Saturday, May 22, 2010

601


Wow, 600 posts? That was the "Ring of Fire" post.

Post 601 will be "Quinn painted her own toes" (not a typo...meant to say "toes" not "toe nails") while we watched Hopkins Hustle B-squad do not so awesome in the scoring aspect, but man there were some NICE plays and points (from the little I saw). Unfortunately, the completely unpredicted (last night) rain and thunderstorms put the tournament on hold so Q and I came back home...only to have her not nap and spend time outside anyway!





Obviously, from the photos, the weather is MUCH more like the forcasted 70s and sunny.

Friday, May 21, 2010

Ring of Fire





'



y

e



I can't believe these photos were taken Monday already! This was the slowest fast week ever. The weeks are flying by these days and I feel like I'm getting WAAAY to wrapped up with work and not enjoying my toddler nearly as much as a I should. HOWEVER, Sunday and Monday nights Q, Mike and I enjoyed "the ring of fire!" in our backyard.



It was nice to enjoy time in the chill of the evening while they're still around (assuming they'll go away and it's going to be 75 plus through my pregnancy, of course.

Sunday night, Q didn't get back from Grammy's until almost 9pm! We had more the 24 hours without a kid...and it was crazy weird. So weird, in fact, that Quinn was up until after 10pm! I just wanted to spend time with her, but she wanted bed. Then didn't and wanted ring of fire. We made her a s'more or two and she headed to "brush teess" and go to bed. I think Mike and I watched that fire until after 11pm...crazy.

We had so much fun, we invited Scott over on Monday night to enjoy the great stillness of Minnetonka (as if SLP is so hopping!).

Q enjoyed an ice cream sandwich on Monday instead of hot melty goodness.



And all was fun and good and games....until the pit broke on us! The bottom fell out when we added a log!! I should've video'd but I was busy getting water to try to save most of the grass....we did lose a nice patch right in the middle of the lawn but we created a temporary way to keep the fire going for several more hours.....the guys did at least. Let's just say I could use some new oven pads and mitts. :)


Mike's going to try to find a way to keep the bottom in place for our next fire. Sadly, it's not currently very safe to have a fire in our own backyard. Hopefully a neighbor will step up soon and invite us over!!! :)

We're going to have some new neighbors soon! We discovered that a family of 4 (1 and 3yr olds) are moving in around the corner. Some other neighbors "our age" that live in our kiddy corner back yard are expecting in mid August. And the house across the street from us says "sold"! We have no idea who bought as those neighbors have been moved out for awhile, but I'm excited for company across the street!! Hopefully they'll be friendly and not mind Q's loud mouth coming home each night (our front driveway really echos between our house and the neighbor's across the street)....it's odd.

OOH, and here's Katie POPPED OUT at week 24 (ish).



It's been awhile since I've take the profile pic...since the week Dad visited us (week 14ish)!

And I thought I was huge then!

And of course then the shot of like, 6 weeks...I love how I'm all arched back as if thinking my barely belly was something to note! :)

