Bean Anderson

We try not to expose Kennedy to too much TV but in the mornings as we’re getting ready and drinking coffee we’ll flip on our local public broadcasting station for a few minutes. Depending on how late we slept Kennedy either catches a bit of Clifford the Big Red Dog, Boobah, or Teletubbies. Kennedy particularly likes Boobah – this is what happens:

C.K. had the bubbles going for Kennedy and Elle the cat today. Elle was worn out from chasing bubbles. She stretched out and went to sleep early tonight.



Here's the fun daytime crew.

Kennedy and Susan on the lawn at Wes' birthday party. Kennedy really likes being outdoors and the bonus in Portland is that mosquitoes really aren't an issue.



Tiffany was in from D.C. for the Seattle Pride Parade as part of the HRC crew. She flew in and out of Portland and visited family and friends. So good to see her! I really miss our hiking days.



Susan shot this picture of Kennedy and me watching t.v. from the floor. I think we were watching PBS' Boohbah. What a fun show. We especially like "Someone's coming..."

That baby can crawl! Steadily Kennedy has been honing her crawling skills; she hasn’t quite gotten her knees under her yet but she can scoot across the floor like you wouldn’t believe. The only bad thing with warm weather is that Kennedy’s knees are subjected to lots of abuse with this crawling – do they make infant-sized knee pads?!?



A busy weekend for us; BBQ on Friday night, home repairs on Saturday and family lunch yesterday. We had Grandpa and Grandma Anderson over to watch Kennedy on Saturday while Sheryl and I tackled our upstairs bathroom. We’re adding a claw-foot tub to the room and remodeling it as we go. We laid the new floor first; vinyl tile since the space is so small. We painted the walls (one more coat to go) and ceiling and had the tub brought upstairs. Once the painting is all wrapped up the plumber will come in and hook up the tub, sink, toilet and we can hang the new hardware. It’s an entirely different room to be sure. (Pictures will follow, I promise.)

Kennedy's first teething biscuit, as you can see, was a huge hit with her. This organic biscuit is from HealthyTimes. It has calcium, but no soy or dairy.



We went to Granny Kay's today for a lunch gathering. Here Kennedy is showing everyone how big she is getting.

Last night – er, this morning – at 4am Kennedy decided it was time to play. Mommies not so much into that idea but she tried to get us to play for an hour before finally drifting back off into dreamland. 6am alarm clock came a little too soon for this sleepy mommy. This morning we had another first – yogurt. Yum! Kennedy thought it was pretty good even though it was cold...

No recent pictures today so last week’s funny shot will have to suffice. I'm sure some day she will kill us for posting this but here is Megan with Kennedy in her gnome outfit:

Yesterday our ‘nanny’ CK (boy that sounds weird calling him a nanny) was out sick so I got to stay at home on Mommy Patrol and we had ourselves a good time. Kennedy is getting pretty predictable with naps and eating times so that part was a breeze (versus the chaotic schedule we usually maintain during weekends).

Anyhow, after her morning nap Kennedy had pears, squash and rice cereal for lunch (about 4 ounces in all!) and then some nursing of course. With a full stomach we packed the bag and headed out to Costco for an overly indulgent shopping excursion. In addition to our regular staples (spinach, lettuce, ahi tuna steaks, toilet paper, Kleenex, etc.) we also picked up some fun things like the new movie Hitch, a new tea kettle (our current version has a metal handle which means you have to use a pot holder – how stupid is that?), and for Sheryl we got this really awesome bamboo cutting board with a built-in strainer that sits over the sink.

Mark your checklists with another first in Kennedy’s life; she sat in the cart like a big girl while we shopped – how cool is that?!? I took a photo using the camera phone so the image is a bit smaller (but the cell phone company let's you add silly captions, so it's a wash, I suppose).



Last night we took dinner to our friends with a newish baby – Rory – who is about a month old and is super sweet and cute. Kennedy wasn’t quite sure what to make of her. Rory is the second child of Elizabeth and Patrick; here is Elizabeth with her first – Luke.

We picked this shirt up at Whole Foods. Too funny. Kennedy was 8 months old yesterday. Can you believe it?

Last night we actually had thunder storms, rare for these parts. Today it was beautiful. We took a walk to our local park this evening.



C.K. has a new game for Kennedy and she loves it! He stacks blocks up at the ends of the rug and Kennedy crawls to each one and knocks them over.



Here she is concentrating on one of the stacks.

