Blythe's bug

So Blythe is feeling better now, thank goodness. I think yesterday her fever got up to at least 104 degrees. Seems high, but that girl seems to always get really high fevers every time she is sick. In fact I can't remember a time she has been sick with less than a 103 degree fever. Because it was so high though, we were pretty worried about her last night. Plus she didn't seem to be breathing all that well while she was sleeping. We debated waking her up and bringing her into our room but I figured we'd eventually fall asleep and wouldn't be able to hear her if she was laying right next to us anyway. Probably a good thing we didn't bring her in our room because we might have ended up with vomit in our bed. Instead Blythe came into our room at 2am because she had just vomited all through the hallway. So exciting since my favorite 2am activity is cleaning carpets.

So after that she got to sleep with us. And so I got a little bit of sleep. She slept in and woke up with a mild fever. She felt well enough to go with Daddy to work so I could get some work done, then we switched at lunchtime. You would think after all that she'd be tired enough to nap, but no. So for the 2nd day in a row she watched "Over the Hedge" during my 4 o'clock meeting.

So anyway, she's feeling fine now and hopefully wakes up fine so she can go to school tomorrow and we can all move on with our lives!

7 year anniversary

Monday was Braden and my 7 year anniversary. How time has flown! Especially since having kids...getting so caught up in the day to day care of them. Usually we don't do much on our anniversary. Get each other cards and go out to eat usually. But Braden being the sneaky (and perfect) husband that he is, went a step up this year. I was all proud of myself because I actually remembered to buy a card at least a day before our anniversary and in the meantime Braden had made a hotel reservation for us at a local hotel and arranged for our babysitter to come over and stay the night with the kiddos. So at this point I'm no longer so proud of myself. But I was very surprised and happy about how on the ball Braden was.

He made a reservation at the Main Street Inn in Blacksburg, which is a new boutique hotel in downtown. That way we could go out and drink and not have to drive. So we had a nice dinner at Poor Billy's and then out for drinks at Boudreaux's. We were back at the hotel by 10:00 and were exhausted so enjoyed sleeping in the big king bed with luxurious bedding. We were a little bummed we missed the finale of The Bachelorette, but it wasn't exactly the night to be watching TV.

So anyway, I have the perfect husband and he gets more and more perfect everyday. Still going strong after 7 years!

Back to the grind yesterday and today and got the dreaded day care call today that Blythe was sick with a 103 degree fever. Needless to say, not feeling so well. Which means she'll be home tomorrow too. Bummer.

Weekend in Durham

We headed down to Durham last Thursday to spend the weekend with Doug and Lynette. Braden was coaching and recruiting at a meet near their house, so we decided to make it a family trip. Although it was quite a long trip there due to multiple potty breaks, the kids did great in the car. Once we got there, we pretty much got into a routine of hanging out in the morning and then spending a few hours at the pool until Ethan was just too tired to stay any longer. The first day we were all able to go to the pool (I took the picture so not in the photo):

The second day both Lynette and Braden had to work so it was just me, Doug, and the kids. We got a look of weird looks and people saying, "wow, you have your hands full" before I realized it certainly appeared we were husband and wife with our 3 kids (2 of which would be 11 months apart). Yikes! Anyway, we had a good time again at the pool. Both of mine LOVED going down the slide over and over again. Blythe could actually do it all on her own start to finish, including getting to the side at the bottom despite the strong current.

On Friday night we headed into downtown Durham for a few drinks and dinner for the kids. They had a live band playing too and Ethan and Blythe had a great time dancing and, since it was outdoors and people brought pets, they had a great time petting all the different dogs!

Blythe has recently started telling little white lies, which she took to an even higher level on this trip. I think I have a compulsive liar on my hands. On Saturday she said she wanted to jump off the diving board so I took her over there, she waited in line, walked out to the end then said she didn't want to and got off. I tried convincing her to do it, but she wouldn't. Later when she saw Braden, the first thing she said to him was, "Daddy! I jumped off the diving board! Feet first!" So she even added details. Then last night she was reading a new book of Ada's that had a cover on it. She can't stand those covers, so she took it off and started to crumple it up before I stopped her saying Lynette might not want it crumpled. Then she took the book and the cover and brought it into Ada's room to give to Doug and told him, "Ethan took the cover off." Liar. Last example was this morning. The kids and I got up first and went downstairs to play and be less loud than being upstairs with everyone sleeping. A little while later Doug, Lynette, and Ada came down and Lynette started fixing waffles. She asked who all wanted them and I said we all did. Doug was surprised because he thought we already ate. Apparently Blythe told him, "I already ate breakfast. I had cereal."

Don't let this sweet, innocent face fool you.

Blythe is 3 and half

So I give an update each month on Ethan (okay, well I forgot last month), but don't give updates on Blythe's status. Today she is 3 and a half. That's pretty significant, I mean that half a year is 1/7 of her life. That's like me aging 3 years. Okay 4. Okay more than 4. Geez.

