My Birthday Weekend

For those that don't follow me on Facebook (Mom), here are your pics and update! Mark and I celebrated my Birthday on Saturday, we went to the Portland Art Museum - which was fantastic - just to be out with people enjoying something other than just not having kids around, was so great. I actually felt my brain working in a new way, looking at the M.C. Escher exhibit really made my brain work hard, to the point where I kind of got a bit nauseated, but his work is a bit nauseating to try to focus on sometimes.
Anyhow, I should have started with my actual birthday, after work and dinner, we went to my favorite Gelato Shop in Sellwood - Stacato Gelato, just a couple blocks from where we used to live, we all thuroughly enjoyed the gelato (I had marionberry and pistachio - weird combo but very tasty). The next morning we spent with the kids at the Sellwood park - my favorite park, the kids have grown up there - well only the few years they've been alive, but have spent almost every weekend day there, until we moved - and I absolutely love that park and the feeling it gives me says "home" - the trees, flowers, play structures and the walk to the bakery is great! So, instead of walking to the bakery as we would normally do, we drove b/c of my foot. We enjoyed some cookies and pastries from Grand Central, with a great latte and then drove home for naps! Woke up just in time for Auntie Amby who came to watch the kiddos for us! We went to the museum and then to dinner at a great Tapas place on NW 21st - very cute. We had a corner table, very private with a window and A/C - fantastic - great people watching, great food, even better drinks - we both had 1 too many, which was hysterical for us - had to sit awhile before we walked to the car! Home by 9:30 - to bed by 10:30 - yep we are old! All in all a great night!! Thanks to Mark for the fantastic birthday weekend, (and to Amber always there for me and my kids - you're a fantastic woman!).

Here are a few pics for my Mom of the kids!

Cutie pie Sarah with her pigtails - I'm still working on a way to get them perfect, if she would sit still, I think it would actually work! Well if she would actually sit still a lot of things would work better with her - hmmm, we need to work on that!

Jakob pushing Sarah on the merry go round (me in the background with my Frankenstein boot on).


Serious Sarah

The kids looking at the flowers!
The "Firecracker" flower as it was called by Mark and Jakob!

A couple new things

Our sunflowers are going bonkers in our little front yard, had to document that I could actually grow something! Really it was Jakob that planted the seeds - but I didn't kill them!








Oh, and another new thing, Sarah's hair is long enough for a little ponytail!!


Jakob has started to roller skate again - really it's like scooting around on wheels I guess - but he loves it!

New Words

Just for documentation sake, I have to put down Sarah's newest words:
"Fowwy" for Sorry
"Uckle" for Buckle or sometimes it means "Welcome" - random
"Oonge" for Orange
"Peabock" for Peacock
"Shishy" for Fishy
"Beba" for Zebra
"Ice" for rice or ice - depending on the context, or just take a guess
"Brada" for Brother
"Huck" for Hug - usually it comes out as "Brada oowwee, fowwy, huck"this after she has pulled his hair or knocked over his toys - you know the usual little sister/terror activity!
"Me Wawah" for Me Sarah
"Oussiiiiiide" for outside - but can also mean that she wants inside - she could be yelling this when she is on the porch wanting in!
"Emo watch" for Elmo watch - she wants to watch an Elmo DVD.
"Back Shee" for Black Sheep - not because we call her that - but because she wants to sing "Ba Ba Black Sheep"
"AC's" for ABC's
"Maching" for Marching - she is requesting a song by Lori Berkner - "We are the Dinosaurs.. Marching Marching", she loves it!
"Hiiiii Fiiii" for High Five!!
She has many words but these are pretty new for her, within the last couple weeks or so.

Random Crazy Time

It's been a bit crazy here in our house since my Mom left. Mark is working like mad, all hours of the day and night to finish a couple projects that were both due at the same time and I am left with the crazy kids. Mind you, I just had surgery on my foot and am really not do too much. So, you can see from the video what our house looks like at the end of the day and what the kids are doing to entertain themselves - spinning and pillow fighting - of course it's better to do this near the stairs - gives an element of danger or surprise!!

