Gabe 2nd Birthday

Gabe turned 2 years old last Thursday, yay!

He got a lot of birthday wishes from my Facebook friends, family and a call from Uncle Will and Grandma Claire. Friday, we went to the Portland Children's Museum. It was very crowded, but I think Gabe had a lot of fun.









Then we went home for his nap. We picked up his banana cream cake from the Beaverton Bakery on the way home, and I got pizza from Pizza Shmizza (it was our first time trying them and it was pretty good) later on.


The cake looks kind of plain, but it was delicious.

We didn't have a big party. We had Grandma Deb and a family friend, David, over to share in opening presents and cake. Gabe got a lot of nice gifts, mostly books and educational toys. I took some videos of him opening gifts, which I will post shortly.

We also took a trip to Olympia, Wa to visit our friends, Brian and Eunice this past weekend. Olympia is a little over a 2 hour drive from Portland. We drove down there on Saturday and came back Monday. On the way there, Gabe slept the entire drive (yes!) and on the way back he slept for about half the time, but remained fine relaxing in his car seat for the rest of the drive.

Here is a pick of Gabe with Brian and Eunice's three children, Jaiden, Angel and Toby.

Much improved eating!

Gabe has really shocked me the last few days. Last week, he ate fish sticks for the first time and liked it. And he has always liked spaghetti, but he usually only ate the noodles. I made said dish with meat sauce last night and he ate ALL of it up, meat and veggies included (sauce was courtesy of 1 jar each of garden vegetable and garlic herb Prego, meat courtesy of me).

Then today, he eats pesto and walnut ravioli (walnuts are VERY small and easy to chew). I'm like, whaaaaat??






I am really happy he is starting to try and like things more. He has been getting better and better over the last six months or so. He favorite foods are now:

Bagels or toast w/ cream cheese
Chocolate Chip flax seed muffins
Peanut butter (by itself)
Spaghetti w/ meat sauce
Ravioli
Grapes (quartered)
Bananas
Pizza (plain cheese)
Cheddar cheese
Smoothies
French Fries
Fish sticks
Couscous
Lentils
Guacamole with chips

Dancing video

I promised a video or picture of Gabe dancing in his last dance class today, but I forgot the camera/video. So, I took this video of him getting down at home.

Successful green smoothie

For several weeks now, I've been drinking what I call my "iron-packed" smoothies for breakfast. This started after I found out my iron was rather low. Gabe drinks this for breakfast, too.

I've used mostly fruit (both frozen and dried) and nut milks, but lately I've realized that I need to incorporate some vegetables into it. So yesterday I bought some kale! This morning I added it to my smoothie and it was really good.


The color is a lovely, natural green.



And Gabe liked it too, despite the look on his face!

Here is what I put in it:

1 banana
1 tbs. molasses
3 prunes
handful of frozen mangoes
handful of kale
2 cups of hazelnut milk (or any nut milk of choice)

Blend until smooth and voila!

Dance, wrist update, and blogging news

Dance class is a hit! I am so glad I chose to take Gabe to Peninsula Park in North Portland; he's gotten used to it well and loves it. Plus, he gets to mingle with his buddies from our childbirth class that live across town. And the drive isn't bad at all, just 35-40 minutes; Gabe does get a little antsy during it, but that doesn't bother me and it's to be expected with him getting a bit earlier than usual. Once he is there, he is totally fine.

Now as far as pictures; it's a bit hard to take pics of Gabe dancing since the parents are expected to fully participate! LOL. Next week is the last class and I plan to get either some video footage or a pic somehow, someway. Some of us moms are also going to take the kiddos to this child-friendly cafe called Posies after the class next week.

Craig's wrist is doing much the same, unfortunately. While he has healed well from the actual surgery, he still has a bump and experiences pain while doing intense design at the computer. This leads us to think that his problem is not related to the ganglion, even though Dr. Layman removed one during surgery. Right now, we're trying to see if he can get an musculoskeletal ultrasound done on his wrist. The images are captured in real-time (looking at things while the joint is moving) and can be more detailed than an MRI.

