Campin'.

For Memorial Day weekend this year, we went campin'.

I'll admit that camping with toddlers is...harrowing, at times...but it is worth it to build the memories and the relationships. The DeLongs have a regular spot at Penland Lake near Heppner, Oregon. It's a patch of church property that was formerly used as a scout camp, and is now more or less in a state of neglect but still totally great for family glamping. It's a great secluded spot close to the lake - no reservations required, no neighbors too close by.

We went fishing! Quinn was absolutely fearless and wanted to touch every single fish we caught, and release them back into the lake by herself (of course. She is three years old). We caught frogs with Aunt Maddie and Uncle Will and played with their new black lab puppy Oliver. Lisa took me mushrooming! Less psychedelic than it sounds, but don't write it off yet. We searched for Morelles (pictured above). I am told that some seasons they are plentiful, and some seasons they are more scarce. This was a 'more scarce' type of season, which made it strangely addicting. Basically you just walk through the forest very slowly, scouring the ground for the Morelles. They blend in really well so you have to pay close attention. Once you find one, it's hard to want to stop looking. And fried up in olive oil and garlic salt...oh. My. GOSH. I can truly say that I have never before put anything like that into my mouth and I will be dreaming about it until next year.

There was, of course, all the usual glamping goodness: dutch oven meals, "big breakfast" (breakfast, DeLong style - potatoes with Montreal steak seasoning, fried eggs and lots and LOTS of pepper bacon), campfires, and freezing to death in 20-something degree weather at night (oh wait - that was just Spens & I in the tent. The girls were in the heated trailer, thankfully! The second night was much warmer).

Thanks DeLongs!

Reed is two.

This girl turned two on April 29th!!

We had a party, of course, with her people, cake, and Reed Bingo (juice, kitty, mommy, swings, REED BINGO!). Reed is the sweetest. She is a hand holder and a smoocher and a snuggler. She is the dancing queen. She has the cutest little 'thank you' you've ever heard. You might find yourself smooching her randomly on the cheek just to see if she is really made of sugar. She is that sweet.

She is also, er, um, 'very good at advocating for herself.' By that, I mean that if she wants something and she is not getting it right away, you will know about it. You will know about it in a very loud and very intense and Emily Rose-like way. What can we say? She is a toddler. :)

Happy birthday to our sweet Reed.
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We moved.

And Spenser claims that we will NEVER do it again! Ha. Seriously though...we are glad to be on the other end of the stressful process and settled in our new home. After he graduated from Portland State, Spenser started job searching and when his company offered to transition him into a position more compatible with his long-term professional goals, he took it and we decided to stay put for a while.

We got lucky and found a great little house to rent in the town of Newberg. It's a tough rental market up in this area so the stars really aligned for us. The house was originally constructed in 1905 but the owner did a thorough remodel, so it has all the charm...plus proper insulation and lead-free pipes. It is about the same size as our last apartment but the layout is better for active toddlers. Plus, no downstairs neighbors or shared walls (see that last bit about active toddlers, haha).

The girls love the house, and Quinn always says: "We're not going back to our old house." We live within two blocks of the library, community center, movie theater (owned and operated by the same family since the 1930s!), some great restaurants and a bunch of other fun stuff. Come visit us!

Hello again.

I have decided to come out of cyber hiding and maybe start blogging a bit again. Part of the reason I have stayed away is my unwillingness to confront the fact that I did such a poor job of documenting Reed - well, relative to how I documented Quinn anyway - and I'm sure I'll hear about it from her someday. In my defense, Reed has taken about four naps total in her twenty months on this earth so that didn't leave me much time to wax nostalgic online.

We had the above photos taken a few weeks ago by a family friend.

Quinn graduated from nursery and joined the Sunbeams class today. She has an excellent teacher, and by all accounts had a wonderful time and seemed happy. So we're not quite sure why she darted out of the classroom straight into my arms crying her eyeballs out when we picked her up. You know what? Change is hard. And I kind of wanted to start balling too because the best hours of fresh snowfall got spent on the three hour block. Maybe bishop didn't get the memo, but here in Oregon, when it snows, we cancel stuff. That's how we roll.

