Good News Yesterday!

Grandpa Clement called me yesterday afternoon to tell me that Tigger had been found! Poor little guy had gotten stuck in the vent 'well' right next to the sliding glass door at Grandpa's. I don't know if he was stuck there the whole 3 days or not, but thankfully Grandpa found him before it was too late. He fished him out and set him down in the house and Tigger raced straight for the food. I'm so glad he is safe and sound!

Fun then Sad

Today I had fun playing with the Middleton boys. I got to watch the boys for a few hours this afternoon as Wendy and her sister went to a concert in Seattle for her sister's birthday. The boys were complete dolls! Once everyone left and after nap time Mason decided I was his best buddy! While I was there we played with monster trucks and play dough and matched the fridge magnet ABCs to the ABC rug and just had an all around good time! Evan was a little sweetheart too, what a happy little munchkin. He'd be sitting there playing with his toys and after a while I noticed that he'd turned himself around, very discreetly and while still sitting! They both loved having me sing to them. I hope I get to play with the boys again soon!

This evening I received some very sad news. Dad stopped by Grandpa's on his way home from work and learned while he was there that Tigger is missing. Grandpa had been letting Tigger go outside (the cat that is PETRIFIED of life itself) and he's been gone for a couple of days now. Grandpa's sure that someone's adopted him. Dad and I suspect that he went somewhere to die as he had been looking quite frail lately. So, so sad!

Busy, Busy

I'm happy to report that I did 'catch a break' with my broken tooth (pun intended) of a few days ago! My awesome dentist Tyler Bauer recommended that although substantial, if it were him, he'd have the tooth filled rather than use a crown. So that's what he did. Only a few hundred dollars rather than a few thousand!

I've been keeping myself busy getting ready for the baby shower that I'm hosting for Lindsey on March 29th. I'm having a lot of fun with it, especially since she's having a girl! Won't be posting any pictures until after the 28th when she and Thomas arrive because in the mean time it's super secret squirrel stuff!! The diaper cake is done, party favors are about half done. Briana helped me get started on everything before she moved, so I've had a head start. I'm trying to work on it a little at a time so I don't feel stressed and rushed when we get close to the actual date. I'm pretty sure I'm making way too many party favors, but people aren't very good about RSVPing these days, so I'd rather be safe than sorry.

This weekend I've had fun making some St. Patrick's Day cupcakes for my Seminary class. St. Patrick's day was yesterday and normally I would have taken the treat on Friday, but one of my students signed up to bring treats Friday, so I didn't see anything wrong with a treat on Monday too! In fact, this will be 6 days in a row of Seminary treats! Last week on Tuesday through Thursday was standardized testing at school. The freshmen and sophomores attended school at the regular time and juniors and seniors got to sleep in AND we changed to daylight savings time last weekend, it was dark again and we were tired. So I told the kids we'd have a week of treats to compensate and we did! It wasn't anything too fabulous, but the kids seemed to appreciate it and I had the opportunity to incorporate the treat as an object lesson on one day!

It looks like we're going to be adopting soon. A puppy that is. My friend Denise Gum and her husband Gordon adopted a black lab about a month ago. They didn't realize that she was pregnant. The puppies will be two weeks old tomorrow. We are planning on adopting a boy as I've researched online it seems like that will cause the least amount of problems for Abby to adjust. It's been very quiet around here since the Pascual's moved to Texas, so we're hopeful that a puppy will help fill the void for all of us including Abby! She's acted pretty lonely and dejected since her little boys have been gone. I'm a little anxious about what exactly we're getting ourselves into. The last puppy we adopted was Abby about 10 years ago and I think it's like child-birth, God makes it so that, in time, you forget so you'll be willing to go through it again! lol

Just Can't Seem to Catch a Break!

Wow, will all of 2012 be crappy?! I was chewing on a sucker this afternoon when all of a sudden I felt something else hard and sharp in my mouth. It seems that I broke one of my back teeth! When I called the dentist's office for an appointment I thought that, although substantial, I hadn't broken the tooth down to the nerve, so they gave me the next available regular appointment which is Thursday morning. As the day progressed I was proven wrong. I have sensitivity to air, cold and heat. I bought a temporary dental filling repair kit this evening. I'm not in constant pain, so will call the dentist in the morning to see if they're OK with me using it, or if I should just try to 'tough it out'. GRRRR!!

Weekend Getaway

Darvin and I are spending the weekend in Seattle. Northwest School of Massage has a free Partner/Thai Stretching Workshop that we'll be attending this afternoon. Our chiropractor highly recommends any stretching exercises for Darvin in particular. This is a 2 hour workshop that's 'hands on'. They welcome cameras to take pictures of any stretches that are particularly effective. This is great since so much material was presented at their couples massage workshop that it kind of became an overload of information!

