swinger!

bachelorhood

noah and i got aaron a few groceries for while we're gone next week...

yummy YUCKY

this is our new favorite book.

here's an excerpt:
soup is yummy. soap is yucky.
spaghetti is yummy. worms are yucky.
sandwiches are yummy. sand is yucky.
apple pie is yummy. mud pie is yucky.

and aaron's favorite:
burgers are yummy. boogers are yucky.

truckin'

aaron made this awesome mack truck for noah to push. it's been loaned out to jessa for a while, but since noah's seemed more interested in pulling up on stuff lately, jessa returned it to him. here he is having a go at it!

noah's first train set

after noah was born, aaron's grandma and grandpa wedell sent us some money for noah's first wooden train set. we finally chose one this weekend--a simple figure eight with a bridge. it's a "thomas the tank engine" set, which seemed to us to be the nicest of all the options we saw. and we figured we might as well cave in to the inevitable thomas addiction before it even begins! (although i have to admit i'm more worried about aaron's addiction than noah's...)


after a bit of play with the trains and the track, noah chose to munch on the bridge.

the co-op member's party

saturday night was the co-op member's party at the bellingham ferry terminal in fairhaven. we didn't pay much attention to the speaker or the voting for the new board, but we did enjoy the yummy vegan food.

aaron's pake and oma asked us for a family picture they could bring with them on their upcoming trip to holland, so after the party we took advantage of the lovely light and asked a stranger to take a picture.


here's fairhaven:

i'm banking on the rainbow being a sign that it won't rain forever...

corned beef and cabbage

we had a lovely saint patrick's day dinner with jess and andrew, jeff, sarah and jessa, and maryka and kevin. aaron and i made two crockpots' worth of corned beef, cabbage and fixins, jeff made a lovely green salad, jessica brought a scrumptious nutmeg cake with crunchy coconut goodness on top, and maryka and kevin brought tons of guinness. and it was sunny for a few hours of the afternoon, which made for great coffee-drinking and lounging in the backyard. (and was a wonderful reminder of lazy summer afternoons to come.)


i made everyone pose on the porch in their green clothing (including andrew's starbucks apron)


here's a candid while i'm fiddling with the camera

maryka and kevin spent the night before their big island adventures the next day. after kevin came out of the bathroom, i found noah's rubber duckies in this strange formation:

the volvo

here it is!


the amazing cd player (it plays cds. in the car!)


cozy sheepskin seatcovers


the bumper sticker (if anyone knows what this means, please tell me.)

dolor de cabeza

apologies to caren and all our other regular blog-checkers for the two-week lapse in blogging. it's been a hard two weeks, in different ways. the primary way is that i've had an inordinate amount of headaches lately, making all tasks besides diaper-changing (and even including diaper-changing, some days) out of reach. i'm feeling really exhausted and frustrated, and this all during the week before our big trip east, when we have lots of last-minute tasks planned. aaron has been incredibly supportive and helpful, and the extra time he and noah have had together has been really good for both of them. now noah cries when aaron leaves!

in other momentous and frustrating news, we've been actively trying to buy a house in bellingham for a while now, and it is starting to feel impossible. it takes a lot of energy and committment to advocate for ourselves as unusual homebuyers who would like an unusual home (i.e. a smallish historic multi-family fixer-upper in town) ...particularly as most real estate and mortgage people we've encountered seem much more comfortable with average homebuyers buying an average house (i.e. a newish cookie-cutter tiny house or condo out of town) ...even when it means taking out a mortgage for much more than one can really afford! the whole system seems a bit bizarre to us. but i think for now we've decided to take a few steps back and try to figure out what sort of thing, more generally, would be best for our little family in the near future. any ideas?

and in other momentous and not-frustrating news, we've bought a new car! we're super excited about our beautiful new volvo 240 wagon. it's a lovely blue-green hue, very spacious and cozy, easy to drive and even has a cd player! (this is a big milestone for us.) we're excited to take lots of road trips in the volvo, and are actively searching out a rear-facing third seat for the back, so that when the wassells visit we can pack tons of kids into the wagon. (chris and i decided that she and i will drive around in the truck, and let aaron and scott take all the boys in the wagon. we haven't told them yet!)

and lastly, in the most hopeful news of all, today is the third sunny day in a row! (after maybe a rainier winter than even noah the arkbuilder had to contend with.) i think it's really spring!

go bombers!

