And now for something completely different...

Two Week Late Trip Report

2012-02-06T08:18:00.000-08:00

I know. I know.

We went to Disney World (again) and I just left ya'll hangin'.

You just can't wait to hear about our trip in excruciating detail.

You're clinging to the edge of your seat in anticipation, aren't you?

I knew it.

Well, I would be.

Off we go!

The Trip There:

We were up at 3:30am. It had snowed the day before and, of course, it had frozen solid on our road. The airport shuttle van was able to ease it's way up the hill to our house and we were off. Even in some nasty sleet, we made it to the airport with time to spare. The plane was scheduled to take off on time, and we ended up with only a slight delay because of de-icing. We made it to Minneapolis and changed planes to Orlando.

It was perfect timing. It couldn't have been better. The next day here in Seattle, it snowed again. The next day, it snowed again. For that entire week we were gone, it snowed. A lot. Some measurements came in at about 15 inches! School was cancelled every day that week. Tee-hee-heee-heeeee.

We arrived at the Beach Club right around dinner time. We got into our hotel room and then went back out to find something to eat. We ended up at Beaches and Cream. While we were waiting for a seat, we hit the arcade next door. Huzbend was playing a game and Mikey was climbing onto another machine. I turned my back and WHAM! Down Mikey went with a crash, slamming his head against the machine next to him. He cried. A lot. Also got a damn big lump on the back of his head.

We finally got to dinner and everyone was cranky. I sat there thinking, "Great. Mikey has fractured his skull. Our vacation is ruined." But, there was a great mood turnaround after eating. The super-fatty food (hotdogs, burgers and fries) and Mickey Mouse Sundaes really hit the spot. We left the restaurant with a renewed excitement for the next day and a few less tears.

Day One - EPCOT:

It was a late start. That was expected. Our kids are not early risers, even when we are at home.

Right before we left for the park, Mikey decided to do some sprinting. Well, it didn't work out so well for him. He tripped and fell scraping his knee in the process. Oh man, it was drama. There were lots of tears and lots of screaming. I finally convinced him to let me put a band-aid on him (he hates band-aids) and then we were off.

EPCOT was great. After a stop in Canada to purchase a hat for Huzbend, Katie rode Soarin' with me and LOVED it. At one point, I thought she was going to try to jump off of her seat to land in the orange trees in the movie. It was a looooong wait for the ride - 60 minutes. Katie did fabulous. Just a little bit of whining. In the meantime, Mikey and Huzbend visited Living With The Land and the Circle of Life Movie. All Mikey could talk about for the rest of the day (and the vacation, actually) was the "storm" that was on the boat ride. There was rain and thunder and lightning. I guess it freaked him out.

Next, we headed to Innoventions for a bit. We did Spaceship Earth or as my kids call it, "Epcot". Mikey didn't like the really dark parts. Electric Umbrella for lunch and then Huzbend took Katie on Test Track. It was not as enjoyed as Soarin'. Katie was tall enough to go on the ride, but not large enough to fill up her seat. She was thrown all over the place. It was a rough ride. She didn't like it.

It was time for a break. A pool break. We trekked back to the Beach Club and hit the pool. Well, Huzbend and Katie did. Mikey didn't want to swim with his knee injury. So, we chilled on the beach together.

About the knee injury. Mikey had decided that because of his oweee knee he could'nt walk. All day we had to either carry him or push him in the stroller. It was only when we were on the beach that his leg miraculously healed itself and he was able to get up and move. Who knew that the sands of Disney World beaches had healing powers?

After enjoying the warm Florida sun, we packed back up and headed to the Mexico pavilion for dinner. We ate at the San Angel Inn. Mikey kept thinking that the volcano in the background next to the temple was going to explode on us. He was on edge the whole meal.

We enjoyed the Gran Fiesta Tour with the Three Caballeros after dinner and stopped to purchase some Totoro's for the kids at the Japan pavilion.

Then, I forced (yep, forced) the kids to stay and watch IllumiNations. I have kids that don't enjoy fireworks. "They're too loud. Are they over? Can we go now?" Sigh. Oh well. At least I got to watch them.

When we got back to the resort, Katie and Mikey got to say hi to Cousin Matty, Auntie Sheila and Uncle Chris. There was lots of hugging and giggling. A pattern to be repeated for the rest of the vacation.

Day Two - Animal Kingdom and Dinner with the Fam:

We were up late again. We finally got to the Animal Kingdom and visited with some characters. After Katie told Pocahontas her life story, we headed over to the Kilimanjaro Safari and there was virtually no wait. The ride was awesome. Tons of animals were out and Katie and Mikey had a great time bouncing around in the back of the safari truck.

Katie also made a new friend; A boy who was sitting in front of us on the safari. She decided to adopt their family and proceeded to ride the train to Rafiki's Planet Watch with them. Finally, we were able to re-adopt her. I think if we gave her permission she would have went home with them.

We spent some time at the Planet Watch learning about endangered birds and brushing grumpy pigs. Then it was time for a quick lunch before heading back over to Camp Minnie-Mickey for The Festival of the Lion King. I can't tell you for sure if the kids actually enjoyed the show. They watched with their mouths agape for most of it, not making a peep. Katie's favorite part was the big audio-animatronic elephant. Mikey liked Pumba. No mention about the Tumble Monkeys flying around on the trampoline or the guy that ate fire. Hmph. Guess they are easy to please.

It was time to head back to the resort. We met up with the family: Granma and Granpa C., Sheila, Chris and Matty. We hopped on a bus and had some dinner at Portobello's in Downtown Disney. It was a good start to the trip. It gave us some time to catch up and relax before jumping into park touring craziness.

The meal took FOREVER. Really. FOREVER. But, the kids did amazingly well. Instead of hanging out to do some shopping afterwards, we chose to head back to get to bed early (and hit the hot tub). It was a big day the next day. Magic Kingdom time.

Day Three - Magic Kingdom:

This was going to be an interesting day. We had learned a day prior that President Obama was planning to visit the Magic Kingdom to give a speech about tourism - THAT SAME DAY. Everyone, even Disney, was unsure as to what the impact would be on the park that day. Advice from consierge was to arrive early and be prepared for long waits. Sigh. Couldn't he have picked another day????

Security to get into the park was the same as it always is - a cursory bag check. All normal. What was not normal were the amount of journalists hanging about and multitudes of serious dudes with lapel pins wearing dark sunglasses.

Main Street USA was closed. There was a big wall erected at the end of it and we were diverted to a back stage entrance to the left. This took us behind Main Street and through backstage to Tomorrowland. Disney had set up balloons, flags and all sorts of Main Street Vehicles and parade floats along the way. They also had a DJ blastin' out some tunes and cast members greeting everyone as they came in. It was great. Everyone was all smiles.

We entered Tomorrowland and immediately hopped into line for the Space Ranger Spin. There was only a 10 minute wait!! Mikey was in heaven. He got to see his hero, Buzz Lightyear, and help him fight and capture the evil Zurg.

That was the beginning of a whirlwind ride marathon. The Speedway, Mad Tea Party, Prince Charming's Carousel, Winnie-the-Pooh, It's A Small World - stop for lunch - Tiki Room, Pirates - stop for parade - Splash Mountain. Whew.

We had lunch at the Crystal Palace, just as Mr. Obama was making his speech. The Hub was closed to all traffic, just like Main Street. Secret service and cast members manned the gates. They had erected large black curtains so that you could not see what was going on. Although the black curtains obscured the usually lovely view from the window-encased Crystal Palace, lunch was super-fun. Winnie-the-Pooh and friends had a lot of love to give to everyone - even Granpa! The restaurant even made special allergy-friendly brownies for Katie and Mikey. Mikey wasn't too into it, but Katie was in dessert heaven.

The kids enjoyed the Celebrate A Dream Come True parade, even though we couldn't find a shady spot to sit. After this, Mikey was ready for a nap. He was uber-cranky, crying the entire time I was on Splash Mountain with Katie. We had forgotten his blanket back at the hotel. Ugh. Eventually, I got him to fall asleep in the Ergo carrier. Everyone decided to head off a seperate way and meet at the flagpole on Main Street. Katie went to ride the WDW Railroad with Matty (and Chris and Sheila). Granma and Granpa took the strollers and said they would walk over. Huzbend, myself and sleeping Mikey went in search of a blanket for Mikey to cuddle with when he woke up. We ended up with a Dumbo baby blanket.

Mikey had a good sleep. Katie was able to visit some princesses and have some quality time with Mickey and Minnie.

After a mix-up with our reservation, we were seated in Tony's Town Square restaurant right next to the windows of the porch so that we could see the Electrical Parade. The seats were nice, but not great enough for the kids to see. So, Sheila and I snuck out of the restaurant so the kids could watch the parade. I learned that it's hard to hold up two kids that don't want to touch each other and video record at the same time.

Dinner was over and we trucked it on out to the base of Main Street (oh, Main Street had opened at about 2 that afternoon after Obama was gone) to watch the Magic, Memories and You show on the castle and then Wishes. It was the perfect place to watch. The view was pretty stunning. Main Street framed the castle and the fireworks. But, the best part about this location was that when the fireworks were over, we were some of the first people out the gates and into the bus line! Yay, us!

Day Four, Five and Six - Hollywood Studios, The Warrior Dash and Saying Goodbye:

We were up early (8am!) for our breakfast with Goofy, Minnie and Donald at the Cape May Cafe. It was a great way to start the day. The characters made their rounds quick and we got to see each of them two times. The adults enjoyed the multitude of yummy breakfast items and the kids enjoyed horsing around with their Disney pals.

After breakfast, we hopped onto a boat for a quick (and relaxing) ride to Hollywood Studios.

The first thing we did was head on over to Toy Story Midway Mania. The second longest wait time we experienced during our trip - 50 minutes. It was SO worth it. First, we were able to have a quick conversation with Mr. Potato Head. He called Mikey a Space Ranger to which Mikey replied, "To Infinity and Beyond!". That cracked Mr. Potato Head up. The actual ride was awesome. So much fun. Mikey even got to work his own gun! Did I mention that I got 171,500 points? Tee-hee. I rock.

Lunch was grab and go so that we could head over to Lights, Motors, Action! Mikey was amazed. He loved the cars, Lightning McQueen, motorcycles and explosions. His favorite part was when one of the motorcycle guys got lit on fire. He talked about it all day. Katie, on the other hand, hated it. We used ear plugs to help with the noise, but that still wasn't enough. She hid the entire time.

After the show, we decided to find a primo seat for the parade so that we could relax and enjoy some Mickey Ice Cream bars. The parade was great. Upbeat and exciting for the kids. Next up, it was Star Tours 3D time! Katie was able to go on it and she loved it. Mikey was not able to go on it, and was pretty disappointed. So, to make him feel better Huzbend bought him a Darth Vader light saber. Just what every 2.5 year old needs.

Over to the Disney Jr. show we went. Mikey almost crashed out on the floor he was so tired. But the sound of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song woke him up. Sheila, Chris and Granma wanted to ride the Tower of Terror and convinced me that I wanted to do the same. It was pretty freaky. A lot more drops then I remembered.

We had a great dinner at the Brown Derby. I would say, and Huzbend would agree, that it was the best food we had eaten on property so far.

We shut the park down. We left dinner so late that the buses and boats were no longer operating. We had to walk back to our hotel - maybe a half a mile or so. Guess it was good to work off all that food. Huzbend and Katie RAN back to the hotel and were able to get in a quick dip in the hot tub.

The next day we packed up into our HUGE rental van and headed to Middle-of-Nowhere, Florida for The Warrior Dash. With only a few wrong turns, we finally made it an hour after our start time. It didn't matter to the race people - they let us go anyways.

Sheila and Granma volunteered to watch the kids. I think they had the hardest job of the day. Chris, Huzbend, Granpa and me went off to run three miles through: sand (horrible), black gooey mud (super sticky - Chris's shoes came off), water over your head swimming obstacles (kinda cold), wall climbing (surprisingly easy), more sand running (excruciating), balance beams (gymtastic!), fire jumping (we looked so hawt), scrambling on our bellies through cold, brown water and while ducking under razor wire (aww-haww-some), and then the finish line (yay).

The race was super fun. It was even more fun because we all stuck together. After finishing, we scrubbed down as best we could (there was a community shower - 40 half naked muddy people standing under hoses) and then it was back in the van. On the way home we stopped at Wendy's for lunch. Katie fell in love with french fries. We don't eat fast food much.

It's funny, when you look at the photos of everyone covered in mud, it kinda looks natural on me. I wear mud well, it seems. Maybe I should jump in a mud puddle every day.

