Big Momma's Blog - We Fight For The Users!!!!

JDawg Speaks & Snakes

2012-01-31T20:29:00.000-08:00

I took Jonathan in for a speech evaluation on Friday. It's been something that I've wanted to do for a while as he is sometimes pretty hard to understand and I would like to be able to go into Kindergarten this fall with all of our bases covered. We were warned that an evaluation could take upwards of 2 1/2 hours, so we blocked off a whole morning for it. Our speech pathologist was wonderful - she had a great rep with Jonathan from the get go, a lot of awesome toys and had some great credentials. She had a set of roughly 150 picture cards that the kids are supposed to identify - this tests vocabulary (ie his language knowledge base) and pronunciation of words (ie his physical speech technique). She and Jonathan ran through the picture cards in record time and she kicked us out after 35 minutes. She will give us a formal evaluation with a full scoring in a week, but she said that he was totally fine. His pronunciation of several sounds that was off was completely age appropriate and that we won't worry about those handful of sounds unless he is still making those mistakes at 7yrs old (which she said that she highly doubted that he would be). She said that our inability to understand him is due to him trying to speek too fast and that kids pick up those speech pace/patterns from their family. (Can't imagine who talks fast around him - doot dee doo....) She said he had excellent language comprehension as well - woot! At the end, she sent us home with a little pamphlet about how to make him slow down and do "slow and careful" speech to make himself better understood and said that we don't need to come back. He absolutely rocked it! Can't even begin to express how happy I am to have that load off - I wish I had done it sooner!

The last few pics are of the kids at the Pacific Science Center this weekend, the live science show was with Esteban the Boa Constrictor. The kids were absolutely fascinated by him and we learned a ton about snakes.

Sassy-Frass

2012-01-24T17:25:00.000-08:00

Snapped a few pics of my little guy ruling the roost at the mall play area today. We were pretty excited to have a day all to ourselves. We picked up some pants that were ready at Nordstrom for daddy, did a little play time (he was SO WELL BEHAVED), hit Starbucks (vanilla scone for him and americano for me), got a haircut (him), then did some more shopping (he does NOT like the lingere store but is fine with shoe and purse sections at Macy's) and capped the whole morning off with lunch at the Nordstrom cafe.

Sometimes it's a lot of fun when it's just the two of us!

SNOWBALL FIIIIIGGGHHHHTTTT!!!

2012-01-16T09:27:00.000-08:00

We had our first real snow of the year yesterday and the kiddos in the neighborhood were out in full force. We had a rematch of the Shook v. Scheppat epic snowball fight (Shooks won of course - although when the twins gang up on you they are fierce!). Below is a quick video of V sledding down the hill in her last run of the evening. She was about done at this point (soaking wet and freezing cold), but kept wanting to go down despite the fact! I'm bummed that I didn't think to video some before but we were having too much fun (and I was shoveling).

We got a few more inches last night and are expecting some more on and off today as well. I think that I am just going to have to bite the bullet and get the kiddos some ski pants as they end up freezing their little buns off when they get wet doing snow angels.

Someone's a slacker....

2012-01-01T14:13:00.000-08:00

In my defense, Blogger was doing funny things by upgrading right around Christmas. I tried to post a few pictures and ended up not having enough time to figure it out. Things have calmed down a little bit around here now that we have the holidays, Dave's mad dash to get all his CME done by year end and Victoria's birthday party out of the way - Whew!!! All in all we survived another one - Happy 2012 everyone!!!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like....

2011-12-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

Grandma and Christopher wrapping up all our presents. This year we decided to keep all presents hidden until the big day since nobody can trust Christopher not to attack them. He has taken to ramming the Christmas tree with his push cars and trucks (sometimes getting a running start with the Cozy Coupe) in order to watch the ornaments all come crashing down. Between him and the evil kitty who also enjoys taking down ornaments and batting them around the playroom, the tree is decidedly odd this year. But at least we have a tree instead of the chickenwire creation of two years ago - guess you have to look on the bright side.

Dave working on a project with Victoria (glow in the dark braided bracelets). Turned out to be a Daddy art project and we were all happy that it kept him busy for an hour....

The kiddos busted out the games for Grandma this morning in honor of the first day of Christmas break. Grandpa Jim arrives tomorrow so everyone is pretty excited!!!

In honor of the yuletide we were also the recipient of the HoHos from Uncle Benny and Aunty Claudia this year. They did a bang up job of paper mache - doing a rainbow hot air balloon which is currently floating over a train set town that the kiddos built in the playroom. They can see far and wide!!!

My Guppy!

2011-12-03T10:57:00.001-08:00

SPLASH!!! We are working on the backstroke now and she is having a little bit of a hard time with it as she doesn't keep her head back quite enough and tends to bend a little in the middle which makes her sink. She is doing very well on all of her front strokes and is learning how to breathe with her arm strokes with the breast stroke. We also had her 1st grade conferences this week with Ms. Canedy and she is doing great. Her biggest strength is definitely math right now and she zips through her coin conversions and story problems faster than almost everyone in the class. Her only real issue is getting bored and talking or distracting other kids in class or not staying on task and asking lots of questions without thinking about the question and whether she can answer it herself (ie just trying to get attention). She has been marked down on the report card for not following directions and not working well independently, so we are working on that a lot at home.

Gobble Gobble Gobble

2011-11-27T15:14:00.001-08:00

Let the games begin!!! Dave and I with Monte and Mel on their first night in town. I'm not saying we overdid it or anything (I'm never drinking Red Bull again), but the next day pretty much consisted of what is pictured below....

Jammies and ipads/computers hanging out on the couches.

The Thanksgiving feast took place at Shenanigans on Puget Sound down in Tacoma. It was a pretty good feast and a lovely view.

Victoria and Greyson chowing down on the first course.

Monte, Greyson and Jonathan slowing down.

Mel working the seafood action.

Then after naptime, we decided to make gingerbread houses as our activity. Mel helped Jonathan and Greyson make one and Dave and Monte helped Victoria and "Christober" make the other.

Surprise surprise, one of the main themes of both houses was angry birds...

Nice one Mel....
Then it was capped off with a run to Jack In The Box for burgers and movies!!! All in all a very fun week with the Davis Helm clan in town.

Projects Projects Projects

2011-11-11T11:50:00.001-08:00

For Veteran's Day this morning we decided to paint some ceramic bobble-heads. Jonathan did the pink headed puppy in the front and Victoria did the black kitty and the tan bear in the back.

Last weekend I finally gave in to Victoria's obsession with building marshmallow architecture. She definitely did better buildings with the big marshmallows and cocktail straws... but the small ones with toothpicks were more artistic.

Lightcycle.
Angry bird.

Jonathan's BIG BIG BOY Room

2011-11-05T20:43:00.000-07:00

The other day Christopher managed to flip his bedrail off the crib mattress, so we decided to push up the big bedroom switch and transition to a little sooner than we had initially planned. We planned on getting Jonathan his BIG bedroom set right before Kindergarten like we did with Victoria, but after the rail incident, I figured safety was more important so we trekked over to Ikea this weekend. They delivered everything on Tuesday night and we got the bed, bedside tables and the dresser (if it looks familiar it's because it's the exact same one in V's room in white) all put together within 24 hours. Woot! Kei-lani hauled away our old crib and changing table (she has two friends who are pregnant right now), so everything is all tidy and organized.
Christopher is thrilled about moving into the Star Wars bedroom and Jonathan has only had a few squaks about wanting to go back to his old room... which always ends the moment he stretches out on his huge queen sized bed. He picked out the bedding himself at Ikea and is pretty proud of his choice. I'm not sure that is what will stay in there permanently, but its good for now. The good thing about this set is that there are tons of desks and bookcases and everything available in this finish, so when the time comes to fill out the rest of the room we won't have any trouble getting coordinating items. The whole thing was DIRT CHEAP and I think looks fantastic. Only problem is that it's a bit echoy in there without anything on the walls and no curtains... so mom has a little shopping to do!

Dave's Masterpieces

2011-11-04T13:56:00.001-07:00

Everyone Pile on the Orange Guy!!!!

2011-11-03T14:04:00.000-07:00

We've had a bunch of dry sunny days here this last week and I wasn't sure how many more of those we have left so I took down all the spiders and tossed them into the storage garage. I really didn't want to go through what I did last year with drying them out for days in the garages before being able to put them in their bins. It seemed a bit sad seeing them all piled up with a poor orange guy on the bottom.... I swear I'll get to organizing them soon......

WE FIGHT FOR THE USERS!!!!

2011-10-29T15:16:00.000-07:00

We did a dry run of our costumes for Halloween at the Newcastle Elementary Costume Carnival last night and had Ashlee snap a few pictures of us before we left. The carnival must have had a bigger turn out than last year or something because it was completely packed! We were definitely turning heads and they snapped a pic of us for the yearbook (I now have a goal of getting us in every year as we had a great one of us as the Incredibles in last year's yearbook). I was really happy that we decided to leave our lightcycles in the car because there wouldn't have been any room for them. As it was we had a hard time making our way around the gym and the lines to play games were all atrociously long - even the balloon guy was swamped! So we only stayed for about half an hour, which was probably good as the kiddos were all very hungry and tired from having colds. I think we will really wow the crowds on Monday when we bust out with the full getup plus lightcycles.

Strike a pose!
Gem. I might need to use a little more hairspray to get it really white as she said she "I look like a grandma" when I got it all bunned up and sprayed. I agree, it is a little grey....

Sam Flynns - both very dashing!

and...... TRON!!!! There is just something about a 2 year old running around in a costume (his identity disk was half as tall as he is!) that is just so flipping cute!!!

Daddy made Victoria very happy by carving some Angry Birds characters out of our pumpkins this year too... viola! I think we're ready for the big day - BRING IT ON!!! I'll post some more pics of them lit up on Halloween.

