February 2012
23 posts
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WatchNot the greatest video, but I literally only had time to do one take. What are ya gonna do.
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Nate Berkus
There are sort of two other men in my life besides my husband: Tim Gunn and Nate Berkus. I have sort of even spent a lot of time in bed with these men. During my bedrest that is.
Now realize, they are both of the opposite sexual persuasion (at least I assume they are although Tim is a little A-sexual). Regardless, I am pretty sure Jon doesn’t feel threatened. But these men have been able to...
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Dear Nate
(this is what I sent the show)
Dear Nate,
I have always been a little obsessed with Alice in Wonderland and now it feels like I am living through the looking glass. My name is Kristina Coulter and I am a new homeowner in Lake Oswego, Oregon a suburb of Portlandia.
This 1954 home we bought is unlike any home I have ever seen before. Our living room is entirely encased in wood (Alaskan cedar), there...
Ramble On
We are in! Home sweet home. What a crazy busy first few days. So busy moving our stuff YET AGAIN this year—moved from our Sisters house to the storage unit (June), me to the hospital (July), Jon and kids to my mom’s (August), to the NICU/Ronald McDonald house and Jon to our rental in LO (September), and now here, to Glen (February). I don’t ever ever want to move again....
Glen
Welcome Glen to the Coulter family! We did officially close on our new home on Tuesday and got keys! “Glen” is our new home’s name (it’s on Glenwood Ct). Never had a name for our house before. We’ve had names for our children, names for vehicles (my family’s boat—“Boaty”), a name for large inanimate objects like body pillows...
Bouncing Lady
We made it back. 3046.18 miles. Orlando to Portland. Kids actually did surprisingly well on our very long 8+ hours of flying. The ringing endorsement was when the folks who sat behind us on the flight said, “your kids did way better than I expected” (is that a compliment? I think so). There was a screaming baby on our last leg, thankfully it wasn’t one of ours. But that’s...
Thanksgiving
Well, we did it. Vacation that is. I know that doesn’t sound like an accomplishment, but in our case it is—airplanes, setting up camp for four little ones on the other side of the country, a work conference, and Disney for 10 days. And there have been more good moments than awful moments, so it’s been a success. Granted we have the flight home tomorrow which will be the last leg...
January 2012
13 posts
SeaWorld, with twins!
We have ditched our kids. No, not with strangers. This was a planned ditch. We are at a Young Life Conference—this is what prompted the trip to Florida in the first place.
Our kids are with their loving grandparents. All of them—Jon’s folks and my mom. We didn’t even warn our kids about our upcoming disappearance. Just pulled up to the hotel, we hopped out with the twins...
"It" happened
Well, “it” finally happened. The “it” hit the fan.
Our kids have been troopers. We have been working hard to not push them too hard, but we have been pushing it. When Jon and I got on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride yesterday, both of us harnessed with a baby and holding the hand of our bigger kids, the lady in front of me said, “You’re brave.”
Not...
The Dance
Been on vacation a week. Ahhhh…so great. As involved as it was to fly, so nice to be here. Not necessarily because it’s Florida. In my humble opinion, the only thing this state really has to offer is pretty consistent sunshine and Mickey. Other than those two unique pieces, Orlando is lot of strip malls, chain restaurants, flat treeless terrain, and freeways. But the sun and Disney...
Freegans
Well it’s day 3 of our vaca. We have done no parks yet, we are still in recovery from our giant travel day. Instead we have been setting up camp. Run to the local grocery store (called “Publix”—a horrible name for a grocery store in my opinion…somehow too close to pubic or something). More importantly we have GPSed all local Targets, Super Targets, McDonalds with play...
Traveling with children: part 1
No one told me how immensely challenging it is to have small children. Or maybe they did but I didn’t have the foresight to really understand what they meant.
Actually I think the reason that I felt slightly ill-prepared for the hurdles of having babies and toddlers BECAUSE the people that would have warned me about these years, those perhaps slightly ahead of me in life, were so in the...
