Father’s Day quickly arrived yesterday.  We didn’t do anything out of the ordinary like give gifts and our meals were actually unplanned and dinner in particular was extra terrible.  I was feeling kind of guilty for not even getting Luke a card and then it happened.  We were driving in the car and Luke started talking.

He said something like this, ”You know how you don’t go out of the house in your pajama’s, not even to the grocery store?  Well I didn’t used to get it, as to what the big deal was.  But I think you’re rubbing off on me because yesterday I saw this lady wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, pajama style and I thought – what was she thinking wearing that out in public.  Actually now when I see anyone wearing any type of lounge wear, weather it matches or not I tend to think – what are they wearing?!  Why don’t they go put some real clothes on.  I don’t think I’d ever think about something like that if it wasn’t for you.” 

It might be a strange story for you, but to me it was very sweet and sentimental.  And so now instead of feeling “kind of” guilty I feel a little extra guilty.  So I just wanted to take this time to say:

Happy Father’s Day!

…and more importantly Happy Husband’s Day…you’re great at both!

Here are some cute pictures we took yesterday with our hoodies on.  Yep, it’s officially summer and we were all wearing our hoodies yesterday…why is it still so cold and rainy outside?!

We just got back from our trip to California.  We arrived to overgrown weeds knee high in our front yard which was a little disappointing to say the least.  Especially since we’ve been working really hard to clear the yard out.  I can’t decide if I’m more annoyed with the overgrown weeds or with my overgrown eyebrows!  I totally forgot to pack tweezers for my trip.  But I’m sure everything will be well manicured soon.

It was a big downer to be in CLOUDY California for 2 weeks and be reminded several times that it was SUNNY almost the entire time here in Washington.  What are the odds?! 

For my twitter followers – no I didn’t pack a sweater.  I rebelliously wore tank tops, flip flops and other summer wear the entire time. 

But enough with the small annoyances.  I had a really great time hanging out with my friends and family.  Am I glad to be home?  Well I’d be more glad if my suitcases would unpack themselves.  Being home increased my awareness to how much my children grew while we were away.  Alyssa went straight up to the forbidden DVD’s and barley used her tippy toes to reach the DVD’s!  I guess her piggy can come off of time out now.  (Here’s the reminder picture) As for Evan, he thinks anything on the floor is for eating (especially lint) and he’s also army crawling like crazy and is even crawling up stairs!   So I’m pretty much about to pin him to the ceiling anytime now.

Oh right – enough with the small talk.  I suppose what you really want to see are pictures from our trip.  I’ll try to make it brief. :)

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Our first major outing was to the local petting zoo with my sister, her son Andrew and my parents.  I wasn’t sure how this was going to go over because Alyssa has been afraid animals lately.  But we went and although she was timid and didn’t touch any of the animals I think it was a good experience for her. 

I let Evan pet the animals with his feet. He seemed to like it.  hehe 

This horse almost ate his cheerio holder! yikes.

She enjoyed the ducks the best because she was able to throw food AT them.  lol

We were really excited to see our good friends Matt & Melissa and their son Cayden a few times during our trip.  When we first arrived we went to their house for a day trip.  Alyssa and Cayden really enjoyed chasing after each other around the house and laughing.  They wore themselves out and it was an amazing feat to have all three kids go down for naps at the same time (and bed for that matter) so that we could resume our tradition of playing Rook late into the night!  (See Melissa’s blog for a similar summary of our trip with way cuter pictures! hehe)

Next on the agenda was a get together with my high school friends.  I’m hitting myself for not getting a group picture of my friends, but we did get cute pictures of the newest babies of 2009 from oldest to youngest.  Madison, Evan, Jake & Zoey. This is a plea to my friends to send me their pictures from the party! :)

One of the main events of our trip was my sister’s 29th Birthday.  Uh, which means I’ll be turning 31 soon…but not that soon. :)  If you’ve never met my sister, you’re missing out.  We’re total opposites, but share a sense of humor.  I’d like to say I’m funnier than her, but right now it could be a toss up.  Or maybe she’s not that funny, but fun to laugh at! lol hehe just kidding.  Just to give you a random piece of information about my sister.  She’s gone through more cell phone services (which means cell phones as well), dogs and cars as I go through - well let’s just say it’s a lot.  And why you ask?  Well because you can’t have any of those things for more than a few months without some sort of excuse to get a new one right?! lol

We also used her birthday party as an excuse to take a few family pictures.  As you can see from this first one, we might should have hired a professional.  We took several and this was the best one. :)  Can you tell we were all smiling for way too long before the picture was taken?! lol

