Kidzu

I have been trying to find some cheap/free things for us to do. I found that there was a free children's museum, well free on Sundays. So we took the kids, they had a great time, and now every time we mention museum, she asks if we are going to the kids museum, I guess we are going to have to go back. I hope it stays free on Sundays, because I don't know if I would pay for it, I know it is only $4, but that adds up after a while with 2 kids! It was a basically a large open space with a couple areas the kids could play in.
Our little construction worker, safety first!

Well, except when you are using a screwdriver, you don't need goggles for that.

Nate kept wandering around couldn't decide what he wanted to do, stay in one place for a little while and then wander on, they had a "tot spot", for the under 2 crowd and in there a specific place where you could put "tasted" toys. Nate offered up several tasted toys.

Here Gwen & I are working on a puzzle, Nate is looking at the outside of the tot spot.

Nate, trying to help out his sister...

I don't think she wanted his help...

I don't know what is going on here, probably just spotting something else he wants to taste in the kitchen.

Utensils! I never get to play with these!

OOHH! A chair...

have I mentioned I was making dinner the other day and I turned around and he was standing on a chair in the middle of the kitchen? I was like, what! When did this happen?

Gwen really enjoyed the play kitchen area, she made us all kinds of stuff, actually I think this is where she started and ended her time and she would have stayed in there forever had Eric and I not been so exhausted and wanting to go home!

The kids had fun but I am not sure it would have been worth the $12 for all of us to go (Nate is free until next year). So, maybe we will go back some Sunday in the near future. It isn't that far away.

Today...

was one of those days that had a very weird vibe. We are trying to put the kids in the same room, but we picked a really bad time! Gwen and Nate both have colds, I think. So Nate is getting up in the middle of the night, kind of cranky, not super fun. Nate's hand is looking better, we went back to the Dr on Friday, he gave us a topical cream to put on it and Eric thinks it is looking better, I am not happy with how slow I feel like it is healing. We are going to Gwen's 3 year appointment tomorrow, she turned 37 months today, so I am only a month behind; we are going to see the same Dr who originally saw Nate's hand. Today, Nate slept until 8:30, which is really bizarre and throws off the entire schedule for the day.
Today we walked down to the movie store to return a movie Eric rented, it is like a mile from the house, I went about 10am so we didn't get home until 11:30, (we also stopped by the grocery store to pick up more milk.) Nate was pretty ticked by then. So I put him down for a nap. I am not real sure he went down, Gwen and I watched Sesame Street and then I noticed she was warm, really warm. I took her temp...100.3 it made her ANGRY and she started crying. I had to calm her down and she just wanted to be carried, but it was time for lunch and Nate was awake. So I made us some lunch, which she hardly touched and made her go down for a nap, telling her we would watch a movie if she stayed in the room. Thankfully she did nap and Nate and I played and I was finally able to start some laundry! Then I put Nate down, and then Gwen woke up. I started making yogurt, again. We talked to Mom and then the power went off. Of course by then it was dinner time and really, staying in the house with 2 feisty, snot nosed kids and a hungry family trying to figure out what non-cooking thing we could make, oh did I mention that the previous owners had a think set up in the house that when the power went off beeped periodically to let you know it was out!? Yep, out to dinner we went!
Kids are now in bed (separate rooms!) and the power is back on, everyone is fed, bathed and happy? I hope tomorrow doesn't bring any drama! I did have a nice chat with the neighbor who gave me a run down on some local plants/nursery and more importantly info about her blueberry bushes! If only I could remember what species she has, hopefully it will be one of those see/remember things! Have a good night!

Backlog, star date May 2009!

These pictures are from the day after the other pictures, apparently Nate was just walking...Eric was outside working, we had just water the "grass" we had planted and Nate, being the crazy kid that he is, just stood there in the water and got soaked, he loved it!
The kids had the best time playing in the playhouse. Nate was really enjoying being able to go in and out and i think Gwen enjoyed having him to play with in the house. They still really both enjoy that thing.

Making us up some dinner on the stove.

Nate found the back escape hatch!

Hi everyone!

