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We had an exciting week around here! CareBear had two big milestones and, of course, there was Mother’s Day.

We took CareBear to the library to get her very own library card. Chris helped her fill out the application, but she did everything else. She decided to check out some dinosaur books so she asked the librarian where they were.

It was very cute how excited she was about the whole process. We’ve read her library books several times a day since then, too!

CareBear’s other big event this week was getting a brand new booster seat. She’s just big enough to move out of her old car seat, which is handy as LiliBee is finally growing out of the baby bucket (infant seat). We let CareBear pick out her new seat and made a big deal about what a good big sister she was to give her old one to LiliBee. It was so successful that we ended up taking a trip to the park since CareBear was just going to sit in the car in the garage for awhile. 

The park  that we went to is one that I remember well from my own childhood so it’s fun to watch my kids enjoy it, too.

CareBear and LiliBee both loved the creek and the playground.

The also played a nice game of “Pooh sticks” with Chris. Once it gets a little warmer, we’ll have to take them back to actually wade and play in the water.

Chris made me a lovely Mother’s Day breakfast on Sunday and then let me have a luxurious bubble bath while he entertained the kids. It was quite relaxing, though I did end up with company after awhile! Then we headed down to Olympia for lunch/dinner with Chris’  family. It was fun to go out with everyone and the kids all did great.

This week is looking a little busy, but it’s mostly fun stuff. Chris is away tonight having a sleep study done. I think it would be kind of hard to sleep knowing that someone is watching and listening and recording everything, but I guess they make it as home-y as possible. We have some fun visiting planned later this week and more Mother’s Day fun.

Plus, LiliBee will be 18 months old!

This week’s update got a bit delayed and our website is acting funky, but here it is!

 

We actually had lots of stuff going on this week, most of it fun. We took an impromptu trip to the zoo on Wednesday after CareBear declared that we should take a trip to Africa. We figured that the elephants at the zoo were as close as we could get on such short notice so off we went.

The weather turned out to be quite nice and we didn’t get rained on at all. CareBear and LiliBee had fun playing in the kids’ area and we had a whirlwind tour of the animals (small children don’t have much of an attention span sometimes,  do they?).

We topped off our trip with a carousel ride and the girls slept all the way home.

This weekend, we went to Cousin H’s birthday party at “Charlie Safari” down in Olympia. (Happy Birthday, Cousin H!) I can’t believe she’s four already.

Charlie Safari is one of those pizza and fun stuff kind of places. There were giant bouncy things, climbing things, mini golf, laser tag and arcade games. The whole party took over one of the bounce houses for awhile and it was like a little mosh pit for preschoolers. CareBear and I climbed to the highest slide (and that climbing structure is not really made for grown-ups, even the short ones like me!) and played all kinds of games. LiliBee spent a lot of time trying to keep up with the bigger kids (and did pretty well) before settling down to play with balloons with Grandpa.

Chris got to indulge his pinball craving. Everyone had a great time.

Yesterday, Chris took the day off for an appointment so I went along with him. After that was over, we had enough time to go see a movie before picking up the kids. We saw the new X-Men movie, which was actually pretty good. It was fast-paced and full of action, plus I enjoy Hugh Jackman. It was nice to get out on a kind-of-date.

Meanwhile, the girls had a great time playing with Grams and Pas. They never want to come home with us after that!

I wish the weather was nicer this week since I’ve gotten used to kicking the kids out to play in the backyard (ok, I go with them), but I like the rain and wind, too.

Another week, another Easter celebration.

This week, we went to my folks’ to color Easter eggs (because, of course, everything got postponed due to flu).

CareBear had a great time helping to make the colors and coloring the eggs. She also liked hiding them herself and then finding them again. She fell in love with her green egg and slept with it for a few days, until it cracked and we had to say goodbye.

 

LiliBee, on the other hand, was very concerned by the egg coloring. She liked it when she could stir the egg around in the cup of color, but got really mad at every other part of the coloring process. I’m still not sure what her problem was, she’s usually a pretty easy going kid.