What a fantastic wonderful day! We started the day by sleeping in late – Kennedy let me sleep until 9am!!! We went downstairs and made Sheryl blueberry pancakes to celebrate Father’s Day. After chowing down we got up and around and opened Kennedy’s presents for Sheryl. (Actually, only two of them – there are still two that haven’t been delivered yet…). In lieu of actual presents Kennedy and I made a PowerPoint presentation for Sheryl displaying her presents that aren’t here yet. (Dorky, I know…) We got her a fruit bowl, a cool watch, a book and a leather ottoman.



We then headed downtown with Megan to catch a little bit of Portland’s Pride parade (more on that in a future entry…). The weather was fantastic and Portland got up to nearly 80 degrees so we all donned our sunglasses.



Then we all headed out to Skamania Lodge with my folks and Aunt Tami for Father’s Day brunch. Kennedy and Grandpa got some quality time together while we were waiting to be seated.



On the way back to Portland we stopped at the outlet malls and did our best to deplete a couple of stores of all of their merchandise – ha ha. I was excited to refresh my wardrobe with – are you ready – 9 shirts, 9 pairs of pants, and 3 pairs of shorts. Sheryl showed significant restraint and came home with 1 pair of pants and 5 shirts.

This evening we had a quiet family night which wrapped up with nature providing a couple of awesome rainbows and a thunderstorm – something that we rarely see in Portland.

Kennedy is blessed with lots of grandpas this Father's Day - there's two Grandpa Andersons, Papa Clark and Papa Sanford. Who loves her Grandpas? Kennedy does!

Matt, Michelle, Kennedy and Susan on the lawn at the farewell party for the now Canadian Eric and Michelle.



Kennedy had fun rolling around on a blanket and playing with everyone who happened by.

I love to watch Kennedy sleep. If I thought it wouldn’t wake her up I’d run upstairs right now and take a photo of her to share. Instead, here is Kennedy sporting her cool Red Star shirt given to her by my good friend Ruth. Ruth is graduating from college tomorrow; I am so proud of her for putting herself through school and making it so far. Way to go, Ruth!



On Wednesday Portland was graced with some awesome weather so CK and Kennedy took a jaunt to the zoo. Lucky dogs.

Kennedy’s latest tricks involve rapid rolling over to reach her destination – and she’s starting to perfect her mermaid locomotion of reaching out while on her tummy and pulling herself forward. She tries to crawl but hasn’t quite got the hang of getting her knees fully under her yet, although we suspect that will kick in any day now.

A busy weekend coming up; more work to do on the house and there’s a neighborhood meeting on Saturday about planned upgrades. On Saturday evening some good friends of ours are having a going away party as they pack up and move north to Canada. I can’t say I blame them based on the direction our country has taken lately – but we’ll miss them tons.



On Sunday we celebrate Sheryl’s role in our family (vs. having us both celebrate Mother’s Day together). Sheryl laughs that all the stuff she’d want (BBQ grills, tools etc.) all go on sale this time of year anyhow – ha ha. We’re heading out to a big fancy lunch on Sunday with my dad too to celebrate.

A picture of us from last week makes its way into this entry as well as a snapshot of Sheryl and Kennedy on the trail above; I need to download pix off the camera for more recent images. Happy Thursday, all.

Kennedy's serious look.

Part 2 of our weekend update… Construction continues in countless rooms of the house it seems. We’ve plumbed the upstairs bathroom to accept our new claw-foot tub. On Saturday we purchased the flooring materials – we’re doing it ourselves so we’ve selected the low-complexity offering that is self-sticking vinyl tile. We’ll see how it looks when it is all said and done. We also got new bathroom hardware – towel racks, TP holders and whatnot. Looking forward to getting the walls prepped, painted and the floor laid so we can haul that bad boy tub up those stairs.

We’ve also had help finishing up some incomplete items in the house – baseboards installed and painted in the small room off the kitchen and touch up painting in the kitchen. The basement project is holding at about 40% complete; we’ve got to get in an electrician for wiring then Sheryl and I need to finish taping/floating and painting the walls. Also incomplete now are floors and any plumbing we may want to run – but that may have to wait. It’s hard to believe we’ve lived in the house for a year and to think about all the work we have left to do!

This weekend we took the bassinet portion out of the pack-n-play thingy we have. It now, essentially, functions as a playpen. Kennedy’s not so sure about it – here she is checking out all of the toys we threw in there…



On Saturday we made a trip to see my two cousins – here are Katrina and Kennedy hanging out – being cool.



While visiting our cousins, Kennedy tried on the kid chair there – she thought it was a riot!