Backwoods V

2011-10-19T09:43:00.000-07:00

My new 4S does some pretty cool video work. I was pretty excited about that given that our little Flip camera (Kodak version) died this last week. So basically my phone paid for itself!!!

School Pics Are In

2011-10-17T17:44:00.001-07:00

I call this picture "First Grade Surprise" and the picture below "What An Awful Background" - let me know if you want any copies ;o)

Texting The Tooth Fairy

2011-10-13T14:48:00.001-07:00

Victoria lost her top left front tooth during swimming lessons on Tuesday afternoon. Her smile has definitely looked better. Unfortunately she was swimming across the pool doing ice cream scoops (freestyle/crawl) and didn't notice it was gone right away. Despite her (and two instructors) best search efforts, the tooth was lost (doesn't help that the pool tile is distinctly tooth colored). She was absolutely DISTRAUGHT thinking that without a tooth to put in her tooth box that the tooth fairy would think she was lying about it. I must say that I do appreciate that she recognizes the importance of evidence to prove the facts at hand..... but I told her that the tooth fairy knows these things and she shouldn't worry. In the end she asked me if we could text the tooth fairy a picture of her without the top tooth as proof, which was a fantastic idea. The tooth fairy texted back and said she had the tooth already (as she patrols pool drains as part of her daytime routine) and that she already had Victoria programmed into her GPS to be on her drop off route for that night. Whew!

The Big 3-9

2011-10-11T11:19:00.000-07:00

All Things Round and Orange

2011-10-06T14:54:00.001-07:00

On A Boat Yo!

2011-10-02T10:47:00.001-07:00

We hopped on a ferry over to Bainbridge Island yesterday afternoon to explore the island and have dinner with Team Kim (Dave and Jenn) who live over there. Dave (Kim) was in radiology residency at the Mayo Clinic at the same time that Dave (Shook) was doing his fellowship and has been practicing on the Olympic Peninsula for the last couple of years and Jenn is a Seattle/Bainbridge Island native. We have been trying to get together with them for years (literally) and it finally happened - woot!

Dave didn't want to get out of his car - it was only a 30 minute ferry ride, but it was very windy and brisk. I kinda dig it when the GPS shows us in the water...

When we got to the Island Team Kim was finishing up a karate belt promotion ceremony with their 7 year old so Dave and I did a little shopping and a wine tasting in the main town called Winslow, which was totally fun. We came home with a couple of bottles of wine and a few fun things for the kiddos. Couldn't help snapping a few pics of items that were straight out of the "Put A Bird On It" skit from Portlandia - perfect!

We then went and toured the island and had insanely good BBQ with Team Kim (and a great dessert at another restaurant) and caught the 9:45pm ferry home. It was a great day! We definitely need to do more island exploring.

Zero Correlation...

2011-09-28T11:07:00.000-07:00

So this posting is a stream of consciousness smattering of pictures and odds and ends. The first pics are of the kiddos in some clone troopers helmets and outfits. The next door neighbors ordered this costume for Halloween and it was too small for Hunter so they gave it to Jonathan, who as you can see above LOVES it.

Baby has had lots of fun with the helmet when Jonathan isn't around too... it's very hard to see where you are going when it's on backward.

We pulled out the indoor Halloween decorations too.

Unfortunately the neighbors have decided to have a little friendly "Halloween-Off" competition with us, so the indoor decorations have taken a big backseat to the additional spiders and webs I've been putting in outside to keep up with the Joneses. They have orange lights and a big light up web and graveyard - most impressive, but I think we still have them beat. There was a big windstorm this last weekend and I have some serious work ahead of me to get everything back up. I'll post some more outdoor pics when I've got it all cleaned up (my hanging baskets came crashing down and destroyed my plant pots - what a mess!).

Just had to throw this picture of my new shoes in the mix, aren't they fabulous??? Christopher talked me into buying them at the Macy's sale....

Victoria clone trooper.

We have two froggies hanging out around our flowers - don't know how they are doing since the storm took out their little habitat. I will have to be careful cleaning up the flower mess.

Dave watching Counting Crows from the front row - his birthday present. It was a pretty good show except that they didn't play "Omaha" which was disappointing. The opening act was surprisingly great.

Finally, my new 1588 world map was delivered yesterday from Restoration Hardware (our 11th anniversary present) and we managed to get it up on the wall last night. I'm pretty happy with how well the colors go in that room.

Overboard

2011-09-15T14:06:00.000-07:00

Taken from Mirriam Webster Dictionary "to extremes of enthusiasm". I can't help but think if I just had a few more it would be perfect!!! Maybe I need a 12-Step program....

Jonathan Firsts

2011-09-15T13:53:00.001-07:00

Jonathan started up swim lessons last week and has been doing really well. He is putting his face in the water (talking to the fishies), almost did a whole bob (he didn't get the top of his head wet but did submerge his whole face without freaking out) and even jumped in from the side to the instructor. He had been so nervous about the water (absolutely refusing to get in during the last set of swim lessons that we signed him up for) that I wasn't sure how he was going to do this round of lessons, but so far so good. In the above picture he is sitting on the side of the pool wearing an old pair of his sister's pink goggles. In the picture below he is being tug-boated around by his instructor happily chatting away.

He has been having a lot of fun playing in the shallow kids play area with his sister before lessons start as well - I think having V nearby has been a good confidence booster for him.

And pictured below, he is heading in to his first day of PreKindergarten last week. His schedule is the same as his sister's - meaning I only have to drop off and pick up once a day for both kiddos - woot!!! They are both in swim lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays right after school so that makes it easy as well.

On a side note, Victoria got the "Outstanding Lion" award for her behavior last week in first grade and so far seems to really like her teacher Ms. Canedy. Tonight is curriculum night at the school so we can find out what all she will be learning this year. We already know that her teacher believes in doing a lot of reading, which is great as Victoria absolutely loves to read. She and Daddy have been reading for 30-45minutes a night before bed lately.... they really dig this new fantasy adventure series!

Home Projects - DONE!

2011-09-01T17:48:00.000-07:00

I picked up a couple of stock drawer cabinets and a ready made 8 foot laminate countertop at Home Depot to put together a work station in the storage garage. Initially I had planned on just picking up some metal file cabinets and putting some plywood across the top as my work surface, but when I was telling my neighbor about my idea he told me that Home Depot was having a sale on their stock cabinets so I went to check it out. In the end this actually ended up being CHEAPER than buying the metal file cabinets and it looks 100 times nicer. It was actually pretty easy to install them as well. I managed to do it all myself - woot, go me!!! All I had to do was level them with shims, drill through the back of the cabinets into the studs in the wall, then put some support struts between the cabinets to support the laminate topper across the four feet between the cabinets. The only somewhat difficult part of the whole project was the fact that the cement floor of my storage garage is sloped down toward the garage door so despite my best efforts, the surface isn't perfectly level, but I can live with it. I'll have to probably get some kind of laquer to seal the oak so that it's protected, but otherwise, it's done and it only took me a couple of trips and one naptime of drilling/assembly. I can't wait to get in there and get my tools laid out in the drawers and have the garage organized. I'll post pictures when I've got it done.

When my dad was in town, I had he and Dave put together our safety pads for the retaining wall around the playset as well. The black vinyl covers 4 inches of foam and a plywood backing. That way if someone comes off the rope ladder, rockwall, ladder or glider swing they won't be hurt on that sharp corner of the retaining wall blocks.

In this picture you can also see the nice job Tim did of extending up our privacy fence around that corner so that nobody will fall out of the backyard. Baby can still throw balls over, but at least he can't fall out. I'm pretty happy with how it's all worked out.

Farewell Grandpa & A Tooth

2011-08-31T11:23:00.000-07:00

We said a fond adieu to GrandpaJim yesterday. It was a great visit and the kiddos were sad to see their playmate leave. Jonathan had gotten very used to heading down to GrandpaJim's room in the mornings for a chat - they are both early risers!

On Sunday we went to the Ballard Locks and watched some boats go through the canals. The kids were pretty excited to see how the locks worked. They were also pretty excited by the fancy fish "ladder" for the salmon to swim through so they don't get hurt swimming through the locks. It was pretty cool to see. We didn't go during one of the really busy spawning times, but still we saw a few of the big guys making their way up the underwater viewing section.

Just in time for Victoria's first day of school we lost another tooth on the bottom. I call her a reverse vampire now ;o) I totally blanked and forgot to take a single picture of her first day of 1st grade... the odd part, I actually remembered to put the camera in my purse so I had it with me - sheesh!!!

Jonathan will start Pre-Kindergarten next week, and then it'll just be me and baby for most of the day. I can't wait, Jonathan has been getting into all kinds of trouble the last few weeks out of camp... he needs to get back into school!!! Both Victoria and Jonathan will be starting swimming lessons on Tuesday and Thursday in the late afternoons at the YMCA as well next week. Keeping our fingers crossed that Jonathan manages to get into the pool this time!

Hanging With Grandpa

2011-08-27T14:52:00.001-07:00

We decided to go low key for GrandpaJim's first day in town with the kids, so we just went up to Lake Boren Park for a little walk. Because it was also the only day off that Dave had this week, we had Ashlee come in so that we could go to dinner (Jaks mmmmmmmm) and a movie (Crazy Stupid Love, which was very good but sad in parts).

With Grandpa fully rested up the next day, I had him help me hang the new Death Star on Jonathan's wall. The picture doesn't do it justice at all - it looks "HYPE!!!" as Dave says.