We're staying at a Ramada Limited in Seatac. We ate Safeway chinese food and ice cream for dinner last night. Our hotel room has a fridge and microwave, so we have some leftovers we can enjoy later this weekend too!

I've been really sick this week with major congestion in my chest, throat and ears. The airplane trip home Tuesday was horrible with my ears hurting tremendously on each take off and landing. I've been doing a lot of sleeping/resting to try to shake it! Drinking lots of water to loosen up the congestion. I was still feeling pretty bad on Thursday, but have felt better and better each day. Poor Darvin has to listen to my 'barking'. I've coughed so much that I have a chronic sore throat and headache! I was able to sleep through the night last night without using any NyQuil, although I guess I started coughing sometime early this morning, waking Darvin up. Thankfully, he was able to go back to sleep.

Now back from the workshop. It was GREAT! Darvin said he felt great afterward. Unfortunately I tweaked my back trying to do one of the stretching moves on him. Hopefully it won't bother me for long as we need to keep doing the stretching exercises regularly. It seems like the stretching may have helped loosen up my congestion even more, hooray!No Darvin's not praying to an idol god, just practicing one of the stretching moves at the hotel after the workshop!

Harder Than I Ever Imagined!

This separation from our little boys has been harder than I could have ever imagined! So quiet around the house, too quiet...so much empty space...Darvin and I got on Skype with Briana and the boys this afternoon. Alex really enjoyed chatting with us. As we were talking Briana said he kept heading to the door of their apartment saying, "Go see Nana and Pops!"








After we got off Skype I got the following text from Briana, "Alex is now screaming. GO HOME! over and over again". Little man, Nana and Pops desperately want you to come home too!!

My heart is breaking into little pieces all over again...

Broken Hearted

One of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life was tell all my sweet grand babies goodbye before I returned home to Yakima from Dallas.

Had a wonderful long family weekend. After the Saturday birthday all day celebration we had a family dinner at Ashley and Justin's on Sunday. It was a wonderful trip, but so hard to leave all those grand babies!

Family Birthday Day!

Today was a day to celebrate birthdays! We started with a combined birthday party for Jackson and Erin at Nana and Papa Chatwin's. Erin, Karlee, Jackson, Bryn and I were late! We were running behind schedule anyway and then we had to stop at Walmart so I could get a battery charger for my camera. I also picked up a last minute gift for Erin and Jackson. Poor Erin was out in the car waiting for me with a screaming baby. Little Bryn has had more 'car seating' in the last 3 days than she wants to. So she's started protesting anytime she gets stuck in her car seat! Anyway, we arrived for the 11 a.m. party around noon! Russ mentioned afterward that his Mom was planning on having us eat around noon anyway, so it made us feel a little better. The get together was a lot of fun. So awesome to have all the little cousins together. They range in age from 5 months to 2 years 7 months and there are 6 little ones and Karlee who'll be 13 in June. From our family Erin, Russ, Karlee, Jackson and Bryn, Ashley and Justin, Briana, Ivan, Alex and Emmett and me. From Russ's family, Joni & Lynn, Rob, Rashahn and Rylie, Chris, Brandt and their little foster son. So it was quite a house full. Joni made yummy lasagna with garlic bread and salad and delicious chocolate mousse pie.
Erin made a super cute train cake for Jackson.

After lunch Erin and Jackson opened presents. Wow! What a haul! Jackson loved opening his presents.
Alex had a bit of a hard time watching his cousin open his presents without getting 'involved' in the fun! But I was really proud of him because he tried very hard to control himself. Finally Joni took him upstairs to the play room so he could have some toys to play with and he was a happy camper. Jackson currently enjoys trains and monster trucks and his Pops and Poppa both picked out winner presents as Jackson's two favorite presents were his Vintage Grave Digger from Pops and Thomas the Train from Poppa!
Emmett enjoyed getting to know 'Uncle Rob', or was he just totally intrigued by Rob's facial hair?

After cleaning up, some of us got a little nap, then headed to Erin's home to get ready for the 'other side of the family' get together. I made potato burritos for Erin and Ashley and a giant heart shaped sugar cookie for Grandma Larkin to celebrate her birthday.
She and Vicki came over as well as Bethany, Ashley and Justin and Briana, Ivan, Alex and Emmett. Everyone was somewhat tired, but Jackson was hilarious with his dancing antics.

I'm pretty sure he kept moving because he was afraid if he held still he'd fall asleep! Margaret was going to come over with some of her family, but I didn't see a message from her until after the night was over saying that she was having car problems. I texted her around 11 p.m. and apparently they were just finally getting home! Poor Margaret.