this weekend we went to see aaron's brother colin play in one of his next-to-last hockey games while a student at trinity western university. (well, aaron and i did. noah was snoozing at home with grandma.) colin's team the bombers tied their rivals the twu renegades. although colin was in the "box" when we arrived, he played great, nearly scoring the winning goal. and after the game he was awarded the "bomber" of the game helmet by his teammates. you can follow the bombers' playoff progress here.

colin has expressed his excitement to get noah involved in the canadian national pastime, but personally i'm hoping noah picks up something a little more benign. maybe chess?





and on sunday we spent the day with aunt irene in vancouver. she's studying nursing at ubc, and she also tried to get noah involved in her interests. here she is listening to his heart with a play stethoscope.

feeling like a kid

another library book i've enjoyed recently is "feeling like a kid--childhood and children's literature" by jerry griswold. it's really a long essay about what he dubs the five "unique qualities of childhood experience and the ways in which they reappear as frequent themes in children's literature" (from the book jacket). the five qualities are snugness, scariness, smallness, lightness and aliveness. he illustrates these themes with examples and real illustrations (i.e. pictures) from classic children's books. mostly this book made me want to read more children's literature, and to try harder to remember my own childhood experience of these five qualities.

the "smallness" theme brought to mind for me the "brambly hedge" books by jill barklem, which my granny cogdill read to me when i was little. these are beautiful stories for each season, around the lives of mice living "on the other side of the stream, across the field." they have amazingly intricate homes carved inside the trunks of trees, and the illustrations are so captivating because they show a side view, as if the trees are sliced in half.





i know eric smith loves "the wind in the willows" for its evocation of the cozy, small feeling. it's crazy, but i never read it as a child. maybe it will be next week's library book!

backpack baby

here's another fun library book:


i love this little board book series for its childish illustrations and simple stories. and of course i love the character of "backpack baby," who is only known as a rider on his father's back. (a great example of baby-wearing!) he encounters lots of interesting people and things from this vantage point.

in this particular book, backpack baby tells everyone he meets that he has a secret, and at the end of the story you find out that the secret is a new baby, who is revealed in a baby carrier on his dad's front! it's really cute.

but my favorite part is when backpack baby tells "the bunnyman" that he has a secret.

who on earth is the bunnyman??

noah's first report card

apparently noah passed his first swim lessons with flying colors. the only thing he didn't get a check for was blowing bubbles, which he definitely does not do. but i would have to add that he also does not excel in "underwater exploration" or "jumping in from the side." grandma bev says these oversights are examples of the inflated grading so prevalent in our school systems these days. :)

noah does excel in being really happy in the water and trying to observe everything going on around him all at once. this kid doesn't want to miss a thing!

more whistler pics

thanks to aunt irene for a few more cute pictures of noah in whistler.

"w.a.h.g." (work at home grandma)

and rivaling oma in creative baby gear output is grandma bev. she recently made these cute diaper covers for noah. i'm encouraging her to become a "wahg."

oma's warm-weather gear

thanks to oma's quick fingers, noah is super warm and cozy in the cold.

hovander homestead

acting on noah's newfound animal obsession, we took him last weekend to hovander homestead in ferndale. we'd been there shortly after noah's birth in the spring, at which point he was neither lucid enough nor awake enough to appreciate the farm animals, old farm equipment, views of mount baker and the nooksack river, etc. so this weekend we gave it another shot, and he was really excited about the birds. there were ducks, chickens, peacocks and a HUGE turkey all cackling, quacking, cock-a-doodle-do-ing, splashing, munching, etc. and we checked out the bunnies too, although he didn't seem as interested in them. the rest of the farm animals must be housed elsewhere for the winter, so we'll have to go back in a few months.



noah also enjoyed swinging on our laps and checking out the old tractors with aaron.

extreme postering

last week we had more snow!! this winter has been all over the map. i think basically we traded weather with new england. but i still get that childish excitement every time i see those white flakes start falling. i tried to get noah excited too, but mostly he wanted to eat the snow.





and of course the snow day landed on our pickford postering day, so we used the bike trailer/stroller and plowed around town.



noah is a great sport for postering, waiting patiently as i tape/tack each poster up, eating cheerios, smiling shyly at passers-by. the only part he's not into is the barking dogs tied up downtown. as soon as he hears a bark, his face crumbles! it's really sad. but on a positive note, we've recently discovered he LOVES cats. (which is weird for a child of ours!) last week we were cat-sitting for our landlady, and every time we went upstairs to feed nina, noah's whole body got quivery! he just couldn't contain his excitement. i'm afraid now it has turned into a serious cat-addiction.

peek! (a video)

click here to watch this video of noah playing peek-a-boo with aaron and generally exhibiting great excitement!