our week by iPhone - week 63

i seriously had to do a double take at my pictures from earlier this week & think hard if that was actually this week.  because it feels like for-EVER ago.  it has been a long & good & exhausting week.

here it is through iPictures {i totes made "iPictures" up.  what now apple?}

monday.  we got up at the crack of dawn & drove the two hours from sam's sister's in portland back up home so sam could go to work.  unfortunately, our house was still powerless & the thermostat said it was 45 degrees inside... awesome.  parker & i left.

we spent the day hanging out with friends but later when i ran home to pic up another night's worth of sleepover-supplies i was greeted by about 15 power trucks in my neighborhood working to get all the lines fixed.  i may have cried happy tears.  apparently five days without power made me a little emotional.

that was parker's last night curled up in a pack n play for a while.  he did so awesome though on our nomadic adventures... he's such a champ.

tuesday.  we had stayed with our friends tim & lindsey so parker got to have an early morning playdate with cami before we headed out to stroller strides.  she is obviously giving me the "ok, it's time for this kid to quit playing with my toys & for you guys to leave" glare.  obviously.

after stroller strides {where parker opted to climb on random objects rather than pose in a picture with me} we went home to... A HOUSE WITH POWER!!  it was amazing.  i cranked the heat & parker reacquainted himself with all his toys.  he may have sat in a corner for a solid half hour reading his favorite books.

the not so amazing part?  clearing out my entire freezer & fridge of rotten/spoiled food.  but watching sam & parker run the aisles of costco to restock it almost kinda made up for it.  and so did curling up with "hunger games" & some oreos to end the day.  that kinda makes up for anything.

wednesday.  we were so happy to be in our warm cozy house on wednesday that we may or may not have never even left the house.  maybe we also spent the whole day in our pajamas.  except parker... he bathed.  and then it was back in pajamas.

thursday.  i went to work for the first time in a month!  vacation, sick kid & then snowmaggedon had kept me away so i drove happily in for a day at the office & parker had an awesome day with his sitter playing with one of the largest collections of thomas the train i've ever seen.  pretty sure he spent the night dreaming of five thousand foot long wooden tracks carrying his three thousand foot long thomas train collection.  he was in choo-choo heaven.

friday.  the sun was out & there wasn't a rain drop forecasted for the whole day so despite the crispy 35 degrees outside, parker & i went to the zoo with a bunch of our favorite mamas.  the zoo was almost completely empty & the kiddos had a blast running from exhibit to exhibit.  i foresee lots of zoo trips in our future.

friday night was really exciting.  i finished "hunger games" {uh-mazing!!} and sam played a little playstation for the first time in two years.  and parker?  pretty sure he spent most the night running his thomas trains around the top of our coffee table over & over & over again.  it's pretty much his favorite thing.

that was our week!  how was yours?  i wanna see, so link up!

Game Rules:
1.  your pictures have to be taken by your camera phone. that's it!  you don't even have to have a picture for every day.  got one camera phone pic of something fun from this week?  link up!

2.  if you want to grab the code below & put it in your post to have the linky with all the thumbnails show up on your blog do it.

and please post a link to my blog so others can come here to grab the code, too.
the more kids who come out to play, the more fun it will be, right?

Grab the code here:

<script src="http://www.linkytools.com/thumbnail_linky_include.aspx?id=128257" type="text/javascript"></script>

...and get on the linky here:

used books & evil doughnuts.

just to forewarn you, this should probably be two posts.  but i'm not breaking them up because i'm crazy like that & this all happened in one day so to get the full effect you get one post.  but there are a lot of pictures... so... be warned.

while we stayed with sam's sister down in the portland area last week we decided to make the most of our nomadic homeless situation & have a fun family day exploring the city.  and every time i spend a day exploring portland?  i fall in love with it a little more.  that city is legit.

we started our day off by hitting up powell's books.  this place is ridiculous.  it's the largest new & used bookstore in the world, people.  we barely scratched its surface & we were all in bookstore heaven.  i think we coulda spent another five hours there but our parking was only good for one... so we made due.  first we checked out the kids section {of course} and they happened to be having story time.  parker payed attention for about 0.5 seconds & then was off to pull books off the shelf one at a time, plop down on the ground, carefully flip through the pages & then stick the book back on the shelf until another one caught his eye.

this kid loves books.

the thomas book came home with us & he pretty much hasn't put it down since.  it's definitely his current fave.

after powell's we headed to another part of town to get our voodoo doughnuts on.  if you haven't heard of voodoo doughnuts, i'm worried you might be living under a rock.  you guys, they've only been on tv like 500,000 times or something.  anywho, there's always a line out the door & down the street but it goes fast & it's worth it.

and you get to take fun pictures of the city & your cute baby & husband while you wait so everybody wins.

it's true, good things do come in pink boxes.