Changes in my life since baby boy:
*Vision changes!!! I can wear glasses only (contact not only dry out, but I can't see with them in!! It's like they're swapped...but they're not...I went through a few pair --mostly old ones hanging out in solution around the house in travel bags -- until I convinced myself that it was the contacts, not my inability to tell left from right!)
*Baby belly! He's active, but mostly during the day and when I go longer than 3 hours without eating during the day. He also moves after some snacks like peanut butter, applesauce, and some juices...almost all the time after those things. And it's his favorite when I sit down and recline my feet! You can see him move most of the time now...kicks and exaggerated movements.
*Swelling: My wedding band is too small for my slightly swollen fingers, so it's engagement only..which is actually a little loose on the left hand. My ankles hate these long days at work, driving, and then housework: in addition to the increasing temps and dew point! This summer will be F-U-N. Crazy idea to do late 2nd and 3rd trimester in the hottest part of the year...oh well!
*Cravings: peanut butter, sugary cereal, anything dessert with lots of sugar, cucumbers, broccoli, pie, Outback baked sweet potatoes & potato chips and Deans French Onion Dip. I don't really ever have an appetite, but wow do I eat all day some days! And water galore...can't seem to get enough! Which means lots of potty time. We'll see how the glucose test comes out in a few weeks...if the result is gestational diabetes, I may cry...we have so many desserts at work it's hard to say NO!
*Kid loves music just like Q did. Car rides home (when Q yells for RADIO LOUDER MAMA! the rare times she's not demanding nemo or puppy do) are fun for the kiddo---he moves a ton.
*Driving: I moved the seat back yesterday! I realized I couldn't really get behind the steering wheel yesterday morning...didn't think anything of it until I reached back to give Q some more cereal and my belly hit the wheel in the slight body rotation!!! Ha ha...yeah. So I have to find some sort of happy medium because it was more difficult to reach the pedals further back!!
*Names: NO WE DON'T HAVE A NAME YET! Stop asking! It won't be Michael Jerome, we don't really want a junior.
*Weight gain: slow and steady...I'm still almost already at the recommended weight gain, but I'm a tiny gal, so no one's too worried...especially if it's baby growth and not fluid retention. And hopefully slow and steady stays!! I can still move fairly easily and want to keep as active as possible. Having Q around sure makes 7pm bedtime more difficult (as 7 or 8 was often bedtime when preggo with Q). So I'm still plenty active through my work day, and then with Q after work too! Not to mention I'm in almost all my largest summer clothes and don't really care to buy a whole new wardrobe for the last few months (seeing as my last months with Q were cold!). Not to mention I lived in sports clothes since I wasn't working....oh well. We'll see where that goes.

Well, Q's actually napping....off to clean!

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Oregon!

These are so not even in the order they were taken, but I'm too lazy to edit the right order...just go with it!

What a cute family! :)




You can just barely tell how windy it is by looking at Q's hair. It was mighty cold....and with at that time was probably a double ear infection, she tolerated the wind, chill and ocean wonderfully!!


Thad and Q trying to find a way to pass over the water streaming between ocean and land...who will figure out the way to go!? The engineer or the toddler?



The big rock above...we decided to walk there. It was much farther than I thought...but as you can see below (and in some of the other pictures as we get closer to it), we made it! It was filled with shallow water and ocean life. Crabs, tadpoles and sea anemone (Nemo home!!)! It was pretty cool. Q wanted to touch them...but I know she just likes to kill them, so her hands stayed safely within someone else's so she could balance and not kill..


WATER MOUNTAIN!! Muhltnomah Falls in Oregon. GORGEOUS; even in comparison to Niagara that we saw just last summer!


The background below is Washington State!!!! We were in Oregon, but got to look across the river to see Washington! It was pretty cool.


Q needed to show my the sand! Everywhere there was sand and ocean! She loved it. And well, turns out we brought quite a bit back with the car seat! :)


Q got there and was immediately attracted to Jimmer's trolls. And my favorite part of Quinn and Jimmer--she couldn't quite comprehend that Jimmer and Jim are different people. When we told her they were Jimmer's she said "and finn and stacy" and we said. No, Jimmer, not Jim. "yeah, jim and finn and stacy too". Hmm....oh well. She decided the trolls needed to sit on the couch, so they did...and they stayed there most of the week!!


Microbrews!! And Thad too.


Meagan showing off the ocean to Quinn. Q really wanted to go to the water but the drop here was pretty much straight down...we know I wasn't going after her if she fell..TOOOO HIGH!!! But, the other three had good tabs on her...I only had about 4 real scares to her falling or walking onto the highway....in hind sight, probably not a kid-proof place to be...BUT A FABULOUS VIEW!


An M&M donut for Quinn from Voodoo donuts! Yummy!! She loved every bite that I let her have (I ate most of it!!).



