Cousins Visit!

A couple of weeks ago we had Mike's sister and her two kids visiting.  It was awesome to have them here!

In fact, Kira will still occasionally break down crying for Annika!  It was as close to having a big sister as she's had in recent memory and she LIKED it!  :)  Annika is a super sweet girl and Kira misses having her around.

The boys had some good video game time with Quinter, but it wasn't very cute, so I don't have any pictures of that.  :)  We also played a couple of board games with Quinter and Sara.  Also not as cute.  :)

Our big outing for the week was taking all of the kids (my big boys didn't go...  they had band camps, diving practice, and well... Zach is 17) to the local children's museum.  This included Kira, Annika and Quinter, and John and Kristin's four kids.  We had three mom's and seven kids.  It was an adventure in herding most of the day!  :)  Here are some cute pictures:

Everyone together before we went officially inside the museum.

Sweet Cousin time.

Cool bird flight simulator.

Cute girl enjoying the outside play area.

Isaac having WAY TOO MUCH fun running through the water!!!  :)

He got soaked.  So Kristen had to put him in this dress.  It didn't go over well with him, so I gave him the extra clothes I brought for Kira.  They were thankfully fairly gender neutral shirt and shorts.

The next day we all just spent the day together at the house.  I know we were all tired.  Sara got packed up for her Northern journey home, Jacob and I got packed up for his Southern Regional Dive meet, John and Kristen and their kids got packed up for Libby's Eastern birthday campout, and Mike, Kira, Zach and Cole also packed up for Libby's Eastern birthday campout.  So by Friday morning, we were spread out and gone.  It was an awesome family week!

Our One Yummy Watermelon

We've had lots of watermelons growing, but they would all get stunted. This has been our sole watermelon.

And it was YUMMY!

A few photos

Life is super crazy. Kira is becoming more difficult to deal with as she approaches three years old. She's been making me crazy. I actually had the thought the other day, "I wonder if I had another kid... would it make raising her easier?" HAH! You know it's bad if I'm thinking that.

And just FYI... the answer is NO! NO! NO! So don't get any ideas about that.

Anyway. Tonight Reid was washing the car, so I caught a nice picture. Then I went and took a couple of pictures of my garden.

I knew working at Waffle House would pay off...

Aside from me being a great short order cook, I finally found another benefit to having worked at Waffle House...

The worst part (to me) about making weiner schnitzel is the egg dip. You have to deal with the egg whites and their slimey parts dripping everywhere and the bread crumbs who don't stick to it very well. Icky!

I've thought about the solution for years. Why did it take me so long?

At Waffle House, when someone orders an omelet, they put the eggs in a blender to make them puff up and be smoooooth.

So I finally stuck my eggs in a blender when I made schnitzel on Monday for Mike's belated birthday dinner.

Wow. Wow. And Triple Wow! It was soooo nice!

No icky egg whites. No drippy muck. No gooey blobs in my breadcrumbs. Just smooth, clean schnitzeling!

Woo Hoo!

Thank you, Waffle House!!!

Single Parent Camping

I'm heading out with the kids in a little while to Eisenhower State Park on Lake Texoma. Mike is in Boston. I'm taking them alone.

Oh my. I hope I live to tell the tale.

Bedrooms

Here are the pictures from the kid's rooms.

View from Kira's bedroom door. She has been sleeping on a mattress on the floor in my bedroom for the past few months, so having her on the trundle frame works out well for now. The futon is in transition... not sure were it will end up. (This used to be Zach's room.)

The view from her bed to her closet. She was so excited to see all of her clothes hanging up in her closet. It was really cute.

Zach and Cole's room. I decided to put the bookshelf between their beds like this to help them feel separated. We'll see if they like it after a few weeks. Cole's bed is the one in the "nook". Zach didn't want to be back there, but Cole seems to like it. (This used to be Reid's room.)

View from the door/hallway into Reid and Jacob's room. Jacob is sleeping on this twin bed. It's the day bed part to Kira's trundle bed. (This used to be Jacob and Cole's room.)

View from the foot of Jacob's bed. This is Reid's queen size bed. It's really nice that this room is big enough to accommodate his bed.

I think the boys are reasonably happy with these arrangements. Reid and Zach previously had their own rooms... so they're not *happy*, but they seem to be alright with it.

Kira has been a bit freaked out in the middle of the night. The first night she totally freaked out when she woke up. Then last night, she stayed in her bed, but was calling for "Daddy". Hopefully she'll get used to it soon. I know I'm enjoying being able to get up in the middle of the night to go pee without worrying about waking her up! :)

Whew.

Today I rearranged all the kid's bedrooms. I had been planning the moves for a while because I wanted to get Kira out of our bedroom.

As a baby, she slept in her crib in our closet (it's a big closet). Then a few months ago, I took down her crib and she's been sleeping on her crib mattress in the corner of our bedroom. Recently I put a twin size mattress down there for her (she is a restless sleeper, so I wanted her to have a bigger bed).

My biggest decision was whether to put her in a room with one of her brothers, or to put her in her own room. I finally decided that she needed to be in her own room.

That meant that Reid and Zach would have to share a bedroom. They've each had their own rooms since we moved into this house. However, they both said they'd rather share a room with Kira than with each other.

So... my final decision was to put Reid and Jacob together, and Zach and Cole together. So that's what I did today. Reid and Jacob are in the biggest bedroom. Zach and Cole are in the next biggest and then Kira is in the smallest (but still quite large) bedroom. The furniture arrangements seem to be working out for now. I'll take pictures tomorrow after I get everything completely done and post them here.

My biggest concern with this arrangement is that Kira will be upstairs. Mine and Mike's bedroom is downstairs. This really only concerns me because she does tend to wake up at night. Not nearly as much as she used to, but I worry. I think for the first few nights I'll sleep on the couch in the game room so I can try to teach her to stay in her bed.

We'll see how it goes.

All the furniture moving today has just about worn me out. But I'm really happy with the results. Hopefully Reid and Zach won't harbor too much resentment for their mother because she's taking away their private mini-palaces. :)

Closer to Normal...

We're getting closer to normal around here.

Zach woke up sick to his stomach this morning and has thrown up a few times today. But Kira is feeling almost normal. It's amazing how hard life is when she's sick. And while I don't want to downplay Zach's illness, it's just nothing compared to dealing with Kira. He pukes and then goes and lays down on the couch. Easy.

And just for the heck of it, I want to post a picture of our eternally patient kitty:

Humpty Dumpty...

...sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses, and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.


Kira's illness has thrown me for a loop, knocked me off my wall, kicked me in the patooty.

Man. I'm exhausted beyond words.

But thankfully she's slowly feeling better.

Hopefully Kira's health will be able to put the pieces back together and my world will return to normal.

Only Three Months...

It's been three months since I posted here. Yeah... I'm doing good to keep my head above water...

But I did want to share this bit of a story:

Yesterday around 4pm, I was sitting in a chair finishing up the VERY last row of Cole's surprise crocheted blanket for his birthday (WHICH IS TODAY... HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLE!!!) when Kira climbed in my lap looking all tired. I thought, "She had kind of a bad night... I guess she might fall asleep and take a nap." No sooner did I think that when she puked all over me, the blanket, the floor, the chair... did I mention me? Big, chunky puke, too. Whew. She had a few residual pukes, we got her cleaned up, wrapped her up in a couple of towels, put her on her bed, and she promptly passed out. I cleaned up all the puke off me, had to tie off the blanket I was making, and got everything in the washer.

During one of my many, many trips to the sink to rinse off the washcloth I was using to wipe up the chunks, my eldest child asked, "Can we do a driving lesson?"

Sidestory:

See... he turned 16 a little over a month ago and he's certain he's going to die if he doesn't get his license: NOW! We've been working on completing the driver's ed course as quickly as possible. He has it in his head that we should be done tomorrow so that he can go and schedule a driving test and have his license by the middle of next week. I've tried explaining to him that that might not happen for him as he plans, but all I get in return are heavy sighs.

Back to the main story:

I say, "Kira just puked all over the place and I'm dealing with that right now." His response, "So, what, 10 minutes?"

Yeah... the conversations I heard in dark corners at church between moms who were so happy that their sons were moving off to college are becoming clearer to me. I know that teenagers think the universe and everything in it revolve around them, but really? 10 minutes?

I love my oldest. Truly. Deeply. But wow. I don't know that I'm ready to fight the gravity of his planetary greatness for the next two and a half years.


Anyway...

Kira is beginning to feel better. Literally 24 hours later. How do stomach viruses do that?

I just hope and pray that it doesn't start spreading to the other kids. Although, if I was a bettin' man... I'd probably bet against me on that one.

Oh... and the blanket is still sitting waiting to be finished before dinner when we attempt to celebrate Cole's birthday amid the lingering smell of stomach virus in the house.

Yeah...

This whole blogging thing has gone on the back burner.

Our days are mostly filled with regular life. Nothing overly exciting to blog about.

Although, last week we did buy a new car. That's pretty exciting.

Our 2004 Sienna was just having lots of issues. The front end sounded like it was going to fall off every time I drove it. I had not had a good feeling about that car for the past year, but kept fighting it off. But when I got back from Durham last month and drove it... well, let's just say that the sounds coming from the front end worried me.

So last week we traded it in on a 2011 Honda Odyssey.

And I'm in love. Truly.

It holds Kira's car seat in the middle of the second row. And there's plenty of space for all the boys.

It has leather, DVD player, sunroof, the works!

Here's what it looks like (same color and options, too):


I'm looking forward to driving this car for a LONG time!

More Braces

Zach got his bottom braces today. When he had the top ones put on, they said it would take about two hours, but it only took one. I figured it might be about the same situation today...

No.

He was back there for two full hours. He is much much less miserable today than he was when he got the top braces on, so that's nice.

His next appointment is on November 9th. I'll be taking Jacob on that day for his consultation. I've been saving for Jacob's braces. I don't know when they'd want to start Jacob with braces...

All I can say is "Thank goodness for the dental school prices!"

Do you know I'm working again???

I've kind of avoided telling lots of people about this because I almost feel like I'm stupid for choosing to go back when I've stressed out so much over this place in the past.

But to tell you the truth, I like working. I like seeing my little Social Security mail each year and seeing that I'll have benefits one day (if SS doesn't go belly up).

So I'm a telecommuting bookkeeper. So far it seems to be working. I flew to Durham last month for a few days and will do the same each month for the foreseeable future.

The pay is good and the hours are flexible. As a stay at home mom, it's the ideal job. So I'm happy with the arrangement and hope it continues to be a good thing for both me and them.

Edit: Okay. So this came across a little strong. :) I think I was just trying to say that with five kids, two of whom are homeschooled, and one of whom is not quite 2, I'm not sure I really thought about whether or not I could handle this job with it's stress load. But so far it seems to be going well. I'm enjoying it. It's nice to feel needed and wanted outside my immediate family.

Yum

Chicken Stew with Biscuit Topping

This is one of my favorite dinners. It's Zach's "official" favorite dinner (meaning he asks for it for his birthday).

I make it on rare occasions. It requires dirtying just about every mixing bowl, pot, and measuring device in the kitchen. You cook the chicken, chop it, and put it in the baking dish. You cook the veggies separately in broth, then you remove them and pour the broth into another pot where you've started a rue to thicken the broth. Then you make the biscuits. I should have doubled the biscuits (well... this is doubled... I should have doubled the double) because it's just about our favorite part.

I'm looking forward to digging into this dinner in a little while. It is the very definition of comfort food.

City Chase Dallas

We're so naive. (And look, Kristin, your shirt is cream, too!)

On Saturday, Kristin and I participated in the Dallas City Chase event (it might technically have been a race, but we weren't racing, so we'll call it an "event"). It's sort of an Amazing Race, but in one city for one day. It took place in and around downtown Dallas. The only way you were allowed to travel was by public transportation and by foot. (And let me just say that we did a lot by foot. A LOT.)

I will say this now: If you don't know that this is right up mine and Kristin's alley, then clearly you need to spend more time around us. :)

Before you could start, you had to complete a small, quick scavenger hunt (mostly questions about sponsors that were in the parking lot, some other weird things too) in order to get a clue sheet that tells you where the 30 "stations" are.

So we sat down with our clue sheet to start figuring things out. One clue was:

a Great way foR u to get fit and burn off the summer calories youve been consuminG. you'll be workinG hard aS a PAir with the otheR so you won't leave kicKing and fuming.

This was a bit obvious, but the event was at GRIGGS PARK and it would involve lots of exercise.

There were a few required stations and them some you could pick and choose. The idea was to complete 10 of the 30 available stations and then go back to the start. The first team to do this would be the winners and would win a trip to Orlando for the National Championships in October.

Yeah... like I said, Kristin and I weren't "in it to win it". We were in it to have a fun day.

So we started out by hitting the Parkour station. We climbed walls, jumped off walls, scaled a fence, and Kristin had the misfortune of having to carry me piggie back through a few trees. Probably not our favorite station. Kristin got some nasty bruises getting off the first wall. Ouch. We were glad we got that one out of the way early.

Me after Parkour, "What are we thinking???"

Kristin after Parkour... she's a super-trooper!

Ouch!!!

Our second station was in a rooftop infinity pool. We were supposed to do a bit of a simulated rescue. Kristin got in a kayak and held a second kayak at about a 45 degree angle. I laid on my back in the pool and had to work my way into the empty kayak and get upright with Kristin's help without dunking the kayak (or Kristin!). Kristin had watched the pair before us do it successfully, so we did it on our first try. Sweet.

Then we hopped on a train and went to a very wealthy shopping area in Uptown. I'm sure all the ladies who were there shopping were thrilled to see all of us idiots running around. This station consisted of Kristin texting me a series of questions or tasks that I would text back to her. We were pretty fast.

Next we walked over to the Gladiator station. A mini-boot camp type thing. Yikes. It was okay, but ugh. Nothing fun and exciting about that one, that's for sure!

Next we walked, and we walked, and we walked some more to the nearest trail station. We rode it 8 blocks (it was SO worth it) to our next station. This one was held in the old Red Courthouse right in the middle of downtown. Not far from where Kennedy was shot. We were given a camera and had to complete five out of the seven tasks. One of us had to kiss a complete stranger. Easy. I just kissed a guy from another team who came in with us to the station. Weird, but one down. Then we had to get people who weren't participating in the race to do things while you took pictures or videos with your phone. This was harder for me. I didn't really want to go up to random people. But while I was struggling with the very idea, Kristin already had a woman agreeing to hop on Kristin's back so I could take a picture. Then she found a group of apparently fun loving people who were willing to stand and clap for 15 seconds while Kristin video taped me doing cartwheels. And I video taped while Kristin did a cheer with them. Which included a lift, kick, and a jump! :) They were great sports and made our task easy. The last thing we needed was a picture with someone in Cowboy apparel. I was thinking "Dallas Cowboys", but we walked outside and there was a real cowboy man. Hat, belt with big, shiny buckle, and Wranglers. It doesn't get much more Cowboy than that! We were like, "Hey." and he interrupted us saying, "Come on, I've been doing this all day." :) This was Kristin's favorite station. I enjoyed it, too.

Oh... and after we finished this station, we were sitting on the steps outside the courthouse looking at our maps when two teams came by asking if we would do the kissing thing. Sure. Why not. So I kissed two more guys. One of them was kind-a cute. :) The third one really went for it with his kiss. But I think he was really nervous. Kinda funny.

Then guess what we did? We walked some more. Ugh, ugh, and triple ugh.

We went down to the SPCA station and "shed a tear for the animals". You probably don't want to know what we did to make ourselves tear up. It involved fingers and tonsils.

For our last station, we walked a block or so down to Fuel City. There we had to "brand" cattle. They gave us a dust mop with about a two to three foot handle and put us in the pasture with the cows. The cows were all the way down at the end of the pasture, just past all the mud puddles (we had flooding earlier in the week). Fortunately, the cowboys hopped on their trusty horses and tried rounding them up for us. It didn't work so hot, but one cow got close enough that I just threw my mop at him and hit him on the butt. I looked at the "City Chase Official" who was sitting on the fence and yelled, "Does that count?" "NO!", he yelled. :) Fortunately, though, a few cows had gone into a small shed, so after another team went in and tagged one as two of them ran out of the shed. I was able to go in and face down a big longhorn (I think there's a reason he didn't run out when the other lady was in there... he wasn't skeered) and brand him with my mop and the one who ran out behind him. They don't give bonus points, though.

And even though we hadn't completed 10 stations, we were shot and it was 3:00. (You had to be checked in at the finish by 4:30.) So we headed back (we were pretty close to the finish) and were lucky enough to catch a bus for part of the ride back. We checked in, sat down for a few minutes, then realized we cared nothing about the ending ceremony or the free beer, so we left and caught the train back up to Plano.

Kristin at the finish line!

Really fun day. The next day... not so much from all the sore muscles, but Saturday was a blast. I think my favorite was the cow branding. Followed closely by the kayak. I hope we can do it again next year. Now that we know what to expect, I think we could do better. Not that we care so much, but we definitely want to decrease the walking and increase the number of challenges. :)

Me at the finish line... Kristin's better at smiling through the agony. :)

Home Alone

**This message is brought to you by a gesture from the Mike South kindness foundation.**

Well. Here I am. Alone in my house. Mike left with all the kids about an hour ago. I've got three and a half days all to myself.

Being home alone is just about my favorite thing in the whole world. Especially when I have a little one. It's how I recharge my batteries.

I've cleaned the living room since they left and got started upstairs. I want to try to have things all clean by tomorrow night so I can enjoy the remaining two days of alone-ness in a house that's clean (and stays that way!).

So now I will go vacuum the concrete floor and run a load of dishes and a load of laundry. Then I'll kick back and watch a movie upstairs. I haven't watched Gladiator in a year or two. I believe some Russell Crowe time is in order. Plus it's the movie with all the quotes that come to my mind at random times:

"Am I not merciful!?!"
"As you wept for your Father?"
"Are you ready to do your duty for Rome?"
"At my signal, unleash hell."
"He was a soldier of Rome. Honor him."
"I've been alone all my life. Except with you."
"But not yet. Not yet."

Oooo... I'm really excited about the movie now!

**Edit: How could I have forgotten to mention this one:

"What we do in life echos in eternity."

Great movie!!!

Couch to 5K

I re-started the Couch to 5K program that I began just before our vacation (that was brilliant). I've done four of the 27 workouts designed to help you be able to run a 5K race by the end. I'm doing alright so far.

The first three days were 60 seconds of running followed by 90 seconds, eight or nine times, for a total of 20 minutes. (Five minute warm up and cool down for a grand total of 30 minutes.)

Yesterday's workout was 90 seconds of running followed by two minutes of walking. Also 20 minutes plus the warm up/cool down.

I tend to do much better towards the end of the 30 minutes than I do in the beginning. That's a good thing and something I learned about my body during my yoga days. Yoga classes were an hour and a half. I would struggle bad during the first 30 minutes, but by the time it was over, I felt like I had just hit my stride.

So I'm feeling good about the program and hope that it will continue to be a good thing for me. Next week I plan to add some weightlifting on the days that I don't do the running.

Part of my goal is to lose the 10 pounds I have put on this year (ugh) and part of my goal is to just do something good for my body to help me feel better. I've been sluggish lately and am ready to make some changes in my routine.

Now I just need to convince my taste buds that they really don't want all the sweets they think they do!

Movie Titles

I have often thought that I should have written down all the names my kids had for movies when they were little. A few memorable ones are:

Sword in the Stone - "Stone" (Reid)

Babe - "Pig" (Reid)

The Muppet Movie - "Ball" (Reid)...

okay at this point I realize that all I remember are Reid's names for movies... and the "Ball" name came from the earth spinning with the Universal Studios logo at the beginning of the movie...

Star Wars - "Boy Saves the Day" (Probably Reid)

Anyway. Cuteness abounded.

So now Kira discovered something that she really likes: Wallace and Gromit.

She calls it, "Cheese". She even lifts her hands up to her shoulders and shakes them when she says it. :)

Cuteness still abounds.

The Magic Bag

A few years ago, I had noticed Sara's cute bag that she carried. I'm sure I asked her about it and I'm sure she told me about it, but I promptly forgot anything she told me because my mommy brain is... well... a sieve.

Last year I saw Sara during the summer and again admired her cute bag (same one... it was holding up nicely). I didn't want to ask her about it AGAIN, so I just admired it from afar.

Then in August, Kristin was carrying a bag that was similar to Sara's and I thought, "That's it, I'm getting a bag like that!"

So I went searching. But I couldn't find what I liked.

Then I met up with Sara again over Thanksgiving in Arkansas and this time asked about her bag.

Turns out they're made by a small company in Seattle called Tom Bihn. I came home and ordered their Medium Cafe Bag. Sara has the Small Cafe Bag. My thoughts were that since I had all of Kira's stuff to tote around with me, I'd like to have a bit bigger of a bag.

Several months of happy use went by when I began to get ready for my flight out to Utah to visit Mike's parents.

I like to travel light. Very light. And that's not easy to do with a baby.

I had my Ergo baby carrier to carry Kira. I figured I would need to carry a large bag for all of the stuff I'd need while on the plane: books, snacks, diapers, etc. I started gathering what I needed and started packing it into my Tom Bihn bag.

Then something magic happened. It was as if the bag was somehow growing larger every time I went to put something in it. It was amazing. It held so much stuff I was mystified.

I have recreated the events so you can see what I was able to get into the bag. :)

The top picture is of the bag with all it's stuff in it easily clasped shut.

This next picture shows the full bag from the top.

And now for the contents:

Large Sippy Cup

One single subject notebook (80 sheets, spiralbound)

One approx 11 in x 6 in board book

Two approx 6 in x 6 in board books

One quart ziploc with three diapers and several papertowels (for wipes)

One quart ziploc with a change of clothes (for Kira, not me) :)

One container with small toys (actually, the container I took with me was bigger and had twelve little toys, the one shown is holding 6)

Sandwich baggie with pretzels

Small box of raisins (I actually had three of these)

4 oz container of baby food

Small bottle of hand sanitizer (maybe 1 oz)

iPhone

Pen

Baby Spoon

Keys (dangling from a strap attached to the bag)

Wallet (also dangling from a strap attached to the bag)

Not pictured:

Box of crayons

Several plastic bags (for diaper trash), and a few lollipops (bribes) are in the front zippered pocket

All of this stuff fit in this bag. And it's not a big bag! It fit very comfortably on my shoulder or across my chest while I had Kira on my back in the Ergo. It was so nice to feel like a normal passenger even when traveling with a baby.

Yea, Tom Bihn!

What the...?

Has it been since May that I've posted? Wow.

I've been busy.

I just wanted to share this video with you. I really hope it works so you can see one tiny little glimpse of our time with Danny and Laura.

I'll start catching up soon!