The Look

It may have taken him 16 months, and you can still see the wheels turning in his head when he's working on getting all of his facial features to align just so... but we can safely announce that Gideon has mastered the stank face. Check that milestone off the list!

You give me fever.

She didn't want me to take this one. I can't blame her - who wants to be photographed when they're sick ?

Today was a sick day. It was my turn for stay at home with sick kid duty, so I was home with the Mouse. She had a fever through most of the day, but it broke this afternoon (almost exactly 24 hours after it began), and she had no other symptoms.

Fever isn't such a new thing. Fever started long ago. 

 All things considered, it was a good day. The Mouse was okay to mostly sleep, which allowed me to clock 8 hours of work - including two teleconferences! Working mom success! She was really quiet during the second conference call. When I hung up and turned the chair around, I found her completely passed out. She'd been playing with the child proofing stuff and her head was actually resting on top of one of those doorknob covers we've (obviously) never used. Poor kid. I scooped her up and returned her to her nest on the couch.

I'm so glad we're past the "oooh, small metal objects?! Let me eat them!" stage. At least with one kid. 

Right about the time I was finished working for the day, Evelyn started to perk up. She ended her juice-only nutrition plan and declared that she wanted to make a peanut butter and jelly "all by myself" and so she did. All refueled, she was ready to "do letters" (find and type the letters in her name) on my laptop.

All work and no play. 

Not too long after her work was done, Jonathan and Gideon arrived home and it was the usual eat, bathe, jammies, brush, read, sing bedtime routine. Another day in the books. Grateful that I get to spend these moments with this little family.

He's pretty certain that the Kindle is a phone. 

Mother's Day 2013

Whew! That pretty much sums up life these days. Here's a glimpse into the adventures these days...

Today, as with most days (especially since a recent Come to Jesus discussion regarding washing the dishes), Jonathan was absolutely wonderful. I rolled out of bed at 9 AM. Yes, you read that right. NINE o'clock. I don't think I've slept past 6 in.... at least a year? Longer? I don't know, but it's been a long time. So seeing 9 on the clock just put a big smile on my groggy face. I shuffled out to the living room and the kids were all over me, and Jonathan had a spread of delicious quiche, cinnamon rolls, and juice ready for a morning feast. While we were eating breakfast, there was a knock on the door and Jonathan got this little grin on his face, answered it, and returned bearing a gorgeous vase of Stargazer Lilies. And chocolates! Does it get any better?!

After breakfast, the kids and I did some power-cleaning. I spent yesterday at Carowinds (an amusement park on the NC/SC border) with some co-workers, so Jonathan and the kids were home all day and the toddler tornado damage had to be remedied in order for me to relax. Luckily both kids can be helpful when they're so inclined, so I wasn't all on my own to pick up puzzle pieces and legos.

Once the house was tidied up, it was time to leave the house. This is the only option if the house is to stay clean, and it has the added bonus of making me automatically less stressed. If I'm not in the house, I'm not constantly seeing things I should be doing. So we decided to go visit the chickens at the Duke Gardens. On our way there, both of the wee ones passed out, so we switched to plan B: just keep driving so they nap as long as possible. We drove around Woodcroft, a neighborhood we really like, and window-shopped for houses.

Eventually, the kids woke up. With Gideon, waking up is a critical time. He needs food IMMEDIATELY or a great deal of screaming and panic ensues. Luckily, we happened to have one remaining squeezy fruit packet in the car, so he downed that and we quickly found a place for lunch.

Oh, dining out with two small children. I can't think of anytime that's gone smoothly recently. Today's lunch was chock-full of moments. First, there was the fact that the only two high chairs in the place were in use by another party. Then, there was the milkshake spilled on my purse (but not IN it - win!), the children deciding that what they ordered was not what they wanted to eat, the loud noises, the trips to the bathroom, the parents scarfing food as quickly as possible, the scrubbing of the floor and table to return it to non-biohazardous conditions... yeah. Dining out...

It was clearly time to expend some energy, so we decided to go to what Evelyn was by now calling "Chicken Park". But... womp womp... I totally forgot that Duke's graduation stuff happened this weekend just like it does every Mother's Day, and the gardens were absolutely packed. We drove on by and hit up Trinity Park, a nearby little neighborhood park, were we had a great time swinging and climbing and exploring. Right up until I looked over to see Evelyn standing at the edge of the play area, holding up her dress, and peeing. Not like fully intentionally or anything - I mean she wasn't happy about it and was trying to keep her dress dry - but yeah... I sprayed the area with the remaining contents of my water bottle and we scooped up the kids and left before they realized what had happened, so the screaming and gnashing of teeth over the leaving of the playground was confined to the car.

