The Oistad Family

Monday, June 27, 2011

Sunday Funday Hike with the Andersons

I am a little late on this post, but one Sunday in late June, it was absolutely beautiful outside so we decided to go on a family hike back along Hiland Mountain to the bridge with our good friends, the Andersons. Between our two families, we had two preschooler boys, three month old baby Bram and a 30 week old preggo lady. A four mile hike that normally would have taken us about an hour (without kids) took us FOUR hours!!! Boy how our lives have changed since we have had kids. Wes and Derek joked that they had so many supplies (snacks, toys and diapers, clothes) packed in their day packs that we could have camped overnight!

Here’s a breakdown of our day:

10:30 am – leave home for park trailhead.

10:45 am – get the boys loaded up on their daddies in backpacks complete with their “lovies” (Bodi wanted to bring a big stuffed rabbit and Noah wanted two of his Cars toys). Get baby Bram set up in the ergo on his mommy, preggo lady hits the rest stop, and we are off for our hike.

Bram's 1st Hike! (3 months)

11:00 am – stop to feed Bram a bottle, let the boys get out of the backpacks to run around. Boys play in the bushes together and “mosh” up the mountain. Boys share goldfish crackers on mountain side. Super cute.

11:15 am – on our way again.

11:30 am - We notice there are three coyotes chasing a wolverine on the

mountain!! Stop to get pictures and look through the binoculars. The daddies dash up the mountain to get a closer look while Annie and I stay back with the kids to let them run around and feed boys lunch (hoping the daddies don’t get attacked by the circling coyotes). Change Noah’s poopy diaper while he is standing up so he doesn’t get dirt, rocks in his diaper – this is an interesting task.

can you spot all 3 coyotes?

wolverine

Bodi and Noah playing in the woods with their cars

I love this picture of Bodi!

12:20 pm – daddies get back from their mini-adventure, get boys back in backpacks and we are on our way again.

12:30 pm – stop to feed Bram a bottle and check his diaper.

12:45 pm – on our way again.

1:20 pm - we finally make it to the bridge and stay there a while to let the boys run around, throw rocks in the river and play play play!

the Fam - 30 weeks pregnant!

The Andersons!

2:00 pm – head back along the trail for home. Several passerby hikers note that we’ve got “quite the load” with the kids, the baby and my baby-to-be belly. J

2:40 pm – get back to our cars. Noah falls asleep in the backpack on the hike back, but we successful at transferring him to the car seat and then to his bed for a nice long nap.

While it took forever to do our hike, Noah, Bodi and Bram did great and had a lot of fun together! Hiking with kids and babies is sure a lot different than what we are used to, but it did force us to slow down and enjoy the journey along the way! Great day!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Preggo with my BFF

My best friend Kalei and I have grown up together since we met 20 years ago back in 7th grade. We have supported one another through the ups and downs of middle school, high school, college, careers, weddings and motherhood. So naturally, I was thrilled to tell Kalei back in January when we found out we were expecting our 2nd child. She had a little twinkle in her eye and I didn't know it at the time, but she was also expecting her 2nd child and her due date was only 10 days after mine!!

It has been really fun going through this pregnancy with someone so special to me. We have already made jokes that our little girl and her little boy are betrothed. :)

6 months pregnant (28 weeks for me, 27 weeks for her)

Additionally, several of our best friends from Kappa are pregnant with us too!! Check out this bump watch! There were six of us, but our good friend Christina recently graduated from the bump watch with the birth of her son, Carsten.

And to add to the pregnancy fun, another one of our close college friends, Jen, is pregnant too with her 2nd child!! What the heck was in the water at UO?

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Five Years and Counting...

Five years ago on June 10, 2006, Wes and I tied the knot!

Since that special day, we have bought a home together in our hometown, traveled to several exciting destinations such as China/Hong Kong and Hawaii, changed jobs, had our beautiful son Noah, and we are now awaiting the arrival of our baby girl in the fall!

Unfortunately this year on our anniversary, I was fighting a terrible cough from a 2-week bout with bronchitis. I was coughing too bad to go out to a fancy restaurant (or any restaurant for that matter) so Wes suggested we take a rain check on dinner, get take out and have a picnic at the park. We got gourmet cheeseburgers to go and took Noah to the park for some fun with mom and dad. It such a fun night and a great way to celebrate our past five years together!

During our picnic, Wes surprised me by pulling out a silver box from Nordy's with some beautiful David Yurman earrings to match the necklace he had given me last year! We had already exchanged our gifts earlier (he got a shop vac and he gave me a mini tree since traditional 5 year anniversary gifts are "wood ") so I was really surprised!

My two loves

This pretty box showed up on the picnic table

My new favorite earrings!

Our baby bump is growing... 27 weeks pregnant!

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Memorial Day Weekend Campout - Byers Lake

For Memorial Day weekend we packed up the camper and headed out for our first campout of the summer at Byers Lake. This year we were in for a really good time, because in additon to camping with Grandma and Grandpa Oistad, we also got to camp with a bunch of our closest friends: the Rupps, the Andersons and the Finches! The weather was peferct - blue skies, sunshine and near 80 degree temps! It was such a wonderful weekend. Unfortunately, Noah came down with a fever early Monday morning so we had to head for home a few hours earlier than we had planned, but it was still a great weekend!

