Family Camping Trip

Last weekend we went on a camping trip to the Deschutes River and then drove back via Trillium Lake and Mt. Hood.

Getting Ready For Little Brother

Siorek Family 2.0 is going to have a new addition soon and everyone is getting pretty excited. Expect the blog to be updated more often as the big day gets closer. We have a lot going on as we prepare for Jake's arrival, including selling our house and planning our move to St. Louis by the end of September.

Luke is so excited that he is going to be a big brother. He loves opening the packages of clothes and baby gear that have been arriving. When he saw this onesie and I told him it said Little Brother he said, "But I'm the brother!" I think the concept is slowly settling in.

Here are cousins John, Annie, and Leo saying Hi to Luke, with a special shout-out to the newest cousin. They are so sweet!

And finally, here is a video they shot of me at work a couple of weeks ago. Skip to the 2-minute mark to hear me talk about our family.

Real Lives At Work-- Daniela

Thinking It May Be Time

to start updating the blog again.

Christmas Eve Hike

We went on a family hike in Forest Park on Christmas Eve Day.

Luke loves to hike! He ran on the trails and was disappointed when the trail ended.

And when we got home, we built a bonfire in the back yard.

Luke helped gather the scrap lumber.

Christmas

December Pre-Christmas

Luke hauling the Christmas tree home from Kruger's farmers market,
just a few blocks from home.

Tree decorating

The little punk

Luke does not eat well, but then one day out of nowhere

he asks for a bowl of peas and eats every one.

Luke met his new cousin, Josie, a couple weeks ago.
Josie is an Australian Shepherd puppy!

The puppies frolicking

Luke's Art

Here is some of Luke's art work.
He loves to paint and draw and often impresses us with his creations.

'Mommy, this is you when you were 5'

Watercolor on construction paper

'Daddy, I made a submarine for you"

Magnetic doodle board

November Pics

I haven't been able to keep up with the blog very well lately. I've been spending many hours working and also we never seem to have any really great pictures to post. Here are the meager few from November.

Luke went to his first Portland Winterhawks hockey game with dad.
He loved it and now says that hockey is his favorite sport.

Luke has also been taking weekly 'Soccer Shots' classes at day care and is getting more and more comfortable and confident with kicking the soccer ball around. We practice in the living room.

Thanksgiving Day walk
Thanksgiving Day walk with our little yellow house in the background

The hummingbird feeder outside our living room window sees a lot of action.

Luke and his 'book blanket'

Halloween 2011

Halloween came quickly after we got back from Hawaii. We had just enough time to fit in the traditional visit to the pumpkin patch. We've gone every year since Luke was born.

This was the first year that Luke understood the whole jack-o-lantern thing. He was even excited to help with the dirty work of hallowing out the pumpkin.

But he left the carving up to Daddy.

The costume thing really stressed me out, but as it turned out, I needn't have worried. Luke got sick the Thursday before Halloween and missed all the school activities. And when it came time to go trick or treating, he didn't want to go. Going up to strange people's houses and having to say "Trick or Treat" did not appeal to Luke's personality.

But I had tried to find a costume anyway. He kept saying that he wanted to be a pumpkin, and one afternoon we drove around trying to find a pumpkin costume with no luck. It was too late to order anything on the internet. So I fell back on the easy black cat costume.

The day before Halloween we tried out the costume and Luke really got into pretending to be a cat and playing with Roosevelt's toys.

In fact, they kind of fought over the cat toys.

It wasn't the best Halloween on record because Luke had been sick, but the pumpkin carving was fun and I hope we managed to make some good memories for him anyway.