Girls Night 7

Not too exciting, but enjoyable all the same. We watched "Love's Enduring Promise" and packed for the weekend.

When it Rains, it Pours

First of all, let me preface everything by saying that I am not complaining. Despite everything that's happened today (and despite the crazy headache I have) I am completely happy. From everything I'm going to tell you, it doesn't sound like it's been a good day, but it actually has been.

So, here's what's been going on.

1. Marcus got a fever yesterday afternoon, and he had such a hard time sleeping, both from the fever and his horrible cold. He didn't want me to set him down, even in his sleep, and I finally brought him to bed with me, but sleeping with a 20+ pound kid on your arm all night is not fun, so after a while I slid my arm out from under his head. The only reason he didn't wake up (that time) was because Callie the Cat was laying on his legs, so I think he was happy to be able to feel her breathing instead of me.

When he woke up this morning, he had green gunk in his eyes, and you could definitely tell that he wasn't feeling well. Really, the hardest part of him being sick is that Brian and I are taking off for Seattle tomorrow for Jeremy's wedding, and we were really hoping to leave him behind. It took us forever to decide that it would be okay (and probably good for him, though not so good for my poor mother who will be watching him) to leave him, and now that he's sick I don't know what to do. It would be so hard on him to be left, but there will also be other little kids and babies there, and I don't want to get them terribly sick as well.


2. While I was showering this morning, my neighbor came over and left a note with Alyssa saying that she saw a school bus hit our garbage can, which in turn, hit our car, and busted the tail light. So I took some pictures and called the school district. They're taking care of everything.

3. We found ants in our kitchen and dining room this morning. I found the ants just after getting off the phone with the Director of Transportation and just before I did a mad rush around the house to clean everything up before he came over to look at the car. Cleaning up involved sweeping everything, and spraying Home Defense and the perimeter of our living area. Darn those ants!

And 4. (Although the day isn't over yet.) Ethan found the cube of butter I was softening while I was taking a few moments to myself, checking everyone else's blogs. Pretty soon I heard, "I icing, Mom! I icing!" Translation: I'm ice skating, Mom! I'm ice skating! Yep, he had smeared the butter all over the floor, and was slipping and sliding all over the place.

It has been a crazy - insane day.

I Hope This is the Start of a New Trend

Marcus only woke up once last night! Woo-hoo! I started forever ago trying to get him to sleep through the night, and he would make progress, but then he had four teeth come in, we all got the flu, and tons of crazy things happened so that he would go back to waking up four, five, six times a night.

So the main thing that I've been doing is putting him in bed when he's not completely asleep. He smiles and rolls around a bit (that's the part about all this that I love), then when he starts to get upset, I pick him up, love him, and set him back down again. After a few times of this, he gets tired and goes to sleep. So, he's learning how to fall asleep on his own, but he's also happy in his crib and he knows I'm there and that he is loved.

And last night I set my alarm for 6:00, because I want to start getting up before the kids, and being able to take a shower without two little boys running around the tub, so I could be better prepared for the day. And he only woke up once last night, and I was able to get up able shower by myself. Hallelujah!

Girls Night 6

We made (and tested) chocolate truffles and bath salts. Actually, we didn't test the bath salts, which you can probably tell from looking at the choclate around Alyssa's mouth.

Lesson Learned - It's Hard to Kiss in Ski Goggles

For most of Brian's and my married life, Brian's wanted to take me skiing, but each winter I've either been pregnant, we've been too poor, or we've had a baby that's too young to leave for a whole day. So up until this winter, I had never been skiing before in my entire life, and since this winter I am definitely not pregnant, we got a $100 debit card from one of the doctors Brian worked with, and Marcus can play at Grandma's all day long without crying too much, I gave Brian a ski trip for his Christmas present. The only problem, is that the only day we could go during Christmas vacation, is was 54 degrees and raining in the mountains - not a very good day for skiing.

But this last Wednesday, two for one day at Bluewood, the weather was perfect. We dropped the kids off at my mom's house, picked up some doughnuts from Yokes, and went on our merry way. The merriment came a little bit from the doughnuts, but mostly from the fact that we would have a day together, after being apart for so long, without children.

