Big Yellow Dog and A Professor

Mac had a visit with our vet this week. He has been limping around and having a hard time getting up and down. We thought his hip was giving him trouble but it looks like he has a knee injury. We were referred to a surgeon to have further tests and exams...depending on the problem and the type of surgery, treatment will likely be $3000-4000. What?! Our vet is pretty conservative and says it is a hard decision to make as he is only 7 yrs old. Some dogs do ok with anti-inflammatories, exercise and TLC. We will meet with the specialist and see what they say. He is our first baby...

Professor Update... Last week Brian was part of a panel at Univ. of Portland discussing the US financial situation. The discussion lasted about an hour and is now available on iTunes U. If you are interested in hearing about credit markets, leverage, commercial paper, reserves, derivatives, bonds and a bunch of other financial hullabaloo... check it out here.

If you don't have iTunes installed, this will direct you to download the page. Under the Academics section, click 2008 Financial Crisis. Brian's part of the presentation starts about 13 minutes in. The whole thing ends with a question/answer session. Enjoy.

Siestas

OK so I have this thing about sleeping kiddos. They are so darn sweet. I am feeling pretty lucky my boys do this every afternoon at the same time.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Field Trip

Sam's preschool class took a trip to the Pumpkin Farm today. He loved it.

It took Sam about 5 seconds to find the perfect pumpkin. Here it is!

The kids learned how to make apple cider...

...and about a few different pumpkin varieties. They thought the bumpy one was cool.

There were all kinds of animals - turkeys, horses, goats, bunnies, chicks, pigs, and super cute yellow lab puppies.

Baby pigs eat donuts?! At the little farm store they were making apple cider donuts - hot and fresh with sugar and cinnamon. YUM!

Ellen's Birthday Bash!

Can you believe it? Dee Dee turns 40 next week! We celebrated tonight with friends and family - what a great party! Here are a few pix from the evening...
There is a long story behind this cake - don't get me started. It involved 3 trips to the bakery... but it turned out very cute and delicious.
The cholocate fountain was a hit... The kids hung around this table most of the night... I even caught one guest eating the chocolate out of it with a spoon! With Brian in Eugene all day, Ben was all about mom tonight. He got tired around 8 and stayed very close... ummm pretty much attached to my neck.
Finally got a picture of mom and dad - this is a rare moment people!

Dancing, Dancing and more dancing... Yayyy for dancing! The band was awesome!
Ian crashed out...

Here is Sam cuttin' a rug on the dance floor. This video is sideways and I am too tired to figure out how to fix it. :-)

Happy Birthday Ellen!! We hope you had a special night - you deserve it! We love you!

xoxoxo

Bored

This is what you do around our house if you are bored. Round up blankets and twirl like a princess and fly through the house like a superhero. When I informed Sam that since he is a boy he would be a prince -- he looked at me like... Whatever! "Lizzie is a princess..."

So he became a prince and Ben declared he was a "ghost pwincess"... They twirled and rolled and tore threw the house with their capes. It seems lately all they do is run through the house, upstairs and down, through each room creating tornados. Wherever Sam goes Ben goes. Wherever they go I eventually end up... picking up toys, cars, trains etc.

October

I just love this time of year. The weather is still nice enough to play outside but that cold, crisp air is here. Sam helped me dig out the Halloween boxes today and decorate the house. He was so excited to hang up pumpkin garland and find spots for all of our witches, goblins, spiders etc. For some reason he thinks Halloween is on Monday? Not quite yet buddy! Here are a few things I love about October:

~Apple cider
~Visits to the pumpking patch
~Annual pumpkin carving with the Whiting clan
~Chili and cornbread
~Halloween parties with friends
~Trick or Treating
~The excitement on Sam's face when he gets a treat every time!
~Crunchy leaves
~Time to get out the winter coats, sweaters, socks - I love to bundle!
~Cozying up by the fire

The holiday season is officially here!