Sabrina, Evan, Luke, Alyssa

            Linda, Mike (mom and dad)

                         Betty, Hollis (grandma and grandpa)

                                     Sandra, Ken, Camila  (my mom’s brother & his family

                                                 Kari, Andrew, Wes (my sister & her family)

Here’s a really cute one of my grandparents

And finally…the main event picture.  We took this one last and now that I look back on this day we should have taken it first and we might have gotten a better picture.  This is the picture my parents want to have blown up and placed over their fireplace…we’ll see how it works to crop it because our feet are already out of the picture.  Maybe they should use the one of them and the grandkids instead. :)

So as you can see by the pictures above I may have been slightly exaggerating the fact that it was cloudy the entire time of our trip.  But mostly it was – regardless, it was not what I was expecting.  However, we were able to go swimming a few times in Kari’s heated pool and spa and the kids (and myself) LOVED every second of it.

This picture below cracks me up.  With a Luke head being scratched and Andrew’s crazy face.  hehe

All three cousins posing in the pool. :)  So cute.

Speaking of posing.  Let’s regroup and finish our trip at a later time.  Whew, blogging this trip is a doosey!

Alyssa woke up from her nap the day of her birthday party to the sound of kids arriving to her party.  Let’s just say she was very surprised and excited.  I’m not sure why she didn’t see it coming with all the decorations we put up in the morning! Maybe it’s because she’s 2 years old! :)

She had all of her favorite friends join her for her party.  The girls decorated pink star fairy wands and the boys decorated knight shields.

Her friends and family brought her lots of amazing presents.  She opened them throughout the party at her leisure.  It worked out well that way because she was able to enjoy each present one at a time.  Here she is opening a really cool car from her Grandma Vistercil.

My mom helped her take the cards out and look at them.  She was surprisingly interested in the cards.

Here are just a few pictures of some of her gifts:

Fairy-Princess dress up clothes/accessories…she especially loves the necklace.

Baby doll that she has named and continues to call ‘Baby Evan’

One present had these really cute sunglasses and she couldn't wait to try them on.

It also had a very cute shirt that she insisted she try on right then, which actually worked out perfectly because she had smeared a little bit of chocolate from her cupcake on her orange shirt.

Speaking of Cupcakes.  I made quite a few cupcakes for her party and piped on a letter for each of the kids names.  We had about 10 kids plus parents so it was quite the turnout.

She LOVED blowing out the candles, except we had to sing the song twice to get her to blow out the candles.  I had put 2 candles in her cupcake and the flame was too strong so I took one off and then I confused her so we had to sing again to get her to blow out her candle.  She didn’t eat much of her cupcake, but really enjoyed using the icing to finger paint the tablecloth!  She might be an anti-icing girl when she gets a little older – like her daddy.

She might be an anti-icing girl when she gets a little older – like her daddy.  Her best friend Natalie however had no hesitation to eating her cupcake – so hilarious! :) No Hands!

I think she thoroughly enjoyed her birthday party and we want to thank all of her friends for coming to help make her day very special! 

I made Easter baskets for all of us this year…not sure how long I’ll do that for Luke and me, but it was fun this year.  Especially since my friend Rebeccah sent me some cute stuff to fill mine with and I had been wanting an excuse to buy Luke an itunes gift card. :) 

Our Easter morning was filled with fun church activities of course.  These next few pictures are so cute.  They have been letting Alyssa sit and have “Second Breakfast” with the older kids before Kidz Church and then they send her off to the nursery.  She’s so little sitting with the older kids and they help her eat her food, very cute.  Although she is sometimes VERY sad to leave and cries at the nursery door because I think she gets her feelings hurt that they are ‘sending her away.’

The teacher of this early church class brings an awesome meal every single Sunday and the kids call it “Second Breakfast.”  This week she brought 2 types of egg and sausage muffins, fruit and juice boxes.  She sets up each place setting with a paper towel placemat, plate, fork, etc.  So cute.

They also had an Easter egg hunt after church.  The little kids had their own hunt where they found eggs filled with small crackers and cookies and also rubber duckies.  Once Alyssa realized they were filled with food she just wanted to eat and didn’t want to hunt for more. Here is Luke trying to convince her to find more eggs.  hehe

Alyssa snacked on her treats in the car, took a nap once we got home and missed seeing the deer again! 

Okay I think I need to stop obsessing over the deer. :)

When she woke up we had her basket all ready for her.  She was pretty excited about her “candy” aka fruit gummy snacks.

