Ham and Cheese

I have a new favorite trick.  All I have to do is say, "Hey Britton, will you make some cookies for my visiting teaching ladies?"  And he'll reply "Sure" and get started on it right away. Love it. Not only is he willing to do it but he has mastered Adam's super yummy chocolate chip cookie recipe so the cookies are sooo good.  I have a feeling I am going to be a much better visiting teacher from now on.

 During the month of July Jenna and Korinne have participated in our city's "Fun in the Sun" rec program for kids.  It's on Mon. Wed. and Fri from 9-12 at the park all month long and they take field trips and play games and do crafts and have a great time.  Both girls have absolutely loved it and since it is pretty inexpensive I have really enjoyed it, too.  Last Monday the girls were excited because it was a special field trip day and they were walking to Pier 49 for pizza and then to Zeppe's for some Italian Ice.  I was set to pick them up at noon but when the phone rang at 11:20 and it was one of the Fun in the Sun directors I knew it was a bad sign.  Korinne had tripped while at Pier 49 pizza and hit a chair on the way down. "Um, she cut her lip a little bit, so um, you should probably come and get her."

If it was truly a "little" cut they wouldn't have called me so I left right away to get her.  She was holding ice to her lip and refused to show me the cut because she was deathly afraid I would take her to a doctor.  It took Adam and me another 20 minutes after we got home to get her to show us the cut.  When she finally did we weren't sure whether to take her in for stitches or not.  I'm not one to rush my child the the Dr. for every cut and bruise because I know that a $500 bill will follow.  She was shaking and crying and white as a ghost. Not because of the cut, mind you, but because she was afraid of going to the doctor. Finally Adam took of picture of it with his phone and we sent it to our friend who is an ER Doc to get his opinion on if we should take her in or not.  Once he saw it he said we should definitely take her in because the cut crossed the lip line.  He even said we should go the ER and not to Instacare because it would need to be stitched by a skilled doctor to not have scarring issues in the future. He even suggested we have a plastic surgeon do it.

Ah, crap.

Adam and I just looked at each other not sure how we were going to break the news to Korinne.  She was absolutely beside herself pacing all around and crying.  Finally I just said, "Korinne, we need to take you in, but they will give you medicine to help you feel calmer so it will be just fine."  Apparently that was the right thing to say. She took great comfort in the fact that they would give her something to calm her down.  Adam took her in and while she didn't end up needing any "special medicine" and was quite brave, just knowing it was an option saw her through the crisis.  She received 6 stitches.  The Doctor (bless his heart) told her she was more brave than a lot of adults he has worked on which really made her beam with pride.  She has enjoyed telling everyone how brave she was. 



Korinne with her 6 lip stitches

 

The stitches will come out after 1 week and hopefully there won't be a lot of scarring.

 

 

 Korinne gives me this look a lot.  She is 7 going on 20.

 

This is her first year mowing the lawn.

So far, she is really enjoying it. :-)

If you have ever held Jameson it doesn't take you long to realize he is a strong kid.  He just is.  At his 18 month appt the Pediatrician was trying to examine him and commented, "Wow. He's strong." And when she examined his abdomen she said, " Oh, he is pure muscle here."  Yeah, I know.  Ask me about it every time I change his diaper or try and get him in his car seat when he's not in the mood to be there.  We had to take our barstools out of our kitchen because Jameson kept climbing up and using them to get into everything.  Now if he wants to see something on the counter he just grabs onto the side of the counter and pulls himself up to get a good look.  Adam got a quick shot of him mid pull-up with his phone.  He does it all of the time and he gets his head right up above the counter top.  What 18 month old kid can do pull ups like this??

 

When he is done seeing what's on the countertop he'll just hold himself up like this for fun. You can see him laughing.

Jameson is a ham.  His facial expressions are hilarious and he is a big tease. Adam took a few shots with his phone while he was hamming it up.

