Sick babies are RAD!!!

This has been my day thus far.....









Good times!

Measles shmeasles....

So this past 3 or 4 days Peanut has been running a pretty good fever. He's been working on some teeth and I just figured thats all it was. Then my mom came over and said "he's just not himself" I agreed, but figured it would pass. Then she says "it looks like he has the measles". My response..."NO!!!! He's been vaccinated! Plus he doesn't have any symptoms of anything. He's just cutting teeth. Don't be such a panicky mom!!!"
So a couple days go by and it's more of the same. Fever...sleeping constantly. Then it happens....I go to get him dressed and there they are. He's covered in a rash. Sure enough. She knew. I took him in and he was diagnosed with what they call "baby measles". They aren't like the normal ones. They aren't contagious and they just sort of run their course on their own. Although he did also have a double ear infection on top of that too. poor kid. He totally gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop when it comes to illness.
In the past week he has perfected the glassy eyed stare. It's so pitiful when babies are sick. They are just so sad looking. he sat on the couch in this same spot and watched CNN for almost 30 minutes. That would have bored any other kid after about 30 seconds. He was just so sick he didn't care. I got him some antibiotics for his ears. That should make him feel better.

It feels like winter.

It is so stinking cold and dreary. But because I'm in the winter mood, I think I'll share with you one of my favorite poems. Who doesn't love Shel Silverstein?

Snowball
I made myself a snowball
As perfect as could be.
I thought I'd keep it as a pet
And let it sleep with me.
I made it some pajamas
And a pillow for its head.
Then last night it ran away,
But first - it wet the bed.
by Shel Silverstein

Peanut speaking in tounges :)

I sooo love this age.

If you ever wondered....

If you ever wondered what I would look like in 20 years..... I can only hope :) I know my mom and I look alike, but every now and then we have the same expression at the same time and it's like the universe sort of folds in a little on itself. Sort of like when Marty almost ran into to his future self in Back to the future 2......Well yeah , it's sort of like that.

Martha Stuart falls from grace...

Today we went to my mom's house for my family's Thanksgiving dinner. She lives about 45 minutes north of us. The whole family had planned to be there. My Aunt and Uncle, their 2 kids with their families, plus my Grandma came up from The Dalles (about 1 1/2 hour away). We were going to eat AT noon. No exceptions!~

Ok, let me just give a little background here. If you know my Mom, you'll get just how great this all is. My mom is all about etiquette and protocol when it comes to these kinds of events. We arrive at a set time...and we certainly ALWAYS eat on time. She painstakingly plans out all details. Agonizes over whether there are enough matching linens for all of the guests. If not arrangements need to be made. Mis match anything is defiantly unacceptable. You get the idea. It's a formal attitude, but a pretty informal setting. It's all very confusing.

So skip back to today....We arrive at 10:45. Now we're eating at 12. Thats the plan anyways. We get there and realize we may need to run to the store. As soon as we get there, mom is freaking out. She put the turkey in at 7 AM and it's barely even warm. It turns out her oven picked today as the day to slowly die. Perfect timing. She is a little panicked that we won't eat at noon, but we reassure her that it's no big deal. Things happen.

So we decide to run to the store while the bird cooks a little more. While at the store we had the slowest checkout people on planet earth. One of them cut their finger on some cardboard while they were checking us out. She actually stopped in the middle of ringing us up to go in search of a band aid. We just sort of stood there looking at each other and blinking. She found one, came back and finished ringing us up. It was the weirdest thing. Needless to say we ended up taking longer at the store than we wanted. In the midst of this...I call my mom to let her know what was going on. She was sounding really panicked at this point as more people showed up, but the turkey still wasn't ready. By now it's about 1:00.

So we get back to her house about 1:30 and she is in a full blown freak out. She has taken the bird out of the oven and instead, put a full "bone in" ham, in the hopes that maybe we could just sort of re heat the precooked ham and call it good. We could at least get the show on the road. We started in on side dishes and the ham came out of the oven around 2 ish. As soon as the ham came out, the turkey went back in to try to salvage what we could out of it.