We had dinner that night at Boma at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. It was a great buffet with all different types of what some might call "exotic" foods. I loved it. Fantastic. After dinner, we were able to snap a few family pics with the help of a cast member. Back to the hotel for sleepy time.

Our last day came and we decided that we would hit the pool before the Magical Express came to whisk us away. Chris, Sheila and Matty were headed over to the Magic Kingdom for one last hurrah. We said sad goodbyes to them. There were some tears (me) and lots of hugs and "see ya soons!".

Granma and Granpa accompanied us to the pool to watch the kids swim. The pool at the Beach Club is called Storamalong Bay. It's pretty much a mini-water park. The kiddie pool has gorgeous, white sand on the bottom. It was hard to pull Mikey and Katie away. But, we had to get lunch before we left.

We stopped at Beaches & Cream once more for a quick bite. The kids just had Mickey Sundaes. I had a hotdog and a rootbeer float. Loved it.

We said more sad goodbyes to Granma and Granpa and then we were off to Orlando airport. Unfortunately, our departure was not as smooth as our arrival. We were stuck on the tarmac at Orlando for about 40 minutes due to low visibility and storms in Atlanta. On our approach to Atlanta to land, another airplane cut us off in the air causing our plane to pull up extremely fast (who needs Tower of Terror?). We had to circle back around to get in line to land again. All this delay caused us to miss our connecting flight.

We had to wait on standby for a later flight to Seattle. If we didn't get on that one, we would have to wait until the next morning to board a flight home. Luckily, we made it on. The kids fell asleep almost immediately when we sat down on the plane. It was a good thing too. It was the bumpiest plane ride I have ever been on. After what felt like an eternity (especially when you have at least one sleeping body part of two kids on you at all times), we landed in Seattle. We didn't end up getting home and into our beds until 3:30 in the morning.

And so now, in case you didn't get enough videos above, I have TWO more for you. The first video is a photo slideshow of our trip. The second is video clips of all the characters we met. And, boy, did we meet a bunch!

We were so lucky to be able to enjoy Disney World twice in the past 15 months. The first time with my family and the second time with Huzbend's.

Disney World is such a happy place for me, but at the same time it's also leaves me a bit melancholy. I have so many memories of these trips that bring me smiles and happy sighs and yet when I realize that these moments will only happen one time and never again, I get very sad.

Not only are we sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, Granmas and Granpas getting older, but so are our kids. They will never see Disney World the way they saw it that one time that we were there. The excitement, the happiness, the wonder - it only happens one time.

Never again will Mikey run up to Buzz Lightyear to give him a giant "Mikey hug" and only come up to his waist. Never again will Katie hold my hand and giggle hysterically while riding Soarin' for the first time or tell me fireworks look like pixie dust. All these moments, these firsts - they come and then they go only to be captured in our videos, our photos and our minds.

I don't ever want to let them go. Not ever.

As we stood watching the fireworks in the Magic Kingdom, I took a moment to look away from the show. There was Chris, holding Matty and pointing up at the exploding colors in the sky. There was Sheila snapping photos of the show and, of course, her boys. To my right was Huzbend with Katie sitting on his shoulders. Katie was cuddling her Simba doll. Next to Huzbend was Granpa, enjoying the spectacle. Behind me was Granma, a big smile on her face and laughing at me as I turned to record her with my camera. And lastly, there was Mikey on my hip watching quietly.

A quiet moment that I will never forget.

As we briskly walked away at the end of the fireworks show that night, the tears came. Happy and sad. Happy that I could, once again, share the fun of Disney with my kids and the memories with our extended family. But sad, again, that the special moments had to end. Sad, that I had to leave my "laughin' place".

Sigh. Oh well. There WILL be a "next" time. Although, I promised Huzbend that it wouldn't be for another four or so years. I can be patient.

See ya NOT so real soon, Mickey!

It's Phil's Day.

2012-02-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

On Gobbler's Knob on this magnificent Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2012, Punxutawney Phil, the Seer of all Seers, the Prognosticator of all Prognosticators was summoned from his burrow in the old oak stump by the tap of President Bill Deeley. He greeted his handlers, John Griffiths and Ron Ploucha.

After casting an appreciative glance towards thousands of his faithful followers, Phil proclaimed......

As I look at the crowd on Gobbler's Knob,

many shadows do I see!

So, six more weeks of winter it must be!

January Snow

2012-01-27T15:19:00.000-08:00

Since before Christmas, Katie has been asking me when it was going to snow.

My answer to her was this: "I don't know. But, I DO know that it better
snow after January 16th because that is when we leave for Disney World."

Mother Nature did not take my hint.

Our first snow of the season was on January 14th.

It was more of a sleet than an actual snow event. But that didn't stop
Katie and Mikey from gearing up to head outside.

We even had to make a snowman.

Overnight, it snowed even more.

I would say that we ended up with almost 5 inches.

Everyone geared up again for a tromp into the snow.

Katie dove right in to make some snow angels.

While Mikey just sat and smiled.

Now that we had even more snow, Daddy was recruited

to make an even bigger snow man.

When Katie and Mikey look at this picture, they see a snow man.

I see E.T., the Extraterrestrial.

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWCH.

Next up, it was shoveling time.

Get to work, mister!

Mikey just wasn't moving fast enough.

So, Big Sister took over.

And then, we were into a full-on case of the whinies.

SUPER POUT POWER!!!!

Did I mention that we were leaving for Florida THE NEXT MORNING?!?!?!

The Seattle area is not known for it's emergency storm clean up efforts.

The jury was out on whether we would actually get onto a plane and fly out in the morning.

Curse you, winter.

Christmas 2011

2012-01-05T08:57:00.000-08:00

We had a great holiday break.

It was nice to be able to "hit the reset button" and cast all
the worry and drama from the past few months aside.

Huzbend was off of work from my birthday all the way
through New Years Day.

And because he was off for two weeks, do you know
what else I was able to cast aside - COOKING!!!!

Totally awesome. That was a gift in itself.

Christmas eve brought with it homemade pizza and
apple dippers.

Yum.

Just looking at this picture makes me drool.

Mikey kept spitting out the apple.

I guess there had to be a faster

way to ingest the ooey-gooey caramel......

Whoa.

We had a few presents for the kids to open xmas eve.

New PJ's and a battery powered round-the-tree Thomas set.

Katie hung up the stockings and then it was time for bed.

To say the kids were excited would be an understatement.

The grown-ups were a little excited too.

Ooooooo. Pretty.
I did A LOT of wrapping.
Jeez louise.

"JUST WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED!!!!!"

Mikey got something like five costumes. Each time he would

open a new one up, a wardrobe change would occur.

Here is Superhero Mike assessing some Buzz Lightyear socks.

Wardrobe change!!!

I am butterfly. See me flutter.

Can you say that you have ever had a fire chief,

a monarch butterfly and Woody from Toy Story in your living room?

Ha. Thought not.

Wardrobe change!

"I have you now!"

Wardr.....need I say it again?

Katie got some slug buddies in her stocking. They are fake

slugs that stick to anything without leaving slimy slug gunk.

She can even kiss these ones if she wants.

After the present bonanza, it was nap time.

Mikey fell asleep on his brand new

Buzz Lightyear guy.

Katie busied herself coloring her new castle.

And then it was lasagna time.

As you see in the picture below, we tried to make ourselves feel better about

eating 2,000 calories for dinner by accompanying

it with a salad.

We are so health conscious.

Everyone slept late the next day.

Mikey woke up and wanted to eat breakfast with some of his

xmas toys.

The next week went by fast and soon it was

New Year's Eve!

Mikey hit the sack at normal time. Katie stayed up to watch
the ball drop.

She even watched TWO movies - Cats & Dogs and G-Force.
(Unfortunately, not the anime G-Force. It was the guinea pig one)

On New Years Day, the rain quit and it was actually semi-decent out.

Huzbend took the afternoon to build the trampoline
GmaC and GpaC sent for xmas.

Now if there are any fans of America's Funniest

Videos out there, you will know that a trampoline is

almost a sure-fire way to end up either winning $10,000

or visiting the emergency room.

While the kids were busy jumping and Huzbend was dwelling on

the potential $10,000 windfall from AFV, I couldn't help being

a little nervous about the trampoline thing.

Thank you so much to everyone that sent us gifts.

We love you all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Story Time

2012-01-04T09:01:00.000-08:00

I know, I know. It's not a big, cute Christmas post.

Just a place holder until I get on the ball.

Huzbend, Katie and Mikey had story time the other night. They each took turns coming up with a sentence to complete the story.

This is all verbatim, as recorded by Huzbend.

Enjoy.

Story 1

Daddy: Once upon a time there were two little kids.

Katie: And they wanted to go for a walk.

Mikey: And they jumped in a poo!

Daddy: And the poo was so huge it filled a whole swimmingpool. The End.

Story 2

Daddy: There were two little kids that wanted to go swimming.

Mikey: And the pool was filled with a huge poo!

Katie: And the little girl got her foot stuck before so shedidn’t want to go in. The End.

Story 3

Katie: There was a little girl that lived in a flower.

Daddy: And a flower fairy that was responsible for theflower decided to take a look.

Mikey: The fireman lived in a big giant poo!

Katie: And the flower fairy left the flower and got stuck inthe poo.

Daddy: The little girl went home. The end.

Story 4

Mikey: Fireman Small lived in a giant poo!

Daddy: Which came out of the butt of his dog Chester. Itsmelled.

Katie: And there was a fairy that flew to the firehouse to help the humans.

Mikey: Fireman Big lived in a humongous poo!

Daddy: And fire alarm went off and the firemen drove out ofthe poo to put the fire out.

Katie: And the fairy followed them in her leaf car. The End.

Catching Up Before Xmas

2011-12-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

Since we were all a little down because of Katie's trip to the hospital,

we thought that we would jump start our holiday mood.

As I'm sure is recommended recovery for all pneumonia patients, we

decided to stop by the tree farm on the way home from the hospital.

Do not pass GO. Do not collect 100 dollars.

After poo-pooing about six trees, Katie decided on the "perfect" tree.

Mikey agreed.

Welcome to the family, little tree.

I have a feeling, although not quite confirmed, that Katie enjoys the

free candy cane offered by the tree farm more than the actual

selecting of the tree itself.

Mike was not as impressed.

He traded in his sticky candy cane for a nice juicy

apple.

The next day, Mikey and Huzbend went off to swim lessons while

Katie and I stayed home and decorated the tree.

When we were done decorating, Katie gave it a hug to welcome it to the house.

Next up, gingerbread city.

Katie had been bugging me for at least two months about

making a gingerbread house. I promised her that we would do just that.

I mean, how hard could it be? Plus we had A LOT of extra halloween candy to get rid of.

We whipped up a big batch of gingerbread that actually yielded enough

dough to make two houses and a bunch of ginger people.

I can't use traditional royal icing because it's made with uncooked eggs.

Katie is allergic to them.

So, I searched the internets and with its help

made an icing with confectioners sugar, lemon juice

and glycerine.

Here was the first attempt at assembly.

Icing was just a bit too runny, but held

together with the help of some support cans.

What a frustrating process.

Not satisfied with attempt number one, I put together another house.

Icing just right. Not so bad this time.

A few days later it was decorating time.

I tried making the icing again and again it was too runny.

So, I gave up and used some can frosting to get the job done.

The kids must have ate at least a cup of frosting each.

Katie did a good job decorating and ate her fair share of the candy.

Mikey put one piece of candy on one house and then proceeded to eat

marshmallows the rest of the time.

They were quite silly by the time decorating was over.

Here are the best two of my many attempts at a posed picture.....

In between the gingerbread chaos was the preschool holiday party.

Here are the kids visiting with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

As if they did not have enough sugar in their little systems, they were

able to decorate their own cookies.

Yes. There is a cookie buried under those sprinkles.

Katie decided to eat her cookie right then and there.

Mikey decided to pack his away in a ziploc and suck

the frosting off the knife instead.

Mikey also decided that he loved Santa Claus.

He hung out with him most of the evening.

If Mikey wasn't eating, he was with Santa.

They even played party games together!

Next up, it was my birthday.

Yay me. I'm 38 now.

And as such, I deserve delicious and totally NOT nutritious food.

First up, for breakfast, Huzbend cooked up some Stuffed French Toast.

OMG. Have you ever heard of the term

"Foodgasm"?

The kids enjoyed opening my presents for me.

They were nice and let me help a bit.

