Andy at 21 weeks

This was probably the best picture taking session I've had with Andy yet. He was in such a smiley, chirpy mood. I put him down in his crib for this one, and I think maybe he was being cute to get me to pick him up.








We've been spending a lot of time outside since the weather's been warmer. All the girls in the complex love Andy and like to take turns holding him. (I make the little ones sit down first.) Andy says, "I am popular with the girls!"

Spring Evening

Sunday evening, Rebecca came over for some bacon soup. After we ate Kate wanted to go play sneak-through-the-long-grass over by the Seventh-day Adventist church. I had to go get my camera.







I've been having trouble getting Kate to smile for me. Perhaps I should stick googly eyes on my camera again.



The lighting was kind of tricky, but I got lucky with a couple shots.



She has a sticker on her hand from saying the prayer in Primary. I forgot it was there.

We sure had great weather for the three-day-weekend (or four-day--I know the kids in the complex were home from school on Friday too). It was beautifully warm and sunny all four days. Must have been nice for all the people who went camping.

Goldfish bread and walnut cookies (and seaweed!)

We've been getting to know our new Korean neighbors. I've had a few conversations with the mom while the kids are playing. My Korean is getting a workout. Some things come out just fine and some things I kind of get stuck on.

A few weeks ago she gave us some kimchi that she'd made, so I made jjigae. (I wasn't sure how it would agree with my nursing baby, but decided to give it a try.) We ate it with kim (roasted laver seaweed), which is, in my opinion, the very best way to eat it. And then we ran out of kim, so we had to go get some more.

We went down to Paldo World in Lakewood. (This was on a Tuesday, almost two weeks ago.) There are a whole bunch of Korean businesses down there on South Tacoma Way. And this sign:



which always makes me laugh, because in English it says "International Business District," but in Korean it says "Korea Town." (I think there are a few Vietnamese Pho places scattered in there, but obviously they don't count.)



Paldo World is a huge grocery store, with some other little stores and a food court around the edges.

I took along my camera because I wanted to get a picture of the goldfish bread and walnut cookie maker.



Here's the place, but there was no one there.



Then I noticed this sign, which says, "Every week on Tuesday, we rest. Thank you." (Why Tuesday is in quotes, I have no idea.) Bad timing on our part!

So I took a picture of this sign instead.

Goldfish bread and walnut cookies are both "street food" in Korea. I always wanted to get a picture of a goldfish bread maker on the street, but I never did. They use these big round irons over a gas flame--squirt the batter in, add some bean paste, close the lid, rotate the iron one stop, do it again--and by the time the fish comes around again, it's all done and ready to come out. A lot of foreigners don't like the red bean paste which is the filling (I heard that some of our missionaries once took a jar of strawberry jam to a goldfish bread maker and asked if he would make them a round with the jam instead of bean paste, and he wouldn't do it). I did like goldfish bread. Especially on a cold day when it's fresh and warm, right out of the iron. (I found some pictures on google--here's a good one.)

Walnut cookies are similar--little walnut-shaped cake things with walnut stuff inside. Chonan, where Doug and I taught English, is famous for walnut cookies. Seems like every place in Korea is famous for some kind of food.

Goldfish bread is boong-o bbang (붕어빵) and walnut cookies are hodo kwaja (호도과자). Which brings me to one of the few Korean jokes that I know. A girl buys a bag of walnut cookies on the street, comes back a few minutes later and complains, "There's no hodo in my hodo kwaja!" and the guy says, "Is there boong-o in boong-o bbang?" Ha.

We got our kim and a few other things, then went home and had jjigae for dinner again.



Here's one of the kim packages. We got a big pack that has twelve of these in it.



Kate couldn't wait for dinner but sat down on the couch with one of the packages and snarfed down the whole thing. And then had some more with rice.

Unfortunately the kimchi seemed to upset Andy's tummy. I guess I'll have to wait before doing that again!

Andy at 20 weeks

(last Saturday)





We can really see Doug's side of the family in this one.




He looks like he's expounding on something very serious. Or contemplating his future plans for world domination.

photos from home

Robot Kate ("Clang! Clang!")



Andy checks out his sister's rubber dragon.



An ordinary day on the railroad.

Just So.

Some time last summer, Kate ran across some of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories on totlol.com. (Edit: It's gone to a pay site, but they're on youtube too) Such as "How the Whale got his Throat" and "The Elephant's Child." She seemed to especially enjoy the one about the whale, and watched it over and over. They're fairly good adaptations, though they do change things a bit.

One night at bedtime, Kate asked me, "Can you tell me the story of how the whale got his throat?" (At the time she was pronouncing it more like "fwout.")

I said, "I can do better than that, I'll read it to you!"

I got this bookwhen I was at BYU. Dr. Tunnel, my children's lit professor, had a copy that he showed us in class, and I fell in love with the illustrations--gorgeous paintings with intricate patterned frames and gold accents.



The stories are rather wordy, and the book doesn't have pictures on every page, but Kate enjoys listening. I have, at times, read to her from whatever book I'm in the middle of while she falls asleep. This is after the regular bedtime stories and books, of course. The current bedtime routine includes stories and books with Dad ("stories" usually means acting things out with her stuffed animals), then teeth brushing and family prayer, then three more books with Mom. I went through a brief Three Investigators revival a while back (must have been something with the pregnancy hormones), and I read to her from those. She'd ask questions every once in a while--enough to show that she was paying attention at least a bit--but even with that she'd usually fall asleep pretty quickly.

We've been reading a Just So story almost every night for quite a while now. She hardly ever falls asleep (except sometimes when we do one of the longer ones). They're just fun to listen to, with the rhythm and repetition ("the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees").