Then on Friday we had Ashlee come in the morning and Dad and I took a little road trip to Crystal Mountain and rode the new gondola up to the Summit House restaurant at the top. It was absolutely gorgeous views on a perfectly clear blue sky day for our lunch. We ran out of time and didn't really get to see much else in the park, but maybe we can go back tomorrow, which is also supposed to be really nice.
I am also very happy to report that Dad and Dave got my new pads built and installed on the retaining wall, so now if anyone takes a fall off the playset, they will be less likely to kill themselves. Whew! Mommy feels much better having those done now!!! Will post some pictures of the backyard in my next posting as the landscaping and the fence addition are all done too - woot!

Cman at 2

2011-08-17T10:46:00.001-07:00

Random Summer Kiddo Facts

2011-08-10T11:47:00.000-07:00

Jonathan celebrating making GrandmaAnn cry on her last night in town - woot! Go cruel children, make Grandma suffer!!!!! Mwwwaaahaaa haaaaa Mwwwaahhhaa hhaaaaaa!!! On a good note, Jonathan has had a really fun summer - he has been taking camps at the YMCA, alternating between sports one week and then Summer Fun Bunch the next. SFB is a week long themed classroom type camp, this week is Mad Scientist and they've been doing some very basic chemistry (liquids gas solids - mixtures) and nature exploring. They did a week of dinosaur adventure, which was a big hit, and lots of other fun themes. He definitely loves his sports camps most of all though, with soccer being the absolute favorite. I think we might have to get him on a soccer team here pretty soon. Much to Dave's dismay basketball was his least favorite, although he was much happier at basketball camp after he got his first basket.

We also made the decision to get him into a full day pre-Kindergarten class this fall at the YMCA. It looks like it will be a great program for him as it is run by a fully certified teacher (who hasn't been able to find a job because of budget cuts - go YMCA taking advantage of the bad economy!). I am looking forward to getting a really good evaluation of him to see if he'll be ready for kindergarten next year.

Friggin daredevil. When I first caught him raiding the bookcase he was actually STANDING on the top of the car, but I missed the picture. He will be the death of me.

I am thinking that I might need to get him into a group kiddo situation here pretty soon as he has been really having fun playing with his siblings and the other kids at the YMCA nursery (during V's swimming lessons). He has really been pretty lonely this summer with them at camp and with GrandmaAnn gone. His love of books has turned into a full on addiction - at a rate of hundreds a day and screaming tantrums when he gets told no more (this morning he hauled off and smacked me across the face when I refused to read him the trucks book for the 9th time). If anyone knows a good 12step program, I'd love to hear it as we might need it. ;o) He has his colors down, is chatting up a storm and is in a big boy bed now. He also got a great report from his 2 year old appointment. He is 75% in height and 25% in weight for a total 15.2 BMI (90% head circumference of course) - so by far my most healthy and chubbiest kiddo, but still on the slim side.

Victoria as expected has really enjoyed her camps that are more classroom and field trip oriented - like the Creation Station where she got to do a whole week of crafts. The sports have been tolerable, but we occasionally have fights getting her to go to those. I think its good for her to stick it out as she'll enjoy sports more as she gets older, but I am always happy when she gets to go back to what she really loves doing. She has had two weeks of STELLAR behavior reports as well. She even got a note home talking about what a good sport she was at sports camp yesterday (apparently she didn't cry or whine at all when she got tagged out - something they were struggling with before).

I am also happy to report that Victoria swam across the pool completely on her own last night for the first time. She was so excited and really worked hard at yesterday's lesson. I have to say it has been a long time coming for a kiddo that was labeled as a natural by the swim teachers at 3yrs of age.... I guess taking two years off of swimming lessons might have had something to do with that. I think she'll probably be able to progress up to the next level next session. Woot!

DON'T GO GRANDMAAAAAAAA!!!!

2011-08-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

Everyone is pretty bummed that GrandmaAnn abandoned us yesterday. I'm not sure if Grandma will be forgiven for this!!! Just kidding, but it was a great visit and we hope Grandma will be back soon!

Momcation

2011-07-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

I managed to take advantage of GrandmaAnn being in town (and a great deal on airfare) and took a last minute trip to hang out with my girlfriend Karen at her place in Vail this weekend.

Breakfast on the deck at the bottom of the ski lift. I have always wanted to climb that mountain (because you look out on it from Karen's balcony), but missed my opportunity AGAIN.

We went to see the NY Philharmonic (Tchaikovsky) at the outdoor ampi-theater in Vail on Saturday night. The pictures don't do justice to how amazing the mountains looked behind the orchestra.

It was an absolutely beautiful night and we got the greatest spot at the very back sitting on these huge (and surprisingly comfortable) boulders. The bottle of my favorite champagne Veuve Cliquot was the topper. This was living! So spoiled!!!

Just because I'm a classy lady...

Karen wouldn't let me take any pics of her and I together, which sucked, but I did snap a quick picture of me in the bathroom at her favorite restaurant in Vail called Splendidos since it was my first time in a dress in ages. It was wonderful food and I polished off a starter, entree and a whole lemon blueberry souffle all by myself!!! Notice the GUT.

What a fantastic weekend of girl-time!!!! Thanks to Karen for all the amazing food and wine and the wonderful massage. If it wasn't for the sweet faces at home, I might not have come back!!!!

Dancing With DadDoo

2011-07-20T18:49:00.000-07:00

We've been pretty busy having all kinds of fun with GrandmaAnn in town and going to summer camps and general craziness, so not a lot of time to do blog postings, but I got a cute video of Christopher dancing with DadDoo to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tonight while GrandmaAnn was at swimming lessons with Victoria.... enjoy!

July 4th and Keeping Cool With GrandmaAnn

2011-07-10T09:19:00.001-07:00

Victoria and I went down to Lake Boren park for the fireworks - we ran into Zack and Hunter (and Bridgette and Tom) on the way and then caught up to Victoria's classmate Christian who lives up the street as well, so we had fun walking together as a big group from our neighborhood. The fireworks were cool, but by far the best part was the lightsaber and glow necklaces that the Boy Scouts were selling.

We've had a few pretty warm days in a row, so we decided to fill up the inflatable pool to keep cool. Grandma had a lot of fun watching the troublemakers splash around like crazy.

Fare Well Uncle Benny

2011-07-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

Uncle Benny concluded his "three trips to Seattle in five weeks" travel stint this week. Ben got a kick out of Jonathan's comment when we picked him up from the airport "Uncle Benny we wont miss you if you are always here" quoted on Benny's facebook. This trip was all work, so we didn't see as much of him as usual, but we still managed to find some time to have fun!

Facebook Fail

2011-06-29T11:06:00.000-07:00

"Treat EVERYONE the same ...til you find out their an IDIOT!" from a friend of mine yesterday - Booyah!

Benny, Claudia, Monte and Mel Hit Victoria BC

2011-06-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

I realized as we were five minutes out toward the ferry on Saturday morning that I had left my camera behind, so I only got about five pics with my iphone on Sunday afternoon when Dave and I were by ourselves (everyone else had gone to the Buchart Gardens). I'm hoping that the others on our trip will be kind enough to pass on some of the pics they took from Saturday for me.
This is Dave standing in front of the harbor - the iphone wasn't fast enough to get a shot of the seaplane that was landing behind him. Next time I'm gonna do one of those tours - they look like so much fun!

While everyone else was seeing the Gardens, we decided to do a little casual shopping and exploring and we ran into a big outdoor art festival with a native music and dancing show and artists booths and a farmers market. It was right at the start of China town too, so we got a quick couple of pics in front of the gates.

Then we headed back to my fav spot called Darcy's to have a few drinks and wait for Mel, Monte, Benny and Claudia to come back from their tour. This is such a great spot, watching the boats and seaplanes and there was a bluegrass band playing next to us - bliss!

Snapped a quick pic of the breakfast menu - in honor of Ben, I had the "Indecisive Benny" - mmmmm. This trip we didn't have a single bad meal the whole time. I LOVE VICTORIA!!!

Bits and Bobs

2011-06-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

A close up of the birthday boy's big cake - wow, that's impressive! I can't believe he wasn't scared of it!

It tasted almost as good as it looked too....

It was pretty cool having Auntie Claudia (and unpictured Uncle Benny) here to help us celebrate. They will be back from Portland on Friday when Monte, Mel and Greyson will be back in town as well. Then the adults will all trek up to Victoria BC very early Saturday morning (hopefully they aren't rioting on Vancouver Island too) for a little weekend sans kiddos.

On Saturday we decided to take Jonathan to the kiddie side of the pool to have a little fun with Daddy while V did her swim lessons. I really thought that he would play for about five minutes and then either get tired of it (or more likely Dave would do something like dunk him again and he would want to get out and go to the play area), but he didn't. He stayed and played during V's whole lesson - almost an hour! He loved it and Daddy was really good with him, keeping him safe and not splashing or doing anything he didn't like. I think a few more trips like this and we might be able to get him signed up for swim lessons again - WOOT!

We have GRASS! My little patch of seed has finally started to grow - yea! So I went ahead and added some rock border and planted a few shrubs around my Maple to fill in the corner. When we get back from Canada, I'll seed the other mulched area as well and move that extra mulch to around these shrubs to tidy it up.

The fence builder is here today putting in a side gate and fence topper to make the corner safe for the kids (I'll post pics when he is done). Next month I think we'll have him come back to stain the whole schlebang for us (but for a thousand bucks we are holding off on it for now). Speaking of crazy money, the bid for moving the fence to the top of the retaining wall came in at five thousand dollars - insane! I could have moved the dang retaining wall for that! Now that I've committed to keeping the fence in it's place and the retaining wall the way it is, I just need to put some bumpers behind the ladder and rock climbing wall in order to make the playset a little safer in case of falls, then I think I'll be able to relax a little more when the kids are out there playing.

Fatman Is TWO - RoarrrRRRRRR

2011-06-15T09:48:00.000-07:00

Mr. Sandman....

2011-06-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

We are diggin' (pun intended) the new sandboxes. It was quite a bit of work for mommy digging out all the stupid paving sand that the landscapers filled my sandboxes with and taking out the drainage fabric and replacing it, but in the end it was worth it as the kids are really having fun in them.

