We Got Something Nice Today

Jonas gave us a mild health scare yesterday.  I noticed a few bruises on him in the past couple of days and couldn't imagine where they had come from.  He had his 2 week check yesterday and the doctor wanted to run some blood tests...so I sat in the tiny exam room for 3 hours just waiting to hear that he had some sort of rare blood cancer or something.  But he's fine.  Just a bit low on vitamin K.  Today we tested again and he's up to normal, so we're good.

Then after the hours at the doctor we rushed across town to sign the papers for our new house.  We were super late due to the long doctor appointment, but they still managed to record everything on time so that we could close this afternoon.  Now we have a new house.

We hung out over there for a few hours tonight.  The kids danced around to their Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego muscial CD, David and I got a little painting in, and we had a picnic supper on the kitchen floor. 

We got a good hour of painting in before the kids completely fell apart.  One thing we know: naughty behavior apparently happens in the new house, too.  I thought maybe the house was so wonderful that fighting and temper tantrums would disappear from our lives forever!  

Jonas was snug as a bug in the Ergo as I tried not to drip paint on his head.  (I didn't.)

David goes back to work Thursday.  Think we can get moved in by then?

Can you even believe we get to live there?  It's like a fairy tale or something.  There are raspberries, apple trees, pear trees, cherry trees and a plum tree.  And what feels like 100 hydrangea bushes, blue AND pink. 

dancing in the dining room

painting in the kitchen nook

in the nook, facing the galley kitchen and dining room

little trooper

first picture of the 5 of us!

Siblings

They love him. 

Notes for the Baby Book

We haven't bought Jonas's baby book yet so to keep me from forgetting all his recent big events I have to start writing things down here.   

Tuesday was a very eventful day for him and full of things to record.  Like:

1. last meconium diaper!!
2. first regular diaper!!

See?  Big events for a four day old baby.

He also:

3. had a diaper blowout all over David's lap!!

It was a good day. 

We got home from the hospital Sunday only to realize our box of baby boy clothes were in storage in Albany.  After minor hysteria because it made me sad to think of him growing out of all those darling newborn clothes without getting to wear them, David suggested we just go down and get the box.  Such a brilliant guy.

It meant a few more activities for the baby book that had nothing to do with diapers.

4. first road trip
5. meeting Grandma and Papa Great
6. first shopping trip to Hobby Lobby

Do you think he is the youngest person ever to go to Hobby Lobby?  I bet he is.

Daphne and Christian stayed in Albany at their cousin's house.  My sister is probably never going to want to talk to me again once my kids are out of her house.  There was some sort of altercation with Christian thinking he needed a Thomas the Train bed in order to sleep there?  I guess when you think about it, is it too much to ask to just keep one of these babies around in case Christian comes to stay the night?

snuggles with Grandma Great

the real reason we like to make Albany trips

so weird that Albany got the first store

Jonas with no baby boy clothes, giving me a weird eye:

Jonas with baby boy clothes, looking happier.

A Bunch of Pictures

David is sure that since Jonas was born on Friday the 13th with a full moon that he will have super powers.  Isn't that exciting?  I wonder what they will be.  So far he's really good at crying loudly.  Hopefully another power will develop quickly.

He was born at 1:44 P.M. after a nice 6 or 7 hour labor.  8lbs 7 oz and 21 inches long.  The first thing we thought when we saw him was that he looked just like Christian, so I dug out an old photo to compare the two brothers.

I know I already posted it on FB, but I had to put it here, too.  Maybe we didn't really have another baby and we're just showing Christian's baby photos again for fun.  Like an April Fool's joke or something.

Oh, nope; here's proof that they are now three. 

they love him

good diaper changer

still cute, even when wailing

We came home today, Father's Day.  I feel a little badly for David that the day is kind of unusual.  I saw this on Pinterest awhile back, though, and totally should have gotten it.

He IS pretty happy to have another baby boy in the family. So I think we're good.

Finally Joined the Strawberry Train

A year or so ago we found the best grocery store ever.  The farm where we had been getting our milk decided to sell their cows, and in our search for a new raw milk source, discovered that raw milk sales are allowed in stores in Washington (as opposed to having to go straight to the farm like in Oregon).  Chuck's Produce carries raw milk, and thus our deep friendship was born.

Chuck's is my favorite place to buy produce, aside from a farmer's market or similar vendor.  A lot of it is from local farms, so everything is always so good.  The fresh bakery is amazing.  We don't buy store bread very often, but when we do it's usually from there because they use the same ingredients I use to make bread at home.  Our big favorite is their coffee and pastry bar.  We'll make a trip to Chuck's an outing for breakfast, too, because for some reason the food they have there is so cheap.  Our family can eat breakfast and get a coffee for around $11.  Isn't that weirdly inexpensive?  I always feel like I'm stealing from them or something. 

fresh fruit, bagels, coffee and a danish.  Starbucks doesn't even compare.

I don't know what D is doing

they love the old trucks

who doesn't love a grocer with kombucha on tap?

Even though they're not paying me to say this (although I totally wish they were), you should make a trip up to Chuck's sometime.  You'll love it.

