Eight Things

My sister in law, Laura tagged me in a "get to know you game".

Here's the rules--mention the person that tagged you.
Complete the lists of 8's.
Tag 8 of your wonderful blogger friends.
Go tell them you tagged them!

8 Things I Am Looking Forward To:
1. Going on a Disney Cruise on July 4th
2. Visiting with my family on the cruise
3. Going back up to full-time work hours this Friday
5. Planting my garden in the backyard
6. Warmer weather- it has been a long cold Winter/Spring so far.
7. Alexis finally getting potty trained all the way

8 Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Cleaned the garage with Katya
2. Lots of laundry
3. Finished a book
4. Vacuumed & mopped the floors
5. Spent some time playing with Alexis & Logan
6. Washed windows
7. Set up the kids play things on the front patio
8. Worked

8 Things I Wish I Could Do:
1. Enjoy cooking
2. Move things with my mind
3. Have my 22 year old body
4. Teleport myself to San Diego, Salt Lake City and Seattle on a whim
5. Win the lottery and make mine and my family's lives a bit easier
6. Take a trip overseas every Spring (Italy, Greece, Spain, Australia, New Zealand...)
7. Go to medical school
8. Tear down and re-build my house the way I want it

8 Shows I Watch:
1. Bones
2. Fringe
3. Numb3rs
4. Grey's Anatomy
5. The Mentalist
7. CSI: Las Vegas
8. Ghost Whisperer

Now who shall I pick.....
Laura already got everyone pretty much...

I'll just leave it open!!!

Guy Trip

Bob is leaving this evening with a friend to Lake Havasu for the weekend. Three whole days with no husband.

His friend has a house out there and he hasn't seen him in years, so this should be a fun time for all. Warm weather in the 80's all weekend, boats to ride the lake in, probably BBQing for every meal and lots of catching up.

Bob has been working all the time. Not a day goes by that he doesn't stress about some deadline for some board or some document that is critical to his existance. I know that it usually is business critical, but the guy never has any downtime. Despite his protests about this being the worst possible time to be going - he needs it.

My little weekend visits with Michelle in Seattle always help to clear my head. They kind of rejuvinate me for the next few months. They help me to remember ME. Deby - not the mother, the wife, the co-worker, the house cleaner, the family cook.... But the me that is the one that likes to travel, eat good cheese, watch corny movies, drink fruity fizzy drinks, sit in coffee shops with just a book and a vanila latte for a couple of hours.

My sincerest hope is that Bob comes back on Sunday night feeling a little bit lighter. A little bit happier. All the stress that weighs him down every single day will be hopefully lifted, even if only for 48 hours. I hope he reconnects with his friends, has fun swimming in the lake and driving boats and gets a lot of good belly laughs in. They are what keep us going when everything seems just too much to bear sometimes.

Have fun sweetie!

Wolf Talk

This morning was "Wolf Talk" at the High Desert Museum. Katya wanted to go to this a couple of years ago when they were here, but they were sold out. We were bummed.

But, when Logan and I were at the High Desert a couple of weeks ago they had tickets on sale!

So... this morning Katya and I got up and left Bob with the babies while we headed out. We stopped at Seargent's Cafe and Katya had the best banana pancakes in the world. Outrageous!

Then we got to the museum and hung out until they opened. We grabbed our carpet square and waited impatiently for the wolves to arrive.

This was pretty cool. These people are from Mission: Wolf in Colorado. They talked a lot about wolf behavior and interactions before the wolves even came out for a visit. They encourage visitors out there at their refuge and some day it would be cool for us all to go out there, volunteer our time for a bit and hang around the wolves.

When the wolves came out they were just beautiful. One was a full grey wolf that had imprinted on humans and therefore could not be released to the wild. The other was a wolf-dog that had been found eating out of dumpsters in Salt Lake City. He was such a lover that he tried to sit in everyone's lap to get attention.

I was surprised to learn that although in Yellowstone when a wolf kills a deer, a bear can easily steal their kill. But in the three minutes before the bear shows up to grab the leftovers, a wolf can consume 15 pounds of meat. In three minutes! Evidently, the re-introduction of bears into their ecosystem has helped the endangered grissly. Nature needs it's balance.

Anyway, the whole thing was totally cool. Katya had her entire face licked by the grey wolf and both wolves found great interest in my shoe. I had stepped in some dog doo earlier and thought I had gotten it all off. It was still cool to have them RIGHT there in front of me.