Reed is a sassy spirit. We love her. She is so kissable - just look at those cheeks. Girlfriend doesn't do a single thing she doesn't want to. Unfortunately that includes getting her diaper changed. That's a pretty epic struggle around here. She is known in our ward as Choir's #1 Fan because after every song they do she jumps up, claps and yells "yeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaah!!" at the top of her lungs. (It's loud. I think about 85% of the ward thinks it's cute and the rest, well, you know, have their opinions about it and how her parents should handle it.)

It's all pretty amazing. And that's all for now.

Baby Reed's arrival.

This is the story of Reed's birth - may it be joyfully recounted every April 29th around the birthday dinner table! Reed entered the world in a much less uncertain and dramatic way than Quinn; due to a number of considerations, my ob-gyn and I decided that scheduling a repeat Cesarean for this baby was the safest and best option, so we had April 29th circled on the calendar for a month or so beforehand. We had a growth ultrasound at 39 weeks that showed the baby measuring large again, so I felt good about our plan. We got up that morning and took Quinn over to my mom's house, where Whitney and Sam would be taking care of her for the duration of our hospital stay (thanks guys!!). Then it was off to the hospital.

We got checked in at 10:00 a.m. and the nurse inserted my IV and chatted with us for a bit. Then the nurse anesthetist came in and gave us the run down on how everything would proceed in the OR. Around noon, it was time to head down! We walked to the OR, me pushing my IV and the nurse holding a second gown over my back so I didn't moon everyone on the way down. Spenser joined us after he got dressed. They got right to work inserting my spinal. They gave me some sort of numbing agent first, which was probably the worst part of the whole process - it felt like I got shot in the back with a staple gun, then painful burning up and down my back. But shortly thereafter I was numb from the waist down and things got going. My obstetrician, Dr. Dion, did the delivery, with Dr. Hoffman assisting.

It is really interesting to listen to the surgeons and nurses and anesthesiologists do their thing (I guess a Cesarean is probably one of the few surgeries where the patient is conscious enough to witness that sort of interaction). Eventually I heard my doctor say "delivering the baby," felt an enormous pressure, and heard her first little wails. That is the most incredible and humbling feeling, EVER, to know that another little life has just entered the world...and you're accountable for it...wow. With both my babies, I really felt the weight of that when I heard their first cries. Reed DeLong was officially born at 12:29 p.m., weighing 9 pounds 1 oz and measuring 22 inches long!They held her level with my uterus for a few minutes before cutting the cord, then brought her around to give us a look before she got wrapped up and had her assessments. Spenser was able to be with her at that point while they finished up with me.

Reed got an 8 on her first Apgar and an 8 on her second as well. She didn't get a 9 the second time as a result of some respiratory issues (her oxygen saturation levels were a little low). I was told that these issues are pretty common with Cesarean births, because when a baby is born vaginally, the act of passing through the birth canal compresses her lungs and that pressure expels fluid, whereas during Cesarean birth no such squeezing of the lungs really occurs. So this wasn't really too serious of an issue, but they erred on the side of caution and took her to the NICU for a few hours to monitor her oxygen. I was sooooo anxious to snuggle and feed her - but it had to wait. Thankfully, I was pretty out of it due to the lovely intravenous narcotics I was receiving, otherwise it would have been true torture, haha. Also, I had a bad reaction to the spinal and was really sick and throwing up for a few hours, so I was probably pretty useless anyway. Spenser got to be with her the whole time and eventually the three of us got settled in our room.

Things went pretty smoothly for the rest of our hospital stay and we were thrilled and ready to leave by the end of it. People always want to know how Quinn is handling this transition to being one of two, rather than the center of everyone's universe. I would say she is handling it pretty well. She hasn't done anything aggressive toward the baby (or "mei mei," as we have coached her to call her), nor has she done anything particularly sweet and affectionate. For the most part she seems pretty indifferent. :)

I'm biased, but Reed is such a sweet little baby. She hardly every gets really cranked up - she's so mild! - and although she wakes up frequently to eat during the night, she generally goes back to sleep. Ok! Now that you have survived this novella, here are some pictures:

Chasing ducks.

These are some photos from today's outing to the duck pond. I wish that all of you could experience Quinn's joy when we come here - girlfriend goes crazy! She loves the ducks. She runs after them with her arms outstretched, like she really believes she will be able to catch one and give him a big hug! I wish I could get better pictures of it, but she has no interest in accommodating the camera; by the time I am able to sprint in front of her (no small feat in and of itself) crouch down, and focus, she is running off at breakneck speed in another direction.

