Boundaries

The past three days have been pretty hellish around here (from my perspective anyway). I've been caught in the grips of what I'm fairly certain is H1N1 and haven't been able to do much more than lie in bed in a fevered stupor wishing for the oblivion of death (or at least the oblivion of sleep uninterrupted by hacking, wheezing coughs). Erik has heroically been serving as both single parent and nurse this weekend, but today was the day I've been dreading - the day Erik went back to work and I somehow had to become responsible for the well-being of myself and two small children. To facilitate this, we put the blow-up bed in the living room for me, and the kids have been watching movies and jumping on the bed (and on mommy) while I lay there like a large, lethargic, blob of yuck. The two-year old decided that it would be fun to play hide and seek with all of the stuff on the shelves. So the cell phone was hidden down my shirt, I had a book up the left leg of my pants, and my waistband was stuffed full of 7 or 8 DVDs. And, yet, I barely registered that any of this was happening or that I might want to stop it until I heard myself saying, "No, Mui-mui, 'A Bug's Life' does NOT go in Mommy's underwear." After all, a girl's got to have some boundaries, right?

Just because they're cute

Go-go's first day of preschool at the YMCA:


Go-go and Mui-mui playing at the window:






Super Kids!

Great Weekend

Any weekend that starts off with an ice cream party on Friday night has to be good. We walked a few blocks over to a neighbor's house where there was plenty of ice cream, lots of toppings, tons of kids (and their parents) from church, and good conversation. I started out feeling like I must be the Grandma of the ward - I definitely seemed to be the only person there over 26 or 27 - but as the night wore on, we met some great families (of assorted ages).

And Saturday just continued the fun. The weather was perfect for a breakfast baby shower in the park and it was good to meet even more of the women in the ward. After it was over, three of us (Diana, Amber, and me) just sat under the pavillion and chatted away for several more hours. Eventually, we realized that it was 2:30 and that if we wanted to continue gabbing, we should do it somewhere with food. The obvious answer was endless shrimp at Red Lobster. YUM! Coconut shrimp, teryaki shrimp, garlic shrimp scampi, cajun shrimp - just keep it comin'. Mmm, makes my mouth water just thinking about it. The fact that Erik hates seafood made it all the better - no guilt at all about leaving him out of the fun.

As soon as I got home, it was time for another party - and we didn't have to go far. They closed down the street in front of our house, had a bounce house, a rockin' band, a face-painting booth, food, and tons of people. The block party was just for the 2 blocks of our street, but I couldn't believe how many kids there are here (and I scouted a few potential babysitters as well). Go-go and Mui-mui loved it! Erik and I had a pretty spiffy time too.

The highlight of the evening was the traditional "gutter sundae". The kids all line up on the curb with their spoons at the ready (iphone camera at twilight equals fuzzy, dark photos - but you can hopefully get the idea):

Then the sundae is brought out in the section of gutter that has been passed down from year to year and family to family (and, I'm assured, thouroughly scrubbed) and it's time to dig in.

Go-go was the last one still going at it.

Sunday was a day of rest. I stayed home with a sick Daniel (maybe too much watermelon and ice cream at the block party) and we just had a pleasant day. On Monday, we went to Rochester to the Museum of Play. It is the coolest children's museum I have ever seen. We've been there lots of times, but we never seem to make it very far. This time, we started at the end in Reading Adventureland where we climbed Jack's beanstalk, played in the giant's castle, had adventures in Robison Crusoe's treehouse, solved mysteries with Nancy Drew, and just had a great time. We also saw their amazing butterfly garden (it really was jam-packed with butterflies, despite the fact we didn't seem to catch any on camera).

When we first walked into the museum, I noticed a familiar face in line just ahead of us. Then, two, and three, and four (and then all of their kids - a total of 10 familiar faces!)! It was our new friends Amber and Diana and their families. We felt a little like stalkers (although maybe it was them stalking us - they obviously didn't get enough of me at Red Lobster), but we had a great time all playing together at the museum, and then the park for a little while when the museum closed. Then we all headed to LeRoy, NY (birthplace of Jello) for some delicious chicken pot pie.

All in all, an almost perfect weekend!

Go-go Transforms!

On Wednesday, Go-go transformed from a 3 year-old into a 4 year-old! It seems impossible that he has been around that long (although sometimes I have trouble remembering life before being a mom, so I shouldn't be too surprised that it's been a while). He's been looking forward to his birthday for about six months now, and (not surprisingly, if you've ever read this blog) has never wavered from his insistence that he will have "a Transformers party, with a big Transformers cake and Transformers game and I'll be Optimus Prime!" (you have to picture this being said with plenty of wild jumping and gesturing).

Who am I to deny a boy his dream?

