Beware of kangaroos

One more entertaining thing about Buddy--he is deathly afraid of the kangaroo monster that he thinks lives in our house. Seriously, I have no idea where this comes from, but he fears that the kangaroo comes out at night and will get you if you don't hide. The kangaroo will also get your toys if you don't hide them. Buddy feels like the refrigerator is a pretty safe place, so he's been hiding toys in the fridge to protect them from the kangaroo. And last night, as I was laying in bed and he was going downstairs to tell Superman good-night, he turned on the night light and told me to cover my head so the kangaroo wouldn't get me. I tried to reassure him that I wasn't worried about the kangaroo, to which he replied, "Mom, I'll keep you safe from the kangaroo. I won't let him get you. It's okay, you can go to sleep." Love that crazy kid, but why a kangaroo? I can't wait until we go to the zoo!!!

Sickness, part whatever # we're on now, plus a heart murmur

After enjoying (?) so much time together all week, it had to end with somebody getting sick. Two somebodies, in fact. Superman started Saturday morning by throwing up. CBC followed soon after, and she continued into the afternoon. Of course, being the great mother that I am, I told her she was probably okay after the first occasion, and told her we would still go to swimming lessons. After watching her puke all over the floor on our way out to the car, I figured that was probably a sign that she really wasn't doing too well :( Superman is still not feeling that great, but CBC seemed just fine yesterday evening. I've spent much of the weekend just trying to keep the kids from beating each other, and convincing them to leave Superman alone. It has been eventful, to say the least :) I'm starting to feel like we're cursed this fall because we've all been so sick.

The really interesting thing about all of these doctor and urgent care visits is that we learned CBC has a heart murmur. The urgent care doctor noticed it at the strep throat visit, so we followed up with the pediatrician on Black Friday. She said it's a Still's murmur, which is nothing to worry about. Still (pun unintended) kind of gives me the creeps!

Once there was a snowman

Buddy has been singing "Once there was a snowman" all week long. For those of you who are not familiar with the lyrics, they go like this: "Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman. Once there was a snowman, tall, tall, tall. In the snow he melted, melted, melted. In the snow he melted, small, small, small." That was this past week in a nutshell. Monday morning Enumclaw School District was cancelled because of snow, so I worked at home while CBC played out in the snow all day. Then came Tuesday with more snow, with school AND work cancelled! We kept Buddy home, too, since it was his birthday, and we had more fun in the snow. And then the same thing happened Wednesday! It was a seriously weird week, especially since winter hasn't even technically started yet! The rain melted after that and it became a more normal November.

After having Thanksgiving on Thursday with almost all of Superman's family at our house (super fun with cousins!!), and then Black Friday shopping most of Friday (and, boy, did I do a poor job of finding the deals, but I sure had a great time!), I think we have had enough together time for a while :) We might all be looking forward to school and work tomorrow.

The pictures are from various snow day adventures, with my favorite showing Buddy enjoying snow for the first time he can remember.

Growing up is hard to do

Well, our boy Buddy hit three years old this week! We celebrated for several days (for various reasons), which convinced him that his birthday is at least four days long. Now that he is a big boy, he no longer allows kisses without wiping them off, nor does he appreciate being called a baby. At least he still likes hugs! I swear, he grew an inch this week, and his vocabulary grew proportionally. I made cupcakes for his home birthday party (have no idea why the picture shows sideways), he took Oreos to school, and we ate a castle cake for his family birthday. He got some seriously awesome Cars pajamas from Mormor, a puzzle from Miss Anne, and toys from the rest of us.

This week has really brought to my attention how serious he is about growing up, and how much he reminds me of CBC at this age. My favorite? When he's mad or doesn't get his way (which happens often), he says, "You're not my best friend!" CBC used to say, "You're not invited to my birthday party!" when she was mad. My kids make me laugh so hard :) I much prefer those statements over several potential others, but I just wonder why not being a best friend or not coming to a birthday party mean so much to them. Too funny! AND . . . Buddy is obsessed with puzzles. He can handle 24-piece puzzles with no problem, but he also likes doing the two United States of America puzzles we have--and he does them by himself! Pretty impressive.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BUDDY!

Who, Nelly!

This is a plug for antibiotics . . . and a lament against winter. I can tell it's coming because I've already had my annual nasty cold, Buddy got pneumonia, my brother's kids all have walking penumonia, and now I have strep throat. All within the last four weeks. After being on antibiotics for two days, I finally feel like I'm going to live! If we could all have the immune system of CBC . . .

Sports

I know I've said this before, but CBC is a natural athlete. Sports just come so easily to her--which is both a curse and a blessing. She tends to goof off during the practices which drives both the coaches and her parents nuts! Here are some fun soccer photos--her against 5 boys, and she can whoop their butts. Hey, where did that short kid in the Superman pajamas come from?!

Fun pics of kids

I was going to enter the kids into the Gap casting call this year (same thought as every year but I never actually do it), but I couldn't take any pictures without red-eye. I still think the kids look really cute, though!

More pics from Halloween

Just call me . . . Peter Parker

Spider-man and a Blue Heeler came to our house on Halloween this year! It was so fun! CBC's costume was home-made, as usual, which meant it wasn't that great, as usual :) I have to tell you--I have the perfect daughter for my imperfectness! She is such a good person, and so intrinsically loving. Even when people didn't know if she was a rat, cat, dog, or a mouse, she thought it was fun that she was a mystery animal. And next year she wants to be a vampire dog. Gosh, I love that kid! And Spider-man was very insistent that we call him Peter Parker. He was so cute! We didn't have a mask for him, so Superman painted his face repeatedly for all of our Halloween parties (4? 5? I can't even remember how many we went to now!). Buddy thought it was awesome. And they looked so cute!!

We had a church party, school parties, Enumclaw party (so cool! especially the black-and-orange plastic eggs search with the lights off! Check out the Demon Dog and flying Spidey pictures), pumpkin patch/corn maze, and actual trick-or-treating. We are completely candied up, and had an absolute blast. One of the highlights was me taking a day off and living it up with the 2nd graders at school! We carved pumpkins, did fun pumpkin estimates, and had a costume parade. CBC's friends thought I was super cool because I was able to carve some of the un-ripe pumpkins that were too hard for anyone else to do. At least I improved my girl's standing in school :)

Too funny--we finally went to carve our own pumpkins and one was completely rotten. So of course my kids stabbed their fingers into the mash. So gross!