Busy Days of Summer!

The boys were so excited to do Fishing Kids this year. Every year on the day before Father's Day, the city takes thousands of fish from the hatcheries and dumps them into a netted-off area out at Cascade Park. They give each of the kids a brand new fishing pole and t-shirt and allow them to catch 2 fish a piece. They have such a good time! The weather was beautiful. (of course I had to work...) They had a great pre-father's day with Mike and his dad.

This past Friday we had a brief moment of weakness and told the kids we could go to the circus. Please make a note: Try to avoid coming in contact with any circus advertisements when your school-aged children who know how to read are within an eyeshot. This is not a fun place for grown-ups to go. You know all of the little "free coupons" that you see all over the town, at grocery stores, restaurants, etc.? If you plan to go to see Circus Gatti, make sure you grab enough of those free tickets for you and each of your kids. If not, you will be spending a small fortune just to walk through the gates. $22.00 for each adult, $17 for each child between 5-12, and $12 for children under 5. If you have any money left after you walk through the gate, a bottled water will cost $3, popcorn $4, snocone $4, and cotton candy $8. I am not kidding. For a very mediocre performance, a family can easily spend over $100 for 2 hours in the 90 degree heat on metal bleachers. What fun.

Saturday, Mike and I drove to Puyallup for Jason Green's wedding. Yes, you are reading this correctly. Jason Green. Married. That just leaves Caleb -- all of the other soccer boys have crossed the threshold. Anyways, it was a nice ceremony at a beautiful golf course in Orting. The weather was perfect, and they both looked great. It was fun to see all the high school soccer buddies and their wives and kids. Sam and Hilary Lester have a couple of girls and another girl on the way, Tony & Nicole Preston just had their 2nd girl, and Jason's little brother Tyler and his wife Jamie have one little girl. See a pattern here? Maybe someday I'll know what that's like... For now my three men keep me plenty busy.

What a Slacker...

Good Grief! I have more days off and less free time? How does that work? I was enjoying all of my friends' blog entries and happened to notice that my last post was almost two months ago! We've been so busy!

School is finally out. Most moms love the fact that their kids aren't home all day every day. I am a rare exception -- I don't mind my kids being around, and I LOVE to sleep in. I don't know if I'll ever outgrow that - Go to bed early, wake up late, any chance for a mid-day nap, I take it. It drives Mike absolutely crazy. He's like the energizer bunny. There's always something to do and sleeping isn't the priority. He always has a project planned or an early morning tee-time --He can function on a ridiculously small amount of sleep. No such luck for me.

The boys finished baseball about a week and a half ago. Again, such a relief. There is nothing more fun than watching them play, but the weather was horrible this season! We spent most of our games with winter clothes and hats and blankets on just to survive the 1 1/2 hour games. Not so much fun.

We've spent the last few weekends watching Mike's softball team play in tournaments. His team is so much fun to hang out with. It is mostly his cousins and a couple of really long-time family friends. They've played together for years, and have finally come into their own. We've played in five tournaments this season, we've won two of them, taken 2nd in two, and placed 5th in one. We're ranked 2nd in the state and 1st in the East. We were in Wenatchee last weekend and they ended up winning that one in a couple of nail-biters! It was so fun to see! Very close games in the 2nd day's games, but after 6 games (and a 4-bench clearing brawl...) they won the championship by one run. Doesn't get much better than that!

We camped at Lincoln Rock last weekend while we were in the area for the tourney. (Yes, you read that correctly -- I camped...) I haven't been camping since the week I found out I was pregnant with Austin. Me and camping aren't the best of friends, but I did it anyway. Funny thing -- I actually thoroughly enjoyed myself. Granted, this was a campground that had running water, flush toilets, hot showers, and plug-ins, but we slept in a tent, therefore it qualifies. What a fun place -- there is so much to do there!

My kids are growing up so fast, it amazes me. Kaiden's mouth goes a mile a minute -- he will talk to anyone who will respond. And not just "hi", he usually starts out with "I got bit by a dog on my cheek and I had a broken leg and another broken leg and I cut my finger and..." I'm sure these strangers think we should be reported. Zach has gone from monster child to the most enjoyable, sweet little boy in the last year. He still gets that little sparkle of mischief in his eyes once in awhile, but for the most part, he's a pretty great little guy. Austin continues to set the bar pretty high for his brothers. He's so easy to parent! He is my baller, for sure. Life revolves around sports, and not just playing, but winning every time. He takes everything so seriously and is the most competitive 8-year-old I've ever met. I guess that drive can be a good thing, but we're definitely going to have to try to moderate it a little bit before fall sports start.

Anyway, enough about us -- here are some random pictures for your viewing pleasure.

We're Still Alive...

It's amazing how fast life travels! I can't believe it's been over a month since I visited this site! We've been so busy!

Austin turned 8 on March 28th. What an amazing little boy he is. We celebrated his birthday at AIM Gymnastics -- what a great place for a birthday party! To sum it up, for 2 hours, someone else supervises any number of kids monkeying around on various equipment, jumping castles, and ropes swinging from the ceiling. They provide pizza and balloons, all you do is bring the cake. Why didn't I think about this earlier?