despite all the hype of the donuts with sugar cereal on them, bacon covered maple bars, or the signature voodoo-doll donut, sam & i stuck with basic maple & chocolate bars & a couple old fashioned donuts.  not too shabby my friends... not too shabby.

wordless{ish} wednesday: we've got power!

after five days & five nights without any electricity in my entire neighborhood, the lights {& the heat!} are finally on at our house.  i think at the peak of the craziness, there were over 400,000 homes & businesses in the greater seattle area without power.  that's insane.

luckily we kept warm & were taken in by friends & family for all five nights.  but you guys?  it feels so amazingly good to be home.  i've had the heat cranked up to completely ridiculous levels in the house just because i can.  parker ran around from room to room scooping up his toys like it was christmas morning... he was so excited to be reunited with his stuff.  one thing that wasn't so awesome?  throwing away everything in our fridge & freezer & then going out last night to replace it all.  not the high point.  but climbing into my own warm bed?  pretty dang good.

and now maybe life will return to normal.  whatever that is.

{linking up with wordless wednesday at and then she {snapped},  baby baby lemon, the paper mama, & a little king & i}

our week by iPhone - week 62

holy schmoly.

this week has been nutso my friends.  nutso.  and it continues to be.  let me start off by saying that snowmageddon?  was real.  it was ruthless & took the pacific northwest by storm... fer reals.  we lost power at our house thursday morning & as of this moment on sunday morning there's still no power at our house.  it's awesome you guys.  awesome.

ok not really that awesome.

but actually we are so lucky.  we've been staying at sam's sister's place since thursday night & have been made to feel totally at home & are probably gonna be here til our electricity gets fixed {which isn't estimated to happen til tuesday!}.  i'm just so grateful we have a warm place to call our home-away-from-home!

so here's what our week looked like:

monday morning we woke up to a blanket of snow & spent most the morning watching more come down.  we played inside & snuggled until we finally got our teeth brushed & headed out in the snow to get some provisions.  parker reallllly thought he needed some cool big boy toy story underwears.  some day p-ray... some day.

tuesday.  snow continued to fall most the day so i bundled us up for some good ol fashioned snow-play.  parker had to spend some time recovering on the couch before heading out again for more provisions.  it's a tough life that kid has.

i took a quick snapshot of the snow tuesday night before bed as it started to come down in sheets as predicted.  i still never expected to wake up to as much snow as we did wednesday morning.

wednesday morning we woke up to thirteen inches of snow.  that's a lot for the pacific northwest you guys.  we're not well equipped for that much snow & it basically shuts cities down.  sam worked from home & p-ray & i did a good job of letting him be productive by playing puzzles & staying busy with other indoor shenanigans.

after sam finished his work, he spent about an hour shoveling our driveway so we could get out & stock up on necessities.  like pizza fixins & chocolate milk.  just the essentials.

the roads were horrrrible & not even the interstate was plowed.  we managed to get to the store & back in our two-wheel drive sedan but not without a shovel & some de-icer in the trunk just in case.

thursday.  this is when it got really crazy.  our power went out at about 7:00 am & we spent most the morning in our cold house listening to branches crash down due to the weight of their ice & snow covered branches.  it for reals sounded like gun shots & made me jump every time.

we ended up heading over to our good friends' tim & lindsey's for most the day since they were one of the few lucky ones in town with power.  parker & their little girl spent the day playing {he was SO excited to finally have another kid to play with for the first time all week}, sam got some work done & the rest of us watched movies & enjoyed the warmth.

so then, after finding out that most hotels in the area were without power & not wanting to not drive all the way to portland to sam's sister's place in the crazy weather, we headed home to get stuff to stay the night at tim & lindsey's.  we were stopped by a huge tree in the road on our way home & realized just how bad things were.    power lines were flung about the streets like litter & trees were snapped left & right like twigs.  it was unlike anything we'd ever seen.

we grabbed enough stuff from our house to last us a few days & headed back to tim & lindsey's only to have the power go out five minutes after we got there.  awesome.

we made the trek down to portland & have been here ever since.

friday.  sam spent a good chunk of the day getting some work done but somehow found the time for wrestle breaks.  parker relaxed by snuggling with his blanket & baby & then later begged us for a bunny at the pet store.  ok maybe he wasn't really begging but i'm pretty sure he needs one.

that was our crazy week!  how was yours?  i wanna see, so link up!

Game Rules:
1.  your pictures have to be taken by your camera phone. that's it!  you don't even have to have a picture for every day.  got one camera phone pic of something fun from this week?  link up!

2.  if you want to grab the code below & put it in your post to have the linky with all the thumbnails show up on your blog do it.

and please post a link to my blog so others can come here to grab the code, too.
the more kids who come out to play, the more fun it will be, right?

