Conversations. . .

I love being able to document the funny conversations that the kids have because I know I will forget the little details. So today as we were coming home from shopping Ayden said the following:

A little background: It's a 'rule' that Tate gets into the car first (because he sits in the middle between Ayden and Devon) and therefore Ayden gets out of the car first. The other day Tate got out first, which of course caused a big ruckus.

Tate: "I'm going to get out first. Just kidding!"

Ayden: (very seriously) "Tate, why did you get out first the other day?"

T: "I didn't."

A: "Yes you did. Not that day or that day or that day or that day or that day but that day. Why did you get out first that day?"

T: "Huh?"

You would think that she was pointing to a calendar or something as she said this but no, we were just getting out of the car. "Huh?" was my response also.

After we were in the house the kids sat down at the table and were happily coloring in their coloring books when this conversation happened:

Tate: "Mom, I know what I'm going to be thankful for next Thanksgiving."

Me: "Oh, what?"

Ayden: "Chicken?"

T: "What?"

A: "I think you're going to be thankful for chicken."

T: "No, not chicken. You're supposed to be thankful for things you have that you can have fun with, so I'll be thankful for my toys."

A: "But we have chicken!"

Apparently chickens are automatically fun, AND we have some. Ergo: be thankful for chicken.

I'm sorry for this. . .

So for Christmas Santa brought Ayden a dance with me Angelina Ballerina. It is huge (actually bigger than Ayden) and I'm pretty sure marks the only time that I bought (errr, I mean allowed Santa to make) a stuffed toy. I can't stand them. But I had a hard time picking for Ayden this year so I went with her love of dance and got her this and a ballet DVD.


She brought Angelina downstairs today and unceremoniously dumped her on the floor at the base of the stairs. Poor Angelina had her tutu hiked up and was showing her derriere. It was most unfortunate.
Especially since I couldn't get over how her butt was so flat and wide and her legs were so wrinkled and floppy and well, wrinkly. I have come to understand this is a taunt. This is me, I just know it. This is what I feel like. Thrown aside with my wrinkly little legs to weak to hold me up anymore.
Look at this! It's just scary! Now you should clearly understand two things about me:
1. I am working out more and more and this is just more motivation for me.
AND
2. There is a clear REASON why I don't like stuffed toys in my house.

Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving morning we woke up to more snow! This worked out perfectly because Tate had desperately wanted to make a snowman but we didn't have a chance on the first few days that it snowed because of the craziness of dealing with the snow and it was FREEZING cold. Thanksgiving day turned up with snow but also much warmer.

In fact these snow men are now the only evidence left in our yard that we even had snow this last week.

Here are three of the eventual five snowmen/women that they made. One for each in our family.As the day wore on and the temperatures slowly rose into the low 40's we'd hear the kids shout, "Oh no! Devon fell down!" or "Uh oh Dad, you fell down." or "Yeah, I'm still standing up!". Nice that the snowmen entertainment lasted all day. :)

The Kid Shelf

Just letting you know where we like to stash our kids when we are done with them for the day. No cushy beds and blankets around here. This is hard core!



As you can see, Ayden thinks this is still in great fun, but Tate realizes the seriousness of the situation.


I would have put Devon in her cabinet but for some reason Tate and Ayden filled it full of toys.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm a Little Snowflake

Icy and round,
I fall from the sky
And I don't make a sound.

When it's cold
I stay all day.
And when it's warm
I melt away. . .

Yesterday it started very lightly and I was so excited to tell the kids. As soon as they saw the snow the both got excited and exclaimed: "It's Christmas!" After a little explanation about when Christmas comes I started to tell them about how the snow usually doesn't stick around in our neck of the woods. I really know how to kill a mood, let me tell you. :)


So with the thought that the snow wouldn't stick (as is usual) we left to take Tate to school. Twenty minutes later the snow was sticking to the ground. After I dropped Tate off the girls and I went grocery shopping and came out to a winter wonderland. After I started driving home I realized that I really should have just stayed home today. Especially after it took me a 1/2 hour to drive approximately a quarter mile.
While driving was a mess, and we ended up having to pick up Andy from work and bring him home (because he drives a small truck and we live up on a hill), the best place was to just sit at home and watch the snow from under a blanket with a cup of hot cocoa.

The end result of this lovely Monday was quite a bit more snow than predicted (they said 0 to 1" for our area), crazy winds that pounded the house all night, a small earthquake that we didn't even feel, and waking up to frozen roads and freezing temperatures.

Welcome back winter!

Sometimes. . .

Sometimes I think that my husband wanted to have kids simply to torture them in small ways. Case in point:

He put Devon's slippers on her hands just to see what she would do. She just couldn't figure out what happened to her hands. Poor girl.