We had him evaluated for an early intervention speech therapy program this week.  While he talks baby gibberish constantly he isn't using words and since his biological brother that we met had some real speech issues we decided to be proactive about it instead of waiting until he gets even further behind.  The lady that came and tested him just laughed at how he was such a tease and so animated.  She even said, "Oh I hope he qualifies so I can come out and work with him. He is so funny!"  When she was finished with everything it was determined that he was eligible to receive services. They have a few more evaluations before we start anything, but I'm hoping that we can get a jump on things so he won't be so frustrated about not being able to tell us what he wants.

Problem Solving

Problem: Korinne refuses to sleep in her room.  She's almost 8.  We've tried everything. What do we do?

This week we pulled out all the stops and moved around 3 bedrooms to try and find a solution to this 7 year problem.  We have asked Korinne a lot over the years why she won't sleep in her bed or stay in her room and have received many different answers. Lately it is because she can hear the wind and she is scared.  In theory it would be best for Korinne to share a room with Jenna, but if this were to happen we would not have a moment of peace in the house. Why? Let's just say they have very different standards when it comes to room cleanliness. Jenna loves to have a clean and perfectly organized room and Korinne will be the first to admit,"Yeah, I'm kind of messy. " And by "kind of" we mean "super-de-duper".

So, where has she been sleeping if she won't sleep in her room?  She has 2 locations of choice these days, Britton's bed (it's a full instead of a twin and usually has someone else in it so she isn't alone), and in our room on the floor.  Britton's room has a window facing a different direction so even on windy nights the sound is considerably reduced in his room because of it's location.  We finally decided that if she is going to sleep in Britton's room in the full bed we might as well make it her room and let Britton get his own room back in another location. Unfortunately switching the rooms straight across wasn't fair to Britton because Korinne was in the smallest room and Britton was in the biggest room. This is how Jameson's room came into the mix. We put Jameson in Korinne's old room and put Britton in Jameson's room and now everyone is happy. Making the change, however, took an entire day. Moving Britton and Jameson was easy, it was Korinne's room that took the most time. Going into it we  knew it was going to take awhile to get through all of her junk stuff.  The most commonly used phrase while cleaning her room was, "Oh, that's where that went! I wondered what happened to it." It was like the black hole of all things random. Seriously, this girl is a junk magnet.

We kept the bookshelf and all of the books in the room for Jameson and took every single toy to the basement so the only thing in Korinne's bedroom is her clothes and her bed.  Hopefully this will help with her junky pack rat ways. . . .hopefully.  She absolutely loves her new room and has slept there for the entire night the last 3 nights.  Boo-yah!

Korinne enjoying her very big bed

The boys hanging in the crib

Britton was a good sport about it all and really likes his new room. 

 

Problem solved, well, except for my lack of wall décor. One problem at a time, I guess.

 

It was all about soccer this week. Britton's team participated in the Cache Cup tournament and he had 3 games.  He scored a brilliant goal in one of them and was happy about that.  The coach was pleased with how they did at the tournament and brought the team pizza after the last game.

 

Britton is number 22

As if that wasn't enough soccer for the week Adam and Britton got to go watch the US National team play Cuba as part of the Gold Cup tournament.  The US beat Cuba 4-1 and they got to watch Landon Donovan and all of the other US soccer stars do their thing.

 

 



Last but not least I participated in the Cache Gran Fondo yesterday.  "Gran fondo" is Italian for "big ride" and  you could go either 100 or 50 miles. I didn't register for it initially, but one of my friends registered for the 50 mile ride and then couldn't do it so I took her spot. It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning.

Cecili, Annie and Me

It started at 6:30 am and I was home and showered before the kids even noticed I was gone. Around 11 a.m. Jenna came in and said, "Weren't you going on a ride today? When is that?" Um, yeah, I'm done.  Looks like they really missed me.

May the 4th be with you

Here we are getting ready for the July 4th parade to start at noon. NOON. Yeah, it was hot, but we had a great time.  It was the first time Grandma and Grandpa have been in town for our local parade, and the first time they have missed the Murray parade in many years.  We have found our local parade to be quirky and fun and the kids get a LOT of candy so we quite like it.

