a charlotte thanksgiving

not a lot of pictures from this fun holiday tradition charlotte has created, but these pictures are ones that matter.

first, we have finn and monkey cake, a wonderful charlotte traditional recipe...

finn looks nothing like his dad in this picture. of course you can hear the sarcasm dripping from this writing... and yes, finn did try to eat as much of it as he could.

next, we have a new tradition to celebrate- joanie and declan. don't they make a great couple!

we had a great time with a rousing and humorous game of apples to apples, a lot of pie (chris, your pie rocked!), and an incredible amount of yummy food! sorry i haven't been able to get these up sooner!

the stove is a comin'

marc and i were just talking today about how excited we are to have our new stove. i feel like a bunch of hippies, but really, oh well.
as i type, i am awaiting a call from the installers. we may be bumped, which will be for a cold weekend, but getting here was a huge battle. but here we are, and again, excited.
finn did the design for our hearth, marc and he both did the install. this project really took over our lives, and we can't wait for it to be done and to move on, and of course to be warm.



here is our fireplace, pregrout and prestove. of course finn is dancing around like a madman in too short sweats. he is really excited about his design.




declan has started eating and loves it. he is not a messy eater, and rarely gets bored and does a good job concentrating on what he is eating! yesterday jan, the neighbor lady who watches him two days a week told me she predicts he will be crawling before he can sit up on his own. she thinks he may be crawling in the next few weeks. what a prediction! my floors are of course not ready.

i'm a lumberjack and i'm okay

we are official oregonians. we own a chainsaw. i only have one word to describe this immense feeling. awesome.

power tools in general are sexy, but there is something about a chainsaw that surpasses all other power tools. they are sexy yes, powerful, and also bring memories of horror films from high school. when hearing that sound of the gas power whirl, i get slightly scared yet filled with a quiet endorphine rush. i am not the only one in the family to have a reaction to this great machine. max wants to eat it, and declan just stares. finn, of course, wants to help.

but in the great storm of last week, we had a tree fall over. marc was here for the blessed event, but sadly, i missed it. in his words he said it was just like a loud crack. i think his heart jumped with joy because he was able to go buy a chainsaw to cut that thing up.
(ed, note: We wish it to be known that while Mr. McCool does indeed appreciate the raw beauty and power of his new tool, we would be remiss if we did not state categorically that Mrs. Adams McCool seems to be practicing a little transference here.)

well, now our backyard will actually get some light, and perhaps next year will be the year of the garden, finally...

and in other news, our lovely and adorable octopus furnace is on the official fritz. with the price of oil going higher this year than any year in the past (thanks gw for effective energy policy!). we (translation- kim) obsessed about finding something different. the biggest issue was finding something that would be a renewable energy source, and really we don't have a lot of options. so now, in two short weeks, we will be the proud owners of a wood stove insert. it is pretty and i hope efficient enough for us. we contemplated a lot of different choices, but i think this was the best lifestyle and financial choice for us... so exciting. now we may be happy with our drafty windows in this house to cool it off, well that is the hope anyway.

the weekend was sort of lazy, at least homebound, a first one like this in awhile. i caught the boys spending some quality waking up time in bed, which allowed me time to work on the blog at a leisurely pace.

date night

we left the kids with mom last night and went on our first date in a long while. marc had brought it to my attention that we had both eaten korean food, but never together. we once had friends over for dinner and they made an amazing kim chi stew... but he didn't think that counted. so we had planned on dinner and a movie, a very typical type date night thing.

so, we headed off to the wilds of beaverton to drop the kids off with the grandparents. mom told me about a sale at old navy, so poor marc had to start our date off there. and while we were at the mall, i forced him to head over to alisha's work for a pre-dinner cocktail. that was really difficult (Ed. note: trying to talk Mr. McCool into a pre-dinner cocktail is as difficult as talking George Bush into invading Middle Eastern countries). they happened to be showing the u of o game in the bar...luckly we were there only for a quick drink. had we stayed much longer, it might have turned into several as marc would have sought to drown his sorrrows. as it was, we were able to slip away before the full extent of the damage was know to us, and it was lovely to see my sister, however briefly. we then headed for dinner over to a little restaurant in the fred meyer mall-beaverton town square- called hae rim.