They're meant to be read aloud. It's not just about the stories, it's about the words. Which I can understand might not appeal to everyone. There's an introduction in the front of the book that includes an excerpt from a spoof "Very-Nearly Story" published in the humorous magazine Punch, which tells "how the Ruddikip got His Great Big Side!" The Ruddikip announces:

"I will now turn to the Small Children, and I shall address them in decapitated polysyllables."

Wherefore and 'cordingly, oh, Best-Beloved, the most and-altogether-beyond-record-'defatigable Ruddikip took his little pen, and he wrote. Then they took the writing of the 'defatigable Ruddikip, and put it in beautiful, big black print. For they knew, oh, Approximately Invaluable, that this is the kind of talk you like, and that you would thank the Ruddikip ever so much for tales written in just this way!

"Chuck it!" said the Modern Child as he rose and fled.

Ha. For the time being, anyway, we're both enjoying them. We have the Whale, the Camel, and the Rhinoceros in regular rotation, being the shortest stories. "The Beginning of Armadillos" is very cute, but quite a bit longer.

It's so fun to see Kate synthesizing and using things that she's heard. The other day she was playing with her Hungry Hungry Hippo game, and I heard her say, "And he swallowed the 'Stute Marble down into his warm, dark, inside cupboards!"

Andy at 19 weeks

(From last Saturday!)



I took Andy out on the back porch in his bouncer to take pictures. He was much more interested in looking around at the trees than looking at the camera, so I tickled him with a peacock feather to get him to smile.

More from Easter

Because I have been informed that it's never too late to post cute pictures!



After I posted the first set of photos from Easter, I remembered that we had this Easter bib to take pictures in.



Right after that, Kate started putting things on Andy's head.



"He looks like a bunny!" Kate says.



I hope these two will be good friends as they grow up.

Another Goodbye

It's been over six weeks since Doug's brother Craig passed away. We still don't have the autopsy results, but I'm finally getting around to blogging about the funeral and our trip to Portland.

We left on Saturday, April 4th, and got back Monday night. Doug only had to miss one day of class. Other people came from much farther away. Kate had a birthday party to go to Saturday afternoon, which we thought she would enjoy, so we left right after that. (It was a princess dress-up tea party. She wore her dragon costume.)

We stayed at Brian and Rachel's house, on a futon mattress in their pink room. Kate was very excited about playing with their cats. Both kids had trouble settling down the first night, but the second night I think Andy slept seven hours straight. Whew!

Sunday was the viewing at the funeral home. That was where everyone gathered. It was nice to see everyone again, though the circumstances were rather difficult. Lots of hugging and crying.



Kate liked this fountain in front of the funeral home.



Cute Andy! (When we hold him like this, he's always craning his head way back to look around.)

Afterwards we went out to Shellee's house in St. Helens. Craig's work had sent some food over, and while it was warming up we all went over to a nearby park. (This was nice for the kids to blow off a little steam after the viewing.)



The park had some antiquated playground equipment, including this big old slide which Uncle Brian helped Kate climb up.




The slide proved to be rather anti-climactic. It really wasn't much of a slide at all. More of a scoot.



You don't see these much anymore. I guess they are kind of dangerous.




This is Kate's closest-age cousin, Grayson. He's almost exactly a year older.



There was a lot of this sort of thing going on.



Those are most of Melody's kids, and Al's son Michael in the back.



Grandma and Andy.



Shellee (Craig's wife), Grandma, Al (Jr.), and Melody.



Jarom (Melody's youngest) on the swing.




Uncle Brian.



Getting phlarmped on by Kate. (Huh. Apparently no one uses the word "phlarmp." It was common in my mission, but google brings up absolutely nothing.)



Doug and Al on the teeter-totters. (They were just sitting there, and somebody said, "Take a picture!")



Melody on the grass.



Let's get a family picture! Take off your glasses, Doug!



Kate runs up and tags Doug. "You're it!"



Let's try over on the teeter-totters. (The lighting was kind of patchy. It was hard to find a good spot.)



While we were taking pictures, Kate and Grayson went climbing up the slide by themselves. Whoops!



Andy's had a lot of excitement!



When it was time to go, Kate had to have one last turn on the teeter-totter.



A little lens flare and a big smile!

The next day was the funeral. The service was at the big mega church in Beaverton where Shellee's brother is a pastor.




Shellee's brother shared some stories about Craig, collected from friends and family, and then Craig's daughters Hailey and Sierra and stepson Jordan spoke. Craig was in the Marines for a while, and Jordan is in the Marines now, so Jordan got to present Shellee with a flag.



After the service--food!





A.J. (the oldest grandchild.) He's working at Drew's now, in Grandpa's old job mending boots.



Jarom says cheeeese!



Erika...



... and her socks.



I saw these stairs and thought they would make a great backdrop, so we got a Paskett family picture, and then tried some of our own.





Brian took these. I didn't know Kate was doing that with her arm.



After the funeral we congregated at Mark and Melody's hotel room for a while. Here Kate plays with the Pictionary game.



Grandma with Andy in the puppy-feet outfit that she got for him.

We had to leave so we could get the kids to bed at a reasonable time. As it was we got home at about 10:30, and Kate was just falling-down tired, but still wanted her books and stories before bed.

We hope that next time we can get together for a happier occasion. Maybe a wedding, instead of a funeral?

Brian was just down in Klamath Falls this past week, and went to visit his dad's grave in Dorris.



The greenery arrangement is still there, though somewhat less green now, along with a few other things that some of the grandkids added. Very sweet.