The sun was a-shining and so we

did lunch at Panera and hit a local playground.

More yummies to come for dinner.

Eggplant parm, of course.

And then the piece de resistance.....

APPLE CRISP.

OHHHHH BAYBEE!

A few days later we received a package in the mail from Granma.

To our surprise, there was another gingerbread house inside!!!

This one was soft and gooey and really yummy (unlike my rock hard gingerbread).

Katie and Mikey ate all the trees and extra people that populated the box, leaving just enough

for the house.

It was try number three for gingerbread house assembly.

Icing was perfect this time!

I was able to put together the house with no

help from support cans at all.

Whooopeeeee!

And then it was time for decorating. UGH.

The whole house smelled like frosting and marshmallows.

Katie and Mikey were literally bouncing off the walls.

I swear, if either of them had gotten a paper cut at the time, they would have

bled marshmallow fluff.

Shazam!

We now had FOUR gingerbread houses.

Two we made, one that Katie decorated at school and one from across the country.

Welcome to Sugar Heights!

And now, a little video distraction. Enjoy!

Nobody Knows......

2011-12-14T09:37:00.000-08:00

Seems as if the "troubles" of the last entry did not want to leave.

Mikey DID get over his early stage pneumonia with a round of antibiotics. Huzbend DID recover.

But, alas Katie did not fair so well.

Last Tuesday she came down with a horrible hacky cough and began to breath quickly and shallow-y. And so, on Wednesday, she stayed home from school and off to the Doctors office we went.

Our appt. was at 9:20am. We did not leave the office until 3:00pm. Yep. WITH Mikey. He was just about going insane. They could not figure out what was wrong. Her oxygen levels were bouncing all over into dangerous territory. Then she developed a 102 fever while in the office. Finally they decided on an chest xray. The diagnosis - gunky lung (a.k.a. pneumonia) exacerbating her asthma. It was off to the Children's Hospital ER once again.

OHHHHHH, this time I was prepared people! I packed a bag with four days worth of clothes and toiletries, some snacks and some sanity for Katie (Nintendo DS, crayons, coloring books, a stuffed panda and her blankies). We picked Huzbend up at work and he drove us to the hospital so that he would not be truck-less.

Sure enough, we had to stay overnight as Katie's oxygen levels were not recovering quickly enough after medication. We ended up in the same wing of the hospital as last time and stayed pretty much the same amount of time. Went in on Wednesday evening and were released on Saturday afternoon.

The reason for the hospital stay was to monitor Katie's oxygen levels. When her lungs are restricted her "flow rate" can dip down to 93-95 when awake and then down below 90 when she is asleep. Not very good when you know that a regular person can be anywhere from 95-100 when healthy.

So, that's two hospital visits in just two months. Hooray for us.

Huzbend thinks that our medical insurance company is going to drop us siting that we have hit our quota of doctor AND hospital visits for the year. Our pediatrician agrees and has stated that if he sees us in his office one more time this year - he will kick us out.

Katie is recovering and LOVED all the attention that she got at the hospital. She now expects that every time she goes to a doctor that they will shower her with stuffed animals and toys. That's just how she rolls.

As for me, I'm recovering too. My cold is finally subsiding but my brain is not quite back up to speed.

In a reactionary and emotional move, I called a company to come clean our heating air ducts thinking that it might help Katie (and Mikey) breath easier not having so much gunk in the lines. I wasn't thinking as the technician/salesman upsold me on some things that I totally didn't need but at the time thought that we did. The cost of the service bloomed out of control and he began to upsell me again. By that time it was too late to stop the services I had stupidly agreed too, so I declined anything else that he offered.

It was ridiculous of me and I'm ashamed and depressed that I lost our family this big amount of money. There's nothing I can do about it. I agreed to all of it and it was only about an hour after they left that I realized what I had done. I didn't research the service they provided OR the company. Stupid. I'm usually SO skeptical. A quick search online brought up all sorts of questions about need for air duct cleaning as well as many complaints against this particular company.

Sometimes, I wish there was a do-over button. Don't you?

All this led to a nice little midnight breakdown where I cursed myself for being such a moron. It was easy to fall into despair - too much sickness, too little fun family time, not enough sleep, not enough feeling of accomplishment, Mikey showing signs of ANOTHER cold......

But, today is another day. Time to move on. Try to take my focus off all the money that I've spent on Christmas, the wad of cash that we just spent on our garage doors, this months mortgage, groceries, upcoming vacations, haircuts.....Okay. So, it's really hard for me to move on.

As my awesome and beyond forgiving Huzbend said, I really just have to let it go. No sense obsessing about something that I really can't change.

The problem is, obsessing is what I do.

Turkeys & Troubles

2011-11-30T13:30:00.001-08:00

Nothing to do with turkey.

Just really cute pictures.

Okay. Here comes the Turkey part!

Did I mention that Katie LOVES crafts.....

Please take a look at our Katie-made

Thanksgiving decorations.

For a small fee, I would be happy to rent her out to take care of all

your decorating needs.

We were invited to our next door neighbors house again this year

for Thanksgiving dinner.

The dinner was delicious and a good time was had by all.

Here are the kids sitting at their tables.

After dinner, while the adults talked, talked, talked

the kids had some t.v. time, and then some craft time.....

.....and then it was Garage Dance Party Time!!!!

Here is the food tally.

Mikey ate: rolls and red velvet cake.

Katie ate: turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls and red velvet cake.

Huzbend and I ate: way too much.

Soon the kids got tired and we made our exit.

I suspect that Katie wasn't really as tired as she had said,

because when we got home she begged and begged me to whip

up some candied yams.

I was happy to oblige.

The girl loves her candied yams.

But really, mostly the marshmallows.

On to the Troubles part now.

We all got sick the week of Thanksgiving.

Katie got a cough and had to go on double "steamies" to keep

her oxygen levels up.

Huzbend got the nasty cold and spent all last week driving to work.

Ye gods!!!

I admit, I was the one that started it all.

I got sick the day before Thanksgiving..... and still have it.

My right ear is clogged up and I can't hear out of it - no infection yet.

I also have a bum left wrist requiring me to wear a brace.

Doc's have no idea what I did to it. Xray was negative for a fracture.

So, it might be a strain or sprain.

Mikey got the cold right along with everyone else and he

was lucky enough to have it turn into early stage pneumonia.

YAY US!!!

1.21 Gigowatts

2011-11-19T13:37:00.001-08:00

Ready for more?

Good. Hold on to your lunch!

WHOOSH! ZAP!

The first weekend of November we attended what was appropriately called, "The First Annual Smashing Pumpkins Playdate".

If I could use one word to describe this event it would be......RAD.

The kids and their friends put on their costumes one last time, pigged out on all sorts of pumpkiny goodness including but not limited to: pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pie, pumpkin rice krispie treats, and pumpkin ice cream, and then threw their jack o' lanterns off a second story deck.

KER-SPLAT!

Please, observe.

See? RAD.

WHOOSH! ZAP!

Fast forward one week.

Granma came for a visit.

There was lots of hangin' out.

There was lots of crafting.

Paper dolls. In effect.

There was homework, too.

And there was an impromtu trip to Gabbaland. Yep.

Can you say the magic words with me?

YOOOOOOO GAAAABBAAAAA GAAAAABBAAAAAA!

To quote the ever-jovial DJ Lance Rock, "Listening and dancing to music issssssssssss AWESOME!!!"

WHOOSH! ZAP!

Phew. We're back. I'm exhausted. I think I'll try to stay up to date from now on.
Ha. Ha. Yeah. Right.

Well, I've got one last treat for you, weary traveler.

Sit yourself back and enjoy a little comedy courtesy of Mirth Master Mike.

Aw, Crap.

2011-11-18T21:47:00.001-08:00

It just occurred to me that I haven't posted a video up on this 'ole blog of mine for quite some time. Since August, I think. And when I say video, I mean actual video. Not just a photo slideshow.

Now I gotta play catch up.

Oh, now. Don't think I am going to let you off so easy.

Come with me, won't you? On a journey through space and time......

WHOOSH! ZAP!

You will now engage in the rituals of a northwest summer.

Enlightening, wasn't it?

WHOOSH! ZAP!

You will now witness the eating of the iced cream.

Delectable, no?

WHOOSH! ZAP!

You will join in the revelry of a cold and dreary October day.

You could practically feel the frigid rain water soaking into your socks, couldn't you?

WHOOSH! ZAP!

Phew! Time travel really takes it out of ya.

I think we'll have to postpone the rest of our trip for a later date.

We shall reconvene in a day or two, my friends.

2011-11-01T22:53:00.000-07:00

And so, I have fallen off the wagon once again.

My blog posts have dwindled with the onslaught that is Halloween.

Thusly, I must resort to the photo slide show to illustrate the month of October.

Please enjoy........(drum roll, please)

THE OFFICIALLY OFFICIAL HALLOWEEN 2011 SLIDE SHOW

Featuring:

Granma C. as herself
Katie as The Panda Princess
Mikey as Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman
Myself as Aunt May
and a breakthrough performance by Huzbend as Megamind

Lights, please!

ROLL!

This Week.....Not Much Better

2011-10-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

So, everyone is on the mend from the respiratory distress of last week.

Katie and Mikey (and Huzbend) seem to be recovering well. For some strange reason.....I did not get it. No sickies for me this time around. It's amazing.

REALLY amazing considering that I took care of Katie when she was sick, then came home to Mikey and Huzbend being sick AND I spent three days in the hospital with a whole bunch of sick people.

So, I escaped boogies and coughs but oh, I didn't get away scott free. Oh, no.

On Monday, I had a lipoma removed from my right arm pit. Yippee. The doc gave me a local anesthetic and well, he was working right by my head you know. I didn't actually see him do his dirty work, but I did see the instruments he used and I did feel all the pulling and pushing and cutting. I also felt every damn tug of the suture line. Dude was a maniac sewer. Guess I should be happy that he was such a perfectionist.

The nurse was assuring me, pre-op, that they would try to find a way to cut that wouldn't leave such a noticeable scar. I told her that it really didn't matter. That I had scars all over my body and that one more wouldn't really matter. I mean, it can't really compare to the huge gash that I have on my lower abdomen. I'm already damaged goods. She thought that was pretty funny. I don't think I was trying to be funny. I was serious.

I'm healing up nicely. The bandage is off and now I'm just dealing with the sutures and the steri-strips that are still there. They itch like crazy.

Next.

Tuesday. Mikey fell on the sidewalk and scraped up both his knees pretty bad. Blood was dripping down his legs. This happened at about noon and he refused to walk for the rest of the day. No, really. He did not walk the rest of the day. He either slid his butt along the ground or squat-walked around.

I finally got him to let me put bandaids on his knees, but soon had to take them off because he cried even MORE when I put them on. You see, he absolutely refuses to let me put bandaids on any of his injuries, prefering instead to carry a bandaid around. Yeah. I don't know.

Wednesday. Mikey and I got home from walking Katie to the bus stop. I walked into our garage with Mikey and then decided to go back down our driveway to retrieve our garbage cans. As I am at the bottom getting ready to pull one can up, I hear Mikey coming toward me. He must want to help.

Um. No.

Mikey is halfway down our driveway hill. He is riding his balance bike at at least 100 MPH. His feet are up and back and he has an Evil Knievel look in his eye. And he has no helmet on.

Before I can react, his bike hits the flat of the sidewalk. It goes one way and he flies spread eagle onto the pavement.

"JESUS CHRIST!!!! MIIIIIIKEY!" Is the first thing that springs from my mouth. I'm pretty sure the whole city heard me. I pick him up and blood is pouring out of his mouth and some shredded lip is just hanging. Yikes.

I get the bleeding stopped with some pressure and a wet towel and I call the doctor. They advised me to make an appt. to make sure that he was okay. And he was. Only a scraped up lip and a little scratch on his forehead. No sign of concussion or anything worse.

I, on the other hand, was NOT okay. Not only did I watch in horror as my 2 year old son face planted into the sidewalk after traveling ludicrous speed down our driveway with no helmet, I also had to endure the "shame on you" looks from the nursing staff at my doctors office. Yes. He is 2. Yes. I left him alone in the garage. Yes. I never in a million years thought he would take a joy ride down the driveway.

Sigh.

Yesterday was good. Granma C. flew in. YAY for Granma's!

Today was calm - preschool, Jump Planet, normality.

Tomorrow.....I will kick your ass if you bring any more drama. Seriously. I will KICK YOUR ASS.

Consider yourself warned, Saturday.

WEEZY!

2011-10-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

Does anyone remember this? And this?