I even think having two sandboxes was a good idea as you can see how crowded it is with all of us in one - and to think the playset salesperson questioned me on it!

Baby isn't always sure he likes the sand.... digging is cool, but getting it all over you and having it stick when it's wet is kind of annoying.

Victoria building Mt. Sand-ear (like Rainier). This second sandbox was definitely worth the wait!

From this pic you can see the wood chipping all around the playset and the bumpers on the deck posts and you can even see little old me behind the blue slide hanging out in the sandbox with the kiddos. It's really nice having a shady spot to go and dig around when it starts getting hot (it hit 70!!!).

The backyard is getting there slowly - I have seeded some of the mulched areas with grass seed and will likely work a little more on putting in some shrubs etc, but nothing big or expensive and certainly something I can take my time working on. I'm also still waiting to hear back from multiple fence guys about moving the fence and/or building up the corner so nobody plummets six feet onto the sidewalk below. I can't believe how flaky these guys are - I've basically had to chase them down and been stood up several times! I think I might just have to go ahead and build something my damn self, I can't believe it's that difficult since several of the men I've met with clearly aren't Rhodes Scholars.

Kindergarten Music Concert

2011-06-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately the spot I was standing in was on the same side of the stage that V was standing on so she was blocked a lot by the wings while they were doing their little rhymes. It was actually a pretty impressive little concert - about 40 minutes long and all the kids sang, did a little dance or speaking part and played a musical instrument. I am going to try my hand at iMovie this afternoon and see if I can clip and post the video of of the song where she gets to play the xylophone too.

Note - I love how she plays twirling out her dress at the end!

A Birthday at The Zoo

2011-06-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Jonathan feeding a giraffe at the Woodland Park Zoo on Sunday. It's a really cool feature of their giraffe exhibit that twice a day for about an hour each you can get in line and hand feed the animals. We didn't think we'd do it at first expecting the line to be huge, but they only had to wait about five minutes. Victoria was a bit scared of them when she got up close (they are REALLY big, even the baby one), but Jonathan LOVED it. He kept going back for more leaves to go again, probably taking more turns than he should have.

Victoria and Jonathan are so much more protective of Greyson than thier own brother. When he was down walking on his own, they held his hand and helped him stay with the group. It was pretty cool to see what good big brother and big sister they CAN be if they feel like it!

Watching the elephants play with a really BIG cement ball - they had a display one out in the viewing area so you could see how heavy it was and none of us could budge it. It's used it to show how strong they are with their trunks - something like 200+ muscles in the trunk. Jonathan loved the elephants almost as much as the giraffes. V was a bigger fan of the kitties - she really liked the jaguar - he was a pretty fella but alas got no pics of him.

All in all it was a pretty great morning out at the zoo - a very fun zoo. We finished up with a little lunch (surprisingly good for zoo grill food) and ice creams and by then the kiddos were TIRED and ready for their naps so we said a fond adieu to Monte and Mel and happy second birthday to Greyson and we all drove home.

Almost there....

2011-06-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

Our landscapers are coming tomorrow morning to finish up the drainage tile and to add woodchips to the playarea of the yard - woot!!! I also have a couple of bids coming in this week on what to do with the fence - as you can see Cman is almost tall enough to get over it here at the corner. So we are either going to add an extension to it or more likely move the fence to the top of the retaining wall. While we are at it, we'll stain it and have them put in a second gate so that the neighbors and work people have easier access to the backyard. It's ALLLLLMMMOOOOOOOOOOSSST DONE!!!! Yippeeee!!!

Flowers

2011-05-29T18:26:00.000-07:00

Our "pink" rodies are finally starting to bloom..... ahhhh

I think I might like the purple better than pink, but we won't tell V that. ;o)

I got in the mood to plant some flowers today probably because the rodies were coming out and because I needed a little pick me up and zen time alone planting.

How can you not smile when you see such happy little flower pots???

Building, Building, Built

2011-05-25T15:34:00.001-07:00

Uncle Benny and Neighbor Tom working to get up the 7 foot tower on friday afternoon.

Putting on the 5 foot tower floor.

The kiddos trying it out when it was all done on Saturday afternoon. (I didn't get many pictures of Monte, Ben and Dave building on Saturday as I was inside with Mel and the kids all day)

We named her in honor of the end of times.... which seems to have passed us by.

She is pretty impressive.

Voila!

Swingset Unloaded - Booyah!!!

2011-05-19T11:13:00.000-07:00

I gotta say the damn swingbeam was almost more than I could lift, but I did it with only a minimum of immediate back spasms.

Birthday Celebration!!!

2011-05-18T15:46:00.000-07:00

Mommy accidentally ordered a slightly bigger cake than we needed, turns out a 1/4 sheet is more than enough! It was super cool though, with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker action figures with lightsabers that actually light up dueling on the top. Jonathan chose chocolate cake (of course) with bavarian custard filling and it was pretty good.

It was awesome having Great Aunt Kathy, Grandma and Grandpa there to help us sing and celebrate too - definitely made his birthday so much more fun.

Jonathan was quite the little snugglebug with his visitors too.

Red Marvin Dessert

2011-05-10T17:03:00.000-07:00

I decided to post this video rather than the one where the waitstaff sang Happy Birthday to Jonathan for two reasons. First, Daddy was in the bathroom for the singing and missed it and second because Jonathan didn't like the singing - it was too loud. Oh well.... this video is cute anyway, it shows the aftermath of the giant mud pie dessert that Jonathan wanted and that he absolutely TORE into.

4 Years Young

2011-05-10T16:50:00.001-07:00

Jonathan's four year old pictures came in today - I'm taking orders for which pose you want a copy of and sizes - get um while they're hot!!!

Mother's Day Celebrations - My first attempt at a french braid

2011-05-10T10:43:00.001-07:00

I got to attend two programs for moms on Friday - the first was Moms and Muffins at V's kindergarten class where we got to eat a snack with the kiddos and then they sang for us and presented us with a ceramic bowl and book they made. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera out during the program so no pics :o( But here is a pic of the very fun bowl V made for me.

Then it was off to Jonathan's preschool class where the kids had cut up fresh fruit for us for a snack that they served to us. It was very sweet. Jonathan was super proud of himself.

Jonathan's class singing for us moms! Oh I'm picking up my baby bumble bee....

Jonathan presented me with a beautiful card he made and a marigold seedling he planted (which Ulrich promptly ate when we got home).

After swimming lessons on Saturday I attempted to french brain Victoria's hair. It's definitely not my best work, but as she learns to hold still better, her hair gets longer and less tangled from pool water and I get more practice, I think they'll look pretty good!

Teacher Appreciation Week

2011-05-06T16:39:00.001-07:00

Impressed Ms. Andrews???? You should be!!!! BOOYAH!!!! (This was a total pain in the ass to make in case you can't tell).

Cougar Mountain Hike This Morning

2011-05-04T15:55:00.000-07:00

Cman and I took advantage of the gorgeous day and the fact that the older kids were at school to try a trail hike up to Cougar Mountain Park. This little "Boulder Grove" bench is about half way up to the top of the Terrace Trail, which is only about 3/4 of a mile long and begins just three streets away (behind the park at the top of hill for those of you that know our neighborhood). Turned out to be really pretty forested walk and it was all uphill so Cman couldn't really get away from me. He got tired pretty fast and carrying a 30lb dead weight made the hike a little more challenging for me. On the way back down my legs were definitely feeling a little rubbery.
"Good morning ladies and gentlemen, our lecture series will begin with...." I don't know why this face just cracks me up, but it does.

Most parts of the trail were totally cool for him to walk along (of course I held his hand about 90% of the time anyway, but I COULD have let him walk independently like this a lot if I had wanted to).

I think he enjoyed himself. By far his favorite part was pointing out the trees, ferns and slugs all along the trail.

Random Pics

2011-05-01T07:53:00.000-07:00

Daddy is on call again this weekend, this time he pulled the late shift on Saturday and the early shift on Sunday, which translates into about 8 hours between the two very demanding work days. It's been a really rough one, but he should be home at around 4pm and then can relax. I had great luck again with dropping Christopher and Jonathan off at the nursery at the Y for Victoria's swim lessons, in fact Jonathan even got to go play in the big kids section where he made a friend and played Tron. He was very upset when he had to leave.

A little dress up is always fun. Jonathan is practicing his best Judge Dred "I AM THE LAWWWWW" and Cman is doing his impersonation of aviator Snoopy.

Some Random Easter Pics

2011-04-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

When Daddy got up he started in on the candy feeding and everyone loved it. I was pretty proud of myself that after the egg hunt, I managed to get them fed a whole breakfast of scrambled eggs and wheat toast and fruit before Dave got up. Christopher is seen here sporting the classic blue lips from Robin's eggs.

The solid chocolate Dove bunnies might have been a mistake. Everyone looked a little sick after them and nobody even came close to finishing them.

Jonathan's sunrise egg.

Victoria's initials egg.

Everyone getting a little fed up with how long it was taking to get dye on the eggs. Trick for next year is to use pure vinegar instead of mixing with water (ie don't follow the directions on the box). Dave of course knew this trick already (he was playing one of his online games when I was getting it all set up) so he was a little irritated that it was taking a while. At least this year I managed to talk Dave out of hiding the dyed eggs in the backyard - it ended up being a really gross mess last year.

More Chocolate Baby???

2011-04-24T10:23:00.000-07:00

A Shrubbery (or 8)

2011-04-18T17:10:00.000-07:00

We also had a little bit of work done on the front and side of the house as well.

