Cute Kids

Hey there!

I have some new pictures of my beautiful children and I thought I would share. I hope you all have a great and wonderful Friday!

New Haircut

What is it about a new haircut? You almost always leave feeling refreshed, relaxed, and (dare I say it) pretty. I love the way my hair looks and feels after Shelby (my gal) styles my hair. I have stick straight hair that is very silky and smooth. Hence, it doesn't hold a curl or a barrette unless extreme measures are taken. Since I have about three minutes to do my hair every day, it never looks that good until my next appointment.

I thought I'd share before something gets in it, I have to pull it back or Logan pulls out a handful.

New Summer Shows

When you nursing, you are forced to sit for about 30 minutes a session. I've tried reading a book during this time, but the books kept bonking the babies heads. Soooooooooooo, I watch TV.

Since all my favorite shows are in re-runs, I have found a couple to replace them for the summer and I thought I would share.

Army Wives: This show is on Lifetime and it is great! It is about a group of women (and one man) who are the spouses of army personnel living on base. They are all of different rank and socio-economic level and it deals with all kinds of issues that they all have by choosing the life they lead. I highly recommend it.

Eureka: This is on the Sci-Fi Channel. Yes, I am a total Sci Fi junkie so if some of you don't like this show, I won't take it personally. This is about a make believe town called, Eureka. The town was created by the US Government for highly talented scientists and individuals to come together and do research and development for futuristic "stuff". The new sheriff is a regular guy who used to be a US Marshall and his juvinal deliquent daughter who now live in a prototype Smart House and must get the individuals out of the chaos that they are constantly creating. It is entertaining and totally within the realm of non-belief, but that is part of it's charm.

I saw advertisements for Doctor Who, so I may set the DVR to record a couple of episodes to see if I like it.

What are you watching?

Office Photos

Well, Bob's office is almost finished with being put together. He still has to finish staining the new door to his conference room and put some more cabinets away, but he is getting there. Yesterday he got his new conference room table and he came home with new pictures of it. It is a nice looking table.

I thought I would show some before and after shots so you could see some of the work that went into this new home for Bryson Communications. Unfortunately, these pictures don't really capture the total amount of work that went into making this space an updated, professional, electrically sound (lots of electrical work done) and clean (it was pretty grody above the ceiling tiles as well as below) place to work. Some day we still need to replace the ceiling trim, but that is for a much later date. Now we just need to work on the reception area.

New Portraits!

Well, it was that time again for us to go and get some new pictures taken at Sears. I was waiting until Logan started grabbing his feet and he has! I now have a "wearing only a diaper laying on their back grabbing their feet" picture of all three of my kids. Not sure why I like those pictures so much, but I do.

I think they did a great job, as usual. My kids are most difficult to get either a smile out of (Logan) or to stay in one spot long enough to get a picture of (Alexis). Those poor girls had to WORK for those pictures. Granted, I am sure that one of the local child photographers could do fabulous pictures that are almost works of art, but then I couldn't afford to send new pics to everyone.

I hope you like them!

Gigglybops

This morning my neighbor, Maya, and I walked about a mile down Mt. Washington to Gigglybops. It is a place just like Chatterbeans, but I don't have to load the kids into the car to go and play! Also, it is really nice inside, very clean and they have some neat challenging activities. Luckily at 9am there were only Maya's kids, my kids and one other child of a person in town on vacation.

This place is really nice inside. They have a fish tank, a nice sized climbing structure, a small bouncy thing, a ball pit, and one of those Fisher Price tool benches. The bathrooms are really nice, clean and they both have changing tables equiped with diapers, wipes and Purell. Very thoughtful. They even came up with a neat idea for not only providing an art project, but for decorating as well. They have ceiling tiles that they have down with tempura paints, markers and crayons that kids can draw on. I did a footprint of Logan and a handprint of Alexis. The next time we go back there I will take a picture of the ceiling tile. They even had little activity mats for Logan!

We played there for about two hours before heading home. I will definately have to take the kids there again. And I think that first thing in the morning is a great time since I guess there are not a lot of other kids needing to burn up extra energy at that time. Yeah for me!

Bumbo

There is a new and very cool product on the market for babies Logan's age. It is called a Bumbo seat. It is designed so that when you put a baby in there that can support their own head, they can sit up.

This is awesome since I have to keep Logan at higher ground to protect him from Alexis' "love". I thought he just looked cute sitting in it so I filmed a little clip (check out the Bryson Family Videos tag to your left) and I snapped a few pics to share. I had to try and stuff a little blanket around him to give him a little more support.