Well, guess what? We have ANOTHER hospital story to add to the growing list.

On Thursday, the 29th, Katie came down with a cold after school. It was just an innocent little cold. Friday came and went and it didn't change. On Saturday, Katie seemed okay. She didn't have any boogies a-leaking, so we decided to go to a birthday party at a local park.

I began to notice that Katie was not herself.

Like Inspector Clouseau, I deciphered the clues as best I could: not running on the playground, not socializing with her friends, not eating whole bags of Pirate's Booty in a sitting, not finishing the coveted juice box. Ahhhhhh, now veee are gitting somewhere! My hypotheesis: It meust mean she iz just tired freum not getting good sleep, yew see!

And just like Inspector Clouseau, I was wrong. Yew fewl! Swine, asthma!

The party was over and we hopped into the car to head home. Katie fell asleep in her car seat. It was then that I noticed that all the color had dropped from her face and with every breath came a deep and hissing wheeze. Merde.

When we got home, I carried her upstairs and laid her in my bed. I gave her a "steamie" treatment and decided to let her nap a bit. We continued to check on her for about an hour and her breathing was not improving. So, we decided to take her to an Urgent Care Center (kinda like an ER).

They immediately saw us in due to Katie's "shortness of breath". Her oxygen levels were hovering at about 87 (normal is 98+). If your body does not get enough oxygen, it begins to shut down the non-essential things - which basically means everything except your heart and brain. So, we were quickly ushered back, given a room and she was immediately put on a continuous albuterol mist to open up her airways, an oxygen flow to supplement and a dose of steroids to relieve the inflammation in her lungs.

She quickly recovered her pallor and began to smile and interact - and drink chocolate milk. Always a good sign. But after about 2 hours of continuous albuterol mist & oxygen, she was still hovering at about 89 oxygen level. After a quick chest x-ray (which showed just a bit of gunk in her lungs) and a quick puke on the xray techs floor (bye-bye chocolate milk), the ambulance was called to truck Katie over to the Emergency Room at Children's Hospital.

As most of you know, we only have one vehicle and I had it with us at the Urgent Care Center. In order for us to get home from Children's, I needed to drive the truck to it. That meant that Katie had to ride in the ambulance all by herself. She was quite nervous about it, but after she met her driver and her nurse she decided that she was good to go. I followed right behind all the way to the hospital - I could see her through the back windows, she even waved to me.

We spent another two hours in the Emergency room at Children's. Again, on a continuous albuterol mist and supplemental oxygen. And again, she did not recover her oxygen levels. We were told that she would be admitted.

So, upstairs we went. We got our own room. Yay.

All in all we spent Saturday night, Sunday, Monday and all day Tuesday in the hospital. Her lungs eventually opened up, but her body just wasn't sucking in enough oxygen for the docs to feel comfortable sending her home.

It was a LONG three days. I was not prepared to spend that much time in the hospital. I had no toys, no snacks, no extra clothes. Katie went through waves of boredom, depression, stubbornness, and extreme happiness bordering on hyper (albuterol has that side effect). Her mobility was limited because she was hooked up to a pulse oximeter as well as having oxygen tubes up her nose. She wasn't allowed to leave the room because the docs thought that her lung infection was viral and she wasn't allowed to walk around the room because she couldn't be off the oxygen.

She also didn't like the food. When you have food allergies, hospital food is even more plain and gross looking than normal. She wouldn't eat any meal they sent down. Instead she lived off of saltine crackers, chocolate pudding, red jello, milk and popcorn. I also spent a fortune buying Legos at the hospital gift shop.

That's not to say that her experience was all bad. She got two stuffed animals from the Urgent Care Center, she had a home-made blanket waiting on her hospital bed (made by Project Linus), and hospital volunteers brought down a bucket full of toys/DVD's/Games for her to play with. And all the doctors and nurses and respiratory techs were so patient and understanding with her....even in the middle of the night when she was, uh, not her best.

In the middle of all this, Mikey came down with the cold too. Early Tuesday morning Huzbend noticed that he too was wheezing. They hoofed it (literally) to our pediatrician's office where Mikey was diagnosed with the exact same thing as Katie was at age 2 - restrictive airway disease. R.A.D. is really just another way of saying asthma. He was sent home with steroids for lung inflammation as well as albuterol.

Both Katie and Mikey are doing fine now. I think we're past the worst of it. They both still have this nasty sounding cough, but at least there is no wheezing.

There's really nothing that we can do different to stop these flare-ups from happening since they come with the cold season. We just have to continue the daily maintenance medications for Katie and hope that Mikey doesn't start down the same asthma path. Forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.

You said it, Yoda.

Wheezing, coughing, asthma.....the dark side they are.

Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes

2011-09-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

The weather ain't the only thing changing around here.

When did this happen?

From baby.....

......to boy.

He doesn't call himself "Na-Na" anymore. Now he's Mikey.

Or Blue Guy.

He talks CONSTANTLY. He's started to use the potty. He will often times refuse to sit in his "baby chair" and demand to be called a "big kid". Sometimes, the only thing that can slow that boy down is food.

He can also be a pretty nasty little dude. Yesterday was one of those times.

He walked around the house trashing whatever project Katie happened to be working on or just moseying up to her (or me) and either hitting, pinching or pulling hair.

Nothing I could do would stop him. I tried basic reprimanding ("NO! We don't pull hair!"). This progressed to an attempt at Time Outs on the steps. No such luck. That turned into the "Mommy Catch Me As I Run Away From The Time Out Place Game".

Finally, it ended with me strapping him into his booster chair for a Time Out in the kitchen away from Katie. That seemed to do the trick. He actually stopped beating on his sister for a little while.

I know. This has TWO written all over it. Huzbend reminded me yesterday that Katie went through the same nastiness.

Moving On.

Last week, he spent his first day at preschool without me and Katie. It went pretty well. He stopped crying in less than a minute thanks to the greatness of the teacher and the total awesomeness of my Mommy friends. He made it all the way until outside time before he broke down. Um. Yeah. I was still there. I didn't really leave. I just hid out in the school to see how it went. This week, I will attempt to actually leave the premises. I promise. Maybe.

Katie is still liking kindergarten. She's made some friends - most of them boys. I think she really digs math even though she tells me that it's boring. It's the one thing that she actually seems to want to work on. Letters and reading....not so much. It's kinda like pulling teeth.

I visited the teacher this week for "Curriculum Night". She went over all the stuff that the kids are going to learn this year. It seems that Kindergarten is now First Grade. Wow. I wonder how it will turn out. Will Katie still dig school four or even eight months from now?

It feels like a lot of that success rests with me and my ability to enforce what she's learned in school at home. That might be a problem. You see, I can't get her to do the homework I give her without her turning it into an art project of some kind.

"But, Mommy. The 'K' is a daisy. The 'a' is a sunflower. There's the 't' it's kinda big. Here's the 'i' with a star on it and the 'e' looks like a clam shell!"

Sigh.

Blog = Good

2011-09-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to say that I am SO glad that I started this blog thing.

This year Mikey goes two days a week to preschool. One day where I go with him and the other day is supposed to be his "drop off" day. I can leave him and go.

I was curious to see if I had mentioned anything about this process back when I went through it with Katie. So, I just went back through my blog to see.

I got sucked in and spent thirty minutes reading various entries about Katie as a two year old. It was awesome.

God. How quickly you forget what they were like back then because you're too busy looking forward to what's next!

I feel so lucky that I have this record of thoughts and feelings that I can pull up at any time. It helps me remember the good times and the bad. Important details (like the fact that Katie called herself "you" all the time when she was two) that are lost to the daily grind are brought back.

I also feel some pressure though. Some of those posts were quite witty, if I do say so myself. Did I have more time back then? I certainly didn't get more sleep. Hmmm. Maybe I'm just getting dull in my old age.

So, I gotta do some more posts about life in general and a few less posts with just pictures and captions.

I gotta get more videos too.

Mikey's first day of school was on Tuesday and it was also my "work day" - my day to stay at school with him. He spent most of the class following me around with his hand grabbing the inside of my shorts. He DID participate in circle time though, which was great to see. He danced with me and did all the "action" songs ("touch your ears....touch your nose..."). He also sat quietly and calmly BY HIMSELF to listen to one of his favorite stories, "Owl Babies" - which the Teacher had to cut short because 3/4's of the class were running around like nut cases. Such is the way with two year olds.

After we took Katie to the bus that afternoon, we came home and he just about passed out on me as I was reading a story before nap time. The first time that has ever happened.

Katie is loving kindergarten. She's told me that she wants, "to go to kindergarten FOREVER!" I told her that, "By the time June rolls around, it will have felt like FOREVER!"

I try to ask her every day what her favorite and not-so-favorite part of kindergarten was that day. Her first ever response to this question was, "My favorite part was recess. My not-so-favorite part was when we were coloring our gingerbread man and I could only use scissors and markers but I wanted to use scissors, markers, crayons, pencils, glue...." Stifling her creativity, they are. Her recent answers to this same question have been: favorite - any art project they do or outside activity and her not-so-favorite part - leaving for the day. Let's hope we can keep that going.

What about me, you ask? Me? I'm doing good. August and the beginning of September were stressful. All the prep garbage that my preschool job requires me to do, worrying about how Katie would like kindergarten, birthdays, school orientations, Mikey starting preschool and such. It wore me down. But, we're past all the work and the worry. It's just rolling along now. Getting into a rhythm of sorts.

I completed P90X (the "lean" program) over the summer and now have started running and lifting with Huzbend on odd days during the week. It's good to get back into some sort of exercise regimen.

Okay. I did say that I needed to do more text based posts. But not rambley ones.

I'm off to await the "Awakening".

Soon, Mikey will start putzing around in his crib eventually calling out, "MOMMY! WANT JUICE & WAFFLE!"

Soon after, Katie will decide that she has had enough sleep and will yell out, "COME WAKE ME UHHHHHH-UP!!!!!" in her sing-songy voice.

And the day will officially start.

East Coast Invasion - Part Two

2011-09-07T15:29:00.000-07:00

Say hello to Aunt Kari and Uncle Andrew.

"Hi, Kehwie an Anndew!"

They came all the way across the country to visit us

and to see a whole bunch of stuff near us.

We joined them for a little Seattle sightseeing.

Here we are on the Seattle Monorail.

FASTER!!!!

We wandered Pike Place Market for a while before sitting

ourselves down to munch some hotdogs, bagel,

mac & cheese and ice cream.

After lunch, it was off to visit some local

sea life at the aquarium.

"HI! OCKERPUSS!"

Mikey and Andrew had some deep conversations.

Someone was getting pretty tired......

.....so we headed back to Seattle Center.

We hit the Space Needle before we left.

For some reason, Katie was scared of falling so we had to sit inside.

It was then that Mikey decided to start

screaming "NO!" at the top of his lungs.

Hilarious.

Sigh.

It was time to go home to play with blocks

and eat pizza.

The next day we headed on up

to Franklin Falls.

We did a bit of hiking and had

a picnic lunch on the side of the trail.

"CHEEEESE"

There's always time to stop

and play in a giant hollow tree.

Uncle Andrew was nice enough to snap a pic of

us at the Falls.

Ooops. Wrong picture.

Here we go.

What a difference three years makes....

We had a good time lounging in the sun

and watching many, MANY, people

fall into the water while climbing on slippery rocks.

The entertainment was endless.

Not sure what they are talking about, but knowing

Mikey it was either about rocks or bugs.

I coulda stayed there all day, but we started to run

out of food. And kids without snacks

are REALLY cranky.

The next day, Kari and Andrew had to move on to the second part of their

trip and so off they went to Mt. Rainier and points south.

Thanks for coming to visit!

We had a really great time

and the kids miss you.

They say that you can come and play

blocks with them anytime!

The First Day of School

2011-09-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

It was time.

Time for kindergarten.

Katie got out of bed that morning and the first thing she said while bouncing

up and down was, "I want to go to kindergarten, RIGHT NOW!"

Then she got all serious and her next words were,

"Am I going to learn how to read today?"

To say that she was excited about school would

be an understatement.

Finally, after hours of semi-patiently waiting, it was time

to head to the bus stop.

Off we go!

"YAY! I CAN'T WAIT!"

"It's okay, bud. Don't be sad. I'll be back

after school."

Finally, after an agonizing wait of about 5 minutes,

the bus pulled up.

There is only one other kindie kid that gets

on the bus with Katie. As the bus driver motioned for the kids

to enter the bus, Katie practically knocked him

down sprinting to get on the bus.

True story.