My new Boulevard Cypress or as we call him the "Dr. Seuss tree" on the corner. The landscaper thought maybe our previous tree "The Twig" didn't do so well here because he needed more shoring up so he put another boulder in. In the next picture, he put an additional boulder and new twig tree in the middle of the front. They also put a lot of those little round grass shrub mound things all over as well.

Before was VERY VERY bare down this side of the house....

and after has a little more fill in. I expect these rodies to be very pretty soon - Victoria insisted on PINK! I'll post pics when they are in bloom.

A nice little row with a tree part the way up.

This little gap between the fence and the sidewalk had mulch in it, but was always washing down the street (or being blown down the street by the guys with leaf blowers after they got done cutting the grass), now its a zero maintenance rock bed. Nothing exciting, but it's tidy now.

Oh yeah and they mulched all the other beds too. It's looking so spiffy!

Just Need A Swing Set....

2011-04-18T17:00:00.001-07:00

When he sprouts some leaves he's gonna be awesome!

So this is pretty much it for the grass side of the yard (except for them finishing that black pipe thingy). I might go ahead and plant something green around the edges here or maybe grass it all the way to the wall and fence, but for right now I'm just happy having a tree and a boulder. As Donkey says in Shrek "That is a really nice boulder."

The swing set side is just waiting for us to assemble the set and then the landscapers will come back and dig the remaining draining systems and cover it all with wood chips and then voila it will be fini!!!
The edge between the grass and where the wood chips will be is divided using a border timber so that the wood chips remain as much as possible on the play set side.

We have MUD

2011-04-15T18:18:00.001-07:00

I'm actually a little surprised at how high the wall had ended up being - might have to consider adding to the fence a little as the kids can easily throw a leg over it now....

In that little hilly corner we are having a Japanese Maple planted behind the big rock and then grass will be extended to the fence and to the retaining wall, everything from the mud grass dividing line all around the deck will be wood chips for the playset.

So it begins...

2011-04-15T07:41:00.000-07:00

This is one of my before pictures, it's a little hard to tell from me taking the picture as an aerial view from the deck, but the mulched part from the grass to the fence drops off very steeply. When we decided to do a swingset we realized that keeping this slope would mean that kids were constantly rolling down into the fence (splinters etc. = not cool). Step 1 is leveling the backyard by building a retaining wall all around the inside of the fence. The landscapers say that it will actually give us about 50% more usable space in the yard - which with a yard as small as ours is a big deal!

Jonathan and V have been pretty excited for the whole thing - especially watching them unload the mini-excavator. Jonathan wouldn't leave the windows all morning yesterday while it was digging.

Even kitty was getting into it.

Here you can see the start of the wall itself. It started raining in the afternoon pretty hard so the guys knocked off at 3. Little did I know that would mean that they would start today at 6:30AM - my neighbors are gonna HATE us!!! Even Jonathan wobbled into our room going "what is all the banging???". Just when you think the construction noise is gone from your neighborhood..... someone decides on a big home improvement project. I'm contemplating dropping off some bottles of wine around the neighborhood as apology.

The swingset odyssey that has been months in the making thus commences... will post more pics as it progresses!

Easter Bunny Bok Bok

2011-04-11T17:41:00.000-07:00

Stopped by the Factoria Mall today and the poor ole Easter Bunny looked bored and lonely so we got our picture taken with him. Funny - this time it was Jonathan who was scared of him (as you can see he wouldn't sit anywhere near him). Only the promise of candy afterward got Jonathan to sit down. Christopher, the kid who screamed bloody murder in Santa's chalet four months ago, went straight up to the Easter Bunny and sat right down on his lap like he's known him for years!!! Guess it just depends on the kid's mood on the day.

A Long TIme Ago, In A Galaxy Not Too Far Away....

2011-04-06T11:37:00.000-07:00

We started out Spring Break right by taking a pilgrimage up to the Pacific Science Center for opening week of the Star Wars exhibit on Monday. It was pretty crowded, but they did a good job of admitting just the right number of people so that you could get to see everything. I was pretty impressed at their integration of science and technology in the exhibit. Plus they had a build and test your own robot section that would have been great for kids a few years older than ours. We took a lot of pictures as you can imagine, here are just some of my favorites, the rest will be uploaded to flicker at the end of the month as per usual.

Jonathan wanted to know what Darth had to say.

Victoria and the scary snow beast - he was looking a little worn, but I guess he IS 30yrs old.

I managed to catch Dave behind the Millenium Falcon in this pic - pretty cool. The models were by far my favorite part. With the new computer generated animation it's easy forget that these were all done with these relatively teeny tiny models.

Chewbacca and Han - an odd note is that they actually had Han's costume posed in kind of a sissy position like he was kinda bent over with his knees together - strange...

Our favorite droids.

All of us making the X-wing sign next to the real deal.

My little Yodaman next to Yoda - the ears are a dead ringer. We learned that they modeled Yoda's eyes after Einstein. He does look a little Einsteiny doesn't he???

Finally at the end we signed up for the Millenium Falcon Experience where they mixed in some good space science with a little Star Wars by floating us through the universe in the cockpit of the Millenium Falcon (we got to shoot at the odd tie fighter as we explored). We saw lots of spiral galaxies and even got to see the remnants of energy from the big bang - woot!

Cman handled it all without much fuss, which was surprising because it was very loud and the set bumped and moved like the MF did in Star Wars.

It all looked so much more realistic in the movies... not that I am complaining - it was still very cool.

We capped off our Star Wars adventure by watching the movie Fanboys when the kids were in bed - a fitting geeky end to a very Force-filled day.

Fishy

2011-04-02T13:22:00.001-07:00

We started our second session of swim lessons at the YMCA this morning. There were only three kids in Victoria's class and two instructors so she got a lot of practice and did very well.

Here she is practicing her kicking back to the wall using a floatie. She has no problem keeping her face in the water. In fact for some reason she just loves it. She is constantly bobbing even when she isn't supposed to be!!!! It gives me fits because sometimes when she goes all the way down to push up from the bottom she isn't even close to the wall and has to flail a little to get there.

Here she is getting a good bounce up to go down.....

Her backfloat needs a little work.

She digs her snorkel-type goggles too.

It's a really neat facility at the Y - can't wait until we are allowed to try the slide!!! Since Dave is on at the hospital today, I had to haul all three kids to the Y for V's lesson and drop the boys at the nursery. I was a little bit nervous that this wouldn't work out very well (ie someone having a meltdown or something), but it was awesome. They have three sections, one for babies, one for toddlers up to 3yrs that is a lot like our playroom at home - lots of toys and books, and then one for 3-10yrs that has a big tunnel apparatus that the kids love and an arts and crafts table. Since I had never left Christopher anywhere before, I decided to put both boys in the toddler area much to Jonathan's irritation (he really wanted to play in the tunnels) and they did great. Christopher didn't even cry!!! When I came back to pick them up I was expecting them to say that my pager was broken and that they had been trying to get us for an hour!!! But I was pleasantly surprised to see both boys playing and happy and the caregivers said he "didn't even cry one tear". Wow!!!

Waking Up A Daddy

2011-03-31T10:43:00.000-07:00

Jdawg Be Defyin' De Expectations

2011-03-30T13:23:00.001-07:00

Jonathan's parent teacher conferences went really well on Monday. I was pretty surprised they were so detailed in their evaluation at this age. They gave me a full report card covering social/emotional, reading, math and behavioral areas and samples of his art work and the "tests" that they do to assess his levels in math etc. I am thrilled to say that he was doing really well in all areas. The only area for improvement was his writing as he hasn't quite mastered writing letters or his name just yet. The teachers said that it was more because he really isn't interested yet and not so much that he isn't capable and that was pretty standard for boys at this age.

Typical of me, after I got their evaluation of him and comments, I had to ask a few "compared with his peers" type questions. Surprisingly the YMCA hadn't told his teachers about his medical history, so I gave them a rundown of it and told them that we like to keep a pretty watchful eye on his progress to see if any delays are presenting themselves. They were both pretty surprised to hear about it and said that they thought he was for sure keeping up with his classmates and actually above average in their opinion. WOOT!!! Then I asked specifically about whether they would recommend him for a speech evaluation and again they said he was pretty typical for this age group and that they didn't see any reason to get an evaluation done. I could of course always have one done, but they wouldn't have brought it up to me as something they thought was necessary. Double WOOT!!!

Oh That's Better.....

2011-03-27T15:30:00.000-07:00

Couldn't stand looking at that crappy picture anymore!!! We got our second kindergarten report card this week and V is doing great - she still needs to work on the same two areas that she needed to improve last time, but the fact that she didn't go down was actually pretty great. I guess they got a lot tougher with the grading this semester and most kids got dinged in areas that they were doing ok in last time. So staying the same level means that she is working a lot harder overall - woot! I have Jonathan's parent-teacher conferences tomorrow morning - keeping fingers crossed for those.

Crappy School Picture of V

2011-03-25T11:06:00.000-07:00

ENJOY!!!

Car Trouble

2011-03-19T10:28:00.000-07:00

Cman had a spot of car trouble yesterday and I just had to get a few pics of him "working" under his car to fix it (transmission???). He is feeling a lot better and his blisters look tremendously better. It really is pretty amazing how fast they heal. Only trouble is that I think they are starting to itch a bit as occasionally he works his bandages around and then screams. Hopefully he will only need to have his hands wrapped for another day or two.

On a side note, I am not sure what color to call his eyes and thought I would post the above pic and see what other people think?

Leprechauns and Creme Brulee

2011-03-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

Daddy decided to initiate a St. Patrick's Day art project last night - WOOT!!! Go Daddy!!!! He helped Victoria and Jonathan design, decorate and build a Leprechaun Trap. In this picture (above) from this morning Jonathan and Victoria are checking the trap to see if we caught any. Victoria is holding a little bag of gold coins (chocolates) that the Leprechaun who stayed the night in her trap left as payment for the innkeeper for their hospitality. Alas they were a little too nimble and managed to get away.

