Elyse took a sick day today.  She had a bit of an upset stomach so we stayed in.  ALL DAY.  While it POURED outside.  ALL DAY.  From about noon (when Harry woke up from his nap which by the way is 2 hours EARLIER than he usually wakes up) on, I think I have looked at the clock 15 times.  Try to think of a game that is good for a 1 1/2 yr old, a 7 1/2 year old, and a 35 yr old.  Does Hungry Hungry Hippos come to mind?  Well, that’s just what we did.  In addition to pretending to be dogs and cats and crawling around on all fours, and of course, destroying any sense of order in the house.  The good news is that she is feeling better now.  Hopefully she’ll be back at school tomorrow.  And hopefully Daddy will be home early from work so that I can escape for a sanity break.

We have practically a non-existant social life here, with the exception being this past weekend.  We signed up for a church group called Tables for 8 which is basically just 4 families getting together for dinner 4 times throughout the year.  Our group met on Sat. night.  It had been planned for at least a month, maybe longer.  Unfortunately, we also got 2 other party invitations for that night, which we had to decline.  Chris also got an invitation for a guys night of cards.  If only we could have spread all of this out over the course of a month or 2.   But we had a nice evening with the other 2 families (one cancelled at the last minute).  Our salad was the hit of the party.

But the real highlight of the weekend was earlier on Saturday.  Elyse had her final soccer game.  True to her nature she is a very passive soccer player.  Somehow though, at the last practice a couple of weeks ago, she happened to get a goal.  On Friday she mentioned that since she made a goal at her last practice, it would be perfect if she also made a goal at her last game.  I  encouraged her to get in there, be aggressive, and make a goal, but meanwhile thought it was going to take a miracle since she usually steps aside and lets the others take the ball whenever possible.  But somehow, the girl didn’t just make one goal, but 2!  And the best thing is that hopefully I’ll be able to post a video of one of the goals (taken by her friend Hannah’s grandmother–let’s hope she’s tech savy).  Chris hadn’t arrived at the game yet and missed her first one, and I was so glad he got to see the second.  I was, unfortunately, in the bathroom with Camille and missed the second goal.  There is no video of that one, that I know of, but at least I got to see one.

After the game, the girls and the families got together for an end of season celebration at a mexican restaurant.  The girls got medals and some nice compliments from their coach, and invitations to join the team again next year.  Elyse was so proud of her medal that she wore it to dinner at the Tables for 8 that night.  She was extremely proud of her goals and I think it’s fantastic that she ended the season on such a positive note.  And I got to enjoy a margarita with Hannah’s mom, and have adult conversation….always a plus.

Last night we went to a Thanksgiving feast at our church.  It was a decent crowd of 180 people.  The tables were set beautifully and we had the honor of getting to sit with the pastor and his wife.  He asked us to save him a seat as we sat at a table.  The girls and I were fighting over who got to sit by him:)  As it turned out, he barely got to sit for very long, but we were still pretty psyched, of all the tables and people, he asked us.  There was a representitive from an organization called Our Family Adoptions (www.ourfamilyadoptions.org)  This is a completely volunteer non-profit organization, staffed by adoptee families and passionate others, seeking to find homes for a few of the 5 million orphans in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Anyway, the stories that were told about these poor orphans were heartbreaking.  The man’s wife was at an orphanage in DRC while the husband was speaking to us and she said she was holding an 8 lb. 12 month old.  Our babies are that big at birth.  Anyway, it made it very difficult to eat, as you could imagine.  Our church is trying to raise 20,000 to bring 4 orphaned girls to their grandparents who have recently become US citizens and are living in Arizona.  Anyway, if anyone is interested in checking out international adoptions, there is a lot of opportunity in DRC.  Check out the website.

My little man turns 1 1/2 today.  Here he is in his apron, I mean art smock, at the Children’s Musuem in Seattle.  Chris said it looks like he’s wearing  hoop earrings.  I’m just glad that this morning when I painted Camille’s nails that I only used the pretend nail polish on Harry.  Otherwise people might give him funny looks in his “Daddy’s little hot rod” t-shirt. 

He had such a good time at the new museum exhibit about bodies.  They had an obsticle course set up that was all padded and just his size.  He ran around and played in that for half of the visit.  The rest was spent in the art room, painting (mostly on himself) and molding clay.

Chris also had a lot of fun molding clay.  I think he was a little disappointed to leave his project.  I can’t believe we hadn’t visited this art imagination room before.  It was the girls’ DREAM room.  They had an area for woodland creatures that the kids could make with pinecones, markers, paper, feathers, etc.  Then the kids could either put their creation in the exhibit (a tree made from a cardboard box and then branches made out of toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls, or they could take it home.  There were some really creative good looking animals that kids had made.  Elyse made a rabbit and Camille a cat.  In another area they had all of these bins with various items:  cloth, caps, cellophane, leaves, ribbon, all kinds of stuff.  Elyse loved such open ended possibilities.