Her bus to school is not a standard size bus,

and so it has seat belts.

Katie plunked herself down and before I got on board

she had already buckled her seatbelt and

was working on tightening it.

She plunked her bag on her lap and was ready to go.

I gave her a kiss, said good bye and we got off the bus.

And with a smile and a wave......

.....she was gone.

She's only had two days of school so far. But, she has really

liked both days. They've read stories, colored and drew pictures,

done some projects, sung songs and she even has "recess".

There hasn't been much mention

of "making friends" - but there is a girl

that sits behind her that has a fairy backpack.

She doesn't know anyones name except

the teacher and the kid she rides the bus with.

She seems okay with that. So, I'm not pushing it.

She does admit that there are some "boring parts."

Specifically the first day when they had to "learn the

rules of the school" and the time they spend in the morning

"going over the calendar and counting the days we've been

in school."

All in all, she's only had positive things to say.

I'm so proud and yet kinda sad at the same time.

I'm elated that she feels so secure and confident. That she had virtually

no fear of getting on that bus and traveling to a new place

filled with totally unknown people.

I'm sad at the fact that we get to spend less

time together. That she now has a part of her

life that is going to be a semi-mystery to me. I'll only get my information

from what she decides to tell me about every day. I know the "three R's" are important,

but I'm sad that she won't have as much freedom at school to

choose what she wants concentrate on - like art; which she really loves.

But, I guess this is just the beginning of many such

journeys for us.

She's totally cool with it, it's just me that has to get used to it.

The Giant End Of August Post

2011-09-01T23:12:00.000-07:00

Well, we said good bye to the family that were here visiting,

the birthday's were all over, and

now it was time for a little family VAY-CAY!

We hopped in the car and booked it on up

to Deception Pass for a little camping adventure.

Here we see Mikey assisting Daddy with tent set-up.

"I love camping! I love camping!

Oh, wait a minute. That's not right.

I love marshmallows! I love marshmallows!"

Not so fast, missy.

Dinner first.

"Whaddaya mean you didn't bring the parm?"

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Double mmmmmmmmmmm.

(We did end up eating marshmallows that night before we went to sleep.

Never fear. I'll have Marshmallows: Round 2 pictures below.)

Because Katie had to leave her sword and shield at home,

she fashioned a new weapon using some

local sea weed.

Dah-dun-dun-dah!!!!

"Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory."

We spent all morning exploring the beach

and climbing on the rocks and driftwood.

After lunch, Little Man (with the help of Mommy's company) collapsed for a

nap in the tent. Huzbend and Katie went off exploring.

When they came back, it was quiet time 'cause Mikey was STILL

asleep.

Katie busied herself

with a princess coloring book.

Huzbend busied himself with a nap.

After dinner that night, it was time for MORE MARSHMALLOWS!!!

Honestly, isn't that really why people go camping?

The next day we said goodbye to Deception Pass,

but not before stopping at its famous landmark.

The Bridge.

Here we are on the bridge.

You can walk across it.

It is high.

And scary.

This is what it looks like from far away.

Yeah.

You can walk on that puppy.

Camping fun was done.

On to the next adventure.

The AMUSEMENT PARK!!!!

First up, freezing cold water rides!

Whoooo-hooooo.....brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Marshmallows are to camping

as ice cream is to amusement parks.

With the ice cream polished off, it was time

for some rides.

We picked this boat on purpose.

You'll know why if you read the name on it.

Katie was tall enough to do a lot more rides this year.

Here she is experiencing "tea cups" for the first time.

Mikey wanted to hit the big rides too. But no luck.

Just too small. He had to stick with the lame-o kiddie rides.

"Can't this thing go any faster? I

think I might RUN faster than this, Mom."

We did get to go on a ride that got you up high.

Mikey liked it.

With all the adventuring done for the week, we decided

it was time to chill at home.

If this doesn't scream rock star, I don't know what does.

This is what happens when you eat chocolate

Easter bunnies in the summer.

Next up it was a trip to the country fair.

Katie is REALLY into rides now.

The kids also fell in love with this calf.

We almost had to take it home with us.

Katie and Mikey spent about 30 minutes petting and talking to it.

"Mommy! Wook! A bwack cow laying in da grass!!"

As you can see, we spent a lot of time looking at cows.

All that cow gazing can work up an appetite for dairy products.

It was time for a little frozen treat.

Chocolate ice cream!!

(Well, really it was frozen yogurt. It's the only thing

they had in soft serve. It's an allergy thing.)

You would think that we would be all adventured out by this time.

Nope. Not us.

We were (actually, I should say Mikey was) invited on a "Potty Chart Reward Boat Ride".

We hopped on a ferry with our pals

Logan and Sienna (and their parents too).

Before we departed, little Baylor joined the party.

What a beautiful PNW day.

We got off the ferry on the other side and

sat down to have a nice

picnic dinner.

The kids had a great time running around like crazy.

Sienna and Mikey got to have some alone time too.

Phew.

What a month it was.

Mikey was so tired that one day

he took a matching game to nap with him........

......and ended up with turnips stuck to his head.

East Coast REPRESENT!

2011-08-26T07:41:00.001-07:00

Granma, Aunt Kelly, Joey and Sophia flew on over for a week long visit.

We did the park, the zoo, the birthday party and

just plain hung out.

It was nice to watch Katie and Joey pick up where

they left off from the last time they were together.

It was also cool to watch Mikey insert himself into their games. It's only

a matter of time before little Sophia gets in on the action.

Here are some picture highlights......

Mi coche es su coche.

Peekaboo, we see you!

The Three Musketeers.

And here is their future d'Artagnan......

"Excuse me. Um. WHO are you and WHY do you

keep sticking that flashy thing in

my face? Don't you know that I have sensitive skin?!

Pish-posh! West coast. Hmmmph! Such amateurs."

We saw lots of animals at the zoo.

The favorites being bears and monkeys, of course.

They're your favorites too, right?

This thing that they are holding is a grizzly bear paw print.

I think it was as big as Mikey.

Can you guess what the other reason to go to the zoo is, besides

seeing cool animals?????

"ICE FREAMMMMM!!!"

Oh.

And a ride on a vintage carousel.

You forgot that one didn't you.

Most of the vacation was spent saving the kingdom

from various nasties.

Katie, what is best in life?

Katie:

To crush your enemies, see them driven before you,

and to hear the lamentation of their mommies.

Joey:

That is good. That is GOOD!

BRING IT!!!!!!

After all baddies were dispatched it was time for some cuddles.

All good warriors love babies.

Thanks for coming to visit us!

Katie's FIFTH Birthday!

2011-08-25T08:15:00.000-07:00

Katie had been planning her birthday party since 2010.

She laid it all out for me.

"I want my birthday party to be at "the bouncy house place" and I

want to invite all my preschool buddies.

I want my cake to be a Lady Sylvanas cake.

I want Lady Sylvanas on it and I want purple frosting and chocolate cake."

So it is written, so it shall be done.

YEEEEEE-HAAWWWWWWW!!!!

Here are Katie and Cousin Joey taking a quick break from all the

crazy jumping action.

The kids weren't the ONLY ones

having fun......

It was time for one last slide before heading on up

to the party room for snacks, cake and, of course, presents.

Katie picked her favorite snacks to serve at the party.

Pirate's Booty, Cuties and juice.

Yum.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, a woman that should need no introduction,

the leader of the Forsaken of Azeroth, the Banshee Queen herself.....

Lady Sylvanas Windrunner!!!!

Only respectful cheers and applause please.

Cat calls will be answered with the thud of an arrow piercing your

puny mortal chest.

It was an ugly cake. But we hit all the marks:

Lady Sylvanas, check.

Red velvet cake, check.

(Totally unplanned drippy, creepy, undead looking) Purple frosting, check.

We hit a few extra marks as well:

White chocolate skulls and bones, check.

Edible green slime in cauldrons, check.

White chocolate Horde insignias, check.

Neon green steps up to dais on which to worship her evilness, check.

So, it wasn't what I had imagined the cake to look like.

But, I guess it didn't matter.

Katie loved it and we got lots of comments on it.

One mom stated that it was "refreshingly morbid".

Awesome.

This is what it looked like when it was all said and done.

Then it was on to presents.

Katie got to sit on a giant inflatable

throne.

She decided to share with

a decidedly unsafe amount of friends.

The presents from her friends were great.

We went from this sword below.....

....to her first Barbie and everything in between.

Then it was time to pack it up to head home and open

even MORE presents, this time from family.

Ariel dolls, a beautiful Ariel nightgown, art sets,

a Princess electric guitar, new pink sandals and all sorts of stuff.

She had quite the haul.

With the help of a very talented friend

we were able to give Katie her

very own replica of Lady Sylvana's cloak.

Again with the awesome.

To top it all off she got her very

own baby Murloc.

Meet Gurky.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KATIE!!!!

He's 2!!!!

2011-08-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

A while back I asked Mikey, "What kind of cake do you want for your birthday?"

He said, "Blue. Blue cake. Blue pizza."

Okay. Not sure about the blue pizza, but I could do blue cake.

It helped that I had an assistant.

Well, not so much an assistant as a "lick the

peanut/tree nut/egg free cupcake batter girl."

"Official Pre-Bake Taste Tester" would be a good name for her.

With a little help from the internets for some advice on

coloring cake batter, I was able to come up with

these beauties.

SUH-WEEEEET.

Then I whipped up a batch of quick blue-tinted butter frosting and swirled it on top.

I was so proud.

Best lookin' batch of cupcakes I ever made.

We had a nice little play date party.

It happened to be at the same park where we had Katie's 2nd birthday party.

It's a great park for that age range.

One of the cool parts of the party was watching Katie play with

a friend of hers knowing that they were at the exact same park 3 years ago.

Hannah has a little bro in the same

preschool class as Mikey.

Here's Katie and Hannah in 2008.....

......and in now, 2011.

A good time was has by all. There was lots of swinging, sliding, bouncing,

sand digging and ball kicking.

Katie actually "pumped" herself to a start on the

swing for the first time that day.

Not to be outdone, Mikey wanted to swing on

the big kid swing too.

"Na-Na wear Choo-Choo hat!"

And then after all the action and some snacks it was time for cupcakes!

"MMMMMMMMMMM!"

There was blue everywhere.

As it should be.

After blue CARS cupcake fest, it was time for presents.

Mikey had a lot of help from the resident five and almost-five year olds.

They directed his every move and helped him to

open all of his presents in about 4 minutes.

I'm lucky I got any pictures at all.

After the party we came home and

opened all the family gifts.

THANKS TO EVERYONE!!!

He was SO excited.

For dinner, we went and had Mikey's favorite.

Can you guess what that was?

Then it was home for Birthday Party - Round 2.

HAPPY 2ND BIRTHDAY, BLUE GUY!

Other July Stuff

2011-07-28T07:23:00.000-07:00

So, you know how I've been talking about summer and stuff?

Well, it kinda disappeared for bit after our trip to Portland.

It got all rainy and cloudy and sucky.

That didn't stop us from getting in the car

and paying a visit to a certain "steamie".

This is what happens when you make an hour

long drive at 2 in the afternoon.

This is what happens when you fall asleep

with your Dad around.

And here is the star of the day.....

"BLUE CHOO-CHOO!!!!!"

Mikey was very excited to see all the "choo-choos".

Katie was not as enthusiastic as she has been in past years.

She was even overheard to say, "Mom, how come there's

nothing for me to DO here?"

But, she powered through - finding fun in the engines

strewn about the rail yard.

"Na-Na ride Blue Choo-Choo."

Thomas did a good job chuffing us up and down the line.

Sir Topham Hatt is right.....He IS very useful.

The next day was Huzbend's birthday.

While he and the kiddies went off to swim lessons in the morning,

I labored next to a hot oven to create this gem of a cake.

The "King Of Our Mountain" cake.

Okay, so it's not the prettiest.

I'm practicing.

I did have fun making the little fondant circles though.

As Huzbend likes to remind me, it's just cake.

It's yummy no matter what.

This is just a silly picture of a silly little

person I know.

Not one to be outdone in the silliness department,

Mikey had to get in on the action too.

Remember how I was talking about the rain?

Well, rain brings slugs. And lots of them.

Katie has found a new passion - building slug homes for wayward slugs.

Here are a few of her patrons:

"AWWWWWW. Aren't they cuuuuuuuttteeeee?"

Building slug homes is all well and good.

Most of the time it happens right before I make lunch.

Which means I have to call the kiddies in to wash their hands in order to eat.

Katie came in the other day and ran up to her bathroom to wash her hands.