Here they are putting the finishing touches on it last night.

The back reads "Come In To The House Leprechaun" and shamrocks adorn the walls.

Pictures of friends as well.... to make it seem like a fun place to hang out.

The update on Christopher's appointment today is that his burns look MUCH better. The waterlogged looking skin around his blisters on his palm that the doc was concerned about is looking just like normal skin today when we took his mitts off. So she debrided (cleaned off) a little bit more skin and wrapped him up like a boxer again. We can take those bandages off on Saturday and likely will have to rewrap them to keep them clean until a layer of skin is formed over the really raw part that was under the blister. We are all pretty relieved.... so let the bad jokes begin.

A friend of mine went to Morocco last year and the locals told her they have a saying that children are the sugar of life. So if kids are the sugar, then does that mean when I burnt Christopher that I made Creme Brulee??? Ba-dum bum - cheet.

Chris-py

2011-03-16T14:06:00.001-07:00

Poor little Cman had a rough weekend. We went up to Mukilteo to see some friends in town and we were hanging out in their hotel lobby that had a glass front fireplace (with no safety grating and a hazardous 1 inch lift between the stone and the carpet surrounding it). Christopher was really good about staying away from it - he even pointed at it and called it "hot" so I was pretty happy, but I still stayed standing in front of it because the kids were running around and he was following them. Then he tripped on that one inch stone lip as he was running by and in his attempt to catch himself, he put both his palms on the front of the fireplace and burned his hands. I grabbed him off it immediately before he even went down on his knees, but within about an hour he developed a couple of blisters, so we cut our visit short and I took him over to the ER. They bandaged his little palms with some nitrate jelly stuff and he felt almost immediately better (you can see him konked out in the car on the ride home from the hospital above). The doc didn't think it was bad as none of the knuckles were involved and the blistering was on the pads and wasn't too severe. He said that we should follow up with our pediatrician in a day or two.

So today I took him in and they changed his bandages and removed the dead skin (debriding), which was awful to see, but he handled it like a champ. Dr. Robertson was very gentle and he only cried once. She is a little more concerned than the ER pediatrician was and has asked us to come back in tomorrow for another check and rebandaging. She said that if it looks like the dead skin has progressed that she will send us over to Harborview's burn unit for a consult. Harborview Hospital is Seattle's biggest trauma hospital and they specialize in treating burns. At first that really worried me, but in the end I realized I would rather be safe than sorry and the important thing is that he heals correctly so that there is no range of motion limitation. Dr. Robertson was also concerned that because the wound is on his hands that he could get an infection pretty easily, so she REALLLLLY went to town with the gauze as you can see in the pictures of him playing in the playroom a few hours ago. His fingers are all completely covered up now and he is getting very frustrated trying to pick up toys and french fries. At least he has his thumbs free as I have no idea how he would get to sleep without having them to suck on.

Dancing Queens

2011-03-11T10:25:00.000-08:00

Uncle Alan Does Seattle

2011-03-09T16:59:00.001-08:00

I've been having some serious issues with Blogger editing. Long story short, I cant seem to put text in between the uploaded pictures anymore. Oh well. Above are some pics from Uncle Alan playing with the kids yesterday and our dinner out at Purple afterwards. We had a good time even though it was a pretty quick visit. He is just here for a work presentation for a couple days and then off home again.

Monte Does Seattle

2011-03-07T10:54:00.000-08:00

Since Monte is the only one in all three pics, I figured I'd name this post after him. We had a pretty killer weekend in Seattle seeing Greyson and his minions. We went to some of the more touristy sights this time like the Space Needle and the Pike Market (with drinks after at Lowell's of course). It was pretty exciting hitting the Pacific Science Center as they had a fantastic mock up of the interior of the Millenium Falcon for the Star Wars Exhibit (top pic) opening next week.... all the other parts to the exhibit were of course behind big black curtains. It's very exciting!!! It's gonna be hard to wait for Ben to come to town to go see it!!!

Smarticus Panticus

2011-03-03T15:07:00.000-08:00

Dave reminded me that I still hadn't posted that Victoria made it into the Hundreds Club two weeks ago AND she has had all greens for the last few weeks as well. Woot!!! Go Bunny!!!

Playa

2011-03-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

Jonathan got his first kiss at preschool!!!! He was walking out with his mother when Amalya (a classmate) was walking out with her father said "hi" to him. She came over to give him a hug, which was very sweet. He was a bit shy at first stepping back from her but then he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her back and just as his mommy was saying "awww how cute" and they were breaking their embrace, she grabbed him by the coat with both hands and planted a big smooch right on his lips! GASP!!! Mommy's mouth fell open - speechless! What a PLAYER!!!!

A Bucket of Awesome

2011-02-25T14:04:00.000-08:00

SnowPlay!!!!

2011-02-24T13:46:00.002-08:00

We woke up to around six inches of snow this morning and boy was it purdy!!! I'm pretty glad that I snapped this pic early because a lot of it has already melted from the trees (darn that sun coming out).

The kids were just ITCHING to get outside and play in it. Victoria couldn't wait to have a snowball fight with the twins from across the street after breakfast. Unfortunately they didn't make an appearance until we were about ready to go inside.

Jonathan sporting his sister's pink heart hat looked particularly dashing. He had tons of fun using a tree planting shovel to help me with the driveway.

I wasn't sure how my little Yetiman was going to like the snow this time as he has a tendency to fall in it a lot and get wet and cold. Last time he did a belly flop into a big drift and I think it scared him. So I really bundled him (kinda wishing I would have picked up some snow pants when they were 75% off at Fred Meyer last week!) and he had a ball.
Victoria made quite a few snowballs and hurled them ruthlessly against the side of the house. She got me with a few as well while I was shoveling.

Jonathan saw a bunch of water running into the drainage grate at the bottom of the hill and on a whim put his hands into the water - eeek! You could hear the screams for miles!!!! I think we were outside for about an hour and a half total and even though everyone was wet and cold, they all had a lot of fun and I managed to shovel the whole driveway, sidewalk and even part of our neighbors as well! Woot - go me!!!

Tennis Anyone?

2011-02-20T14:37:00.001-08:00

I finally remembered to take the camera with me to the tennis courts at the local high school yesterday and I snapped a couple of pics of Dave lobbing balls to the kids. This has become one of our favorite family activities when the weather permits - Jonathan is getting to the point now where he wakes up from his nap and says "I want to go play tennis" whenever daddy is home. Victoria isn't our most coordinated child but she managed to get her racquet on a few of the balls daddy hit to her and has been having fun with it. Our big thing for her is just keeping her eye on the ball all the way to her racquet and not running up to the ball so fast that it hits her body. Jonathan on the other hand managed to get his racquet on most of the balls hit at him. He even hit a couple actually back OVER the net at daddy - most impressive!!!! The biggest challenge for everyone was not hitting baby with a back swing as he was all over the court chasing the tennis balls. He narrowly managed to escape being hit by some passing shots too. Jonathan wasn't quite so lucky - mommy clocked him right between the eyes with one (although technically he ran in front of the ball when I was hitting it to daddy).

Victoria and Jonathan are also now signed up for swimming lessons on Saturdays in March (Jonathan is a PIKE and Victoria is a POLLIWOG) at the YMCA. They are both really excited to start ever since we went to the Y to check out the pool last week. I also let them pick out new swimsuits at Target (Jonathan got a Lightning McQueen one with a Star Wars beach towel and V got a rainbow swimsuit and a Rapunzel beach towel). They are in independent classes - so no mommy or daddy in the pool - keeping our fingers crossed on that one as J sometimes isn't the most wonderful listener.

Uncle Kunle's Storytime

2011-02-19T15:26:00.001-08:00

We took a trip to the Renton History Museum this morning to meet author Kunle Oguneye who wrote an African children's book based on some traditional oral folklore from his native Nigeria. He told the kids very fun stories about animals with moral lessons. Two were oral stories and he read us his book as well called Sikulu & Harambe by the Zambezi River. He is a very animated and fun storyteller and the kids were fascinated! He taught us a common East African song that children all over Africa learn in Swahili too - Jambo something....

Victoria got to play a shaker type instrument that looks like a material covered dumbell - the ends were seed filled tin cans. There were also drums and tamborines and a few other instruments too. Jonathan thought it was a bit loud when the "band" played, but liked singing along with the song - it was very catchy. Surprisingly Christopher had no problem paying attention for the 45 minutes - might have had something to do with me letting him hold the necklaces (see below).

The moral of the good samaritan story was that riches get dolled out to people who help others unselfishly and the riches that he handed out to the kids were some really cool necklaces that the kids got to wear.

The necklaces were obviously not something we could keep, we did however come home with an autographed copy of his book.

Go Hoyas!

2011-02-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

We were all dressed up today for the Georgetown game - Marquette gave them a run for their money but we still came out on top. Woot! Daddy has been at the hospital all weekend long on call so he missed out on all the fun - bummer, but he should be home soon - yea!!

I am happy to report that the chubby monster is feeling better and his nose has finally cleared up.

Miscellaneous

2011-02-10T11:07:00.000-08:00

We started up our nature class again last week. Jonathan had a difficult time not running ahead on the trail and I eventually had to put him in time out for it. The other kids were every bit as out of control though and their grandmas were not putting stops to it, so I don't feel so bad about it. He feeds off other kids a lot in group situations. So far we've been lucky to have sunny weather and in the 50s for the first two classes - perfect for hikes. The only downside is that the program seems to be very repetitive - this class we were working on seeds again - probably partially why Jonathan was getting bored and acting up. So this will likely be our last session.

The fatman's cold turned into a full on ear infection this weekend, so he is on a course of antibiotics and is finally feeling better, but everyone has been very snuggly the last few days.

So nice to see the chubbyman smiling again!