I was just glad she was feeling well.  This morning she woke up with an upset stomach.  I would have dismissed it, except that Camille had the same complaint on Wednesday morning.  I erred on the side of caution with Camille and kept her home from school.  I didn’t want to be the mom who spread swine flu at Eastgate Elementary. 

After taking Elyse to the bus, Camille was lying on the couch semi-sleeping.  Faking it?  Not sure.   Maybe she just wanted a personal day?  Lay around and watch tv?   Later in the morning she was running around with Harry all dressed up in her Christmas dress from last year.  Hmm…not so sick after all, eh?  But then, she did have a little GI issue before bedtime.  So, maybe she really did have a little upset tummy.  Elyse, however, gagged a few times and I thought…well here we go.  Luckily, it was just due to too much drainage and she was back to herself in no time.

But back to the art.  Can you see the texture in Camille’s waves in this picture?  It is amazing.  She and I were cracking up the other night giggling about her stinky feet.  The girl’s feet are seriously potent and I told her as much.  But she’s so fun and funny and can laugh at herself.  And you can’t help but get hysterical once you start in with her.  She has the most infectious laugh.  It felt good to laugh so hard together.

We had a blast trick or treating this year.  Harry was totally into walking from house to house and putting candy into his bag.  He even said thank you before they loaded him up.  Bits Zack and Andy were here again for the festivities, and as you can see from the picture, Andy was our expert pumpkin carver.  It took him all afternoon, but the results were great.  Bits had the classic mom problem of mis-guessing her own child’s size and so Zack’s cheetah costume was a little too small to put the hood on, but luckily he’s hansome and people still gave him candy:)  There are lots more pictures in our picasa site.  http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.browder/Halloween02#  Also in that album are pictures from Camille’s last ballet class and Elyse’s soccer game on Saturday.

I was thrilled to read about the orthodontist who is offering a candy trade in for the kids.  Kids bring in their candy and trade it in for money and a free light up toothbrush.  They then ship the candy to the troups fighting in Afghanistan (Operation Gratitude) and they make a matching donation to the Boys and Girls Club here in Bellevue.  GREAT PROGRAM, and everybody wins.  So we loaded up the candy this morning and then traded it in for $1/pound.   What surprised me was that when I mentioned the program initially the girls weren’t interested in the money.  They wanted the candy.  But when I told them about the candy going to the troups they immediately wanted to hop in the car with the candy.  The only problem is that I just discovered another bag of candy in the pantry.  It seems that there was too much to fit in the Halloween bowl.  Luckily the girls are excited to go back to the orthodontist:)  OH, and by the way, they did save SOME for themselves.

Apple picking

Today we headed down to Graham, WA to go apple picking with our neighbors, the Bythers.  I’ve mentioned them before…Sheri and Mike have 4 boys, we went with them to the FAIR.  Rememeber Mike’s parents who also came to the Fair…well, Ralph and Ann have about 5 acres of land about an hour South of here and we got to pick apples right from the trees.  They also have peach trees, pear trees, rasberry and blueberry bushes…and great mountain views.  I know this time of year most people are heading to pumpkin patches, but in my mind apple picking is even better, because…well, we’ve never done that before.  We picked apples, then put them through the cider press, and made cider.  Then all of us  plus about 7 or 8 other families (mostly Mike’s college friends) had a pot luck supper.  The rain held off and it was a wonderful fall afternoon.  I hope the girls will always remember their first apple picking experience.  There’s just something about being able to eat the fruit right from the tree.  Just ask Harry.  He must have eaten at least 4 or 5.   http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.browder/ApplePicking#  for more pictures.

Last night the girls and I were watching The Sound of Music.  It was the wedding part, where Maria and the Captain get married.  When all of the nuns were filing in behind Maria, Camille exclaimed “WOW!  Look at all of the Pilgrims.”   It struck me funny.  She’s already gearing up for Thanksgiving I guess.  Meanwhile, we’re trying to get ready for Halloween.  We did a little bit of decorating this weekend and bought a couple of small pumpkins.  Sunday we will go to get the big pumpkins.