Apparently, it was terrible to subject the eggs to things like drying and moving around.

We celebrated Earth Day by planting some seeds.

Both girls thought that was a lot of fun and particularly enjoy the watering part of gardening.

The weather has been nice enough to play outside most days, even when it’s overcast and sprinkly. LiliBee has learned how to climb up the ladder and go down the slide all by herself. She’s a scary kid.

CareBear likes digging in the dirt and we usually all come in covered with sand. The other day, LiliBee somehow ended up with a diaper-full of it when I wasn’t looking!

This weekend was fun. We did some birthday gift shopping at Freighthouse Square, which is always a fun place to visit. We also stopped at DeCoursey park downtown to play and look at ducks. LiliBee was so enchanted by the ducks that she was inspired to learn how to say “duck”!

CareBear is off at a sleepover with her cousin tonight. I miss her terribly and it’s way too quiet around here, but I hear she’s having a blast at Grandma’s. I think LiliBee’s enjoying “only child” status, though.

We’re looking forward to a nice week of doctor visits and a birthday party. The party will probably be more fun.

 

We’re finally flu free around here. It’s been a long three weeks of fevers and staying home. We more than made up for that this past weekend, though.

After toddler gym on Saturday, we headed to the Spring Fair. I love fairs, have I mentioned that? It was pretty crowded being Saturday afternoon and all. We managed to have lots of fun in spite of the long lines, though. CareBear got to go on a few rides and won a new ball at the “fishing” game (plastic, magnetic fish). LiliBee complained about not being able to do that stuff yet but enjoyed the people watching. We all enjoyed visiting the goats and chickens in the barns.

Sunday was our belated Easter Egg hunt down in Olympia. Auntie Trina hid sugar filled plastic eggs all over Grandma’s yard and the girls had a great time finding them. CareBear is an egg finding machine, her basket was over-flowing! LiliBee wasn’t sure what the fuss was at first… it was fun to put eggs in the basket, but she doesn’t have the competitive streak yet and was more than happy to just look at the eggs. Grandpa did some grilling and we had a whole Easter Party! The girls slept all the way home.

Today, we had CareBear’s appointment to recheck her vision. She tested as normal this time around, so there’s nothing to worry about at this point. It was a pretty painless appointment.

Then we headed out to the park to take advantage of the nice weather. After walking the paths with Grams and Pas, we turned the kids loose to play at the playground. CareBear got over her initial hesitation about the slides (I don’t know where that’s coming from) and spent a lot of time going down the tunnel slide. LiliBee wasn’t sure which slide she wanted to go down for awhile, but she sure did enjoy climbing around the smaller equipment.

It’s nice to be well in time for the fleeting warm spring weather!

Greetings from flu-ville. Chris came home early Tuesday with a fever… the flu strikes again! Because he was watching for the symptoms, he was able to go to the doctor early enough to get Tamiflu. It seems to work very well for making the flu symptoms much milder than they would otherwise be. He still had several days of not feeling well, but little in the way of fever, cough, aches, etc. Though having the flu on his birthday was no fun.

And then on Friday, the last holdout succumbed… LiliBee came down with the fever. She’s doing pretty well right now as she’s in the middle stretch of lower temps and feeling better. If it follows the same pattern as the rest of us, she’ll have another couple of days of fever and then be done with it by the end of the week. She and CareBear had the flu shot, which seems to make it a bit milder for them. Neither of them got the terrible cough that I did (and still have) and CareBear certainly recovered faster!

Consequently, we didn’t get to have much fun again this week. We’ve had to postpone Chris’ birthday and family Easter fun and we missed out on the first week of classes at the Y. My mom pointed out that we at least have an end in sight now since we’ve all had it! It will be nice to be done with the flu and able to leave the house again. The girls and I are dealing with a bit of cabin fever.

This week, I’m looking forward to no new cases of flu in the house! And lots of fun stuff this weekend, assuming everyone is feeling better.

I hope everyone is having a better week than we are!