2011-02-04T14:47:00.001-08:00

2011-02-04T14:43:00.001-08:00

6 Months Old

2011-02-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

So a friend has been posting pics of her older child back when he was the same age as her baby recently and I think that is too much fun going back and seeing what they all looked like at six months old, so here are a few pictures of my trio at that age. Can you tell who is who grandparents????

Giggles

2011-02-02T10:47:00.000-08:00

While Jonathan and I were at his nature class yesterday Daddy and Cman were having a little fun on their own with the video camera.

6yr Old Victoria and 18mo Old Christopher

2011-01-29T12:49:00.000-08:00

We had Christopher's 18 month pics done before GrandmaAnn left town and they came in today. He is so easy to make smile!

Victoria on the other hand is getting so hard to photograph these days - she can't help but pull faces or wiggle out of position at every turn. The photographer was so fabulous though that he managed to get a not too bad one - what a trooper!

F@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@CKKKKKKKKKK!!!

2011-01-25T09:13:00.001-08:00

I'm officially going to quit judging stupid people who do stupid things that endanger their kids because I can no longer say that we are better than that. Yes, we are probably still more paranoid than the average parents, but we are still capable of being COMPLETELY FRIGGIN STUPID. Dave and I in combination did something(s) stupid that lead us to the ER last night with Jonathan drinking activated charcoal.

So here goes, I started buying children's ibuprofen and tylenol in the 4oz bottles just recently (yes I was still giving Victoria infants drops at 5 years old) and normally the bottles are kept on a top shelf in the bathroom where the kids can't get to them. Victoria spiked a pretty high fever yesterday after school so Dave brought both down to the kitchen to do the double dosing to bring it down and he put them on the kitchen counter (mistake number 1) so that we could dose her again before bed. After dinner Dave took baby up to put him to bed and I took Jonathan to use the potty (a nice BIG poo poo). As I was cleaning out the potty with disinfectant wipes, he grabbed a chair to pull up to the kitchen counter to dig through the potty presents bowl to pick out a matchbox car. Unfortunately the tylenol and ibuprofen bottles were sitting right there next to the potty presents bin (mistake number 2) and for some reason the tops of both bottles had not been closed securely (mistake number 3). With those child proof tops you really have to twist them a few extra rounds to get them to click so you know they are locked, but we aren't used to using the children's bottles because we only just switched from infants drops. So as I am taking the sixty seconds to clean the potty I let him "dig through the potty presents bin," which of course is NOT what he was doing (mistake 4). He grabs the bottle and slugs down a couple of ounces. Then we were off to the ER. AHHHHHHH!!!!!!

I was actually pretty impressed that he managed to drink this stuff without fighting me very much at all. They gave him a Sprite as a chaser - like a treat - and he said he would rather drink the black stuff because he didn't like the bubbles. We may not have a soda drinker on our hands - woot!!!
Showing off his black tongue.

Showing off his "black and nasty" teeth. I am happy to report that he is feeling fine this morning... but activated charcoal does cause diarrhea so we'll be testing the potty training today probably.

The Children's Museum

2011-01-24T14:48:00.000-08:00

I somehow didn't get finished posting the story of going to the Children's Museum - see next posting for details of why - but on Sunday morning we got to meet Erin, Maria, Teo and their new baby Ciernan up at Seattle Center and I managed to get a couple of pictures.

I have never been to such a big children's museum before, it was absolutely huge! So many rooms and I barely even got to see half of it. This one below is made for engineers, you can build forts with these wood posts and bolts and big wing nuts. I think it might have been a little old for most of the target audience as about half an hour into the projects it was ALL dads in there finishing up the forts and the kids had moved on to other areas.

V, Jonathan and Teo chilling after the museum up in Seattle Center food court.

The crew eatin' - note baby Ciernan on Maria's back - very cool backpack thing they have there!

Kinected - New Chair - Greens - New Shoes

2011-01-22T09:56:00.000-08:00

Dave decided that we "needed" a Kinect for the Xbox.... well that we actually "needed" a whole new Xbox and Kinect bundle for the upstairs. I'm so glad that I have him to let me know when we are in need. Poor guy has had to do most of the games holding onto a 23+ pound dead weight the whole time. He ends up pretty out of breath with the jumping, but Christopher LOVES it - he squeals with delight whenever Dave has to jump.

Victoria and Jonathan have actually done pretty well with it as well. I thought they would be bored of it pretty fast, be unable to work the controls or decide that it was too much work, but they are really enjoying it. I am loving the fact that they can get totally worn out on rainy days too ;o) Guess my husband was right that we really did "NEED" a Kinect!

Jonathan's room got a little splash of color this week from a new red mini-mitt chair after his old corduroy one finally bit the dust. He loves it and so do I, so we did a little photo shoot of it when we put it in (such a ham for the camera). The red is perfect for his room.

Victoria got all greens again this week, so this afternoon we are going to take her and Jonathan to see Tangled as a reward. It's her second time seeing it but we REALLY didn't want to see Yogi Bear after the previews and that is the only other kids movie out right now.

Mommy got herself some stylin' new suede shoes and had to take a picture of them when we were waiting in line at the movie theater - this blog ain't ALL about the kids after all - booyah!!!

Greens N' HoHos

2011-01-16T13:38:00.000-08:00

Yes, tis' that time of year again..... time to bring up our most sacred and wonderful holiday tradition - The Passing Of The HoHos. I know everyone looks forward to this special time, to pass on the holy HoHos to the next lucky family (victims) to display for a full calendar year. This year our theme was in keeping with the Halloween costumes we had and used as our Christmas card picture - The Incredibles final scene where the family battles the giant robot controlled by Syndrome. The HoHos are encased inside the "Omnitron" robot (a full-sized basketball) that has been painted and drilled to insert legs. (Keeping fingers crossed that David didn't drill the box when he was attaching the legs)

I'm not gonna lie, we did a pretty bang up job here. The HoHos will arrive in Durango in style... feel free if you are in Durango to steal them as in keeping with the traditions of the HoHos.

I am very pleased to report that Victoria managed to get all greens all week, despite the fact that GrandmaAnn left town, so I took her to see Sleeping Beauty and she had a really fantastic time. She said that she plans on getting all greens forever so she can keep going back. Sounds like a plan to me!
Victoria is also doing really well working on the Hundreds Club - basically it's a competition where every week the kids start writing numbers with the first week being one through ten, then the second week if they did the first set perfectly, then they do one through 20 etc. up until the final week they go from one all the way up to one hundred. The catch is ZERO errors, if the kid messes up a number, they are stuck having to repeat that set the next week. So far we have made it from one to thirty with zero errors - she is at the head of the class. Woot!!!

Dancing Queens

2011-01-10T19:14:00.000-08:00

Victoria got a green at school today and seems to be much more her usual self - keeping fingers crossed that the back to school adjustment time period is over - woot! I promised to take her to see Sleeping Beauty this weekend if she gets greens all week long and she really wants to go. I am also pleased to report that Cman has actually started calling GrandmaAnn "GaaaMaw" and has gone back to calling me "Mommy" instead of "DaaaDeee".

Jonathan had a fantastic time at Sleeping Beauty on Sunday afternoon and he did so much better than I expected. The theatre said that the show was aimed at grade schoolers and it ran for 90 minutes, so I expected that Jonathan would start to lose it about half way through from boredom and that they would have to leave early, but he didn't! I also expected that he (like his sister) might be tempted to talk and ask questions the whole time, but he didn't. (He only spoke out loud once when he said he "didn't want the dragon to go away" when he left the stage - the dragon was by far his most favorite character). I was shocked that he stayed and watched the whole play AND behaved - unlike some kids much older than he is - huge surprise! He was even brave enough to go down in the front without Dave to sit with all the other big kids. He did come back to sit on Daddy's lap when a scary part came up, but after it was over, he went right back. At the end the entire cast went out into the lobby in character and the kids could go up and say Hi and he ran right up to Griff (the dragon) and Sleeping Beauty and gave them both big hugs. It was very cute.

A Rough One

2011-01-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

We started off the week with saying goodbye to GrandpaJim and getting a yellow card at school for Victoria on her first day back (Monday). Apparently her stomach bug combined with all the birthday festivities - including seeing Return of the Jedi, her party and her actual birthday on Wednesday had her a little less than stellar behaviorally at school. She just didn't seem to be able to get her act together and we had to take the drastic measure of taking away her trip to the children's theatre tomorrow to see Sleeping Beauty with GrandmaAnn as a punishment. She was hysterical, but she understands that this is all tied to her not following directions and being uncooperative at school. I am happy to report that she rounded out the week with green, but I anticipate that she will be very upset tomorrow when we take Jonathan to see Sleeping Beauty and leave her at home.

Dave was on call on Wednesday for her actual birthday, so we did her present opening when she got home from school while the boys were napping. Later we went to Baskin Robbins for ice cream (after her traumatic blood draw at the doctor's office). I am happy to report all her liver function tests came back normal. We do have an ultrasound scheduled for Wednesday of next week just to make sure that she is ok.

Victoria got a game called Don't Break The Ice for her birthday and this is a picture of everyone playing it. The object is to knock out one of the ice squares without the ice skater guy falling through. Jonathan might be a little young as when it is his turn instead of doing light taps to take down just one square, he wails on it because he likes the crashing. He likes to say that he won when he takes out the skater.... perhaps in his mind he has won since that is what he wants to do. Does make playing the game a little hard with him though. Another game that seems to be a big hit with all the kids is Trouble, poor GrandmaAnn has to play about four hours of it a day!!! Keeping our fingers crossed for a less difficult week next week.