Gwen has on one of my old bathing suits, because she was using it as a sling for her baby, feeding it and such. I don't know why she uses my old bathing suits, but she loves to use them for that purpose...have I mentioned her imagination yet?

By far the best activity of the house, being able to see each other and close the other one it, hours, ok minutes of entertainment, but they will do it over and over each time they get out there to that thing, in and out, open and close!

Hi again!

Me and my Dad, do we look alike?

We are still having a problem determining who Nate looks like...it appears to be pretty obvious that Gwen is a mini-me (to everyone but me of course), but in this picture it actually looks like Nate has Eric's nose! Huh, he might actually be one of ours...I mean the only person in this family that can really claim him is my Grandpa, blue eyes and blond hair!

the backlog to end all backlogs!

I have a bunch of pictures that will hopefully be posted of the next couple of days that will end my HUGE backlog of pictures...

These pictures are from the end of May, this is what happens when you let an overtired girl play outside with Daddy!

Do you see how dirty her face is!?

Here is a video we took:

None of my videos appear to be working, so I guess I am going to find a new hosting site or something.

Blueberries!

As I mentioned last year, I love the blueberries! I realized a little too late that they have pick your own blueberry fields around here. So we found that the there was one farm still open, we went this weekend. I felt the blueberries were very picked over so we only ended up with 3.5 lbs...Not what I was hoping for, but the kids seemed to enjoy it, for a while. Eric seemed to not enjoy watching the kids while I picked.
We put the kids to work in the beginning, of course. Here we are getting ready to show Nate what we were doing.

Nate, starting to realize what was going on...

Before this trip, Nate not so fond of the blueberries, but I am sad to report he now likes them pretty good. (sad because I now have to share my blueberries with 2 kids!)

Gwen & Nate chatting it up in the blueberry trees/bushes.

See how Nate is eying up my blueberry pail...we probably would have ended up with 4lbs if those 2 kids didn't eat so much!

Gwen has become quite obsessive about the map, when I pull it out she must look at it.

Telling Daddio where to go...

I made a blueberry pie yesterday, we all shared some.

We have a strict no shirt policy for blueberries!

I am beginning to wonder why we allow Nate to wear a shirt during dinner at all, learning to eat is a messy business.

Since this is Nate's first blueberry pie experience we took lots of pictures! He says "mo, mo", which I am going to translate to "more, more". (oh and we missed you Uncle Eric...just not the same without you!)

YOGURT!

As I mentioned here, I made yogurt, based on the recipe here. It is surprisingly easy. Yes it takes a long time, but that is not hands on time, so that is great. It was great fun to wake up in the morning and see a thickened mass of yogurt. So cool! I used a Greek yogurt starter and I found out, me not so fond of Greek yogurt. I used whole milk, and I have been adding a little bit of honey to it for me, but I don't think the kids care. Well, now that Gwen has tasted it with honey, she really likes it. Nate, well, I can't spoon it into his mouth fast enough, as you can tell by these pictures!

Gwen told Eric that it was "not bad". The way she was gobbling it down I don't think she thinks it was not bad!

I added peach to the yogurt, that is pretty good, tomorrow we are going to try strawberry, yum! Maybe in 7-10 days I will try my hand at low-fat yogurt...

Last hand update

I tried to take some more pictures of Nate's hand just to document it. And really, its interesting to me, I don't know if you care...
This picture was taken last night, actually, when I downloaded I think you can tell that his left hand is swollen, see no wrist!
When I pulled out the camera you notice who demanded to have her picture taken.

Here are some pictures after 2 doses of antibiotic, 1 dose of benadryl.

His hand is much improved tonight, less red and less swelling, it has started to leave the fingers. I swear there will be a more interesting post tomorrow!

Oh, and one more picture of Gwen, this one of her napping. We went to the neighbor's to update on Nate's hand. She had a complete fit when we left and when we came home I told her to go to her room and did some stuff for maybe 15 minutes when I went back to check on her, this is what I found...

Hand update

The swelling appears to be going down. Nate is a little cranky, but nap schedules are off, so between the hand the new tooth and the medication, he seems to be getting frustrated rather quickly, but I think he is on the mend! YAY!