An update:

We are having another girl!

On December 18th, we went in for our 20-week ultrasound and found out that we are having another girl! And we could not possibly be more excited about that, for a number of reasons. This time around, Spenser's instincts were right - he thought we were having another girl. I thought we were having a boy, reason being that this pregnancy has been a lot different from the first one. It's been easier! I am currently 26 weeks along, and by this point with Quinn my legs and feet were completely swollen and I was on Tums three times a day for the worst heartburn ever...but with this baby, nope! My only real complaints are back pain (stretching, oh the stretching) and restless legs syndrome, which always kicks in at night. Sometimes Spenser has to sit on my legs to keep me from going completely insane! But most importantly, the baby appears to be completely healthy, and the pregnancy is progressing as well as can be expected...and we are very happy about all of that.

The holidays were a great time.

Well, a great AND a busy time! Life was pretty insane for Spenser. In addition to taking a class, he experienced for the first time what having a career in shipping means during the holidays...it means loads of overtime and absolute insanity! But he survived. We absolutely loved having my siblings and their spouses come up to Portland for Thanksgiving, and then we made the trek over to Hermiston for Christmas, which was equally awesome.

We found a new place to live...

...and this is pretty life-changing news for me, because our apartment has a washer and dryer in the unit. Hallelujiah! I have arrived! Haha. We waffled on whether or not we wanted to stay put and make a go of having two kiddos in the one-bedroom we currently occupy, which we thought might be workable and more affordable, or find a two-bedroom. Well, a letter from our current landlord raising the rent on this unit made it silly not to look for more space so we are headed out to Tualitan, very close to Spenser's work. That will be happening in the middle of February. Thanks in advance to everyone who is giving up their Saturday morning to help us haul our junk out there. :)

I hope to post a few more updates soon, particularly about Miss Quinn who is evolving everyday and becoming quite a little person!

A nice moment.

Quinn has a new trick! The video speaks for itself:

A family date.

The last couple of weeks have been a bit rough. Last week Quinn had a major teething episode, made obvious by the inhuman amounts of drool she started to produce (seriously, she could soak through her shirt in minutes). She was not her happy easygoing self at all; if I put her down, she wanted to be picked up, and when I picked her up she needed to be put back down again RIGHT NOW. She wanted a bottle, but then immediately wanted nothing to do with it. And she was up every hour and a half or so at night, sobbing and screaming. Poor kiddo! It was pretty miserable for all parties. Sure enough, this week when she would let us near her mouth we saw three or four new teeth poking through in there.

Just when I thought we were going to catch a break, I came down with a nasty cold (ok, well...maybe it hasn't been that nasty but I'm a pretty big wimp when I get sick so I didn't cope*). And then a few days later...poor Quinners' nose started running like a fountain. I don't know what to say about Spenser - he has freakish immunities and seems to have escaped it. But it has meant more sleepless nights and comfortless days this week.

So when Spenser got home from work this morning and everyone seemed to be in a pretty good state, I wanted to have a family date. We ran downtown for dumplings at Frank's Noodle House and then over to Salt & Straw for ice cream!! I was kind of bummed that we missed all of the autumn flavors but they have a special Thanksgiving menu right now...apple cranberry stuffing, mincemeat, caramel turkey (yes folks, these are flavors of ice cream). I was tempted by pumpkin custard w/spiced chevre but opted for sweet potato w/candied pecans. It was delicious, as you can see from the first picture above of Quinn shoving her face into it as soon as it was handed to me :) I also love that she is licking her lips in the second picture...she's a little woman after my own heart! She also loved people watching from the window. Ice cream was followed by a long family nap. Best Saturday ever; I sure love these two.

*Thank you, Mom and Vince, for helping out so much this week.

An autumn update.

This is Quinn enjoying one of our last dry autumn days on the swings! By way of update, here is where Quinn stands on the three things people always ask when they find out you have a fourteen-month-old:

- Walking? Yep! All over the place. In fact, I think her two favorite places to be are the church and the high school, where there are long wide stretches of hallways for her to cruise.
- Favorite foods? Wish I knew...she's going through a phase where she seems to dislike just about anything that is put in front of her, unless it is derived from a potato and comes from the golden arches (don't judge me). I guess she also likes scrambled eggs. I lie awake at night scheming up ways to feed her fruits and vegetables but it's pretty hit and miss.
- Words? Quinn says a lot of things and mimics a lot of the sounds we make, but I'm not too sure how discriminate she is with her vocabulary. For example, she will look right at Spenser and say "dada" but then toddle off to the cat and start calling it "dada" as well. There is one word she seems to understand: "uh-oh", which she pretty clearly associates with things falling. Usually food that she is throwing off her high chair tray. Unless it is a french fry.

