the time we got a mac and played with 'photo booth'

this is just the first picture (and there are so many great things about it)... there will be more I'm sure, just because it's fun...

so. setting the scene...

It's morning (sometime before hair gets combed, but after you get the green straws out)

I'm in the middle of making pbj's or somesuch... (and I am most elegantly licking the knife) (who Doesn't do that though? really?) and Gabe says, "hey! come see this, Kara!"

And that is our first photo booth experience.

You're welcome.

Making Plans and then Changing Them.

After being pretty sure that we were going to stay in Meridian for a while and then move up to Portland for a while, the opportunity came to move instead to Utah-something we hadn't really planned on.  We're fine with it though, despite the abrupt randomness of it all.

(oddly and pleasantly enough, my family just moved to Utah as well- from Seattle. So we're glad they are here (an hour and a half away!), but sad they aren't in Seattle for when we go hang out there... Oh-and my sister Amelia...who lived in Utah for the past several years picked up and moved to Texas THE DAY after we got here...  Can't even stand us in the same state for 24 hours, eh?!!??

Alright, alright.. grad school whatever.. Have fun over there. :)

We miss Meridian and the folks over there. We're sad we didn't get to have much of a goodbye since we had been out of town and unexpectedly moved within a week of getting back. :( so goodbye Meridian-you were good to us.

And, here we are.

Gabe teaches high school Theater and History, and due to the last-minuteness of the school district, and the fortunate close proximity and great generosity of my Grandpa Chesley, we are living in his little apartmentesque basement and enjoying life. I've always liked my Grandpa Chesley and will probably write more about him later.  He deserves a blog post of his own, though he might not get online to read it. We sure appreciate being able to be with him at this time.

Well. It seems a list of some of our doings is in order here.

Gabe is: teaching. rehearsing. lesson planning. and repeat.

Kara and the Boys are: Enjoying nature, reading, learning responsibility, helping Grandpa with chores, going to the park, playing with/babysitting with new friends, getting to know the place. Finding out what it's like to have Gabe be a teacher. (Seems to be alright so far...)  Also, working out. (thanks to Grandpa's supply of interesting workout machines... Henry prefers the ab-twister chair thing. I have no idea what it's real name is. But it equals a two year old's dream throne.)

*Just Plain Kara is: researching grad schools, places we want to hike/camp, ebay deals, beekeeping information, nut trees, preschools, and macbooks, among other things. Reading plays, organizing closets, planning paintings, writings. Wondering. Probably being signed up to help with costumes for a high school production around here...

Elijah is: 4 learning about life. being a good helper. we're working on reading words and I read the words as he points to them for me-- he thinks it's hilarious to keep pointing at the same word, or mixing them around.. whatever he can do to make mom sound funny.  It's a great game actually--and he's learning words too. Today I read the word 'smokestack' about 30 times (as found in the Mike Mulligan's Steamshovel Mary Ann book...) He's got that one down.

Henry is: 2.5 learning about being the big brother and the little brother. Doing well at it. I was the second child too, so I like to think I can understand his predicament a little bit. Never the only child... 'baby' stage cut short by the new guy... Life can be rough.  Henry loves doing things by himself, taking care of baby dinosaurs and bunnies.  Hugs and the best smiles ever come from this guy.

William is: 8 months old. Two-toothed and crawling around. I don't believe I need to say it, but man this all goes by fast...
William lights up every time his great grandpa talks to him. He loves when people talk to him. He is a sweet guy. He's into exploring everything. And he doesn't spit up as much as he used to. Except for at the first meeting I've been to in Relief Society in months (I was in primary before), when he spit up down my back as I was introducing myself. Thanks little buddy.  I think we've made a great impression already.

All of us: being happy to live close to family for the first time in 5 years... picking fresh raspberries every day. Waking up at 6 to hear the bugles from the near by air force base.  Helping Grandpa walk his dogs. Exploring Grandpa's forest (he has the best back yard ever) Going to bed at 9:30 so we can wake up at 6...

