Bouncing Off the Walls

For Jackson's only birthday present last year, we got him a bounce house (I know, tough life). While we have a really great house, we have a really lame backyard-- it is small, steeply slanted and is two stories below the main floor of the house so it isn't very easy to get out there and play. So our response to this problem-- intensified by the fact that Jackson is VERY active and physical-- was to get a bounce house for the basement as a kind of a "backyard substitute." It's way cheaper than moving, right? (I know, I know, I'm a pro at justification.)

At one point we had one of those home "ball pits" (you know, the kind that don't have enough balls to actually jump in and last for about two weeks before they are completely destroyed), so we have lots of leftover plastic balls still hanging around the basement. I don't know if it was Addy or the kids who started it (because Addy is known for depositing random objects inside her sleeper) but the kids made a game of seeing how many plastic balls they could fit in Addy's sleeper. The end result is a smaller, pinker version of the Incredible Hulk.

 

Apparently, Camryn caught on to this trend and figured she could use some muscular enhancement as well.

Goodness knows that my kids are always bouncing off the walls. I admit that I harbored the secret hope that purchasing a thing exclusively devoted to "bouncing off the walls" would save our other walls some wear and tear. That hasn't panned out, but the bounce house is still really fun.

For Spring Break...Some Winter!

The kids are on spring break this week. On Tuesday I took the three older kids and two of their friends for a day of tubing on Mt. Hood. In the four years we have lived in Oregon, I have never been to Mt. Hood yet. We went to the Tubing Adventure Park at Mt. Hood Skibowl. They have a tubing hill that is served by a tow lift. It was AWESOME. I loved sledding as a kid, but as a grown-up, having to trudge your way up a hill through knee-deep snow somehow takes the thrill out of it. But if you have a lift-- now that is the way to tube!

As soon as we got there, the kids immediately jumped in the snow and started playing.

Can't wait to get in the snow.

Camryn just can't get enough!

Sliding down the hill, no tubes required.

 Then we got tubes and took got towed to the top of the tubing hill.

Jackson and I spent the day tubing together on a double tube.

The tubing hill.

Looking up the tubing hill from the bottom.

Jackson was in heaven!

Connie after a tubing run.

Riding the tubes up the towing lift.

Jackson riding his tube up the lift.

They even had one tubing run that was carved out into curves so you would go up the sides of the ice walls.

Jared heading down a tubing run.

Connie and Camryn ready to head down the hill.

After our two-hour tubing pass ran out, the kids spent another hour and a half playing in the snow and playing in the indoor kids play area.

Jared and Connie working on a snow fort.

Connie piling up the snow.

Camryn building her defenses for the snowball fight.

The kid-sized snowmobile track (we didn't do this, but it looked fun).

They had an indoor jungle gym with a ball pit. The kids had a fun time burning off whatever energy they had left after tubing.

The indoor jungle gym

A slide and crawling tube.

Okay, so maybe the building for the jungle gym isn't the most posh ever.

Jackson loved digging in the snow.

Camryn in the ball pit.

Obstacle course

There was another "advanced" tubing hill, further up the mountain (right past the play area). However, this hill was not served by a tow lift, so we didn't try it out.

The "advanced" tubing hill

The lodge

Before we could get back into the car the kids had to take one last dive in the snow bank next to our parked car.

One last dive in the snow.

Just to prove I was there too....

P.S. You would think that with a lift I would avoid soreness, but pulling Jackson in his tube across the snow at the bottom of the hill and the top gave my arms a workout!

Unbreakable?

Corelle and I have always had a stormy relationship. Apparently, we still don't get along that well.

From the Corelle website: "We use a unique material called Vitrelle^® , which gives our plates and bowls that legendary Corelle durability. It also gives them a number of other benefits that other brands can't offer." Like instant shattering when encountered by a one-year-old.

"Tempered Glass for Break Resistance," huh? Resist this:

With a Whole 30 Minutes to Spare

I succeeded! I met my goal! I have proven the triumph of willpower over adversity! I have posted an updated picture of our family (with Addy actually present in it!) on my blog before Adelyn's first birthday! With a whole 30 minutes to spare.

And that's the best I've been able to muster in almost two weeks. No posts. Except this one. Which counts. Sort of.

(I know, I know... there are LEGIONS of PASSIONATE followers of my blog are SO disappointed that they have been kept waiting in breathless anticipation for my next post and wondering how they will even SURVIVE without more... sorry to disappoint. It happens to the best of us.)

Whenever I Think About Pioneers...