After Vicki, Grandma and the Pascual's left we played a game Erin received for her birthday called "The Game of Things"

It Was a Beautiful Day at the Dallas Zoo Today and Travel Log

It was a perfect day to go to the zoo in Dallas today. Thanks to Ashley for inviting us! Ashley, Erin and I took Bryn, Jackson, Emmett & Alex. The weather was perfect, a little cooler than the day before which was nice since we were pushing double strollers up and down hills! We got to see penguins and elephants and gorillas and chimpanzees and exotic birds and all kinds of fun animals. Alex and Jackson enjoyed the petting zoo.Actually Alex enjoyed kicking up dirt and straw at the petting zoo more than the joy of petting the animals (pure boy for sure!).A highlight of the trip was when we were at the giraffe enclosure. You can buy lettuce for $5 and then feed it to the giraffes. They're training the giraffes to come over to the 'feeding station' to eat. So one of the zookeepers was at the feeding station calling the giraffes by name trying to get them over to the station. I was holding Alex up where he could be on eye level with the giraffes and we were standing right by the zookeeper as he was feeding the giraffes and when he had one last piece of lettuce he handed it to Alex to feed the giraffe that was about ready to mosey away. Imagine Alex's delight when that giraffe stuck out his long tongue and wrapped it around the lettuce that Alex was holding! I just wish I could have done a 'freeze frame' so that we could have gotten a picture. When we were done with our visit and loading the kids up in the car, Alex's response when asked about his favorite part of the zoo, "Giraffe!"

I drove home with Erin, Jackson and Bryn. Poor little Bryn was starving to death on the way home! Erin pumps and then bottle feeds her because Bryn was swallowing too much air when she was breast-feeding which would give her miserable gas. For some reason she doesn't have the same issue when she drinks from a bottle. So Erin took her breast pump with us to the zoo. Unfortunately, this was the first time she'd tried using the pump utilizing battery power and the darn thing wouldn't work!! So baby Bryn was certain that she was going to waste away to nothing! We stopped and Erin breastfed her for a while on the way home, which bought us a little time but then BAM the hungry tummy came back. And sweet little Jackson had missed his nap because we were at the zoo during his normal nap time, so he had a bit of a breakdown himself! Poor little people!

I must NOT forget to mention that Emmett is no longer a two tooth little munchkin! He graduated to four, count them 1-2-3-FOUR teeth today!! Poor little guy has been miserably trying to pop those teeth through for WEEKS! I don't know how his little swollen gums survived for so long! I'm pretty certain that he has two more that will be popping through quite soon.

Alex has been on antibiotics for an ear infection for about a week. Briana checked his ear today and it looks like it is getting worse rather than better, he also seems to have bronchitis or croup!

A few comments for the 'travel log'! Briana, Alex, Emmett and I were supposed to catch a flight out of Seattle this past Wednesday at 12:45 p.m. The plan was for us to load the car the night before and then depart from Yakima as soon as I was done teaching Seminary (7:15 a.m.) giving us about 3 1/2 hours to travel to the airport. Tuesday night I checked the Snoqualmie Pass weather and there was a winter storm alert. GREAT, I thought! I was pretty concerned about whether or not we'd arrive in time...When I got up the next morning I got online right away and the first facebook post was one of the Seminary students from our building telling us that we could celebrate a happy leap year day by having a 2 hour snow delay. At our building when the school has a late start then Seminary is cancelled. Which was very nice because there was STILL the winter storm alert! So I got Briana up to get ready and we were able to load the car and head out of town by 6:30 a.m. As we drove it became apparent that the weather wasn't as bad as reported thankfully!! So we arrived in plenty of time to stop at Target to pick up some things for the trip. We had a park n fly at one of the hotels near the airport, so arrived there and made it to the airport about 2 hours before our plane was scheduled to depart. This was nice since we had 2 checked bags, 5 carry-on bags, 2 car seats, 2 kidlets and 2 adults! Briana rented 2 of the baggage carts and I still wasn't absolutely certain that we'd get it all in the airport intact! ;^) Here's a picture of JUST the kids and our carry-on bags:The boys were absolute troopers on the trip. They had a difficult time with take offs and landings. Emmett especially had a hard time on the flight from Seattle to Los Angeles, the sucker didn't help! When they finally turned off the fasten seatbelt sign and Briana was able to get up with him he settled down with her as she held him in the back of the plane. Alex's ears were really bothering him so he was quite fussy at take off and landing. Fortunately about 10 minutes before we landed in Los Angeles he fell asleep, so he had a little bit of relief. While we were waiting for our connecting flight in Los Angeles an older gentleman befriended Alex showing an interest in his monster trucks and giving Alex a tool 'catalog' to read. He was on our flight to Dallas and made it a point to find Alex on the flight to tease him a little bit! Mommy and the boys getting ready to fly.