I'm so tired that I don't want to get up. Ever. Robert let me sleep in until he left for work. I hear the kids playing outside my room. No one is screaming yet, so I guess that means that I can keep sleeping until they do. Which will be soon enough because they haven't eaten breakfast.

Happily ignoring all signs of life, I stretched out over the entire bed and I've been letting myself doze off. When I finally turn to the side and look at my wall I see a folded up box. The side reads, DO NOT LAY FLAT. Come on. 5 more minutes of peace. I close my eyes but all my sweet dreams of winning a poker match in an army barracks (don't ask.) disappear and all I can see are giant black letters yelling, DO NOT LAY FLAT!

I have managed to rise up a little to type this. (Lucky me, the computer was by my bed.) But now the house has gone quiet. Completely. The universal sign to all mothers that something terrible is abound. Sometimes you need sage advice from a packing box to motivate you back into motherhood. I'm thinking I'll frame it.

These last couple of weeks have been a complete blur. Mom and Dad came to help us move in, on the 16th. The only problem was that the movers had given us, yet again, a different moving date. Instead of having hang out in the hotel with us, they went to Seattle to visit some friends for a couple days. When they got back into town we found the moving date was, again, moved back. This time to Sunday. We decided to make the best of it and all squished in together for the next 3 days. We did some hanging out.
We went to a gorgeous park to skip rocks.
We fulfilled Robert's one wish and went to a fish hatchery.
And finally we went to visit Fort Vancouver. We got a bright, warm day and it felt great to get out into the sunshine. Now, when I say warm, I what I really mean is, not too cold of a day. Still light jacket weather but the sunshine made Vancouver look beautiful. Plus, when we got into the fort, the walls kept all of the wind off of us and so we did manage to warm up.

Here we are, looking good.

And Rob with a lap full of kids.

The little ones on a cannon.

Laina and Grandpa.

Not the brightest move, I've ever seen her make.
Grandma and the kids. In the background (over by Austin's head) you can see Mount Hood.

Ethan made Mom play tag until she 'bout had a heart attack. In fact, any chance he got, he would tag her and run. I don't know why she humored him so much. I was exhausted just watching them go. It might have been for the giant grins that spread across his face when he saw her coming.

On Saturday we drove by the house to sign contracts. The owners Mike & Debbie have homing pigeons that they are keeping at the house until they can train them to return to their other home up the hill. They brought one of the birds over to Laina and let her hold her.

By Sunday the movers finally decided to grace us with their presence and more importantly, our stuff. Mom and Dad took the kids to church while we orchestrated the boxes into the right rooms. That night we spent one last night at the hotel and then started a week of unpacking. Because I'm way to tired to even think straight, I've decided to make this post, 'Moving - Part 1' Part 2 will have to come tomorrow.

Today I'm feeling homesick for our Miss Sar-wa. Three years wasn't nearly long enough to live by such a wonderful friend. I feel fortunate that in this world of millions of people, I have been able to find a handful of women who have become more like sisters than friends. They are the family that you choose. (not like all those crazies I was born to...although, I really lucked out there too.) Cohorts, kindred spirits, soul sista's. Whatever you want to call it, I feel lucky to have them in my life.
When I first met Sara, her preschooler was a toddler and her sweet twinnies were babies. I was feeling adrift in our new town of Charlotte and was relieved when I not only found someone with a similar family situation (A singleton and twins, one year apart) but a like-minded, funny, smart and generous girlfriend. It was a gift for me to have someone who I felt so comfortable with that we could easily hit the town (when we could stay awake long enough to do it) or just hang out in the play room. We went to parks, went shopping, managed a trip to the mountains, braved a trip on the FastTrak and all with 6 little ones in tow. 6 children all within 4 years of age. What a sight we always were. A travelling daycare class. I already miss our raggedy little group. Really. A lot.

Our last night in Charlotte and early morning we spent with Sara, Aaron and co. Here Ethan made Aaron fly him into the air and over the couch. It looked a whole lot less painful when he did it to his kids. His back will never be the same, I'm sure. Just something to remember us by. We were so lucky that Sara decided to marry such a great guy. Robert loved spending time out in the back with a friend who loved building things as much as he does. Which was a great excuse for me and the kids to spend more time over at the Weltz home. See how that worked out for me?
Alaina with the girls. I think it looks like she's holding two of those American Girl dolls. Can we keep them? Seriously.

And the close-ups. Preston, such a smart, curious and handsome little man. Did I mention, smart? This kid can have an intelligent conversation about the solar system, naming each planet with a full on description,in Spanish. To which my kids may respond with a, "Space? Yeah. That's pretty big." Ah, I love that kid.


Lizzy. Vivacious, determined and full of life. This little blue, eyed girl makes me smile just to think about her.

Ginny. At any moment of any day, this little love will give you the best hug anyone could ever ask for. (not the 1/2 second kind, the ones that snuggle right into your neck.) She is a ball of sweetness.
And here is the sad last morning.

Trying real hard not to cry here.

I know I'm all mushy in this post. I can't help it. I have the most wonderful friends/family. I could really write a book on each of you. But this little moment in cyberspace is belongs to Sara. I miss you, friend!