I hope that they come back again. Alexis can go and see them when they are 4 years old. We'll see if she can sit still long enough then.

Growing Some Flowers

I have a love of gardening.

Not sure why. Don't know where it came from, but it is there. I can only think that my Great Grandparents, who homesteaded in Halfway, Oregon, put this gardening bug in my system.

Alexis loves creating things. She wants to be in the kitchen and she is always making some kind of pretend something with her play food. She also loves to be outside and she LOVES flowers. I must have given that same gene to her.

Sooooo... we are growing some flowers for our yard.

Since I had such great success with the little dirt pods and greenhouse things, we are growing some Zinneas, Giant Sunflowers and Sweet Peas. I say we, when actually it is Alexis doing all the work.

Step 1: Put the little dirt pods in the greenhouse base with the little hole facing up.

Step 2: Add water and watch them triple in size. (Always fun)

Step 3: Add flower seeds and press them into the dirt.

Step 4: Cover them up and put them in the sun to grow.

Track Season

It has been track and field time for Katya. Summit is serious about their athletes and they train HARD regardless of weather.

That means snow, cold, wind, sun .... you name it.

They also have a doctor and a nutritionist that work with the athletes to help them achieve the highest standard of athletic excellence and health possible. It is pretty amazing the difference from when I was in track and from what Katya has today.

Her coaches have her doing all kinds of events from long jump, high jump (she doesn't like this one), hurdles and sprint relays. It is not uncommon for her to be signed up for 4 or 5 events a meet.

Through her long hours of hard work, her times are getting better. Her form is getting better. She is now consistantly placing in the top three for her events. No small feat!

There is a cool website that the athletes use to monitor all of their times, distances and placements from the meets. It is called athletic.net and it is seriously cool. It takes all the guesswork out of the meet results and helps athletes focus on their "Personal Best/Record" to see improvement. Here are the results from the last meet. She has another meet tomorrow in La Pine and about one a week until the end of the school year.

Luckily betwen Bob, Terren and I there is usually a parental figure at all of her meets. Bob went last time when Terren and I couldn't make it and he videotaped her 300 hurdle race. It is pretty cool to be able to give her so much support. I hope to make part of her meet tomorrow in La Pine. The only bummer about high school track is that they don't let any parents on the field at all, so all those cool close up action shots I got during middle school are no more. Oh well.

Egg Hunt

Easter was a very good day in our house.

The little ones didn't sleep good the night before so everyone in the house was a bit on the foggy side all morning. Very mellow.

I made us all a HUGE breakfast of french toast, hashbrowns, sausage, bacon, and fruit salad. Debbie K. eventually joined us and she brought over some of those amazing muffins from Westside Bakery. Add to that Black Forest ham, zucchini bread and butter nut pound cake - we had more than enough food for the day. In fact, the leftovers should last all week.

The skies were dark and the forecast predicted rain after 11am. So my neighbors and I had a two backyard egg hunt with all of our kids. They had such a good time! Logan was not exactly sure of why he should be picking up the eggs, so Bob let him open one and eat the candy inside. My kids have huge sweet tooths, so they got the hang of it really quickly.

Katya played Easter bunny this year and did a great job of putting the 100 or so eggs all over the backyard. It is nice to finally be able to let the kids roam our huge expanse of a backyard. Watching them trudge across our yard with their baskets in hand was pretty cool.

The post-egg hunt nap was pretty sweet too. What a great psueudo-lazy day!

Playtime With Logan

With Alexis going to preschool in the mornings, this frees up some time for me to do some one on one with my litte dude.

While Alexis was in her first day of preschool, Logan and I spent the morning together.

We started off having breakfast together. I had to kind of mesh that with a Campfire event meeting, but he didn't seem to mind.

Afterwards we headed over to the children's museum only to find it closed.

Sooooooooo, we then high tailed it over to the High Desert Museum. We had such a nice time there.

Logan loved just standing there watching the salmon in their stream swimming. And then there were ducks... and some other birds... and some statues - I had a hard time getting him to go inside the building at all.

Once inside he loved the turtles and the Lynx. The Lynx was lounging in the sun and kept staring at Logan through the glass. He just kept saying "kitty". Yup, that was a really big kitty. Then we walked all around the outside and this included the bird exhibit. We learned what owls sound like and he was totally enamored with the Golden Eagle. He was jumping around his enclosure and spreading his wings to catch the breeze. They are beautiful birds.

The River Otter exhibit was his favorite and I had to eventually leave because he kept trying to climb into the enclosure. My little monkey boy.

We finished off our morning with an oatmeal cookie and juice before we headed to the car to go and get Alexis.

All week we played. We hit Barnes and Noble as well as the Children's Museum.

I know that Logan will be ready for preschool all too soon, so I am enjoying this time with him.

1st Day of Preschool

Alexis has been ready for preschool for a while now, but I have been waiting until Fall.

After some rather difficult weeks, I decided that this girl needed sooner rather than later. She is smart and needs to work that brain of hers. Not to mention her refusal to totally potty train even though she knows what to do. A little peer pressure would be good in this area. Of course, me teaching her things doesn't work because she is one of those kids that just don't learn from parents. Katya was the same way, so I understand.

I looked all over Bend for preschools that were in my area, came with recommendations...etc. I found what appears to be an awesome one. It is a home preschool and I really like home care programs. Katya was in one for years and her caregiver was amazing. Her house is set up to where one half is her living area and the other half is the preschool. The school room is her converted garage and it has bright colors, artwork on the walls and nice pergo floors. Her backyard is huge and flat and she works from a preschool curriculum.

I took both kids there for a visit and they both didn't want to leave. Ms. Stephanie (her teacher) seems really nice and she has a good raport with Alexis. Alexis introduced her and Logan without any prompting from me. "I Lexi. This my brother, Logan.". I guess she has chosen Lexi as her nickname. Ginger wins.

Tuesday was her first day and I was expecting a little bit of drama. Didn't get it. We arrived at 8am with Alexis all dolled up for school and she just walked in and started playing. No problems whatsoever.

When I picked her up from school at noon she was happy to see me and not one single tear.

This was her teacher's report for the day:

- She went on the potty when one of the other kids did and kept a dry pull up all day. YEAH!!

- While she was doing some coloring of her letter "B" she told her teacher "Sissy at school. I at school. I am a big girl!".

- No pushing, shoving, attitude or difficulty.

- She didn't eat the bean and cheese quesadillas, but that came as no surprise. I did warn her about her picky eating habits.

All in all a FABULOUS report!!

All afternoon the girl was a little chatterbox. I believe this is a great time for her development and I can't wait to have more conversations with my little Lexi.

Gymnastics

When Alexis turned three I was absolutely thrilled!! Why? Because then I could sign her up for a class and I did not have to participate with her. Kinda hard to do when I have Logan sitting in the wings waiting stuck in a stroller.

I had done a gymnastics class with Alexis when Logan was first born. I stuck him in his carrier in eyesight of where I was and ran around the gym with Alexis attempting to get her to do what the teacher wanted. It was an exhausing battle of wills. I only survived two classes.

So, two weeks ago we started gymnastics for a second try.

We got to the class and she was so excited. She looked darling in her little pink outfit that she picked out last summer. (We were at a mall in San Diego and she spotted this outfit when we walked by, she ran in before I could stop her and she promptly started stripping her clothes off to put it on. How could I say no with that level of "love at first sight"?) She jumped around and as soon as everyone walked into the gym - she turned and held onto my leg. ????

Didn't expect that.

I had to spend the whole class with her encouraging her to sit on the carpet square, do the jumps, listen to the teacher... it was a long class. Poor Logan had to sit in a stroller watching all the fun. Then something magical happened about ten minutes before the class ended. She didn't need me anymore so I snuck back to the parent area.

Her second class was yesterday and I was hopeful that it would go better than the first. She rocked it!! She had some initial hesitation, but there was a pink carpet square waiting for her to do her stretches on and she couldn't resist. I mean, it was PINK. She kept an eye on me for the first fifteen minutes, but after that she pretty much listened to the teacher. I was so relieved!

Actually listened is not exactly correct... more like heard what he wanted her to do and then when he wasn't watching she would do it. She bounced on the trampoline, jumped into the foam pit, did oodles of somersaults, hung by the rings.... she is gumby girl.

I was so proud of her.

After the class he gave everyone a hand stamp with a purple star AND a smiley face. She couldn't have been any happier.

Yeah for gymnastics!!! I can put Logan in with her when he is 30 months, which is this summer.

Spring Is In The Air

Ah... Spring.

