Birthday Girl

Gabriella had a nice, low-key birthday. At least, "low-key" was nice for me because I had to be up at 3am for work most of the days of last week.

The day before her birthday, Gabriella enjoyed her first trip to Build a Bear to where she helped bring a panda named "Lola Bear Whisler" to life. Lola was part of Gabriella's gift from Grandma & Grandpa Warth. Lola is quite snappy in a red and white sundress and white eyelet sandals. You should meet her or perhaps join one of her tea parties.

On her actual birthday, Gabriella enjoyed a supper of her choice followed by some gifts. Jonathan and I gave her a cupcake set for her play kitchen and a toy percussion set with a drum, some shakers etc...

I love, love, love her little "thankful" hand gesture.

...and then what should appear in the driveway, but a new bike from Grandpa and Grandma Whisler. (She was way more excited than this picture shows, but getting up on it so high off the ground was a little intimidating the first time.)

After gifts we headed to The Living Room, a community space hosted by our church and met up with some friends for cake and cupcakes. Yep, I made vanilla cupcakes with pink frosting AND a yellow cake with strawberry sauce. Not too bad for someone who was up at 3am.

What will year 4 bring to Gabriella? Preschool, new friends, new skills, new challenges... I'm excited to be there with her.

Today

So far today, Gabriella has...

Married Aladin.

Given birth to a baby girl named Kailyn.

Taken a ride on her new bike from Grandma & Grandpa Whisler.

Hurried home to nurse her now one year old baby.

...and that was all before lunch!

Freshly Four

Everyone talks about that powerful moment of bonding with your newborn baby. Gabriella's birth was my first chance to experience that miracle. There were two things about Gabriella Kate that gave me an instant sense of "this really is MY child." The first was her intense amount of black hair. Before Gabriella was born I just knew she would have lots of dark hair. The actual amount surprised me a little, but I fully expected a dark haired girl. I even had a dream before she was born where the nurse handed me a baby with just a few light barely-there wisps and I actually questioned whether the baby was mine. In the dream I explained to the nurse that my baby simply did not look like that. The second thing was the way she stretched. During the end of pregnancy I was fortunate never to completely feel as if I had run out of room for my growing baby, but my unborn baby girl seemed to think her quarters were a bit cramped. She would make an excellent attempt to uncurl her body in its cramped quarters and push those pointy little feet as hard as she could right out of my midsection. I can still feel the spot where her feet would practically stick out on my right side. After my black haired newborn was laid on my stomach she stretched out and uncurled. Finally unfurling without resistance. It was such an intensely familiar sensation. She was mine. I was hers.

What they don't tell you is that there will be a million more moments where you fall in love with your child all over again. When she thinks that maybe she got a few more wheat thins than her little sister, so she shares some. When she tells you that she loves Jesus. When she is proud of herself for accomplishing something new. When she protectively grabs her little sisters hand when she thinks that she might be getting too close to danger. When her blue eyes sparkle. When she tells you that she wants to help people who don't have enough food to eat or places to live... that she would like to give some of her dresses to little girls that don't have any. When she makes up an imaginary husband and 8 imaginary children.

Happy Birthday Gabriella Kate.

Tremendous Trio

While Alyssa was here, I stopped at a fast food restaurant with her and the girls. The cashier took a look at the four of us and said to me, "Three girls!? Oh my, I feel for you!" I was pretty shocked she would say that right in front of said girls, but I just smiled and said something along the lines of "Oh, this one is my niece, but we really love having girls." Our time with three girls was quite fun... especially since the eldest one dotes on the younger two and was more than willing to help man handle... I mean, help keep an eye on them during outings.

I'm still working on editing photos from the month of August. I've been taking a break to work on a fun shoot with a fabulous family and their sweet new daughter. You can check out the first batch of those on my photography blog. While you are over there you can check out the changes I've made and let me know what you think.

I don't want to face the wrath of my big sister over lack of photos (after all, she did entrust her baby to my care for two weeks) so I put together this slide show of our trip to the rhododendron garden with Alyssa. After I talked it up so much on here she just had to see for herself! Unfortunately, NOTHING was in bloom, but we still had a fun time...




PS: The working title of this post was, "No, I feel for YOU" (back to the subject of the fast food cashier)... but that seemed a little obnoxious. When all else fails I always fall back on corny aliteration.

PPS: Gabriella and Juliana held hands almost the whole time walking around the rhododendron garden. They do that a lot. How cute is that?