Halloween

On this last Thursday we finally got around to carving our pumpkins. It was so hard to find a time to get it done with school, soccer, field trips, dance, etc., etc., Thankfully it went so much faster than I was anticipating. A few years ago we got a special pumpkin carving kit, and in there was a little saw-like knife to do the designs, and boy does that little tool really work! We were done in no time at all!

Here we are cleaning out the pumpkins. We had great seeds, but I was in no mood to add another thing to our to-do list so we didn't bake the pumpkin seeds.

Devon had a front row seat to watch all the action.

Andy had to help clean out the inside. I knew my kids would have a problem sticking their hands in there.
Devon just thought it was great fun.
Drawing on their pumpkin faces so that we can cut out the design.
When Tate and Ayden were done carving and we were waiting on Andy to finish Devon's pumpkin the kids and I made Halloween sugar cookies for the school party the next day.
Here is Devon's finished pumpkin. Don't you love that the scariest pumpkin face is for the baby? I think it's hilarious that the pumpkin is about the same size as her head.
All the kids had two pumpkins. The 'tattooed' pumpkins are from our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). The CSA is a local farm that we get a lot of our vegetables from during the summer. About a month before the pumpkins are ready to cut off the vine, they cut the name into it with a knife. The extra month lets the pumpkins 'heal' and we've got a cool tattooed pumpkin!
The glowing pumpkins!
This is tonight right before we headed out trick-or-treating. They were really ready to go. Even Devon had a great time, staying awake the whole time we were walking around the neighborhood and only cried when I put her back into the car.

Tate is a Pteranodon, Ayden is a pixie fairy and Devon is our little bee.
Taking a look at all the candy. Ayden got a bit less than Tate because she had a bathroom emergency and we didn't have any place close to take her. Luckily she is a good sport and wasn't upset by it. In fact Tate informed us as we were driving home that he had too much candy and Ayden agreed.
Tate is quite proud of his haul. I was so impressed by Tate. At every house he would say "Thank you and Happy Halloween!" Grant and Tate literally ran from house to house. They were finally slowing down about an hour and a half later when Tate declared that he was done. We actually hit most of the neighborhood too.

Going forward and Back-fill

I have been so lax! So bad about getting my blogs posted, in fact I believe I still have one or two that I wanted to get posted before I had Devon and it never happened. My goal is to start anew and back-fill the stuff that has happened (having a baby for example) since I last posted (Six months ago! Yikes!).

Other projects have taken over my life. Suddenly I am knitting like crazy and getting things done! I started in February and haven't stopped much since. (Ok, a little while after Devon was born, because I just didn't have much free time. Not sure why.) I just wish my house was faring as well as those projects. Really I want to throw stuff out of my house and start fresh. I get so tired of all the STUFF. It's everywhere, and I feel like it's taking over. Is anyone a professional organizer out there?

So here is to getting back on the horse (so to speak), and keeping my blog updated!

Finally. . .

I know it's taken a while to post this, and I truly meant to do it before, but I haven't had the easiest time with this pregnancy. For one thing, I think I started showing as soon as I got pregnant (NOT a good thing, let me tell you), then I had a little scare where I thought I was losing the baby, then came the belly which just grew and grew and grew and. . . . . well you get the picture. I have back pain from the belly which is just all out front. It has now gotten harder to walk around because the belly is so heavy and I use a brace if I go out of the house. (yes it is 'the belly' because it's so big it has it's own identity)

Then there are the comments which I've told you a little bit about before. At first people would wince when I told them how long I had to go, which has now turned into outright gasps. (I'm not exaggerating. I wish I was.) This has led to some serious depressed moments where I cry. A lot. Last Thursday night and Friday was some of the worst yet. I just can't stand to see myself and get so, so, SO tired of all the comments. (Even from the women at the OB/GYN's office. You'd think they'd know better)


So this was my first picture taken as I headed out to the Brandi Carlile concert with my friend Sarah and her mom. This was taken on March 19.


Here I am again on April 11. I wore black for a reason. :)

This is me and Alexandra (My friend Sarah, who was also pregnant, gave birth one week early, March 26, and ended up being in the Seattle Children's Hospital NICU for 10 days. Despite a rocky start she is a healthy, content baby. This is her little bundle of joy). I was showing how big my belly is and how a baby can fit in there. My baby is not laying like this though, my little (huge??) bundle is head down, but I didn't think Alexandra would like that too much.

This belly shot was taken on Saturday, April 24.