It's a fun age! I think most people who read this blog already know this old, albeit big, news...but I haven't documented it here, so for the sake of posterity: Quinn will be a big sister on or around May 5th!

I have had the usual host of first trimester complaints, but overall I am feeling well! We are going in for the 20-week ultrasound (at which point we will know the gender) on December 18th. We can't wait to add another little one to our family!

Winco crisis.

Quinn and I experienced a minor crisis this morning at Winco. Here I was, so proud of myself for getting us going early...but after an hour or so of grocery shopping, I loaded the groceries into the car, went to take Quinn out of the cart and discovered that her foot was totally wedged between the tiny metal slats! Folks, it was stuck. I could see that it wasn't going to be good but I tried to jiggle it a little bit anyway - at which point she erupted into screams of pain and big crocodile tears started pouring down her cheeks :( Her little ankle was really inflamed and any time I tried to work with it she would start screaming. I'm not sure how she even got it in there! I hadn't noticed it until I went to get her out! At this point I was having visions of firetrucks and the jaws of life and getting progressively more worked up myself. I finally wheeled the cart back into Winco for some help. I probably looked like a crazy person because I was bawling my eyes out and moving at top speed (although Quinn was relatively calm, as long as I wasn't touching her leg). It took a few tries, but the lady at customer service was finally able to understand that my child's foot was stuck. She assured me that it happens sometimes and we would free her, then got on the intercom: "Would an associate please bring a tub of butter to the customer service desk, thank you." Unfortunately that took about five minutes because the associate wasn't sure if we needed butter, margarine, unsalted, salted, low sodium, or organic butter and what size. Finally the customer service lady helping us just said "Any kind of butter is fine! It's an EMERGENCY!" So up came the butter, which we massaged around Quinn's ankle and pop! her leg came right out! It was all rather traumatizing but thanks to the nice Winco employees for helping us out!

Quinn's summer.

Oh, what does Quinn do in the summertime?

Sooooooooo many fun things! Yes, I realize summer isn't technically over yet...but it always feels like it is to me when August ends and everyone goes back to school. Thanks, everyone, for a fun summer!

Exciting airplanes.

This video teaches us two things: First, that Quinn is now a willful acting agent and no longer an agent to be acted upon. What do I mean by that? Well, if you try to hold her down and smooch her face a billion times she may use her sharp little fingernails to resist you, as Spenser learned the hard way. Second, she finds airplanes very exciting.

Five things.

Taking a five month hiatus from maintaining this blog was not something I intended to do! I am sad that I failed to document all of the fun changes and developments that Quinn experienced in real time, but alas - that ship has sailed. So, I give you five things - one thing for each month of my journaling negligence - about our recent goings-on:

(1) In April, Quinn & I took the train to San Francisco to visit our dear friend Hanalei! It was THE BEST...because of Hanalei, and Chinese food (soooooo  much delicious Chinese food). We hung out at their awesome apartment, went for fun walks and chased ducks in Golden Gate Park, thrift shopped on Haight Ashbury, people watched in Berkeley and ate all manner of delicious food. It was Fun with a capital F.

(2) Spenser started a new job at the knife manufacturer Kershaw and it has been a great move. Things at his last company were not going very well so this was a very happy change. It is located in Tualitan, which is a bit of a daily commute but nothing unmanageable, and he works in their international shipping department. He gets great discounts so keep us posted if you need a gift for a special male in your life!

(3) Spenser's sister Madisen moved from Hermiston (approximately 3.5 hours east of here) to Portland to work and go to school, so we get to see WAY more of her, which is awesome. And she is a great babysitter who Quinn absolutely adores!

(4) Speaking of sisters: My sister Whitney married Samuel in the end of June and it was AWESOME! Sam loves Mad Men, reads the New York Times and makes delicious homemade bread so I had no problem welcoming him into the family. The wedding was beautiful and fun and we got to spend a lot of time with my brother Brad and his wife Stephanie to boot!

