Relaxin in the Caymans

Jesse found a sea urchin with his finger today after capsizing the kayak and losing his sunglasses. Some spines remain in the finger but apparently dissolve over time.... we hope
We were able to enjoy this beautiful sunset from our beach house. Now we just need to move the kids down here with us.

Neglected

This blog has been neglected as of late and it’s not going to get much better in the next couple of weeks.  I was trying to find a good picture of Bella for her class, and was noticing all the pictures I had taken the last few months that I was going to tell a story with and never got around to.

So I will try and do a condensed version in this post to catch you all up.

Here was a missing photo from our St. Patty’s Day Parade trip where we left Bella at home.

I purchased a sheet of sock monkey magnets and Oliver played with them for hours…definitely a worthwhile purchase.  Except now they seem to all be missing and every once in awhile he will say “monkey” while at the fridge.  Guess if I ever see them again I will have to pick up more.

When I made my polka dot shirt by painting dots…I had Bella all set up next to me and was going to have her paint along with me.  Except I ran out of paint.  So hopefully we can do this project again, as I think she would look cute in a crazy polka dot pattern that she could do herself.

Bella was sick for a good week before Jesse and I got sick.  At one point Jesse texted me and asked how things were going.  I sent him this picture.

Even sitting with Mom she was crying and crying…definitely not the best of days.

Notice anything different about this next picture?

Oliver has decided that this particular doll of Bella’s is now his baby.

What cracks me up is at times he will fuss and really want the baby.  He has to hold it and give it hugs.  He will even pretend to feed the baby, which as far as I know he hasn’t really seen us feeding a baby.

I went to Bella’s school to drop off some treats for her teachers and decided to pay her a visit.  They have been telling us that every morning she gets to go and swing before class…and she loves it.  I have no doubt that she does love it, except the day I was there and had a camera ready to capture her laughing and smiling…she was fussing and whining!

Let’s just say putting this particular post together happened all day long…not much time to myself to get things done today.  We did finally get news on what Bella’s kindergarten placement will be….so I should be writing up a post on that within the next couple of weeks.  Next week is teacher appreciation week, and since this year I am a room parent…I have a lot of things to get done for that.  In fact there is a banner I need to start working on as we speak.

Goodbye for now.

Have you ever?

Beware this might get graphic.

Have you ever gone out for a night of dinner and drinking and woken up the next morning feeling terrible and telling yourself you will never drink again?

Have you felt so terrible you really were certain this time you never really would drink again?

Have you then thrown up a few times and started to get the shakes and then wonder if this was alcohol poisoning?  But also thinking to yourself….you did not drink that much…did you?

Have you then decided to take a bath to hopefully feel better?  Fallen asleep in the tub.  Been woken up by your husband wondering if you were ever going to come downstairs because he doesn’t feel so great either and would like help watching the kids.  Then had such an overwhelming urge to puke that you actually puke on yourself in the tub?  Although if you are going to puke on yourself, there really is no better place to do it!

Have you then gone downstairs and still thinking this is just a hangover tried to eat a little and get water in your system to help yourself feel better?  You also attempt to interact with the kids, but really just can’t do anything but lie down.  Except now your husband is spending a bunch of time in the bathroom, so you have to step it up and play with the kids.

Have you ever gotten the overwhelming urge to puke again?  And this time the only bathroom on the floor you are on is occupied by your husband.  So you make a run for the kitchen sink.  Except that big glass of water you just drank does not want to wait for you, so it comes out anyways.  And since you don’t want it to get on the floor, you try and catch it with your hands.  Which just manages to catch it, but also proceeds to shove it all in your face and back up your nose and even into your hair.  You finally make it to the sink to let it all out of your hands and are standing there still getting rid of “stuff” when your 2 year old asks you nicely for a glass of water?

Have you ever puked 14 times in one day?  And are now realizing you have something very nasty going on.

Have you congratulated yourself because even if nothing else got done, at least the kids each ate three meals that day?

Have you ever gone to bed at night when you are sick and then had to get up with your kids, because to them it’s just a normal day and night.  And then after you have gotten up with them you hear a loud crash downstairs.  You get up to investigate and manage to quickly scan the first floor, but then the need to get to the toilet is so great you have to run to the bathroom.  So that if someone had actually broken into your house they would be able to escape with everything while you are relieving diarrhea in the toilet?

Just thought I would share some of our funnier moments of being sick around here.  And we don’t actually know what caused the loud crash, maybe some type of animal running into the window?  At least no one ran off with our stuff.

Here is picture of Friday night, the night of dinner and drinking before we got sick.

And the whole time we were sick, Oliver would get his boots on, get his jackets, and say “oouiside”, “oouiside”.  Poor kid wanted to enjoy the beautiful weekend, but neither of us was really in good shape to take him outside. 

Jesse did manage once for a short period of time, and on Sunday Aunt Amy came over for an hour to play with him and give us a break.