we did a bit of research beforehand. we knew of all places in the metro area, beaverton does have a lot of gem little ethnic restaurants. the idea of a family run place in a strip mall has always scared me, but no longer surprises me. as a matter of fact, i think these type places are so much better than any of the major chains prevelant in the suburbs. so we checked out citysearch for reviews of a few good korean places, and this place had some of the better reviews...


it took us forever to decide what to eat. but it was so yummy, and the sides were delicious. it took us almost an hour and a half to process our way through our meal. the kimchi stew was so good that i almost didn't let marc eat any of it, and i don't like kim chi as a general rule. marc was so kind to listen to my post election decompression, and he was happy that i ordered a side of spare ribs for him. the food was so good, and the prices were so reasonable. to top it all off the owners were so nice and cute. i really hope this place sticks around long enough for us to visit again. this got me to thinking that maybe i should start up a second blog just focused around what i am cooking or eating, or maybe reading...

we then went to this place-i won't name it as i refuse to give them any free press- that i had read a review about in the oregonian. the review had said that they were trying to conjure up a late night dessert networking crowd by bringing in music and that it had a great ambiance. somehow in my mind i had envisioned sleek suburbanites sitting around listening to a dj enjoying some fantastic drinks. of course, as always my imagination got ahead of myself. this place was actually kind of bizarre. we ordered an irish coffee and she put baileys in it with the whiskey, there were obviously grown men regulars who were hitting on the servers who were barely 21. we ordered a cherry cheesecake that sounded interesting, but was really awful. it didn't matter though, because marc and i were having a fantastic time together. yes, he did make fun of me taking the camera along for our date. i had a great time making the place a little nervous with the pictures.

it was a great date night. we never made it to a movie. we were having too much fun hanging out together.

halloween birthday fun and a nickname announcement

so i had a birthday. i celebrated the 10th anniversary of my 21st. we had a rollicking good time. i gathered many friends and we trampsed (i know...trampsed isn't a word...yet. but we didn't exactly traipse and we didn't exactly tramp, ya know?) throughout downtown portland for an adventure which involved large quantities of alcohol, a few crazy taxi drivers, naked ladies and doughnuts. i had a blast. the next day my lovely parents took marc and me to a football game in eugene, and yes, we were both crazy hung over. but we were fine after a lovely hair of the dog provided by my thoughtful mother. she is a genius. as we all know. we had a great time nursing our hangover at a college football game. my mom knows so much about football i was a little frightened, but in a good way. i don't know if marc was as impressed as i was. maybe all women are like that and i am missing something? we walked away with some new tees and a full belly of hot dogs, kettle corn and some good heartburn. we saw the most fantastic shirt that said 'ted bundy was a husky.' we had so much fun spending the day with my parents.

if you have never seen it, this is what we look like hungover.

i almost posted a bum craigslist add after, in my head it went -- me wearing the green u of o sweatshirt, you wearing your nice green and gold cap. you kept yelling at the ref and eating popcorn. i was right behind you. next week same section? --- of course i didn't, but we thought about it.



since we hadn't really spent much time with kids all weekend due to birthday festivities, on sunday we trekked out to sauvie island to find the perfect pumpkin. grandma and grandad joined us and we had a fantastic time. the pumpkin patch is never the same without them. this year finn picked and carried (for some part) his pumpkin all by himself. marc and finn had some good bonding going on over the search.




grandma rox and declan had a good time together as well. the hayride was great as soon as the weather cooperated and quit raining. we had a few downpour moments, but then we ran into the barn and visited animals or we went and bought some fantastic produce to hold us over for the week. marc made the best brussel sprouts with bacon that night, one of my favorite dishes in the world.




and for those of you that are interested, i think we may have a nickname. meet boo. deckinator does not work now, and neither does just plain 'd'. we still like deuce, but not until he can beat up his brother. not sure how it has come about, but it completes our other son, bug. i almost want to post a picture of finn at this age, they really do look so much alike, yet their personalities are already different. declan has a bit of a temper, whereas finn and the word temper have never met. already they are the best of compadres. declan will not take a bath peacefully unless his brother is around. of course finn is happy to help. his brother is one of his favorite play things, and the same goes for declan. parenting is pretty awesome. i couldn't be happier. although, i did have a panic attack today thinking that finn will want to drive ten years from now. not so far away really.