ZAGOFOPO

The Zackey's Annual Gathering of Fish Oriented People & Others was a fun party this year! We certainly enjoyed celebrating the summer weather with all of you who made it. It was a major kid fest here with lots of babies, toddlers and kid folks testing out the new swing set (phew, Todd worked his tail off putting it together),

crawling through pop up tunnels, doing bubbles, playing on the hammock, and eating plenty of hot dogs, juice boxes, cake and treats.
Being as this is an annual event we are attempting to make some annual traditions like photos by the ZAGOFOPO fish, so those were fun and the kids also enjoyed "Go Fish" both of which were created by the talented Patti. Like last year we had a ZAGOFOPO cake,
this year crafted by Patti, and also a jello fish and salmon of course. Speaking of Patti, we also used this as an excuse to sing her "Happy Retirement" as she just retired from teaching High School Math and Science for 35 years, wow! Quin especially enjoyed this part of the celebration, well the candle blowing out and frosting at least!
So, we will now be keeping a lookout for interesting fish items for future ZAGOFOPO's at Goodwill. Well here is an album of more fun ZAGOFOPO moments! Thanks again for coming and thanks to our parents for all the prep help!

ZAGOFOPO

Artsy Fartsy

So here I go again, Patti (my Mom in law) thinks it's hormones, but I have gone a little hog wild this week with projects. ONE of the many projects has been doing lots of prep work for the Shoreline Arts Festival, which begins today. SO, if you are in the Seattle area, reading email this gorgeous Saturday morn, you really should come, it will be heaps of fun, especially all the Hands on Art Stations! ;) Here are the hundreds of tiny faces I made out of FIMO for the fabric dolls:


Of course, I have also been preppy for our BBQ party this afternoon , ZAGOFOPO, stay tuned for more on that. So here is Quin's new wall of art: Todd did a fish sketch around Q's paintings from the last few weeks. I haven't been the only busy one around here though, I also roped Patti into creating some fish art for today's party, and will post those amazing projects later. I had a great meeting with PEPS folks about volunteer curriculum work I'm doing for them, helped Patti house hunt, and cooked, cleaned, tried to keep up with my little charge and Quin etc, too. Gee, being 8+ months preggers sure makes for productivity!

All Aboard!

We had our kickoff the summer adventure this past weekend via a train trip down to Portland! Here's a synopsis of the trip. It all began like this,

Lazy sleep in sort of morn for Papa and Quin

An exciting train ride, complete with Engineer Quin enthusiastically saying, "Chugga, chugga, choo choo! and "All aboard!" over and over as we left the station.
Our room with a view at the Portland Mariott Downtown Waterfront hotel.
Fun frolics in the fountain at the waterfront park.
"Pool time!" at our hotel pool.
Heaps of shoulder rides on Papa for Quin.
Rock throwing fun at the river and resting time for Mama.
Many special meals out at fun restaurants and treats like a Voodoo donut for Quin.
A visit to the Portland waterfront fire station with Todd's firefighter buddy Braxton who gave us a great tour, including Quin's favorite, "The guys cooking dinner in the kitchen."

And it ended (well, just about anyway) like this,
Q finally taking a nap in Papa's arms on the train ride home, ahhh....
Here are even more pics if you just couldn't get enough:

Portland Trip

Papa Love

Quin loves his Papa more than ever, especially on and around Father's Day! ;)

32 Weeks + Naming

Hee, hee, I look pretty silly I have to admit! I didn't really do these profile pics while preggers with Quin, so to see them now, and look back on how I've grown, makes me giggle, and it's my own body!
Little Miss Squirmy has still yet to be named, I'm pretty positive now we definitely won't have a name for her until after we meet her. We plan to go into the hospital with a good handful of our favorites to pick from, and once we know if she's any of the following: a redhead or otherwise, a mellow or feisty baby (I'm guessing she might be...), born on a sunny day, born early or born late, and oh so many factors which might change our opinion about which name we pick for her, THEN we'll decide. At that point you all can go out an get her name monogrammed on baby items etc. ;) For now, I will keep bugging Todd to miraculously find the perfect names, one that's soft to go with strong "Zackey", not too common, not too strange, not too long or short (preferably 2 syllables), and something that sounds good with her middle name "Elizabeth". Ok, if any of you want to help, we'd love your input...;)

