High Chair

He's not quite ready for food but loves to sit up...

Vowels are fun!


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Hiking and Swimming

Last Friday, I met up with 3 other moms and their babies at Silver Falls and we did a hike. I didn't realize what a spectacle we'd make, but it was nice to get lots of Mother's Day wishes from other hikers.

The following day, Andrew, Chase, and I went swimming. Chase is too young to really appreciate it; the outing was more for me. I had a great time.



Andrew and I had some playtime too. Andrew got to go down the water slide, and I went off the diving board.

He Smiles!

Original Video - More videos at TinyPic

Monster Cookie Ride

Last Sunday (26 April 2009) I did another bicycle ride sponsored by the Salem Bicycle Club.  I also rode to and from the event start so all told I did about 70 miles. My freind Scott and averaged a little over 18 mph during the ride. The event had three stops which was actually one too many. We only stopped at the last one to use the restroom. The event cost $20 and I'm pretty sure I ate $20 worth of cookies.

Baby Raising Update

Chase's personality has started to show through in his third month of life. He smiles often and will react to us quite a bit. He also likes it when someone talks to him, espcially baby talk, I guess it's best when they speak his language. In the past week or so he has also started using less diapers. We have 16 cloth diapers and he used to use about 16 in a day but that has slowed down to 12-14 now. 

He is also growing. At his two month appointment (10 April)  he weighed 12 lbs 9 oz, was 23 inches long and had a head diameter of 40 cm (what's with the metric?). Ten days ago he weighed 13 lbs 6 oz. The 0-3 month clothes are to small and many of the 6 month clothes he fits into great. It's kinda sad that he's growing out of his clothes only because I have some favorites. I like clothes that fit snug and have zippers. Every once and a while I'll put him in some different type clothes but mostly I like him in sleepers with nothing else on except a diaper. Now that his head is less wobbly I also like it when he wears overalls. It's like wearing a handle.

Megan worked hard to get him on a schedule starting around two months. It has paid off. For the past two weeks he has only gotten up once and even slept through the night once! He feeds about every 30-45 minutes in the evening and she will swaddle him between 8 and 9. The hardest part is getting him to actually fall asleep. He won't fall asleep on his own. He won't fall asleep in your arms if you sitting still. He won't even fall asleep if you're rocking him in a chair. The only way he falls asleep is if you are walking around or bouncing on large exercise ball. Once he's asleep for 10 minutes (somtimes more) he can be layed down in his crib. 

The only problem we're having is that he has an abscess on his butt, right by his pooper. We are going to go to OHSU next week to have them look at it and possibly remove it. Please keep this in your thoughts and prayers.

Holding Chase

We love when other people hold Chase. Our arms like the break and we like showing off our baby.

Grandpa B...

Grandma B...


Cousin Jordan...


Chase had better get used to this backpack. I have a feeling he'll get a lot of seat time in it...
Mama B gets to hold him lots. You can tell by his double chin that he's gaining weight very well...

About Housing and Mortgages

When we purchased a house last year I was introduced to the scam that is "closing costs". I had heard this term thrown around before in sentences like "Well after closing costs your payments will only be XXX dollars!" or "The buyer doesn't have to worry about closing costs" we even had one mortgage broker who told us that we shouldn't buy a house from someone who won't pay the closing costs. I'm still not sure what people mean when they say "closing costs" except that it is a generic term for every miscellaneous fee associated with buying a house except the purchase price and taxes. These can include Realtor fees, title fees, credit check fees, etc...We even had a fee for paperwork (after all they have to document the fees!). The main fee though is the one for the loan. This is what mortgage broker's call points (sorry, points are bad, think of it like golf) banks get paid off of interest but mortgage brokers get paid off of points. Depending on the interest rate, bank and how shady your mortgage broker is points end up being 1%-4% of the loan amount. All told we paid about 4.5% of the value of our home in closing costs. This does NOT include the 6% the seller paid in realtor fees. These are fairly small percentages but they add up to a lot of money. For example let's say you buy a home for $190,000 (the average sale price in Salem, OR). You think "Well I saved up $10,000 so I'll have 5% equity in my home lucky me!" Nope. That's not the case.

Price: $190,000
Closing costs: $8,550
Property Taxes: $2,310 (1.22% in my county and must be paid at the time of sale)
Total: $200,860
Loan amount: $190,860

Yep, you now owe more on your house than you paid for it! Contgratulations!

Wanna be angrier? Think about how much the realtor's are getting.

Price: $190,000
Realtor Fees: $11,400

So, your home (the biggest purchase you'll ever make) could have been bought for $178,600 and you would have owed $168,600 but instead you owe $190,860! That's twenty grand more thanks to all the leeches.

Bills: Before we bought a house we had no idea how much the bills would add up too. We asked a few people and they all had wildly different answers. This is mostly because of consumption and region. Here are ours but they will almost certainly be different than yours.

Electric: 26.375
Gas: 106.26 (average over December, January, February and March, will hopefully go down)
Cell Phone: 60 (two of them, more when Megan get's chatty)
Garbage: 17
Water: 50
Internet: 20 (will go up after 12 months)

Family Visit

Megan's parents (Larry and Sandy) and brother (Dan) visited us in the Great Northwest about two weeks ago. They got to sample quite a bit of Oregon on their visit.Their visit included Silver Creek Falls, Portland, Lincoln City, Depoe Bay, Pacific City, and even the Spruce Goose! While they were here we also had a birthday party for Chase...



We sang all of the Holben birthday songs (there are three)...

I realized that I haven't posted a picture of Megan recently so here she is...


(This picture was taken two days after the fam left. It was absolutely beautiful and we could see all of the mountains. Should have stayed longer!)

He's adorable

Sorry, but he is...

Okay, I'm not actually sorry...


What do you think of the new template?

If I were my boss...

I would not fire me. This may sound funny but for the first time since graduating from college my answer has changed to "would not fire me" from "would fire me". When we were in Micronesia I was useful and probably would not have fired myself but at the same time there were other instructors who could have taught my classes or they could have closed the class I was teaching because only 3 people would show up. And when I started my current job I may not have fired myself because even though I didn't contribute much I was still learning. Even though I told myself this I still had that feeling in my gut.

I came up with this phrase when I was in the military. My performance ratings were above average so I always got the impression that my boss would not have fired me. After completing my service commitment I was offered a job as a civilian so by my boss was willing to put his money where his mouth was. But I still couldn't help like feeling like a liability. Sure, I was useful and brought some expertise to my work group but basically I went to graduate school, went to PT and surfed google maps. I also published a paper and went to conferences but most of the time I felt as though I didn't contribute as much as I was being compensated for. 

In this economy - or any economy for that matter - you should never feel too confident but it is nice to feel like an asset.