The last bit of news is that I was featured as a guest blogger today on www.mixedandhappy.com. I wrote about how great it is for interracial couples living in the Pacific Northwest. They misspelled my name at the end (for which I emailed them so they can correct it), but I am still very grateful for the exposure. They are really trying to do some great things on that site, so check it out and if you're on Facebook, become a fan of them!

Twitter, Facebook, etc.

I just wrote a new post to my Cafe´blog and a new book review to my Examiner page.

Lately, I've been trying to increase my presence on Twitter. I used to think Twitter was dumb and for people with delusions of grandeur unless they had a business, were a celebrity, or had something serious to share with people.

I still think this. So, how does that apply to me? Well, I have this Examiner page and the Cafe´blog with this multiracial family theme, so it's been a challenge to increase readership (mostly for the Examiner page, since I can actually make money from it; pennies mind you, but money nonetheless). Twitter is probably the only thing that will help increase readership and help me to connect with like-minded people that support multiracial families/causes.

So I unchecked the "protect my tweets" option, started seeking out folks and basically ended my Twitter hibernation. And it has worked. Not increasing readership (yet), but gaining more followers and people actually re-tweeting my posts. People that have 100-500 followers, who might also start following me.

Another thing that I am grateful for is making a connection with author Heidi Durrow, who published her debut novel a few months back (the book I review in the above link). She is a Portland native, but lives in L.A.. She is biracial; part African-American and Danish and is such a sweet lady and always responds to my tweets and emails. I hope to meet her soon; we missed each other when she had a book signing at Powells in February (Craig was recovering from surgery).

I've also found that I am naturally separating my Facebook situation from my Twitter situation. Almost every person on my Facebook are family, friends, or former acquaintances/co-workers/classmates, i.e., people I know or knew personally. Most people on Twitter are people I do not know personally, but share a common interest, such as multiracial families, writing, politics or parenting. This separation seems to work for me.

Anyhoo, that's about it. Check out the blog post and the book review; let me know what you think! Oh, and here is my Twitter page.

The Weekend

Had a fun-filled weekend. Saturday was really nice because the weather was absolutely gorgeous! We took Gabe to a playground Saturday morning that we just discovered within walking distance of our place. Then later, after nap, we went downtown and got dinner at Cha Cha Cha where they have very inexpensive, yet large and yummy burritos. Then we took a bit of a walk and got coffee at Caffe´Umbria. We both got cafe mochas, but I was not impressed. It was just okay, I think Stumptown mochas are better and taste richer.

Then Sunday morning, we had a playdate with our friends Amy and Steve and their son Silas. We met them in our childbirth class at Legacy Emmanuel. They reside in Northeast Portland, not far from New Song, the church that my mom loves to go to when she visits. I always get a kick out of Silas, because in terms of eating habits, he and Gabe are total opposites; Silas will eat anything, to the point where Amy is still like, "Should I be curbing his foods?" It's just interesting, because it really just amounts to all children being different and that's a great thing!

I've decided to have Gabe take his dance class at Peninsula Park Recreation Center, which is actually just four blocks from Steve and Amy, instead of at a rec center closer to us which is in the Tualatin Recreation district. Not only is the class at Tualatin three times the amount of the one at PPR, we have to pay an additional $67 dollars being out of district! That's like over $100 for Gabe to basically freestyle for 45 minutes. Cost for the class at PPR: $18, plus $5 because our taxes do not go to the City of Portland (they go to Beaverton and Tualatin).

While the PPR prices are much more reasonable, I was thinking to myself, wow, it's like we live in some odd limbo land or the Twilight Zone; we live in Portland, but our taxes go to Tualatin/Beaverton, yet we are not in district for the Tualatin Rec. Centers…confusing!

Anyway, this weekend we are going to drive to PPR just to scope things out, see how long it takes to get there, etc.