Hand

I don't know if you can tell how terrible his hand looks, seriously, terrible! I think you can see the redness, but let me tell you his hand is usually not as thick as his arm and if you look closely you can see that part of his fingers are swollen. Poor little guy. We were going to pick up his meds.

Swelling

We are currently in a state of craziness. I feel like I need to find a place for the dry erase board so I can keep track of Nate's medicines...What you say? Why is Nate on medicines (plural!) Yesterday I noticed his hand was red and swollen. He didn't seem much bothered by it, so I called my Mom (it was after 5) sadly she was at Happy Hour with her friends and didn't hear her cell. (HI MOM!) Have I mentioned we don't have Dr's here yet? And, we are currently on Cobra from Eric's old job, so I don't really know what his plan will be for the new job, and didn't want to hassle with getting a Dr to find the new plan doesn't like that Dr! So, I have procrastinated, so unlike me. LOL! ;)
Oh yes, back the swollen hand. Of course, I don't know why the hand is swelling, I assume it is from a bug bite, but I notice a brown spot in the hand so I call a Dr's office here, but not thinking I tell her we are not a patient so she told me I had to do some stuff before I they can give me advice. I then called the nurse from the old practice, who tells me basically not to worry about it, if after 4 days he is still swollen, then he needs to be seen. I do nothing, since well, that is the kind of Mom I am, its time for dinner, Eric isn't home yet. So we start eating dinner.
Eric gets home, we talk about the hand, he wants to start giving meds, its not bothering Nate in the least and it doesn't appear to be swelling anymore, I think its best not to overreact and not give drugs when they are not needed. But, I decided to appease Eric and ask the opinion of the Mom of 6 kids across the street...(her husband is a radiologist and I think he thought I wanted his opinion, but I really wanted hers, how can he help me!? He's not a pediatrician!) The neighbor and husband think not to worry, but maybe give tylenol to see if that helps any, and they send me home with some. So we give Nate some Tylenol and put him to bed.
Today, we get up and the hand appears to have swollen a little more, but that brown spot on his hand, really his wrist, seems to be bigger and now I notice that it is bumpy and has a little drop of clear liquid on that area, oh and it is hard to the touch. This is when I think he needs to be seen, so I call our nurse from our insurance. After about 30 min of questioning she thinks he needs to be seen, she recommends urgent care. I decide to go through the rigmarole of the getting a patient ID and seeing the peditrician I have heard about. (Urgent care with 2 children 1 coming up on naptime, no thank you!) The Dr's office has an appt available before naptime and in 30min, so we rush over there and get him seen. The office was nice, the people where nice and I liked that the floors in the exam room where linoleum instead of carpet! The Dr suspects it is a bug bite, but he is having an allergic reaction and that it is possibly infected. She wants me to keep a careful eye on it because an infection in someone so young can move pretty quickly. If it looks worse tomorrow he has to be seen and if it doesn't start looking better by Friday he has to be seen. Blech! Sadly, he has to be on antibiotics 4/day and benadryl every 6hrs. Talk about figuring out a schedule. The antibiotics are every 4 hrs and benadryl every 6! Fortunately I don't have to wake him up for either.
Did I mention he also got in a bottom molar, and the hand he chews on for that is the swollen hand. Plus when we got home from dr's office picking up meds, Gwen kindly hit him with the car door so now his head also has a swollen bump! Lovely! I know how to party. Also, the meds say can cause headache or dizziness how am I supposed to figure that out? Hopefully he doesn't have any adverse reactions, I think this is the first time either of my kids has had antibiotics. Oh and the little man is up to 23.5lbs! Almost 1lb from his 12 month, although they weigh the kids fully clothed. And the hand swelling has not appeared to affect him adversely, read: he is still getting into everything!

Unwinding

Some people like to drink wine, some people like to drink beer and some people don't like to drink. But apparently around here we like to let our kids play with empty alcoholic containers...
These pictures were taken several weeks ago right after we got the second truck of stuff. Eric apparently picked up the empty beer can somewhere Nate could reach it. Have I mentioned Nate loves to carry stuff around when he walks?