My little fever and cough from last week ended up being the flu. The real flu. (For my lab friends, the rapid test was positive for influenza B and the np swab was lots of fun.) I spent most of the week in a fever-induced stupor, hoping that the flu shots would protect the kids from me. I forgot to get one for myself this year. We had to miss out on the wedding, the parade and all of the other fun stuff we were going to do last week and the kids watched way too much tv. My fever finally broke on Friday so now I’m just dealing with being worn out.

Unfortunately, we found out that this year’s flu shot isn’t doing a great job with flu B… CareBear came down with a fever Saturday afternoon. She’s spending a few days on the couch, but says that she feels ok. She actually gets really upset if she hears me and/or Chris talking about her being sick. “I’m normal!” she yells. She actually hasn’t had any symptoms other than the fever, though that’s making her touchy enough.

If we’re lucky, LiliBee will be protected by the antibodies she’s getting from me through the breastmilk. And if we’re lucky, Chris will avoid getting it. I wouldn’t count on it, though. We’re already going to have to postpone Chris’ birthday. Hopefully, not Easter though.

Chris is finally off of jury duty… after 3 days of jury selection, 2 weeks of trial and almost 5 days of deliberation they came to a verdict. Info on the trial he was on is here if anyone is interested. He finished up just in time to take care of me and CareBear!

We did have one outing over the weekend, during the brief period between my fever going away and CareBear’s arriving. We took a drive Saturday afternoon and had a little picnic in the park. It was such a nice day and a local group was doing some barrel racing trials at the park, so we were able to watch the horses while we ate. CareBear was particularly impressed by the horse who peed while he was waiting for his turn. She’s still talking about that. Both girls had fun playing on the playground and LiliBee was thrilled about going down the slide.

This week should be fun, once we get over the flu! Chris will get older and there will be Easter Egg fun.

 

I hope everyone is enjoying the snowy spring! We had around 3 inches fall Saturday night. It went away fairly quickly, but it was fun while it lasted.

We had a good week, overall. The girls and I made the trip down to Centralia with my folks for my Aunt’s birthday. We took her out to lunch and I was very proud of how well my kids behaved! They’re usually good, but this was exceptional… playing quietly while we waited for the food and eating their lunches neatly, it was great! I could get spoiled.

We had a fun toddler gym class on Saturday. It was the last class of the session and our teacher’s last class ever. She’s been doing the class for nine years so they had a big party for her with fruit and cake and crackers… all the toddler favorites. We’ll miss her and I wonder who we’ll get next time around.

Chris is starting his fourth week of jury duty today. They’re heavily into deliberations now, but I don’t know if there’s an end in sight. He’s getting a little stressed by the whole thing, especially since he hasn’t been to work in weeks so all of that stuff is piling up. Hopefully, they’ll all be refreshed and ready to come to a consensus after having the weekend off.

The not-so-good part of the week is that I woke up yesterday with a cough and a fever. I don’t know what it is, but it’s no fun. So far, no one else in the house has caught it. I hope it stays that way! I’m trying to avoid everyone, but it’s hard to keep the kids off of me (especially since Lilia attaches herself to me several times a day to nurse). I have no idea where I picked this up, either, so I don’t know how long it would take them to come down with it. The upshot is that my brain is fuzzy and this email may make less sense than usual. And I can’t remember half of what we did last week.

I’d better get well soon, though, since we have a wedding to attend on Wednesday! I got my hair cut for it and everything.

Happy Spring! 

We had a nice week, though not nearly as exciting as last week. It was pretty low key around here and we managed to get some stuff done. All good.

CareBear had her 3-year doctor’s appointment last week. She was very brave, of course. There weren’t any vaccinations, but they did a finger stick to check her hematocrit (for anemia, she’s fine but they like to screen for it) and she had her first TB test. I’m guessing a needle stick is a needle stick to her. Anyway, she’s good and healthy! She’s right on track for height and weight for her age and doing all the right stuff. We do need to go back in a month to get her vision checked again and then they’ll decide if she needs more testing. I guess they wait for two abnormal tests before referring kids to an eye doctor. I wouldn’t be too surprised if she needed glasses.. she seems to see ok, but Chris is mostly blind and there are plenty of people with glasses in the family!