So, on Wednesday, we had cake:

On Saturday, we had the friends' party. The plan was to do everything in the back yard, but our rainy Buffalo summer put a damper on that plan ('damp'-er, ha ha ha! - sometimes I crack myself up with very little justification!) Luckily, our couches didn't fit into the doorways when we moved in, so we have a big empty room that's just right for decepticon bowling, dance partying, musical pillow flopping, and general merriment-making.

Bowling for Bots

Decorating Cupcakes

Making Personal Pizzas

Pin the Autobot Symbol on Optimus Prime

Opening Presents

And General Merriment

Summer Fun

As you may remember, my children adore blueberries. So, on Saturday, we headed off to the U-Pick farm to load up. We picked about 7 pounds and have been gorging ourselves on anti-oxidant goodness (of course, it's even better when you up the nutritional goodness with whipped cream - yum!). Most of our haul is in the freezer, which is good because the non-frozen ones are starting to get squishy, but bad because by tomorrow, I won't be able to just reach in the fridge and pop a few bites of sweet deliciousness into my mouth. Sigh.







Today, we went to a little beach on a lake for our ward playgroup. I snapped a picture of Go-go paddling a little canoe, but it seems that i didn't save it to my camera. I did, however, save this shot of Mui-mui eating our picnic lunch.



Yes, you can all admire how I massacred her poor bangs this morning. In my (pathetic) defense, she fought me the whole time and refused to sit still. You can all vote as to whether A) I need to get her to a stylist ASAP, B) they're too short and wacked out for even a talented stylist to fix them - I'll just have to wait it out, or C) don't worry about it - if we didn't have funny looking pictures from our childhoods we'd have nothing to laugh about when we got old.

Moving lessons

I've moved many, many times in my life, so you'd think I'd have this moving thing down. But, every time is a little different and I learn new things each time I pack up. Here are a few things I've learned this move:

-Kids are not helpful when packing

-Sending Go-go to YMCA daycamp for 2 weeks so that I could pack/move/clean, etc. was a fabulous idea. I loved it, he loved it, definitely a win-win.

- Everyone should have a 12-year old live at their house. Ruth lent me hers for a week and a half and Elizabeth was a lifesaver. She watched Mui-mui and kept her out of my hair, sorted and packed things, entertained Go-go when he got home from daycamp, and entertained me as well. She made me remember how much fun it was to be 12.

- Professional packers use WAY more boxes than I do. We have the same amount of stuff as we did last year (when we had packers), but we only used about a third of the boxes we saved from that move. But, if I was going to be held liable for any breakage, I might pack a lampshade by itself in a box with a ton of paper too.

- I missed having professional packers, but I did hire loaders. I've been grateful for a lot of Elder's quorum volunteers in my time, but they have enough poor students to move in and out of the wards this summer. And you can't sue them if they break your favorite bookshelf (You may be able to guess that I'm still a little peeved about the big chip out of my bookshelf that happened nine years ago in an Elder's Quorum move).

- I love my new house. I love almost everything about it (although the doorknobs really need some help).

-Being in a house that I love actually makes it easier to get out the door (despite the problem doorknobs). Sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but feeling happier about everything makes it feel so much easier to go to the library, Target, the YMCA, whatever. Not to mention the fact that going to the playground is just walking across the street.

-I love my new dining room table and chairs. I promise to post pics as soon as I get boxes out of the way. It makes me happy just to look at them.

- If Erik has to duck a little when he goes down the stairs, a queen-sized boxspring wil not fit up the stairs.

- On a related note, you can buy a boxspring kit in a box. It's really sturdy and it wasn't too bad to put together at all.

- Older houses also have narrow entryways. Luckily, our huge couches were stained, ripped, old, faded, and gross. So, I didn't mind too much that we couldn't get them in.

- Have I mentioned that I love my new house?

I promise to post pictures of the house soon. In the meantime, if you're in need of visual stimulation, you can check out the pictures I put up in the two other posts (Intense and Family Time) I wrote tonight. Happy reading!

Family Time

After I got to hang out with Ruth in Utah for a week or so, I got to stay with my sister Ellen and her sweet hubby, Justin. Go-go has decided he is going to grow up to be Justin, mostly because of the 70+ transformers in Justin's collection and every posible transformers animated cartoon (from the 80's, 90's, and today!) on DVD. We played, I bopped around visiting random cousins and friends, and we went to see my Grandma. She's 94 and looking pretty great.

Then the whole clan came together. Doug, Amber, and the kids came down from Seattle, Mom and Dad came in from Vegas, Ellen and Justin live in SLC, and Erik flew in from WNY. Mom and Dad rented a big house in the mouth of Millcreek canyon and we had a great time hanging out, watching movies, going to Lagoon, having picnics, seeing the Aquarium (thanks for the tour, Evan!), and enjoying each other's company. Here are a few highlights:

I love my family!