Jakob started back to preschool on Monday so that I could rest a bit, but on Monday night came down with a stomach bug and was vomiting all night - so he was home with me on Tuesday, poor guy, even sat in the car and vomited (Mark was there obviously) while I had my post op check. I can't drive yet so, they had to take me. Sarah was home with me today, I did way too much with her and am paying for it now. I'm trying to rotate days that I have them, to give me a bit of a break. I return to work full time on Monday. I am not looking forward to it, the summer has flown by. I realized tonight that this is probably the last summer I will have home with the kids and that just breaks my heart. If we end up moving to CA next summer - which is a thought - I probably won't work for a school district so that will be it. Probably will have to work full time to afford anything in CA, but hopefully in the future I could cut back to part time and help out while they are in school - who knows. Anyhow I'm sad to see Jakob going back to preschool, I had a great time with him - a ton of fun watching him participate and grow in all of his sports activities and really mature with his self confidence - he actually asks questions of adults now - which I really think his wood shop class helped him with (as I wasn't there and he had to ask to make sure he was safe etc.). He is growing into such a smart young boy.

Sarah on the other hand, is totally wild, social, crazy, loves to dance. I took her to the library this afternoon - looking for a place that we could sit in the A/C as it's 98 degrees here - well the A/C felt good but I didn't sit much. I actually had to run after her a couple times - in my air cast/boot - yeah that looks fantastic! Anyhow, she enters the library and announces "HI Guys" as we walk in - yep just needs to let everyone know she is there. We get the kids section and says "Hi" to all the kids then proceeds to pull all the books off the baby shelf - and tries to put them back, but you know how that went. She played Peek a Boo in the puppet stage - and knocked her head on it about 20 times before finally knocking it over. She read the same book over and over about 10 times (Baby Peek a Boo and then Itsy Bitsy Spider - to which she did a dance to every time). Oh and she repeated over and over "Mommy Owwee, foot, boot, ice" whenever anyone walked by my foot. So hysterical. Then she said "Mommy, owwee" and pointed to her behind, Me - "Do you need to go potty?" Sarah - "Yeah...No" and then sat down and started looking at a book. About 10 minutes later, "Mommy POOP," so yeah the potty training has begun and it's interesting with this one!!!

So, you could see why I might miss being home with these little devils! They make my day fun and my brain spin out of control sometimes but they are the BEST!

Jakob sleeping with his "ship" and "bridge" (in his hand) that he built all by himself in his wood shop class. He also built an airplane but that was after this picture.

Pictures from today:

Jakob in his bed (well it's actually the trundle bed, we haven't put back since Nana left) - you can see why the bed rail was put up between him and Nana when she was here!! He doesn't stay put at all.
Sarah playing with her baby, giving her a "ride".
Sarah putting ice on my foot/boot.

Thank GOD for Moms!

I had bunion surgery on Monday and am actually lucid enough to type on the computer today! I've been in a vicodin coma for a few days, no shower, just laying on the couch with my foot elevated and icing it around the clock. My Mom flew up on Saturday - had to spend all day in the airport b/c of delays but she got here! The kids are all over her of course - they love their Nana. Well, it's my turn to get taken care of by Nana, she's been doing everything for us, it's unbelievable. Mark is working like a dog - which is great but it's so hard to ask him for help when he's working so hard! So, my Mom has been taking Sarah to daycare 3 days - getting lost in traffic (b/c this is the first time she's driven from our new place - otherwise she knew the old way, no problem), fixing us the best dinners, doing all our laundry (I mean all of it, to wear it all won't fit in the drawers), scrubbing our floors, taking Jakob to swimming lessons, to wood shop class, helping me with pain meds, ice etc., going to the grocery store and last night was up with Sarah who was vomiting!! OH yeah, as if Nana wasn't tired enough, now she has Sarah vomiting, who of course only wants to sit with Mommy in the bathroom, so Nana helped get me situated with my foot elevated, towels and bowls around me for the vomit - which of course came (5 times). She and I finally fell asleep around 3:45 am and she was up with the kids at 7am!! OMG, she is going to need a vacation!!
Thanks Mom, I can only hope that I can pay you back one day - or hire someone who will do as much work as you do in a day!!:)

Taking the next step in swimming!

Jakob is making strides in his swimming lessons, sticking his head under and holding his breath as well as jumping into the water without someone catching him!! Today he even did a swim on his tummy with his head under the water - of course I turned the camera off just before he did it! Here's Jakob at the start of swimming today!

Goof Balls in the tub!