What was funny was all in all, it really wasn't that big of a deal. We all sat around and talked and had a great afternoon. I got to spend time with cousins that I only get to see once a year. I also got to spend time with my grandma. Which I never get to see my grandma but once a year or so.

So finally, about 3:30 the turkey was done. My mom goes to pull it out of the oven.....and SPLASH!!!!! The pan slipped out of her hands and all the juice and grease and anything else that collects at the bottom of a turkey pan went all over her kitchen floor. At this moment I was having a hard time holding my giggles in. She just gave me the "stink eye" and said "This is the last year I do this at my house!!!!!"

All I could say at that moment...."I am soooo blogging about this!!!"

I wrote about this elegant disaster of a holiday meal not to embarrass her, but to let her know that the end result was the same whether everything went as planned, or went drastically off course. We all spent the afternoon together as a family enjoying each other's company.

Plus I included some pictured of our day. I got some pictures of the kids and their cousins plus one of 4 generations .

It was a good day.

City sidewalks , busy sidewalks. Dressed in Holiday style...

So I recovered from my shopping extravaganza this morning . We bundled up tight and went downtown. Tonight was the big lighting of the tree in Pioneer square. It's a 25 story tall tree with about 9 million twinkling lights. We try to be there every year when they flip the switch on. They sing carols and it's fun for everybody.

Unfortunately everybody else in the greater metro area does this little holiday tradition too. So the crowds are crazy. Plus we are navigating a double jogging stroller through these nutty crowds. It was a lot of fun, but REALLY cold. It was into the 30's at 6:00 at night. Plus being surrounded by nothing but concrete sort of chills your bones a little. We had a little trouble keeping the kids from getting impatient about the lighting, but we made it through ok. By the time the lights finally went on, everyone was not only numb, but staring to hurt. So we got out of there and into a heated car and drove our festive little selves home.

Another wonderful tradition we can check off until next year :)

*** I know the one of Sunshine is gross..but I had to give an accurate account of what she did while she waited.

Black Friday blitz!!

Can I just tell you how much I look foreword to Black Friday? When I used to work at Pioneer Place I used to hate it. People get really nasty over the dumbest things.

Like this morning for example... I was out in front of Fred Meyer's at 4:30 am (like any other lunatic that enjoys participating in this craziness) waiting for them to open at 5. There was clearly a line forming, but once the doors open, madness ensues. (The adjective not the 80's ska band) The Fred Meyer's employee began to open the doors as they were about to open the store, and these women began having an all out fit . They were freaking out and apparently willing to go "fist a cuffs" if they didn't open their door first. It would only put them about 10 seconds ahead of everybody else. But that 10 seconds meant the world to them. Perhaps that 10 seconds would be the make or break if they got their hands on that perfect pair of 50% off socks that would make their entire life worth living. I don't know. I am getting really tired of Black Friday getting more and more nasty. When did blood shed become a normal part of holiday shopping?
Don't get me wrong, I love competitive shopping as much as the next person, but all the craziness has got to stop. In the past several years it has gotten worse. In the past 5 or so years I have seen people drag their little kids out of bed (in their PJ's) to be standing out in front of stores at 4 Am, I have seen elderly women pushed to the ground when a couple of teenagers were in a mad rush to get the last playstation, and I myself had a man (in his 50's, completely old enough to know better) ram me in my pregnant belly (when I was 7 months pregnant with sunshine) with a shopping cart because I wasn't moving fast enough. Then yell at me to get out of the way. Seriously? Is this how it's just going to be from now on? Do I just need to get used to this?

Anyhoo....I got all I needed and then some. I spent the majority of the day all by myself and it was awesome. A rare feeling :) I came home the big victorious shopper around 11. I then went back to bed for a couple hours.

Here's a picture of the madness I witnessed.

Happy Thanksgiving

Well happy Thanksgiving one and all. We are here and officially in the holiday season. I watched the parade on TV with the kids this morning as our Thanksgiving day ritual while we prepared the dishes we were bringing to my in-laws house for dinner.