Evan seemed pretty excited about his (empty) basket too…maybe there will be more exciting things in your basket next year buddy.

Then of course we took some pictures of the two of them in their Easter outfits.

Later that day we went to a friend’s house to celebrate a birthday and they took a picture of our family for us.  It was kinda late at night and it was hard to get the kids to cooperate and smile at their camera, but at least Luke and I look good. :)  hehe

Thanks Hennessy’s and Happy Birthday Tyler!

It was a busy day for us, but we had a great Easter and hope you all did as well.

Happy Easter! 

A couple of weeks ago Luke was ready to leave for work and Alyssa and I walked him to the front door.  We sometimes wave to him from the big picture window.  Well this particular morning we were all shocked to see 2 deer in our front yard! 

I imagine the deer entered our street from the neighbor’s house at the end of the street 2 doors down.  Their backyard is gigantic and has a small stream flowing through it.

I forgot to blog about it before, but I was reminded this evening because as we came home about 8pm those same deer were in the street at the end of our driveway!  So crazy.  Oh yeah and it snowed again today.  Craziness!

The hand me down process has begun.

Crib: Presto-Chango

I love his new bedding and his mobile, but I’m thinking about taking the mobile back.  I think he’s probably already outgrown the need for a mobile.  It was an impulse buy because it’s so cute.

My friend Rebeccah made this quilt for him…I love it!  (Thank you!!)

The first time I laid him on the fuzzy side of the quilt, welts broke out all over his face, but I washed his face off and they went away pretty quickly.  I’ve washed the quilt a couple of times now and it’s fine now…thank goodness. :)  He has pretty sensitive skin.  I recently tried using scented Downy and he broke out with that too, so I’ll have to stay with my sensitive detergent/softeners for now.

Alyssa has asked “UP PLEASE!” to get into the crib, but we just remind her that it’s Evan’s turn to be in the crib and she has her own bed.  She doesn’t like the bumper because she can’t see into the crib.  With the pack and play she was just barely tall enough to see in.  I imagine she’ll find a creative way to climb up to see into his crib soon enough.

Does she look big enough for a “Big Girl Bed?”

Well ready or not (or maybe a little of both) here it is!

Do you see the purple pillow?  She actually sleeps on this side because this is the side she slept on in her crib so we wanted to keep it the same for a while.  It seems to work out well because we just fold the comforter back and wha-la bed made.

Her bed is so big (or rather her room is so small) that this is the only place we could put her bed without it invading all the space in her room.

So how’s it going you ask?

Nights

Sleeping at night is awesome!  Her bedtime routine (reading her ABC book with Daddy) is the same as before and she goes to bed with no complaints.  ALTHOUGH… last night (her 3rd night) Luke and I were laying in bed and we heard a thud.  I was like – what was that?!  In a non-shalaunt voice Luke said “Alyssa falling off her bed.”  I was like “Huh?” Then I was like “OH!” and I sprinted upstairs to find Alyssa looking at her bed as if thinking “what happened?”  I held her for a minute and then put her back in her bed and she went right back to sleep. 

Naps

Well naps haven’t been as easy.  Actually they have been terrible.  I’ve been doing the same routine as I did with her crib, but she’s not going along with “the plan.”  She’ll be fine until I’m about to walk out the door and then the craziness begins.  Today she cried and I sang her another song then left.  She got out of bed and I put her back in bed about 10-15 times (no exaggeration).  After about an hour of this nonsense I decided to hold onto the door handle of her bedroom so that she would just give up and get into bed and go to sleep.  Well when I did this she played with the door handle and locked the door! 

After less than 5 more minutes of crying it was silent.  I waited a while then checked the door to make sure – yep locked.  I wasn’t that worried because it’s one of those push locks so it’s easily unlocked from the inside if you turn the door handle.  So I just anxiously waited until she woke up.  Thankfully Luke came home from work early.  He wasn’t as relaxed as I was, but I tried to assure him that I thought it would be okay.  As we were talking downstairs in our room we heard footsteps.  I was pretty funny because Alyssa was greeted by cheering parents and just gave a big smile.  She was probably thinking…what’s the big deal?  I don’t think she knew she had locked herself in her room.

I might have poisoned my family tonight.

Hopefully not, but it’s possible.

It went like this…

I made a casserole and actually had enough time to cut up real pieces of chicken to put into it instead of the Costco canned chicken I normally use.  So I put it in the oven and set the timer amount for what it called on the recipe.  When the timer went off I was busy with Evan so Luke was in charge from there.  He dished up some for himself and Alyssa and they began to eat.  A few minutes I came over to the table and noticed right away that the chicken was not cooked!  There seemed to be some pieces that were, but most were only partially cooked. 

