Congratulations to Master Dan. He has officially submitted his thesis and it was approved. Happy graduation! We are all very proud of him. And he is happy to be done -- Enjoying his free week before work starts.
Some Jane stories (her intense side)

So the other day Jane hit me in the face (very unusual behavior ;). I tell her she needs to make it better. She runs to the kitchen and says "I go get mama ice. Mama need ice". A few minutes later she runs back "daddy, ice in freezer. Get mama ice" Despite our attempts to convince her I did not need ice she was determined to get it (if anyone has seen Jane browbeat someone they know what I'm talking about). Anyway she forces dan into getting ice for me. Then she walks up and sticks it on my forehead and rubs it around for a while. Cute. It's hard to discipline when the kid is so funny.

She has also developed a recent standard toddler obsession with ownership (and defensiveness of people's ownership). Not just her own (which has been around for a while) but things that are daddy's and mama's. Heaven forbid I use her daddy's pillow. If I dare to, out comes the aforementioned 'furrowed brow' and a very intense statement "NO MA-MA-THAT'S-DA-DDY'S-PIL-LOW" -- with every syllable emphasized. It's hilarious. And humbling I must say considering how much I am bossed around by a 1 year old.

She's no pushover that's for sure. We were at a concert in the park the other day. Little kids were all dancing up at the front. A boy ran up and pushed Jane. She turns and looks at him with the same intense look and her entire little body flexed and states "NO! no push jane" I think she scared him off. Let's hope that skill sticks around.

She's hilarious. It's funny how quickly she changes and how fast she's growing up. She is really sweet. She gives me hugs and kisses all the time. She tells me to "be careful mama" whenever we are crossing streets and she makes me eat some of her grapes if I don't happen to have any. She's learning to go potty (and teaching a couple of her toys as well) She gets very excited when she's successful and loves to wash her hands (and then run laughing away before I can get a diaper on her). Anyway we are having a great time.

We're excited to be in Portland. the weather is ridiculously amazing. the hills are BRUTAL (some of you may not appreciate the drastic difference between walking a mile in champaign "only one hill and that's an old landfill" Illinois and walking a mile in the foothills of portland but trust me, it almost killed me) I've removed the beyond awful curtains from our house (lets just say gold tassels) and we have a new yard. It's great.

Going on 11 hours--

Dan has been putting sod on our yard for 11 hours now. Not to mention man-handling some old concrete. I put in my token 2 hours too. Not something I thought I'd be doing while pregnant.

Our Nightmare...

Well I won't give you the entire chronicles of our nightmarish move but it was, as i said, a nightmare. Suffice it to say (generally this statement is supposed to precede a short remark. this will not be short) they showed up a week late, left our mattress, then arrived way early forcing dan to drive through the night to meet them (or they said they would leave for seattle with our belongings and who knows when we would get them), they claimed our weight was double the estimated amount and when they agreed to reweigh after dropping off our stuff just took our money and split (Poor dan was waiting at the weigh station for over an hour and they never showed up) After all that we get pieces of a box that we shipped in the mail saying it had broken and the contents are in some abyss in east nowhere minnesota. Sadly the contents are about 95% of jane's books. Oh and our cell phone bill was a joy as well. Apparently we went a whopping 800 minutes over the limit but kudos to Tmobile for dropping that in exchange for another 7months contract (I think our last 3 years of contracts have been due to some lost, broken or drowned phone castastrophe. It's starting to feel like indentured servitude) -- I realize that may seem like the entire chronicle I promised not to give, but trust me, it's not.

So it's been lovely. The good news is we are here, we love our house and the area. I especially enjoy having a playroom and our own bathroom and despite the irritation of losing our mattress the new one is seriously better . We will have a yard by the end of today (as of yet it's been a large cement area and thistles) The neighborhood is really quiet and the weather is unbelievably nice. Plus we moved from family to family so that's great too.

Jane seems to be adjusting well. She even sleeps in her new big bed (even more comfortable than ours :) She's started telling me what to do a lot lately ("come here right now!", "no mama, no touch Jane's hair" --though anyone who has seen her hair probably wouldn't think I ever even tried -- and the ever popular "mama, no swiping")

Anyway we think we are really going to like it here. We miss all our family and friends in Illinois but that's the way moves always go.

On the subject of lame celebrity sightings...

We ar ein portland (more on our nightmare of a move later) We decided a few hours ago to take a stroll down to the river. On our way we got side tracked into a mini-street market. We are standing buying some blueberries (which are very good and gone already) and lo and behold there is David Archuleta (sp?) and the dreadlock guy whose name escapes me at the moment. and yes i was 'that girl' and took a cell phone picture of this lame celebrity moment. --- i did spare a scrap of dignity though by not asking to be in the picture with them. I would post the pic, but i don't know how

Well we are moving in a week so you should all be proud that i'm actually on this thing. Updates... well Dan is rushing to get his thesis done. He's been working day and night (literally until 1,2, and 5am) Jane and I are busy packing, working, sleeping and going to the pool. Someone give us all a tranquilizer and wake us up when it's over please!

Anyway, you will be even more shocked when you see we actually have pictures. Amazing I know. Here they are! Our next post will be from Portland

This could come in handy some day...