I officially went to part-time on April 1st. Again, why didn't I think of this earlier? What a huge difference it has made in both my attitude and my productivity! I can accomplish a WHOLE lot more now that I am not working so much. Another plus is that once a week, a couple of my friends from work come over for a couple of hours and we scrapbook. I didn't know just how therapeutic that can be! I'm still like 7 1/2 years behind, but oh well -- you have to start somewhere, right?

Springtime is a busy birthday time for us -- Austin's just passed, mine is next Saturday, Mike's is 5 days later on May Day, and Kaiden's is on May 11th. Add a little soccer and a lot of baseball, and that makes for an expensive and exhausting couple of months! Oh - and Camery, I haven't forgotten about your email -- be sure to call me when you have a free minute and we'll set up our birthday lunch!

Bye Bye Cast!

The cast is gone!!! Finally, after 6 long weeks, Kaiden is cast-free. He is slowly but surely re-learning how to walk like a normal kid. Right now, his gait resembles that of a pirate with a wooden leg.

The whole cast-removal procedure was quite traumatic this go-round -- I'm not exactly sure why. (He's had enough practice...) Our regular doctor had the day off, so his partner - also a good friend of mine - did the dirty deed. The cast saw is harmless to skin, but is really noisy and cuts by vibration, so I guess I can understand why he freaked out so much. I'm sure the patients in nearby rooms thought we were cutting his leg off. You could probably hear him screaming at the entrance to the clinic! Nevertheless, we survived, and the x-rays look good. We're crossing our fingers that this is his last cast for a long while!

Kaiden's New Cast

We had Kaiden's cast replaced on Wednesday. He talked all week about getting his new "BLUE" cast, so we went to the doctor's office fully expecting just that -- a blue cast. When we got there, "Dr. Larry" as Kaiden says, told us there wasn't enough blue and asked what he wanted instead. Our choices were limited -- pink, purple, orange, or..... CAMO! Of course you know what he picked. His brothers thought it was the coolest thing ever. Kaiden was pretty sure that because he had his camo cast he should be able to go "rockchuck hunting" with his brothers. He was a little bummed when I wouldn't give him his bb gun.

On another note, I thoroughly enjoyed Candace's blog entry about friends. I think back on life during high school and the friends I had at that time of my life. We had quite a little gang! And like everything else in life, there were ups and downs, comings and goings, celebrations and tragedies, love, and heartbreak, but it amazes me that those silly high school girl friendships have weathered the storms and withstood the test of time. To that crazy group of my high school friends, know how much you all mean to me and that I treasure those friendships that we still have, across the miles or across town. And to that friend of mine who is hurting right now, know that I pray for you every night that this heartache will soon pass you by.

Life as Wii now know it...

Ever since the neighbor kids got a Wii at Christmastime, our boys have begged us day in and day out to buy them one. We kept telling them that they didn't need one -- we have a V-Smile, a Super Nintendo (from back in the day), a Playstation 2, and 3 computers in the house. We did not need anything else -- they should be thankful for all that they have. Well, after nearly 2 months of listening to them whine, we finally gave in. Nowhere within a 500 mile radius of us had any for sale, so we turned to our good friends at eBay for help and found one for the bargain price of $456.00. What in the heck is so wonderful about this thing that it had to cost that much money?!? I still don't know that answer, but it entertains my children from sun-up to sun-down, and there aren't any games that you can just sit on your butt in front of the TV, so I guess it's OK.

My children are slowly but surely teaching me how to "make a Mii", how to swing golf clubs and tennis rackets, and how to throw a screwball and a mean right hook. It's becoming quite a nice source of quality family time.

Kaiden is adjusting well to his casted leg. He crawls and scoots around like there's no tomorrow, and he's even gotten brave and climbed the stairs. It is amazing to me how resilient children are -- he breaks his leg and takes a little Tylenol w/Codeine and Motrin for a few days and then gets right back up and goes again. An adult breaks a leg and is in the hospital on a Morphine PCA for a week. Unbelievable! The biggest issue for Kaiden now is not being able to climb up the shelves of the pantry to get fruit snacks and we don't get them for him in a timely-enough fashion. He's an impatient little stink! Anyways, he's definitely on the mend, and it's looking like we're going to survive this afterall.

Baby Got A Boo-Boo...

Sunday afternoon, we were just relaxing on the couch and the kids were playing upstairs, when out of the clear blue sky, Kaiden starts screaming in pain. He was walking down the stairs and slipped on a toy that his brother didn't put away. We knew instantly that something wasn't right. You see, Kaiden broke his left leg at Eastertime last year while playing Soccer with his brothers, so we are getting to be experts in the field of childhood injuries. I took him up to the walk-in clinic, and it was like deja-vu, I swear! Same nurse, same doctor, same x-ray tech, same verdict: fractured tibia. Only this time it was the right instead of the left. We're still very cautiously answering our front door -- we're expecting a visit from CPS anytime now.

So our lives have been filled with "Mommy, my yeg hoots willy willy bad", "Daddy, I need a deent", Mommy, nunnle me", "Daddy, hold me", "Mommy, I need meditin for my yeg". Needless to say, we're exhausted -- it's like having a 25 lb newborn that can talk.

There is one plus about this situation, though. When life is going as usual, with work and school and homework and sports and so on and so on, parents tend to feel overworked and underappreciated. But being able to be home with our baby, taking care of his every need (and want...) has been such a blessing. Knowing that he doesn't want anyone but Mommy and Daddy and hearing those countless 'I yuv you's makes it all worthwhile.