Except for just now I've stayed up until 1:00. So. That's all for now- I'll try to be better at blogging maybe?



*"Just Plain Kara" is actually the same Kara as in "Kara and the boys", of course...(I think)  We just do different things at different times...

Amazing things...

Sometimes you get tricked into thinking and dreaming of all the amazing things you could be doing... and you forget about the amazing things you HAVE done, and ARE doing.  And that you actually WILL do amazing things in the future as well. 

(our amazing car. )
 

Amazing that we found each other.

Amazing.

Life is really too short to feel inadequate or un-cool.  Or wonder if people care about you.  Stop thinking like that and remember how amazing life is, ok?


Don't forget the amazing things you get to do every every minute.  And that you're NOT DONE yet.






  Some of us are really just getting started at this.... Who knows the amazing-ness that is yet to be?? 

Dirt makes me happy.

We don't have an acre of our very own land, but we arranged with our neighbors and the management and we're planning a very large garden for this summer which will be Awesome.  (As I've said many times, this is more exciting to me than 2 or 3 bedrooms...)

Here's the view of our "Garden" from our little porch area (which since we live on the second floor is the roof, basically) 

It makes me sing songs from the Secret Garden in my head...

Now that the weather is turning good, we're working out what to plant!  Any tips on shared gardens?

Our neighbors aren't home much so far, so we hardly know them. I'm hoping we'll get to know them a bit with this gardening thing.

Not complaining about what we DO have--

I started this post along with the last one-- just to even things out. 

We'd love to have our acre somewhere, but where we're at right now isn't anything to complain about.  We like it alot!

And the more I've looked around at other places, browsing craigslist and real estate ads, the more I've come to realize how awesome our little place really is, however temporary it is... (hey, anywhere you live is temporary anyway, right?)

This is one view of our living room- when it isn't covered in trucks and blocks.  It may be smallish by some standards.  But it has a charming kind of character- which, combined with our awesome view of rock trucks and such, just makes us happy.

We moved to this 1 bedroom apartment where we now live with 3 kids, from a 3 bedroom place where we lived with 2 kids.... The math doesn't really seem to work out, but I like this place lots better.

The 3 bedroom place was oddly designed, with not very many closets to put anything in, and I felt really cluttered/disorganized the whole time.

Here, it's the most efficient use of space I've come across in any apartment I've seen. (check out that closet-- There's more storage above it!  It's awesome- and all the closets are like that. And there's a big cabinet above the bathtub like that too- No wasted space I tell you.!)

And I feel the most organized I've ever been... because we Have to be, really. 

It's taken a while to get past the cultural expectation we feel from people when they find out we're in a one bedroom apartment with 3 kids.  That of course we need 3 or 4 bedrooms if we have 3 kids- and the feeling that people are thinking 'man, you guys must be insane...'

Sometimes though, you can have multiple bedrooms and they're just small anyway, and you feel claustrophobic in all of them.  I prefer our one, large room with all the sunshine from our huge windows. Sure we all have to share a room, but we like each other I think. 

What makes anyone think we need 1000 square feet each anyway? It really isn't necessary ya know?  We're quite comfortable.

We've even had another family of 5 over to visit for a weekend.  Because we also have awesome friends who are cool with staying in our living room, despite the lack of space.  That is cool. We can't complain a bit.

As a side note, if you want to get very distracted from what you're supposed to be doing, just google small apartments, tiny living space, 50 square foot apartment, whatever-- you'll see that there are tons of Really small living spaces-- It's almost like a game with people taking the challenge to make the smallest space available into a place to live.  It's pretty awesome how creative people can be-

  

Anyway. We love our apartment.  Come visit.  We'll be planting our 2nd bedroom soon- (that's what I've decided our Garden is going to be.  We'll live in it half the time. Can't wait! :)

maybe if I blog about it, I will stop thinking about it? does that work?

I suppose everyone has a 'dream home' of some sort...