The Heartland

Thursday morning started off early! We got to the airport around 5am with plenty of time to spare, got in line at Starbucks and preceeded to wait 40 minutes to get our coffee... so long story short we almost missed our flight. Not so funny at the time but thinking about it now is rather amusing. Picture us running at full speed down the concourse with carry-ons, coffee and in flip flops as they paged over the loud speaker "this is the final call for boarding... doors are closing!" As we could finally see the gate my latte flew out of my hand and hit the ground - AHHHHH! I grabbed the empty cup and kept running for the plane. I didn't even care about the coffee...it was the fact that I waited in line so long to GET the coffee. At least we made the flight! If you look closely at the photo above you can see Leah waiting for her drink... and the employee behind the counter that makes espresso about as quickly as my 4 year old.

It was great to have a few days away with good friends. The convention was a good resource for our mops group here. We heard several great speakers, musicians and networked with others to get new ideas. We didn't have a lot of time outside of the "compound" as we referred to our resort... but did take a shuttle to downtown Grapevine for winetasting, shopping and dinner. A lot of coffee, chocolate, margaritas, wine, nachos (NO more nachos!) were consumed. We watched baseball, Saturday NIght Live, sat by the pool and came really close to attempting karaoke.

Kristi and I took the earliest flight out so were up at 1:45am Portland time - yikes. Brian and the boys had a good weekend - all went well. I was so happy to see them all -- they have been asking for tickles, snuggles and stories. I normally don't love the whole bedtime routine but tonight was a sweet treat.

Will be an early morning!

All are in bed. The house is quiet and I am getting ready to leave in the morning for Dallas. I pick up Kristi at 4:15am - yikes! We are meeting the rest of our friends and heading to the airport for our 6am flight.

I am already missing my boys - all 3 of them and the puppies too. Sam seems to understand that I am leaving - he said tonight "mommy why are you gonna miss me?" and then "but you'll be back on Sunday and daddy's gonna take me to the park." When I put Ben to bed he kept saying "mommy's going on the big hairpwane!" It will be interesting to see how he does without me here... he loves daddy but when he is tired or upset he is all about mom!

The 6 of us are heading to TX for an annual MOPS conference. The hotel looks fantastic with pools, lots of restaurants, bars, shopping etc. This is the first time I have left both boys with Brian. He will do great but of course as a hyper-paranoid mom I am leaving all kinds of notes about the usual schedule, meals, naps etc.

Will be back in a few days -YEEHAW!

xoxo

Shopping

Once in a while I get this crazy idea that I can run errands or go shopping with the kids. It usually ends up with me chasing Ben everywhere, trying to keep him from climbing on things and pulling things down off of shelves, hangers etc. Then we head to the cashier with him under my arm yelling "Noooooo... I wanna walk!" Yesterday I thought I would run into Nordstrom Rack really quickly. The boys were standing next to me and then disappeared (I could hear giggling). They hopped from rounder to rounder squealing and hiding inside the clothes while I browsed. I finally got them out of there and they each insisted on taking home a hanger. Sam even slept with his - of course! Who needs toys when you have hangers?

Feels like summer

Is it really almost October? It was 90 degrees here in Portland today! It is after midnight and is still 70 outside. Pretty crazy. In a few days it will be back down in the 60s and wet... gotta love Oregon!

Another weekend gone...and we're tired.

We had a good weekend and it just flew by. Yesterday we played at the park, cleaned the house, went to a friend's housewarming (love your house Laura), and had family dinner.

Here are a few pix from today... banana waffles (or waffle makers as Ben calls them), went to church, played outside, played inside, napped, Brian worked, played softball... thank you Papa and Mimi for watching the kids tonight. Did dad find his "big shooter marble?"

Weee tunnels...

Born in Arizona Mac still loves the sun...

Juice! Brian loving my new bat. So does everyone else! Nice legs #9

Much needed and off to bed.

Mr. Cranky Pants

I just woke up from a nap and I am still tired... My mom put me down which really annoys me. I take after my dad and my brother and am a slowwwww waker-upper.

Here is the best stink eye I can give ya.

TGIF

It has been a really busy week around the Adams house... YAHOO the weekend is finally here! Brian took the afternoon off to golf with JD and Colin. I think his head is still spinning with everything going on in the financial world.