Throwing rocks in the lake!

Hike up to the waterfall (26 weeks pregnant)

Noah and Sheila having a snack break at the falls

Hiking with daddy

Playing ball with Kailer

Love playing by the lake

Mommy's boy is getting to be so big!

I'm gonna get you Mommy!

Throwing silver car in lake... after Mommy said not to.

Pedaling my trike!

Bodi and Noah - BFF. hahaha. Annie (Bodi's mom) suggested we let the boys just duke it out. Not sure who is winning but both boys look pretty unhappy.

Mommy loves her Noah

The boys climbed down on the iceberg in Byers Lake

Noah's 2nd time in a canoe!

Fun times with Grandpa and Grandma Oistad

Playing in the "HR" - Holiday Rambler with Grandma and Grandpa!

Grandpa cooked up some Noah's favorite veggie - green beans! Yum!

We stopped to look at Denali on the way home!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Our Favorite Noah Moments - May 2011

Noah's language skills and vocabulary have sky rocketed this past month and we have had so much fun talking with our sweet lil man. Below are a few of our favorite "Noah moments" from this past month. Pictures to come soon!

· Going downstairs by himself and trying to make himself breakfast. The cereal was too high for him to reach, so he went for the goldfish crackers and we heard him telling the goldfish to “Get out” of the box on the table for him to eat.

· Saying he loves us and telling us “Sweet Dreams, Sleep Tight” at bedtime. A few nights ago we went over to see his gal pal Emma and when she went to bed he opened the door and yelled, “Night-Night Emma. Sweet Dreams. Sleep Tight.” He is clearly trying to get in some points with Emma early.

· Pushing Emma’s baby doll around the house in baby carriage. Encouraging. Then tilting carriage and dumping baby on the floor. Still needs some work.

· Time out – after Noah had to be put in timeout for pushing, later that night during his bath, Noah put his toy cars in timeout after they “pushed” each other. A few times he got mixed up and put the pushee in timeout, not the pusher, but for the most part he is learning that pushing = timeout. This is good.

· Loving mommy’s iphone and whizzing through the Peekaboo Barn app as fast as he can, yelling the animals out. This is cute. It is a little less cute at 6am when he climbs into our bed to see us in the mornings, but still cute. His favorite animal is the pig when he enthusiastically yells, “PIIIIIIGGGGG!!!” as loud as he can.

· Riding trikes with Pao Pao!

· Getting Noah to wear his bike helmet has been quite the adventure. He kept saying, “Don’t want it, it’s Aiden’s hat”! (Aiden used to have the same helmet). Our stubborn lil Noah would even rather not ride his bike at all than put his helmet on. We got him a Lightening Mcqueen helmet (his favorite character), but he still wouldn’t let us put it on him. Pao Pao put the helmet on him while he was napping to get all the straps adjusted and took a pic of him wearing it. Then when he woke up, she showed him the pic of him wearing the helmet and he seemed less resistant since clearly he had already worn the helmet and had survived ok. As a final ploy, Pao Pao bribed him with a new truck to get him to just “try it on”. Once he had it on, he realized it wasn’t that bad. Tricky Pao Pao!

· Chasing bubbles around the deck as fast as he can.

· Pointing out all the squirrels in the yard and in the trees.

· Watching his favorite program, Mickey Mouse clubhouse. During the Stanley Cup playoffs, he would see the TV on and want to watch Mickey Mouse. Too funny.

· Calling his new race car bed “baby’s car bed”.

· Throwing his new “silver car” in the lake over Memorial Day after mommy repeatedly told him not to throw it in. Afterwards, Noah tried to walk into the lake to get it and I wouldn’t let him. He asked me to get it and I said no way (it was about 7 feet deep off the end of the dock). He offered to go in time out if I would get it out. Noah was so sad for about 10 minutes about the loss of his new car, but lesson was learned. Of course, when daddy found out about it, he dived down to the bottom of the lake and got it, but we aren’t giving it to Noah until his birthday this September.

· Jumping on Wes’ chest and yelling “GOT YOU DADDY”!! He also body slammed Wes’ head while he was sleeping at 6:30 in the morning, giggled, and then said, “Cereal?”

· Singing Twinkle Twinkle little star, ABCs, 10 little monkeys and counting EVERYTHING in sight. He can count up to 25 but often skips over 13 and 16. Singing random words, names of family members and favorite Cars characters, and then ending each song with “Mom….dad….. NOAHHHHHHHHHH!”

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Pao Pao's new trike!

My mom recently got a new trike to bike around the neighborhood with Noah! It is her first time on a bike and she is doing great. Noah has so much fun chasing her around on his own tricycle!

go Pao Pao!

Trike buddies

Noah loves riding his trike!

Noah and his new Mcqueen helmet
(and the new blue truck Pao Pao got him to bribe him into trying on his helmet)

Friday, May 20, 2011

GW' 2011 - Napa, CA

Last weekend I headed down to San Francisco/Napa, California for some much needed R&R with five of my favorite girlfriends! We had so much fun touring the wineries, going out to dinner, having a spa day and lounging around in our fabulous vacation rental house in our jammies catching up. We got a little taste of every kind of weather while we in Napa -- sun, clouds, rain, and even some hail! We wish it would have been warmer so we could have enjoyed our awesome pool/pool deck more, but it was still an incredible trip regardless!