Sick Sick Sick

Both Jesse and I came down with a nasty GI bug this weekend.  It seems that is what Bella had earlier this week.

It was a lot of

and

In fact we are both still sick today.  It’s been quite a struggle to watch the kids when both of us just want to be in bed or in the bathroom.

Hoping we start to feel better soon.

Poop....and other random thoughts

  So Oliver might be cracking us up lately with the use of this word.  He likes to add the words "potty" and "Ewww" along with it as well.  The other day on the way home from the grocery store (Hen House so he can get his free cookie at the bakery), I asked him if he pooped cause it kind of smelled in the car.  He then looked at me and said "poop", pulled back his shorts, attempted to "look in", and said "Ewww".  Cracked me up... and we got home and checked and he hadn't done any business at all.  So he might be crying wolf a lot lately with his "poop" statements, but it's rather humorous for the time being.

  My name is Jesse and I have an addiction to sweets.  Fricken sweets ruin my diets.  We've got a couple weeks to our long anticipated vacation, I need to be slimming down to my beach bod status (if any of you saw the yard pictures from this past weekend, you know what I'm referring to), and all I want to do is eat sweets after dinner.  It also doesn't help when people bring in desserts all the time to work.  Everyday I tell myself that this is the day I will make it through without eating anything bad... everyday I fail and remind myself that tomorrow will be the day.  Cant blame a guy for trying.

  I was reminded that it was Easter of last year when I ate 4 Reese's peanut butter eggs (the big ones) in 15 minutes and was in pain that evening.  I get severe back pains which make it hard to breathe, and that night they were extremely bad and I considered going to the ER.  Since that episode and many doctor appts, I have attributed this to overeating and/or eating particular foods.  Kristen finally suggested after my peanut butter egg episode that I might have gall bladder issues.  So a couple months later after numerous tests and lab work, I was diagnosed with a malfunctioning gall bladder that becomes inflamed when I eat fatty foods.  So what's a guy to do... not go to an all you can eat buffet and binge or have the organ removed??? hmmm... and it's sad to think I was actually considering the latter for some time.  I went in and saw a general surgeon and he informed me that since there was no risk for infection, it was totally my call and that the only benefit I could potentially receive from having it removed would be that I wouldn't experience the side affects I currently do from over eating.  So I opted to keep my gall bladder and try to part with my addiction to over eating.  Its been a struggle and I have paid the consequences with severe pains when I overeat, but its a friendly reminder to keep my diet in check.  Another thing that I have found  interesting is that if I am experiencing those weird back pains, that going for a run helps... must be something to do with the breathing (panting)... but its good to know that there is a quick fix if I do have a bad day.

  So that was more than people care to know about my internal organs... what else?  Kristen does update the ticker on our nights of sleep... pretty depressing but its just a part of life anymore.  Its something that I expect to get up during the night, and if we do experience a night without interruption... we are usually asking each other in the morning if we got up during the night, and we cant remember what night was what... but I'd definitely say of the 100 days so far this year, we are closer to 0 than we are to 50.... and life goes on.

  I've really been in a concert mood lately and when I heard Mumford and Sons was coming to KC, I was thinking we should get tickets even though it was on a Monday night.  They supposedly sold out the morning they went on sale... so I guess we can purchase them off stubhub if we really want to go.  I would say that my top three concerts ever (the ones I can remember, so that removes a bunch)... would be OAR, Counting Crows, and Coldplay... I have a feeling Mumford might top them all.  Anymore I just want to go and chillax with a couple brewskies and enjoy the music.  Might have to hit a couple concerts this summer.

 

  It's springtime and you know what that means... the ants come marching into the kitchen... they must have nested in the walls of this house for years.  Pest control will be coming out next week.

  Ohh yeah, I think I still have a tile project I need to finish.  The plan is to complete the placement of the tiles and grouting this weekend.  We will see how much actually gets done.

Till next time...

Minus One

Catching up on some posts I started but never finished.

It is something I knew would happen at some point.  It’s not something I was necessarily looking forward to.
It was St. Patrick’s Day weekend.  The Kansas City area has quite a few celebrations.  We had decided to try out the Brookside parade, it was touted to be family friendly.

We decided to leave Bella at home.  We did a family activity without a member of our family.  It was going to be cold, and she would have to sit in one place for a couple of hours, neither of which she would enjoy.  So we got her a babysitter.
In the end it was a good decision, I know she wouldn't have enjoyed it.  But it's sad to realize that as our family changes and we want to do more activities, they aren't always going to be able to accommodate her.  We will have to leave her out.
We know at times we will have to do it, it just makes us feel like horrible parents.

Another round

We have been hit by the sick bug again.  So far it’s just Bella, but she has some type of stomach bug that included throwing up all morning long.

After keeping everything down for 3 hours I attempted to feed her a little bit of something.

Oliver had decided to take all the stuffed animals out of the basket behind her chair and use them to lay on.

Looks pretty comfortable to me.  And a great place to be right by us and still have a good view of Sesame Street on the television!