Wrangling an Octopus

Before Katya headed to San Diego, I wanted a more current picture of my little brood.

So, I sat Katya down on the ottoman, handed her Logan (who is usually very cooperative) and tried to wrestle Alexis next to her sister. Alexis is totally an eighteen month old. She takes being told what to do, or even encouraged to do as a personal challenge. I did eventually get my picture, but I thought you all might enjoy the photos leading up to it. You can see Katya's frustration level increasing through the pictures. So funny!

Eugene

For Father's Day this year, Bob wanted to go to Eugene for a little road trip. You know - get out of town for a mini-vacation.

After I came back from the airport (seeing Katya off for the summer) I packed all the bags and assorted baby accessories (the smaller they are the more stuff they have) into the Durango (best car EVER) and we headed off towards the West.

Well, that road to Eugene is one of the prettiest drives I have ever taken. It was green ferns, green pine trees, green, green, green the whole way (actually once we got past the reservation it was green). They must get a LOT of rain to have that much green. It was beautiful. It takes a little over two hours to get to Eugene from Bend. It is a mountain pass so the road is only two lanes and you can only go as fast as the cars in front of you.

Eugene is the home of the University of Oregon (go Ducks!) and is the closest big city that we have. Portland is the next largest, but it is more of a four hour drive. However, Eugene seemed pretty darn big to us after living in Bend for a while.

We stayed at a Phoenix Inn on the outskirts of downtown and it was really nice. Bob and Alexis got to do a little swimming in their pool to burn off some energy from sitting in the car for so long. Afterwards we just walked around downtown and tried to find a place for dinner. There were a lot of people on bikes and I guess they have miles and miles of bike trails all around the city. To me the city wasn't anywhere as pretty as Bend because there were still a lot of those sterile cement squares all over the place called buildings. They have the charm of a box of cat food.

One thing they do have is a beautiful river with lots of beautiful bike trails and an amazing playground. After checking out of the hotel, we headed over there for a nice long walk and some playing. We wanted Alexis really, really tired before we put her back in the car to head home.

Before we left town I had to do a little shopping! We hit the Toys R Us there and picked up a few items for the babies. Alexis got a sit n spin (she thinks of it more as a stand n spin), some play doh, finger paints and jumbo crayons. Logan got a Bumbo seat and a couple of little toys that he is enjoying trying to hit with his hands. We found out from the store manager that Toys R Us bought some land here in Bend so hopefully we will have our own store soon!

They also have a Trader Joes. Man, I miss that store! Bob dropped me off and I ran in to get a few things. I grabbed some marinara sauce (so good and only $1.60 a huge can), cereal, applesauce, doggie treats, cookies, mini carrot cakes, cheddar popcorn and some tangerine juice. We munched on our goodies all the way home. We should have our own Trader Joes no later than Spring 2008. They have already begun construction on their new building in front of G.I. Joes. Yeah!

It was a fun trip. Short, but fun. Next we need to explore Salem. I understand there isn't a whole lot there, but I would like to check it out nonetheless. Hopefully Bob won't be as allergic to Salem as he was to Eugene. He had the worst allergies the entire time we were there and he didn't have as much fun as he could have had he not been in a Benedryl induced fog.

Katya Gone For The Summer

Well, Katya is down in San Diego for the summer. This is always a hard time for me. I miss my not so little girl.

However, Katya always has really fabulous summers. She spends a week with my Mom getting totally spoiled. I'm talking mani/pedi, facial, sugar cereal, shopping and lots of one on one time.

The rest of this summer Katya will be with her father and taking sewing lessons, hip hop dance classes, sailing and probably more shopping. Shopping is her current favorite sport.

She will be up here in July for a week for a three day camping/river rafting trip with her Campfire group and a few days with me. Yeah! I'll be looking forward to it so I can lavish some love on my not-so-little girl.

For those of you down in San Diego - give her a call!! She might be available for some visiting when Terren is working.

Hand Me Downs

One advantage to having girl cousins is being able to hand things down. Although I am the oldest girl cousin, I had received a few boxes of clothes from my Mom's cousin's daughter, Devy when I was in high school. I only met Devy once, but luckily we were the same size at the time and I was in desperate need of clothes.