Some go for this sort of million dollar kinda thing ^   (can you find me in the picture? I'm kinda blending in with the bushes-but I'm in there-  I was bringing some sewing work to the folks who live there and Gabe took a picture to document my fancy pants clients... :)

Well, anyway- Maybe I'm nuts, but that place is not my dream home--it's just too sterile and museum-like to be a Home... to me. (sure, we'd live in it if that's what we had... it's just not our very first pick--)

I found one version of my personal dream home here in Meridian-- at a somewhat smaller price. (But for all practical purposes, it might as well be a million, because we simply don't have enough money for it at this point....)

Check it out if you want...

http://boiserealestatecenter.com/photoshow-98456349

$130,000 for an acre of land  (that's an ENTIRE acre, mind you... none of that 0.10 of an acre stuff...)  with a cute little house-- a couple of bedrooms and a fireplace...  Also a smaller side home (maybe to rent out to sisters or brothers for cheap, eh? or kick the kids out to when they're being too sassy?)

And a barn/shop.  And a little stable area.  (maybe we'd even get a horse or something?)

On an Acre of Land!  This is exactly the sort of thing I'd love... enough land for a big garden....   maybe a bit of grass as well for us all to run around on.... not so much land that it's intimidating to take care of, but plenty to have have chickens and a big garden. (did I mention we'd like a BIG garden?)

True, it's kind of old-  I haven't seen it except for driving past (ok, and pulling into the driveway and maybe daydreaming a little bit....)  So maybe we should go check it out just so I can find a flaw with it so I won't think about living in the place anymore.

Anyway.  I know since it isn't in our immediate reach, I probably shouldn't think about it at all.  But then, if people never thought about future dreams they wouldn't ever become reality.

So perhaps some day we'll get our acre... somewhere...

We Like Henry!

 

 

This is a picture of Henry about a year ago I think... We were at the Portland zoo and thought we saw some bit of resemblance on the poster there. 

He's a good guy.

And now he's 2 years old.  That's cool.   Happy Birthday man!

We thought you might want to see this...

 

You can thank the proud father Gabriel for his fabulous capture of Williams Very First Spit Up.  

William Oliver White was born Thursday, January 20 at 11:09 PM and we're all very happy.

I will soon need a running partner. And a babysitter....

It's my number one pregnancy craving so far--  to go running.  I'm excited for when that becomes a possibility.  I'm not really a 'runner'  exactly.  Not at all. I've attempted to be at some points, like the time in high school I joined the track team for exactly 2 weeks (the first two weeks... then came the time they went to run at an actual track meet and I just chickened out...)   But then the summer after Henry was born I got enough into it to run a few miles every day that I could.

(it Really helped that we lived with this as our back yard--)

 

This is when we lived right next to Yellowstone National Park, and we were surrounded by nature/heaven/the best running trail Ever.

If I ever did get to the point of running a marathon or anything really dedicated like that, this is exactly the kind of place I would pick to do it.

 

Well, on the up side, even though we don't have that particular backyard view anymore (remember, our new one?)  we do still have the best home work-out machinery ever invented--

Check out that awesomeness--

What is my point in this randomness?   (I didn't even really blog about our Christmas or New years yet... maybe I'll get around to it later? In case I don't, it was great... )

I guess my point is just that it's nice to be able to use your muscles and be healthy.  And that being pregnant really makes you appreciate that.  Not that being pregnant isn't healthy, it's just obviously a little tricky to do some things when you're awkwardly huge the last couple of months.

I'm excited to be able to wrestle around with my crazy boys without saying "don't squish your little brother!"  (on second thought, I guess I'll probably still be saying that for a while...just in a different way.)

I'm excited to go running.

And, I'm excited to meet this new little guy.






(Anyone that wants to come running with me, let's go!  I mean... in a few weeks...or a couple of months... I know I'm completely jumping ahead of myself here.   I promise I won't go running the day after William is born or anything (that's what we're naming the man, we think--)    ANYway--  I'm just that excited, ok?    I guess I must be anyway, because I hardly ever plan things Months in advance... but I'm sure planning on this...)