Of course the 30 minute car nap from earlier in the day was going to be the only nap today, so when we got home I took some kid duty time while Jonathan cleaned the kitchen. I got them in their swimsuits, handed over the new Ikea beach toys, and turned on the sprinkler. Instant fun! I accepted the challenge of cleaning out the car while occasionally scooping up Gideon and putting him back on the stoop (he likes to take every opportunity to run out into the cul-de-sac and laugh as I chase him and scold him). I got all the trash out, marveled at how Cheerios multiply and end up in every crevice, and took in the loads of sippy cups and blankets and books that accumulate throughout the week. Then I decided to go all-in and take out the car seats, ready to vacuum and spot-clean the floors and seats. But when I lifted up Gideon's car seat... SNAP.

Broken. I swear I'm not that strong, but one little plastic nubbin that holds the seat to its base just snapped off. The other side looked pretty weak too, and it popped out. So because of that little nubbin snapping right off, the seat was shot. Uggggggggggggghhhhhhhhh.

All at the same time, the kids lost interest in sprinkler-playing, and Jonathan and I realized that we'd be getting new car seats (Evelyn's seat is suddenly emitting a very strong foul odor contained in the styrafoam of the seat and not the cover - plus since her seat is the same as Gideon's we were now worried about the poorly-engineered nubbins). There were tears all around. And suddenly, we had to do whatever research and decision-making we could do while very much under the gun because the seats had to be bought immediately. Before tomorrow morning's commute. We decided to divide and conquer. As I cut up grapes and stirred the pasta for dinner, I was on the laptop reading reviews and safety ratings. Jonathan was in the office doing the same. And at about 6:25 we had independently settled on the same seat. Hooray! Jonathan hopped in the car and zoomed over the Babies R Us for the seats. I got the kids fed, did the bedtime mumbo jumbo, and emerged victorious to the living room at about the same time that Jonathan got home bearing the giant car seat boxes.

And that, my friends, is that.

P.S. In just a minute I'll update that previous post about home improvements with some pictures I remembered to snap today! Scroll on down for the fun :)

Me and She

Jonathan and Gideon hopped on a plane to Kansas for the weekend to celebrate our friends Kael and Melissa's fabulous "May the Fourth Be With You" wedding, so Mouse and I had to stay busy to avoid wallowing in self-pity that we couldn't go too. (If only kids flew free forever...)

On Thursday after work, we dropped off the guys at the airport and headed directly to Observation Park to watch the planes come and go. It's a good thing we lingered there for a while, because we got a call from Jonathan that their flight was delayed and they could either catch a flight in the morning, or be stranded in Atlanta overnight. Not a tough decision there. So we picked them up and headed home. Their flight left really early Friday morning, and after sleeping through the alarms I somehow woke up at the exact time they should have been checking in. Ensue the panicked rush to the airport, and they made their flight! Evelyn and I grabbed breakfast and headed to my office to pass the time before school opened. 

Watching some Word Girl. 

We had dinner and did some Target browsing after school on Friday, and then headed home for some rest in anticipation of a very, very busy Saturday.

First up on  an unseasonably cold Saturday morning was the Central Park School for Children's (my dream school) Strawberry Festival. We had some strawberry shortcake, did a cupcake walk, Evelyn got her face painted and a strawberry manicure, and then we booked it back to the car. Brrrrr.

A Strawberry Manicure

We got home just in time for a bathroom break and change of clothes (note the too-short sleeves in the manicure picture... I hate it when my fav clothes are outgrown!), and then it was off to our next door neighbors' house for their son's first birthday. The skies parted, the sun shone, and everything was perfect for some grilling, swinging, bounce-housing, and cupcake eating. What fun! I also finally met our corner neighbors, Dave and Wanda, and got the scoop on the news of the cul-de-sac. They've lived in their house for over 20 years so they know all the dirt.

Did you know you can buy these things? I want!

After the party, it was another quick pit-stop at home. Evelyn was inspired to write her full name, so we worked on that a little bit. This is her first "official" completely on her own name-writing:

Y is a tricky letter.

Then, it was in the car and off to the Club Boulevard Elementary (our second dream school) Manatee Mayfair!

The only chance for a nap lasted about 15 minutes. 

