I need to get the kids up really soon, but since (if you reference my weekly chart!) it's beach day, then I know it's possible that I may not have alot of time later. Plus, I have a ton of photos this week.
Kevin plays soccer whenever and whereever. Even when he's on call. Because he's worked out a deal that if I come with him and hold his phone, I can flag him down when he gets a work call. So that leaves me at a soccer field when 2 hours to kill with the kids.
The fountain was inevitable.
In fact, I had always secretly wanted to jump in the one of many eBay campus fountains. But an adult can't just go jumping into corporate fountains. But little kids can! So after walking the perimeter of the soccer field, and angering ant hills, and pointing out birds and butterflies and drainage pipe accesses, I thought we'd hit the water. It was fun...and then Ransom fell in, and he was mad and we had to vacate. Him falling in was pretty funny because it was really shallow and he was just so mad about it.
Also, following the week chart, we had one on one Cricket sewing time. And here is what we made. A little quilt and matching pillow for her doll. She loves it, to my surprise and so does Ransom. He likes to situate the perfect placement of the 3 elements- doll, pillow and blanket and announce "nap" and then re-arrange and say "nap" and so on .
5 dollar days on Threadless.com! I finally got some t shirts from them (because they are usually way more pricey, and I am too cheap to pay more). Kevin got two too (by way of my choosing them). Even though the twohe actually wanted were sold out of his size. I wanted some that were sold out of my size too. Sad.
Kevin thought the walrus and the ice cream truck was dumb. But I like it! A giant walrus is blocking the road and the ice cream truck can't get by! It's funny. Oh, and as you see, I got it in orange. Because I am one of 17 people in America that will wear the color orange. The Gossamer one and the headhunter one, they are more to just look pretty. And the walrus and the skyscraper ones I got because I liked the concept.
I have noticed, especially since trying to keep my new "schedule" that if I sit down, all my momentum dies. But if I don't sit down, I think I may have a heart-attack. After all, I have to sit at some point.
This morning I got up, did my [cardio] walk, took a shower and made the kids breakfast that would fit in their laps on the way to MOPS (it starts early). Then on the way home from MOPS I went to Trader Joes and picked up some groceries, everything was smooth and productive-- And then Kid C had a tantrum because I told her to get out of the car through *her* door and not the front passenger door. I have no idea where she came up with the idea that she *should* get out any other way but out her door. But logic didn't matter, she melted down. So much so, that she's now in her room. And I thought I'd sit for a moment to collect my thoughts while she trips out-- and now I don't want to even get out of my chair to unload the groceries.
It's only 12:20, I might need some caffiene or something.
This is big for me. I have always hated regular schedules and daytimers and planners, etc.
But this morning, I saw that I have gained 5 lbs. And I said "that's it, I'm gonna pull it together! No more!!!"
So I made myself a chart on what I'm going to do everyday-- and then I made a huge one that just pertained to the kids and their days' activities. Kid C helped me make it, and she did pretty good for most of it, cooperating-wise, and then at the end she lost it and had to go in her room to calm down for a while.
And here it is, the giant kid chart of M-F every week. It's hanging in our kitchen for all to see!
There are no times on it, just morning, naptime, afternoon and night. I cut out cheezy clip art images so the kids could look and see for themselves.
Let's all pray that I can stick to it. And more importantly, may I stick to my schedule for myself. It involves getting up at a regular time every morning and walking the dogs for an hour. I think that will cut my 5 lbs off and cut down on the disgruntled dog peeing in the house.
Now, all I have to do now is figure out the way weekends are going to work and meal preparation, and possibly when I'm going to take a shower...in there somewhere...
Yeah I forgot all about Baby Tuesday until Kevin called me to tell me he was coming home a few minutes ago and reminded me.
This morning I tried to be productive and clean stuff and then we took a really long drive around the central coast area. 'Slipped my mind.
Here is Baby R at the park on Saturday. He was kinda sad and sluggish and I thought something must be up. And when we get home I put him in bed and he didn't want to sleep, which I also thought was weird. I finally got him out of bed and set him on my lap to see if he wanted something to eat and BARF!!! And it continued that way for the rest of the day. I had planned to go out with a friend, which I haven't done in months, but I couldn't leave him, so I didn't go. He actually got better right before bedtime, but I had already called my friend and canceled, so I just worked on work projects instead. Hot Saturday night :/ .
I took this photo today. Someone (hippies probably) built some little wigwams at the beach out of driftwood and the kids busied themselves in the huts for over an hour. If it wasn't for Kid C's serious I-refuse-to-pee-in-a-toilet-with-automatic-flush psychosis, then we could have played longer.
