House Hunting

Today we are going to put in an offer for a house. I am trying not to be too excited. We've already written offers on five other houses. The people from the first house we offered on ignored us, and we let the contract expire in order to pursue a different house that we really wanted. The second house refused our offer and then accepted a lower offer from someone else within a week. (This one still hurts.) The third house rejected our rather low offer. The fourth house rejected our reasonable offer, and this morning the fifth house rejected what I thought was a good offer. Today's offer is going to be a strong one.
At least, I hope that's how the seller sees it.
Because this house has apple trees in the backyard.

Lizzy's prayer at lunch today

"Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for this day. Thank you for this food. Earlier when we were playing picnic, Bear wanted to say a prayer, so he said a real prayer, but it wasn't real food. We were just playing picnic. I just wanted to tell you that. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen."

A Sunday Tradition

Lizzy in 2007Barak in 2009

Sebastian in 2011

Summertime

Our poor third child doesn't get nearly as many pictures taken of him as his siblings did. It certainly is not because we love him less, though! Just check out this baby love:

Barak pretty much thinks it's his job in life to make sure Sebastian never goes more than five minutes without being kissed, and Lizzy loves to hold him. No, the lack of pictures is not due to a lack of love. We've just been busy doing the summer thing. You know, eating Popsicles outside,

going on picnics, and generally having a good time. On one such day of summer fun, we decided to head into Salem, where we rode the carousel. Lizzy wanted to ride the covered wagon, like Ma and Pa. Barak, however, was less impressed. When we tried to get him on the carousel, he made this face:

so we let Lizzy ride it twice, because we had already gotten two tickets. She LOVED it.

And Sebastian just slept through the whole experience.

Hello, Sebastian.

Sebastian Berk Washburn was born Wednesday, August 3 at 1:45 pm. He weighed 9 lbs 13 oz and is 22 inches long. The nurses were very impressed by his manly little chest and they said he looked like Superman. He sure did love the warming lamp. Never have I seen a newborn quite so relaxed.

Barak and Lizzy were happy that he was born early enough in the day that they could come visit him. They were even able to help Daddy give him his first bath.Both older siblings are very pleased with their new brother. They love him very much and have been so good and helpful. They like to hold him and give him kisses, and they want to be a part of his every action. It's good to be a family of five.

Playing Ma

I don't feel interesting enough to post. Mostly I wander around the house wondering when I can get my next nap.

Lizzy, on the other hand, is very entertaining. For the past few months we have been reading the series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Today we finished The Long Winter. Ever since we started she has been a little bit obsessed with the characters. She constantly wants to play "Laura and Mary," which mostly is just acting out scenes from the book. I'll be honest, I find the game a little dull.

Recently, however, she has invented a new twist. She now likes to play "When Ma meets Lizzy." I get to play the part of Ma, while she is of course Lizzy. I am then instructed to exclaim over all the things I don't understand and ask a lot of questions about how Lizzy lives and what life is like in these times.

Seriously, I think Lizzy is extremely clever. She really enjoys explaining things such as what a car is, how a light switch works, and that there are no blizzards in Oregon. She came up with a great way to compare and contrast our time with the time of the Ingalls family. She's learning, I'm learning, and the game is actually fun.

Memorial Day

On our honeymoon, Isaac and I drove across the Astoria bridge and all along Highway 101 from Astoria to Newport. Since then, we have made trips along that same highway from Newport to Florence. We thought it would be really fun to drive out to Florence and then follow 101 all the way to the California border, thus being able to claim that we have travelled the entire Oregon coast, stopping at many various beaches along the way. For Memorial Day that's just what we did, but we extended our trip a little farther south, in order to visit the California Redwoods. Despite a little bit of rain, we had a great time.

Before we left, Isaac showed the kids how to make Hobo dinners. (Sorry if that's not a PC term. That's what he calls them, and I am too brain dead at the moment to think of anything else.)

The kids really enjoyed heaping carrots and potatoes on top of little hamburger patties and then wrapping them in foil.

I'll admit that I was a little skeptical about how they would turn out, but I have truly never enjoyed cooked carrots more. The potatoes were also very, very good. My husband can be a very good cook.

That's Barak behind the giant cup of cocoa.

I remember as a kid going to Sunset Bay, down by Bandon. It was always one of my favorite beaches, though we almost never went there. It was just too far away from where I grew up and plenty of lovely beaches were much closer. I was determined to stop there on this trip, but as we got closer, I began to wonder if it was really such a special beach, or if maybe I just had a really good time there once as a kid. None of my pictures do it justice. It really is a small, but amazing beach.

Seriously, how often do you get to just see a seal (or is it a seal lion?) lazing about in the sand?

D is for Daddy.

We stayed the first night at Bullards Beach. Barak really liked sitting by the campfire... as long as there was no actual fire. The smoke was too much in his eyes and made him cry.

Saturday and Sunday night we were in California, checking out enormous trees. Isaac thought there were a couple of places that would be perfect for an Ewok village. We spent Monday driving back. Overall we had a really great time, and I am already looking forward to our next adventure. As a side note, I think next time we go tent camping and I am seven months pregnant, I will give in and get an air mattress.