This weekend we have a few things planned and are hoping to have time to relax and hang out as a family...play games, ride bikes, go to the park etc.

I am going out of town next week with 5 girlfriends so will be busy getting Brian prepped on taking care of the boys for 4 days - yikes! I will miss them like crazy but am really looking forward to it. :-)

Big one Little one

Ben follows Sam everywhere. If Sam is playing with cars, so is Ben... If Sam is wearing socks, Ben wants socks. If Sam has milk, Ben wants milk. It is pretty funny to watch them in action. This morning Brian got out of the shower and found them in Ben's room. They were all hunkered down behind the bed in their little hiding spot...Sam reading stories to Ben.

Of course they have their moments of not wanting to share, or not wanting to be tackled by the other one etc. But for the most part they are pretty good buddies. Yesterday I heard Sam telling his brother "We can't turn on those lights because we don't want to waste energy!" and today "Here, let me take your shoes off for you... We can't jump on the bed with our shoes because we'll get it alllllll dirrrty." Quite the little helper.

Yep, I let my kids jump on the bed. Bad mom.

Professor update: Brian was interviewed again this week on KPAM (talk radio). He was locked out of his office that morning but was able to get in and do the interview a bit late... they opened the segment with Bryan Adams "Please forgive me..." It was too funny. KOIN showed up at UP yesterday and filmed his class and interviewed Brian and one of his students for the 5:30 news. He will be on KGW again tonight after another interview in his office this am. I am married to quite the celebrity although he says he is ready for it to end...

Close your mouth will ya!

Sam had swimming lessons tonight - he is loving it and is crazy about his teacher - John. If he could stop smiling long enough to close his mouth when he goes under water it would greatly reduce the amount of sputtering and choking!

He especially loves seeing Lizzie every week. Tonight Papa and Mimi took them out for ice cream after class. Sam had to get green ice cream (choc chip mint) because that's what Lizzie ordered.

Ben was happy to stay home with Brian tonight. Trains, cars, bath, animal crackers - what more could a kid want?

The Professor - Part II

Here is Brian's news clip. He was on KGW last week talking about Lehman Brothers and other ecomonic news. He will be interviewed tomorrow morning on KPAM, a local talk radio station at 7am.

Sam: Let's watch it again.
Ben: I wanna watch Thomas.

Where did the day go?

*birthday party with bouncy houses, bouncy slides and kids just bouncing off the walls (below is a picture of Sam with a ring pop he received as a party favor. He has no idea what it really is (candy) and carried it around all day telling me it was really sticky!)
*brian golfed with friends
*the boys got haircuts...thank goodness as Sam was starting to look like David Letterman
*the kids got to play with friends at Jennah's tonight
*lots of snuggling, giggling and stories at bedtime (see above)

Ben is starting to carry around treasures like his older brother... if you look closely you can see a race car, 2 trains, a blue marble and Percy. He would carry more if he could.

SCRUMBLE

Sam pulled Scrabble out of the closet last night. He loves to play games...and usually makes up the rules as he goes. His version of Scrabble is picking letters out of the box and spelling names and random words...SAM, BEN, DIEGO, MOMMY, LIZZIE etc.

We play a lot of Scrabble in Sunriver. It usually starts with Ellen saying "Can we spell swear words?" and ends with Dad saying "It's a Scrumble!" If you don't know what a scrumble is, well we don't really know either. It started one night after a few beers and stuck.

I Heart my Mini

We finally have our van back - yahoo! This is the second time someone has hit me in a parking lot and hasn't left a note...

BAD karma people!

I have been driving Brian's 4Runner all week and am so happy to have my spacious, kid friendly mini back!

Five things that made me smile today...

1. Was I dreaming? I can hardly believe this myself, but a miracle happened last night ~ Ben slept through the night! I know this sounds crazy considering he is almost two… but he has never been a sleeper. CRAZY but wonderful!

2. Sam LOVES preschool (and jumping on my bed)!

3. Sam’s little green pumpkin is now orange. The kids have been watering it for months. It should be ripe and ready for picking in October!

4. Finding a bag of Dove dark chocolates in one of the kitchen drawers. Yum!

5. It is a beautiful, sunny day.