Hello World, It's Me

Yes, I am still around. Just have been extremely busy it seems. But as I was talking with a friend of mine, when asked I can't come up with much of anything we have done. I've been extremely busy subbing. I've worked almost every day so far this month. And yesterday I had a great thing happen. I was booked for a second grade class but when I got there, there was another teacher already signed in for my teacher. I asked about it and the secretary said that he somehoow got mixed up and went to the wrong class, that he should be doing Special Ed. That's when the principal came out and asked what happened. When he was told, he turned to me and asked me if I'd mind doing the SpEd class instead, because, and I quote "I'm not a big fan of Mr. ____ and I'd rather him in the second grade and you in the Special Ed classroom where it's a bit more unorganized and chaotic. You'd do a much better job!" Ummmm YAY!!! And then the secretary called the Special Ed teacher and explained the situation to her and then said, "Believe me, you got the better end of the deal!" I was giddy inside! It's good to know that I am doing a good job when so many days I have to wonder.

Mother's Day was a little over a week ago and I had a good weekend. We've been wanting to plant a garden, and on that Saturday I started digging out the walkways and making the raised beds. That was HARD work and took all day! The area that we're using as the garden is extremely rocky and had a couple stumps going through it, so I had to dig out a whole bunch of big boulders, pull out the smaller rocks, and dig around and cut out some tree roots/stumps. Exhausting to say the least, but I, with some help from Peter, got it all done! And then on Sunday we got to plant everything. We planted three types of corn, early, mid, and late corn, two types of green beans, two types of peas, two types of carrots (has anyone heard of rainbow carrots before? Suppposedly, they grow a bunch of different colors, purple, pink, green, etc. It'll be interesting to see.) zuccini, yellow crookneck squash, green onion, onions, cucumber, radishes, beets, parsnips and a couple other varieties of squash. Natalie even gets her own section of the garden where she planted some carrots, radishes for grandma and a variety of flowers. Another tiring day, but it was a nice feeling to finish it and actually have some input in it!

Of course, we didn't spend all of Mother's Day woeking. Peter let me sleep in a little bit and then he and the girls surprised me with a beautiful necklace. It's a tulip to represent my first official "run" that I did a couple weeks ago. He also made me a special breakfast. It was nice!

This past weekend, Kathy and I were supposed to do another walk. This time the 2 mile "Women's Run." Unfortunately Kathy got sick, so Lynelle went with me instead. It was a perfect day for it, just warm enough to not get chilled, but not too warm that you were overheated during the walk. We finished the walk in 34 minutes 9 seconds. My goal for the next one is to run/jog most of it.

Anyway, that's the most exciting things that has happened since the last time I updated. I thought I'd include a couple videos of Alexis being silly! She has such a great sense of humor!

Our Easter Weekend

This weekend was a lot of fun!

On Saturday, Peter, Natalie, Kathy and I participated in the Tulip Run. We ran/walked 2 miles (well, with the walk from the car to the registration place and then to the starting line of the actual race and back to the car, we probably did a total of 3 miles). Peter ran the 2 miles in 19 minutes 41 seconds. And then he rounded back to meet up with us. Kathy and I walked the 2 miles but we walked it fast. Natalie wanted to run the whole thing so we'd let her run a little ahead of us and then make her stop for us to catch up. Once I saw Peter up ahead I let her run to him and the ran and finished the race, again for Peter, at 32 minutes 28 seconds. Kathy and I finished at 34 minutes 35 seconds. Natalie really wanted a trophy, but didn't finish well enough in her age group, but we were able to convince her that she got a tulip trophy instead.... it helped that Peter didn't take one so that someone else, who otherwise wouldn't get one could and they had run out by the time Kathy and I got to the finish line, so none of us got one. But I was so proud of all of us. This was my first official walk and I had so much fun! I'm already signed up for another in May!

We also decorated Easter Eggs on Saturday. Natalie and Alexis had so much fun coloring the eggs. We kept it pretty simple this year and just worked with the dye and crayons. Maybe next year we can pull out some other supplies like tape, Q-tips, etc. We colored 36 eggs and they all turned out really great! I wish I had thought to take pictures during this, but I didn't even think of that at the time.

Then Sunday of course was Easter.

Natalie was so excited, she woke earlier than her sister.... a rare occurance. Because we're mean parents we wouldn't let Natalie go downstairs until her sister was awake, so we made her wait until the time that Alexis usually wakes up before we would wake her up.

When we did wake her up, she was groggy and needed some time to fully wake up.