Beach Portrait

I can't help but love this photo. The timing was a bit early... the kids were wet and tired well before actual sunset and the sky was patchy... overcast in spots and bright with clouds in others. Not quite the perfect recipe for a silhouette, but I was determined to get one. The sky doesn't have the range of colors or detail I would've wanted, but still... I love it. Even in stark profile you can tell that Juliana's face is pure glee at having her Daddy toss her in the air. Juliana is always our little thrill seeker. Whats more, she has perfect trust in her Daddy. I love that you can see the little pony of the top of her head, her button nose and her tiny little feet... Ok, not so tiny at size 6.5, but still. Jonathan mentioned that the way her shirt has billowed up gives the appearance of fairy wings. I have to agree... my little pixy and my wonderful husband. No wonder I love this picture.

A wave!

Early this morning we saw my 12 (almost 13) year old niece Alyssa off to the airport. Alyssa came to visit us for about 11 days or, as Gabriella would say "This is my cousin Alyssa and she flew all the way from Iowa... by herself." Can you tell Gabriella was impressed with the solo flight? We really enjoyed spending time with her for the past 11 days and we'll all miss her. Gabriella has already requested that we look at pictures of her all day so to "remind us of her."

We capped off Alyssa's visit with a fun overnight trip to the beach. Weather on the Oregon coast is less than predictable. It is pretty darn chilly more often than not and sometimes downright cold even in the summer. For this trip we were excited to find that it was just warm enough to let the kids actually play in the water. We all had a blast. It was Alyssa's first time seeing the ocean (any ocean) and it was Juliana's first time to really romp in it (she was 6 months old during our last ocean visit.)

Juliana was able to add a few new words to her vocabulary.... wave and ocean. Letting Juliana get into the water was a lot of fun because she would shout "A wave!... Yay!... Go!...One more!" etc.... every single time. However, you have to watch that small girly like a hawk. As proved by the hotel pool and the ocean, Juliana has NO water fear. Gabriella also enjoyed the sand and water, but she had a healthy respect for "white waves" and did a pretty good job of observing our family rule of, "No deeper than your knees." Mostly, she wanted to build sand castles and decorate them with shells.

I'll have pictures eventually, but for now.... some video. (Do I get some applause for that? You ask and I deliver. Even if I have to use Alyssa's camera to do so.)

Alyssa opted to wear a fleece jacket over her swimsuit. So maybe it was a bit chilly, but in comparison to our past trips it was downright warm. This video was right after she got hit by a nice big wave.... it turns out that bending down to inspect something in the ocean is risky. Jonathan is the one who is dying laughing.

And a cute picture I snapped of Alyssa on her camera...

Thanks for visiting Alyssa! We love you!

A Summer Smattering

I'm so backed up on blogging about our summer exploits! I could do whole posts about so many of the things we've been up to, but you'll have to settle for the super condensed version. So here you have it, a summer smattering...

I should probably start right back at the beginning of the month. For the fourth of July the girls rode in a very cute little parade with Gabriella's playgroup and we enjoyed a BBQ at our pastors house with friends.

A few weeks ago we enjoyed berry picking (raspberries, marion berries and blueberries) at Sauvie Island. We love going to Sauvie for our pumpkin each year and it was fun to make a summer visit.

We left just as the light was starting to get good. I really wanted Gabriella to stand in this glowing golden wheat field, but she would have none of it.

Our church enjoyed a beautiful day of baptism down at the riverfront. Afterwards we enjoyed spending time together with some food and games at the riverfront park. You can see more pictures I took at the baptism here.

This is Becky. She has a pretty amazing story. She inspires me with her faith and courage. It was wonderful to be able to stand with our friends as they professed the change that Jesus has worked in their lives.

We made it down to the Lake Oswego library to see a free live "Reading Between the Lions" show. Reading Between the Lions is a show on PBS that focuses on early literacy (phonemic awareness etc..). It is super cute, but Gabriella hasn't watched it on tv in a long time because Caillou is her current choice when she gets a tv show of the day. It was a great live show and we were able to meet and chat with the characters and their voice actors/puppeteers.

Leona!

Jonathan chatted with this guy. He was super nice.

The kids were totally entranced.

This lady does both Leona and a few other minor characters like this "Dixie Chimp". She was also super nice, but she looked totally different than I would have expected from her voice.

Gabriella had her first trip to the Portland Art Museum. She was pretty excited to see the Monet they have. The museum was actually celebrating the acquisition of a new sculpture of Ganesha so they had free admission and lots of Indian cultural activities. Gabriella was able to do a sand paining. Juliana pretty much slept through the whole trip in her stroller.

We were hoping to see "Sand in the City" in Pioneer Square after we finished at the museum, but we made it just in time to see them tearing down the sand sculptures. Gabriella was a little bummed she missed the kids sand play area, but tt actually ended up being pretty entertaining so we grabbed some food at Taco Del Mar and watched them work.

So there you have it. Just throw in my work, Jonathans internship, some pool trips, playgroup dates, creek splashing, visits with friends, library trips, birthday parties, church community get togethers and art projects and you have our July in a whirlwind. We've kept busy, but enjoyably so.