Alexandra really likes my belly 'shelf' she gets quite comfy on there and fits nicely. She even happily lets my little bundle kick her and doesn't put up a fuss. ;)



I affectionately call it my 'shelf'. I can easily rest objects on the top and they stay quite nicely (even babies!). What I do appreciate is that I truly am pretty much all belly (just ignore my chipmunk cheeks) which should bode well for after pregnancy but the scary part will be to see what my belly looks like (that will probably make ME gasp and wince). As my doctor likes to say, 'It's only skin. It'll stretch." Seriously Doc, is that supposed to make me FEEL better???

I really can't wait to see this baby so that I can have my body back.

I can't tell you how excited my kids are to see our baby. They give the baby kisses and hugs each night (which is of course to my belly right now and it's required that they lift my shirt up to expose the belly to get as close to the baby as possible. When Sarah was pregnant Tate would kiss her baby too). So when Sarah had Alexandra they were quite excited to see her and get to hold her. Here are a few shots of the kids, Alexandra and Alexandra's proud big sister Sarah Beth.

Sarah and I were laughing over the fact that in all the pictures Sarah Beth is cheesing it up for the camera while my two were focused on Alexandra. They thought she was amazing and talked about being able to hold her all the way home from Sarah's house.



They were all so cute!

Eagle Run

Just 5 short days after running the Boston Marathon, (on a very cold and windy Whidbey day) Andy and James decided to run the Eagle Run 5k in Oak Harbor. Luckily it was only a 5k - nice and short!

Here they are at the start. . .

and they're off!
Andy stalked the leader of this race until the last mile and then took off! (The leader at the time was a 13 year old kid, lol! To give credit where it is due this 13 year old was a good runner, top in his age group nationally)

Andy won the race with a time of 17:02. Gooooooo Andy!
James came in third with a time of 17:36, he came in second in the over 14 age group (that pesky 13 year old again. Doesn't he know that some old-timers are here to win it?). Great job!
They both won great prizes: Andy won a gift certificate for a round of golf for four people at the Whidbey Golf and Country Club and James won a bike tune up and $25 gift certificate from our local bike store.

Boston

Andy left on Friday, April 16 for Boston. Since I was only 3 weeks away from my due date the kids and I were not able to go, so Mike and Erich, two of Andy's brothers made the trip with him. They arrived late Friday night. Holley, James and Grant had already been in Boston for a couple of days.

On Saturday they all headed out to pick up the guys numbers and bags for the marathon on Monday. Here they are, ready to go! Andy was number 1480 and James was number 3449.

This was the view from Andy's hotel room. Apparently that is MIT in the foreground.
Heading out from the hotel. You can see the Boston skyline in the distance.
A cute picture of Grant while waiting for the train.
The guys form of transportation while in Boston. It was just too busy and crazy to rent a car.
Andy, Mike and Erich at the Red Sox game Saturday night. It was apparently quite freezing cold and they did not stay for the whole game. (Especially since the Red Sox had to finish their game from the previous evening after it got rained out in the 9th inning with a tie score.)
Some views of Fenway Park.


This is Andy standing at the finish for the marathon a day before the event.
The official pace care for the Boston Marathon.
On Sunday they were able to see some sights around town. It was so busy, with so many people in town (think of around 23,000 runners plus anyone who comes to see them), that they rode the trolley tour but really didn't get off. (So you can imagine that a lot of the pictures were not great. I picked out a few.)

This is the Massachusetts State House.



Faneuil Hall and Andy's brother Erich.

The Old State House where the Declaration of Independence was first read.


A view of a Boston street.
Andy liked how the church across the street is reflected in this modern glass building.

The day of the race! This is some serious contemplation of upcoming events. Notice Andy's brother Mike in the background? He got food poisoning and was sick all night.
Ahhh, there is a happy face! Ready to run the 114th Annual Boston Marathon!
James and Andy meeting up at about 4:45 a.m. to make it to their 10 a.m. race.
A marathon breakfast.

And then from the hotel to the downtown area where they caught another bus so they could be transported to the starting line. (think of around 23,000 people all needing to get to the finish line!)
The race started at 10 a.m., but with the size of this race, and the way it is run (it is a straight line, not a loop) it was not possible to get many pictures on the actual course, but Erich and Mike managed to get a couple. Here is Andy (far right) getting close to the finish. He said he passed both of these guys that he is with here.
After they finished! Successful Boston Marathon runners! Andy finished in a time of 2:41:48 in 249th place out of 22,645 runners.

James finished in a time of 2:56:13 in 898th place.

Great job Andy and James!

Post race celebration dinner at Legal Seafood. Much deserved after months of hard work in preparation for this marathon.


Finally proof that Holley went too! Great shot of the Steller family.