Guess who went to the zoo? We had an almost warm, sunny day and we took full advantage of it.

Here are my three birdies in a nest. They didn't want to come out until I told them that I was going to chew up a bunch of hamburgers and then make them eat it. If you're going to be a bird, you better eat like one.

Handsome boys on the zoo train.

This goat wouldn't stop eating Alaina's jacket. All animals have this desire to eat her up, she's so sweet. Goats. Mosquitoes. Dogs. Alaina thought it was hilarious and kept going back by the goats to be nibbled.

Ethan.

Austin

Lane.
Look at me, the Hindu Goddess (what's her name?) with 8 arms. (I just really like writing "me" and "goddess" in the same sentence.) My arms are kind of little and stumpy though.

I had to put in this picture. Doesn't this eagle look like he's up to something sinister?

Speaking of coming up with mischievous plans. My sweet Lane also seems deep in thought. If only I knew what was going through that pretty little head of hers.

Ethan turned 7 on Friday. I can't believe how this child of mine has grown up. This year it hit me a little more than the other years. He is no longer a baby, or a toddler or a little cute kid. He's a rough and tumble boy. A boy who likes to wrestle and make paper airplanes. A boy who is crazy about baseball and can't stop talking about a hip-hop class he is starting next week. A boy with definite opinions about absolutely everything. And the more he knows, the less I seem to.
When did he become so fiercely independent?
The first moment I laid my eyes on Ethan, I knew he belonged to me. After so much anxiety and worry that everything would fall through, I was finally holding this sweet smelling, wrinkly, tiny child with fine, strawberry blond hair. I spent the next few months doing everything wrong and everything right at the same time. But it didn't take long for Ethan's exuberant temperament to burst through. The gigantic smiles and laughter that came straight from his belly. My beautiful baby boy quickly turned into a beautiful toddler. With a blast of energy he shot from crawling to running. My fiery little red-head never left a moment of time unused. By that time, I knew that my first impression of Ethan was all wrong. I belonged to him. He has, what is true with all three of my babies, my entire heart. (That may or may not be logistically possible but I never was good at math.)
The more my Ethan boy sees the world, the less he looks to me to explain it to him. I love that. Kind of. I miss the little boy who looked to me to answer every question. At the same time, I love hearing him tell me the new cool things that he learned from school. Having a 7 year old is going to be different for me but at least I still have our night-time routine. I get to sing, scratch his arms and legs (don't ask...he LOVES that) share secrets and snuggles. It might not be an all day thing, however, at this point, I'll take what I can get.

Ethan wanted to go out rollerskating for his birthday, so, off to the rinks we went. He was especially excited after he found out that Great G-pa Jones was a professional roller skater during the depression. Ethan is very determined to get rollerskating down and even though this was only his second time, I think he did rather well. He mostly went around by himself, attacking the sport with a bulldogish tenacity. I didn't know the boy could do the splits. He looked as surprised as I was the painful moment we both found out.
Another determined child of mine on wheels was, of course, little Laina. She loved going around with her Daddy but spent just as much time forging out on her own. Austin, on the other hand, split his time holding tightly onto Daddy's hand or onto the edges of the rink. Here is a picture taken right after Rob rushed off to help a particularly nasty fall of Ethan's, leaving Austin in the middle of the rink. Not close enough to get to the side-lines, my sweet boy kind of slowly rolled to a stop.He stayed like that for a good long while until Alaina coaxed him into shuffling to the side by himself. He'll get it. I think.

For dinner Ethan was allowed to pick anything he wanted. (Not that he hasn't been able to do that for this last month of hotel living & restaurant eating. Shhhh. Don't tell him.) The one big difference is that he got to have a big sundae dessert. Yum.Austin was so tuckered out from the rollerskating that he didn't even make it through dinner. He took a couple bits and was out. I've never known a child who would do that when promised ice-cream.
Although, sleep is sounding pretty great to me too. *yawn* Just two months to go and I'll have two six year old kids to take Ethan's place. Heaven help me.

I can't help it. Laina talks non-stop and she says such funny little things. I really thought that last post would be it for a while. It wasn't. Here is one more little Lainy-gem.

I was waiting with Laina in the Doctor's office for someone to come in. I finally gave her a magazine to give myself a minute or two of peace. I got 30 seconds. Alaina held up the magazine with a big picture of a diamond heart necklace and said, "Mama. Don't you think this is beautiful." "Yes I do." "Well, don't you think it will be great if Robert got that for you?" "Girl. You mean daddy, right? And yes, it would be nice but it is very expensive. Things like that cost a lot of money." With a sly smile, she leaned closer to me and said, "Mom. Don't concentrate on the money. Concentrate on how beautiful it is." On a side note, the woman at the bank today where I was opening an account, told me that they could provide minors as young as 13 with debit cards. Yeah. That's not happening. Ever.

Still waiting for the seemingly AWOL doctor she said, "I think I have a Hy-pop-o-this about why they have this paper on the bed. I bet it is here to catch someone throwing-up." Not bad , chatty-kathy.