After this morning's Chuck's run we went right down the street to Joe's Place Farm to pick strawberries ($1.50/lb, in case you needed to know).  Not going berry picking in the summer is basically akin to not getting a Christmas tree at Christmastime.  Pure shamefulness and horror.  We only stayed for about half an hour and picked only 10lbs, but it's better than nothing and at least got us the strawberry experience for the year. 

this one was a good little worker this year

Now that we got some berries I guess the baby can come anytime?  The later he/she comes, though, the better timing will be for David having some time off after we close on the new house.  Vacation books are full for the summer, so the only time he can have off is his paternity leave.  This baby is going to get the surprise of his/her life when at one week of age moving boxes and paint brushes are shoved into his/her hands.  No time for laying around and being a baby, that's for sure. 

(We don't know when our due date is, in case you were wondering.  I don't pay attention because I don't like to tie myself to a specific date...seems like babies come when they want to, not really when the doctor says?  So, whatever, a baby will come at some point and I don't really care when.  That probably sounds weird, but for some reason it works for us.  I wouldn't mind a Wednesday, though, because Daphne and Christian were both born on Wednesdays.  Isn't that cute?)

In Case You're Headed to the Kitchen Soon

We were running low on chicken stock, which means it was time for a roast chicken supper.  I made this Jamie Oliver Perfect Roast Chicken recipe.  It really is perfect.  I added potatoes and green beans and they were super good.  Not the green beans, because green beans are generally not good; but the potatoes were fab.

I also made Vermont Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread  for sandwiches for the leftover meat.  Even though I can never get bread to rise as high as the recipe says it's supposed to, I think this one has turned out pretty well every time I've made it.  At least we haven't had to have any awkwardly tiny sandwiches yet. (Don't tell me it's never happened to you.) (I leave the cinnamon out of the recipe most of the time.)

Between the actual supper, the leftover sandwiches, and the chicken stock in the freezer, roast chicken suppers are like magical meals.

Speaking of chicken stock, I finally got smart with how to freeze it.  I used to measure it out into mason jars, but now I freeze it in ice cube trays and then put the frozen cubes into baggies.  7 cubes make a cup of stock, and because the cubes are so small, I don't even have to thaw them before adding to a recipe.  Probably everyone in the world already does this, but it really has been quite revolutionary for me.   

The other amazing thing we've made this week are these Very Vanilla Cupcakes.  I used plain yogurt because I didn't have vanilla flavored, and I did not add a vanilla bean, but they are still SO yummy.  Daphne doesn't always love chocolate so I made these vanilla cupcakes for her, but then paired them with this VERY EASY Chocolate Buttercream frosting for Christian because chocolate is his favorite.  But after licking the frosting beater, Daph declared that she actually does like chocolate after all. 

They found the photos of themselves licking beaters very hilarious.

And then they took a bath. 

New But Not New News

Well...things have taken an interesting turn around here.  You know how we've gone on and on the past few months about building a house?  Yeah.  Not doing that anymore.

A lot of things hadn't been done that we trusted were being done during the preparation process, and it turned out that it was going to cost thousands of dollars to basically start the whole process over, and meant we most likely wouldn't even get to start building for another year.  It became very clear to us that the wise choice was to just move on.  It was really, really REALLY sad, and we didn't tell anyone for almost a month because A) we felt kind of dumb, and B) we wanted to figure out what to do next. 

And if we don't seem too disappointed about it right now, it's not because we weren't at first.  We were and it was awful.  But we have a plan now, (hopefully; things can fall through, apparently) and finally there is an end in sight to living in the rental, and we're madly packing up boxes because we found a house and close on it in 2 weeks!  Crazy, right?

weren't we JUST doing this, they ask?

Finding this house has been the biggest gift.  It has so many of the features we were putting into our build, plus extras that we would've done later as we saved more money.  Like I REALLY wanted hexagon tile for the bathrooms because I love that older house feature, but that stuff is not so cheap.  This house has hexagon tile in one of the bathrooms.  And crown molding, wainscoting, glass door nobs, white front porch, a claw foot tub, white trim, white paneled doors...so many charming, old fashioned details, even though it's a newer house.  And in a market where bidding wars are driving housing prices up, we were the only people to put in an offer on this one, and were able to offer lower than asking price and still get it.  The whole thing is almost unbelievable.    

A lot can happen in two weeks, though, and even though all inspections have been great so far, who knows what weird thing could happen and I could be writing again soon saying, "Just Kidding!"  Then we would be really sad again.  But I guess they're just houses, right?  You can't take them to Heaven with you or anything.  This blog post (I really LOVE her blog) was really encouraging to us, too.  We own a bike shop, people.  We're fine now and we always will be.

So if you catch a glimpse of us in the next few weeks having a baby, packing, cleaning, painting, moving, and we don't know our names or where we are or what year it is, now you'll know why.  It's gonna be wild. 

check out those HUGE hydrangeas!!!!!!

D found a birdbath in the hydrangeas; it was basically the best moment of her life

a white picket fence lined with peonies?  Somebody pinch me

a front porch for our rocking chairs PLUS a cute side stoop off the kitchen. be still my heart.

very excited about their new room.