The Gem State

Drumroll please.....

The Whitfield 4 are moving to Boise, Idaho!  Doug and I couldn't be more excited for this major change that has been months and months in the making.

The background: After college, Doug and I ended up in the Seattle area.  Neither of us really felt like we chose to live here.  Many of our Whitman friends grew up in Seattle and returned after graduation, I wanted to earn my Master's while teaching, Doug liked the bigger city and proximity to mountains, water, etc.  But, we were never in-love with the city and we always dreamed of other places to live... Boston, San Francisco, New York... we also dreamt of living in older homes and fixing them up top to bottom... and dreamt of taking advantage of all that 'the city life' had to offer... The Doug and Elizabeth of the early 2000s envisioned a much different picture than the Doug and Elizabeth of 2013.  We have lived in our Bellevue home for 8+ years, and so much blood, sweat, and tears (and $$) have gone into transforming this cozy 1940s house into a charming cottage.  We love our big yard and the amazing location; it is ideal for a family.  But, the desire to move to a different place with new things to offer hasn't dissipated.  After Cam was born, the desire seemed to increase!

We have talked extensively about this with our families and friends over the past year.  Several different opportunities and circumstances presented themselves, and we had to make a decision about which bullet to bite (is that too vague? we are keeping some of the details within the tight, non-public circle!).  Eventually, our draw to Boise grew too strong to ignore, and it became worth shutting some doors and saying to goodbye to our wonderful community here.

The details: Boise became a possible contender because of what it has to offer as a growing, developing city, for its cost of living, for its quality of life...and it doesn't hurt that my brother, my sister-in-law, and our most adorable nephew in the world happen to live there.  Long term, this city will provide opportunities that other cities can't.  And it will enable us to live the kind of life that we want for ourselves and for our children.  We have found the most amazing community to initially move into....again, it is virtually the complete opposite of what we envisioned for ourselves 10 years ago, but right now, it is ideal for us.  We will be renting a fabulous home there during this transition and renting our current home in Bellevue.  We leave the beginning of April to start this next chapter!

The future: We will miss our friends here in the Seattle area.  I can't believe that we won't get to see some of these special people on a regular basis.  That part is the hardest.  But, we already have Sophie enrolled in a new preschool and a neighborhood soccer team.  Our new community is filled with families.  We will get to have cousins grow up together, spend so much time with my bro and Alison, and enjoy all that this change in life has to offer.  We couldn't be more excited.  It's this middle period of transition--saying goodbye, checking off our "Bellevue/Seattle bucket list", packing up and moving out, dealing with logistics-- that is difficult.

Needless to say, there are millions of things running through our minds lately.  It's been a really busy winter, and it'll be a busy but EXCITING spring!

Boise, here come the Whitfield 4!

Home Sweet Home

This is what Daddy came home to one evening.  After a long day of work, he was welcomed home to this madness!

For the record: we had enjoyed a really full afternoon of playing restaurant, veterinarian, school, and "April Fool's tricks".

CRW: 9 Months

Dear Time,

Slow down.  My baby is growing up too fast.

Son needs to watch his back...

Cam turned 9 months old this week, weighing in at 20.6 pounds and 29 inches long.  On his actual 9-month bday, my baby boy let go of the table where he was standing and for a few quick seconds, he didn't realize that he was standing on his own.  Then he looked down and wobbled to the ground.  It will not be long before he is standing unassisted and then walking.... I can see him growing increasingly frustrated with having to hold on to something in order to stand.  Today, he wanted to hold on to two blocks but he couldn't pull himself up to stand without letting go of one of the blocks.  Being the supportive mom who encourages her children to challenge themselves to achieve success, I didn't help him.  I sat there watching him problem solve in that big head of his...his grunts and squawks of annoyance were almost hysterical.  Eventually he stuck one block in his mouth, kept the other block in his hand, and then pulled himself up.  Genius.

Coming for the camera...

...got the camera! 

making us laugh by banging his feet and head on the ground--the more we laughed, the more he did it!

He grunts and makes crazy sounds, but he doesn't really have any words. He blabbers away while playing and makes great noises to welcome Daddy home after work, but we are still working on beginning language development.  

Cameron claps, pumps his arms up and down, points (think: E.T.), and raises his arms up in the air like Superman.  He also loves to vigorously shake his head back and forth as if to say "No, no, no, no."  If I start nodding my head and saying "yes, yes, yes", he will shake his head even faster but keeps his big grin on his face! 

everybody says he looks like Doug 

Cameron is so curious, so independent, and often, so naughty.  The problem is that he is naughty in the most adorable way.  I'm serious--this boy has me wrapped around his finger.  He will crawl as fast as he can toward what he honestly knows he can't have.  Just before he reaches the wine bottle or the toilet or the small toy, he will stop crawling, turn his head around and smile one final smirk before charging forward for the final home stretch.  I always say "Caaaammmmerrron" (in a long, drawn out "what-do-you-think-you-are-doing?" sounding voice) and that makes him wiggle his bottom even faster.  This boy fills our lives with joy.

Sister hugs (look at her eyes! love them)

The hugs always start fun, but they tend to end in one child crying.

