a young bad blake

Another video for you not because you asked but because I know what you want. My favorite part has to be when he says good night to the beer. That's my boy!

giraffes giraffes giraffes

Finn has been getting back into his guitar but his song writing has taken a bit of a hit. Not sure if he has writers block or if he's just running up against the limitations of his 3 year old vocabulary. We went to the zoo on Wednesday and he composed a little dity about it above. Enjoy.

adding to the art

adding to the art, originally uploaded by gylcol.

While cooking dinner the other night the boys were finger painting. You can read about the fiasco here, but here is the result of their creativity

henry wanted to say hello

seriously done sleeping

Henry had a long nap in the morning yesterday so when it came time for the afternoon nap he didn't seem to think it was necessary. At first he just played in his crib with his RV and bull dozer. A bit later I heard books dropping between crib and wall followed by Henry voicing his displeasure with being in bed. He got louder and more forceful unitl finally he was yelling "I sleep ALL DAY!" "DADDY, I sleep ALL DAY!" We had to go in and get him at that point, he was just too cute.

just when we thought we were out ...

It was a beautiful day in Portland with blue skies and a warm sun on short sleeved arms. The boys played outside for most of the day and I got out and trimmed the rose bushes and raked up the left over leaves and blown down branches from weeks of wind and rain. It was so nice out today that we made fish tacos and citrus salsa like it was summer. If only we weren't out of tequila we would have had some margaritas with our summer meal. The nice day outside helped the growing panic on the inside after hearing last night that our house in Indiana is listed on the tax sale because of unpaid back property taxes. We thought it was a mistake since our mortgage just went up due to an escrow payment that was meant to be for back taxes but instead went to home insurance. Our mortgage company didn't have our new policy after we changed insurance companies so they found their own and added it to our bill. A long day of phone calls and I think we are all straightened out now but the sunny gardening kept me from throwing up from the panic attack. Ironically the night before Beautiful and I were talking about how for once in our mariage we had all the bills and spinning plates under control. That feeling lasted all of 6 hours before reality came crashing down on us. There is always something we are missing.

beard hunter

One morning last week Beautiful and I were wanting to sleep longer but the boys had a dissenting view. They jumped in our bed and crawled over us as we tried in vain to find some peace and slumber. Soon Henry had the blankets off the bed and was blowing rasberries on all or our bellies. When he got to me he pulled up my shirt and started to place his slobbery, snot ridden face to my belly and then stopped short and examined my belly button. He then looked up at us confused and said "Daddy has belly button beard?" I was awake now after the belly laugh, and Henry started looking for a belly button beard on everyone else. "Finny have belly button beard? noooooooo!" "Mommy have belly button? noooooo!" So next time you see Henry don't be surprised if he lifts up your shirt to check your belly button for a beard.

dads at the zoo on channel 2

This past Wednesday the boys and I braved the rain to meet up with some other dads at the zoo. KATU news was there to interview some of the dads for a piece on a growing trend of SAHD in portland. The group I'm part of is a yahoo group where dad's post events that they are doing for others to join in on. They are mostly hikes that are a bit tough with the three boys but every once in a while there are the meet ups at Posies for music time or this event at the zoo. I wasn't interviewed on camera but the boys were filmed a lot for the B roll, that's my shot at using news lingo, so tune in February 5 @ 6 PM Channel 2 in portland to see if we made it into the story.

questioning the street

This morning while watching a dream sequence on Sesame Street involving Bert and Ernie where Ernie was on a flying and galloping bed that went through the clouds as the clouds came to life Finn turns to beautiful and asks "mommy, how does the rubber duck stay on the bed?" He doesn't have an issue with a bed that comes to life, runs and flies through the clouds that then too come to life and chase the bed. That seems perfectly reasonable to him but with all that craziness there is no way that rubber duck stays perched on the head board, that's just crazy talk.