A while ago I went to Costco to go grocery shopping. Adelyn was asleep, so I took her in the store in her baby car seat, which I put in the cart. I lured Jackson into the shopping cart seat with a hot dog and went about my shopping. Midway through the store Addy woke up so I put her in the front pack. I had a huge pile of groceries, so eventually there wasn't room for her car seat in the cart. At the end, Jackson started getting fussy so I made the grave mistake of getting him out of the cart while we were paying for our groceries at the cash register. Of course my chances of getting him back in the cart after that were nil.

I pondered how best to get myself and company out to the car in the rain: a baby strapped to my chest, a double-wide shopping cart- piled over the top with groceries and diapers, a baby car seat carrier that didn't readily fit anywhere and an energetic two-year-old running all over the place trying to avoid being caught, refusing to go back in the cart. I finally piled the car seat on top of the cart, took a deep breath, picked up my 35-pound two-year-old with one arm, and pulling the shopping cart with the other trudged out to the car in the rain.

As I walked out, an amusing spectacle to other Costco customers, I thought, "I feel just like a pioneer! Pulling my handcart with my belongings and children out into the rain." To my air-conditioned/heated car, to drive home to my spacious, modern centrally-heated house. With a car full of disposable diapers and fresh groceries that would boggle any pioneer's mind. So maybe it wasn't just like being a pioneer.

Maybe it's just having too much time on my hands, but I've often wondered what it would be like to be a pioneer or just to live in the 1800's in general. I had Mormon pioneer ancestors who crossed the plains in covered wagons and I am amazed at their strength and determination. I've read "Little House on the Prairie" and it amazes me how Ma can pick up and move time and time again. Or reading novels like "These is My Words" leads me to mull over how on earth you could live in Arizona with no air-conditioning. Or how you could handle 5 children while your husband left to fight in the army in an era of no disposable diapers? Or exactly how would you dry laundry in the freezing winter? Especially if you lived in a small one-room cabin to begin with....

Usually I end up with the conclusion that I am a total wimp. Not just a wimp, but a lazy wimp. I complain about doing my laundry when I have not one, but two front-loading washers and dryers (yes, the woman who built this house before we lived here and insisted on that feature was truly brilliant). Because I have to fold it and that's hard and boring. So instead I let my laundry pile up in the upstairs hallway while I sit on my computer and write blogs about it and ponder important things like whether this blog post has too many italics.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an ungrateful wretch. On the contrary, I'm deeply grateful. After all, I am only one generation removed from when cloth diapers were your only option. (Can you imagine how considerably less comfortable of an arrangement co-sleeping would be in the era of cloth diapers?) Every single time I change a diaper I thank my lucky stars for the invention of disposables. I've also thought about inventing disposable socks that don't need to be sorted and folded. :)

It definitely would have been a hard life to be a pioneer, but there would have been things that were good about it too, like working together as a family and not being so split up all the time or not having all of the pressures of modern life. And maybe there are parts of my cushy modern life that a pioneer wouldn't really like that much. They probably wouldn't like that you can't just send your kids out to roam on your 10 acres of land. Or getting in trouble with your HOA for having chickens in your backyard (that was for you, Emily). Or maybe they couldn't stand having a backyard the size of a postage stamp. We have a whole slew of different expectations. They might hate the fact that while we have plentiful delicious food to eat, if you want to be considered attractive you should renounce it and try to look like you're starving. (Or maybe that has always been part of being female.) They might even share my dislike of sorting through the piles of papers that get sent home from school in my kids' backpacks. Maybe they wouldn't like dragging a two-year-old through Costco. :)

But regardless of what a pioneer would or wouldn't have thought of my life, I'm pretty sure that if one of my pioneer ancestors was placed in my shoes, they wouldn't think , "Let's be sure to make sure I feel bad every day because I'm a wimp and don't live in a log cabin and trudge through the Oregon rain and mud to get my water every day." So I guess all anyone can do in their given situation is to enjoy what you can for what it is and be grateful.

Workin' It

Today I planted a bunch of plants in our front yard. I am in a race against time to see if I can finish planting the front yard before we leave for California on Saturday. Do you think I can do it? (Or the bigger question: can I do it and still get all of my bathrooms clean before I leave?) Should I really have bought the last 7 plants today that I need to finish the landscape plan? (Please don't answer that.)

Today I also removed three big bushes and broke a shovel in half in the process. It was even our "good shovel" (not the one that the handle bends if you push too hard). Doesn't that make me sound burly and strong-- especially for a pregnant lady? =] "Yeah, I was out working the yard pulling out a couple of bushes and our flimsy shovel just broke in half... they just don't make them the way they used to."

So maybe our shovel was getting old and on its last leg... maybe I was trying to use it as leverage to get the roots to budge... but I wouldn't want to spoil a great story for the sake of a few details =].