The ZOO

When James found out we were going to zoo he just had one request.  The only thing he wanted to see was the monkey. Since we didn't have a lot of time we made sure to go there first. He was in heaven. The really nice thing about the zoo is that it's small enough and close enough we can just pop in when we have an hour or two, see our favorite things and still get lots of errands done. It was quite lovely way to send a couple of hours and enjoy a little bit of sunshine.

 

 Making some good African drum music.

 The lions are fairly new to the zoo and always really fun to see. They have a new baby cougar that we were excited to see, but sadly it was off exhibit. I guess that will just get us back in another Saturday or two.

We need to come up with a better plan for when we go into the Lorikeet exhibit. Todd holds the nectar and feeds the birds and I'm trying to take pictures of all the fun, but it leaves James a little unsupervised. Here is Todd trying to do double duty of keeping the lorikeets safe and away from James. It's really no easy task.

Over all the weather was perfect, the animals were fun to see, and it was a great way to spend 2 hours as a family, doing something everyone enjoys.

My Girl

She is quite the girl.

This morning she was looking at our Aspen Grove book and she exclaimed..."Oh look, I look really old in this picture."
"Oh really," I responded
"Yeah look," she said, "I look like I'm 16...., or at least 9 or 10."

Later in the afternoon she asked if she could play dress-up. She ran off happily with an affirmative reply and got down her blue dress from Halloween. She wanted to be Cinderella. After helping her with her dress she said, "Now I just need a crown." I told her that there was one in my room because I had stepped on it and it almost made me say a bad word. To which she responded "REALLY!!!" It made me laugh so hard. She was so shocked, but I tell you, unless you've stepped on a tiara in the dark, you have no idea what bad words were running around in my head.

On days when  string cheese or yogurt isn't quite enough for an afternoon snack, Hailee decides to take matters into her own hands. Usually she makes the normal, chicken, roast beef, etc... sandwiches. But sometimes necessity (we were out of the normal ingredients) and creativity combine in such a way to make a perfectly delicious sandwich. One one such day she came up with this great idea...

A peanut butter and apple sandwich. Before I knew it she had made not only one for herself, but for her brother and I as well. I have to admit while the texture was a little weird, it tasted quite good.

I also discovered that she doesn't like crust anymore.

This is what I found on the kitchen counter after breakfast.

We also started her in swimming lessons. Summer's get so crazy and we really needed to get her swimming. She isn't afraid of the water, but she won't go anywhere without her noodle. Temperature what they are here, we don't do a lot of swimming, but she is enjoying her swim lessons. James on the other hand is not enjoying HER swim lessons. He really thinks they should be HIS swim lessons. One day he tried undressing himself so he could get in the pool with Sissy. It's really not fair she gets to have all the fun.

Free and Clear

At least that is what the doctor told me after she took of the little guys cast. She then also said "try and go easy on his arm for the next week or so." James on the other hand, had very different ideas. I mean really....you expect him be boring for a week or so at the same time he just got complete mobility of his arm. Since the doctor obviously didn't know what she was talking about, James decided to just do whatever he wanted. Thankfully he hasn't re injured himself (not for lack of trying) and we are all still in one piece. 

 He turned out to be quite good with his left hand while in his cast. A week later he is still using his left hand quite a bit. It will be interesting to see if he continues to be a lefty or not.

 Hailee was insistent that we keep James' cast, at least to show dad. I told her she had to carry it to the car. When she was buckling up she said "Oh mom, this cast is stinky." Then later when we were home, James picked it up and said "stinky." Todd appreciated the gesture, but I'm not sure how excited he was to smell it.

He didn't really know what to think when they were taking off the cast. Once it was off he was quite excited. He did so good during the x-ray, he put his arm right where it needed to go. It's his 4th x-ray since this adventure started, so he knows just what to do. Let's hope he doesn't have to use that skill again any time soon.

 

He was very thrilled to come home and get a shower. In the picture he is actually 'kissing' the shower because he missed it so much. I was thrilled to give him a good scrub. I finally feel like he is 'clean.'

Our Crazy Baby James

 This boy definitely keeps us on our toes. Every day it gets worse, before it was jumping off the bed and now he's wanting to jump off the stairs, pretty soon he'll be jumping off the roof. I'm not sure I can take it. I don't think I'm cut out to be a mother to a little boy. Honestly I'm not sure how mothers with multiple boys do it.  He is quite sweet and his cuteness has more than once saved him. Lately he is pretty excited about getting his picture taken. Below is his best "cheese" smile.

 Just before Christmas he was "helping" me unload the dishwasher. He found a butter knife and went running into the living room with a loud war cry. Happy that he had finished "helping" me, I continued to unload the dishwasher. It was a little minute until I heard a cry from Hailee. James had hit her over the head with his improvised sword.  I quickly took it away from him. He didn't fuss too much, but he followed me back into the kitchen and pushed a chair up to the silverware drawer. Since he was standing right in front of the drawer he couldn't open it all the way to see what he was getting. He first pulled out a spoon to which he quickly said "Nope." Then proceeded to pull out silverware, always saying "nope" after pulling out the wrong one, until he found what he was looking for.