Traveling with kids: Part 2, Packing
I started packing New Years Day, January 1. As soon as Christmas was over and my holiday decorations were put away, I started laying out our stuff. I actually had to move a chair out of the twins room and put up a folding table to have a staging ground. Needed to have somewhere to lay stuff out that Sam and Alice couldn’t destroy or get into, so twins room has been off-limits for the past...
Traveling with kids: Part 3, The Airport
By 8pm we were mostly packed, my husband made me one too many margaritas, and we all crashed. 1:30am on D-Day, Charlie cries to eat. I feed him and pump and my brain so kicks into gear, I never go back to sleep. The alarm was to go off at 4:30am anyway. Finally after lying there thinking about all the needs to get accomplished that day I surrender and just get up and get in the shower. Reshuffle a...
Traveling with kids: Part 4, Snakes on a Plane
(no there were no snakes, I just wanted to call it that)
We had two flights: Portland to Phoenix (2.5 hours) then Phoenix to Orlando (3.5 hours). Seating arrangement for Flight one: Sam and Charlie and I in one row—Sam by window, me and Charlie and middle, and a middle school girl next to me. Awesome, she’s small, she’s female and she’s used to children, plus she thinks...
Traveling with kids: Part 5, Snakes on a Plane 2
(still no snakes) This flight was a little more involved. Longer, the kids were more tired, and the excitement of flying had sort of warn off. Thankfully Alice was asleep before take-off so that bought us about an hour there. Sam closed his eyes for about two minutes but he is just old enough to not want a nap but still kind of needs it. He watched videos pretty much solid the second flight. By...
Traveling with Kids: Part 6, done
When we landed it was 8:00pm EST, and while it was only 5:00pm where we were coming from, I think we all felt like it was about 11:00pm. It was dark out when we landed, time for bed. But still some miles/minutes to go before we could hit the pillow.
Gathered our numerous scattered belongings from the plane, loaded all the peeps up in the stroller and headed for baggage claim. By this point, Max...
Zookeeper
It has been kind of a zoo this week. I’ve decided that’s my real job in 2012—a zoo keeper. An unpaid zookeeper. No complaints. It’s definitely not boring, it’s a fantastic work out keeping up with the four (mentally and physically, even spiritually!). 2012 has not started off slow.
So I feel like I left the last post with a giant cliffhanger—Florida. Why? At...
Time in a Body
Last night I had a dream my teeth fell out. Somehow I had fake teeth I would put on in the morning like you would put on a necklace or earrings or something. I wasn’t necessarily older in my dream, i was my same age, just more decrepit.
I laughed to myself when I woke up this morning and sat down to write. “Kinda of a fitting image (as creepy as it is to see yourself with holes...
December 2011
21 posts
Magnum Opus
Wow, what a busy holiday. Traveling with the littles back to Sisters. Involved, but so fun to be in Central Oregon (even though no snow!). But the best part of Christmas for us was having all four Carlson kids (all my siblings and their significant others) together. This is the first Christmas we have spent together without my dad—first Christmas in five years.
It’s not because we...
12 Days of Christmas
In the midst of all of this big life stuff, we have done some Christmasy things. Twelve of them to be specific. A little tricky with all of the littles, so certainly simplified, but still festive. Here’s how Christmas has looked in our world in December 2011:
On the 1st Day of Christmas: We managed to get a Christmas card photo of all of us. Albeit we are mostly naked, but we are all in...
Being an adult stinks
When you’re a kid, you can’t wait to be an adult, right? You can do whatever you want…go wherever you want to go…no curfew… Well, kids, let me just say that while all of that seems true, it’s a lie. Being an adult mostly stinks. In theory I can do whatever I want to do, go wherever I want to go whenever I want, except I can’t if I am going to be a...
Scavenger Hunt →
Photos have been requested of the new house. Now, I told you guys this house feels like it was built for us and it’s got a lot of quirky features, so let’s see if you can spot ‘em. I didn’t get a pic of the front of the house, so those are posted below. This is just the inside from our initial walk through. Click on the “Scavenger Hunt” title to go to link, and...