Proud of this one – almost straight out of the camera. Just a little cropping, a defog action and voila! Of course it took about 5 minutes of me saying Thomas’ name and begging him to look at me before I was able to take the photo, but it’s all about the setup, right?

Taken at the end of a long day – capped off by Kei getting a flat tire on his bike and Thomas and I having to go and pick him up. It did mean we missed the drywallers (is that a word?) who wanted to stay late because they were on a roll. So exciting now that we almost have walls. Real walls – not the pieces of cardboard that passed themselves off as walls on our second floor before we began this adventure. Oh no, THESE walls have insulation (I think I mentioned how fantastic that stuff is).

Oh and today I have had a few contractions and a lot of aching in my lower back. I have been madly drinking water and am tempted to lie on my left side under the desk just to keep this child in. (Kei’s advice was to clench.) I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow so I’ll let you know if I’m imagining things.

I am going to have to update my locket photos pretty soon. Kei bought this for my birthday a couple of years ago and I have not changed out the photos since I added these when Thomas was about six months old. Of course the problem is going to be when I have three boys in my life and only two spaces for photos. Kei has already accepted the fact that he will have to give up his position. I think he accepted it a long time ago…

P.S. In addition to providing more variety in my photos, I also promise more focus – as in, not blurry.

A little souvenir from my life in Japan. It seriously feels like a lifetime ago (and I guess for a ten year old, it is). This little fish has traveled from Japan to Australia and then across the world again to Portland. I hang him inside because he makes noise when you hang him in the wind and it can get a little irritating. Let’s just say that as a wind chime he works a little too well (someone in our apartment building in Australia actually asked us to take him down soon after we moved in).

OK – so I am running short on photo subjects. The difficulty is that with working five days a week, I often don’t usually remember my photo until I am in my pajama pants and unwilling to venture outside. So I have been limited to objects around my house. Objects that are right now covered in dust and, frankly, I am running out of interesting objects to photograph.  Never fear – this will all change as soon as I have this baby and am officially off work for a few months. I promise more variety – well AFTER the few thousand photos I post of the baby and his brother (and the inside of the hospital) of course.

Finally starting to feel like spring. The rain even stopped for a couple of days. There are tulips all around our neighbourhood and they are so pretty. Almost makes me want to do some gardening. Almost.

Thoams and Kei were both “roaring” for the camera. I guess Thomas renegged on the deal a little. Kei definitely looks more into it.

Friday night – finally the end of a very long week. So we went out for Sushi and a walk around the neighbourhood. Thomas loves traveling on Kei’s shoulders. I asked Kei what we’re going to do when we have two kids but he still has only one pair of shoulders. He didn’t have an answer either.

Ever had that feeling when you get in the elevator and you realize you didn’t really take notice of the floor where you parked and you wonder how many floors you will have to stop and get off so you can take a look around before you finally find your car?

Happened to me tonight. And this is the most interesting photo I had the time to take. Unless you want to see pictures of an awards ceremony for the Portland Business Journal that I had to attend for work. Didn’t think so.

I asked Thomas to make some funny faces for my photo of the day. Apparently his idea of a funny face is to screw up his face as tight as he can because I have quite a few photos that look just like this.

A little green in honour of Earth Day and a little message for Mother Earth. We’ve been good haven’t we? We’re trying very hard to reduce our impact on the planet – We use canvas bags to carry our groceries almost every time we visit the store, we plan to plant a tree in the backyard as soon as our construction is finished and we buy organic…

…so for the love of all things warm and sunny… PLEASE MAKE THE RAIN STOP!!!

This is how Kei kept Thomas occupied while I was out yesterday. Ok – this could be more Kei than Thomas. The Japanese characters in the middle say “Ishida” – and that right there is pretty much the extent of my knowledge of the Japanese language.