April in Pictures
Our first big event was Indie’s 2nd birthday party. When Amy mentioned it a week before in front of Kenzi, she didn’t have the heart to say no when Kenzi asked in her please-oh-please-oh-please-say-yes voice if it was a dress-up party. So Kenzi was the one kid who came in costume, not that she or anyone else minded.
That afternoon I gave Kev a haircut, because when you can do this with your son’s hair, it is just out of hand.
Moving on to Easter. It was a windy, rainy day but we’d miss so much church recently that we were excited to get dressed up and go. But no cute pics playing out in the grass this year. You’ll have to settle for them crawling around on the futon, waiting impatiently for me to tell them it was time to grab their Easter baskets and head to church.
We actually had no plans for the rest of the day and it was pretty relaxing. A little Panda Express for lunch, a little Sequence during naptime, a little walking into Kevey’s room to find that he’d had a blowout during naptime, a little poop on the carpet, a little screaming while Kev got washed off in water that takes way too long to warm up. But he cheered up once he was in some clean jammies and the kids took a footrace around the house.
The next Saturday was Christopher’s 2nd birthday party. After a week of perfect weather, we had another chilly, rainy day. The kids didn’t mind since they got to ride the train at the park. I stole these pics from Krista’s blog.
Thankfully I haven’t seen any of the pics taken of the carousel. Bernie was out of town and therefore unable to fulfill his standing responsibility of accompanying the kids on things that make me carsick. It could have been worse; the kids wanted to sit on this sleigh-looking thing that didn’t move up and down, so I only had to deal with the round-and-round portion. Blech. But the kids loved it, and we make sacrifices for the ones we love and all that mumbo-jumbo.
Yesterday we missed yet another week of Bible study week since Kenzi was sick. (Digression here – how is it that Kenzi is a total veggie-phile and Keves will maybe eat two bites of a carrot in a week’s time, but she’s sick twice as often, and even when he does catch it his symptoms are milder? Is his self-imposed Fruit and Meat diet the secret weapon to immunity? It’s hard to convince him that veggies will make him feel good when his sister is crunching on bean sprouts and sweet potato peels, pausing occasionally to hack up a lung.) Anyway, since we were at home I decided to have the kids help me plant our vegetable garden. I’m hoping that if Kev is invested in the growth of the veggies, he might more strongly consider eating them. This is the concrete that Bernie found at the bottom of our garden bed a couple weeks ago.
Who does that? We’ve found concrete chunks buried in the front yard too. So annoying. But now that it’s just soil in there, we were ready to plant. Our main reason for doing this is to save a little money in the long run, so my rule of thumb is that I will only plant things that I can’t buy at the store for less than a buck a pound. So, I could buy orange bell peppers for $4/lb, or I can spend $3 on an orange pepper plant that will last us through the summer. Orange bell pepper it is. We also did red bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, Big Bertha tomatoes, yellow pear tomatoes, snow peas, spinach, and butternut squash. Who knows if any of this will actually grow, but with only $20 worth of veggies here, I’m willing to give it a try.
And a shot of our Gravenstein apple tree. The teensy blossoms reassure us that we haven’t killed it yet.
The second half of the month includes Bernie performing a wedding, a college girls retreat (Bernie’s first weekend alone with the kids!), a playdate at the Bay Area Discovery Museum, and a visit from Nana that coincides with a conference that Bernie and I are attending. In the course of a week and a half I will have spent as many nights away from my kids as I have in all of my motherhood to date. Maybe I’ll snap a pic or two somewhere in there?
Two blogs in a row? Don’t get used to it.
Today was one of those beautiful spring days that makes you consider letting the kids skip their naps so you can soak up as much sunshine as possible before the rain comes back tomorrow. Consider, but not do. Maybe another day. But now we’re done with dinner and back outside, and I’ve got the laptop on the picnic table while the kids collect teensy pieces of trash they find so they can load it in the Hot Wheels garbage truck, then dump it out at the “dump.” Which is an arbitrary spot that’s about three inches from my left foot. So maybe not so arbitrary after all.
Kenzi has some weird possible sickness that causes her to cough like crazy for a random half hour, usually right before we’re about to go somewhere and interact with other children. Then after we’ve decided to stay home, she’s fine for the next few hours. I guess it could be allergies but it’s so inconsistent that I don’t know what she could be exposed to that would cause such intermittent reactions. Kev seems to be fine, and usually the two of them pass stuff back and forth pretty quickly so who knows if she has anything contagious. As for myself, I have the weird achy body thing, where I take some Motrin and feel fine so I get a bunch of stuff done, then when it wears off I feel worse than before since I haven’t been resting. I’ve decided that tonight when the kids go to bed I will lay on the couch and watch tv and ignore the mess in the house for another day. But enough of that.
I thought I’d make a list of the top eight phases my kids are in that I hope will pass quickly. In no particular order…
1) Kenzi – using Kevey’s bad behavior as an opportunity to point out her good behavior. Ex: Kev tosses a piece of food on the floor. Me – “Kev, pick that up right now! You know that is not acceptable.” Kenzi – “Mommy, I’m not throwing my food on the ground. That is acceptable.”
2) Keves – “I got two’s hands.” This is his way of saying he has something in each of his hands, and he regrettably is unable to accomplish whatever we’ve requested. Ex: Me – “Hey Kev, you need to put away your trucks before you come have lunch.” Kev – grabs a blanket or toy with both hands, steps away from the trucks and says, “I got two’s hands.”
3) Kenzi – really loud cackling. She does it when she’s having fun, but it’s really contrived and she knows it’s obnoxious. I once overheard her doing it in her Awana class; I was in Bernie’s office with the door closed and her class was playing some running/chasing game in the big room right outside the offices. She did it for nearly 10 minutes straight. Her teachers are so much more tolerant than I am.
4) Keves – pooping during naptime. Takes quite a while to air out the room.
5) Kenzi – Disney Princesses. Ugh.
6) Keves – “That was silly!” or “I just being silly!” This follows some type of behavior that he knows isn’t allowed. Ex: Me – “Put your shoes in the closet please.” Kev – runs to back door and throws them into the yard. Me – “Keves!” Kev – grinning. “I just being silly!”
7) Kenzi – being afraid of the vent in Kevey’s room. She’s not afraid of any other vents in the house and I can’t pin down what happened to make her afraid of Kevey’s. But when it comes on she runs out of the room covering her ears. With the weather warming up I imagine we won’t see this one anymore, and maybe by next winter she’ll have forgotten about that mean ol’ vent.
8 ) Keves – Insisting that he’s snatching when he’s actually being given something. Ex: Kev – “I can’t find Blankie.” Kenzi – “I’ll find it for you!” Runs off, then returns with Blankie. Hands it to Kev, who yanks it out of her hands. Kev – looks at me with devious grin – “I snatch Blankie from Sissy!” (Maybe he figures he doesn’t misbehave enough, so he has to create drama where there was none?)
Of course they go through some really sweet phases that never seem to last long enough. Some of the current ones:
1) Keves – hugging me with all his might and saying “Mommy, I taking care of you.”
2) Kenzi – telling us repeatedly, “I will never stop loving you! I am always going to love you!”
3) Keves – sharing something with Kenzi and saying, “Here ya go, Sis.”
4) Kenzi – running into Kevey’s room as I tuck him in for nap, climbing in his bed, grabbing his chubby face and kissing him on the forehead.
Ok, so I can only think of four big sweet ones right now, but they more than outweigh the 8 previous ones.