 The Mayfair was quite an event. An entire school playground and field with all sorts of activities. Evelyn and Linus bounced in the giant bounce house, threw pennies to try to earn candy, raced rubber ducks in a pool by squirting them with squirt guns, tried to dunk teachers at the dunk tank, got balloon swords and chased each other around with them until they popped, climbed and played on the playground, ate Loco Pops, got their faces painted, and did the cake walk. That last one was pretty funny, because Evelyn won during our round of cake walking! She didn't want to stand by me, so she was across the circle and I couldn't see her number. So when it was called, the people next to her got all excited and let her know that she won, but she just stood there looking skeptical. I finally went and got her, and Abby and Adrian showed us how to find the magical classroom full of cakes. Since she was a "first place" winner (the first number drawn in her round), she got to pick from the spread of premium, full-size cakes. There were so many delicious-looking homemade cakes but she zeroed in on the Food Lion polka-dot yellow cake. Womp womp. I tried a little bit to talk her out of it, but really she's the one who won, so I let her bring this puppy home. Also, when we were discussing the win this morning, she said, "They said I won but I'm three," which may explain her lack of excitement. All these people were saying, "You won! You won!" and she's standing there thinking, "What?! I'm not ONE. I'm THREE." Life is confusing sometimes when you're three.

You... one?

We zoomed home from the carnival to find our fabulous babysitter waiting for us. We were late! Eeek! Luckily she's my co-worker so she was okay with it. I pretty much left Evelyn, gave a couple instructions, and I was off to Cary to celebrate my friend Brandi's 30th birthday party. It was so much fun, but I didn't stay very long because, well, mostly because I needed to be able to drive myself home, but also because phew I was tired.

Today we slept in until 8 (amazing, seriously amazing) and then got ourselves together for breakfast.

Fashion by Evelyn

We put in some serious time at one of our favorite parks (Brier Creek Elementary's playground), did some more browsing at Target, and then it was home again home again for naptime. Both of us took very good naps on this gray day.

After nap, I prepped dinner (I want to like collard greens but this recipe just didn't do it for me... but the chicken and taters were great) and then we headed to Northgate Mall for some fun. That mall is really quite nice, but only like half of the retail spaces are full. I wish they could get/keep more stuff there!

Loving the Zebra.

Bungee Jumping!

I tried to talk her into strawberry, but she insisted on bubble gum ice cream with gummy bears mixed in. And then she danced around the ice cream shop dancing to "Sweet Child of Mine" 

What a day. We ate some dinner, read some books, and that was that.

Tomorrow morning, Jonathan and Gideon return from Kansas and things are back to normal around here. We pick up a new (to us) swing set tomorrow night! So excited!

Little Things

Okay, so I've been meaning to post this little update for ages but I keep missing my chance to get the pictures to accompany it. I thought perhaps if I just post it, I'll be motivated to finally take the pictures and wrangle them onto the page here. So...

We've been doing some little updates and upgrades around the house to tide ourselves over for the big things* we'd like to do... and maybe someday will do... but not right now. So here are some little things:

Updating the chandelier in the dining area by painting the white plastic "candles" black and swapping the "flame" bulbs for globes.

I could have done Oil-Rubbed Bronze but I had black on hand and from afar it's not a big deal. I think it's less jarring than the white sitcks at least. 

Updating the rust-colored front door and matchy-matchy shutters with some life and color:

I promise I haven't killed the entire garden (yet). It's already much greener than it was when this picture was taken last month. 

Moving two leaning, creaky, held up by icky cinder blocks log holders in the back yard to a more central and hopefully less unsightly location (and starting to find and organize the plethora of bricks strewn around the perimeter of our yard...?):

I did this wood pile between the trees mostly to hide the weird electrical box and  satellite dish . 

We had two log-holders in the yard and now they're both up against the shed. You can see some of the bricks and cinder blocks I found around the yard stacked up there too (and an old rusty 50-gallon drum and some broken plastic patio furniture... this is all behind the shed so we can pretend it's not there). 

Another view of the long wood pile beside the shed. Never have I wanted a wheel barrel more than when I moved this stack an armful of logs at a time. My back hurt for a week. 

Swapping old, leaky, held together with electrical tape shower heads with new (and perhaps a bit GIANT) ones:

8-inch diameter for an amazing shower. Aaaaaaah, so nice. 

Moving the the last remaining BILLY bookshelves from the office to the master bedroom, and organizing the kids' books and some toys on reachable shelves:

I will admit that sorting books by color looks awfully nice, but makes locating specific titles just a bit tedious. Until I learn all the spine colors. Then the world is my oyster. 

Moving some of the kids' stuff out of the living room and into the office/playroom/guestroom:

(Specifically, creating a kitchen area in the guest room instead of the living room.)

Swapping the orange velvet curtains in our bedroom for some red ones I had around from when I lived in Topeka (they're not really wide enough for the window, and I'd like white curtains in here, but I can live with these for a while in the interim):

Not orange! And Sydney loves the open windows. 

And I think that just about covers the little tweaks around here. We thoroughly enjoyed the two days of beautiful spring weather that preceded the pollen season we're now experiencing. We had the windows wide open and aired out the house until everything was coated in a layer of fine yellow pine pollen. Evelyn, who still confuses blue and yellow, is constantly saying, "It's all blue!" about... everything... these days. So. much. pollen.