Elyse soccer game was cancelled Saturday.   The coach of the other team had to forfeit because his house flooded.  (More unusual weather here–heavy rains. ) The girls decided to do some bird watching instead.  They set up little chairs and big chairs (which served as desks) and made bird charts and bird calls to attract different types.  I wanted them to help me clean, but their activity was so creative and educational (with their bird book to consult) I let them play.  This happens often.  I let them play because they’re so darn creative in their play.  At the park yesterday they found a huge empty branch on the ground.  Then they gathered different types of leaves and used those to create their own tree.  I wished I’d had my camera.

I had spent most of Friday tidying up and was a bit grouchy about this but got the ultimate reward of dinner out.  We took the kids to Olive Garden and had 1 hour and 20 minutes of blissful family dinner.  Wine, good food, and the kids were happy the whole time.  I didn’t even have to take anyone to the bathroom in the middle of dinner!  AT 6 on Sat. night I went out with Jennifer to shop for clothing.  I  had nominated myself for What Not To Wear, but Jennifer said she’s the only one coming for me.  So we hit 7 stores, I must have tried on 100 different items (mostly pants) and it took me until 9:45 pm to find a pair of pants that fit.  Whew.  I felt very luckly to have Jennifer as my shopping buddy.  She did not give up and she was a shopping machine!  And the best thing is I have found pants that fit that don’t have to be hemmed.  Our mission is not totally finished, but we made headway.

The other thing we did this weekend was rotate the toys.  The girls helped me by bringing in different items from the garage and removing the ones from the family room and Harry’s bedroom.  This is such a worthwhile project.  I wish I were better about doing it more often.  Harry has actually been playing with toys.  What a novel concept!

Nap

Today is Thursday which means I need to drive for soccer practice carpool.   It also means that Harry has to get a good full nap in before it’s time to go.  He must know this, and therefore be fighting me on it.  On occasion he will fall asleep in the morning and the wake up after just an hour and a  half.  Then, by about 4 or 5 he’s a wreck.  And, that’s soccer hour so I can’t put him down for an afternoon nap.  Today, he fell asleep in the car just as I was pulling in to the parking lot to get my flu shot.  I considered turning the car around and driving home, but that would have been too early for a nap and he likely would have woken up early.  So, I woke him up and went in.  Of course, the pharmacist wasn’t able to administer the shot at that time because she was there by herself.  SO, I decided to buy some time and go to the gym which is around the corner.    Harry loves the new lady who works in the childcare room at the gym.   THis is aweome.  The last lady, Mildred, the girls called Mildew.  That’s exactly how they felt about her too.  Mildew now just works evenings  and Saturdays due to the bad economy (yahoo).  So after killing some time at the gym I returned and got my flu shot, which, by the way, isn’t covered by my plan.  Huh?  WHy wouldn’t an insurance company cover a flu shot??  Whatever.  30 bucks is worth it to hopefully avoid the common flu.  Anyway, back to t he nap, I put Harry down when we got home at 11:45 and after going in 2 times to put him back down I took him out to try to feed him lunch.  THen I tried again for a nap at 1.  It is now 1:15 and he is calling and hollering.  He HAS to nap, doesn’t he understand that??

OK, I just went back up there and he must have picked up on my I-MEAN-BUSINESS attitude, because at least he is now quiet.

Chris and I both have been a little sleep deprived lately.  Chris was afraid he had strep again and has been having back pain early in the morning.  He thought maybe it was due to having ongoing strep for weeks,  or kidney stones.  He was surprised to get a negative strep test, and his CT was clear.  SO, what is causing him to wake up every morning in pain?  I don’t know, but it’s leaving us both a little grouchy.  I may have to send him to my physical therapist.

Day at the beach

We spent Sat. afternoon and evening at the beach celebrating the birthday of one of Chris’ co-workers.  It was beautiful…more pictures here: http://picasaweb.google.com/chris.browder/Oct

Elyse won her soccer game yesterday.  Sadly neither of us were there to see it because Chris was home with Harry napping and I was at Chuck E Cheese with Camille for a birthday party.  The girl must have played 50 games of Skee Ball.  It was a beautiful fall weekend, sunny and cool.    The girls have unpacked the Halloween box, now we just need to decorate.