I don't really know what Gwen was doing there, but I guess it was bedtime when these were taken.

Yep, loves him some beer!

*no children actually consumed alcoholic beverages for this post. (although they probably would have if the bottle was full and we weren't paying attention!)

New

Moving here to NC has meant a lot of changes, some of them I prepared for some of them have taken me by surprise. I am struggling to find a Church. I never even considered this in the move, a Catholic Church is a Catholic Church, as long as it is in the Roman sect. And true basically these Churches are exactly the same in what we do, but the feeling of it is different. Today we went to this Church. I have never been to a Church where I have been a minority, but I tell you I enjoyed it more than I have the last couple weeks. I have hesitated to go to this Church because I knew that I would be a minority and didn't know what to expect of the people. But, no one looked at us funny as we walked in, so that was great. One aspect to me that I can't handle is bad singing and I did not have any of that today. The songs I had never heard before, but they were very well done and I had no idea that there was a different hymnal. I also noticed that everyone was dressed very nicely, no shorts to be seen. The whole family came to Church today, but Nate didn't last long before Eric offered to take him out, and we were in the cry room! He just can't sit still, yet, unless it involves eating! The only problem with this Church is the time, they only have the one Mass on Sunday and it is entirely too late for me, plus being the one service it was 1.5hrs, too long for the 3 year old.
The other Churches I have gone to are not bad, they just don't give me a welcoming feeling and I am a little freaked out that they Baptize the baby like full on put in the water (not under the water dunking) but the one Church sat the newborns in the Baptismal font and poured water over them. The other Church held the baby by her legs are arms and dunked that way. I am just not used to that. Although I have a suspicion that all Churches here Baptize that way because all 4 Churches I went to had the same looking "holy water fountains".
I guess I will continue to try out Churches and times until I find the one that I like, with times convenient for our family. And, maybe once school starts the "summer vacation" aspect of the Churches will be over and the Churches will have more things that we can do and get involved in to meet people.

Next up, today I make yogurt!

Things around here are starting to get into a routine. I don't know if it is good or bad, but it is a routine nonetheless. We have most of the boxes taken care of, although there are somethings I am missing, that I would like to find, but they aren't emergencies. The house isn't too bad and we love having the yard. Gwen seems to not want to leave the house, which is strange, she used to always want to go places. We have been watching Sesame Street, but we have run out of taped episodes (we are not getting cable and haven't purchased an antenna yet.) The other day we met some Moms at a local museum that has free entrance for Durham residents during certain times. It was packed, but we all really enjoyed it, I think we will go back on the free days, there was a lot to see that we missed! The funny thing was Nate attached himself to a little girl who was not much younger then him (a month) and kept trying to kiss her. Seriously, so funny, that boy, trouble! The Mom and I just laughed, the little girl likes her own personal space, I have heard her freak out when other kids are too close, so she must like Nate ok. I didn't get a chance to take any pictures.
In other news, I have some weight to lose, no surprise there...we all know I didn't lose the weight after Gwen and I have 5 lbs to lose from Nate. My problem is that the normal "easy" fixes that people talk about, I already do. I don't drink sodas, I exercise, I hardly sit down during the day, but I do probably eat more than I should. It is the quantity of food that I eat is probably the problem. Plus, Gwen wants to eat CONSTANTLY, I am not kidding, it seems like at least every hour she is trying to get me to feed her. Any time I try to eat a piece of fruit it gets confiscated by a kid. So my fruit/vegetable count is hard to judge.
Both kids took naps yesterday afternoon, it was lovely, not just because they napped, but because I think they really needed it and are now more caught up, so there has been less whining and crankiness. YAY! I have given up and making Nate do 1 nap, we will just suffer through the 2 nap thing until he is ready to give it up one of his naps on his own. I just have to be more vigilant about the schedule. Oh, I have forgotten to mention, Nate has been getting in his molars. Sadly, I did not notice, all the moving I thought he was being cranky because of that, oops! Mother of the year, right here. ;) I know, we have had a lot going on. So, he has his top 2 molars completely in, his bottom 2 we are still waiting on. I hope when the finish coming in he will start eating a variety of foods again!