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Monday, March 29, 2010

A hair raising Friday

I want to talk to you today about my blessed hair. *ya, I know, bear with me, the pictures will be cute*

About every 2 years or so I cut my hair short. REALLY short. Well, it looks really short because prior to that it was really long. I tend to cut anywhere from 8-12 inches off and my hair which was once tucking into the back of my pants is now tickling the bottom of my earlobe.

I am incredibly lucky that my hair grows so long in such a relatively short amount of time. This year I'm sure it was due to my pregnancy but in the past I tend to have at least that much in roughly the same time frame.

The last time I cut my hair was January 2008. It was a few days before Brian and I went to Disneyland for our 10 year anniversary. It was possibly the worst vacation ever. We seperated shortly after returning home.

On Friday morning I looked like this:





Then this happened:



So now I look like this:



William took a minute to get used to my new 'do. But he did enjoy a little play time.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

On the day you were born....

My kids like to hear the story of when they were born. I probably tell it 5 times a year to Kylie and 20 times to Lizzie. Will still remembers the whole sordid detail. He doesn't ask. Yet.

Yesterday was my birthday. I'm 31 now. Scary, I know.

Unfortunately my mom isn't here to tell you the story of when I was born. Luckily I, like my children, was always fascinated with the story. So I know it by heart.

On the day I was born it was a Friday. My mother was 2 weeks overdue and was essentially living on Mallomars (cookies) and cigarettes. (Don't judge her)

She woke up that morning and felt....different. Something was different than the day before but she really couldn't put her finger on it. Within an hour or so though, she thought she might be in labor.

So she called her friend, I think it was Barb, and said "Hey, I think I'm in labor."

Barb said, "Great, lets go to breakfast."

So they did.

After breakfast my mom went to her Dr's appointment where he confirmed she was in labor. He told her she needed to go to the hospital RIGHT NOW.

Being the hippy that she was though she informed the Dr that she needed to go home. After all Harvey's sons (My fathers sons, my brother and ex-step brother) were at school and she needed to be home when they got home. Besides, there was laundry that needed to be folded.

So she went home and folded laundry and waited for the boys to come home.

At about 5pmish she decided she should probably go to the hospital as the labor was starting to get a little rough. She left a note with the boys for Harvey when he got home from work and drove herself, in labor, to the hospital.

I have no idea what time Harvey got there. That part of the story was never really mentioned.

But he did. At some point the Dr determined that I was stuck on her hip and they needed to use forceps to get me out. My father told them no. He was afraid it would damage me or scar me or something. So my mother labored and pushed for several more hours until finally the Dr told my father to kiss his ass, this baby wasn't coming out any other way.

So I was delivered via forceps at 11:10pm on March 23, 1979 at Providence Hospital in Anchorage, Alaska. I weighed 6lbs, 9 oz. I have no idea how long I was.

I mentioned I was 2 weeks overdue right? When my babies go overdue they tend to be in the 8lb range. Just sayin'.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Craft Day

Every couple of months or so Leslie (Micah's mom), Melissa (Micah's sister) and I plus the children get together for craft day.

Craft day started in November 2008. I asked Micah if he thought his sister and mom would be up for getting together and making crafts. He shrugged and said why not?

I can't remember now if I called to ask or if I made him call (most likely) but we met at Leslie's house for Thanksgiving crafts and a tradition was set. Now we try to come together as Leslie's house every couple of months with the kids and make a themed craft day.

In early March it was for St. Patrick's Day but strangely I procrastinated and waited until the last minute to get the crafts. Like the day before craft day. So pickings were slim.

Mostly we just painted because Myles likes painting crafts and I had made him do heart stickers the month prior for Valentines. I feel ya buddy.

We painted wooden snacks, pottery animals and flower pots. I'm hoping to use the flower pots for Earth Day in April.

Leslie also put together an activity for the children that involved blowing glue into bubbles through a straw. It's MUCH harder than it sounds.

The girls attempt to mold their glue into small balls

Myles is ahead of the pack on listening to instructions and attempting the bubbles

Myles achieves bubble


William is very enthusiastic about his cousin's accomplishment

Paloma paints her wooden snake


Lizzie gets her bubble..finally (with an assist from mommy)


Paloma gets her bubble with an assist from Auntie Lacy


The baby is very entertaining


The table of destruction. And if you look closely, some of our flower pots. That front one is Myles'.

