2011 Week 17

Party Week! Friday was a half-day at school for Kaitlyn and most of that was taken up by the mini-relay at the school. It was a fund-raiser for cancer, with them doing a short walk around the track then participating in a few other activities that were set up outside. Tyler and I went to the school to watch, then took Kaitlyn home with us. And that was the beginning of Spring Break.

Saturday we decorated Easter Eggs. Then did some shopping/errands since it was rainy weather and soccer was cancelled.

Sunday was Easter. The kids had a blast. That Easter Bunny is almost as generous as Santa and the kids got tons of fun stuff. Kaitlyn and Tyler spent the rest of the day playing with all their new stuff. Sam and I were on a mission to get the fence done before we left for the beach though, so we spent most of the day working on the vinyl part of the fence (the front section).

Aren't those giant eggs cool?! The bigggest ones held new beach towels, the others had water bottles, swim goggles and sunglasses.

The kids were absolutely adorable that day and in the best moods that day. It was amazing to see how loving and happy they were to spend time playing with just each other. No fighting, no arguments, no bugging Mom and Dad for much of anything. At one point Tyler told me "
Mommy, me and Kaitlyn are best friends together."
The last thing they did that night was Kaitlyn reading their bedtime story to him cuddled up together in one of the chairs in the play room.
Grandma Alene and Oma Rhonda sent the kids Easter outfits (along with other fun Easter stuff) so I took the time to drag the kids to the park for a photo session later in the week.

We finished up the fence (stupid gate! that'll still need to be redone) Tuesday night and Wednesday morning we were off to the beach!

Thursday was icky weather - didn't rain too much but it was chilly and the wind was bad. So we took the kids to the Battleship Museum (USS North Carolina).

More details about the 2nd half of our beach trip next week...

2011 Week 16

Last week I took almost no photos but it looks like this week is very picture-heavy.

Saturday was very eventful. Not only did we have the usual soccer practice (which barely finished up before the rain started), but we had some "excitement" as well. After lunch we headed out to the movie, choosing a place about 40 min from our house. It was raining and windy, but not too badly. About half-way there we encountered a downed power pole in the middle of the road. No big deal, we drove around it. A few minutes later Sam decided we needed to turn on some music and were we in for a surprise. Emergency weather announcements kept coming at us every few minutes announcing one tornado or extreme weather watch after another. We had no clue if we were in a county that was affected at the time, but our home county was listed so we drove on to the movie, where the clouds were breaking up and the sun was shining above the theater. We had a good time watching the show (Hop) and only realized how bad the weather may have been when we were on the way home and saw some signs of destruction only a few miles into the drive. Downed trees, bent signs, complete power outages with cops directing traffic at lights, pieces of roofs missing. We also had to detour way around the place where they were fixing the downed power pole, which was a pretty little drive. And we were happy to find that our house showed no signs of storm damage at all (though we later saw that some of the neighbors fences and tress had sustained some damage). We now realize how lucky we were. One reports states that "62 tornadoes repeatedly touched down in more than 20 counties" in NC. Many of them hit fairly close to us. The Lowes in Sanford (approx 25 min to the east) is completely on the ground. Dunn, a town 20 or so min to the north-east (ish) got hit. Miles of destruction on roads near the base (30 min south) had it and the freeway closed down entirely for a couple of days. Power outages lasted well into Sunday in Spring Lake (20 min in the same direction as the base)...
So so lucky. Kaitlyn was getting pretty disturbed by the radio announcements so we've been keeping her exposure (and thus our own) to reports on it to a minimum.

Also this week:
Tyler decided to draw on my dining table. Yup the new one. He thought it was great and was happily showing it off when I realized what he had done and scared him by yelling. Then I cried. Sam quickly promised he'd sand it down and refinish the whole top as soon as he could though so I'm trying not to be upset every time I see it.

I went to get a haircut with a friend one day this week (leaving Ty with Mom - nice). I'm not exactly happy with my hair and the humidy (and curls and the FRIZZ) and was hoping a good cut would help. Too bad the woman didn't listen to my instructions and cut my layers WAY too short. So still not exactly happy with my hair. *sigh* (or my silly attemt at taking a photo of it for you all using the bathroom mirror)

It has however, been mostly beautiful spring weather and we're gearing up for Easter. I boiled up 5 dozen eggs for my neighbor one morning - she was sick and looked miserable but insisted that she was going to dye them with her (FIVE) kids after school as she had promised them. So I took them off her hands and told her to go back to bed.

We've also been working on the fence - yay! We started sinking post holes on Sunday and I thought I'd be spending a lot of my time helping Sam with the installation. But the neighbor that shares part of our back fence quickly came out and offered to help and has been right with Sam working away on it every time he goes out there. Tyler was excited to help too. The first day he ran the hose. Then when they started putting on the boards he was happy to go get his tools and help them out too. But he quickly quit when he realized his plastic hammer wouldn't drive the nails in.

With the guys working away I was able to stain the sandbox and re-do the deck. That deck looks so pretty now! Then during the second fencing session yesterday, the three of us girls spent the time on the porch enjoying the weather. I read a book and Kaitlyn and Grandma did their nails.

I let the kids open the Easter package from Wyatt and Bonnie a bit early. The yellow thing she is holding is one of the paint-your-own bunnies from one of the kits in it. The kids loved everything in the baskets, and the baskets themselves were a hit too. Kaitlyn got Hello Kitty. And Tyler has been carrying around his fire truck basket every day since.

And this is how the back yard looks now (with the kids playing with some of the neighbors, as usual). Still a lot of work to go but it's getting there.

We ended the week (well, my 365 week since I post on Fridays) with putting Grandma on a plane back to Utah.

2011 Week 15

Surprise package from Grandma Alene (left behind for this purpose on her last visit) contained some fun toys, including this strange foam play-doh stuff.

Ty, getting a little too independant - he got down the chocolate milk mix by himself when he wanted a refill and filled the cup up to the brim with powder.

Grandma Alene is in town! She flew in Monday and has been having a lot of fun playing with the kids. Ty brought some of his toys downstairs so he could play closer to us (and temp Gma to get down on the floor and play trucks more often too).

Sam getting an unexpected day off Tues meant Mom and I could have a Girls Only shopping day - yay!

Mom in town also means...date night!

Wed night, date night at Cheesecake Factory. The kids, of course made caramel popcorn at home while we were gone.

Thursday morning happened to be another awards assembly for Kaitlyn (that's two in a row that have fallen during Gma's visits). She got a Star Reader and Star Math award but what she really wanted was a "medal" which is only given to one child in the class. We're not sure how they earn it.This time Grandma came prepared with all kinds of projects and things to do with the kids.

2011 Week 14

Started our Friday morning off with a trip to the dr's office to discuss Kaitlyn's allergies. Looks like she's going to be on a daily dose of meds for at least the next two months while the pollen count is high so that hopefully we can avoid any more big coughing attacks. We also have the rescue inhaler if she needs it.

Friday was also April Fool's. For once, I planned a few very easy tricks and was glad I did because Kaitlyn was really into it. Thursday night I enlisted her help pinning all of Sam's underwear and Tshirts together in his drawers. Kaitlyn was SO excited to see his response and Sam didn't disappoint. After he got dressed he went into her room and woke her up by saying "hey look it's snowing." Then told her (in a joking voice) she better not mess with his clothes anymore. She thought it was so funny. I sent the gummy worm in the apple with Kaitlyn for snack. And did the jello instead of juice/punch for the kids for dinner. Again, Kaitlyn thought it was great, even though the prank was on her. I caughter her in our room later that night pinning the sheets to the bed on Sam's side. She told me she was tricking just him but sure enough when I went to bed the little monkey had pinned my side of the bed too. I think it's great that she is starting to show some of her creative/playful side more.

Once again, the kids had soccer on Saturday. It took a little convincing to get Kaitlyn to go, since she was still afraid of having a coughing attack but I think she was glad she did. She always has fun at soccer.

Tyler is usually very enthusiastic about his soccer practice. In fact, one of the coach/volunteer dads told us he calls Ty "giggler" (partially I'm sure because until today he didn't know his name). But he must have worn himself out playing on the park while Kaitlyn was practicing because he kept coming off the field to join us on the bleachers and after half an hour we gave up and left.

See that? The yellow stuff is all the nasty pollen that has been blown onto everything around here. I swiped that stuff off the front door but it's also coating pretty much everything outside. Even I, myself, am showing signs of allergies and have taken Claritin to combat it some of the days this week. Doesn't seem to be bothering Sam too much though when he's usually the one combating them. Strange. The rest of the week wasn't all that interesting. I spent a whole day cleaning the carpets, couches, car upholstery, etc. Another day running errands. No wonder the photos this week are so scarce.

2011 Week 13

Friday afternoon the neighborhood work party started in on my yard. We moved a few bushes and put in the edging. Sam and I finished it up Saturday morning with the weed paper and the mulch and oooh does it look good! That black mulch really makes the colors of everything else pop. In the process, we discovered that our yard has a few critters and some really strange mushrooms/ fungus (at least we're guessing that's what it was - ew). A salamander was hiding by the bushes in the front and scared me when I almost grabbed him. My neighbors wouldn't quit teasing me for screaming and running :) And Sam found the frog among the other bushes. We put him in a tote to show the kids, then dumped him out again in the middle of the yard. He sat there for a while being still as he could be like "if I don't move you can't see me!" Kaitlyn came back outside to check him out again and even got daring enough to touch him while he sat there. Eventually he hopped back into the bushes. I'm assuming both our little friends are still out in the yard somewhere and don't intend to move then in the hope that they will help keep the nasty bug population down.

Saturday was a very busy day. After the yard work (which we only finished because Kaitlyn's allergies were bugging her really bad and she didn't want to go to her soccer practice - we took Tyler to soccer. We went home for lunch and to pack then the kids and I were on our way to spend the rest of the weekend at Audrey's.