in search of cheese

We went out to dinner with Beautiful's parents while they were here and we went to one of Beautiful's favorite places The Farm. The food was great and company was even better as we had some great conversations with Tom and Kris. We had some local cheese as an appetizer and that got Beautiful and I into trying some more cheese on our own. We went to New Season's on Interstate and lingered over the cheese display for a good deal of time. Where do we start? We can't remember the name of any of the cheese we had that night so we just decided to pick one type of cheese, in the case Blue cheese, and get two varieties. We grabbed a local cheese and one from Newton Iowa called Maytag Blue. Beautiful's Aunt lives in Newton so that seemed like a great pick. We went home and had a little of our new cheese tasting the two and talking a bit about it. I know it comes off as a bit pretentious but it was a good time and felt like a treat. We spent less then $6 and had an experience that seemed much richer. When our friends visited from Montana we gave them a sample and got their thoughts on the two. We all seemed to like the strong flavor of the Maytag blue but the local one was smoother and you could eat more of it. We are going to go back to New Seasons tonight but now we are armed with two books to help us decide what we will sample this week. Both from the library we checked out Artisan Cheese Of The Pacific Northwest to get the local flavors and Cheese: A Visual Guide to 400 Cheeses to get a better understanding of the types, flavors, and ways the different cheese are made. If you know of any cheese we should try or if you have a favorite leave a comment and let me know.

rain beats lakers

I am not sure the Lakers have ever won a game in the city that I am living in, while I live there. I went to two Laker games in Indiana where the Lakers got rolled by terrible Pacer teams and now in the time I lived in Portland the Lakers look terrible when ever they come here. I don't know if it's the rain, if it's the manic fans, or if there is some sort of curse but it's getting old. How can this team dominate the rest of the league and not win in Portland? I'm hoping that when I read The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons as soon as Kyle sends it to me I will learn the answer. I'm sure in that 700 page monstrosity there has to be something on the Lakers atrocious showing in the Rose City

talking about the singer

Our good friends our in town from Montana and we took them to see Music time at Posie's Cafe in the Kenton neighborhood. The place was packed and it seems this hidden gem we had been enjoying is not so hidden anymore. As I have said before Finn loves music time and today after it was all done he went up to Mr. Ben to tell him thank you for the great show and he asked if he could talk into the singer. Mr. Ben wasn't sure what he was talking about and looked to Beautiful for some help but she didn't know either. "Can I talk in the singer?" he asked again this time pointing at the microphone stand. "Oh, the singer! No the microphone got put away but next time come up right when we are done and you can talk into the microphone then." Finn smiled and said "Oh I see, Microphone not singer. Thank you for the good show Mr. Ben! See you next time." If you live in the portland area and have kids them keep Mr. Ben in mind for your birthday parties or board meetings. If you need a reference Finn will be happy to get his guitar out and play you some of his favorite Mr. Ben songs

strolling the stacks

Last night Beautiful and I went to the bookstore just to get out after putting the boys down. That is a huge benefit to living with others that we are lucky to take advantage of. We wandered isles and talked about covers making a slow meandering track through the colored rooms and multiple levels of Powell's. It was a wonderful treat that would have been made only slightly better by having any money to buy books. I say slightly better because the joy of wandering the book store, and especially Powell's is a real treat for Beautiful and I. We have that in common, that love of books and the conversations that this book or that one will bring up. There was a section of books in the lower room that had a connection with Northwest in some way and in that section was a book that I knew Beautiful would love. I pointed it out and she gave a passing glance and said "yeah nice." But she wasn't looking, if she were really looking, if she really saw the book she would take it from me and start to covet. The book was the one above, a cookbook from Mother's Bistro in Old Town Portland. This is Beautiful's favorite place to eat, where she takes visting friends to convince them to move here. The restaurant is her to a T from the decoration to the menu and the book I held in my hands was that entire experience with a sturdy binding. She finally saw, and snatched the book from my hand. She fingered through the toille pages and hearty comfort food recipes and she loved that book. We put it back on the shelf and continued our stroll talking about birthday presents and putting money aside for books. A cheap date, but I think we both had a great time.

P.S. If anyone needs an idea for a gift for Beautiful Click on the picture above.

The puddle dancers