It is here! The days are slowly warming up, the bizarre sudden snow is more of a novelty, my tulips are popping up (although the deer already munched the ones along the sidewalk to nubs), and there is new growth on all the trees.

It also means that my little ones can FINALLY go to the park!! They are energetic little things that need their space and their ability to climb on things without hearing "no". So, when the afternoons are at least in the high 50's, we're heading to the park.

During the summer, we were making it a daily occurance and a little ritual with Bob. He would come home (the sun sets very late in the day here in the summer), put the kids in the trailer, hop on his bike and take them to the park for 45 minutes of fun before bath and bed. It was nice and I look forward to getting back into that routine.

A week or so ago we grabbed the kids on a Friday evening and headed to the park. I took the camera since it was the first real park play since November. I got some good ones that show their changing personalities.

Alexis is my outside girl. She doesn't care about the temperature... she just wants to be OUTSIDE. She has no fear, she pushes boundaries, if she falls she gets right back up and tries again (that whole tenatious spirit of hers), she loves the rush of zooming down the big kid slide or getting pushed really high on the swing - she is like a mini-Bob in this way with his love of adrenaline. I need to keep my medical insurance current on this one.

Logan is enjoying being outside more and more. But he is WAY more reserved and serious than Alexis. He will try and keep up with her, but you can see the reservation in his face. His favorite thing right now is going up and down steps. He will probably enjoy the rock wall before the next winter hits. He is a climber.

Bob is enjoying playing with his little ones. He waited a long time for them and he likes to get to play with them as much as he can. He is a good daddy.

My Mom's Visit

A little birdie reminded me that I never did a post about my mother's visit in February. I must make amends.

In February, my mom came up and stayed for a whole week! It was her "President's Week" of vacation. She came up by herself and stayed in Katya's bedroom. Katya was temporarily moved to the "Lounge" for the week, but she didn't mind.

It was a really awesome visit.

My mom went to Katya's basketball game, took her shopping, hung out at the Old Mill, stayed with the short ones when I went to work, played with them, took naps with Alexis every day (she thought that was really cool) ... it was fabulous. She even made a fort with the dining room table and hung out under the blanket with them.

When I came home from work the kids had been bathed, the house clean, the laundry done and everyone was in their jammies watching cartoons being lazy. It was awesome!

That week went really, really fast.

I am hopeful that she can come up at least once or twice a year like that. It would be so nice to have her here and be able to have some relaxing "downtime" with the kids.

Not to mention that I miss my mom and like her staying here feeling comfy enough to stay in her pajamas all day and hang on the couch and visit.

A Whole New Level

She looks sweet, doesn't she. Well, looks can be deceiving.

Stubbornness and just being difficult is a trait that runs deep in my family. So much so that "jackass" is considered a term of affection.

Not kidding.

The family tells stories about my brother with a carton of eggs, a fan and a hot summer day. It's funny now, but I have a feeling that my brother came close to going to foster care that day.

My cousin spent five full days sitting at the kitchen table because she refused to do her homework. After realizing she had to sit there all weekend, she finally relented.

I still remember vividly Katya standing at the top of the stairs yelling "go ahead" (hands on her hips and everything) when I told her she had to do whatever it was she needed to do or get a spanking. Katya also had such a sassy mouth (a trait that Alexis unfortunately inherited) that she knew intimately the taste of liquid soap from having her mouth washed out several times.

So the fact that Alexis would rather have hot pokers shoved under her fingernails than do what I want her to do is not a huge surprise. She feels the need to constantly push everyone's buttons, keep a good arm's length distance for her "personal space", and is having a hard time learning to "share" with other kids. But when she feels that she is close to foster care herself... she is the sweetest thing ever. All smiles and hugs.

She is wearing me out! The girl is only three!!

I wonder which ancestor is responsible for putting this mutant gene into our DNA. And seriously, why hasn't it died out yet?

So, preschool is in Alexis' near future. I think I found one that might work and it is close to my Aunt Ginger's house. There is an opening at the Montessori school close to my house, but Ginger and I agree that Alexis' innate need to push boundaries would not work well with a "learn as you go" school. The girl needs some boundaries.

Hopefully I can get her signed up today and she can start on Monday. I hope. It would only be part time mornings, but it should help her put her creative mind to better uses like learning how to cooperate with others, use scissors, write her name other than how best to try and subvert my authority.