Jackpot

I went back to Old Navy this afternoon to exchange the shirts for size 2T.  Seeing the 2T label on the shirts must have jogged my memory  (unfortunately it didn’t kick in until I was already almost home).  WAIT!!  I think I have some 2T Old Navy shirts tucked away in the bin in Harry’s closet.  I got home, opened the bin and found not just some shirts but a dozen 2T shirts, plus sweaters and one piece jump suits, not to mention 2 dozen pairs of pants.  The kid has short legs so he isn’t ready for the pants yet, but we hit the jackpot for shirts.  I thought it was a good deal to get 4 shirts for 26 bucks, but that would have meant a lot of washing if he only had 4.  Instead, he has 3 times that, and we got them from our neighbor’s sister for free.   Passing on clothes is so wonderful.  I forget how expensive clothes are until I have to go and buy them.  I can count the items of clothing I have had to buy for Harry on 1 hand.  We have been so fortunate to get hand-me-downs from neighbors and friends.  When these kids go through clothes as quickly as they do (especially as babies) it is hundreds of dollars we are saving by getting these gently used items.  I hope to be the passer of the 12 bins of girls’ clothes to Bits, or someone who needs them:)

It’s not even noon, and Harry is on his 4th outfit.  The first few were totalled by syrup, bubble juice, and then one was just too small.  I went over to Old Navy to buy him some bigger long sleeve shirts.  I got home, put the 18-24 month shirt on, and realized I should have gotten 2Ts.  The 18-24 months fit perfectly right now, but they haven’t been washed and if he grows at all, they’ll be too small.  So I guess I’m headed back to Old Navy to exchange them.  I had actually set out this morning with the intention of going to the gym to swim, but I got 3/4 of the way there when I realized I’d left my goggles at home.  I can’t swim laps without goggles.  What can I say?  I’m a crooked swimmer.  And I couldn’t exactly do anything else at the gym in my flip flops.  Note to self, put extra  socks and gym shoes in car, just in case.

We had a great weekend.  Friday night Chris and I went out to a very nice dinner in Kirkland called Cafe Juanita.  The name is a bit misleading because “cafe” doesn’t do it justice.  The food was so good that it melted in your mouth, and I was still thinking about it on Monday.  Even the bread they brought out was incredible.  Even though we already went out for dinner for our anniversary, we decided to call Friday night’s dinner our actual celebration dinner since it was the kind of restaurant you don’t forget.

The weather Sunday was lovely, 60s and sunny.    I took a bike ride on a pathway that went on forever.  It was so nice to be able to ride and ride and not have to stop for traffic or stop lights, etc.  Then Chris brought the girls to meet me at the flat trail so we could ride together.  We had such a fun girls’ ride; they even said they wanted to do it again.  One thing I do miss about Cleveland is being able to walk out the door and ride with the girls around South Sagamore where it is a mile long flat loop.  We just can’t do that here.

Also, this weekend I had to put a halt to Harry’s driving habit.  Friday was the girls’ walk-a-thon and Harry took a longer nap than usual, cutting into the time I had hoped to be at the event.  When he finally woke up, I grabbed him and hopped into the car to head down to the school.  OOPS.  Dead battery, again.  I ended up walking Harry down in the stroller and got to see some of the walk, but I arrived sweating in my cableknit sweater and boots.  Not the look I was going for.  Camille walked with her friend Maia, hand in hand.  They were serious walkers.  Maia barely let Camille stop to say hi.  The girl was on a mission. 

Elyse had a pack of girls walking with her. 

 

 

 

 

 I am told that the results of the fund raising way exceeded their expectations.   2 annonymous doners gave a total of $16000.  That was how much they were hoping to raise all together from the kids!

Anyway, after 3 dead batteries in less than a month,  I now know how to charge my own car battery.  Chris tried to take care of it before soccer Sat. morning, but he couldn’t get it going.  Somehow I figured it out myself.  But hopefully I won’t have to do that again any time soon.  I was also feeling really competent because I programmed my car  to open the garage with the touch a button and now Chris can have the garage door opener this winter (and he can take off snowy/wet shoes in the garage instead of the front hall).  I also now know how to print doccuments from my laptop and get pictures off of the camera (as opposed to the camera card).  Ah, independence!

Yesterday I did some baking, raw apple cake and pumpkin cookies.  Apparently Harry liked the cake because this is where I found him this morning.  I guess he pulled the chair over and climbed right up…

 

 

 

 

 

 

The girls thought that looked like a good idea for breakfast too

Grrrrrr…..

Shoes found.  Under couch.  I would have sworn I already looked there a dozen times.  It’s as if a fairy removed them from the house and then while I was at physical therapy she snuck in and put them in the most obvious hiding spot in the whole house.  Even Chris spent about 20 minutes last night looking through the house, the garage, the car.  I mean, really?  The couch.  C’mon.  Let’s try to do better than that next time.  How about somewhere unusual like the fireplace, or inside the tv stand, or inside a pot with the lid on.  If I have to go crazy for days wondering where in the world something is, I want the outcome to be more exciting than under the couch.

Stupid shoes.

 

 

 

 

 

SO, when I get frustrated I just look at these pictures and it helps:

Hmm…what can I do with this??

 

 

 

 

 

I mean, who doesn’t love Harry in a pink swim cap??