We brought the green bean casserole and a vegetarian stuffing (as my husband is a vegetarian, but REAAALY likes stuffing) Plus I had to take the fabulous chex mix that we made a couple days ago.

It was really a nice meal. We had my five, husbands parents, sister in law, her boyfriend and his parents. So we had a pretty full house. It was pleasant though. No fights broke out, nobody got drunk and started taking swings or anything like that. You hear about these people that dread going to family functions because of stuff like that and that alone makes me pretty thankful. Although I do have a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful for healthy kids. I am thankful for my husband that he has put up with my gruff this long and doesn't seem to be shaken. I'm thankful for my nutty dysfunctional family. They may be crazy, but they seem to be my kind of crazy :)

Here are a few pictures of our day. I think my favorite is Peanut perched in his favorite place on planet earth....Grandpa's lap while he's eating pie :)

Now I need to get some sleep if I'm going to be outside Fred's at 4:30 for my cheap socks!!! I wait all year to buy socks and do my full combat shopping. I have a route to plan.

Poor kid

This is what happens when you push nap time too long. I'm trying to break Peanut from his 2 short naps a day to 1 long nap a day. He's sort of fighting me on it. When he's tired though, he doesn't need to have details like a crib to get in the way.

Just crash here in the high chair.

If you know my family...this about fits :) I sooo heart weird Al.

All hail Mr Clean!!!

So right now I am singing the praises of Mr. Clean and his mighty "magic eraser". Many times have I sung of the glory of these, but today he may have just saved my daughter's life.

About 2 months ago we got a new dishwasher . We don't get big things like that very often, so we try to keep them nice as long as we can, however, with small kids that isn't always easy.

Skip foreword...Sunshine has taken to waking up really early (like 4 am) and just wandering around the house (unsupervised) and getting into stuff. Like this morning she got into a honey pot that was up on the top shelf in my top cabinet. Had herself a little sample, and put it back (in the wrong place) and pretended like nothing had happened. She made a few fatal mistakes that tipped me off though. ... You get the idea. Bug went through this too, but it sort of ran it's course and then he realized sneaking around first thing in the morning wasn't as fun as he once thought, and one day he just stopped doing it. We figured it would be the same for her too. Except with her we have something a little different to deal with....An artistic flair.

She somehow got a hold of a sharpie and decided to go a drawin' . I found scribbles on the counter tops, on light switches, and...you guessed it. On our new stainless steel dishwasher.It can't stay new forever I guess. Luckily Mr. Clean's "magic eraser"(if you haven't used one of these..you really need to. They are fabulous) got most of it off. It came off of everywhere except the dishwasher. Of course. There is still a faded line where the mark was, so it's not AS bad. But it's still sort of there.

She got lucky....this time.

Any ideas of how to get this off without scratching the steel?

Basket case...

Ok I'm totally not one of THOSE people that has thousands of pictures of their pets........anymore. Before I had kids though I was totally that person. Annoying as it is to admit.

They are totally part of the family. This is Merlyn. He likes to sleep in tight spaces. Don't ask why.

C'mon!! how cute is that?!!

Girl mail

So sunshine has been suddenly intrigued and consumed with the entire concept that you put things in a mailbox and they end up in someone else's house. It all started this week as I got a catalog that came from a store that we go to all the time. She became fascinated with mail. She and Bug have been playing "post office" all week.

So I saw her coloring a picture out of a coloring book, then rip out the page. I didn't say anything, I just watched all nonchalant like. She then proceeded to grab a toy out of her toy box. This time it was a book. She then licked the picture she just colored.(EWWW) and wrapped it all up in a slobbery wet paper ball. She then went and put on her boots and coat and went out front. I followed with the camera in hand.

Sure enough she went and put it in the mailbox and dropped off her mail. When she came back in, like nothing had happened....I asked her,
Me- "what did you just do?"
Sunshine-"had to mail something"
Me-"really what?"
Sunshine-"Girl mail...for girls only."
Me-"alrighty....I'm a girl can I go and get it?"
Sunshine-"Don't be silly, you're not a girl, you're a mom!!"
Me-"But moms are girls too"
Sunshine-" Alright now you're just freaking me out."


