Catching Up Before Xmas

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......

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

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

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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

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

 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!