe tomatoes. Soon we'll have delicious sauce!
Impressive huh?

First Day of School!!!!

Kathe is officially school age! She had her first day at big kid school - Boise Eliot School on Friday. We met her new teacher, Ms. Phillips on Wednesday and two days later she was in her uniform and ready to go. She will be in school Monday through Friday from 8:40 to 3pm learning all kinds of cool stuff! This will be her educational home for the next 10 years! Boise-Eliot is a pre-K through 8, so she will be here until she starts high school in 2018! Here she is looking cute as a button and showing her school colors.

Kathe was super lucky to have a very special friend walk her to school on Friday - DR. RAINBOW!!! He flew in special from Philadelphia with his full on rainbow suit and harmonica. Here they are getting ready to head down the street.
Oh... and there they go, down Monroe street. What a great way to start the school year, and you can bet those other kids were way jealous!!!! Dr. Rainbow got lots of surprised looks from parents, teachers and students (not to mention a few TriMet bus riders), but the best reaction was from an older lady who saw him at Grand Central Bakery after we dropped Kathe off. She told him he looked great (natch), but also made sure he understood that he could (and probably should) get a version of his hat in green so that he would be prepared for St. Patrick's Day!

As you can imagine the first day of Boise-Eliot was preceded by Kathe's last day at Pocketsfull of Posies - the daycare and pre-school that has been her home away from home for the last 4 years! We were sad to day good-bye, but only a little b/c Ike will be there for the next 2 years. The kids gave Kathe a big send off. Here they all are below. The girl to the left of Kathe is her BFF Evie. They have been in school together since they were 6 months old and they will both be at Boise-Eliot too. Conceivably, by the time they graduate high school they will have gone to school together for 18 years (just about their entire lives!)


Ike hasn't been up to much other than ruining our sleep, speaking in complete sentences (holy cow!), pinching everyone he loves and singing songs - other than that he's a pretty boring kid. Here he is showing Jordan his cross over moves on the keys.

Bye Bye Summer

We've been so lucky to have had a really fantastic summer here in Portland. While we're sad to see it end, we definitely said "Good-bye" to summer '08 with a bang - Maia and Jason got married. We had a crazy busy weekend - wedding, cocktail party, brunch and lots of hang out time with Beth, Jeff and Jordan who came in for a quick visit. No one was more exited about the wedding than Kathe! Look how pretty she looked in her new pink dress, braids and sparkly flip flops.



Check out Kathe's moves on the dance floor. Here she is mixin' it up with her Pops! (note the change in footwear)

Here Jason, Jeff and Jordan enjoying their Eggs Benedict.

We had so much fun with Beth, Jeff and Jordan - WE REALLY MISS THEM!!!! Here are some more fun shots with them!

Jordan teaching Ike how to play chess,

Grammy and the kiddos. Check out Jordan's cool specs....


In other news...

Our cute little Ike got a nice new haircut, we even had to get him some product to rub into it. On the flip side he has been exasperating his Mommy and Daddy by waking them up in the middle of the night demanding milk. Through most of the summer we've obliged him b/c it was only once a night, well this weekend he kicked it into high gear - 4 times. Moms even had to take a nap on Sunday afternoon. So, we bit the bullet and started the Ferberization process once again. So, last night he cried and cried and called for us for 3 hours (12 to 3 to be exact). Once he drifted off, Kathe was up peddling snake oil. Once we got her back to bed, Ike was up at 6am. Aryne finally relented and gave him some milk so that she could get more than 30 minutes of uninterrupted sleep. At 7:30 Ike was up and raring to go, like he'd slept 12 hours straight. A morning spa appointment and an afternoon of napping was in order for Moms and Pops, but alas we had to work so no rest for the weary. So, please just don't get us started on the Republican convention....

Backyard Fun

We have had some very lovely summer weather lately and our backyard is a great place to hang out. Check out Jason churning the compost and Kathe climbing in the tree.

We are doing lots of urban farming this year. We've had a lot of lettuce, peas, green beans, blueberries and herbs. Now the corn and tomatoes are starting to look edible. When Ike sees the tomatoes he says, "APPLES!" and tries to pick them. Corn on the other hand really does look like corn especially in the photo below. Not quite ready to eat and who knows if it will taste good. We can always turn it into chicken feed.

Our neighbors planted a beautiful trumpet vine on their side of the fence, problem is all of the flowers bloomed on our side. Good for us, bummer for them.

Not wanting to post without including a photo of the boy, here is Ike munching on some cheese...