Then and Now

Around December 1st

Now

December Daily - Day Twenty-Two

Kevin goes to put on his shoes and an arch support is missing from one. Then we find it. In the water bowl. Baxter at work.

Carter is excited to go to school for once because they are having a Christmas party. It's so unusual for him to smile at this time of day. 

Anna is still sick. I work from home. Tassie is happy.

Later that night...

In the bathtub Carter tells me he found coins on the stairs and he put them in his piggy bank (Ham the pig that he got for his birthday) and that that was ok because they didn't come from daddy's bowl. (Kevin has a bowl of coins on the console table that we found Carter was stealing from to fill his piggy bank. I think he has learned that lesson now). Then he told me he was going to save his money to go to Disney World (this is what Anna always said). I told him he could use his money for whatever he wanted, it doesn't HAVE to be Disney World.

"I'm going to spend my money on....... long pause..... Starbucks!"

I laughed, "That is NOT what I expected you to say. What would you get at Starbucks?"

"Chocolate milk."

Oh the things that are important to you when you're 4. And oh the things I've taught my 4 year old that I want to spend my money on. Sigh. Perhaps a parenting faux paux.

That night I really needed to make a list. I was searching everywhere for my "list paper" and about to freak out because I had too much in my head and needed to make a list.

Then I found it.

December Daily - Day Twenty-One

Candi and I ran 5.5 miles Tuesday morning. I tried to capture myself post-run. Can you overlook my messy bathroom.

I might have worn Tassie out for a minute. She likes to run. 

Baxter sleeps on the bathrug while I take a shower. 

Fast forward to end of day. As soon as I get to the daycare and see Anna I can tell something is wrong.

"What's wrong?" She points to her throat. Uh oh. I touch her forehead. Clearly running a fever.

"She has a fever!" I look at the daycare girl.

"She just told me she was cold so I told her to put her coat on," the daycare-girl-who-clearly-doesn't-have-any-children says to me.

"She's sick." I say, annoyed with this "babysitter" who is there at the end of the day.

At home the thermometer says 103 something. We decide she has strep and Kevin pulls antibiotics out of the cabinet.

Carter wants chinese food and I agree because I don't want to be busy making dinner when I might need to take care of Anna.

When Carter and I go to pick it up I see this sign in the window at the nail salon next door. It makes me laugh.

December Daily - Day Eighteen

Candi and I ran 6 miles at 6:45 in the morning. I think it was in the 20's. It was super cold and I hadn't run in a month. Afterwards I got some Starbucks to warm up. Well, and a shower.

Around 10:45 that morning I met my parents at Paradise Park to pick up the kids from them. Candi and Alex met us there and we let the kids burn off some energy from being couped up in the house the last few weekends. Here they are making Christmas bracelets during the craft session.

While the kids played I addressed my Christmas cards, stuffed them and stickered all of my return labels.

I took the kids Christmas shopping for each other at Target. We invited Candi, Sam and Alex over for dinner. I found this work of art from Carter on the table. You can't tell but it has a tunnel in the middle for the train to go through.

Later, Carter made a long train with his Geo Trax and took Buzz, Jessie and Bullseye for a ride.

After the kids went to bed Candi and I did our nails with her Axxium set and had girl time. I missed this photo opp. Love my "Bring on the bling" color which is essentially gold sparkles.

Kevin hogged my iPhone as usual to play Words with Friends and Chess with Sam. Who was 5 feet away. I think Sam kicked his ass. Dare I say... again. Tassie is not impressed.

December Daily - Day Seventeen

That's my mess of a desk at the end of a week during "beer thirty." I found this Mike's hard pomegranate lemonade in the beer fridge. It matched my outfit.

My mom had picked up the kids from daycare. Kevin and I fed the dogs and they had a race to see who could drink more water faster. Baxter is almost as big as Tassie and he's only four months.

We went out to the Peanut with Sam and Candi for bar food and drinks.  

Then we went back to Sam and Candi's house and watched Knight and Day. Well mostly, I fell asleep at the end. Honestly, it's rare for me to see a whole movie anymore.

December Daily - Day Thirteen

Well, it's almost half way through December and I haven't scrapped a page. But at least I'll have all my journaling done when I'm ready!

As I suspected Anna woke up sick. 102 fever and a horrible cough. Croup was going around the daycare and I think she might have caught it. Or if not, some other virus. I worked from home. She wrote her Christmas list

1. American Girl doll
2. Littlest Pet Shop
3. Robe

We put it in an envelope and then I had to explain stamps and why they cost money. It takes a lot of work to get that letter to the north pole I explained, gas, people, airplanes, cars. "Ah, I get it now."

Our kitchen pipes have been frozen for a few days. As you can see I really needed to do the dishes. So Kevin found a new use for my hair dryer and thawed the pipes. Yay. Then I got to do the dishes. Boo.

Anna spent most of the day in my bed watching cartoons. I started out in here, but was quickly annoyed with the Dora song and Wonder Pets song and so on and so on. So I switched it to a marathon of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Very early episodes. She thought that was hilarious. That evening she watched The Princess Bride. She didn't eat dinner. In fact she only ate toast, chicken noodle soup and cheese crackers. And motrin. My kids are so picky about the flavors. We have two chewable flavors and three liquid flavors of motrin. She only likes the Original Berry Motrin (that's the one with strawberry and raspberry, not to be confused with Fruit Flavored Motrin which is strawberry and cherry). And she likes the orange Delsym but not the orange chewable motrin - "those are spicy." I can't remember what Carter likes but it's the opposite. My medicine cabinet is full of every flavor they make.