I never thought that skiing was a big deal. I knew a lot of people enjoyed it, but I really didn't feel like I was missing anything spectacular. But now that I've done it, I've got to say, skiing is so incredibly fun! My dad was actually a ski instructor when he was in college, so he showed me a little of the basics before we left, and also told me what not to do to break my legs. And Brian was a wonderful teacher on the mountain.

When we got there, we put our skis on, and went straight up the mountain. I barely knew how to maneuver well enough to get on the ski lift, but up we went. (By the way, I became very good friends with guys operating the ski lifts, because they would have to slow it down or stop it for me to get on. Learning to get on those things is harder than learning to ski. Also, ski lifts are terrifying! Sometimes you're up forty or fifty feet in the air, just hanging there, with heavy skis on your feet and no seat belt!)

First we went on Country Road (the green trail on the left), which wasn't very bad until I got to the switchback turn about halfway through. The first time down, I really didn't know what I was doing, and I kept ending up going faster than I wanted to, feeling out of control, and then the trail would level a bit, and I would slow down, and eventually stop. Brian would either go in front of me or behind me, giving me instructions and encouragement as we went. It was one of those times when he was behind me that I rounded a curve, looked ahead a bit on the trail and noticed a sharp, downhill turn. "There is no way I'm doing that," I thought, and being the brilliant skier that I am, I veered into the wall of snow on the side of the trial and crashed. This happened just after Brian rounded the curve, so he saw me do a flip (he swears I did a flip, but it didn't feel like I did) and land on my back. Luckily, I didn't have to call my dad at this point to tell him I had a broken leg. I inched my way to the turn, then down the mountain.

Things started getting easier toward the bottom of the hill, and I felt like I was at least a little more in control of things. So next, we used the platterpull and did the bunny hill one time. (The bunny hill at Bluewood is just the last little stretch of Country Road, and it's pretty flat, so I did it to just get a better handle on things before our next run.)

The next run, after holding on for dear life up the ski lift, went a little smoother. Needless to say, I was a pansy. I snowplowed my way down the mountain, especially slowing down every time I thought I might be approaching that deadly turn. But snowplowing made it easier for me to keep my balance and speed under control, and it also helped me transition to being in control when my skis were parallel, too.

So we went on Country Road a couple more times, then on Triple Nickel (the green on the bottom right) a few times, then we went to our car to eat our picnic lunch with Max, the resident ski dog, who was huge. The picture doesn't make him look nearly as huge as he really is.


After that, Brian convinced me to go down Tamarack Trail (the blue one coming from the top), which was easier and more tame than Country Road, until you get to Tamarack, which is a steep bowl of icy snow and death. Okay, so maybe it's not that bad, but when the trail gradually ended, and we were standing at the top of that thing, I was scared. While I was standing there, contemplating taking off my skis and hiking back up the mountain in my clunky boots to get to Country Road, a family came by with a little boy, who must have been about seven, and he just stood at the top, bent his knees, gave a little push and went flying down. And I just kept standing there, planning where I would build the igloo that I would live in until spring.

This is when Brian taught me to not go straight down, but to angle across the mountain, which I did, very slowly, until I got to the other side. "Now you've got to turn around and go back the other way, " Brian said, "Put your skis together, go straight down for just a bit, then turn...Carrie, what are you doing?"

This is what I was doing: I sat down, flat on my bottom, and flopped my skis in the opposite direction. Then I took a few minutes to stand back up again. I did this a couple times, crisscrossing across the bowl, until I was brave enough to attempt turning around standing up. When we got to the bottom Brian said, "I'll bet you were thinking there for a while that that was the only way to get down the mountain, weren't you?" Uh huh.

Overall, Tamarack Trail was my favorite, once I got the hang of it. After that first run we had time to go once more, and I didn't sit down to turn around, not one single time.

When we were through, Brian and I clunked back to the car, took off all our snow gear, and drove back to the Tri-Cities. The kids had had a wonderful time playing with cousins and hanging out with Grandma Roses all day, and Brian and I had had a wonderful time, too. Skiing is fabulous fun.

Girls (and Cranky Boys) Night 5

We finished up Alyssa's Valentine's. We switched the suckers to pencils, and used pipe cleaners for the antennae.

Girls Night 4, Blushing Butterflies

Last night Alyssa and I started to make valentines for her kindergarten class. This year we're making butterfly valentines, that we found on skiptomylou.org.