Clowny Lumberjackish Quin

Papa Todd put Q in possibly the cutest outfit he could of on Sunday, what I like to refer to as his, "Clowny Lumberjackish outfit":
Ahhhh

Q put his cute duds to good use by:
moving fallen tree branches in the yard

and showing off those cute suspenders at Tutta Bella

where we went for a really fun pizza dinner out with friends Matt, Rebecca and Olea, plus Tara, Nathanial and new 7 day old Baby Caleb! It was a packed place with fun live music, tasty food, and great company!

The Cook is In...

So normally I mostly post about Quin, but I am feeling like luxuriating in a moment of self respect...So, here goes, I have been working on creating weekly "meal plans" since September. Though this really waned during my 1st trimester gross feeling stage, I've been overall pretty proud of the results for our family.
Here is my book of saved "meal plans" and a sample list from this week.

So, this was one of those weeks where I planned some tasty meals and actually cooked most of what I planned, and more! So, I just have to take this moment and share.
First of all, Todd is probably most jazzed about the bread I've been baking, and I don't even have the cookbook (Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day) yet. Though I did order it with my gift card from the PEPS group I led! I can't wait to try out some more of the recipes.
Not to be left out, Quin the dough boy

Beyond the bread, which went nicely with some of the dinners I made this week, I was proud of the fact that two of the meals I tried for the fist time were done pretty inexpensively using fresh herbs, a little cream and canned goods. The first being a red sauce for our penne, the second a white bean soup.
Typically I don't come up with ideas on my own, and this week was no exception. From my "dinner ideas" binder I had pulled out this article from Cookie magazine on 30 meals in 30 days. I seem incapable of following recipes though, so the 3 I used this week were full of my own adaptations:

• "Tuscan White Bean Soup with Shrimp" (but with lots of garden herbs and without shrimp)
• "Mustardy Pork Chops with Gnocchi" (sans Gnocchi, which our family is not fond of, and with major changes to the sauce recipe)
• "Chicken with Peanut-Curry Sauce" (again, made the recipe my own).

So, there you have it, I will likely now regress to cooking tacos, and frozen raviolis next week, but at least I shared my moment of glory!

Mood Swings

Quin is SO 2 these days! He has been particularly emotional these past few days, and can go from a cranky sour puss: to a happy go lucky ham:in a matter of moments. It's pretty amazing and just a smidgen tiring...

Island Hopping

We had the good fortune of getting to spend some fun times with friends and family this past weekend on the "islands". Firstly, on Friday evening we went up to Camano Island to have a great dinner and visit with Todd's co-worker buddy Derek, his wife and two sons (3, and 8 weeks old). We all had a great time and Quin is still talking about "that boy" aka Dakota.

Then, on Sunday we headed over to Vashon, oohed and ahhed over my parents newly refinished GORGEOUS red oak floors, Todd helped move some upstairs furniture out for the new carpet, we gathered up some native plants to transplant to our yard,and Quin thoroughly enjoyed tromping around at the house AND in the water!

Apparently, though it couldn't have even been 60 degrees outside, Quin thought he ought to stomp in the frigid Puget Sound. Well, we didn't have the heart to stop him, that is until he tripped and got a little more wet than he expected. Needless to say, we took him away from the temptation of heading back in before he could get hypothermia. This boy sure is a feisty one at times, and at other times so sweet:

quinstruction

quin·struc·tion

1.	the act or art of constructing done by a toddler named "Quin".

2	the way in which a thing is constructed by Quin: a building of solid quinstruction.

3.	the occupation or industry of building done by Quin. He works in quinstruction

And man, can this Quinstuctor be a bossy boss, grabbing his Mama by the finger and saying, "Dig, Mama, dig!"
Someday in the future, perhaps by the time he's 3, we will have some photos of actual Quinstuctions, until then he'll just keep hammering nails into wood scraps on his workbench, and digging in the dirt pile out back, every day, for hours on end.