40 minutes of Weather in the Pacific Northwest

At 2:20pm on Thursday

At 2:30pm on Thursday

At 3:00pm on Thursday

You have to learn flexibility to live here. You never know what Mother Nature is going to throw at you. I don't think the African Daisies I planted last weekend are liking today very well either; today began with chunky rain(rain snow mix) and turned to snow about two hours ago and is still snowing. Not much accumulation but just enough excitment to push teachers right over the edge since this is the last day before spring break.

Also including a pic of trees we planted on the grass slope of our lot(included Leyland Cypress, Canadian Hemlock, and colorado Blue Spruce).

Thanks for the gift certificate Bradington! I am thinking of you now as you are soon to begin the first happy hour of the season; sending you lots of love!

B

A Low Key Laid Back Easter Weekend

A belated Hoppy Easter to all! We had a laid back three day weekend to celebrate.

Friday was half day of school for E, a lot of napping with everyone being annoyed with a little cold or some allergy sniffles or something, and E's PTA function Friday night. It did seem a bit wrong that the PTA's big raffle and bingo night was on Good Friday. Were there no other Friday nights available this year? After all our explaining at dinner that we probably wouldn't win anything because lots of people entered the drawing etc. --we won an iPod. E had the best time running up front to pick it up.

Saturday we went to an event at church which explained the holiday on the kids' level--not M and G friendly so D took them off and came back around the egg hunt time. E and I had a good time though and it was really well done. The Easter Buny was a bit creepy looking and M only sat for a moment before he had enough.

After naps at home we went to a neighborhood egg hunt. Let me say at this point that while M gets very excited about seeing all the eggs he just doesn't get it yet. Kind of nice because it is easy to get pics of him. He was super cute carrying his basket. The big kids are exactly what you would imagine; tearing around grabbing everything in sight. Our neighbor put out about 300 eggs for the 10 or so kids that came and it was over in 2 minutes. The reason it even took that long was the big kids who set out eggs went to the extreme with the prize egg and buried it in a flower bed. It was moved from that place on the sly so the kids didn't dig up the whole yard. Luckily Saturday was beautiful and we spent the rest of it playing outside and ended with a cookout because.....


It rained on Easter. One of the only days that it set in and rained from sunup to sundown. The sun did burst through a few times while it was pouring. In the late afternoon we heard some thumping around upstairs in the playroom and went up to find that the sneaky old bunny had come in and hidden eggs all over. That egg hunt took all of twenty seconds. M again had the greatest time while not getting a single egg. A couple of pics from after the egg hunt.

love and hugs and remember it's not all about how many eggs you get.... it's about the fun you have hunting.

B

You Grow Some, You Lose Some

Everyone knows this must be a little diatribe from me on my ever changing hair. I saw my new dermatologist today and I must say he was honest.
Refreshingly honest yet traumatic to have it put so honestly.

I had read it all before but my dr. in VA and I just dived into treatment and didn't go into the details of the disease. My dr. here is an older gentleman and after we talked for a few minutes about my history thus far he said that what I term "chasing the bald spots around my head" is the nature of the disease and there is no cure. There is no way to pinpoint the trigger that began all this. It is not caused by stress, but stress aggravates the problem causing more bald patches. The foam I was using at first he basically called useless and said it was mostly to make me feel like I was doing something proactive(a D word). The injections are simply a stop gap to shorten the period of baldness before hair regrows. Without injections the hair will regrow but could take up to a year. With injections the disease short circuits and hair regrowth begins within 2-3 months. It was nice to be treated like a patient instead of like a cash register for the dr. to ring up a sale every month.
Currently when you look at me you can't tell there is a problem (except one area in the back that doesn't seem to want to grow back). My hair loss has slowed for the moment; he was impressed that more did not come out when he pulled. The injections are painful (they seem a little distressed when I cry while getting them; what do other people do I wonder? is my tolerance for pain really so low?). What we heavily figured in was that the treatment in this case seemed to be worse than the disease especially considering the treatment is not a cure.

So today was my last treatment for 2 months. We are taking a break and reassessing then. No shots for 2 months should lower my stress level tremendously.

love and hugs and remember: a bad hair day is better than a no hair day, but a no hair day is better than no day at all.
B

Where the Wild Things Are....

When I was pregnant with M I thought "How cute! Just like in Sendak's book (one of my favorites)!" I even bought my Max his own stuffed Max in his wolf suit and one of the stuffed wild things for him to play with.

LET THE WILD RUMPUS BEGIN!

If he doesn't wake up with screeching then he wakes up yelling for DA!DA!DA!DA! louder than humanly possible. We bring him in to cuddle in our bed and he stands over us and body slams us until we just get up--D usually takes the brunt of this. M then begins his day of looking for trouble. At meals he is eating or pointing and grunting for more or signals he is done by clearing his tray (an expert at both the single arm sweep and the piece by piece methods). He is everything you might want in a job canidate: young, aggressive, smart, a real go-getter, and a terrific problem solver. Lets say he wants to clear the bottom 2 shelves of the pantry but I keep interupting. He will pretend to vacate the area, wait until I am occupied elsewhere, check that I am truly busy with a cruise by the room I am in, and then he heads right to the target. Favorite activities include: clear the pantry, bookshelf climbing, toss it in the toilet, light on/light off, attack the brother, pen pen who's got the pen, table surfing and the ever popular, run for the busy road. I know he is an average toddler, but I think after laid-back G he seems more difficult. G still can't stay mad for more than a minute and never got the hang of tantrum throwing--- we are paying for that with M. He can already toss his little body on the floor and screech like a pro. Unfortunately for him D and I just laugh and walk away.



He does have his cute moments (which may be why we haven't offered him up for auction on eBay).
Today he was running after the dogs at the bus stop yelling "Kitty! Kitty!" And when you sit on the floor to read him a story he stands in front of you and backs into your lap. And he can high 5 you and give the biggest smile. And , well, it's good that there are a few reasons to keep him.

Can you believe these pics are the same kid? Could he look meaner while wrestling with G?

love and hugs and if M is missing for a few blog entries in a row, you might check eBay,
B

What a nice weekend!

We have had a really nice weekend. Friday, D came home a bit early and took care of the kids dinner so I could go to a Ladies Night Out event next door. He had a friend over from work so after Ladies Night Out I came home and sat and talked with them--- a very relaxing evening.

Saturday we decided it was time to venture to the glass museum in Tacoma. It's not really that it is a long trip; it's more that taking 3 rough little boys into a museum filled with glass takes a certain amount of courage. E had been bothering us to go so we bit the bullet and did it. Let me put everyone as ease before I talk about it--- we did not break anything. The security guards in each gallery were quite amused at E and G walking around with their hands in their pockets. In the gift shop we were looking around and heard a giant crash, enough to stop any parents heart but it wasn't one of ours ( of course ours couldn't stop saying "I didn't do it! I didn't do it!" which made the person who did it feel worse I'm sure). The museum has a Hot Shop where there are glassblowers working and you can sit and watch them make pieces. Once E and G got over the fact it was "so hot in here" they really enjoyed watching. No pics allowed in the museum so we took a few outside on the glass bridge. It is a bridge over the interstate connecting the History Museum to the Glass Museum and it has three large displays on it. One is a wall of different vases, one looks like giant sugar rock candy (or Walmart bags blowing in the wind if you're jaded), one you walk through like a tunnel and when you look up the ceiling is filled with all sizes and shapes of glass art (not the place to be standing during an earthquake--- on a bridge over the interstate with hundreds of pounds of glass suspended over your head). As we arrived on the other side of the glass bridge one of the electric trains that the city of Tacoma runs downtown was waiting at the stop so we decided to take the kids for a ride. They were thrilled. Even M recognized that this was something new and different.

The afternoon in Tacoma ended with a bit of shopping (2 stores, the kids were pretty tired) and a little stop at a place called "Hello, Cupcake" . Dinner was grilled while the kids played on the patio and the icing on the day was everyone sampling cupcakes after dinner. Red Velvet was the favorite followed closely by Carrot Cake, then coconut and chocolate came in last---- there is a first time for everything.

Today we will hang out at the house and do some planting and other jobs and try to rest up from springing forward (you all did remember to spring right?)

Hope you all had a great weekend too!

Love and hugs and go eat a cupcake,

B

Slow News Week

Hey Everybody!

Sorry but it has been a slow news week.

I am fighting with myself over G's preschool: We all know that when held to VA standards he is not ready for Kindergarten after one more year of preK, but what about when held to WA standards? Also they have afternoon preK here which goes from 12-3. Sounds good until you take in the M factor with naps and all. It is also just so convenient to drop off , run errands, etc and then pick up and go home for lunch.

The public school has an afternoon position available and is 5 or less minutes from home. He could only go here one year becasue they don't allow 5 year olds in preK; so if he needs the second year it would be changing schools for him again.

The church where I currently have him registered for an afternoon class is 10 minutes away. He could go two years in this program with the second year increasing in difficulty and number of days to prep him for K.

I just can't seem to make a decision that I am at peace with--- anyone want to take over on this one???? If this seems like I am way overthinking it then you should have seen me attempting to decide on new patio furniture.

Our only outing was to the fishing pier at Fox Island last weekend; if you go make sure to get directions because it is not a place you will simply run across. The pier has a beautiful view of THE big bridge (nice to look at but I wouldn't want to drive it). You can also crab off the pier but I think it would take a long line to hit the water as it is pretty high; how high you ask? Lets just say that I walked in the center and tried not to approach the rails.

A final picture taken by me but brought to you by E. We are in the right territory for my children to become hunters........ of rainbows. Yesterday it was raining with the sun setting and E watched and watched until he found this beauty right next to our house.

love and hugs and go hunt rainbows!

B