July 2007 archive
The Office Is Coming Together
The office is coming together again. Last night Ily and I put together the first new desk and system control has moved back out of our bedroom. Ily, of all the most sound sleepers there are, couldn’t sleep when the computer was on at night in our room. I think craigslist was calling out to her or something. Anyway, you can no longer track our sleep habits by checking when the website is working or not. The computer should stay on all the time again. We’ll start taking pictures of the new office and post those soon, I promise.
Posted by Bryan on July 29, 2007 | Filed under: About This Site Family News | 0 comments
The system was down
Well, since I know you all check the website daily, hourly, every minute even, you might have noticed a lack of availability this afternoon. While we are “remodeling” our office (ie painting) we have moved the computer that acts as our server upstairs to our bedroom where it is temporarily residing on a card table. This means that the mongo huge power strip that we plug everything into is reachable by little fingers. I guess any button that glows must be pushed by little people, even if they are 6 years old. Needless to say we weren’t pleased to find the computer off this afternoon. But the computer hasn’t yelled at us for it’s foul treatment so hopefully it is OK and we shouldn’t punish the perpetrator too much.
Sorry the site wasn’t available. Hopefully the children won’t be pushing too many more important buttons that kill the 'puter. Man!.... and we even got a new childproof case for the new server! It appears they are smart enough to get around the childproofing!
Posted by Ily on July 23, 2007 | Filed under: About This Site Family News | 1 comment
July 22, 2007
The boys have been cranky and refusing to stop watching tv to even go to the park. They have been little stinkers this summer break. I got so annoyed by it that I did something drastic, I declared no TV week. I figured that if they didn’t have tv, they would do fun stuff and be in a better mood. And what do you know, but it worked!
This week we have:
- Successfully gotten Micah to gymnastics on time.
- We have gone picking blueberries twice and had fun running around our friends’ ranch where we pick the blueberries.
- We have gone to the park more.
- We went swimming.
- We have had more creative play. Isaac has had a passion for creating replicas of real objects out of paper lately and now I have all sorts of little paper swords, shields, guns, wheels, rocks, logs, cups, plates, diving boards, watering cans, and anything else he has thought up to make out of paper. The diving board was funny because he actually taped it to our bathroom sink and had Little People and little toy wooden guys from our train set diving into the sink like it was a pool.
- I was able to start cleaning out the office so that I can paint it. The boys even got into helping me carry stuff out to the garage so that they can help me paint. They love to help me paint. Isaac really wants me to paint lots of colors on the walls. I am not into black and yellow though, his preferred colors of the day. We have chosen a nice creamy color called maple. Think heavy cream. I have painted the ceiling so far. They will help me with the walls tomorrow and maybe the next day too.
- We have played in the really awesome sandbox… it has been flooded with the garden hose innumerable times this week.
- We have had playdates.
- We have had naps.
- We have read books.
- We have cooked together.
Oh yeah, and Bryan hurt his knee playing ultimate frisbee at work and has been laying around all week.
Oh man and I almost forgot to mention… I made it through a week of being cub committee chair during cub camp! Lots of little details, but it all went smoothly and now is over! I even had to go one day as an adult leader and it wasn’t bad. I don’t think I will sign up to go all week ever, but one day wasn’t bad. I actually almost had fun. Herding boys isn’t particularly easy, but for the most part they were good. Only a few brawls to break up. I sure hope that by the time Isaac is a cub, the other boys with him are good!
We also celebrated our 8 year anniversary this last week. We went to a yummy fabulous German restaurant in Portland called the Rheinlander. They have people strolling around with accordions singing and yodeling and if you have a special occasion, they sing to you. They sang an anniversary song to us, gave us balloons, and a delicious apple strudel. Plus the food was yummy, yummy, yummy! It was a great way to celebrate!
I guess that is about all for now. I will post pictures of the newly painted and reorganized office if I ever finish it. At this point, I have no desire to move furniture back in after I finish painting it! We have sold some of the old furniture and bought completely new stuff. I just think I might not be able to bring myself to put all the junk back in that we have collected over the past 8 years of marriage! Goodwill might get a huge influx of stuff this week from our very own house hold.
Posted by Ily on July 22, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 3 comments
New Server, New Feature
The website is running on a new server now. I built a new computer and it totally rocks. The website is running on the new machine. Can you tell that it’s faster? Probably not…but I can!
I also added a new feature to the website. Nobody but Ily and I will notice, but I figured I should write it down for posterity’s sake anyway. It will now email us (the site admins) whenever a new comment is posted. That way we won’t go days without noticing that someone has commented ever again (because, you know, we check email, like, every minute). So maybe you will notice when we reply to your comments so much more speedily than before. I’m now going to post this, and then comment on it to make sure the new feature works. I’ll probably comment again to let you know whether it does. I know you’re waiting with bated breath.
Posted by Bryan" on July 15, 2007 | Filed under: About This Site | 5 comments
Old BYU friends
We had the rare treat of having Greg and Mindy Henry, some old neighbors of ours from Wymount (married student housing at BYU), as guests this last weekend. Our first children were born a month apart and they played together often. My favorite memory of Isaac and Janae Henry playing was when they took all of the pots out of a cabinet at Mindy’s and climbed in themselves. It was super cute!