All in all I think we had a good time, at least I did. And the kids seemed to. The only downside was I think we ruined at LEAST one of Leslie's white chairs. I really should have thought that paint through a little more.



We were just plain tuckered out afterwards.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Will - 4 months

Dear Will,

You are 4 months old now and are making leaps and bounds as you grow older and larger.

You tried rice cereal for the first time today. You were incredibly excited about the spoon and very patient while you tried to figure out how to move the cereal from the front of your mouth to the back. Mostly that was a failure. You did make the attempt to keep the cereal in your mouth by letting me put some in and then sucking on your fingers. That worked a little better but we still have a long way to go.

At night you let me put a little mashed avocado on my finger and stick it in your mouth to suck. You seemed to do pretty well with that.

You have really found your smile and while I dont often catch it in pictures, your smile is a sight to behold. You grin wide, toothless grins and often your whole body radiates with joy at whatever has made you happy. I day dream about your smile when I'm at work and can't wait to come home to them every night. Well, those and you're chub.

That's a good segway into something I want to talk to you about. Your chub. While you were my middle child in terms of birth size, you are far and away my fattest baby at 4 months old. At a 3 month Dr visit you weighed in at a hefy 15 lbs. Your sister Lizzie weighed something like 12lbs at that age. I'm not sure what Kylie weighed then as I can't find those records but you can sure bet, it wasn't 15lbs. Comparing pictures of your thighs and her thighs at the same age makes her look skinny in comparison and at the time she was the fattest baby I had ever seen. I'm just saying buddy, keep up what you're doing because it's obviously working for you.

What seems to work for you, by the way, is breastmilk. When I went back to work and school with your sisters respectively, they quickly lost interest in nursing. Within a week after full time daycare bottle introduction they were both completely over me. But you, you aren't willing to go so quietly into that good night. You still nurse after I pick you up from daycare, at night on the rare occasions you wake up and all day on the weekends. You are a milkaholic. I'm okay with that for the time being and am able to pump at work but I am beginning to wonder what it's going to take for you to wean. You aren't so easily swayed by the easy drip of a bottle.

You have just in the last week or so really learned how to laugh. I can sort of get you to do it but your Grandma Leslie has you down cold with it. She knows all the good spots on you and it's pretty much a given if she talks to you you'll laugh. I'm pretty sure you're a Suck Up. I understand you might be going for "Favorite Grandchild Status" but I must warn you, you have a lot of competition from your cousins and sisters. It's going to be tough.

The Phantom of the Opry is there....

So Friday night was the final performance of the middle school play Kylie was in. It was titled "The Phantom of the Opry" and was a spoof of the "Phantom of the Opera". Kylie had been complaining for weeks, nay, months, that it wasn't the original Phantom but managed to suck it up and audition and perform.

She actually had two rolls in the play, the first being Felicity Van Loon, a "culture vulture" if you would believe the playbill and the second being Smokey Fish, a one "man" band. We saw her the night she was Felicity which had much more lines and time on stage.

No small parts you know, just small actors.



Here is some video of Kylie talking about how Christine is a nobody and they want to hear Carlotta sing. The stage lights went out in the middle of the performance (I'm not sure if it was supposed to or not) and the background fell. (It was not supposed to, I'm pretty sure)




Despite some really awful weather yesterday (near white out conditions where I work) Micah's sister Melissa and her husband Matt plus their two children Myles and Paloma were able to make it and Nana had flown in from out of town to visit. So we pretty much took up a row of seats.

The cutest thing to happen? When Kylie came out on stage Lizzie, who was standing in her chair to better see her sister, started calling out "THERE IS SISSY! HI SISSY!" and waving. Many in the audience turned out to see and smile but luckily Kylie didn't hear it or at least it didn't throw her off her game.

Friday, March 19, 2010

For my Aunty

I try and write back to people in my comments and I fail when I'm at work. It wont let me. Sorry. (and side note - Elisa -OMG! Did I read your aversion to sweets lately correctly?)

Here is my first tattoo. My mom had been nagging me for weeks to go get it done. I believe she may have called me a wuss. Or wimp. Or both. She was like that in a loving way.

So one night, in the dead of night, I left my VERY ill husband (who ended up going to the hospital and being admitted for a week the next morning with Colitis) and went to the tattoo shop I had been scouting out.