Just a very quick hello to report in on a busy weekend. On Friday Niki and Pat left town to go back home to Montana. As reported earlier we made a quick stop to the waterfront village for some fun. Our favorite part was the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) exhibit. We had fun with bubbles:



On the way to the train station Pat took a turn packing Kennedy.



The happy couple...



It was wonderful to see Niki again; she’s my oldest and dearest friend. We realized that we’ve now known each other longer than we haven’t. We met when we were just 15; you can do the math…

Kennedy is rolling, rolling, and rolling when she's not standing and trying to walk. Crawling, not so much, though there are some signs that she knows how. C.K. has taken to creating a barrier on all sides so that Kennedy can't roll her way under the couch or across the house!



Niki and Pat flew in from Kauai early this morning. They slept for a few hours, had a huge brunch and then we all went to the Rose Festival's Waterfront Village before taking them to the Amtrak station. We did our best to avoid the carnival games that take all your money but we all broke down and ate fried foods.

Portland - the City of Roses - is in the midst of our annual Rose Festival celebrations. The main events are this weekend and include the big Rose Parade, Fleet Week, Waterfront activities, and (Sheryl's favorite) Dragon Boat races. I've been watching the big boats (Navy, etc.) come in over the last two days - my office on the 20-something floor of a downtown building has an amazing view from above. The Coast Guard has been escorting the ships through and the fire boats have been putting on quite a show with red, blue and - er - white water blasting into the air.


Official U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Adam Eggers

You can see more great views of the boats from the Rose Festival Photo Release site. (I'm told the dyes they use cost a bundle since they are approved by the Dept. of Environmental Quality. Good thing - the Willamette River is yucky enough...)

I'm not sure how much our schedule will allow for attendance at the festival this weekend (or if we even want to venture out into the forecasted rain) but the parade always makes for nice TV background over Saturday morning breakfast to be sure.

Kennedy’s latest trick is to roll over to the edge of the rug in the living room and try to figure out what’s under it. Apparently she’s following Elle’s lead in this new game.



I don’t think this new game would be such a big deal except for the fact that her second favorite game is to put anything she gets her hands on into her mouth. Mix that fact with all of the home construction going on (dust galore!) and we have the makings for a not-so-yummy afternoon snack of floor crud.

Construction work continues at our home this week. Dave, and sometimes Rob, are knocking it out though. Good stuff if not a little dusty. C.K. and Kennedy are hanging in there with all the noise and fun.

Bummers. Stacey took off this morning, barely making her flight. She and C.K. and Kennedy went to breakfast at Cup and Saucer. Their motto used to be "same day service" and even though they took that sign down, it remains true. But it's still worth the wait. Good food. Fun service.

Kennedy slept in the sling most of the disc golf course walk yesterday but she woke up and sat in her back pack for the last 3 holes. She hangs on tight when she's riding in the pack.

Busy day. We went to the park this morning and Stacey and Kennedy went through the slide and swing routine.



Then we (Megan, C.K., Susan, Stacey, Dave, Nancy, Rob, Kennedy and me) headed out to the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove to play disc golf. Here we are looking for Susan's disc.



Here's Dave's good finishing form after a drive off of the balcony on the last hole.



And here are serious C.K. and Nancy taking their final shots.



The last whole had a slide off the balcony that you could use instead of stairs. Susan wouldn't let me go down the slide (I had Kennedy in the back packer) but Rob and C.K. and Stacey slid down it.

This is C.K.'s funny-- putting Kennedy and a whole lot of her toys out on the blankets.



And here are the sisters having their own fun...

Yesterday Niki and Pat arrived on the train to Portland on their way to Kauai. We got a chance to spend some time together and get some last minute shopping done. In the evening we tried feeding Kennedy peas - she wasn't too thrilled with it despite all of Niki's coaxing.

One of the rare joys of playing airplane with Kennedy is the feeling of the warm contents of her stomach splashing all over your face - squishing in your eyes and ears. Yuk. Kennedy has graced CK, Sheryl and me all three with this gift, ha ha. But how can you say yuk to such a cutie?



Last week Mimi Clark sent Kennedy a very sweet note that I thought I'd share:

Kennedy, Mimi loves to see you smile!! You are precious to me even if I am far away. I still remember how you smell and your baby skin is so soft.
Mimi loves you best, but don't tell mommy.
Yours forever,
Mimi.

More photos from last weekend's wedding. Here is Niki before the wedding (she's gonna kill me for posting this!) - her expression says it all. Niki was a little stressed before her wedding as is to be expected - we did our best to keep her grounded.



And after the wedding there was dancing; here is Patrick just being Patrick. The joy this man has for life is so contagious.