The girls had a lot of fun looking for the eggs and candy the Easter Bunny left for them! Even Alexis got really into it, which surprised me because Natalie didn't until she was about three. I guess having a big sister to show you how exciting it really is, helps!






Hope everyone had as great of an Easter as we did!

Alexis and the Easter Bunny

We were at the mall yesterday and of course, like every other mall in the USA right now, the Easter Bunny was there. Being that we are in a small town area with a little amount of people, and that it was noonish on the first day back from Spring Break, there was absolutely NO line. So when Natalie asked if she could give the Easter Bunny a hug (as we had anticipated), we agreed, so off she ran and gave him a hug. What we weren't anticipating was Alexis's reaction. She squealed, let go of Daddy's hand and ran to the Easter Bunny and latched onto his leg with the biggest grin possible. Which if you know Alexis at all, you know that she doesn't trust strangers, especially adults, very well. It takes her a long time to trust anyone different, even her uncle who is up almost every weekend, she takes about 10 minutes to warm up to. I think her reaction took the guy (or girl) in the Easter Bunny suit by surprise too. For the longest time, he just looked down and stared at her. Eventually, he reached down and hugged her as best he could because she was still firmly attached to his leg. I just wish we had a camera, or that they were in range of their camera. I would have definately paid to have that picture. When we were finally able to get Alexis to let go, she waved "bye-bye, Boppy (Bunny)" until he was out of sight.

Being Girly

Peter and I were lucky enough to be able to get away for the weekend without kids! We went down to Maple Valley and hung out with the two bestest friends anyone could have: The Winkeys! Saturday night Jess and Peter went to the first Seattle Sounders soccer game. Christel and I got to have a much needed Girls Weekend!

On Saturday, we left Eli with the boys while we had just a girls day off! We first went to lunch and can I say, I am in love with Thai food! YUMMY YUM YUM YUM!!!!!! Then we went and got pedicures and manicures! Oh my gosh! I've never had a pedicure before and I was a little nervous about getting one because 1. I hate feet so I don't upkeep mine very well and I knew they were gross and 2. I'm SUPER ticklish on my feet. But let me tell you, it was HEAVEN!!! I could do with a pedicure once a week. Too bad finances wouldn't allow that :). And I think I'm addicted to having my toes painted! I've been running around sockless just so I can keep looking at my pretty toes! After the pedicures and manicures, we went to the dollar store and got some fun things for the Easter Bunny to bring. Then we had to get home so that the boys could leave for their game. We had dinner and after Eli went to bed, we had movie night. We watched Twilight, which, by the way, isn't half as good as the book. And then we played a little Guitar Hero before the boys got home.

Sunday, we continued our girls weekend by doing makeovers. I have recently got my hair cut, and I hated it. I've been trying to grow it out and it's in that awkward stage, but the lady that cut my hair did a horrible job and just made it worse than it was and couldn't (wouldn't) fix it without charging me for another hair cut because "I have so much hair" it would be like doing another cut altogether.... whatever. So I've been unhappy with it ever since and have been contemplating just cutting it all off back to short. But I thought I'd try dying it to see if maybe that will help. So I went darker, which again scared me because I've never tried going darker before. So we dyed it dark and then put in highlights, and I LOVE IT!!! It's more dramatic than anything I've tried before, but I absolutely love it. Christel also used her straightener on my hair and it made it not look so awkward! So I'm totally going to have to go out and get a hair straightener.

Of course, we couldn't not do anything with Christel's hair so she got her hair highlighted too! Aren't we a bunch of beautiful women???

After that, we all just hung out and had fun! Should I be jealous that there's another beautiful woman sitting on my husband's lap? If it were anyone other than Christel, I probably would be. That sounds bad, but its just that I 100% trust those two and I know there's nothing that I ever have to worry about. And besides, she sits on her own hubby's lap too!





So thank you, Jess and Christel! We both had an awesome, relaxing weekend! We can't wait to do it again!

Blackmail worthy

As a parent, you're always taking pictures of your children. And occasionally, you capture some that will be embarrassing to your children when they turn 16. Those are often my favorite kinds of pictures. The ones that, usually, bring giggles up whenever you see them.