The next thing I know I hear crying and panic.

"MOM, I CAN'T GET THE SLUG SLIME OFF MY HANDS!!!!!"

She was right. The orange slick was NOT coming off her hands.

So, for those of you who are thinking of taking up the slug home

building profession, here is the secret to removing massive amounts of slug slime.

Get some salt. Dump it on the slime. Wait a minute or two and then rub

it off with a dry washcloth. Then wash with soap and water.

Works wonders.

Katie loves her "sluggies."

I Hate Nuts

2011-07-19T21:25:00.000-07:00

This has nothing to do with the post, but I wanted to share it.

This is Katie's free-hand Ariel.

Me so proud.

On to other not so great things.

I took Mikey for his allergy testing today. He's allergic to Peanuts and Tree Nuts. Again, with the life threatening. He'll need to have an epi-pen wherever he goes.

At least we're prepared to deal with it. It's not like we were feeding him nuts on the sly when Katie wasn't around. Everyone eats the same in our house, 'cept now we get to be paranoid about two kids instead of one.

This is not doing anything good for my worry lines and my accumulating gray hairs.

One more thing. Before he goes to sleep, Mikey has to make sure that Huzbend and I will, in his words, "no let guys or bees in Na-Na's room".

I get the "guys" part. Katie and Huzbend run around pretending to beat up on make-believe bad guys all the time. But the "bees" part I don't get. Who told him "bees" were bad? And why would he think they could get into his room? It's very hard not to scoop him up out of the crib and kiss him all over when I'm having the "guys and bees" conversation with him. It's just another one of those things you just never want to forget.

STP

2011-07-15T08:52:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was our annual trek down to Portland.

Katie, Mikey and I took the easy way - by car down I-5.

Huzbend took the hard way - by bike for 13 hours.

Here are Katie and Mikey

waiting patiently for Daddy to arrive......

Huzbend had called to say he was going to arrive around 6pm.

We were set up at the finish line at quarter to.

Then the kids got hungry. I bent down to get them

some fruit leather (dried fruit strips).

I stood back up and Huzbend calls to

tell me he just finished.

Figures.

Good job, Daddy. Here. Have some pre-chewed fruit leather.

Might be a little dirty, 'cause I kinda dropped it a few times.

The post ride meal.

Concession stand pizza

and strawberry soda.

There's no rest for the weary.

As soon as we got back to the hotel, it was time to enjoy the

arctic waters of the pool.

Really. Who puts an outdoor pool in PORTLAND?!?!?

The next day, we headed to the Oregon Zoo.

Nice place. Cuddly bears.

"Na-Na no see frog."

Okay, so I didn't ride 13 hours on a bike the day prior,

but I did have to drive 3 hours in a car with two kids under 6 by myself.

Not fun. I was a little tired too.

Yeee-hawww!

Cowgirl Katie.

Yeeeee-hawww!

Cowboy Mikey.

Cowgirls don't just ride horses, you know...

So long, Portland.

I'm sure we'll see you again next year.....

and the year after that....

and the year after that.

Hmmmmmm.

4th of July

2011-07-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

It was a gorgeous 4th of July weekend here in the PNW.

On the 2nd, the sun was out and the temps were perfect for.....

POOL TIME!!!!!

Katie was having so much fun, Mikey

decided that he didn't even need

a swimsuit. Just a diaper

and his hand-me-down Crocs.

"Na-Na fwimming."

Here's Katie doing a little

kiddie pool dance.

That evening, Daddy and Katie had

a camp out in the backyard.

Besides the barking dogs and the early fireworks,

they had a good sleep.

I was excited to get the bed all to myself that night. But, alas, it

was not to be. Mikey woke up just about every hour and I ended

up sleeping on the armchair in his room most of the night.

I'm not quite sure what his problem was, but I did notice the next morning that he had

a bunch of miniscule splinters in his feet from running through the bark

mulch with his Crocs on. Poor little dude.

The next day was Sunday. The sun had disappeared, but

it was still mild and there was no rain.....

So, off we went to find some waterfalls.

Katie and Mikey did great on the hike.

Our picnic lunch.

Is there such thing as hiker's crack?

Finally, it was the 4th.

We headed downtown to watch the local parade.

The sun was out in full force and - gulp -

it hit close to 80 degrees!

Watch out!

During the parade, Katie made a new friend.

Mikey was in fire truck and police motorcycle heaven.

After the parade, we headed back home for a little R&R.

We had lunch, hit the kiddie pool and sprinkler, took naps,

played a little WoW, etc.

Then it was dinner and off to see the local firework display.

Here's Katie waiting patiently.

Here's Mikey munching "hoppies."

(aka bunny crackers)

Right before it got dark, I pulled out

my secret stash of glow sticks.

You know us Moms, we just happen

to carry glow sticks around

for just such an occasion.

Katie and Mikey had a great time.

Katie actually cuddled with Mikey for the entire show and

gave him a constant rundown of what color each firework was

and accompanied them with an "OOOOOOOOOO".

Sigh. What a great holiday weekend.

Summer Is Here!

2011-07-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

Well, actually, these pictures are from June.

June in the PNW is not really summer.

Yes, summer does officially come in June, but not here.

June is usually mostly cloudy with rain showers off and on. The temps.

range from the upper 50's to 70 or so.

There are usually only a few genuinely summer-like days.

Here's one such day. I think it was like 60 something out this day.

That didn't matter to my little mermaid. It was......

.......Pool time!

Mikey likes to look at the sprinkler while it's on and play with

it when it's off. But, in his words, "No Like."

On another non-rainy day,

Mike and I visited a park that was home to some farm animals.

Mikey liked the animals, but was more interested in the

tractors he saw and the garbage truck that

came to empty their dumpster.

"MOOOOOOOOOO."

He enjoyed watching this turkey strut his stuff.

"No touch gobble."

After we spent a good amount of time feeding rocks to the

chickens (Mikey says they like to eat rocks),

it was time to head over to the fields to find the horses.

"NA-NA, RUUUUUNNNNNNN!!"

If you were wondering where Katie was all this time,

well, she was at summer camp.

This week was "Adventure" week.

Here's what she was busy doing......

"ARRRRRRRRR"

Huzbend was busy gearing up for his big ride to Portland this past month.

Here we are waiting at a playground for him.

We were "road support" on this particular training ride.

He did 100 miles that day.....all by himself.

Psycho.

An update on the kiddies:

Katie has developed a very strong independent streak.

She wants to do everything herself (which is not always efficient, much to my dismay). She's had us take her training wheels off her bike, she's enjoying summer camp and making

new friends, she's learning how to swim, expressed interest in spelling and growing like a weed.

The problem is that this independent streak also has a downside.

When she doesn't get her way, there's lots of screaming, fighting, and all sorts

of tantrums going on. I don't know what the deal is.

She can be very stubborn and rude one minute and so

sweet and accommodating the next.

It's a little disconcerting and hard to deal with.

Mikey is making great strides in his communication skills.

He can put together pretty big sentences now and seems to pick

up a new word a day. He is all sorts of cute.

Don't get me wrong, he too has his tantrums.

And on a sad note, I found out yesterday that he has food allergies.

I fed him a bite of protein bar - no nuts in it, just soy - and waited.

Within a minute or two, he told me his mouth was "HOT" and started itching his throat. An hour later, he began to sneeze and cough, his nose began to run

and he threw up all over me.

It was almost the exact same as Katie's first reaction.

Katie was there watching it happen and she was so calm and reassuring to him.

She helped get my phone, and some things to help me clean up when I was busy holding him to calm him. I was so proud of her.

So, the next step is to have him tested. I plan to have that done as soon as possible. I'll be sure to give an update.

And so, June-uary, as they call it here, is over.

Summer is (finally) here!

Huzzah!

Bad Ass

2011-06-15T14:54:00.000-07:00

I was in the shower the other day.

Yeah, I get to shower.

Mikey is in the porta-crib outside the door and Katie runs around and plays.

I keep the door open in case of any emergencies.

Makes for a very cold shower exit.

Anywho.....

I get this from Katie while I'm in the shower,

"Mom. I bet I look pretty bad ass right now.

You should check me out."

Yep. You will NEVER guess who she got that from.

So, here is Katie being "bad ass".

Don't let the furrowed brow in the picture fool you.

She is enjoying herself. This is just a "pose", as she calls it.

She's in character.

I think we have a future cosplayer in our family.

For those of you who are not familiar with the term cosplay

(because only super nerds are) here is a definition:

It means "costume play". For example, dressing up and pretending

to be a fictional sci-fi, comic book, video game or anime character.

See an example in these pics I took at the Tokyo Game Show:

I don't think Katie has ever seen these photos and yet

here are some poses......

Today, I was treated to another wild creation.

This outfit was awesome.

And the subsequent poses....

equally awesome.

Mikey was so inspired by Katie's cosplay

coolness that he decided he wanted to try it too.

MIghty May

2011-05-30T16:00:00.000-07:00

Let's break it down, shall we?

First up, Fish Boy.

Moving on.

May was chock-a-block full of preschool stuff.

While I had loads of un-fun preschool business stuff to do,

Katie and Mikey had totally fun preschool stuff to do. Like excursions.

Here we are at a ginormous pet store.

It's really hard to see, but Katie is holding

a stick bug in this picture.

Notice the smile. She wanted to take him home.

Then, the pet store people upped the ante.

They brought out the dogs.

Again, notice the smile.

Okay. Now she wanted to take the WHOLE STORE home.

We did have a few R&R breaks.

Here's a little dress-up spectacular.

Next up was the preschool Bowl-A-Thon.

This time around our school raised enough money to build

a two room school house for children in Uganda!

Here's Katie rockin' it Granny style.

(No offense, Granma's)

Mikey had his turn too. It just took a little

longer for it to make it down the lane......

Soon, the end of preschool was upon us.

The sun did shine (for a little while) and

so the water play was in full effect.

This is a preschoolers brain on yoga......

Mikey warmed up to preschool just in time for it to end.

Oh well.

Here he is getting pouty about not being able to peddle the trike.

There's always next year, dude.

"GO."

He had a great time playing with the ball chutes.....

......eating snack and......

.....doing the art project for the day.

At the end of his last class he received a

huge bucket with his certificate of completion and

some bubble stuff inside.

He was very excited.

"BLUE!"

He loved his bucket so much that he took a nap with it.

And, adding to his excitement, it is the only bucket

we have in the house that he can fit on his head.

Mikey was done. Now, it was Katie's turn.

Graduation/Goodbye Day was upon us.

Check out this awesome cake - all Katie safe!

The kids did a great job with their songs.

Katie was very excited to get her time in the spot light.

Here she is receiving her certificate of completion.

HIGH FIVE!

Wow.

We're ready for summer.

Not that it will be any calmer.

We've got park dates, play dates, camping,

swimming lessons, summer camps....

Mikey's ready.

Have waffle, Lightning McQueen, and

Choo-Choo pants; will travel!

SUMMER HERE WE COME!!!!!

Mother's Day

2011-05-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

For Mom's Day, the family went to the science center to check out a display

of Star Wars stuff.

All she needs is a brown robe and a gun.......

Help you, I can. Find some pizza, we will.

Mmmmmmm?

I think Katie was a little creeped out by

Chewie.

Whadda you think?

Katie's favorite.

Alright. So, going to the Star Wars display turned

out to be more interesting for me than for the kids.

They had more fun playing with the stroller than

marveling over the fact the original version of Luke's

land speeder was RIGHT THERE!

Oh well.

After geeking out with SciFi stuff, we went on

over to the regular exhibits and got all nerdy with

Dinosaurs among other things.

"VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"

"NahNah. CAH."

(mikey. car.)

Next up was the butterfly house.

Mikey really enjoyed the butterfly house.

He made me take this picture.

"MO."

(more)

When we got home it was time for dinner.

Burgers, steak fries and corn on the cob.

Somewhere in there, it was costume time.

Katie's costume was awesome, but did not

include a lot of clothes - thus no pictures.

Mikey came up with this.....

And last but not least, I baked up some

Rhubarb, Strawberry, Raspberry Crumble.

It was the first time I had ever had rhubarb.

I tasted it before I cooked it and it was the most horrible thing

I had ever eaten...but after it was cooked....OMG.

Threw some vanilla ice cream on that puppy and it was delic!

Happy Belated Mother's Day!

A Quick April Recap

2011-05-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

April's gone. So, it's time to review.

Katie and Mikey play well together.

Sometimes.

Here is one such time.

Mikey has figured out that when Katie gets a "special treat",

it's only fair that he gets one too.