Grab the code here:

<script src="http://www.linkytools.com/thumbnail_linky_include.aspx?id=126686" type="text/javascript"></script>

...and get on the linky here:

wordless{ish} wednesday: snowmageddon.

so if you live in the pacific northwest, follow any blogs of people in the northwest, have friends on facebook from the northwest or maybe if you watch the news?  then you may have heard what's going on around here.  yup.

snowmageddon.

and in seattle that means "ohmygawshwegotsnowandyesoneinchtotallyqualifiesassnowday!!"  but we're pretty legit down in the south sound where i live... we got like, four inches.  look out!  close the schools, work from home, re-stock the flash light batteries & food storage because the world as we know it is stopping until the last little bit melts.  and tonight we're supposed to get hammered with more.

how does this affect p-ray & i?  it makes us pretty much home-bound.  sam takes my car to work because his car currently doesn't have working windshield wipers {which are slightly important in the seattle area... especially during snowmageddon} & he's really not the type that will call in to work for a few inches, despite his hour long-on-a-good-day-commute.  it's one of his worst features.

so while stuck at home?  we make the best of it.  and that usually means getting outside.  for most of the morning, this was our view out the front window:

during these hours french toast happened, a couple episodes of thomas & friends happened {don't get me started on p-ray & tv.  i hate resorting to tv for entertainment.  but just keep in mind we've been stuck. at. home. now for days & days... remember before this we were stuck at home sick?  gah!!}, house cleaning happened, puzzles happened, dance parties happened & then putting on snow clothes happened.

long story short?  parker's not a huuuuuuge fan of the snow yet.  he can't really walk around in it too well {his boots are still kinda big for him & hard to maneuver in even on dry ground} so his confidence in it isn't the best.  this is how p-ray best enjoys his snow time:

yeah.  he pulled out his little umbrella stroller, insisted i open it up & then climbed inside.  then he pointed for the snow.

and when i pulled him out of the stroller & tried to show him how awesome snow is to walk around in?  he wasn't convinced.

before long we were back inside for round two of puzzles & other indoor antics.

he's lucky i like his face.  because we're supposed to get another 6-10" tonight & are looking at another couple of long days stuck at home enjoying each other's company

i guess it could be worse.

{linking up with wordless wednesday at and then she {snapped},  baby baby lemon, the paper mama, & a little king & i}

twenty months.

anyone remember how much i apologized for being late with parker's nineteen month update post?  yeah, that's laughable.  parker turns twenty-one months in nine days.  but let's not go there.  right now?  we're talking about a cutie-patootie little twenty month old p-ray.

here he is all growed up to twenty months.
{compare previous monthly pics here.}

twenty month old parker is doing more than ever.  more words, more antics, more fun & more mischief.  he is more determined than ever to do things his way & be an independent little boy.  for the most part, he's still the awesome & easy going little kid he's always been but oh man, he wears me out some days!

he's really starting to figure things out.  he can do his little melissa & doug puzzles without hesitation & knows how to line up his thomas "choo-choos" all facing the right direction so that the magnets stick.  then he drives them off the table so they crash on the floor & yells "yayyy!" while clapping his hands.  goofball.  he's become more obsessed than ever with his blanket {"B!"} & insists on taking it every. where.  there have been some epic battles over leaving it in the car to go in a store & we've even had to pull over on the side of the road to get a dirty "B" out of the car trunk, wipe it down with a baby wipe & give it to a melting down baby.  oh yeah, & then there was the time we had a thirty minute meltdown over no "B" at the dinner table.  ah geeze.  where did my easy going little baby go?  i think he's officially become a toddler.

don't get me wrong, parker's still a blast.  he walks into a room & shouts "Mommy!" to which i reply, "hi parker!" to which he says, "HI!" in the cutest, happiest, most expressive little voice ever.  he does it with his daddy too.  he would play "tent" in our bed for hours if he could, which pretty much just consists of him rolling around under the comforter like a crazy person while sam & i hold it high up like a tent with our feet.  he only breaks to lay on his back & kick frantically at the comforter with his feet from time to time.

he's obsessed with elmo, buzz, mator {he calls him "tractor"} & thomas.  he still loves puppies like crazy & kinda freaked out on sam when he turned the channel from "tombstone" because he wanted to see more "nays" {horses}.  he still hates diaper changes with a passion & drives me crazy by throwing food on the floor when he decides he's done.  he thinks yogurt & oatmeal are best eaten by both the spoon in your right hand & by the handful in your left hand.  yeah, it gets messy.  on saturday mornings it is not uncommon for him to walk up to sam with a remote in his hand & say "football! yayyy!"  sam's a pretty proud father.

he's still wearing some 12-18 month clothes, a lot of 18-24 month clothes & 2T pajamas.  wait, 2T?  you gotta be kidding me.  he loves to snuggle in the mornings & after naptime & is really just the sweetest little boy in the whole wide world.

and?  he is still so dang cute.

love this kid.