After the Henry’s graduated they moved off to Virginia so Greg could be a Math teacher (my same profession if I chose (meaning “forced”) to work). They would be living closer to family since that is where they grew up and they were excited. We moved to Washington state which is way far from them. Their family has grown and it has been fun to keep in touch since well, they are such great people! Soon after they moved out to Virginia, their whole family moved away… back to Utah actually! After a bit they decided to move back to Utah so Greg could pursue a Master’s in Math Education and what do you know but we get to visit them when we go visit Family in Utah- lucky for us!
This year was a special treat because of all the places to have a family reunion, they had one out here at the Oregon coast and had to drive thru Vancouver on the way home. It was so great to see them and let our kids play and stay up late after the kids went down to play Settlers of Zarahemla. Micah, who is our 3 year old, and Easton who is their 4 year old, were and interesting pair. I thought Micah was an anomaly because he is so much tougher and more physical and so much more of a bruiser than Isaac ever was. Well, I guess it turns out that the second child must always fit that role or something because Micah has met his match with Easton! Both are great kids and I loved watching them interact, but I had to laugh at how alike they are and how we had to do quite a few time outs for those two. It is just reassuring that others suffer from the same wonderful types of children as we do!
I was wiped out from the fun of having our house guests (and all the stuff I had to do to get our cub scouts ready for day camp this week) that I just about couldn’t even make it to my bed before I could start my Sunday afternoon nap. I almost fell asleep eating lunch. That just makes me think “wow, if was that tired, just how tired are Greg and Mindy?!” I hope they made it home ok after their huge trip out here. Traveling with kids is way more exhausting than anything I have ever done and therefore makes any rest taken on a vacation null and void! I hope they have a few days to recover from their trip!
Posted by Ily on July 10, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 3 comments
Fabulous 4th
We had the funnest 4th of July as a family since the epic slip-n-slide adventure year when my idea to make a slip-n-slide ended with Grandpa Doug breaking a few ribs. Still feel a bit bad about that, but it sure was a ton of fun!
Anyhow, this year all of Bryan’s immediate family came over to the Portland area to celebrate with us and Melinda ( who now lives in Beaverton with her family). Bryan, who has two sisters, has always wanted a brother. Now that his two sisters are married (ok, So Julie has how many weeks to go? 3 until the the wedding? we still call her fiance’ uncle Andy even though it isn’t official yet) Bryan has brothers now. He had to wait a long time to have someone in the family enjoy the arts of setting fire to things with as much as Benj and Andy. Doug was enjoying it too. The manly crowd is now even with the chicks. And with all the baby boys we keep making, I think the feminine majority is over for the Murdocks!
In Clark County, where we live, fireworks are legal a few days before and after the 4th of July. We set out our lawn chairs on the front lawn so that we could have a good view of the fireworks that the men set off in the street and it was great. When we ran out of fireworks, Andy and Julie even went back for more! For all of the loud fireworks Micah and Isaac would run into the house and watch out the window. They were so cute watching out the window! When Micah finally said he wanted to go to bed, we put him in bed and he said to me: “Mom, why aren’t they done with fireworks yet?” He slept thru most of the fireworks, but for the rest of us, they went on well into the night. I heard a neighbor complain that at 1 am they were still hearing them go off. I think I was zonked enough to not even notice by then. During the whole night we could just sit on our lawn chairs and watch the fireworks display above the houses all over the neighborhood. The neighbors put on a good show.
I can’t imagine going out to battle traffic and crowds to go see fireworks at the Fort of Vancouver where they have the big show for two reasons: 1) the crowds are insane and the show is good enough at home and 2) We want to be around in case the fireworks set our house on fire!
PS: we forgot to take pictures. So family, if you have any, please forward them on!
Posted by Ily on July 10, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments
Where did the time go?
Somehow we already reached July 1st. I still feel like it should be May! Time is flying quickly.
Isaac finished Kindergarten and is now officially a 1st grader. He is also now a troublemaker at church because a new boy moved in who Isaac adores and they giggle and talk all during class instead of pay attention. I am so excited for another boy Isaacs’ age! I am not so excited that his teacher had to talk to me about his behavior in class on Sunday. At least I know he is capable of better behavior and I don’t think his disruptiveness will last forever.
Reece now has 15 teeth. One more to go and he is done till he’s 2. I feel like he has been teething forever.
Micah is getting bored we think and I am planning to start him up with gymnastics again soon. He has lots of energy and I think that the gym will be a good place for him to get his energy out.
I went to a class recently out in Newberg, OR about babywearing. I went to show the class participants how to wear a mei tai and possibly sell some. I didn’t sell any, but I sure learned a lot of other cheap ways to wear your child. the teacher showed us how to use a long scarf to carry a child on your back. Even a beach towel can make a quick baby carrier without any sewing whatsoever. The teacher did it with ease, but when I came home and tried it wasn’t so effective. I learned one way to use a wrap (very complicated) and decided it was cool, and I learned how to make the easiest baby sling ever out of an old t-shirt. I tried the t-shirt sling and what do you know, but it does work! I think it is the only remotely comfortable baby sling I have ever used! All in all, I am still convinced mei tais are better and much more comfy than the free t-shirt sling, but it was cool to see the myriad of different ways to carry your child mostly hands free.
Happy Fourth of July to everyone out there! May yours and my homes not burn down because of the neighbors fireworks!
ily
Posted by Ily on July 1, 2007 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments
