Random August funnies

Can you spot the sleeping child?

Yep Myann is under there. She sleeps amidst her animals and blankets.

My ubber messy child. Oh, the joy on her face.


And because you can never have too many photos of Anders.

Oh Come On!!!!!!

So now I am officially having a pity party. I am sitting here praying my on call doctor calls me because I am quite positive I have mastitis. I have never had mastitis and this is my third go around nursing and 42nd month of nursing to be exact. Of course I get mastitis now, at the worst possible time after the worst possible week. I did not even tell you about the minor bad things that happened the last few days. So here I sit in pain, with horrible chills and fever. I could wait until morning, since I think an OB/GYN is on call for pregnant women only, but I am praying she calls. Now I am wishing I had not been so shy and gone up to her the numerous times I saw her at the boys' sports camp or soccer practice. But she is not my normal doctor, so I didn't want to bother her when she wasn't working.

Update: Hallelujah! She called and is giving me antibiotics. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my practice, they are the greatest group ever!!!!!!

No pictures included for obvious reasons.

Do you ever wonder...Really is this my life?

Warning: This blog will include mention of poop.

I mean it in a comical sense, the Really is this my life. Today was one of those days when you find yourself saying, "Really, is there more today." The day started well enough. I am continuing our declutter and was hanging pictures. Then hubby got involved, awesome, we might get all the pictures hung. Of course, I found some issues with the pictures I had professionally hung (Never use Michael's, they are horrible long story, I'll leave it at that). So I will be going back this week to get them fixed. But we are getting stuff done, all is well. Nap time was approaching. We get Myann in bed for a nap. So we thought. A few minutes later, she comes downstairs and tells daddy she pooped. Mine you, there is no diaper and she has poop on her hands. I hear this going on and run off to find the poop. I go up the stairs and see that she must have scooted her poopy butt all the way down the stairs, as there is poop streaked in a perfect line all the way down the carpeted stairs. I get to the top of the stairs and there it is, the missing diaper. One problem, hardly any poop in the diaper. So I set up our auto spot carpet cleaner, which is awesome by the way, and perfect for stairs. It is small and I can set it and walk away for 3 minutes at a time. So I pretreat all the mess, clean what I can and then set the carpet cleaner on the spot to deep clean. Next, I go hunting for the missing poop. At this point she is cleaned and daddy has put her in the baby bed. Which logistically works, so I can search the room she was sleeping in. Bed was all clear, thank you God, that would have been a real pain and gross. Then I noticed clothes had been pulled out of Shane's too small bin. I pick up the shorts and notice, yep, poop on my hand and poop on the floor. She tried to cover the poop with Shane's clothes and a tennis ball, not sure what good she thought the ball would do. But in doing so she managed to grind the poop into the carpet. Great more to clean and clothes to sanitize. I clean myself, almost threw up, but I held it in. Clean the poop and keeping move my carpet cleaner to a new spot every 3 minutes. I am disgusted with how my day has turned out, but everything is fixable we are ok.

Next, hubby is obsessed with the wasps and their new nests outside, so he decides to rebait the traps with watermelon. Protein works best in summers, but sweet fruit works best as it approaches fall, who knew wasps had seasonal cravings, whatever, he is doing it, so he can do whatever. I am finishing up cleaning, going to grab more paper towels, as I hear, "Oh my God." And there is lots of blood, hubby sliced right through his finger. I hand him the paper towels. Grab more for me and resume my cleaning. After 30 minutes, he is still bleeding and it looks pretty bad so off to the ER he goes. He had his own fun getting there. Urgent Care was closed because the doctor was sick, love the irony. So to the ER. As he is leaving, Shane says, "Oh no, now daddy will only have four fingers like Richard. I assured him that daddy didn't lose his finger."

So I am done cleaning the poop, 2 hours later, and start cleaning the blood all over the kitchen floor. Feeling like our house should be decontaminated at this point. Finish cutting the watermelon get it put away. Kids are all awake, previous plans for dinner are not going to happen, so in goes the frozen pizza and edamame, so that I feel like they will get some nutrition with dinner. Daddy makes it home. Myann then wants some watermelon,and says, "Mommy will you cut the watermelon, daddy doesn't know how, he cut his finger off." Brian and I hysterically laugh at this.

Bath time, kids in bed, hubby seriously asks, "when are you going to finish scrapbooking?" He's lucky he didn't lose a hand over that comment.

Anders' Birthday Photos

As always, Jaidean does not disappoint. Here is the link to her sneak peak.

http://jaideanbakerphotography.com/blog/

Seriously, that boy just makes me smile. Nothing like an adorable baby to make a bad week feel like a thing of the past.

Pizza Tour

My friend Jen arranged a tour of our local Pizza Rita. The kids loved getting to help make pizza and of course eat the pizza.






It was surprisingly not messy, so then I let them play with their dough at home. The "not messy" part went out the window at home.

On a Happy Note - Anders is 11 1/2 Months old

On Tuesday, I took Anders for his well baby appt. No shots, so good for Anders. My big boy is still big, but not off the charts anymore. I think we can thank crawling for that. I am pretty sure he weighed more a month ago and some of his fat rolls have disappeared, but he has a few left.
8/25/09 stats
Weight 26 lbs. 8 oz. (90%)
Height 30 inches (75%)
Head circ 19 inches (95%)

Anders can pull up on anything and he is learning to stand without holding on. If I can get a picture of the stance I will post it. He looks like a sitting flamingo, super cute. I think he still has a while before walking, he is still pretty wobbling on those big sausage legs. And 1st birthday pictures to come soon. Jaidean came to do pictures Monday. He was not as happy and giggling as normal, but I think he gave her enough to hopefully get a few good shots. We did a smash cake and we were shocked that he did not enjoy it more. In fact, he was screaming by the end of it.

Making Lemonade

I am making lemonade out of the huge amount of lemons thrown at me today. As seen from my previous post, my facebook account was hacked. That in it of itself would not be that big of a deal, or so I thought. But the person used it to emotionally black mail people who care about me. The person instant messaged friends on facebook saying I desperately needed the money, I am summarizing, the person was a bit more convincing than that. Friends and family were put in a position of concern for my well being. If you were one of them, I am so sorry. I am not going to elaborate more, but people were hurt and for that I feel horrible and responsible since it was my account.

I consider myself to be pretty good with my security, which is why I NEVER do any of those facebook quizzes or applications, I was too afraid, but I was hacked anyway. I still don't know how it happened. I have a theory, but it was too easy, so I hope facebook is more secure than that. And facebook has been zero help. Even after I knew this was going on and started contacting people, the person was still on asking for money. I was locked out of the account and helpless to do anything but try to contact people via email and phone. For the record, I would/will never ask for money over any media outlet. So if anyone hijacks my blog and posts I need money - I would never do that. I am a pretty industrious person and can take care of myself. Afterall, I backpacked through Europe with little money and I even ended up in the wrong country in the middle of the night and survived. I hope this happening to me will help others.

As for making lemonade, I have learned a lesson today on securing my electronic info better and that I need to be on the computer less. I feel like God has been on me about that one for a while now and apparently I needed to be hit over the head to get the message. As much as I hate to give up the social network of facebook, I think I am done, I just can't stand the thought of going through that again. As for the blog, I think I am going to set it as private. Brian has insisted on this for some time and I did not honor his request because I knew that it would be harder on our less tech savy family members to read, but now they will just have to get on board or give up on hearing about us. The hacker may have gotten personal information from my blog to help convince people on facebook. I really hate to do this, because I innocently stalk a few blogs and I don't really know the people and would not ask to be allowed to read their blog if they were private, so I know that there are a few people out there that do the same here, but I have to do this for our own protection. Internet Fraud is only getting worse, so it is time I get more proactive. So I will go private soon and if you would like to be added, send me a request.

Another lemon, in trying to secure my email, since I was not sure how much the hacker had access to, I somehow disabled my email account. I don't think it was hacked, I think I messed up trying to make it more secure. So for now, I have no email either. Brian called today my tech holiday, since I had no email for most of the day and no facebook. I am working on getting email back, but free email services are not always the most helpful, hence the free part. They are working with me, so if you have emailed me, I hope to get back to you, but I may not if I lose access to my account.

Facebook account was hacked

Trying to get the word out, my facebook account was hacked and the person is asking people for money. I can't even get into the account to change things. They changed my contact email and password, so I can't even change things back and I can't even reach facebook, other than filling out online forms.

Blog is a new word for Myann

Myann continues to do awesome potty training, thankfully, because she has been moved up to the big girl classroom at school where they are expected to be fully potty trained. I informed them that she was not there yet, but they said they would work with her. Anyway, the other day after peeing on the potty, Myann said, "Mommy put it on the blog that I pee'd in the potty." How cute is that!