We had plenty of time so I drove up Hwy 1 from Capitola to Half Moon Bay instead of just driving up 17 (the direct route). Everytime I do that, I love the drive until I get about 3/4 through and then I'm like "just get me home!" Kid C didn't nap at all, which foiled my plan of a peaceful drive along the coast with my music. Baby R slept, but she was such a loud-mouth that he didn't sleep very much (nostril flare).
There are still a bunch of places along Hwy 1 that are left unexplored (by me at least). I haven't seen the molting elephant seals at Ano Nuevo and there are all kinds of little hidden camps and farms and stuff like that along that stretch of road. I like that area so much that I really wanted to get married at a church in Davenport, but apparently we would have had to show that we were Catholic. So-- that--- didn't happen. Moving on...
Kid C found a stash of little plastic barrettes and insisted I put them ALL in her hair at once. I negotiated her down to a little more than half of them, and this was the outcome.
Have you ever talked to someone that says "I think I look like ____ [celebrity" and you're thinking "uh yeah, right! no!" ?
I just realized I may be guilty of that.
Because I think I look like Lily Allen(okay, I look more like her here).
But then people have never said that about me-- people have said I look like Chloe from 24 and Judy Greer. Gee, thanks. I'm gonna go put a bag over my head now.
The next series is about 1 Corinthians 13, the one that you hear at lots of weddings:
This is the manlier design, the second one I made.
The is the first one I did, which is kind of feminine, but then the title is logically feminine and silly. So we had to get a new title.
Why can't it be feminine you ask? We have a shortage of Christian men on a global scale. And they scare easily. So you have to make it manly or men think church is a Jesus-sewing-circle or something like that. Irritating and sad but true.
But if I have learned anything from Battlestar Galactica, it's that women love religion.
I really love World Vision. I love everything about them. They are all over the globe, they help people in the name of Jesus, and they run their organization really well in every area...including their website. I wanted to see what their site looked like this month, and I'm clicking around-- click click click, and then I come across Emmanuel:
Could anyone turn Emmanuel down?! Look at him! (That's the same face Baby R makes when he says sorry to his sister for biting her.) Oh my gosh, his cuteness is killing me.
Nope, I simply couldn't click away. We're sponsoring him now.
Happy St. Patrick's Day. We're not Irish, but I give you my kids wearing green at the Oakland Zoo...
We drove all the way tot the East Bay to see elephants, the SF Zoo does not have them. Although they do have an empty building labeled "Pachyderms" from the 1930's.
And they put on a big show for us: #1 and #2, live in person! Oh, she does love a dromedary camel.
Seriously, she does.
Their friend Kid K turned had her birthday party on Saturday. Birthday party always put our parenting skills to the test, I tell ya.
Here, we have blogs crossing paths. The Appleby family was in town, and they brought their kids too. Their daughter also just wanted to play in the sandbox despite the jumphouse.
Those bug boxes were serious business to some of the kids, my Kid C included. They made sure they had the right number and throughout the afternoon kept checking to see where their box was and if someone had tampered with it.
"Who cares about the jump house, I have a sandbox to myself."
Kid C and Kid A searching for "bugs" on the plastic critter hunt.
There ended up being an acttal dead lizard that looked nearly identical to the rubber ones that were scattered throughout the yard. Thankfully a dad saw it first, and it didn't end up smashed in someone's bug box.
The kids helped me make biscuits.
When we were done, there was flour all over the floor and all of us, and the biscuits didn't rise. But hey.
They finally got in and jumped...and then Baby R got slammed by another kid, and Kid C barfed. My kid was the barfing kid. Thankfully she had already gotten out and barfed far away.
1. I have a friend who works for a company with an unsightly website. I was recently asked to help them. This has happened twice before from other companies who say that they want me to do their site, and then they renege. So I was optimistically pessimistic about the endeavor. Existing site one and existing site two. Now, they are a very good company that do plenty of business and it's all well and good. But those sites, not pretty. I made landing pages, so that the first thing you see isn't their entire inventory index. New site one, new site two. Those are just landing pages, but I was giving a feel for the direction I was planning on going with the entire site.
And then the email comes back that all the boss really wants is a new banner. Now I think to myself, that is not going to cut it. The banner isn't really the problem. But then I come to this point where I'm at a crossroads. I either tell them the truth, that they are more or less wrong, or I say "what's it to me if they want to go on in Ugly World? Why rock the boat?" The designer vs. the peacemaker. Barf.
2. This Easter I had a plan on how I was going to do the live painting this year for our church services. It was from my own brain, and I was pretty proud of myself for thinking of it. I told my boss and I couldn't quite read whether he thought it was a good idea or not. And then I got an email from him asking if I could do this instead. I'm saddened by it. Because a) that would be a hack on something I feel that alot of people have seen. And b) I felt like he didn't trust my own idea. And c) I'm not going to do it. Barf.
