I'm just sayin'

Mormor is a bad influence. We've always known it, but here's my proof--Buddy has started adding "tootie" or "poopie" after everything he says. Thank you, day-care-best-friend. Anyway, we had several chats about it this weekend, culminating in him getting mad and saying, "Well, Grandma said I could say it!" HUH?! And then last night, he told me he'll just wait until he goes to Grandma's house and say it there.

He also decided to try and open a Christmas present because "Grandma told me I could!"

And then last night, after we made our gingerbread house and family, I asked him if I could have a bite of his gingerbread man (which he was busily chomping). He said, "Sure! Eat Sissy's." Nice.

As CBC put it, he's full of it, "literally." (Her favorite new word :) )

And then my dear, sweet daughter asked me, "Do you think Santa is going to bring me what I want this year?" She has written a nice letter to Santa and taped it to our living room wall for all to see. I said she'll have to wait and see, to which she added, "'Cause last year, he just gave me random things." HA! Good one, Santa :)

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!

Please can I open it?

Since I couldn't post the "wanna piece of me?!" video of Buddy, I'm posting this one instead. Tell me he has not learned how to work the system (and by "system," I mean "Mom and Dad") :) Enjoy!

Food and boogers, but not together

I have to share this because it's such a phenomenon! Those of you who have shared a meal with us know that Buddy is not a good eater. The kid seriously survives on one meal a day, which always makes me appreciate his school's food. Anyway, to our complete surprise, Saturday showed us Buddy's ginormous appetite--two bowls of cereal and three pancakes for breakfast, an entire grilled cheese sandwich and fruit for lunch, and then macaroni and cheese and two bowls of ice cream for dinner. Seriously, I was shocked. I figure he must be making up for having the flu the weekend before!

And we've recently realized anew that OCD lingers on . . . we've been really appreciative of friends who have been giving us hand-me downs for CBC. That girl grows so fast that it's hard to keep her in good-fitting clothes. We're always buying them too large and then suddenly they're too small. Anyway, CBC has been more careful lately about whose clothes she's been wearing, depending on whether the giver has "picking" issues. Eek, that's all I can say.

Trying to post the video of Buddy playing with Spider-man--you can hear the evil laugh and "wanna piece of me?!" but it's not working . . .

Into the deep

Hamsters, tomboys, & superheroes, oh my!

Don't you hate it when you go to save your post and it erases? So happy that happened.

So, starting over--my favorite quotes from this week?

CBC: "I'm half-boy and half-girl. That means I'm a tomboy and I can do whatever I want."

Buddy: Playing with his Superman and Batman toys: "You killed my father!" and "Wanna piece of me?!"

This has been a busy month, as usual. I went on a 3-day weekend trip to Oregon with my sister-in-law--we shopped and went sight-seeing and had an overall great time! (Enjoy the picture of me practically blowing off the coast.) The kids missed me a lot, though, so I tried to make up for it by taking two days off this week to spend with them while Clark was at a work conference. Right before we left, we found out Buddy had the flu and pneumonia, so that was a definite drag for him (poor guy!), but I think Toys R Us, Target, and Chuck E. Cheese made up for it :) Buddy seriously thought Toys R Us was the greatest store ever, and feeding the tickets into the ticket machine at Chuck E. Cheese was a definite highlight. And CBC loved playing the big sister and showing little brother how everything worked.

This month we also were happy to see friends from college--we used to live by them in Arizona and haven't seen them in a few years, so it was really enjoyable to show them our fair city (Seattle, not Maple Valley :) ). It's so crazy to see friends' kids growing up when you remember them as babies.

Now that school is back in, we've started swimming lessons again. CBC loves jumping off the diving board, and just overall being in the water. Buddy walked the plank but couldn't actually bring himself to jump off. I presume he was imaging himself as Spider-man at the time. Or Superman. Or Batman. Or Lightning McQueen. Or Buzz Lightyear. I think I've overdone it with heroic toys :)

And to top it off, CBC decided she wanted a hamster instead of a dog. Of course, this lasted all of a week before she admitted she just wanted the hamster as a warm-up. Good thing Superman held me off from buying one! Now her plan is to learn how to take care of dogs by walking neighbor dogs. Her flier is very impressive.

And the violin came home this week! You should hear my girl play! I'll post a video as soon as I think the general audience can stand it :)

CBC First Day of School & Working on Home

Ahh, the first day of school. CBC was sooo ready for 2nd grade to begin, and she really enjoyed her first week. With only 6 boys in the class and 18 girls, I think her teacher is going to have her hands full! I took the day off and took CBC to school--we went out to breakfast at McDonald's as a family, and then Superman took Buddy to school while I took CBC. Apparently, Buddy cried his little eyes out when he realized he didn't get to spend the day at home with everybody--poor baby (uh, excuse me, poor "big boy!" I have been taken to task regarding that several times this week--"Mom, I not a baby! I a big boy!"). CBC, on the other hand, didn't cry and wasn't even really nervous. She just takes things in stride, that's for sure. I totally forgot to take pictures of her in class (who is honestly surprised?!) and so I had to settle for pictures in front of her after-school program later that day. She doesn't get her violin for a month--"Mom, seriously, I already told you--we won't get it for a month or a few weeks. Stop asking!"

Oh, three more things! After taking CBC to school, I came back to work as Superman's servant on finishing our guest room. He and Morfar laid most of the hardwood, but Superman and I finished the job. Wow, it looks nice!! Then on Saturday, we went hiking (shocking, I know!) on Mt. Rainier--first time we have ever been there, and it was beautiful. AND . . . I stopped drinking soda this week! I had a dental appointment and it really made me realize it's time to grow up and stop living like a teenager. (I also started flossing every night, for those of you who care.) I had my last Diet Pepsi on Tuesday AM and started drinking water shortly thereafter. Yay for my bones and my teeth, but wow, this is proving to be extra hard on my sweet tooth so far. I have really been sucking down the candy. Maybe not so good for my teeth, but at least I'm not sucking down 3 or more cans of soda every day . . .