It was in an older part of Tucson and I was driving a Toyota Corolla. And wearing a soccer mom looking pink sweater and khakis. There was no one more out of place that night than me.

I walked in and explained what I was looking for and they told me no problem and set me up with the "head" tattoo artist. I went into his office that had a window looking out on the rest of the shop and we discussed my 3 leaf tattoo.

The office was painted blood red and he had mini-statues of the character HellRaiser all over. He had multiple tattoos and piercings including skeletal birds on the sides of his neck. One on each side. Did I mention I looked out of place?

After the discussion I showed him where I wanted it placed, on my inside right ankle. This is where my aunts and mother all have THEIR tattoos (which is a much better story than this one). He left me alone for a few moments to gather myself because I was afraid. He recommend I do some deep breathing and "find my happy place".

My happy place was back at home in my warm bed watching Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel.

But I wasn't there. I was in a scary look tattoo shop. So I closed my eyes and imagined calm meadows and forests, a babbling brook and maybe some chirping birds. Not skeletal ones. Imagine the opening scene from Bambi. That was me in my mind.

I heard him come back into the room but I was very relaxed and so just left my eyes closed. I heard him moving around, gathering equipment and still floated along, in my happy place.

Then he sat down on the stool by my foot and YANKED up my pant leg. This startled me obviously because 1)I hadn't shaved my legs above my ankle and 2)he YANKED on me.
My startled expression made him comment "In case the blood starts squiring out your pants wont get messy."

Happy place. Gone.

All in all the experience wasn't bad, it felt just like his underage girlfriend said it would, like a cat scratch on a bad sunburn, and I walked out of there feeling great.

I had to hide my tattoo from my then husband because he believed that women with tattoos were trashy. Despite his mother having 4 and his grandmother having one. My mother had one and NOW he and his girlfriend go get tattoos as a hobby. I believe she has something like 4 or 5.

So here is a picture of my first tattoo.



My second tattoo. I got it done September 30, 2008. That's the day my divorce from Brian was final. Micah took me to get it and held my hand while it was done. It hurt a LOT worse, in case you were curious.

It's a Forget-Me-Not. Being from Alaska that flower means an awful lot to me.

So that's my story of my tattoos. What a long read to get to a picture.


Thursday, March 18, 2010

St. Patricks Day (a day late)

As my family knows, St. Patricks Day in my house is huge. I don't celebrate any holiday for a whole week like I do St. Patricks Day.

Every year my Aunt Connie sends me a St. Patricks Day Card and a gift of some sort. This year it was window clings and cups. Which was awesome. (She also sent me a St. Patricks Day Table Runner a few years back because I coveted her daughter's table runner for awhile. She's the bestest Auntie. But don't tell the others.)

All week I generally wear green clothes, green beads, hair hair ties and on St. Patricks Day itself I wear a green tattoo (temporary of course).

But not this year. THIS year the headiest head honcho from HR came to visit us. Her Compensation head honcho (think Cheney to the honcho being Bush) SAT WITH ME while I handled employee issues.

So my director asked me to tone it down. No crazy socks (I own 4 pairs of St. Patricks Day socks), no crazy hair bows or bands (uh yeah, a few of those too) and no tattoo. Talk about crushed.

I managed to wear my socks but kept every else to a dull St. Patricks Day roar.

At least at work. At HOME however, everyone managed to wear green. Well, except the baby. He doesn't know his colors yet. (Never mind that I'm the one who dressed him. And he HAD a St. Patrick's onesie from Aunt Connie.)

Nana came to town to watch Kylie's performance this Friday in the Phantom of the Opry and we went to Applebee's for dinner.




Will enjoys his Green Beer. (Not really people!)


Will and I sport our temporary St. Patricks Day tattoos.



Lizzie enjoys her green balloon animal T-Rex hat.



Nana enjoys a dinosaur balloon hat from time to time as well.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Splish Splash

Will was taking a bath!

William has always loved bathtime. He's a regular bathtime boy. Never cries and generally is just happy to be in the water.

He's been working on sitting up for a few days now and still can't really do it unassisted but is getting better at it.

Tonight he discovered splashing in the tub. I made Micah video tape it because it was too cute.

Friday, March 12, 2010

It's been 10 days and....