If she's anything like her mom this will definitely come in handy someday (along with a spare set of keys)




Grease monkey



yes... it did go in

It's a BOY!!
apparently I'm further along than they thought. 20wks now. We are very excited. Name suggestions welcome!

Not every girl likes princesses :) jennifer I hope you are satisfied.


at this point i do feel it incumbent on myself to add that while these live princesses completely terrified and enraged Jane she is rather fond of cartoon versions of Cinderella. Although this may have more to do with her Daddy singing the "Cinderelly" song the mice sing WORD FOR WORD and in character.

Okay I'm far too lazy to turn these pics the right direction. I'm sure you guys will be able to figure something out though. Things are going well. We're moving to portland at the end of june. We're sad to be leaving here but excited too.

Also I'm pregnant. I'm about 16 weeks along. (and i'm sure everyone would love to be around to watch me attempt to handle this :) It's been good so far. Dan told Jane my belly button was a microphone to talk to the baby so she shouts "hellwwwooo" into it constantly. Good times. Hope everyone is doing well.




She climbed in herself just in case you were wondering

Something you'd never expect in the midwest
---So I was awoken early in the morning by a loud cracking noise and the bed shaking back and forth. Then a sound of crashing pans from upstairs. I woke dan up and told him but he murmured that it was fine and went back to sleep. At which point I of course thought I was crazy. BUT I come to find out this morning that i have experienced my first earthquake. A 5.2. Awesome.

This post is entitled... "What Happened here really?"

The video is painful -- truly truly painful -- but worth the watch. Although you may regret the 5 minutes of your life that you will never get back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPnGPIMUnus

I think maybe I'm going to learn this dance in the privacy of my own home and video tape myself - hoping someone will find it and post it all over the internet. Hey I could join the wonderful and unique breed of YouTube celebrities. Only think...



"Delusions of Grandeur" ---
Also did I mention that Jane's Nursery leader said that she throws better than everyone in the nursery. Awesome. No no i'm not beaming with competitive pride at all. Not at all. no visions of future glory either ;)

Happy Easter! We had a great day. Jane hunted for easter eggs. She loved it. Held them up as trophies in the air whenever she found one. She even had a little pastel pink and white striped Easter dress (jen you would love it) Her basket was a nylon collapsable soccer ball basket (SHE chose it). So pink dress and soccer ball -- apparently well rounded :)

Anyway she was adorable and had a great time. Kids make the holidays so much more fun.

So here are the long awaited pictures (unfortunately we did not get a picture of the easter dress. We'll get one another day though)

So we're back. Sort of. I do have some pictures.. really I do. They aren't on the blog but we have them. Aren't you so happy? They'll be up eventually.

We are doing really well. Jane is growing so fast and talking all the time. We just got her a little scooter. the razor scuttle bug (like a trike with no pedals). She loves it. It's so cute seeing her scooting all over.

She loves saying hi and bye to all of her toys (and her tiger sleeping bag) "Hi tita hi tita" Adorable.


In other news -- Mccain? oh yeah GREAT option there (hopefully the dripping sarcasm is coming across here) Heaven help us. Has anyone ever lived in Canada?

So i've decided that as a former political science major it would be a good idea for me to, say, pay attention to the election. I know.... astounding.

So in my endeavor to do this (and i insert here that I do not lean towards any candidate just yet) I watched part of a Fox debate on Youtube and came across the following statement made by John McCain (I'm not sure this was aired on tv as it was during the Ron Paul segment which was cut by fox news. Nice) anyway Ron Paul was talking about allowing Arab nations to broker peace by themselves. John McCain interrupts only to state the following

"I'm not interested in trading with Al-Qaeda. All they want to trade is Burkhas. I don't want to travel with them they like one-way tickets"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqxXzkaEAGo&feature=related
around 8 minutes

Really? Out loud --not to mention on the air? That statement alone lost the possibility of my vote. Not the person I would want representing my country thank you.

Jane 'reading' Paradise Lost.
Our would be "Frank Ellis" style Christmas card picture (sorry only the Ryan and Mary Englunds will get that)


Our very own Naked Cowgirl



"Tiny Turtle" (though we did have someone say that "he is a very cute frog")
and special mention to the continued usefulness of the Tacos Felix. The only bad experience this bag has brought on was the guy at La Hacienda who asked me where I got it and I said "Yeah it's from Mexico. My friend went on a trip to, well, somewhere in Mexico"

The depth of my geographical knowledge is astounding.
Nevertheless without further ado...






Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny. Won't it be sad when Jane is older and she turns to me and says "who's elmer fudd?". I would like to point out the homemade bugs costume - decided on less than 3 hours before the event. thank you... thank you.
Dan is The Office's Dwight K. Shrute. He was magnificent.










One of those inspirational posters "determination"

oh the socks :)




Jane carries the bag around all day pointing inside and saying 'what's this? ohhhhhhh'

"demulletization" She's losing her "fangs" (i.e. the longer sections of hair on the sides of the back of her head. She was tring to set a trend but it wasn't catching on like we'd thought

Jane's first trip to the beach (before her birthday actually. I struggle with timelines :)
She scattered (and ate) a lot of sand and was - in the words of her uncle john - a bundle of trouble.

and also her hair is suffering from post pigtail syndrome :)

Jane's Birthday. We had cupcakes at the pool -- and yes they were real cupcakes (no tofuti or anything :)