3-2-1 Bounce Birthday Party

2011-01-03T10:27:00.000-08:00

Victoria decided that she wanted to do her sixth birthday party at 3-2-1 Bounce. It was kind of set up at the last minute as I was planning on doing it on the 8th, but Dave ended up switching a call day with another doc, so we scrambled to change the date and ended up having it yesterday - the last day of Christmas break. Turned out to be the best timing because everyone was tired of having the kids home for two weeks, so we had a really good turn out - only about five kids from her class didn't attend (we missed a few in the picture though - they might have been stuck in the maze).

For those unfamiliar with 3-2-1 Bounce, it is a giant warehouse filled with these inflatable obstacle courses and bouncy castles and slides etc. The typical birthday party lets the kids play for an hour to an hour and a half and then you have pizza and cake in one of the party rooms afterward. It's really perfect for this age as the kids don't get bored being directed at set activities, they can play on what they want and how they want. Then when they are all tired out, you feed um and send um home.

The Princess cake was a real surprise - white with bavarian cream filling and a buttercream frosting and it was EXCEPTIONAL. I was thinking of a typical grocery store bakery cake, but this was really an amazing cake. Mommy hasn't been able to keep her hands off it.

Random Christmas Pictures

2010-12-29T16:27:00.000-08:00

Gman and Cman sharing a snack....

Watching the trains at the Seattle Center - Christmas Eve.

Victoria and the boys.

Christmas morning carnage.

The tree BEFORE carnage began.

The table pre-food.

18 Months Young

2010-12-28T12:24:00.000-08:00

We had a fabulous 18 Month Old check-up at the doctor's office. Christopher is 23 pounds (7th percentile) 33 inches long (75th percentile) and has a 95% head circumference (of course). He is another orange on a toothpick, but at this point we kind of figure it's normal for our kids. He is hitting all his developmental targets and was even in a cooperative enough mood to do the things we asked of him and "show off" for the doctor by pointing to his nose and belly button and point to fish on the wall and do some animal noises (something he almost NEVER does - he objects strenuously to requests for him to perform for strangers usually). He took his shots well with only about 30 seconds of screaming and a "MOMMMMMMMYYYYYY" shout, which was nice to hear because it's all been DADDYs and Grandmas for the last month (pronounced DooDahhee - like daddy with an extra syllable.... don't ask, I donno why that seems right for grandma either, but he uses it constantly and points to her when he says it).

In other news, mommy got her stitches out, Victoria's birthday party is scheduled for Sunday at 3-2-1 Bounce and she has about half her class RSVP'd yes to attend so it should be awesome, and Jonathan continues to be a friend to the potty - woot!

Hair, Skin and an iMac

2010-12-21T13:16:00.000-08:00

It's been a pretty crazy few weeks with GrandmaAnn in town. My graphics card blew out on the laptop and unfortunately it wasn't possible to just replace it so while I was at the Dermatologist's office getting cut up, Dave took the whole crew to the Apple store and bought me a surprise new iMac. It's got a huge screen and a very fun square magic trackpad thingy. Cool Christmas present for Mommy - Woot! So my apologies for not posting in a long time, but I am learning my way around a Mac again after being on PCs for the last ten plus years. I had particular difficulty with accessing my iphone pictures for this blog post - grrr. But as with all new systems, it will just take me time to get it all figured out.

Our hair is ALMOST long enough to go into a pony tail! We took V to see Tangled on Sunday and she was a huge fan - it was especially cool that she ended up a brunette in the end. We were silly and didn't think there would be enough in it to keep Jonathan interested, but we were totally wrong. I think we might have to go again and take him as I know that he would really enjoy it.

GrandpaJim arrived safely on Tuesday and everyone was pretty excited to see him. He keeps warning them that Santa is watching so if they want to get presents they need to behave - it even works sometimes! Mel, Monte and Greyson should arrive this afternoon to spend the holiday weekend with us and everyone is looking forward to Monte's famous buttermilk pancakes - mmmmm.

Good news keeps coming on all of our health stuff - both Dave and I had zero cavities at the dentist, kitties had a good checkup and got their shots and the pathology report on my moles came back that they got it all with clear margins and it was very small, so no more surgery for me - woot! I just wish I could turn back time and never set foot in a damn tanning bed!!!

Mommy's Christmas Came Early This Year

2010-12-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

So first picture is a literal Christmas present that Dave and I bought for ourselves. We had the cabinet guys come and build-in an entertainment center in the cut out in the family room wall. It really brings the room together nicely and makes watching TV so much easier because the TV is against a darker background now instead of that bright drywall. We are just waiting for the speaker fabric to be strung across the remaining cabinet doors on the left side (and the knobs), which should come tomorrow. Then I have to get busy finding stuff to put on the shelves. The guys were so hard up for work that they put some crown molding in my ceiling tray in the master bedroom as well in the same day (Grandma Ann has the honors of painting it for us). It looks so nice! My neighbor was pretty excited about how reasonable they were on the crown molding that he decided to have them do his whole main floor!

I just put this picture of baby with a battleaxe in because it was cute. Since we've been watching How To Train Your Dragon everyone has been obsessed with battleaxes and swords.

The REALLY big Christmas present was Jonathan's MRI this morning - his vents are identical to last year and haven't changed in over 18 months since his shunt removal surgery. WOOT!!! We are so incredibly lucky.

The final Christmas present this week was Victoria's visit to the opthamologist's office, she had flunked her eye test at school a few weeks ago, so we had her in for a check. She is seeing 20/25 and 20/40 uncorrected and has minimal scarring from her surgery with no pulling on the retina at all. Whew - what a relief!!!

Odds and Ends

2010-11-30T17:09:00.001-08:00

Jonathan has been hitting it out of the park lately with getting his poo poos in the potty. Strangely he even seems to be ENJOYING doing it and is very proud of his potty presents. Whatever phobia he was having seems to have gone away (please please please don't jinx it by putting this down!!! - fingers crossed, knock on wood and all things superstitious). I am afraid to ask him why he was so resistant to putting poo poos in the potty now that he seems to be fine with it, but I don't want to delve into something that is working for fear of messing it up!

Victoria got her first report card from school today and I am pleased to announce that she is meeting all expectations in all areas. Ms. Andrews did write a comment that she does need to work a little bit on perseverance (ie when a task is difficult to master she tends to get a little frustrated and is ready to quit), but other than that she has been doing well. I was kind of nervous about parent teacher conferences tomorrow, but am pretty relieved now since no behaviorial issues were raised. Whew!

We've just started giving Christopher time outs for pushing the boundaries on things - we waited until 2 for the other two kids I think. So far it's just been for big offenses like throwing toys (he hit baby Aiden with a car) and standing on the couches and refusing to get down when I ask him to. As you can see he is not a big fan.

Christmas Lights!!!

2010-11-22T12:42:00.000-08:00

They gay friendly Christmas lights are back on the house - woot!!! Neil did an awesome job again - they look really pretty.

I decided to try some of these little solar powered LED lights on my new trees and despite only charging for four hours in overcast weather, they charged enough to light up that night! They are really cool. I also have a net one on the little Japanese Maple tree by the small garage you can just barely see in the first picture....

And finally a back view of the lights that I hung on the deck (I also hung the ones around the front door too). Booyah!!! I am thinking of maybe some more of the solar ones for shrubs around the front and I'll be done!

Snow, Fun & Games

2010-11-22T12:34:00.000-08:00

First Snow!!!

2010-11-22T12:27:00.000-08:00

Things I Dig About Living In Seattle...

2010-11-18T22:18:00.000-08:00

When you get stopped at a railway crossing it's because it's a Boeing DreamLiner X-ing.... "Why Hello Mister Airplane!!!" - they do look funny without their wings don't they?

And sometimes when you go to the mall to do some Christmas shopping, you find out that Dave Matthews has decided to serenade you. He was there for the opening of Microsoft's new flagship store (two doors down from the apple store). In the first picture (above) I was standing behind a woman and didn't have the best view for snapping pics with my iphone - it looks like he is emerging with his guitar from her ear. In the picture below (after she moved out of my way) you can tell I was only about 30 feet away from him. I was standing on the second floor (in front of Pottery Barn for those who are familiar with the mall) looking down. He sounded really good and it felt like he was playing in my livingroom, but I only stayed for about half an hour (I promised Ashelee I wouldn't be late). It was very cool, especially since the last time I saw him live was at the stadium in Boulder where I actually paid for tickets, the sound quality was pretty rotten and you could barely make out that there were actually people on the stage.

It's so much fun to live in a city where you can just stumble onto cool stuff like this!!!

It's Begining To Look A Lot Like....

2010-11-18T22:08:00.000-08:00

I dig this inflatable Rudolph! Even though Dave said no Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, I had to put him up today. The thing is my landscaper is coming tomorrow to put up the lights on the house anyway, so may as well get it all done before the relatives come in on Saturday!!!

We also had some pretty hefty winds again today and I was a bit curious to see how well his tethers would hold him down.... so it was kind of a test.

As you can see, a little rocking back on his tent peg heels, but he has stayed put! Victoria was most impressed and asked me if we could have a few more Christmas inflatables. She has her eye on one of those massive Santa snowglobes.... I like them too but I don't think we have room..... we'll have to see.....

Cha Cha Cha Chia Garbage

2010-11-16T09:33:00.001-08:00

One of my hanging baskets came down in the wind storm we had yesterday (I'm guessing I probably needed to use bigger hooks), but they were pretty much shot anyway so I decided to go ahead and take them down and throw them away. Then as I was looking at my garbage can, I realized it looks like it has a Jerry Curl.... IT'S CHIA PET GARBAGE CAN!!!!

One Two Punch

2010-11-14T11:30:00.001-08:00

Yesterday was marker, this morning it was lipstick. Unfortunately as Dave and I were in bed fighting over who should have to get up with the kids, he didn't keep it confined to just putting it on himself. Note to self, he can climb up on my desk and reach my purse.... thankfully he didnt try any of the ibuprofen pills that were in there thinking they were candy. Whew!