Luke couldn’t recall how much they had eaten or specifically how much chicken they had eaten, but he thinks only a few bites each.  He didn’t think to check the chicken because for this recipe I usually use the canned chicken. 

I put the casserole back in the oven to finish baking and when it was done I found myself eating alone.  Meanwhile I had called the nurse hotline and made an inquiry.  She said that all we could do was wait 12-48 hours for signs of food poisoning.  Luke vowed to not eat for 12 hours “just in case,” (whatever that means) but 3 hours into his fast he was sitting on the couch with 10 Oreo’s and a big glass of milk! 

Whatever.

I think they’ll be fine.  (hopefully)  But just in case, they might need some prayers!  

Thursdays are normally long because Luke doesn’t get home until 9pm because of band practice at church…well sometimes he comes home between work and practice, but it still tends to feel long when he’s not around.

Well today felt abnormally long because Evan couldn’t keep his milk down.  He has the stomach virus that Alyssa and I got a few days ago except that Alyssa and I only threw up one time each.  Today he threw up 5 times which meant 5 outfit changes for him AND for me.  It also included an extra shower for myself because the 2 of 5 landed in my hair!  So gross.  Did I mention it was gross?  Today also included 5 to 6 loads of laundry.

I learned a lot today, but here are just three I’ll share:

I learned how to throw myself in front of projectile vomit as to protect my carpet.

I learned not to use a small pan to heat water on the big burner with angel hair pasta because it will catch on fire if you are not there to pay attention.

I learned how to spell Lactobacillus thanks to our kind and loving Dr. Nohle who talked with me about my kids sickness today on the phone.  (It’s for tightening up the bowels and he said it’s good to have on hand in the medicine cabinet and safe to use for the entire family)

THANKFULLY this was not a flu virus, just a more generic stomach virus so there were no fevers or body aches to tend to.  Each and every time Evan finished his milk (for the 2nd time if you know what I mean) he always had a smile on his face.  And in general he was a pretty happy baby today.  He did take quite a few naps and put himself to sleep quite easily.

Here’s a picture of him post milk consumption and then eruption.  Picture courtesy of Luke…yes he did get home in time to experience an Evan upset. You know because it’s nice to not to have to endure this experience all by yourself.  :) 

So counting yesterday our little smiley dude has had 10 tummy upsets.  Poor guy.

Oh and yes it’s 1am and I’m still wide awake…it’s all that Mr. Pibb I drank today to give me my energy for the day!  Yeah, yeah…I know I should use vitamins instead.

Speaking of Vitamins!  I’ve been using Hyland’s Sniffles and Sneezes remedy for Alyssa’s runny nose – it is AMAZING!!  If you haven’t heard of it check out their website.  You can buy them almost anywhere.  http://www.hylands.com/  Two doses and her nose stops running.  Where has this been all her life?!  I can’t say enough good things about it because although throw up is disgusting – wiping runny nose is up there on the gross list right after the whole loose bowel thing.

Side Note: Runny noses are extremely common in this state.  I’m still getting used to the fact that our doctor said that it is not uncommon for a child to have a cold twice a month (that’s every other week!)  It is killing me…I can’t wait for the sun to come out and the runny noses to go away!

The Botanical Gardens in Bellevue with the Pence Family

I was pouring rain when we arrived, but thanks to Jenn’s prayers there was a halt in the rain for pretty much the exact time we arrived to when we left – the power of prayer is amazing!  It was still freezing, but at least it wasn’t raining!

That butterfly was really cool, as were all the flowers made of lights.

Christmas With My Family

My parents arrived Christmas Day evening and we celebrated Christmas the next morning.  Alyssa had so much fun with them and is always asking where they are.

My mom curled Alyssa’s hair and put a necklace on her. :)

Besides her kitchen, she did get a few other things – compliments of Santa and grandma.  I think we’ll be able to give her that Disney snow globe at least one more year without her catching on. 

Here we are in our Christmas Jammies.

Playing in the Snow

As soon as my mom got here she was super excited to play in the snow.  The first few days went by and we never found the right moment to go play outside.  Just as the snow was on the melt we snuck out during nap time to re-build a snow lady.  We made a double sided snow lady that way we could enjoy her through our picture window and so that our neighbors could enjoy her as well.

This is the side I decorated…

  This is the side my mom decorated…scary! I think she looks like an alien snow lady!

Here I am making my dad laugh…my mom finally joined in at the end.

Hope you enjoyed a little Christmas past.