Our neighbors just finished building a play set in their backyard, so I was reminded/inspired to do the Craigslist hunt for a swing set and this time I was successful! We paid a very kind family $60 for their really sturdy and seriously GIANT swing set. Once we get it home and assemble it, we hope it looks like it should:

Horse, 2 swings, and trapeze bar included! Sets like this go for something crazy like $500 if you buy 'em new. 

And I think that pretty much covers it, for real this time.

Next time I'll update you on the kidlets. They're keeping us on our toes these days.

*On the someday wish list: fake wood floors, french doors to the patio, shrubs to hide the chain link fence... Perhaps one day. 

Easter 2013

We had a pretty spectacular Easter weekend this year. The kids were off school on Thursday and Friday, so Jonathan took off work one day I took off the next. On Friday, we kicked off the weekend with a very full day. First, peanut butter spoons for breakfast. 

Protein!

Next, some time playing at Kidzu, which was surprisingly not overcrowded. Win!

Ready for some art time at Kidzu

We met Jonathan for lunch at a new (to us) place: Gypsy's Shiny Diner. It was alright, but we were spoiled growing up with Jimmy's and Walt's, so it takes something special to live up to our diner expectations. 

But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo. Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?

With our bellies full of milkshakes, we met up a little gaggle of friends at North Cary Park. It was a favorite park because it's really close to work and daycare, so we'd spent some time there in the past. But with more experienced friends to lead the way, we explored beyond the park's boundaries and headed out onto the Black Creek Greenway where we found ample space to roam and explore. 

Beautiful spring day!

Gideon: "Wait for me!"

We were at the park for about 4 hours, running and playing and talking and swinging and running barefoot through the giant sand areas and going down huge slides... when we got home, it was straight to bed.

On Saturday, we were up bright and early to head down to Fuquay for Easter at Jonathan's cousin's house. With 6 kids ages 5 and under, I don't know that any of us took any pictures! But we ate a delicious Easter lunch and the kids got some good playtime. We came home with enough time to recover before Sunday, and I thanked my thoughtful self for stuffing the eggs well in advance of the night before Easter, because all we had to do was hide them and we were free to hit the sack.

Easter morning arrived, and Evelyn was very excited to check out her Easter basket and to hunt for eggs! She had some practice when the Easter bunny came to her school on Wednesday, so the schema was fresh in her mind.

That smart bunny brought her a tutu!

Gideon's favorites: balls and maracas!

Impressed with the chocolate bunny?

Chocolate bunnies at breakfast? It should be Easter every day.

The bunny left an egg dyeing kit for the kids, so Evelyn and Jonathan worked together to dye a few eggs. I think dyeing them on Easter itself is brilliant. It provides something interesting to do and it's one less thing to worry about in advance. (For those keeping count, that brings my total "things to worry about in advance" list down to two: fill eggs and get stuff for baskets.)

Dyeing eggs

Such concentration

I played peek-a-boo in the curtains with GOB while Evelyn dyed eggs.

Some eggs were harmed in the making of Easter Sunday.

We had a rainy and somewhat cold Easter this year, so most of the festivities took place indoors. After the egg dyeing, the kidlets played in a giant fort constructed in the living/dining room, and Evelyn requested some music so she could get in some dance time.

She asks to dance every single day. Such joy.

Then, when the rain finally stopped, it was time to find some eggs. Evelyn and Gideon had already found the few eggs that the bunny hid for them inside the house, but Evelyn knew that there were more outside. She'd already peeked through all the windows and pointed out any eggs she could see from the house.

Such focus on the egg hunt.

Gideon found eggs too - and loved it!

Looking for eggs in the trees. She hasn't figured out that the Easter Bunny is only 5'3"

Can you spot the egg in this picture?

Opening the eggs. 

By the time the outside hunt was over, GOB had made it quite clear that he was ready for a nap, so I helped Evelyn dry off her eggs and sort their contents. She had eggs filled with cheerios, jelly beans, a few chocolate candies, bead necklaces, and lots and lots of lip stuff. The Easter Bunny must have read my mind, because I get a little edgy when Evelyn untwists and smashes the entire tube of Burt's Bees. And now she has her own (much cheaper) little tubes of lip stuff to do with as she pleases. Well done, Easter Bunny! I even got in a nice long shopping trip while Evelyn napped later in the afternoon, and we discovered that we have HBO GO so we started watching Six Feet Under. A very good weekend, indeed. 

#13: Paint a Picture

We can paint owls!

A couple weeks ago, I joined my co-workers for one of those BYOB painting classes I've been wanting to take. Several glasses of wine, lots of paint, and lots of top 40 hits later, our masterpieces were complete! And just like that, I crossed off #13 on my 30 While 30 list. Four down, 26 to go. I really enjoyed this one.