This first set of pictures aren't funny, but blackmail worthy enough in their own way. Alexis had developed an ear infection from a cold. This would be her first ear infection ever. Which, to us, was a miracle because Natalie had them all the time when she was a baby. So the Dr. prescribed Amoxicillin to fight it.
Well, a week later this rash shows up. And I'm not exagerating when I say that the rash covers her from head to toe without an inch uncovered. I was freaking. Of course it happens to be a Saturday, but luckily her Dr. office is open on Saturdays, but we won't be able to see her Dr.... which I didn't care at all. Of course the only opening they had was at 2:30 so I have to worry until then. Peter's parents of course aren't helping my worries either, saying that according to the pictures in their medical book, that the rash looks like the measles. Of course gets me worried even more, thinking if that's what it is, how many other kids have I exposed from my subbing, and I couldn't help but think that I just got over a shift of washing and folding towels at the health club that people are wiping on their faces and such. Sigh. Luckily, they had another Dr. come in and they called us first and set up an appointment. That dr. came in and immediately said "That's an amoxicillin rash if I've ever seen one!" Whew!!! So, it turns out, Alexis is allergic to amoxicillin.

EDIT: I realized after writing the blog that it would be weird for me to worry about spreading measles to other people, especially adults, obviously because of the MMR. But there has been a break out of measles around here, even among adults. And me not being a Dr. I didn't know if this was because there is a new strain that the MMR doesn't protect against or not. Alexis has had her first MMR shot so it shouldn't have been too much of a worry, but still....

Natalie is growing like a weed. Just the other day, she says that she needs new shoes, so we check and sure enough her shoes are feeling a bit tight on her feet. She's got fat feet so she often out grows them widely before she out grows them lengthly. So to the shoe store we go and find her some new shoes. She's been working on tying so she gets some tie shoes, and wide ones at that so hopefully she'll be able to wear them for a good long time! She absolutely loves them and insists on wearing them around the house. So that first night, when she was sent up to get on her pajamas, this is what she comes down in. She couldn't find the top to the one set of PJs and couldn't find the bottom to the other set, so she combined them. And then put on her brown shoes with the pink hearts to finish the ensamble. We all just broke out laughing!


And finally, we got Alexis a new box of diapers, which have Minnie and Micky Mouse on them. She absolutely loves them! Here she is "kissing" them. Too funny!

Finally.... an actual update!

Well, so far this year has been extremely BUSY!!! January just flew by.

We went down to have "Giving Day" with my family! Giving Day is a tradition that I hope we have started with my family this year that will carry on every year hereafter! It's basically Christmas in January. But since Mom and Kathi both work in the retail world, it wasn't/isn't realistic that they could both get the days before and after Christmas off to celebrate with us, so we set up a day in January to celebrate. That was a lot of fun! It was just a day of relaxation, enjoying each other's company and exchanging gifts!

Shortly after that, and the reason I haven't been able to get online long enough to do an actaul update before now, the laptop's hard drives started to go out. Yes that is plural. Out of the two hard drives that we had on the computer, they both decided to go out on us at the SAME time. Grrrr. Luckily they didn't just up and die on us, they did give us a little warning first. We could be on the computer for about 10 minutes before it would freeze up and shut down on us. Thankfully, that gave Peter enough time to back up all our files and pictures that we had on them! It was a slow process, but Peter was able to save everything before they died completely.... thank goodness. I was seeing a repeat of the time where we lost about 6 months of pictures from when Natalie was just a little over 1. I didn't want to lose those same months from Alexis too! Anyway, Peter found an awesome deal on some new hard drives to replace the others and ever since then, he's been working on setting everything back up again to the way we had it! Crazyness!

Like I said in the last entry, Natalie turned 5 years old on Jan. 22. It's crazy to think that it was that long ago when we brought Natalie into this world! So much has changed since then! Anyway, she had a wonderful birthday and we were lucky enough to go down to Seaside to visit Mom, Tom and Vanessa again that weekend! We were supposed to go down that first weekend we went down to visit them, but because of all the rain that caused all the flooding, they had many roads closed that we couldn't get there. So it was rescheduled for Natalie's birthday weekend. Unfortunately, Kathi wasn't able to join us because she had to work :(. We missed having her there with us. But we had a lot of fun playing on the beach and playing games and just hanging out and relaxing! There are now pictures above in the slide show, just in case you didn't notice they were new!

That and the fact that I've been subbing like crazy lately, has made 2009 just fly by so far!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATALIE

It's crazy and a little sad at the same time. They go from this

to this


in what seems just a few months.

Natalie celebrated her 5th birthday on the 22nd. And then we got to drive down to Seaside and spend the weekend with Mom, Tom and Vanessa on the beach! It was a lot of fun! Pictures to come soon!