Our trip was a blast! Meagan and Thad are great hosts and their house is looking amazing!!! Makes me wonder what we would've done if we had bought any of the other options that needed "just a little work". We've barely painted here, and yet it can be home! They've done more in a year than I honestly care to ever do in a lifetime to any one home....much less all homes I may live in until I die!!!! Thanks a ton! We loved our spring Born family vacation to Oregon!!! We hope to host you some time in the future months.

Girl's Day (With Some Boy Influence)






So, for the most part yesterday in Mankato was a "girl's party" yesterday, but we did have some Dad's and the two lone boys.


Quinn was not nearly as shy as she has shown me in previous group interactions...I guess the frequent visits to blogs helped her feel "at home" at Shanna and Audry's home!

We had a good day, good eats, good weather, and good company! Insert great into there too if you want, it was a fun day!!








Thursday, May 13, 2010

Double is Better?

Not in the case of Ear Infections.

But, ultimately, I suppose if the best route is antibiotics, you may as well have a cough, runny nose, double ear infection and puss coming out of your tear ducts. OH, and after we saw the doctor, the fever spikes to a Quinn all-time high of 99.8 degrees (barely a fever for many toddlers).

So, yes, Quinn's on antibiotics for the first time in her life.

BUT, she must have had an awesome time gradually getting more ill in Portland because during dinner tonight, our conversation went something like this.

"Q, please come finish your dinner"

"No, I an airplane!"
Running in circles in the other room.

"Really? Where are you going, airplane?"

"Visit Thad and Meagan with Daddy and see Water Mountains!"
Yes, we went on an airplane to visit Meagan and Thad and saw Waterfalls.


Yes, we spent the weekend and early part of the week in Portland. Saturday morning as we're getting ready to leave, I notice a new cough, think not much of it. Each day, illness, crabbiness, and Q sleepiness increase, do not think anything of it until she's oozing out of her eyes on Tuesday, the day we came home.

Despite the gradual illness, she had fun.

She seemed to enjoy the ocean and sand the most.
"See Nemo in ocean!!"

And Gizmo, most tolerant cat Q's ever met.
"I LOVE Gizmo kitty" she says the first morning when she woke up at 4:30AM (to her credit, it was 6:30 CST/normal wake-up time). She barely ever tells ME she loves me unprompted!

And motorcycles on TV.
On our last night there, Q woke up, got out of bed (air mattress on floor), opened the door, down the hallway, down the stairs, and found Thad and Mike playing games. Story something like this, "Hi Quinn, where's Mommy?" "Sleeping." "How did you get down here?" "I got out of bed and came down stairs. I careful. I want cereal." So, Mike proceeded to get her cereal, grapes, & juice. OH, and it's around 1am. She didn't want to go back to bed and watched Thad and Mike play a motorcycle game. She's asked to watch motorcycles and Daddy and Thad since. If I say no, she says Nemo. If I say no, she says motorcycles.
Can't win with a toddler. You really can't win.

I can not find the camera or I'd have some photos of the wonderful vacation we had!

It's hard to believe we're just a few weeks from MEXICO!!!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

"I want..."

....fill in the blank.

80% of Quinn's sentences these days (phrases rarely, mostly sentences) start with "I want". It's kind of annoying when she's in repeat mode "I want sucker, I want sucker I want sucker I want sucker" "I want cake, I want cake I want cake I want cake" "I want eat I want eat I want eat", etc. But mostly, I guess she knows what she wants so I should be happy?

New development this week....she's almost grasping addition and subtraction! We sing/read "5 little monkeys" frequently and she'll count along on each page and almost always go from 5 to 1 and stay at 1, but she realizes that there's less each time, even if it goes 5 4 3 2 1 ... not 5 1 all done! When reading, we count each monkey, but just singing in the car is a little more difficult to grasp that there's only one less each time. Regardless, I'm pretty excited about this development this week...if she's like me, it'll take until 1st grade to get the whole addition subtraction thing down!!