Now let’s just hope Bella can keep the food down I fed her, and that the rest of us are spared.

Working Outside All Weekend Long

As I mentioned in my last post, this weekend was going to be busy, and it was going to be spent outside.

First up was our garage sale.  At the last minute we managed to go through all our stuff and get some things pulled together to sell.  We also had some bigger miscellaneous items that we didn’t need anymore and had them out too.

Oliver helped get the sign ready for the sale.

The garage sale itself was kind of a bust.  We didn’t actually have very much time to sit outside, too much else to do.  We did post the bigger things on craigslist and sold most of the stuff that way.  As far as the little things, most of them are being donated.

Next up was Jesse’s project.  He ordered soil and picked up some grass seed to try and fix our damaged yard.  The damage was from 5 different projects.  The septic tank/city sewer project, the dead pine trees being removed, the circle drive being placed, 3 big oak/maple trees being removed, and the landscaping project.

Here was a picture taken when about half of the work had been done…so half of the soil pile at the end of our yard had already been dispersed throughout.

Oliver stayed outside with dad pretty much the whole day.  He did some coloring with sidewalk chalk and then got to ride along with dad as they compacted the soil.

The little bit of money we made from the garage sale/craigslist sales went to pay two college aged kids to take down two more dead pine trees in our side yard.  You can see them at work next to the truck in the yard.

Then both kids got to accompany mom to get some yummy food from their favorite restaurant Dairy Queen.  Oliver was in high heaven as he ate a ketchup packet and then got some blizzard treat.

I was also trying to show the complete mess that was Oliver.  He was full of dirt, sidewalk chalk, and food remnants.  It was straight to the bath after this.

On Sunday Oliver again had to be outside the whole day.  He was helping pour some dirt for Dad.

And even though this was mostly an account of the weekend through Oliver’s eyes, Bella was around too.  She got to enjoy lots of outside time in the swing and on a nice long walk with mom on Sunday morning.  She also helped Mom the whole time during the garage sale by keeping her company.

By Sunday she was a tired girl and spent more of the day inside.

Declutter

It’s our neighborhood garage sale this weekend.

So on top of our normal everyday life around here, which recently has been quite a few nights of interrupted sleep.  And since I’m mentioning it, let’s go ahead and quickly visit that topic.

Have you noticed what our count is up to for days of sleep.  19.  19 days of sleep where we are not interrupted between the hours of 10pm and 5am.  Which in my book isn’t really a full nights sleep anyways, but those were my rules.

19 days out of 94.  So very tired around here.

Anyways back to the real topic of discussion.  This weekend is the garage sale.  And we definitely wanted to take the chance to declutter our house and get rid of all the things sitting around that we don’t use.  It’s especially helpful to clean out the basement, since that’s one of Jesse’s projects he has coming up.

This weekend is supposed to be beautiful out.  It should be a great weekend for a garage sale.  It’s also a great weekend to get yard stuff done.  We have had big patches of mud (no grass) in our yard since the replaced septic tank and then we installed the circle drive.  We haven’t gotten around to planting seed.  Then we removed 4 big trees, which also left huge mud holes in the yard.  We also have 2 dogs and one toddler that manage to walk/run through the mud every time they are outside.

So this weekend Jesse will be moving top soil around the yard and spreading out seed.  I expect this project to take more than the weekend we have available.

I’m just hoping to survive the weekend with all our yard projects, garage sale and then with me having to put in hours working to get a work project done by Monday morning.

Dining Room Progress Weeks 7 & 8

We officially have all the tile cut, although the outer edge tiles have not been mortared in yet.  And then the whole room will need to be grouted, trim boards cut and installed, etc, etc.  So in our world probably about another month worth of work left to do before we can even move the furniture back in the room.

In case you are curious the clothes and shoes in the center of the room are what Jesse wears when he is working in the room.  Oh that doesn’t explain it enough?  The clothes have mortar (cement dust) all over them, so they stay in the room as to not track it all over the house.

Happy Easter

Here are a few, okay a lot, of pictures from our day.

Oliver was the first one up in the morning.  We tried to convince him that instead of having his morning snack, he should go into the family room and see what the Easter bunny brought him.

A small stuffed Elmo and a couple of books.

Then we had to get dressed for church.  Oliver didn’t want me taking a picture of him.

But he was happy to help Bella look at her Easter basket.

Bella got lots of pudding, a bunny, and her favorite “Easter grass”!

After church the kids and I hung out indoors while Dad quickly ran outside to hide Easter eggs.

Then the hunt around the yard began.

Oliver did a great job finding all the eggs.  This time around the eggs were actually empty and I don’t think he cared at all.  Bella wouldn’t pick her head up in the yard…must have been the sun.  She would smile when I held up the eggs for her to see.

Can you see it?  Bella is actually smiling in this next picture…if only her head wasn’t on her tray!

As you can tell, I couldn’t get Oliver to look at the camera….at all.

Such a stinker.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!