 James still doesn't have much in the hair department. He does have one little spot on the back of his head that for whatever reason has decided to grow a little. It still wasn't too thick or very long, but Todd was convinced that something needed to be done. I was a little hesitant, but decided after Christmas that a little hair cut would probably be a good idea. Todd did a great job cutting his little mullet and James did a great job of sitting still. Of course it took all of 30 seconds to cut and there wasn't enough hair to save for his baby book, but I guess we should still consider it his first haircut. Maybe he'll have more hair for his second birthday, but at the rate he's going it's looking more like his 4th birthday. Todd and I were trying to remember if there were any bald kids in our kindergarten classes. We couldn't think of any.

Our little girl keeps us constantly on our toes. We are so glad to have her in our family. She is the best big sister to her little brother. All of us agree that we don't know what we would do without her. She is so good to all of us...and she keeps us laughing all the time.

On our way to Utah we were driving to the airport. James was a little fussy so we put on some kid music. Hailee loves music and she has memorized every song on the six disk set my mom sent her for her birthday. She was in the back just singing away to every song. Right after one song ended we heard her say... "Oh good, I was tired of that song." Now you never would have know that she was tired of or annoyed at the song at all, she sang just as happily to that one as every other song.

The night before school started again I was so proud of myself for getting her to bed on time. I had here there by 7:00 p.m. It even gave her plenty of time for reading before going to sleep. Patting myself on the back I went back downstairs and enjoyed some quiet time with Todd. At about 8:30 I went up stairs and noticed her lamp was still on. Sometimes she will fall asleep with the light on so I was very surprised to find a little girl sitting up and reading her Little House of the Prairie book in bed. She was so wrapped up in the story she didn't even notice when I came in. When I asked her what she was still doing up she said, "But mom there is a prairie fire and I've just got to see if everyone is safe." So much for getting her to bed on time. I guess I need to watch the time better for her. 

We've had a little bit of a cold spell here in Oregon. Now for my sisters who live in Wisconsin and Idaho it's nothing, but when it stays below freezing for any amount of time we don't handle it so well. I always make sure Hailee has her coat, hat, gloves and scarf so she can stay warm. Today when I picked her up and asked her if she stayed warm at recess, she informed me..

H: I got frostbite today.
N: You did? What does that mean?
H: I'm not really sure, I read about it in Magic Treehouse. I think it's when your nose hurts after you are out in the cold and that is what happened to me today.

Now she is convinced that she has frostbite. Thankfully the rain is coming back and so are the warmer temperatures. Tomorrow we get back into the 40's

Ow, Ow, Ow, Ouch

We were a little hopeful that after breaking his arm James would learn to be a little more cautious. It seems that he does understand that if he does something crazy (i.e., dive head first off the bed) that it is going to hurt, but unfortunately he just doesn't care. It's as if he thinks the temporary pain is worth the thrill of diving off the bed head first. So those first few hours after he broke his arm we were a little hopeful. But it soon became apparent that the little guy had very different ideas. He soon was just as crazy as crazy as before. When he got his more permanent cast on it only increased his recklessness. He has now really learned that if he bonks his sister and mom over the head they give him a really good reaction. He absolutely has no fear of hurting himself again.

The other unfortunate thing he has learned is how to say "ow" and "ouch." He will sometimes use then after falling down or something but his favorite time to use them is when we're in public. For example the other day we were grocery shopping. He was standing in the cart and at one point he tried getting out. I quickly grabbed him and was getting him to stop. He started screaming "Ow, ow, ow, ouch" at the top of this lungs. So of course everyone in store stopped to look at an abusive mother and her injured child. It was awesome. Lets just hope no one called Child Protective Services, the bruises from diving off the bed probably won't do me any favors either. 

Honestly if I survive this boy it will be a miracle. Todd keeps telling me it's normal, but I'm not sure that I'm cut out to be a mother of a little boy.

New New Years Tradition

For the past few years we have had very boring New Year's. I don't even remember the last time we stayed up to ring in the New Year or really even did anything special during the day. At first it was because Todd just wasn't feeling good, and now with his job at Intel he is just so busy at the end of the year.  This year, however, we were determined to do something fun and start a new tradition.

Todd had the best idea. In Korea they eat a duk mandu guk soup for New Years. Since duk mandu guk is not one of the Korean recipes that I know right now we decided to go out for Korean food. A little while ago we found a great little Korean restaurant. You know it's a good Korean restaurant when we are the only non-asian people there and there are flyers for English classes in the waiting area.

Along with our duk mandu guk we got Hailee's favorite jap chae. Both kids loved our new tradition so I think we'll keep this one going.