So.....fast foreword....2 hours. I wanted to get out there and get that stuff out of the mailbox before it really starts to rain and those books are destroyed. So I try to sneak out there and she chases me out yelling the whole time "NOOOOOOO!!!!! Now my girls aren't going to get their mail!!!!" I explained to her that we were just pretending and now we were done and the rain would ruin the mail. That explanation didn't really fly with her.

She is still pouting. needless to say, she was not amused.

Best mom ever!!!

So my husband is gone tonight recording a CD for his press kit, so I'm alone with the kids tonight. Which isn't really all that unusual as I'm alone with them most of the time. But something about not having another adult around makes me throw responsibility to the wind.

Brittney has nothing on me!!

Tonight the mood struck me to make chex mix. Something I haven't made in years. But tonight I could not rest until I made and consumed some. So Bug and I joined forces and worked together to create THE best batch of chex mix the world has ever known.

Seeing as I had the grand desire to make this up at like 4:30 tonight....I thought," hey there are grains and stuff in here. That's sort of healthy."Let's make a picnic dinner, throw in some raisins...you know for healthy factor...and just eat this for dinner. We ate enough of it really to call it a meal. And to top it off...we ate ice cream for desert.

Didn't Bill Cosby do a stand up routine about chocolate cake? Same thing here.
Mom is great.....

Lover man....

Well it has finally happened. It happened sooner that I had expected, but my little Bug has discovered girls.

I am treading sort of lightly here as I don't want to publicly embarrass him or anything, but it was just so cute and shocking at the same time I couldn't not share.

So he's at the kitchen table coloring a picture and I notice this picture. It really elaborate. I look closer and we've got rainbows and trees and 2 people under the rainbow holding hands. So I ask...

Me- "Wow thats pretty cool who are these people under the rainbow? Is that you and me?"

Bug-"No thats me and *Mary*"

Me- "who's that!!?? Is she a little girl you go to school with?"

Bug- "Yeah she's pretty much my girlfriend."

Me-(Sort of shifting uncomfortably in my seat) "Oh really?"

Bug- "Yeah and I'm totally her BIG Lover Man."

**Ok I couldn't even hold it together at this point. I just bust up laughing

We then sat down and had a long talk about how he's too young to be chasing girls, as there will be plenty of time for that later. Plus the importance of respecting girls...blah blah blah... You get the picture. It was not a real comfortable talk to have.

It turns out his "new friends" at school have all sorts of older siblings and are allowed to watch any TV they want. I knew we would run into this in public school, but I just didn't expect this sort of thing in 1st grade. I was wrong. Oh well it happened. Not much I could do about it now other than fight it from the home front.

By the way...here's the fabulous art that started it all and a picture of Bug holding his prize looking very embarrassed for being discovered.

What does a stroke feel like?

So we got this membership to a 24 hour fitness and we've really decided that if we're spending the money then maybe we'll force ourselves to exercise. It seems to be working so far. We've been on an every other day schedule and we haven't died yet.

This all came about a couple months ago when we really started looking at what we were putting in our bodies as far as food; paired with some pretty severe food allergies that Bug has developed. We completely changed the way our whole family ate. Plus cutting our many unhealthy habits. We were amazed how much better we felt. Which is sort of funny because, we didn't really realize that we felt bad until we had something else to compare it to.

Anyhoo...long story short....it all boils down to vanity in the end doesn't it? We have a Hawaiian vacation coming up this summer and frankly...I'm tired of being embarrassed of my body. I mean cut me some slack...I had 3 babies (4 pregnancies) in 5 years. That will do a number on anyone's body. (unless of course you are Heidi Klume and you can spit out 3 babies in 3 years and 2 months later be on a Victoria secret's runway modeling undies.....What is that about!!!???)

So I have a set time frame and a set goal of weight loss. So combine regular exercise and consciously knowing everything that passes my lips and where it came from. I think I can actually achieve this. I meet with a "trainer" type person this week to do a health assessment. That way I have a complete "before" picture of what I'm starting from.