(5) Quinn is moving, moving, MOVING...crawling all over the place, pulling herself up into a standing position on any object that will stay still for two seconds and getting close to walking. She will be 1 in a month AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!! She is such a big girl now - as of about May she now sleeps through the night in her pack n' play (a huge change from her former routine of refusing to sleep anywhere but between us in our bed and waking two or three times every night) and takes two solid naps everyday. She's my big girl! I will try to post more Quinn photos & videos soon :)

That's all for now! Hope you all are well and enjoying the summer. 

Happy heart day.

Happy Valentine's Day! I'm just gonna say it: One of the best parts of having a baby is dressing them up in cute things for occasions that you didn't even really care about before you had a baby (i.e. Valentine's Day). Mom and Vince gave us their tickets for the Artist Repertory Theatre tonight for a date and Grandpa Vince is going to babysit this little munchkin. She is six months old now (!) and just started solids. Last night she downed half an avocado like it was candy! Here's a video of her first sweet potato:

An emerging personality.

I just sent these to the printer and thought I had better post them here, too. What happened to my floppy little newborn?! Quinn's little personality is more evident every day.

P.S. Shortly before Quinn was born, this talented local photographer had a SUPER cheap package offer on a daily deal site so I scooped it up, thinking we would have some newborn photos taken of Quinn. What I failed to account for is the fact that having a newborn and recovering from Cesarean was all-consuming and having photos taken was one of the last things on my mind. So, we had them taken when Quinn was three months old. Here is a link to the album of low-res photos :)

Holidays recap.

The holidays this year were a fun time for one and all. Adventures included: house sitting and taking care of a cute but VERY high energy yellow lab puppy; hanging out with Brad, Steph & Whit who came into town from Utah for a few weeks; miniature golf/lazer tag/bowling courtesy of daily deal sites; snowshoeing; and eating a lot of delicious food. We also made the trek to Hermiston for New Year's and spent some time with Spenser's people, which included participating in a run/walk fundraiser for the Hermiston High School cross country team on New Year's Day. More photos of our holiday activities can be found here. It was all super fun, but I'm definitely glad to be back in a routine.

Four months, already.

Quinn reached the four month mark yesterday! She weighed in at 13 pounds, 8 ounces (48%ile) and measured 25 inches long (78%ile). In addition to showing more and more personality, she is constantly meeting new milestones. She can roll over from front to back and from back to side (we're still working on making it all the way over from back to front). Her pediatrician said she should be sleeping through the night. When he said that, my bloodshot eyes almost bugged out of my sleep deprived head in shock.

Here is a short video of Quinn laughing!! She is a little hoarse from a cold she has been fighting. I love how she surprises herself when she laughs. Each giggle is followed by a puzzled expression; it seems she has no idea where this little involuntary reaction of joy is coming from:

Tree lighting.

It was fuh-reeeeeeeeez-in' outside and poor Spenny was exhausted after a long work week, but we all got bundled up and headed over to the public library for the Beaverton city tree lighting. One thing we absolutely love about where we live is that we are super close to everything we need down here, including city hall...so we can usually walk to most community events without battling traffic and parking. Overall I feel much more connected and involved than I did living in the peripheral burbs. The tree lighting was pretty fun and I think it will become a Christmas family tradition for us.

Working man.

Two things you should know about Spenser:

(a) He has been one BUSY dude this fall; and
(b) he loves Christmas.

So join with me in giving him a congratulatory salute for finishing up finals last week! Now he can enjoy a month of break before it's back to that crazy schedule. Between working full-time, going to school part-time and doing the dad and husband thing ALL the time, there can be no doubt that he deserves a little vacation.

First thanksgiving.

Happy Thanksgiving!! Spenser, Quinn & I returned last night from spending the holiday in Hermiston with Spenser's family. We always have a really great time when we make the trek out to eastern Oregon. We don't worry about messes in the kitchen, Sunday responsibilities, work, school, or myriad other life logistics that occupy us in Portland...we just go and recharge for a few days. Even better was the fact that Spenser's older brother Brady, his wife Amanda and their two kids Brady (7) and Berlynn (2) were able to be there, too. They are moving to Portland soon and we are STOKED about that! It was the perfect way to spend Quinn's first Thanksgiving. As you can imagine, Quinners is somewhat popular with her grandparents, aunts and uncles. :)