Preschool had a "field trip" at a local pizza place.

The kids got a tour of the kitchen and then were able to make their own pizzas.

Here is Katie working on her culinary masterpiece.

Yummmmm.

Hawaiian pizza for the girl.

Believe it or not, she ate it ALL.

Excluding the crust, of course.

The joint was nice enough to serve pizza to the parents

and siblings too.

Mikey was in heaven.

"PIZZA!"

And, the best part about going to this specific pizza place.....

Everyone gets a lollipop if they finish their pizza.

Next up at preschool was a "Bug Safari".

See picture below for bugs.....

The kids had a great time looking at and touching some

of the interesting insects that were brought.

Here they are looking at a huge centipede.

And, of course, the requisite

creepy tarantula was brought out for all to see.

It was another busy month for our super busy family.

Poor Mikey.

Sometimes he just can't keep up.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, please

enjoy a snippet of April cuteness.

EASTER

2011-04-29T07:50:00.000-07:00

The moment came the night before Easter. I knew it would happen eventually. But, in my imaginings of this situation, it was never ME that had to explain it. Ugh.

Katie asked, "When I wake up tomorrow will the Easter Bunny have already hid all the eggs?"

Well, I did it. I told the truth. But, you know what? She didn't really seem to care as long as she was still going to find eggs and get an Easter basket.

Okay. It was either that or she just chose to disregard my ugly truth and continued to think a pink bunny was going to sneak into our house.

It was egg crazy around here. First of all, Katie did not want to color eggs this year. She's figured out that real eggs are lame 'cause she can't even eat them. Only good things (like candy, stickers and money) come in little plastic eggs. So, I hid 24 plastic eggs to try to give Mikey a chance of finding a few. He found three or four, I think. He didn't really stand a chance. Katie brought her A game and found all the eggs in about 15 minutes.

I made the search for the baskets a little more complicated. Last year it was one step to the basket. This year I did two steps. I'll tell you, it's really hard to write Easter basket clues at 7 in the morning after a horrible nights sleep while simultaneously trying to stop Mikey from eating your Chapstick.

After our morning sugar rush, we headed over to the neighbor's house for brunch and an afternoon neighborhood egg hunt.

All in all, it was a great day. Katie inhaled her chocolate bunny and Mikey....well, he inhaled about 4 or 5 mini chocolate bars during the neighborhood egg hunt. It was not a good nap day for him.

Here are some vids and pics of our day. Enjoy!

And here's the neighborhood egg hunt:

Awful

2011-04-11T07:11:00.000-07:00

Does anyone remember this?

Welp, I've done it again.

You would think that I learned my lesson the first time.

But, NOOOOOOOOOOO. I just ain't that bright.

It all starts like this: I think to myself, "Self.

Why spend $25 when it's just a quick snip and clip!

I can do this!"

All it took was one little slip up and Mikey can now

count himself amoungst such illustrious company as:

Titch, from the movie Krull...

...Prince Edmund, the Black Adder...

...and the of course, the unforgettable, Moe Howard.

Ugh.

I am so sorry, Mikey.

I guess I can be proud of one thing.

I was able to reproduce a bowl haircut without the use of a bowl.

Yay me.

The March Post

2011-04-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

Boy. Let me tell you something. We went places and did things in March.

That's why it took me until April to post about it.

Besides the stuff you see here; we did the zoo, we did preschool stuff, we registered Katie for Kindergarten. She's getting so big. Sniffle. Ugh. Enough about that.

Here's the March rundown......

At the beginning of the month, Katie and I hopped on a plane and headed back East to the land of good pizza and fast drivers.

"Are we there yet?"

Upon arrival at Granma and Granpa's house, Katie was greeted with

a surprise......

"WHOA! TOTALLY COOL! MY VERY OWN TINKERBELL BED!!!!"

Of course, below is the real reason for the visit - it wasn't just the pizza.

It was for little Sophia. The newest cousin.

"Awwwwwwww."

A lot of popcorn was eaten (and spilled) that weekend.

"Um. There's a what behind me?"

We paid a visit to the Peabody Museum. Dinosaur bones and science galor.

Katie was in heaven.

"Look, Mommy. That triceratops only has one horn!"

"I like the pink one."

Katie made a new best friend on her trip.

She misses Harry.

She was sad to say goodbye to everyone, but nothing makes it

all better like chocolate pudding at an airport!

"MMMMMMMMMM."

When we got back, Katie wanted to share all the shells she

found back East with her preschool buddies.

You see, our beaches generally don't have

much sand (we have rocks) and we definitely don't have cool shells (just lots of gross seaweed) and maybe a seal or two.

Here is Katie, in playdoh form.

Made by the girl herself.

This is for Uncle Andrew.

THIS is steamies.

Mikey had a good month too. His language is exploding.

I think he learns a new word a day and has begun to link together

words to form short two and three word sentences.

For example, "I WANT DIS". That's a favorite of his.

Here he is figuring out how to go down a giant slide.

"YAAAA-HOOOOOO!"

Really. That is what he says.

I'm not sure what is going on here, but I put it here because it's cute.

Spring in the northwest is usually rainy and gray - just like fall - but a little warmer.

When the sun shines it's time to get outside and PLAY.

Here we are hitting the sand box.

And after playing hard in the dirt, it's time for a little

bubble bath or as Mikey likes to say,

"BUH-BULL!"

I will leave you with this.

Four year olds (at least my four year old) can be very ornery somtimes.

They like to say, "NO!" really loud and stamp their feet in an attempt to get their way.

Here's a picture of one such moment.

For those of you who have never seen the dark side, gaze now upon......

Katie's angry eyes!

2011-04-06T17:37:00.001-07:00

Monotonous Mommy Syndrome

2011-03-10T13:21:00.000-08:00

Man. I'm tired. Tired of the same old, same old. I need some variety.

I know that it's important for young kids to have schedules. Certain things that happen at certain times of the day. It gives them a feeling of security and permanence or something like that.

But, you know what? It is starting to drive me insane.

We wake up. We eat breakfast. We watch a show while eating breakfast. Then it's juice time. Then it's time for "steamies" and to pick out clothes. Off to preschool - driving here, there and everywhere. We come home. I make dinner while Mikey screams at me. We eat. I clean. We play. Bath time. After that comes more "steamies", cheese and books. Then bed. Throw in there a few diaper changes, some laundry, lunch, and other errand-y type stuff and you got a day.

No one ever mentioned that being a parent can be SO BORING sometimes. You just get all caught up in the schedule of the day and never seem to have time to enjoy, well, anything.

I've been having many days like that recently. Like, I'm going through the motions of parenthood. Doing things that I HAVE to do instead of things that I WANT to do. Somehow, I have to force myself to sit down every once in a while and take a little breather. Whether that is doing an art project with Katie, sitting on the floor enjoying the kids playing together, or trying to find the time to do some ME type stuff - I just need to do it.

If I don't, I think I might explode.

And so, in keeping with the changing it up theme of today's post. I thought I would throw in some videos. It's been a while.

February. Done!

2011-03-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

Boy. I am TOTALLY slacking in the blog department. February (like all months it seems) was a crazy month.

Mikey had a cold pretty much all month long and solid sleep moments

were few and far between. And fulfilling one of the requirements of parentdom, I immediately caught all of his colds and then took one of them a step further by managing to get a sinus infection. Yay, me.

Besides all that stuff, there was Valentine's Day, many preschool events, some birthday parties and a visit from GmaC.

Here's a glimpse of February.

Here's Mikey at preschool. He discovered play dough.

"Ooooooooooooooooo".

His other favorite thing to do is paint. He LOVES it.

He paints the paper... and the walls, and the chairs,

and the floor, other kids, parents, and of course himself.

As you can see, he really gets into his work.

Hey, do you know what's as fun to play with as paint and actually tastes good too?

SOUR CREAM!!!!!

Is there something on my face?

Here's Mikey practicing one of his new words,

"EYEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ"

WARNING: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

I AM A TRAINED PROFESSIONAL.

(no Mikeys were harmed in the making of this photograph)

Even trained professionals have a bad day.

"OW."

Katie was on the slopes again this month.

This is what we call, "Crazy Katie Hair."

It's quite a look, wouldn't you say?

GmaC flew in for a visit and wouldn't you know it, it got really cold and snowy.

We put Mikey to work.

Katie and Mikey kept her VERY busy.

I'd like to say THANKS one more time for helping out

so much while you were here!

Lunchtime with Granma.

Storytime!

And I will leave you all with this.

Please say hello to....

....Raisin girl.

It's Kinda Been A While

2011-02-17T08:24:00.001-08:00

Sorry. I figured I should put something on here while the kids are still asleep.

One of my favorite parts of the day is going to get Mikey out of his crib when he wakes up in the morning. I love to pick him up and just stick my face into his hair and take a big giant inhale. I'll admit, it sounds gross, but I think that it's the most wonderful smell. Pure Mikey. I even like his stinky morning breath.

It's also the cuddliest part of the day. He has to make sure that he brings ALL of his blankies (there's three of 'em) with him when I take him out of the crib. Then, we go downstairs and eat breakfast together with him sitting on my lap.

I used to do the same thing with Katie when she was his age.

I wish I could bottle up that morning smell and save it forever. It's something that pictures and videos will just never compare to.

Soon, Mikey will get old enough that he won't need me to come and get him in the morning anymore. He'll either bound down the stairs demanding breakfast and a show or scream for me to come and "WAKE ME UP!!!!!".

Sigh.

And, I found out last night what Katie does when she can't sleep. She stares at the wall. Yep. But, she isn't just staring.

You see, we have a texture on all of our walls. It's kinda hard to explain. Here. Look at the picture below. Look beyond the crazy looking Katie spiders to the wall beyond. See that texture there?

Anyways, Katie stares at the texture on the wall next to her bed and finds little pictures or "things" in them. Kinda like the ancients did with the stars or something. She's making little wall texture constellations.

Last night, she pointed out to me "a Mommy Luma holding the hand of a baby Luma", an "alien with a heart shaped head that has a backpack on", "this one looks like a moose", and the list goes on.

So, I don't really enjoy her morning breath anymore. But, I love her creative spark. It amazes me every day.

You Know What Today Is......

2011-02-02T08:13:00.000-08:00

Phil's official forecast as read February 2nd, 2011, at sunrise at Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, PA:

Here Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye!

On this Groundhog Day, February 2, 2011, Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators, was raised from his burrow by the call of President Bill Deeley. He greeted his handlers, Ben Hughes and John Griffiths.

After casting an inquisitive eye towards thousands of his faithful followers, he proclaimed that the Steelers are going to the Super Bowl!

Back to the business at hand...

He surveyed his surroundings carefully and found that there was no shadow around.

So, an early spring it will be!

January: A Month In Pictures

2011-01-31T22:38:00.000-08:00

Introducing, Bucket Boy.

The preschool had a Pajama Party for the older kids.

Little brothers and sisters were also invited.

Here's Mikey's pal, Sienna, making sure that

Mikey knows who he is.

"I-KEE!"

Oh, they also had pizza at this party.

Katie decided that she liked pizza.

Now is the time at the pajama party when we DANCE!

Meet Queen of the Naga.

In order to maintain optimum health, she must partake

of the "steamies" twice daily.

Only Naga Highborn allowed, Baby Naga. Back to the ocean with you.

Sometimes Mikey likes to sit on the bottom step and kick his little feeties.

I will be sad when I can't call them feeties anymore.

"WHHHHEEEEEEE"

There was a preschool field trip to a gymnastics place.

We've got lots of Legos.

Katie has become quite the little builder.

A typical Saturday afternoon.

Check out Huzbend's left wrist.

Yes. That is a brace.

A bike wipeout caused a minor break a few weeks ago.

Docs say it should be healed in a month or so.

Probably longer if he continues to carry dragons around on his back.

Katie had her first ski lesson this past weekend.

While she hung out at the Kids Club, I rented myself some gear

and did a bit of skiing myself. Sorry, no pics. I was by meself.

She's up......

...and she's down.

The instructor said she did a pretty good job. By the end of the class

she was able to go down the hill without falling.

This is Katie right after her ski lessons.

After we returned her gear and had some snacks,

she told me that she had a good time skiing and wanted to know

when we were going to come back.

Chocolate milk makes it ALLLLLLLLL better.

We ended the month with a visitor from preschool.

A bear named Wembley. He goes home for a week with each Pre-K kid.

Then the kid writes a story about their adventures

with the bear.

We can't bear to see Wembley go!

"Anudder Cuzzin?!"