I've got some green. And not just because it's St. Patrick's week.

This is a picture of my first "group" of plants. They grow on the right side of my window.


Hey look! There is some green in the center. But what you might be missing is that there is ALSO green to the left. Let me introduce you.

This is my first cucumber plant. We'll call her Minnesota Cuke. (Those with kids who watch Veggie Tales just rolled their eyes at me. I know.) She's the biggest of the bunch and my only cucumber plant currently.

But THIS is my Sugar Snap Pea plant. Known around here as Pretty Pea. As you can see her green shoot has finally broken the surface and is headed towards sunlight.

This, sadly, is my pepper pot. Currently nothing going on in there other than some yellow balls that I believe to be well hydrated but not sprouting yet pepper plants. Micah assured me that via the seed packet these dont sprout for 10 - 20 days but I'm not holding my breath.

This is my second grouping of pots. They grow on the left side of the window and as you can see not much going on here. In fact only the Pea pot seems to have any possibilities.

It's hard to see but that is the tiniest green sprout there with the white balls of pea seed directly underneath it. (Sorry, I don't know my technical plant terms. I'm a novice here and too lazy too look it up.)

I wont name it until that plant is upright. Any suggestions for that Sugar Snap Pea plant?

Is it wrong to name them? Just like you shouldn't name your farm animals because you're going to eat them, should I refrain from naming my plants since I plant to eat them as well?

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Conversations with Lizzie

Alternatively titled: Reason I don't bake more

Me: Hey Lizzie, would you like to make some muffins with me today?
Lizzie: With frosting?
Me: No honey, muffins. Muffins don't have frosting.
Lizzie: No thank you. Muffins are just ugly cupcakes.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

It's ALIVE!

I planted my sweet little pots of hope, er, vegetables on Wednesday. March 3rd.

Last night I came home a little worn out, a little tired. I had worked all day, dealt with my Cold, picked up 2 children, taken one to get her hair cut and was worn out when I came home at 7:30pm after leaving the house at 6:50am.

As my husband pulled out of the oven the best dinner I had ever tasted (one I didn't have to cook!) I noticed a slight flourish of green in one of my pots.

After eating my meal I went to investigate. Was it mold? Was it dropped foliage from the barely hanging on other green plant in the window?


Nope. It's the sprout of a CUCUMBER!

I know the picture is awful. It's because I was so excited I was jumping up and down. Which is good for excitement, bad for photo taking.

I then carefully checked out ALL the other pots and it appears that the peas, both pots, are on the verge of a breakthrough. The other cucumber, not so much. And neither of the peppers have made an appearance yet.

BUT I HAVE SPROUTED A CUCUMBER.

That's just about as good as hearing them shout "It's a boy!" or "It's a girl!".

Monday, March 8, 2010

Just wants to be a big boy

All of my children are different. Not "different" as in special in a way you talk about with raised eyebrows and behind your hand but just different from each other. Every child throws me a constant learning curve and when you are dealing with three different ages in life it's like a really extreme test all.the.time.

Will seems to be my up baby. By that I mean, he wants to sit up. All the time. He doesn't want to recline or lay on the floor. He wants to hold his head up and check out the world.

He also is excited about food. That's another post.


To that extent we have begun to take him off the floor and into more upright positions such as a bouncy non-walker type device.

We also bought him a new (to him) high chair this weekend and a Bumbo seat. He can now sit up to his hearts content.




Awww Mom.....

That Bumbo seat is possibly the cutest thing ever. He hangs out with me when I make dinner now.

And yes, he is wearing the same outfit in each post. It was a busy Sunday.

Remind me to tell you about the fish that's in the background of that last picture. It's a good one.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Week in review

Alternately titled: Things we learned or did this week



1. Kylie wants the theme of her Sweet 16 party to be "The '80's." I'm in search of a hair band. Micah is trying to convince her to have a Quinceanera instead.


2. I may or may not have given my 3.5 month old son gravy on Wednesday. If I had given it to him he would have really liked it. Along with the mashed potatoes that I may or may not have given him.


3. Lizzie tried to drink the aforementioned gravy straight from the serving spoon. She is her Grandmother's (Julie) granddaughter.


4. To get Lizzie to eat ANYTHING just serve it with sauce of some kind. Gravy, sweet & sour, ketchup, whatever. She'll eat it if there be sauce.