Now that it's officially in writing and out there for the world to see, I have accountability. I will pass along the results of my progress.

Oh and by the way...the header on this post......I just had one of my first cardio cross training workouts.......I think my hands went numb about an hour ago . Seriously people!!! It kicked my butt. But in that good way :)

Totally have a case of the "mondays"

Ok so I know I have been sort of quiet for the past couple of days. In all honesty, I have been in sort of a funk.Do you ever get in a mood that you just can't seem to shake? Well that's how I've been the past 3 days. I guess I didn't think anyone would notice if I took a little "blog break". Apparently I was wrong. America is just on the edge of it's seat waiting to see what my little maniacs will do next.

In all honesty, 3 days went by and you didn't miss much. Monday was Veteran's day so there was no school. So in my genius I thought a trip to JJ Jump would be the best way to spend the day off. If you are unfamiliar with JJ Jump, let me fill you in. It's a giant warehouse of sugared up ankle biters jumping on enormous inflatable slides and jungle gyms while radio disney blares in the background all the while seizure inducing strobe light flash. Good times. Not the best thing to drag me out of a grumpy mood.

All 3 of my kids took off in separate directions so I couldn't really keep up with any of them. I figured my best bet was to follow Peanut seeing as he could easily get mowed over by one of these lunatics. I could barely keep up with him though. He took off in a full sprint. Right about the time I got a visual on Peanut, Sunshine took a header into another kid and bonked noggins. So I'm trying to comfort Sunshine, locate this other kid's parents and keep Peanut from wandering up an enormous rock wall. All the pieces fell together and everything turned out fine...until... some vile woman who had been shooting me dirty looks since we set foot in the place, had the nerve to confront me and remind me that "if I can't keep track of all my kids...then maybe I shouldn't bring so many in here by myself."We had already been there for a couple hours so it was time. Right about then I had about been pushed to my limit with JJ Jump and I was ready to go. So I packed up screaming kids and we went home where I could pout in the privacy of my own house. I thought I was doing a pretty ok job, but I guess I was fooling no one.

So basically I have been quiet because I just didn't want to bring down the house and be a total buzz kill. the past couple days have been a bit of a reflection trying to determine what exactly I'm doing wrong if I can't go out in public with kids. Other people do it all the time. I hate feeling like a hack.

And on that note....here are some cute pictures of the kids at JJ Jump.

Rodney Atkins - Watching You

What happens when you give a 6 year old boy a pen

So we are in church this morning and Bug's Sunday school has the kids stay with their parents during music and then they all go down to their classes after music is over. This is a great idea in theory, although a little foreign to my kids as our old church just had the kids the whole time. So my kids aren't very good at sitting still in the sanctuary with us. This Sunday I remembered to bring some coloring stuff and a pen from my checkbook to doodle with. Just to keep him quiet.

He sits down and starts drawing and being entertained by this. I was standing for the music and sort of forgot what he was doing until I look down and realize what he had done.

He had taken the pen and drawn an arrow on his forehead.....Just like Aang.

Me- "what did you do?"

Bug- "I'm the Avatar!!!!"

Me- "yeah but I can't wash that off"

Bug -"Good leave it on so the whole world can see how cool I am."

Me- "Well I guess thats just what we're going to have to do"

So........he wore it all through the service and his Sunday school class. What's funny is he actually had a couple people tell him how cool and creative this was.
Ehhh......Whatever. What can you do? :)

Roller skating rocks!!!!

Today I was an irresponsible mother (hard to believe I know) and I let Bug play hookie. This school year he started a new school, but he really missed his friends from his old school. So I found out through the grapevine that today was the "all school field trip" for his old school. They go to our local skating rink. So in true form I decided it would be cool to crash the party. I knew quite a few people that would be there so I knew they wouldn't really mind if we showed up too.

We all had a great time. Bug got to see most of his old friends and we all got out and went skating. We skated, we hoky pokied, we even did the chicken dance. It was a great day.

I have a sinking suspicion I'll be paying for it tomorrow though. I'm pretty sore already. It was worth it though.