Her new love is "spinny things". There's yard in the neighborhood that has spinning flowers...I can't seem to find the fabric ones that they have anywhere, but I found plastic/foil pinwheels at Target yesterday and she's nicely placed them in a flowerpot outside and all she wants to do is look at them! Maybe they'll keep the 'peckers off the house?!?!?

Her latest complaint, "Mommy, windy outside again!? NO MORE WINDY" AND wow, on nights like today and last night, I couldn't agree more! Really, we can barely do anything outside with the wind...no fun!

And she got a big gnat bite on the side of her head yesterday!!! I'm trying to figure out how to assess it as she won't let me get hear her to clean the scab...it looks like it's smaller than it looks right now with lots of dried blood on her head. It unfortunately happened just before I got there yesterday so Trisha didn't have time to really get to clean it either (slapped Trisha away and cried)...and Mike wasn't home before bedtime...sooooooo...no full assessment of damages there. :) It does look kinda painful though...right behind her ear....

Mike, his parents, and myself went to the Twins game on Monday night. The new stadium is pretty cool....literally and figuratively. :) When the people next to us would get up, I got significantly colder, but overall layered appropriately for a windy, 50 degree, sorta rainy evening. Photos to come!

Sunday, May 2, 2010

"I chase him, Mama!"

"I chase him, Mama. now he gone. now what?"

Yep, Q had a busy morning chasing squirrels up trees and away from our bird feeders.

Now she's busy dressing up as "black and decker" tool lady running into furniture and walls.. "oh, i fell again mama! runned into the couch again!"

She's a busy girl today too!

Yesterday was gym class day, and Friday we had open gym...two days of gym class! She was sooo excited...but sad that the trampoline was not part of "fitness month May" activities. After Friday's gym class, Grammy met us in Chaska (in the downpouring sheets of rain) for a quick Kohl's run (of course) and dinner at Baja Sol (yummy mango salsa!!). Grammy and Q were excited to spend the rainy afternoon together. I'm glad she could come up for the day on Friday.

We also had the pleasure of attending the zoo yesterday with Teddy and Scott. I am impressed that both kids (and adults, for that matter) WALKED most of the zoo, climbed almost anything possible, played at the park at the zoo, and ate like champs for lunch. We ended the day by playing in Q's new/used (FREE!) turtle sandbox, played hockey, and played at the little park. And both kids only had a nap as long as it takes to get from Apple Valley to Minnetonka....and Mike even cooked us dinner!! It was enjoyable. I'm amazed at how well Q and Teddy played for not seeing each other in a few months. Not to mention the fact that Q really doesn't play with kids all that often...she fights with them and usually says "mine mine mine!!!!". With Teddy, it was sharing and hugging and laughing and a lot of fun. Easy for me and Scott to supervise kids that play so well together! And Teddy's vocabulary has grown tremendously! He's growing into such an adorable little man!!

To end it all well, Peanut (baby boy to be) hadn't moved much all day. It's very odd for me to go from 8am to 5pm with no movement, so obviously I was concerned. But, Scott offered to finish dinner final touches and Mike grilled, so I plopped on the couch and put up my feet. HOLY MOLEY Peanut is getting big and strong! Mike came over after a few minutes of movement and Peanut high fived him! Mike got a big smile. Now that movement can be felt by him, baby coming is getting more real....and oh dear are there house things to do yet...but time will allow for that, right?

This week will go all too fast, but next weekend brings a vacation to Portland to visit friends!! We'll see how Q travels, as it's been A LONG time since we've had a vacation to someplace other than Grandparents houses!! It used to be a very regular part of our life. She's excited to go in a plane "up high!!!!" We'll see how she really does! She'll get her own seat this time, so that should be mighty exciting for the little one.

Well, I'm getting piled with dishes and pretend food, so I should probably go eat the lunch she's prepared for me. :) Maybe she'll even nap today!!!!???? (by the way, she did nap at Trisha's all week...go figure!).