Cameron continues to light up a room. His big eyes exude joy and tenderness.  Despite his mobility, he still cuddles.  He loves to be kissed all over his face, tickled on his big belly, and grabbed by his toes.

He has four top teeth and four bottom teeth (our kids apparently are early bloomers...!).  I love his toothy grins.  He is much happier feeding himself food rather than passively eating from a spoon. Avocado, banana, asparagus, green beans, potatoes, squash, peaches, pears....whatever I can cut into small pieces, he will eat.  He probably eats 2 times as much each day as his big sister. 

Perhaps it's a result of being a second child, but Cameron can sit in his room by himself and play with toys.  I think he can hear all of our voices throughout the house, and he doesn't get scared of being alone in a room.  He is content and relaxed.  He doesn't like to sit in a lap and read books, but he will pull books out, inspect them, eat them, throw them down.  He cruises all over the house, taking any opportunity to investigate the open refridgerator conents, the cabinets, Sophie's toys, the dangerous glass coffee table.  He tears Sophie's drawings down from the easel, eats fuzz from the carpet, stands up on his tippy toes to bang the keys on the piano, shakes at the gate at the top of the stairs hoping it will fling open.  

He is the hardest being in the universe to change his diaper.  It almost takes two people to hold him down on the ground.  I'm apologetic for the amount of times that I've enlisted the help of my 3 year old daughter to help me change her brother's dirty diapers.  

I'm just so thankful for this growing boy.  He is the perfect addition to our family.  My two children definitely balance one another out (read between the lines of that sentence).  

These next three months will fly by and before I know it. I'll have a 1-year old.  How is this possible?! 

Sophie-isms

(side note: Cam will get his own post soon, since my little guy turns 9 months this week!!)

It's time for more awesomely unbelievable comments from Sophie (in no particular order):

1.  "And then I was like 'wait a minute, those aren't normal Oreos because they're supposed to be white' and then I was like 'ok, well I'll still eat them cuz I love sugar.'" (explaining her reaction to receiving a Valentine's Day pink Oreo)



2.  "I don't want to be a doctor anymore.  Well, actually, maybe I can be a doctor on Saturdays.  But, now I want to wash windows when I grow up."

3.  "But, I just want to punch Cam.  He has such punchable cheeks. I think he'll like me to punch him."

4.  "If I was a cheetah, I'd head butt a zebra."

5.  "Mommy, remember when I was two and a half, and he (baby brother) wasn't here? Those were such good days."

6.  "I have noooo energy.  My energy is all gone so I think I need more sugar.  The candy gives me energy.  I promise it does."



7.  "JUST BE QUIET!" (yelled in the exact direction of where her brother was babbling)  When I gave her "the look" to address how rude and bossy her exclamation was, she shook her head and said "No, I was just saying that to my sandwich."

8.  Sophie is extremely observant and perceptive.  She sees details that go unnoticed by her parents!  She remembers EVERYTHING that her teachers and her friends from school say.  I love hearing the stories, and I hope she continues to tell me EVERYTHING during all her school years.  Anyway, I was introducing a new food to Cameron, and he was not having it.  All of a sudden, Sophie told him, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."  I must have given her a surprised look, because before I could say a word, she told me, "Mrs. Laurie always says that at school and Cam needs to learn that."

9.  Sophie has a love-hate relationship with dinosaurs.  She loves checking out books from the library that teach her new facts about them, she loves playing with her small dinosaurs, and she loves asking us hundreds of questions about them.  Yet, she hates seeing any displays about dinosaurs---we figured this out the hard way when we brought her to the big dinosaur exhibit at the science center.  We worked hard to reiterate that those big, moving, growling dinosaurs were FAKE and PRETEND because dinosaurs are extinct.  She replied, "So, they were real a long long time ago when we were fake?"




10.  Doug reads Sophie stories from Winnie the Pooh and Sophie cherishes the fact that it is a special time for just the two of them.  She then paraphrases the stories to me.  This week I learned that "They bounced Tigger in the fossils."  She meant "in the thistles."

11.  Sophie got a new CD from her music class.  We love these CDs, because the music is varied and entertaining.  One of the new songs is an opera but the singer is meowing like a cat. Think: a cat singing opera... All four of us were in the car listening to the CD for the first time.  As we listened to this meowing opera, I gave Doug a silent look because the song was terrible and bizarre.  After about 2 minutes of all of us quietly listening to the song, Sophie said (unprompted), "This song is creeping me out."

12.  I heard the gate open a the top of our stairs.  Sophie has free reign of the house and goes up and down as she wants.  Now that Cameron is a crawling daredevil, we have to be so careful about shutting doors and completely shutting that gate.  So, when I heard the gate open, I peeked my head around the corner of the hallway to see Sophie holding the gate open as Cameron made a beeline toward her.  Her eyes met mine, and she realized that I was watching her hold it open for him.  Immediately, she said "'I want to go downstairs' said Cameron today." So, now she makes up dialogue that Cameron supposedly says in order to justify her actions...

I could continue for hours.  We often walk a fine line between Sophie being hysterical and Sophie being bratty.  There are times that we laugh or roll our eyes at her adorable sense of humor, and then there are times when we look at eachother, and we worry that we are creating a monster.