Isabella's new hair do

Our Week

August 10-16, 2009

Monday a lady from my ward invited me to make jam at her house. Blackberries grow like weeds here so she had her husband go pick about 3 gallons and we made lots of jam. It was so fun. I learned how to make jam, so hopefully in the future when I get the equipment we can make some of our own. This lady said I could help her bottle pears and other fruit. She gave me several jars of the jam and a bunch of blackberries. I came home and made blackberry pie. The crust wasn't my favorite but Stan loves the pie so it was a success.

Again we went to several parks this week and took lots of walks. The weather has been so nice!! The high in the 60's and 70's. We actually had our first rainy days. Several days were overcast with rain. We loved it! It would clear up for a few hours and we would take advantage of the sunshine and go for walks. Our grass is growing like crazy, its fun to go out in our yard and see lots of green grass.

My doctors appointment went well this week she said I could go anytime. As we see however I still haven't had this baby. He is due next Sunday so hopefully I will have more exciting news before the week is out.

We had Laina our Landlord over for "afternoon tea." We told her we only drank herbal tea so she brought over a whole array of herbal teas. We tried the mint while we showed her around the house and yard. She loves this house and was glad we invited her to come see what we had done with it. She is so nice.

Our front yard is also growing like crazy. We have 5 rose bushes and several other kinds of flowers. Stan clipped the flowers back and we had enough flowers to do flower arrangements in 2 vases. Its so nice having fresh flowers from our yard.

Downtown Portland has a market on Saturdays where tons of vendors come and show their art, clothes, crafts, talents and food. We walked all over and enjoyed seeing the different booths. Isabella loved to watch all the people and their dogs.

Isabella is learning so much. She points to different body parts and is learning to obey, she is also testing us with trying to disobey. Several days this week Stanley got Isabella laughing so hard. She gets in these moods and laughs so hard she literally almost falls over. It is so cute to hear a laugh so much. She is Stan's little buddy. Today when she got down from the high chair she knew Dad was up stairs so she went to the gate and started yelling DADA DaaaaaDaa. She also loves to just cuddle when she first wakes up. We are enjoying this new side of her because she usually isn't one to cuddle. Sometimes when she is just sitting on my lap she will rub and pat my belly like she knows her brother is there. Hopefully soon she will get to see him.

Aug 3-9, 2009

This week has been a great week for being outside. The weather is finally normal for Portland. We have had days in the low 80's and 70's. We keep saying how nice it is to have a break from school while the weather is so nice. Monday I had a doctors appointment and they said everything looked good. Isabella had a hard time though, when they started taking my blood pressure and measuring my stomach she started to freak out. She was crying and just wanted me to hold her. The doctor said that is normal because they think something is hurting the mom. I felt bad for Isabella. She wasn't comfortable till we left the doctors office. After that we ran errands to get more stuff for the house. Stanley put all our pictures up and got me a piano stand for my electric piano. Its so nice to have the house looking like our home again. I love to sit down and just play the piano. I need some serious practice.

Tuesday we met up with Stan's friends Elana and Jason and went on a picnic to the Rose Gardens. We just sat in the grass and ate our lunch surrounded by thousands or roses. Then we walked all around the garden and could smell all the different kinds of roses. It is so beautiful here! I would have taken lots of pictures but my camera broke and the new one didn't come till wed. On Wednesday we went to Kelly Point Park. It is a beautiful forest park where the Columbia and Willamette River meet. Thursday we walked from our house to "Down Town" St Johns. Its about a mile. We looked at different shops and ate lunch and stopped at a bakery where Stan got a delicious pastry. Saturday was a busy day. We got up and cleaned the house a little bit, went and looked at garage sales. We were looking for a lawn mower and lawn tools for dirt cheap. We were able to find a lawn mower for $35 so we were glad. We also stopped at Cathedral park another park on Willamette. We stopped by the farmers market and saw all the great fresh produce, but didn't buy anything. When we got home Isabella "helped" Dad with the yard. He was raking some rocks off the grass and she would throw them back. Then he mowed the little yard. We were so excited to have our grass long enough to mow. Then we met up with Stan's friend Ben and his wife and daughter that is Isabella's age and went to a festival. We watched a band play that Ben knew and went to school with. Sunday church was good. Stan got called to teach Priesthood 2x a month. I am glad they are holding off on the callings for me so far. I am still pregnant but really hoping to have the baby this coming week. I can always hope right...?