 

Even Grandma's umbrella is patriotic!



Jameson had no idea what was going on and when the first fire trucks came by his reaction was pretty funny.

 

 

He could not figure out why people were just sitting around on chairs looking at nothing.

But then candy started falling from the sky and we actually let him have it so before too long it became the best. day. ever.

 

Jameson enjoying a dum dum sucker.

 

Grandma tried to get a mid-parade picture with him, but he could see more candy being thrown out and was a little bit distracted.  We typically don't let him have a lot of sugar (you know, because he is plenty active without it) so it was quite surprising to him that we were willing to open anything he brought to us and let him have it.  By the end he was "drunk on sugar" and was twirling and smiling and laughing and dancing around. He fell asleep as soon as we put him in the car to go home. It was a fun and exhausting parade.

 

So, how much candy did Britton get?

 

 

 Wow. That's a lot of candy, folks. This doesn't even show all of the otter pops and the candy he ate before getting home.  He is the master candy gatherer. 

Jenna participated in a summer strings program for orchestra.  She went for an hour and a half each weekday for 2 weeks.  At the end they put on a concert for parents and I was pretty impressed with the difficulty level of the music.

Jenna's group at the parent recital

 

Jenna loved every minute of it.

Last summer I decided that I wanted to do a triathlon but when I started looking into what it would take to do one I was more than a little bit overwhelmed.  I knew nothing about swimming or biking and the one sport that I did know about, running, was also the one I wasn't going to be able to do a lot of because of old injuries.  I decided to make a plan and just go for it so last November I started taking swimming lessons from a tri coach that taught adults how to swim.  As a kid my Aunt Raylene taught me how to swim so I could swim across a pool just fine,  What I couldn't do was swim across a pool without stopping to catch my breath in the middle because I never felt like I could get enough air.  I soon realized it was going to take more than just 2 lessons to learn how to swim with good technique. I took my lessons until January and then spent the rest of the winter going swimming 2 to 3 times a week. I'm still not the strongest swimmer but I can swim 500 meters (20 laps) without stopping and that, my friends, is a HUGE improvement.

Biking.  The biggest obstacle with getting into biking is the start up cost.  By the time you get a bike, shoes and clips, a helmet, gloves, water bottle holders, water bottles,  bike shorts, a jersey, a flat tire kit and a pack to hold it on your bike, etc. you have already made quite an investment.  Now that I'm up and going and have great friends to ride with it has become my favorite sport by far.  I really love it.

Running.  I have done very little running. My philosophy is that if I'm swimming and biking and weight training I should be able to pound out 3 miles on race day.  With my IT band and other problems with my legs it's better to keep my running to a minimum.

Yesterday was the day of my first triathlon. It took me a long time to finally be ready, but I felt such a sense of accomplishment when I crossed the finish line.  I took on two sports I knew absolutely nothing about and made it happen.

It was a sprint triathlon so I swam 500 meters in the aquatic center pool, rode 12.5 miles on my bike, and then ran 3 miles.  I know I have a weird sense of what is considered "fun", but it was a lot of fun!  I already know it won't be my last triathlon.  You can imagine my surprise when I found out that I had finished 2nd in my age division and 10th overall.  It was a small triathlon (only 64 women) but to win a medal in my first triathlon was unexpected and kind of fun.

The other 2 women on the podium obviously knew each other and wanted a picture of them showing their "guns".  I felt pressure to put my arms up so I wouldn't look so silly in the picture, but who are we kidding? I still looked silly. Nothing like having a big shirt covering up my non-existent "guns".

Today was Jameson's first day of nursery at church.  Halleluiah!!  It was a year in the making and Adam and I BOTH enjoyed Sunday school and our other meetings for the first time in a long time.  Jameson did better than I thought he would so it looks like we may have a smooth transition after all. Woohoo!