Sunday...when I should be sleeping

I should be sleeping. Tonight I told myself, and Brian, that I was going to bed early. So it is 11pm and I am still up, so why not blog. I am hopelessly behind on blogging, so thought I could at least blog tonight and hope to finally get back to blogging from June and July.

If you don't live near me or have not been to my house within the past 2 weeks, you probably don't know that we just underwent a MAJOR landscaping undertaking. It took 2 weeks of guys working full days and lots of heavy equipment. But, we finally have grass, not weeds. Our lower deck was nearly overtaken by weeds, so we thought it was time. We also thought our neighbors would appreciate walking on the sidewalk by our property without being attacked by weeds, so now we have a really big lawn, and if you saw our lawn before, it wasn't exactly small. Brian may finally get his riding mower, because a push mower on our new lawn is definitely cruel and unusual punishment. All in all, the landscaping looks good, but now we wait and see how the grass takes. So the point of the blog, today we went looking for patio furniture, since we soon will be able to have people over on our back decks. End of summer, so it was slim pickings, but if you like what is left, you can get it for a great price. We are still deciding. Anyway, still not the point of the blog. While walking into the store, I casually said to Brian, "Let's go out for dinner?" I was SHOCKED when Brian said, "Yea, let's do it, I was thinking the same thing." For most people, going out to dinner with your kids is no big deal, I feel guilty about this, but we do not. EVER! At dinner, which we went to Red Robin, because if we are going to dinner, we will only good to a super kid friends place, Brian and I realized that we have not gone out to dinner as a family by ourselves since I was pregnant with Anders. Even then, we think the only time we ate out was on our Seattle trip when I was 5 months pregnant, of which I think we got take out every night. So not even sure when the last time we ate out as a family. Well over a year. In our defense, we do not eat out very often period. Brian and I do date night every week, and many of those nights we don't actually go out to eat, we run errands or stay home. We do eat out with the kids when we are with extended family, but only because we have to and because there are extra hands with the kids. We just don't believe in spending money to be miserable the whole time.

Anyway, so here we are at Red Robin and I decided to take pictures to mark the momentous occasion. Brian cracked up and said we looked so pathetic, taking pictures like it was the first time we have been in a restaurant - in a way it kind of was. The first 30 minutes went well, so well that I thought, "Why don't we do this more often." Then the kids we know and love reared their monstrous heads and the last 10 minutes were torture, and we could not pay the bill fast enough. Anders was eating, so happy, no problems there. Myann was eating spoonfuls of ketchup, but hardly touched her corn dog. Then she takes the bitten, slathered with ketchup corn dog and runs it all over the glass separating us from the next table. She won't eat, is standing and being a pain. Shane sees her getting all the attention, nevermind that it was negative attention, so he decides to misbehave by climbing under the table and going back and forth side to side. At which point I told him he just lost his dessert. Myann had already lost her chance at dessert, but she could have cared less. Shane cared and went into meltdown mode. Finally check came and we were out of there. I know, nothing catastrophic happened and they are not the world's worst kids, though hardly the best, but why spend extra money to be annoyed and miserable in public. No thanks, next time I will cook and deal with our kids in the privacy of our own home.

Dinner out - What were we thinking

Very out of character for us, but we decided to venture out for dinner with our 3 kids. Shutter at the thought, we do. We were over at the mall and decided to do Red Robin. Ok, harmless enough, Red Robin - very kid friendly. It started out ok, but before we left, Shane and Myann were smearing ketchup on the glass between us and the next table. Anders was fussing and Brian and I were wanting the check the moment we ordered. At the end, we all survived.




Can't you see the enjoyment on Brian's face

Petting Zoo

My friend Amber arranged for our mommy group to go to a petting zoo. Since we do not have a zoo here, we jump at the chance to take the kids to see any animals. They loved being with the animals except for Myann. Oh that girl is a walking accident. We were walking from the parking lot when I turn to hear her screaming. I see her hand through the fence and a goat walking backwards. The owner quickly said, "Don't worry they don't bite." Well unless your child sticks her finger through the fence and the goat thinks its a carrot. Luckily the goat let go and Myann recovered. Well recovered long enough to run toward the house when she fell down scraping her hands and knees. Seriously, she needs ballet bad, I have to get her some grace somehow. The highlight of the day was that they had chickens that laid green and blue eggs. Those were prized in our house.

