A Pirate's Life for Me

Here is the the fearsome Captain Quin wearing the dreaded patch. Because Quin's right eye is lazy we are covering his good eye (the left) it force him to use the lazy eye and build up the muscles so it doesn't keep going crossed. "How do we keep the patch on?", you might ask. Well we just keep slapping them on whenever Quin rips one off (which about once every hour or every time he goes in his car seat). Needless to say it has been a fierce battle. And yes I do sometimes feel like I am battling a pirate.

Quin's new fetish (along with vacuums of course) are electrical outlets. In an attempt to keep him from sticking his fingers and toys inside the outlets I tell him "don't touch, hot!" Well, Quin being the clever little boy that he is has found a solution to that problem. He will blow on the electrical outlets for a few minutes and then proceed to stick things in the outlet. Lovely.
Quins really has been getting into building with his blocks. This tower was constructed all by himself. He loves to have an audience "oooooo"-ing and "ahhhhhhh"-ing with every new block he stacks. Quin takes great pride in his creations.
This is how I found Quin yesterday after leaving him to his own devises while I went to the bathroom. Apparently he likes the smokey flavor of soot. It took me a good 1/2 hour to rig up a device to keep him from opening our wood stove (it took a lot of string and many knots). He is mischievous little boy. But what can I say....he is a pirate.

The Mighty Quin Music Video

I have been working on this over the past year...finally it is finished!

Princess Day

I hereby proclaim January 8 from this day forth to be Princess Day. There will be love notes, plastic jewelry, delicious food, and girly movies such as Princess and the Frog and Leap Year.

Glowing roses will be delivered by men in scrubs.

And the wee ones will be given the keys and sent off for the night.

So let it be written....so let it be done.

Warm and Delicious

If I were to pick 2 words to describe this Christmas I would choose warm and delicious. Warm because we went down to Cali and delicious because....well...lets just say I put on 6 pounds in two weeks and loved every minute of it.

Quin also enjoyed the Christmas festivities. Here he is modeling his favorite toy. For all of you who don't know Quin is obsessed with vacuums. After watching him drag around our Shark cordless vacuum until it finally broke (I still haven't thrown it away and it has found a home with Quin's toys) and listening to him scream at the sight of our Hoover until I turned it on, I decided something must be done. So here it is. The Fisher Price model.
Two other highlights for Quin were the Oregon Zoolights (we went before our flight to Cali) and the tractor museum at Guajome Park in Vista.

Who knew that climbing on tractors could be so fun?

With the closing of 2009 I couldn't help but reflect on how grateful I am for this past year. On the Sunday night before school/work started for the the rest of my family I found my self looking forward to the weeks to come rather than dreading a "return to the grindstone." I am so happy to be staying home with my adorable Quin. He is my little ray of sunshine in the often gloomy weather of Portland. I am also grateful for a hardworking husband who is almost finished with dental school and for loving family who have been so supportive and generous. Hopefully 2010 will bring another warm and delicious year.