5. I have a list of Kylie's downloads from Itunes. She'll kill me when I tell you that not a one of them is from a Horror Metal band. They are ALL from '80's hair bands. I'm going to torture her tonight by humming "Pour Some Sugar on Me" by Def Leopard.


6. I had to clean lint out of my son's wrist fat rolls. I want to say to that Dr who was all worried because he was a couple of ounces shy of birth weight at 2 weeks old "How do you like me NOW?"




7. My plants haven't sprouted yet. It's been 2 days since I planted them. The anxiety is killing me.

8. Migraines suck. A lot. So much I had to see my Dr. and get medication for them. Yuck.

9. I'm registering for my PHR (Professional in Human Resources) Certification test tonight. It's going to happen in June. I need to start studying NOW.

10. Micah does not like gray shirts. He says they are boring. I need to do laundry a little more often to stop gray shirts from being a part of his wardrobe.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Experiment

My mom had a green thumb. The greenest thumb I ever saw. So do my aunts. And my grandmother. And several of my cousins. And my mother in law. And even my father in law.

I don't. I generally kill plants. I kill them with love. And over watering. Usually.

On a side note...when I was growing up and we lived out in the middle of nowhere (The Cabin) we had a large garden. I have these memories of my mother spending hours going down each and every row weeding that thing by hand. I played in the weeds she discarded. I know we had a ton of stuff in that garden but I only remember carrots and peas. Oh and this one time she pulled out a giant root vegetable of some sort. My memory says it was a turnip but I'm not sure how correct that is. I'll scan a picture of the garden later.

ANYWAYS, I've gotten sidetracked.

I really, really want to start introducing garden to my hobby regime as well as healthy foods to our family.

So I decided to start a mini garden in my garden window in my kitchen. The back of the house gets a tremendous amount of sunlight so it seems like the thing to do.


These are what I decided to start with.

You have sugar snap peas (that I will eat), Jalapenos (that Micah will eat) and Cucumbers (that I will also eat.)


These are my pots and little dishes to set them in. These are the kinds of pots you can just set in the ground or larger containers when you are ready. Biodegradable. The dishes are not. Obviously.


4 pots, 4 dishes.


Opps. I misread the label. Turns out there were 6 pots. I bought 4 dishes. Oh well.


My handy dandy potting mix. Looks promising. The flowers on the bag look like they grow and stuff.

Pots with soil. The excitement is overwhelming, isn't it?


Multiple pots and soil. I know, it's too much to stand.


Molly assists with the exciting planting.

Pea seeds. I don't know why I put two in there. It just felt right.

Pots placed in window to get direct sunlight. I forgot to take a picture of me watering the pots so you'll just have to take my word for it. I watered them. Now they are getting all the sunlight they can.

I'll keep you updated on if anything actually grows though.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

The Vending Machine of Doom

It's "of Doom" because it eats all my money. It's siren song of deliciousness steals my hard earned cash and leaves my butt and thighs too big.

Micah and I have several goals this year, one of which being to pay down as much of our debt as we can.

To that degree we took the majority of our tax refund and paid off several small cards and a medical bill (babies are EXPENSIVE). But there is still, sadly, much more to work on.

I've decided to try an experiment in saving money that I tend to fritter away.

I drink, on average, 2 bottled soda's at work. I buy them from the vending machines here and they cost $1.30 each. (ouch) That comes to $2.60.

Which is a lot but not as horrible as it's about to become.

That $2.60 is $13.00 a week. $52.00 a month. (Now we're starting to talk about money I notice)

Ultimately that's $676.00 a year. In soda. Just at work.

That does NOT include snacks or extra drinks or anything.

SO.

In an effort to save money I've decided that this week I will not buy ANYTHING from the vending machines. Or one the way to work. Or at lunch. No stopping at the grocery store, no going out for a burger. Nada.

This means that anything I want to consume at work much be brought with me from home. I will allow myself the ability to consume anything someone else provides for free such as donuts (not that anyone has brought any yet) and water.

This is day 2. Once this day is complete I will have saved at least $5.20. Not bad for only having to think about what to shove in my bag an extra 2 minutes in the morning.

My quandry is now what to do with the money we save.

Do I put it in a savings account? Do I just use it for the other bills we have? Do I set it aside for a specific purpose?

I haven't decided yet. Any ideas?