LiliBee decided to start talking more, finally! She’s been picking up words and sounds a lot faster in the last couple of weeks and will now ask for snacks and water with her own words instead of waiting for CareBear to translate. LiliBee has also decided to take her fashion advice from CareBear… whenever CareBear strips (a daily occurrence), LiliBee does too. Whenever CareBear is a dancer, LiliBee is too. There are a lot more costume changes going on these days!

Chris’ trial is moving right along. The prosecution rested last week and it looks like the defense is going to rest this week. Then it’s all deliberations and verdicts and he can finally tell me all about it! I did my own research and figured out what the case was way back in the beginning, but it will be nice to get to hear all of the courtroom stuff once it’s over.

We’ve got some fun stuff to do this week! The girls and I are heading down to Centralia to visit my Aunt (yay for birthday lunch). And I’m hoping to get my hair cut… that may not sound like a big deal, but it only happens once or twice a year!

 

Is everyone enjoying the weather? It’s been quite a roller coaster around here lately. I think we actually had most forms of weather roll through here yesterday… rain, hail, snow, sleet, wind, sun…

We ended up having a lot of fun things to do this week! Chris took Friday off to recover from his days and days of jury interviews and selection so we ditched the kids and went out to lunch. Don’t feel bad for the girls, though, they had lots of fun playing with their cousin.

After toddler class on Saturday, we wandered around downtown to check out their 2nd annual “Celtic Faire”. We enjoyed the pipers and the dog parade in the park before roaming the participating shops for Irish treats and festively dressed people. It was a little too cold and rainy to check out everything, but what we saw was fun! CareBear really liked the green cupcakes but I think LiliBee liked the hot dog lunch better.

On Sunday, we headed south to the “Crabby Chicken Ranch“. A coworker of Chris’ owns miniature horses and one of them gave birth a little less than 2 weeks ago.

The girls and I had a lot of fun meeting the new baby and petting all of the horses. The baby nibbled on CareBear’s coat and gave everyone kisses. LiliBee was fascinated by everything.

After visiting the horses, CareBear and I checked out the chickens… we were able to pet one of the hens and then she chased a couple of them around for awhile. It was lots of fun.

Chris ended up being selected for the jury, so he’ll be spending the next 3-4 weeks hearing about murder and evidence. I can’t wait for him to be able to tell me about it!

 

We had a big week around here… CareBear is three years old! 

She had a good birthday, I think. She had a fun party with balloons and cupcakes and dancing and games. Many of her favorite people came to her house for her party and I think everyone had a good time. LiliBee was quite a little social butterfly, going from person to person to get picked up and carried around. We’re still enjoying all of the presents and play with them several times a day. 

It’s hard to believe it’s been three years since CareBear was born, though. It makes me a little sentimental since she can’t even be considered a toddler anymore! She told me yesterday that she was going to take a dance class and I couldn’t come with her, I had to sit with the other moms… my little independent girl… sigh.

The girls and I also went to a bridal shower this weekend. It was lots of fun for them as they got to have their own party with some cousins and even more cupcakes. It was quite a weekend!

And, of course, this morning we woke up to 3 inches of new snow! We got all bundled up and headed out to play. It was good snowball snow and CareBear had a great time having snowball fights. She also enjoyed eating the snow off of her slide. LiliBee is getting really good at walking around in the snow in her boots… she still falls a lot, but it doesn’t bother her at all anymore.

Chris is on jury duty this week. He has the potential to get on an interesting (and maybe long) trial. I’m actually hoping that he does since I’d love to hear about it (once he’s able to talk about it, of course).

In other news, we had our appraisal, which I think went well. And it’s now daylight savings time, which is not going so well yet. It’s making me feel like I’m late for everything and messing up our bedtimes!

I hope everyone is staying warm!