Other than Devy, I haven't really been able to take advantage of someone else handing things to me too often. I was able to borrow a few things from Michelle, but being a foot taller than her kind of made us wear different sizes. For years and years Beth was the happy recipient of my clothes that I no longer liked to wear. Actually, mostly just shirts but she was happy to have them. Before I moved, I gave Desiree (close friend, kinda like an adopted cousin) about two huge trash bags of clothes. Most of them were work clothes that I knew I was not going to be wearing again. Wool slacks, work jackets, button down shirts, cute skirts...etc.

Well, Diana is now enjoying the fruits of the hand me downs. Obviously she would never wear anything that I would wear (kind of a big age gap there), but she likes Katya's style and they wear the same size. Sooooooooooo, last night Katya and I went through every article of clothing that Katya had stashed in her closet. I didn't realize that we haven't really purged since we moved here. There were a LOT of clothes! Diana had come over for dinner and she had a good time going through the piles of clothes to see what she liked and would wear. She left with about five bags of clothes. I am so glad that she liked so many of the clothes. Some of them were only worn once or twice and others are just plain cute. I am a freak about taking care of clothes, so they are all in good condition. Diana should get lots of use out of them. I would always prefer that someone that I know get our stuff that we no longer want or need, instead of just taking it to Goodwill.

Luckily, Diana lives close to us so she can always have first dibs on our "good stuff".

DCSW

I got the best email today. It was from Aaron Morici who used to work for me at Qualcomm. He somehow got directed to my blog and made a comment about my current lack of organization (he doesn't believe me). It was SOOOOO good to hear from him. He has a beautiful wife and two little boys at home. I really miss him. I miss Dale. I miss Woody. I miss everyone at Qualcomm! Maybe not quite everyone, but the vast majority of people that I worked with I miss tremendously.

DCSW was the name of my little group. It stands for Document Control Software. Basically we were the software librarians for Qualcomm for those of you that don't know what Configuration Management is. I went to CM at a great point in my life and I got the rare opportunity to create my own group within CM to handle all things software related. Man... we saw some serious changes in the ten years that I was there. We had insane growth for years, 50 - 60 hour work weeks, litigation work for the legal department, layoffs, division sales, more growth, division of our department, the potential sale of our division which fissled, and new and more interesting projects every year. Right before I left, my little group was disbanded because it had fulfilled it's purpose and everyone was moving on to new things.

I must say, I had the priviledge of working with some of the most amazing people you could ever hope to know. These people are genuinely good people, smart people, talented people and funny people. They could make insane amounts of work fun. When you didn't want to go to work you always knew you had good people there that would kick your butt and help you get it done even if it meant more work on their part. I miss them all.

I still have a folder in my file cabinet with pictures of our group through the years. I thought I'd share.

If you guys are reading this..... I miss you!!! I hope that you are having really wonderful lives down there in sunny San Diego and they better be treating you good!

He Went And Done It

Bob finally broke down and did it. He has not bought a new toy since the truck and he was itching for a good excuse to go and buy one. So he did it. He warned me that he was going to do it, I know that he researched it for days and he gave me every possible reason why it was a good idea to do it.

He bought a 52" HD TV. It is a Mitsubishi and I believe it is a 1080p DLP.

I think it is just huge. It makes Elmo look bigger than Alexis. Bob loves it. It is giant, it is bright, and it is very big.

Where did my little ol' 32" Sony go? Down to the Lounge. That is a darn nice TV for a hang out area.

End of Year Bash

Katya finally got to have a party here at the house last Friday. With two babies at home, parties are limited for so many reasons that I don't have to spell them out here.

Well, with Bob moving the office offsite Katya was quick to throw a party in there to celebrate the end of the school year. Actually, Rick had come by the house and was still moving books and other "stuff" the morning of the party. I told her that if she wanted to use that space for a party she was welcome to it, but she had to clean it. No small feat since that area was so crowded with lab equipment and shelving you couldn't hardly walk. Rick was whining that she made it smell like Pine Sol while he was still working.

Katya invited ten kids and nine showed up. Not shabby considering it was totally last minute. The deal was the party started at 5pm and it was co-ed until 9:30pm when all boys had to vacate the premises. From that point on it was a sleepover for the remaining seven girls (not counting Katya). I think they watched something like five movies, played on my neighbor's trampoline, played a game of volleyball in the front yard and in general ran all over our backyard being teenagers. Everyone seemed to have a good time. We started the evening with pizza, then moved to chips, gummy worms, Chex mix and then popcorn. I had bought a ton of water and caffeine free soda which were stocked in the little fridge that was left down there. Breakfast was pancakes, juice and bacon. I know that Katya was trying really hard not to eat too much in front of her friends because she only ate three pieces of bacon. She is normally a six or more bacon eater. Girls are so weird.