3. The dogs can't hold their pee anymore. And it isn't just the curtains or a stray plastic bag that gets peed on these days. They leave puddles in the bathroom 2/3 of the time. And I step in the puddle right in front of the door almost every time. Do dogs have prostates? Barf.
The situation is crazy, because since she was born they couldn't figure out why she couldn't keep food down. And [stupid Kaiser] thought it was acid reflux and just putzed around and finally when they went outside their insurance, and saw some specialists, after more than a year, she found out it was a tumor pressing on her brain stem(!). Jenni's older daughter is friends with Kid C and her daughter Riley who is in recovery at the hospital right now is a little younger than Ransom. They are in my MOPS group.
So if you're the praying ilk, pray that she recovers smoothly and that the tumor doesn't creep back. It's non-cancerous as far as I know, but it's obviously not a good tumor.
In the meantime, we are back home in Sockswithsandalsland, but I haven't taken any photos since I got back. My days have gone back and forth between really motivated to clean and organize to doing very little that requires concentration or creativity and just schlepping through.
So all I have are leftover videos and pics from last week:
My mom and her friend came over to Aurora's right before bedtime when everyone was in their jammies, but no one wanted to sleep. 'Spontaneous jumping party broke out.
My mom never lets a dirty garment hit the basket. They immediately go in the wash! The kids were move than happy to strip off their clothes to participate.
Here is the play area at the Galleria, that you've seen before in past weeks. But here it is in motion. I still wish we had this thing here. For reference, the cousins are climbing on the hippo in the center, and Baby R is in the blue shirt on the right hand side on the "rocks."
Baby R rode that pony at the Dallas Zoo like nobody's business. Too bad he hadn't got his birthday cowboy boots from Auntie Dianne yet, or that would have completed it.
We met another mom on the plane right across the aisle from us on the flight back. She was from Devonshire England and she had kids the same ages as ours, but both girls. I think she was jealous of Baby R's strapped-down-ed-ness in his car seat. Here they are watching a movie on my laptop, while we tried to watch one on Kevin's for Baby R, but then the flight attendant busted us for not having earbuds. Like anyone cared(!), the flight had like 12 other people on it, and they had gladly sat themselves away from the kid circus in the back. Annoying.
Okay, these aren't babies, but I'm their baby, so it counts right? ;)
It seems that they only sell little boys speedos for elementary age kids. Unless I want to pay French or UK prices. Which I don't. I mean, how much fabric are we talking about there?
But it wasn't until Sunday afternoon that we discovered the ceremony had been videotaped.
(!)
Aurora was going through her video camera tapes and it was on one of them. And she almost taped over it to film Baby R's birthday.
(!!)
So we bought a wire and hooked it up to my laptop and now it sits in my iMovie catalog in it's entirety, but I did throw together a very short version of it, for all of you that I didn't know back then.
Here he is, just warming up to the idea. After all, he didn't really know what he was in for. A big thanks to Aurora who went out and bought all the party decorations and balloons. And thanks to those who brought food too, all I had to bring was the cake and the boy.
Here he is opening his presents, with alot of help from his sister and cousin. They simply could not sit back and watch. They had to get in the gift-action.
Since Kid C was planning on going to a fancy dress up birthday party before we knew we were flying out here, I promised her she would have her fancy dress party in TX with her cousin. And I delivered, we melded it with Baby R's birthday. And I bought the girls feather boas, and brought her princess dress to wear.
Piñata! He was excited, and he didn't even know how it worked.
Yes, very excited indeed.
Right before the downpour....
Here is the happy result.
Daddy made it out for the birthday party. Hooray!
Caught on film, a rare occurance in the wild:
one of my children snuggling.
You may not see this again for many years.
Kid S is a nurturer. She wanted to make sure that Baby R
was as comfortable as possible before she could lay down
and watch Alice and Wonderland at GiGi's.
Alice and Wonderland, a big hit with the preschool set.
Here are the cousins at their ballet class.
The little girl on the left was so cute that I let her stay in the shot.
After all, she did the best "cheese." :)
Aurora arranged for Kid C to "audit" her cousins' ballet class, since
she's missing two of her own classes at the Sockswithsandalsland rec center.
Baby B, cute as ever. And very patient.
Here they all are, right before class started.
This is a suveillance shot of Baby R. I smelled something funny when I went in to check if he needed a blanket, before I went to bed. So turned on the lights...
What he needed, I guess, was a diaper change. But he went ahead and took care of that himself, apparently.