2011-01-27T09:02:00.001-08:00

Meet Sophia!

Katie was very excited that she had yet "anudder" cousin.

She can't wait to meet her and give her "love".

Mikey loves to look at Sophia's pictures. He points at the screen and lets out

big laughs, "HAHAHAHAHA" (really, it sounds just like that).

And here's a pic of the proud Big Bro.

I don't know about you, but that looks like a nervous smile.

Rightly so, my man.

Just wait. In no time at all, she's going to be trying to eat all of your

Hot Wheels cars. And just wait and see what she's gonna do to your Thomas trains!

Love ya's!

Awesome

2011-01-11T15:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Katie told me that a "teenager came to play harp at preschool."

Katie was very excited about it and told me that harp music was very pretty. She said that it sounded like the teenager was playing "Christmas music" and that she also played a song called "Clocks".

I asked Katie if she would like to play a harp when she got older.

She said, "No, I'm gonna be a scientist."

Right on.

A Late Xmas Gift

2011-01-06T22:54:00.000-08:00

I've got three new videos for you.

Yes, THREE.

Me been busy.

In this video you will learn the answer to a question that has plagued man (or maybe just preschoolers) since the dawn of time.......

In this video there is just plain silliness......

And, finally, in this video you will get a small taste of xmas morning......

The Big Super Giant Xmas/New Year's Post

2011-01-01T22:58:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

First off, we just wanted to say THANK YOU for all the gifts and cards. They were very much enjoyed and appreciated!

Now, on to the show!

Katie was up at 8am to open presents.

Believe me when I say, that is REALLY early for her. She usually rolls outta bed somewhere between 9 and 11am everyday. She is NOT a morning person.

Unlike previous years, this year Katie opened her ALL her presents in

about 30 minutes or less. She then moved on to the "Katie & Mikey" presents,

and then finally stepped in to help Mikey who, according to her, was moving

WAAAAAYYYYY to slow.

"WOW! Look! A dragon!"

"THHHHHHBBBBBBPPPPPPP!"

Mikey's sound for truck.

Car has a different sound.

Kinda like "Vroom".

"There's guys in there and princesses and horses, Mom."

We got Mikey a "Zoom Around Garage" and a bunch of Lego

CARS figures (McQueen, Mater, etc.).

He (and Katie) loved it.

I didn't know this, but it is also good for climbing.

Meet Baby Deathwing - the red dragon - and her

blue baby dragon in training.

RAAAAWWWWRRRRRR!!!!!!!!

I guess even Deathwing gets tired.

Here she is taking a quick break from destroying all of Aseroth to play

with her new castle set.

Everyone got the post-lunch nappies.

Mikey started to bonk out on the couch.

And even Little Miss Energy was toasted by mid-afternoon

and decided to head up to her room for a nap.

Wakey, wakey!

After everyone was rested and had their post-nap snack, it was play time!

"You mean, be careful 'cause I could fall off this and hit my head?"

"No way, dude. Never happen.

You gotta trust The Mike."

Huzbend had the week between Xmas and New Year's off

and so it was play central around here.

Here's a baby pteradon (yes, her characters are always babies)

emerging from an egg.

"Does that tickle, DaDa?"

Here's Mikey and I engaged in a deep conversation.

It seems that he has really made huge leaps

in communication in the past few weeks.

He's got lots of words and even answers yes

or no questions with head shakes.

During the middle of last week, it snowed. We got about two inches of the white stuff.

Because of the temps the snow didn't go away. In fact, it's still outside.

Here's Katie getting snow crazy.

Here's Mikey following suit.

And this is what happens after about thirty minutes

of snow playtime.

Katie likes to settle herself down to a huge

mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Since the snow is still around, Katie and I went out to sled today. When we came in, she told me that she doesn't like the chocolate so much. She just wanted the marshmallows.

So, I put ten of them on a plate and nuked them for 5 seconds.

She liked them.

Sometimes, I wonder about that girl.

And, what happens to poor little Mikey you ask?

Well, he crashes.

Hard.

That brings me to New Year's Eve.

Here's Mikey getting ready to party.

Katie was very excited about the prospect of a party.

Parties equal "special treats".

So, not one to disappoint, I made some caramel dip and chopped

up some fruit to go with it.

Parties also equal balloons.

Later that evening, it was time for Mikey to go ta bed.

"Aw, stinkers!"

Katie decided to stay up until midnight with us.

Besides watching a bit of America's Funniest Home Videos Grand Prize Show, she kept herself busy doing various "art projects".

Here is a "diver costume" that she put together.

And here she is working hard on another project -

Santa and Snowman plates.

She got pretty tired at around 11:30, but we put on Dick Clark's Rockin'

New Years Eve and that kept her entertained until the big moment.

She watched the ball come down for the first time as she laid in my lap.

She told me that she didn't want to go to sleep until all the people in

New York City on TV went to sleep.

I told her they were ALREADY asleep because their clocks are ahead of ours.

"Oh. Okay." she answered without much protest and I carried her up to bed.

She was pretty much down for the count before I left the room.

What a nice week it's been.

I'm not really looking forward to getting back

into the swing of things. It's a bit too crazy during the week here with

all the preschool happenings and such. It always seems like there isn't enough time in the day.

Oh well, eh? C'est la vie.

Nice ta meet ya, 2011. Now, let's get down to business.

TREE! ME!

2010-12-19T22:13:00.000-08:00

Last weekend there was a break in the weather and we decided

to go cut down our xmas tree.

We hopped in the truck and drove out to the tree farm.

Mikey fell asleep on the way there. Figures.

And, so, we selected our xmas tree minus one family member.

Don't get nervous (I was). Huzbend stayed near the truck while Katie

and I scoped out a tree. The parking area is actually right next to the trees.

Here is a shot of typical PacNW xmas tree hunting weather.

Cloudy, cold and very muddy.

"Need some help with that, Dad?"

And this, my friends, is why we

still have a gym in our basement.

YEAH BAYBEE!

"Did I miss it?"

Yep. Sorry, bud.

There's always next year.

Mikey likes to help take care of the tree.

He also likes to pull on it, hide behind it and eat it.

For obvious reasons, I decided to limit

the ornaments on the tree this year.

I decided to use candy canes.

They do look nice.

The only problem was that I let Katie put them on the tree.

Don't get me wrong, she did a great job.

But, she can't quite put them high enough so that things

like this don't happen......

TAAAA-DAAAAAA!

The finished product.

On the home front, we got Katie a Lego Advent calendar this year.

It's full of Lego Pirates.

Please pay no attention to the Mon Calamari to the left.

In her search for new artistic avenues, Katie

has recently picked up our digital camera.

Here is one of her latest:

A Close Up

Subject: Breathes Fire All Over The Place

(Really. That is the dragon's name.)

A cute "gingerbread house" Katie made at preschool.

That brings us to this weekend.

I am now 37 years old.

But, you know what? It doesn't matter.

You know why?

'Cause when I woke up on my birthday morning, I came downstairs and

THESE were waiting in the kitchen for me.

Dare I say it again?

YEAH BAYBEE!

The evening was topped off with a me-made

pudding pie.

I call this one the "Smores Special". It was muy tasty.

Um, yes, that is a 1st bday candle. It was the only one we had.

Huzbend (along with Katie and Mikey's help) picked up

a hand-held vacuum, some nice fuzzy warm clothes and

the next World of Warcraft Expansion Pack for me.

Dance of joy!

Thanks to all for your bday well wishes! Much appreciated.

The day after my birthday was even better!

Thanks to a preschool mom friend, Huzbend and I were able to go out together! On a date!

Indian lunch buffet followed by a viewing of Tron: Legacy in IMAX 3D.

Awesome!

Just like my 37 year old self.

Some Goings On

2010-12-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure if this is typical younger sibling behavior, but Mikey feels

compelled to do anything and everything he sees

Katie doing. Sometimes, the result is hilarious.

Check this one out.

Katie found a pair of my high heels shoes the other day.

Katie has been frustrated with our lack of holiday decorations.

She decided to take matters into her own hands.

Behold! Our lovely hand made Christmas decorations!

Here is a stocking......

An ornament and a stocking.

And another ornament.

Katie never, and I mean never, had any interest in our fireplace.

Can't say that about Mikey.

Did you know that our house is now an art gallery?

Here is one of my favorites.

"The Fairies" by

I E

K A T

And Since It's December 6th.....

2010-12-06T12:58:00.000-08:00

.....I figured I would post about Thanksgiving.

Man. I really gotta get on the ball.

Holiday shopping, holiday shipping, holiday decorating, and holiday parties amoungst many other holiday type thingies are keeping us wayyyyyyy too busy.

I guess that's not really something to complain about, huh?

On to the pics!

Ever heard of the Infinite Monkey Theorem?

Well, we decided to try it out using a toddler.

Katie has recently found her inner artiste.

She goes through a sketch pad a week and fills the pages with all sorts of cool stuff.

She has also made the jump from drawing to abstract sculpture.

Here is her latest work : "Scarecrows On The Floor"

In the meantime, Mikey has decided that he will be the

next Gunther Gebel-Williams.

No, this is not a pear.

It is a grape.

Seriously.

We got snow. Yep. A whole, like, two inches of the stuff.

And here, two inches is enough to make people abandon their vehicles

on the side of the highway and to shut school down for two days.

I guess that's one day per inch. Nice.

We made sure to get out and have some fun.

Here is Snowman.

Katie REALLY likes the snow.

Huzbend REALLY likes the snow too.

Here he is, on his way to work.

I'm not so sure about Mikey.

We didn't have any snow boots or gloves for the poor little guy.

Notice the socks on his hands.

Here is Snowspider.

"CHEEEEEEEEESSSSSSE!!!"

And then it was Turkey Day!

Gobble, Gobble!

As tradition dictates, we all sat to enjoy the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Well, everyone except Huzbend who was busy prepping

manicotti.

Mikey liked the big balloons.

Later that day, we headed over to our neighbors house for dinner.

They sure laid out a nice spread.

"OOOOOOOOOOOO, PRETTY!"

Katie and Mikey got their first experience sitting

at the "kids table".

Dessert was enjoyed by all.

Some enjoyed more than others.

And now for your viewing pleasure, two videos full

of whacky antics.

Enjoy!

Since It's Almost Thanksgiving.....

2010-11-16T14:02:00.000-08:00

I thought I would FINALLY post some pics about Halloween.

What? A sunny warm October day?

Time to head to the pumpkin patch!

Here's Katie and Mikey waiting patiently for the bumpy ride out to the field.

Katie's an old pro now. She's seen a few pumpkins in her time.

Mikey was totally confused.

Here's my pumpkin!

Well, if you can't figure them out, might

as well join them......

A very picturesque shot, I must say......

A few weeks later, it was time to Trick or Treat!

Flintstones, meet the Flintstones.

They're your modern stone age family.

I know what you're thinking.

I just exude awesomeness.

It was almost impossible to get Mikey to stay still long

enough for a good shot of his costume. But, I think this one

is pretty decent. Dude loves to move.

Trick or Treat!

I've probably said this before in last years Halloween post.

There is another sucky part to having food allergies on Halloween.

The only candy that Katie can eat just happens to be

the worse possible candy for your teeth.

Lollipops, gummy bears, Skittles, Sweetarts, Nerds, etc.

This year her Halloween candy trade-in toy was

Mr. Pteradon.

Here he is enjoying some Halloween Haul.....

Harsh Re-Entry

2010-11-05T08:07:00.001-07:00

There is nothing, and I mean nothing worse than going grocery shopping the day after you get back from Walt Disney World.

What a cruel way to re-enter the real world.

There is nothing so mundane and so ordinary. Ugh.

As you walk the aisles you think to yourself, "I could be sitting on a shady bench next to the Enchanted Tiki Room enjoying a refreshingly cold Dole Whip right as this VERY moment. But, nooooooooooo, instead here I am picking up three boxes of Cheerios and four gallons of milk."

Sigh.

But then we encountered something much worse than grocery shopping. Puking your guts out. Yeah, I'd say that kinda sucks too.

A stomach bug was picked up while on vacation (just ask my sister about that - her whole family got it WHILE they were on vacation). It took a week for that nastiness to cycle through our family. Curiously, it skipped Katie. Weird.

After that, we all picked up a nasty cold that we are STILL dealing with.

Double Sigh.

So, now you know why I haven't posted in, like, forever.

Add onto that all the Halloween goings-on and we pretty much disappeared for a while.

I've got pumpkin patch and Halloween pics that I will get up here soon. I promise.