It's nice to finally have a spot that Katya can use to hang with her friends in. It has always been important to me that I have a kid and teenager friendly home so her friends would want to hang out here. Katya is kind of sad to see the end of the school year. She said school would be so much more fun without all the "learning" stuff they make you do. Now that the party is over, I have been moving the futon, scrapbooking & sewing stuff, normal TV that will be down there and other things that I want to have a permanent home down there. At some point over the summer I will paint two walls tangerine orange for good energy. I also have a nightstand that was given to me by Bob's mother that I plan on painting green for little side table. When I've finished the room, I'll post a picture. Think I have enough projects for a while?

National Young Leaders State Conference

Wow! We got the best letter in the mail today. It was a letter to Katya and her parents from 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C..

The letter was an invitation for Katya to attend the National Young Leaders State Conference for the Pacific Northwest Region in Seattle, Washington in February of 2008 for 8th and 9th graders. Evidently she was nominated by one of her teachers at school. How wonderful a teacher to take the time to write a letter of recommendation! Only students that have a 3.5 to 4.0 GPA and a teacher recommendation are allowed to attend - we've got that one in the bag, Baby!

Katya is so excited! The trip is expensive, especially on top of her trip to Washington D.C. at the end of 8th grade. But, we will find a way to make both happen. They provided some good information for fundraising which we will be taking full advantage of.

They included a schedule that has the topics that they will be covering for those four days. Some of the topics are: Unleashing the Leader Within; Recognizing Your Personal Strengths and Unique Abilities; Forming Your Leadership Base; Creating Your Network of Supporters; Shaping a Vision for Your Future; Listening to Be Heard; Active Listening, Feedback and Goal Sharing; The Content of Your Character; The Impact of Values; Developing a Personal Leadership Philosophy; Limitless Opportunities, Responsible Choices; Developing Standards and Taking Ownership for Your Actions...etc. How awesome is this??

I will fly to Seattle with her and basically just check her into the hotel and leave. She stays at the conference without me and I don't see her until the last day when they have a commencement ceremony and hand her a certificate of completion. What will I be doing by myself in Seattle for four whole days? Hanging with Michelle!!!! I already called her and told her to get the time off of work and that I was staying at her house.

We are just so tickled that she was nominated and that she gets to take advantage of such a wonderful opportunity. Not to mention that this will look so amazing on a college application!

Sewing Class

Last night was my first session of my sewing class! I have always wanted to be able to sew. My Aunt Pam sat with me when I was really, really little and she helped me to sew Barbie clothes. I really had no use for Barbies other than to figure out clothes that I could make to put on them. Then I didn't touch a sewing machine for years and years.

When I was in college and Christmas came around I needed some gifts for everyone, but I had very limited funds. Not having a gift was NOT an option. My first Christmas out of the house I learned how to bake cookies (my mother was sure that I had bought them since I never went into the kitchen except to make mac & cheese from a box or a cheese quesadilla) and they turned out fabulous. They are almond poppyseed shortbread - I've still got the recipe if anyone wants them.

But I digress.... back to sewing.

My most wonderful Aunt Pam still had that same 50+ pound sewing machine and she lent it to me for years. THANK YOU!!! So, for many Christmas gifts people got little bunny ornaments out of muslin or Christmas tree angles. I think they turned out pretty good for being totally self taught on both a sewing machine and working with patterns. When I turned 30 and had my great 1/3 life crisis, I bought myself a really cool sewing machine with tons of different stitches. My Aunt Pam finally got her sewing machine back. I then took a few quiliting classes and learned how to:

a) use my sewing machine
b) apply my anal retentive, OCD tendancies to a hobby tailor made for women like me

My quilt is still undone, but I have some fabulous squares that I will turn into a quilt for Katya just as soon as I get a little more time. I often have great ideas for clothes - simple ones - that if I knew, REALLY knew, how to sew I could make them. And then there are clothing alterations that Katya has requested and I don't know how to do without them screaming "Hack job by a mother that doesn't know how to sew".

I have many years ahead that I could really put some sewing knowledge to good use. There are Halloween costumes, school plays, I still have to make Katya's Campfire dress, quilts, blankets for beds and gifts, curtains...etc. For now, I am content learning how to make pajama pants. From there I hope to be able to graduate to making simple drawstring pants that fit my ever changing physique. Then maybe I can finish that quilt for Katya and maybe make some for all the other kids in my life.