Oh Shane, we are in trouble

Brian claims this is an all-time great for Shane. Brian picked Shane up from school today and they had their normal conversations on the way home. Shane asked why the door was locked last night and Brian explained it was because he keeps sneaking out. Shane said he was going to continue to sneak out. Brian said you will be punished and Shane said "well that is not nice". Brian said, "Actually, Jesus gave mom and dad the authority to punish kids". Brian then told Shane the scripture - Spare the rod spoil the child. Brian asked Shane if he knew what that meant and Shane said no, so Brian explained that Jesus said it was parents' job to punish bad behavior or they would end up spoiled. Shane paused for 20 seconds and said, "Well when you guys are sleeping you aren't doing your jobs."

Shane later told Brian that Jesus would never let him be Chuck E Cheese because he teases people. Brian said that Chuck E Cheese was not real and just a person in a costume. Shane said that Jesus gives out costumes and only gives them to people who do not tease.

Jesus must stay busy keeping up with Shane. :)

Swaddling Anders

In case you don't know this about us, Brian and I are fanatic swaddlers. We watched Happiest Baby on the Block before Shane was born and were sold. So we have swaddled all three kids for as long as possible. When Shane was 9 months old, his doctor told us that we should probably stop, so we did. So we converted Shane into a sleepsack. Then Myann was so small for so long, that we swaddled her until she was about 15 months. I even swaddled her around her sleepsack since the winters were so cold. And now Anders, though larger than Myann now, we still swaddle him. This absolutely cracks my mother up, she laughs every time she sees me swaddle him. She said it looks like I smashing a sausage into its casing. What can I say, Anders loves it. He even grabs the blanket now and helps me wrap him. He also gets excited, like he knows sleep is coming. Fortunately since Anders is so big, I found blankets big enough, Aden Anais, that work for him. For those of you gasping in horror, my kids don't stay in the swaddle. Usually by 6 months on, they learn to break the swaddle almost immediately, but it is their bedtime routine and seems to help lull them to sleep. And to be honest, our children are wonderful sleepers, may or may not be due to swaddling.

So this is for you mom (Bad picture since Anders is crying, but he does not like being swaddled and then put down while I grab the camera. Once he is swaddled, he wants to be held and put to bed)

Myann is on her way...

to being potty trained and we have one happy household as a result. Myann is stubborn, to say the least, so we were doubtful about what techniques would work. So far, the methods with Shane had been ineffective. But then all Brian's family came to town and she became interested. She has been using the potty regularly for a week. Yesterday she even went four times in one day, most initiated herself. Only once I had to tell her to go. And she is not as interested in her reward. Shane used to pee in small increments, just so he could get more m&m's. About half the time Myann asks for her treat. So we are pretty excited. Ahh, the longing to only have one in diapers. I think the best part is the look of pride on her face when she goes. She just glows and loves being a big girl. Here's to hoping she keeps this up so she can go to the big girl class at school.

Japanese Garden in Manito

After raspberry picking, we went to the Japanese Garden in Manito Park. With so many hands, I was able to play with my camera and get some cute picks of the kids.




Shane helping Myann off the rocks after she fell down, of course Myann fell down

Picking Raspberries

At the end of the CDA week, Uncle Shane and his girlfriend stayed for an extra day and we went to Green Bluff to pick raspberries. They were so good, but we had to dodge bees and convince the kids to pinch at the stem to make them last longer.

Myann is committed, she really went low to find some good ones.

Trying to duplicate a photo of Shane

Shane had his 8 month photos taken in this shirt. I wanted to duplicate the photo before Anders outgrew the shirt. I took the picture 6/27/09. The onesie was big on Shane at the time and at 9 months, the onesie barely fit Anders, so it is a good thing I took this picture when I did. Myann wanted in on the action, so that is why she is in the picture. I also included the picture of Anders crying because it shows his swollen upper gums. One of his top teeth popped through shortly after this picture and the other one came through 8/2/09.

Week in Coeur d' alene

This week, Brian's mom and her boyfriend Richard rented a large house on the river in Coeur d'alene. It was a week of merging families, Richard's niece, Richard's son and family, all Brian's siblings and family. The weather did not exactly cooperate, it was pretty cold a few days, but we had enough dry spells and sun to enjoy boating and jet skiing. Plus we were able to show off how beautiful the area is we live in.

Richard and Myann

Anders

Tubing - Shane, Uncle Shane and Braxton

Mommy and Myann

Casey and Shane


Aunt Sunny and Anders

Brian and Shane

Myann and My Andy (Myann called Andy My Andy the whole week)

Myann pretending to be sleeping on Daddy, so cute though.