More pictures from summer

Summer, we will miss thee

How can summer be over already? School starts in one week, and I think we're about ready to get back into the learning groove. It's been a really fun summer, even though the weather in WA hasn't really cooperated. We had about a week of extremely hot temperatures when we all slept in the master bedroom with the a/c in the window, but other than that, it's been off and on rain. I'll have to post some pictures soon, but I wanted to get caught up before procrastinating this any longer.

In July, we combined a work conference in Anaheim, CA with a family vacation by driving to Utah first. We visited Superman's parents and mine, and then Morfar and Mormor traveled with us to California, where we went to the beach and Disneyland, visited some good friends, and absolutely loved every minute of it. My conference was really good, too! Everyone at the beach forgot sunscreen, with CBC and Mormor getting the brunt of the sunburn. CBC's was so awful because she body surfed for 4 hours straight without coming in. I forget sometimes how much she loves water. Buddy had to re-learn grandparents' names, because once again he called them all Grandma. So we have officially switched over to Morfar (literally, mother's father) and Mormor (mother's mother). That seemed to help :) Morfar and Mormor took CBC home with them for two weeks, which proved to be very difficult on Buddy, but she had a great time.

On the way home from Anaheim, we stopped in San Jose to visit my brother and his family, which was an absolute blast. I wish they lived closer so we could see them more often! Two weeks later, Morfar and Mormor drove from their house in UT to our house in WA with CBC, carting a U-Haul behind them filled with furniture and a piano for us. If I haven't mentioned it a million times, my parents are so good to us! While they were here for a few days, Morfar helped Superman put a hardwood floor in upstairs (no rest for the weary!).

Since they've left, CBC has gone back to camp and enjoyed a Mariner's game, bounce houses, laser tag, swimming, etc. Buddy switched daycares, which went a little easier than I had feared. We miss our old school, but now I can pick him up earlier than before, which makes his day a little shorter. He told me he was sad on Friday after I picked him up, and when I asked him why, he said, "I miss Mormor! I want to go to her house." We're glad we'll be seeing them again at Christmas!

We've enjoyed the lake with family, gone to the fair, ridden bikes, played at the park, and did yard work like nothing else. Summer has also shown us what a big boy we have living with us--Buddy's vocabulary constantly surprises me ("Mom, that is so lame!"), he was potty-trained in May, and was bottle-free by July (and, yes, that was painful for all of us). Ever since CA, he is absolutely obsessed with Buzz Lightyear and Woody, and is always shouting, "To infinity and beyond!" while jumping off various items of furniture.

CBC has grown another million inches and made new friends everywhere she goes. She is reading like a champ, too! We have really enjoyed this summer, and I'm a little sad to see it go, but I'm excited to see what 2nd grade in our new school brings us. I especially can't wait to hear CBC play her violin :)

"Eclipse" and "Scooby-Doo"

What do Eclipse and Scooby-Doo have in common? Both have vampires, of course! Here's Buddy's interpretation of Robert Pattinson's Edward Cullen (sorry about the air freshener by his ear :) ), along with his version of "Whew, we made it!" from Scooby-Doo. As you can see in the video, I had to prod him, but he had been doing it all day long on his own. Everyone who has kids or pets knows their ability to stop performing as soon as the camera comes out :)

Equality is in the eye of the beholder

Buddy's new phrase is "NO FAIR!" and he picked it up from you-know-who (and, no, I do not mean myself!). He shouts this all day long now--just for the last three days. "Okay, let's go brush your teeth." "Already brushed my teeth." "Here, open up." "NO FAIR!" It's pretty entertaining until he starts hitting walls and throwing toys. Funny thing is, as a firm believer in individual responsibility, I really value fairness, but understand that it's impossible to implement more often than not. At any rate, I'll be mindful of his feelings about trying to be fair :) Now, if we could only teach CBC about not taking her brother's toys (he does have totally awesome cars), we might hear "NO FAIR" a little less!

School's out, OCD's in?

School ends this week, and CBC couldn't be more excited. Enumclaw has this great summer camp program where the kids get to go on field trips to a lot of fun places, play games, and swim each week. She loved it last year and is super excited to go this year. Even more fun is that she has a new best friend, Hayle, who has invited her to a water park to celebrate her birthday. And the amazing thing (at least to me!)--I REALLY like this kid! As in, she shows up to play, and I don't want to send her home 30 minutes later! She spent about 6 hours at our house one day and we all had a great time. There was no fighting, no crying, no whining, and they played outside almost the entire time. Other best part is that her parents are both police officers (mom is police chief!) so I don't have to worry about CBC when she's over at their house. Now if I could only figure out how to get them to move closer to us. . .

OCD has returned with a vengeance, though in a new form. For the last 2-3 months, CBC has been waking me up at least once every night because she misses me, and is sad she can't see me in the morning, and it goes on from there, culminating in her sleeping in our bed, and/or me sleeping on the floor. In the beginning, it was easier to be patient (and feel sad for her, too!), but I am losing it now. We've tried different tactics, but nothing worked. Her brain just gets control of these impulses and can't let them go, and now I'm fairly certain it's become a habit--that her body just wakes up by itself all night long. Anyway, last night I offered her a dollar (NOT a quarter :) ) for every night she sleeps in her bed the whole night. She told me a dollar wasn't much money (WHAT?! for sleeping?!) until I pointed out that there are ~180 nights before Christmas, which could mean $180 for the dog. That seemed to hit home. And may I say--she didn't wake me up at all last night. Cross your fingers!