Garden d'Lights

We went to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens tonight to look at their light display that they have each year. 5 years ago, Sam and I went to the garden to look at the Christmas lights, and it was here 5 years ago that he almost proposed. (He chickened out though and didn't propose until much later that night.) We had a great time. The kids absolutely loved the lights. One thing I should mention about our venture was that it was raining. It wasn't your typical Seattle drizzle/rain, no it was downpouring rain. We were soaked after just a few minutes. Still we had fun and the kids enjoyed jumping in the puddles while we waited for Sam to bring the car up. We may make this an annual event...then again, we might look for other light displays closer to home.

I don't have many pictures of me and the kids, and tonight I remembered why. I had to hold them tight just to stay in the picture. And of course they wouldn't look at the camera, that's just not near as fun as running around in the rain.

He only thinks he's ready

Logan wants to go to school. The past couple of days he has put on his backpack and shoes, yelled out "good bye" to me and gone to the front door to leave. Today he even grabbed a book (a cook book, but still a book). Only he's stopped because we have the doorknob childproofed and he can't open it. He begs me to let him go to school. I think it's great that he wants to go and learn. He understands that at school you learn things and get to play with friends. I feel bad, I would like to enroll him in preschool, but he refuses to be potty trained. I've told him that if he learns to use the potty then he can go to school. He told me "I have to think about it." I think it's pretty straightforward, but apparently, he needs to mull it over.

How my almost 3 year old thinks...

One of my black friday deals was a dual DVD player for the car. It's nice, it's portable, and the screens fit on the back of the driver and passenger head rests. We tried it out for the first time last Tuesday when we had to pick up Sam from work and head to a doctor appointment for Logan. The kids enjoyed every minute of being able to watch a movie while sitting in the car. And honestly, it was the best drive I've had in a long time. No screaming, crying, hitting, whining...it was great! Today Logan was begging to go to his "carseat". Here's the conversation that followed:

Me: "Why do you want to go in the car so bad?"

Logan: "Want to watch Cars in my carseat." (Cars is what I had playing on Tuesday)

Me: "I'm sorry bud, but we can only watch movies in the car on long road trips, like to daddy's work or Grandma and Grandpa H's house."

Logan: (a long pause as he looks on thoughtfully) "Logan wants to go see grandma and the kitty cat" (my parents house)

Me: "Are you sure you want to see grandma? Or do you just want to watch the movie in the car?"

Logan: (Another thoughtul pause) "Nope, want to see grandma....and watch Cars"

I love how he thinks. He took his time in answering my question, as if getting the right answer would allow him to ride in the car. Needless to say, we didn't go to my parents house today, but I did cave and took them with me to donate some unwanted items that we had lying around. We took our time, and I let him watch his movie while we did so.

Baking Cookies

I know, I know...shocking! To think I actually had time to have the kids help me bake cookies! It was fun. Okay, in all honesty though, it was frozen cookie dough that I bought from a school fundraiser, already shaped and ready to be placed on the cookie sheet. So that's what we did. I opened the box and the kids put the cookie dough on the cookie sheet. Once it was in the oven, the kids just sat and watched them bake.



The excitement was too much for Livi, she just had to dance and hop around. At one point she even demanded for me to open the oven door and get the cookies out.



You would think that once they were done that she would want to eat one, but she didn't. She just wanted to look at them. Logan on the other hand, couldn't wait to devour them. :)

A visit to the ER

Olivia had her first (and hopefully her last) ambulance ride this morning. When I wasn't paying close attention, she had gotten into one of the kitchen cupboards (not unusual) and pulled out a couple of things. One item she pulled out happened to be a blade that went to a hand blender thing. It's not very big, but it's very sharp. I saw a few of the bowls she got out and didn't pay much attention to anything else. I was busy getting dinner into the crockpot and planning a trip to the mall to let the kids play at the play area. Just as we were getting ready to go, I went to do last minute diaper changes. Olivia started to scream. I still hadn't noticed anything unusual, she always screams when she doesn't want to be disturbed. It took me a few seconds to realize her foot had been cut. I had no idea what or how it happened. Logan had to show me the blade. When I took a better look at her foot, I realized this was bad...very bad. It had cut the bottom of her foot about a quarter of an inch deep and it was a long cut. I made some frantic calls to family to get help. Then I called 911 when I realized there was no way I could drive her to the ER while putting pressure on her foot. The EMT were quick to respond and we were on our way. Olivia loved the ride. She even got a stuffed animal from the crew. We got checked into the hospital and we were both well taken care of. I had my mother-in-law follow us there. I knew I wouldn't be able to handle this alone. It was nice to have that extra support. Olivia did very well. She was so brave during the entire time we were there (which was almost 5 hours). She received another stuffed animal from the volunteers that were going through the halls of the ER. The staff and volunteers were absolutely wonderful and made things easier to handle. I think I had a worse time of the whole ordeal than Olivia did. But several hours and 5 stitches later, we were on our way home. Once we got home Olivia was her happy little self. You wouldn't know she had gotten hurt, except for her hobbling around on her toes. She's a brave little thing. Much more so than I am.

Thanksgiving

This year Thanksgiving brought us great food, wonderful family and lots of snow. We woke up to a few more inches of snow on the ground, so we spent the morning shoveling snow off our driveway and Sam's brother-in-law's driveway. We were having Sam's family over to our house for dinner and wanted to have at least the driveways clear for parking. Logan was an excellent little helper when it came to clearing his uncle's driveway. He spent a good amount of time outside. He can never seem to get enough.



The afternoon came and so did the family. After some struggles of getting up the snowy/icy hill everyone had arrived safe and sound. There was so much food to go around. It was amazing. I didn't get any pictures of our feast, my kids made it pretty much impossible for such things. Later on we got the computer out and through the awesomeness of webcams we spoke with family not here. It was so cute to watch the kids gather around the computer to talk their cousin, Bailey, and Uncle Joel.



The rest of the day was spent watching old football games and talking strategy for black friday sales. My sis-in-law (Lina) and I were actually crazy enough to go out in the early morning hours to shop Target and Kohl's. We had fun. It was pure craziness and we aren't sure we'll do it again (too early) but we just might be that crazy again. Afterall, we scored some good stuff.

Snow

It snowed yesterday...a lot! Well, a lot for around here. It was beautiful to watch and fun to play in, but horrible to drive in. Today we've been snowed in our house. The roads are all covered in ice. And since we live on a hill, driving down and then back up is not something I would like to try and attempt. The temperature has been in the low to mid 20's. Yes, the 20's. CRAZY!!! We are not prepared for that kind of weather. I am lacking a winter coat for days that are that cold, no one has snow boots, and Sam doesn't have gloves. Oh well, hopefully it won't last for too long and we can get the ice to melt a bit before everyone comes over for Thanksgiving. I much prefer the rain and 40 degree weather. :)

Our house, just as it was starting to snow.
The trees next door. I thought they were pretty.





The kids just loved it. Logan kept asking for the snow to "turn on" if it stopped snowing. This morning he wanted it on again. I'm okay with it being "off". We really didn't get much, I'm guessing maybe 2-3" at most. It's the ice that's the problem. Oh well, it will melt one day.