As always, we had a great time with Audrey and her family. Scott was nice enough to offer to watch ALL the kids (including the baby) so Audrey and I could do something fun. So nice! (thanks again Scott!) We ended up going out to dinner then wandering around TJ Maxx/Home Goods. The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out, dealing with kids (I'm sad to say Tyler was being quite a handful and Kaitlyn with her allergies and being tired from late nights had her own whiney moments too), and slightly less than our usual bit of crafting. We finished up our fun weekend by letting the kids "swim" in the hot tub while we tried to capture some decent 2 month old photos of Lilly. She's a cutie but she REALLY didn't want to pose for photos and there are very few with any "real" smiles.

The rest of the week is kind of a blur. Sam was nice enough to clean most of the house while we were gone, so catching up from the previous busy week and weekend wasn't as bad as it could have been. We also had a few days of heavy rain and cold temps so plenty of time was spent inside hiding from the weather. In fact, I now remember we even had some snow at Audrey's Monday morning. Spring weather is so random.

2011 Week 12

Spring is definitely here. At one point temperatures hit the 80s! That had us scrambling to pull out the shorts and flip flops. And also had me wondering how I'm going to handle the summer if it's this hot and it's only March. Of course the spring weather was a tease and cooled off again toward the end of the week.

We spent the week just trying to get things done around here. I bought a paper shredder and Kaitlyn helped me shred the stack of paperwork that has been sitting there since I changed out the files in January.

And the whole neighborhood started to focus on their yards. A couple of my friends/neighbors went in together on a load of mulch and seeing how much work they had ahead of them I pitched in to help. What I intended to be just a couple hours assisting them turned into a three day long neighborhood work party. It was tons of work, but now both their yards look fantastic and so does mine, since they had way too much mulch and the final afternoon we started in on my yard so we could use up the rest of it. And I have to say, big projects like that are so much more fun when you have friends working right along side you.

Tyler thought the yard party was great. Digging in the dirt is his favorite thing, of course. And the neighbor has some great Star Wars toys in her garage that he and our neighbor, Hanna (the only two in our little group of friends that aren't old enough for school and have to hang out with the moms all day) loved playing with. (in the photo, Ty is the one in the middle with the red shorts and the "storm trooper" helmet)

We also tested out our sprinklers in order to find all the heads so we wouldn't hit them when we install the fence. And sadly, we found some leaks and other issues that had to be dealt with. The contractor's landscape guy had to come back three separate mornings and add two more sprinklers, but I'm fairly certain we now have fully functioning sprinklers that cover all parts of the yard. Bring on summer! (ok, don't really bring on summer. I actually like Spring quite a lot)

2011 Week 11

What a fun-filled week! Sam bought a motorcycle and couldn't stop grinning the night he brought it home (need to snap a photo and post it soon).

We took the kids to the North Carolina Zoo on Sunday. Great weather, fun family outing. But boy is that place HUGE. All the exhibits are pretty big and they have all kinds of space between each one so our feet were really really tired by the end of the day.

The emu stood there for there for the longest time just staring at people. It was pretty cool. Tyler favorite animal was the alligator. The polar bears and the seals were the most active and the most entertaining to watch. And Kaitlyn liked the...ugh I forget what she liked. Note to self: ask her and update this! :P

Tyler's view from the back seat. I handed him my phone so he could play a game on the way home from one of our marathon errand/shopping trips and the little monkey must have figured out which ap ran the camera.

This is another one I'm pretty sure Ty took. Can you tell what he loves to play with most?

And there's our poor guy the right after he fell off his bike. He's very good on that thing, but sometimes things like that happen. He wasn't hurt badly, but did have quite a few patches of road rash. The worst of it was a big scrape on his wrist that he completely babied and refused to use the hand at all for a couple of days. Kaitlyn gave him the Donald Duck sticker to cheer him up.

Looks like it's the week for photos of/concerning Ty. I thought it was so cute when I walked in the kitchen and saw he had pulled everything for his breakfast out and lined it all up on the counter - milk, Sprite, cup, bowl, spoon, Fruity Pebbles... The bar stools were still in place by the counters where he had drug them over so he could reach what he needed. Mr Independant.

Tyler got some early St Pat's Day fun at story time at the library Wednesday. Story time here is so well done and so much fun for the kids - this time even more than usual.
We finished up the fun week with St Patrick's Day on Thursday. The kids opened up the package from grandma (that she left behind when she was here) the night before because I knew she had green shirts for them, along with some other fun stuff. And of course the leprechaun visited and played a few fun tricks like turning the milk green and leaving the kids some fun stuff.

The neighbors were in a goofing-off mood too, as we found ourselves still standing in the middle of the road talking a full 2 hours after the bus pulled away with the kids. So the four of us and the little kids basically spent the rest of the day together - out to lunch and running errands in tandem. It's a slow way to do things, but sure makes life a lot more fun.