This picture is what the finished project is supposed to look like. Alyssa wants to add antennae(s?) - any ideas on what to use and how to attach them?

I was impressed with all the ideas that Skip to My Lou was showing. They have a few more fun valentines, and they're all free to print. Alyssa really wants to make the bath bomb. She went back to the computer quite a few times while we were waiting for the butterflies to print out, just to look at the fizzies that the bath bomb makes.

The greatest part of girls night was having Brian come home! Yesterday was his last day of this rotation, and in a week he heads to Walla Walla, which is a lot closer to us than Portland or Tacoma, so we'll be seeing a lot more of him. He really enjoyed working with Dr. Bruce. He saw a ton of paitents each day, and he worked really hard. There was actually one sweet little old lady who came in to see him, and she asked to have an epesiotomy. He looked at her, and she started to describe what it was, and he said, "Oh, you mean a something else." She hadn't realized what she had said, and they had a pretty good laugh over that. Then she confided in Brian that ever since she's been a patient of Dr. Bruce's, her goal has been to make him blush, and she's never been able to do that. So when Dr. Bruce walked in a little while later, Brian looked at him, and said most seriously, "She'd like to have an epesiotomy today." And it worked. Dr. Bruce blushed, and the sweet little old lady was thrilled.

FHE Fun

Tonight we made ice cream sundaes, used the leftovers to put together an ice cream pie to eat when Brian is here, and danced to this fabulous song. 'Nuff said.

Edited to Add: I guess not 'nuff said. We danced to it over and over and over....Family Home Evening is still going on...

Mercy Me! Mercy me!

Up until my little sister, Kimmy, came along and started tripping up the stairs, falling down the stairs, tumbling down steep hills while longboarding, etc., I was the accident prone child in our family. I'll give you some examples:

Age 2:
-Fell while "skating" in the bathtub and knocked out a front tooth. It didn't grow back until I was about 8 or so, and when it came in, it pushed the tooth beside it back, so they're both a little crooked.

-Tried to follow my older brothers in jumping off the top bunk of their bed and broke my leg.

Age 5:
-Put our station wagon into neutral and jumped out of the car while it was rolling down the hill at my grandparent's house. It was actually going pretty fast, and my head scraped along the pavement, scraping the skin clean off my head. It took 56 stiches on my scalp and 3 on my ear to fix me up. (Oh, and the car was stopped by two well placed trees just before it would have hit a huge propane tank and blown up the whole neighborhood. Pretty cool.)

-Pulled a board loose while climbing a fence with my brothers and got a nail stuck in my knee. That one hurt.

-Fell on my head while hanging in the backyard. It only took a few stitches to fix that one.

I think Marcus is our accident prone child. The kid is not quite fifteen months old and he's already been to the emergency room twice, because of the circumcision thing and the car accident. Plus, he just keeps getting hurt. He's constantly trying to keep up with Alyssa and Ethan, and he loves to climb, climb, climb!

Last week the vacuum was at the top of the stairs, and Alyssa took the electric cord and wound it down the banister as part of something she was imagine-playing. After a little while, I told her it wasn't such a good idea and told her to clean it up. As she was pulling the cord from the top of the stairs and it was flying back up the banister and whipping this way and that, Marcus just happened to come around the corner and get whapped in the face. He had a square shaped bruise from where the plug hit him, along with a nice cut along his eyebrow from one of the prongs. I almost took him to the emergency room for stitches, but it wasn't very big, and a butterfly bandage actually closed it up pretty god and it's healing nicely.

Then, tonight while we were at Michael and Tallia's house for our Chinese New Year celebration, Ethan and Asher were climbing up on a bech and jumping down. Marcus wanted to join them, but instead of climbing and jumping, he climbed up, stood up, lost his balance, and fell backward, hitting his chin on the bench. At first I thought he was just bonked, so I just loved him. Then I saw the blood. It bled a lot. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but he's got a pretty good gash on his chin, a smaller cut just below that, and he's missing a huge chunk of skin inside his mouth, just under his lip. Once things settled down, and we were able to clear enough blood out of the way, we decided that the cut on the outside was closing up pretty well on its own, and didn't need stitches. We gave him a glass of water, and I held him, and he was back down and playing after just a few minutes.


But man, that kid sure does play hard.