While Kevin was using my hair dryer I tried to change the channel on the TV. It was that crazy show with the obstacle course that's impossible to complete and they fall in the water and everyone laughs and laughs. Carter about flipped out and claimed "Daddy is watching that" when really it was him. Boys. Then Kevin was watching that logging show and Carter had his feet propped up on the coffee table. Boys.

Tassie finally got some love. Kevin has been joking I should call it the 25 days of Baxter because I keep taking so many pictures of him. He's so dang cute! Except for when he pooped on the floor.

December Daily - Day Three (Friday)

Friday
Kevin and Tassie left for a hunting trip in the morning and we saw them off.

Tassie was shaking because she was so excited.

I went to work. At the end of the day my mom picked up the kids and we went to Anna's bookfair at school. We came home and I made spaghetti. Then my mom left to pick my dad up at the airport.

Then. I got down to bizness. My project while he was gone was to redo the master closet. Here are the before pictures.

Kevin's side. Yes, there's a nerf gun at the top back.

Looking straight in (I had already starting clearing the floor and shoes before I remembered to take pictures)

My side, not any better 

There's a hamper buried in there somewhere (you can see the shoe storage moved into the bathroom) 

I use the phrase "shoe organizer" loosely here 

So I cleared it out.

And started demo.

 

And spackling.

Where did I put everything? Shoes and bags into the bathtub - where Baxter couldn't eat them.

Everything else I piled into our bedroom. I thought I would sort through it on Sunday when I put it back into the closet (keyword here is thought - more to come later) 

 It left me with a mess of clothes and a mess of boards with nails (I then moved these to the basement to be out of children's way)

I had to make room for 

all of these boxes. 

36 of them to be exact. Luckily they arrived the day Kevin left and my brother Zach came over with a friend to move them into the house while I was at work.

It was then about midnight and I started edging with the paint to match the master bedroom and bath. Nothing like waiting for spackle to dry.

At 1:30 am I decided to go to bed and start in the morning.

Royals Game - Another Rainout

On Saturday after the company picnic we came home and I napped for 30 minutes. When I woke up Anna was dressed like Cinderella and Tassie looked like Ariel:

Saturday afternoon we went to the Royals game. We got to tailgate but then it rained and we left.

Sunday we went to a Chiefs party at our BFF's house.

Needless to say I was exhausted. I even had three redbulls and I thought I could go to sleep.

For those of you who don't know we have a trip to Disney coming up. It's a surprise for our kids but Kevin pratically let the cat out of the bag at the Royals game. Anna was sitting in his lap and we were talking about leaving because of the rain. I was asking him when our next tickets are and he said "right before we go to Disney." Well Anna's head spun around "Did you say Disney? Does that mean Disney World!?"
Kevin backtracked and then made up some story about needing an invitation from Mickey to go to Disney. So now she is waiting for her invitation. So the plot has thickened.

My next "project" is really prepping for this trip. I was planning the airplane entertainment and discovered we have lost Anna's DS. It is infuriating to me. I have plans to do the semi-annual toy organization project in hopes of finding it.

Other Fall projects also on the list:
Put on final coat of paint on Carter's dark blue wall
Then frame and hang Royals pictures
Move all scrapbook supplies from dining room to upstairs guest room closet
Paint kids' bathroom
Frame fall family pics and holiday pics from last two years and hang around house
Decorate office at work
Organize master bedroom closet
I will also be running the KC Half Marathon in about a month

So we are mostly caught up - what have you been up to the last week?

A Week in the Life - Wednesday

Alarm: 6:10. Up: 6:35. While I am in the shower Carter comes in and says he wants to watch cartoons. Then decides he needs to take his pull up off and put underwear on. While we are upstairs doing this Anna gets up. Carter puts his pajamas back on over his underwear instead of putting on the clothes I picked out. Whatever. They go downstairs and watch TV while I get ready.

They eat pancakes and head off to school. 8:00 am I head to a class on Hiring and Interviewing to learn some tips for hiring new associates at my job. One of my associates texts me that her baby is sick and she won't be in. Okay. 8:25 am Before I get to the class I get some Hazlenut coffee from Panera. 8:30 class. I don't learn anything new at the class.

10:30 am. Check email on iPhone. Realize there is a fire to put out at work already. Head to work. Get text from my brother who wants to go to lunch with Anna some time in the next week. I call him and chat about what day would work better. He says I have too much personal information on my blog. But it's cool he says.

Work was full of unanticipated problems or issues or opportunities or whatever you want to call them. It leads me to need two of these when I get home.



I didn't take any pictures during the day. In fact I didn't take any pictures until after dinner. I made a new stir fry recipe. I wouldn't make it again. It just leaves me with this mess.



After dinner I do more laundry.

Always with the laundry...

laundry to sort

laundry to put away

laundry to wash

laundry in the wash


The best thing about today is that is was a Merry Maids day. So I come home to a clean house. The only times all month the beds are made.





(note more clean laundry to sort)

Carter gets into the picture-taking and we find his camera that Santa brought for Christmas so he can snap some shots. He takes one of Kevin "Gotcha!" He takes one of me "That's a keeper!" He has me cracking up.


Then I find him flossing his own teeth.


Yes, you can count 7 toothbrushes in this picture. Why do we have 7 when we only have 2 kids? What can I say. We are REALLY passionate about brushing our teeth with all the cavities and crowns they have had.


Where are Kevin and the dogs in all of this? Their usual spots.