Lawn work

Ok Jo you wanted belly pictures here you go. This is me at 38 weeks in our front yard.

Isabella is just getting used to our new grass and always wants to be helping Dad with whatever he is doing. Here Stan is raking some rocks out of the grass. Isabella would follow after and throw them back on the lawn. Such a big helper.

Don't let that innocent face fool you, she is the guilty party here.

Kelly Point Park

We went to Kelly Point park, it is where the Columbia and Willamette Rivers meet. Isabella loved just sitting and watching the water. Its so awesome that this is just a few minutes from our house!

Update

July 27-Aug 2, 2009

Well so much for Portland's wonderful weather. This week they broke several records. For several days the temperature has been anywhere from 100 degrees to 107, and they broke a record for most consecutive days over 90degrees. That doesn't sound bad compared to AZ, however we have no Air Conditioning. It is was cool in the morning but as the day heated up, the heat and humidity were just terrible. Stanley was amazing. Even though it was hot he still kept working hard to get our house organized and put together. Tuesday night the house didn't cool down like its supposed to so we ended up sleeping down stairs. We woke up in the middle of the night to check on Isabella and her room was really hot and she felt hot, but not sweaty. We were worried that she was getting heat exhaustion. We woke her up to give her some water and she seemed out of it. So we brought her down stairs and sprayed her with a water bottle and kept giving her drinks of water. She soon felt better and even played for a little while before she fell back asleep. I was so worried that I decided to look up the price of a hotel for the night. I found a really good deal for $50, but then we decided to see how much a window A/C unit cost. We got lucky because a hotel was selling all their old window units. The next morning we went and bought one and Stan installed it right away. That evening we spent in our room, and we all slept so much better. It was so worth the money to have one room that was cool. We made sure to spend time at the pool, mall and grocery stores this week so that we could have some A/C during the day. Towards the end of the week it started to cool off. The biggest change was the temp at night. We keep our windows open all night and then it cools off enough to keep the house cool most of the day. So the weather is finally back to normal and we are enjoying it again.

Like I said, Stan was amazing. He is so good at organizing. He organized each room so everything had a place and everything was in its place. Our rug came for our living room and we got some pillows for the couch and curtains for the windows to match. We also decided on color schemes for each of our 3 bathrooms and got towels and accessories to match. It is the first time that I have had matching sets for each room. Its wonderful!!

Thursday we decided to take a trip to the coast. It is about 2hrs from Portland. We went to a few cities and saw the huge barges on the Columbia River. We went across the bridge to Long Beach, WA. We had a great time just relaxing on the beach and feeding the seagulls. Isabella wanted to touch them and chase them till they started swooping in to get the food, then she decided she was afraid of them it was cute. We drove down the Pacific Coast Highway for a while and stopped in Seaside. It is a cute tourist town. We parked and walked up and down a few blocks that were lined with little shops, candy stores, restaurants, galleries and antique stores. We stopped in the Salt Water Taffy shop where we pick a bag full of salt water taffy from their 170 different flavors. We ate dinner at a sea food and grill place. Stan said I needed to try good fresh fish. So I was daring and ordered Halibut. It tasted so good! It didn't taste fishy at all. The shrimp that came with our salad was great too. So I have decided to stop hating seafood at least the fresh kind. I want to take everyone that comes to visit to Seaside. The beach is great and so is the shopping.

The rest of the week we continued to do stuff around the house. I didn't know how much stuff there was left to do. Thank goodness for Stanley! Church was nice and Stan already got a calling. He was asked to teach the Elder's quorum 2 Sundays a month. I hope they hold off on my calling until after the baby comes.

Isabella has really been learning fast. She can go up and down the stairs by herself now. She is understanding more of what we say and we just love to watch her play and figure things out. She is so smart. We love being home together as a family and are dreading the that Stan will have to go back to school. Oh well we still have 3 weeks and we are taking advantage of it!

Video clips of Isabella

Here are some video clips of Isabella walking and learning how to navigate the stairs. Enjoy. Sorry some of them are long.

This is Isabella walking down the upstairs hallway.

Isabella walking up the stairs.

Isabella finding her way down the stairs.

Isabella wanted the camera so she threw a little fit...but got over it soon enough.