My sewing teacher is a great example of the interesting variety of people that live here in Bend. She was a costume and pattern maker for Yale University Theatre and various opera companies that tour the United States for about 13 years. She then got some interesting job opportunities in Hollywood and she did the same thing for several movies including one by Stephen Spielberg that I forgot the name of (a period film in the Elizabethian era) and Star Trek Next Generation. She had pictures of lots of her work and it is amazing! She did that for three years and then got married and moved to the Bay Area and had kids. She had lots of jobs that she did via mail so she could do them at home. Then her and her husband moved here to Bend in 2005. She decided to try and teach sewing to some of us poor unskilled mothers that are in their 30's and 40's after a newspaper article lamented about the lack of sewing skills in people in our age bracket. Most of us had working or working single mothers who just didn't have the time to sew or teach their kids how to sew.

When I finish my pajama pants I'll post a picture so you can all Oooooh and Ahhhhh at my insane craftsmanship.

Tumbling Class

Well, this morning was Alexis' first tumbling class at Cascade All Star Gymnastics. I feel that I got more of a workout than Alexis did. Luckily, Logan just sat in his carseat and sang for most of the class.

Ginger put it so well when I told her that I signed her up for this class. "It will be like trying to herd cats". That was pretty much the class.

Oh yeah, Alexis doesn't like being told what to do. A trait passed down to her from her mother AND her father. And she has no concept of "taking turns" or "waiting". She was so frustrated with me not letting her just do what she wanted, she spent most of the class screaming at me in frustration. Then there was the back arching, the noodle (going limp), and kicking. I was afraid the teacher would ask us to leave.

Every once in a while I would make her do something and (heaven forbid) she actually liked it. She also has remarkable balance on the balance beam. She has no problem whatsoever putting one foot in front of the other to walk on the skinniest of planks. She just hustles right along and tries to jump off when she runs into the kid in front of her. There was also the jumping into the marshmallow pit (a pit filled with super soft and squishy foam blocks). She just leapt right off that three foot ledge. I will never let her get too close to the river. The girl has no concept of self preservation yet.

I was obviously frustrated and a couple of mothers assured me that their kids did the same thing. One wasn't going to come back after the first class, but since she had paid for it her husband guilted her into going back. Now her little girl just follows right along and was perfect. Someday I hope to have the perfect child in this class and assure some other frazzled mother that their child will grow into the class. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Organization

I am trying to get organized again. I used to be so organized it made me the fodder of jokes. My files were all color coded, my cabinets perfectly organized, my papers put away, laundry perfectly stacked...etc. What happened?

Well, as I remember it:
1. I moved up here. I was still recovering from my last arm surgery so I was restricted from packing my own boxes. I hired a moving company to pack everything for me. Things got into boxes in a way that I never would have done.

2. I had my house under a state of constant remodeling for seven months. I had everything in the garage forever and I didn't even get my living room furniture returned to the living room until the week before Christmas.

3. I had Alexis. Infants take up a lot of time, as everyone knows.

4. I tried getting a part time job for a few months. That didn't work out too well.

5. I found out I was pregnant again. That explained my cronic fatigue and mood swings (I'm sorry you had to live with a crazy lady Diana!)

6. I had Logan. One baby takes a lot of time, two take time you didn't know you had.

So.... my life is an unorganized mess. Well, with the exception of my refridgerator and the cupboards under my sinks. Those look great! My computer armoire is overflowing with papers, my file drawers are bursting at the seams with papers I'm sure I can shred, my newly aquired paperwork for Bryson Communications still needs to be organized and everything entered into Quickbooks.

I've finally become disgusted with myself and started on the path to organization again. My computer armoire is getting there. I have found some CDs to get rid of, some things that need a home and a lot of stuff to file or shred. I've been entering itemized receipts and credit card charges into Quickbooks for Bob's company. I have to go back to January, so it will take a while. I finally got Quickbooks balanced with his payroll and checking accounts. I'm getting there. It's hard to type while you have a squirmy Logan on your lap trying to suck on your arm. (He currently has the hick ups and he is chewing on his finger again.)

Let's not even talk about pictures, baby books or scrapbooking.

But, I'm headed in the right direction! Wish me luck in my continued progress towards organized living.

No More Brace Face

This has been a monumental week for Katya - she got her braces off!

She couldn't have been more excited, she had a count down going for the past two months.

Before:

After:

Her ortho gave her a goody bag of all the things she has had to avoid for the past three years: taffy, skittles, popcorn and regular gum. What did we have to go and get her first thing after they came off? A caramel apple from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.