Anyway, here's some tidbits about Blythe:

• She can talk (I know...pretty amazing, huh?). Actually, I mean there aren't too many words she can't say. She says "sunscream" instead of "sunscreen" and still says "gwail" instead of "girl", but overall she can pronounce most words
• She can swim about half the length of the pool. Possibly more if she was forced to. She has another round of swim lessons this week which didn't go too well yesterday and probably won't today either because it's FREAKING COLD in July! WTF? I'm so ticked off at the rainy and cold June and July we have had (and May too). I digress...
• She has most of her fine motor skills down. Sometimes she still needs help getting her clothes on or off. Like last night when she tried to put on her nightgown. She tried and tried, but kept getting stuck. So she asked for help and I told her she did it the night before so asked why she was having trouble. She said, "My strong muscles ran out of batteries"
• My house would be covered in Disney princess stickers if I didn't put my foot down and make her confine it to her room. So instead it's just her books, play kitchen, dresser, and who knows what else.
• She can write her name and various other letters (not used in her first name) from the alphabet. They just might not be legible to the general public.
• Most of the time she remembers to say "please" and "thank you"
• She's quite social and almost flirty with boys. Makes me scared.
• She is a great big sister. She and Ethan play more and more these days.
• She can be a great helper when she wants to be. Other times she is plagued by selective hearing disorder.
• She loves her sleep. She will sleep about 11 hours at night and takes naps every day at daycare. On weekends she tends to take a nap one of the days and the other day "play quietly" in her room for 2 hours.
• She's still a very picky eater, but has gotten much better. She will now eat meat (and not just chicken nuggets) and will usually at least try everything on her plate. I think it may have more to do with understanding ultimatums.
• She still loves to be held, hugged, kissed and says "Mommy (or Daddy) - I love you" all the time. Oh how I will miss that when she gets older.

Le artiste

Here is the picture Blythe drew of Daddy:

Pretty good, huh? I probably didn't even have to tell you who it was. Actually, it's significant because as far as I know, it's the first real picture she's ever drawn. I mean there are countless pages of squiggles and shapes and the infinite number of art projects at school, but on this particular one she actually took a blank page and used her creativity to make it something recognizable. And poor Daddy is sick this weekend, so he probably is pale and green.

And here's a cute picture of Ethan from yesterday:

This was taken before we went to the playground and he decided to do a somersault down the slide giving himself a fat and bloody lip. And of course, I looked like the careless mom who let her child do that.

Blythe's tribute to Anna's tribute

I showed Blythe my cousin Amy's blog the other day, "My Tribute to the King of Pop" in which her daughter, Anna, shakes her booty like no other 3 year old I've ever seen. Supposedly she said Anna learned those moves from watching Dancing With the Stars, but I think Amy really taught them to her. I mean, Amy was a cheerleader for several years back in the day.



Anyway, as soon as Blythe saw it, she wanted me to film her dancing as well. And we had to pull out the blue yoga mat to make it as identical to Anna as possible. But try as she may, she cannot shake her booty like Anna can. Here is her meager attempt. And I chose a Michael Jackson song too because, well, he's the king.

Holy Hornets Nest, Batman!

So you would have thought Braden or I would have noticed the giant hornets nest just above our garage considering how many times we drive in and out each day (and how much the kids play right under it)!

It's about the size of a human head!

Let's get a close up of that sucker:

Yikes!

I finally noticed it today as I was driving in after picking the kids up from day care. So we didn't play outside. When Braden got home, I showed him and then he called a pest control service. The guy was here in 10 minutes to take a look. He did say that judging by how many hornets were working on it, they probably built it in less than a week (so at least we weren't completely oblivious for a really long time). And he said in about 3 days it would be probably 4 times that size. Holy crap!

So he's coming back just after dusk tonight (should be very soon now) because he says they all come back "home" after the sun goes down. He'll spray it with some high powered chemical solution. And then run! Actually, he didn't say he'd run, but I think I would! And that'll set us back $95.00. Stupid hornets.

Claytor Lake

Our family and the Freel family headed out to Claytor Lake yesterday. It's 30 minutes away and though we've lived here 5 years, last year was the first year we'd ever been. It's a beautiful lake and a really nice state park, where they have a marina, a few playgrounds, a beach and swim area (with dock and diving board). Last year we rented a motor boat and did some tubing and skiing and wakeboarding. We waited too long to this year to call for boat reservations, but we were still able to go out and enjoy the nice day on the beach.

Our kids didn't really get much of a beach vacation at Hilton Head, so they had a great time making sand castles and getting really sandy. And I personally would rather swim in a lake than the ocean any day of the week. We also brought a picnic lunch that we were able to eat at the beach. You had to be quick and grab what you wanted to eat before those sandy handed kids got a hold of it. Otherwise, everything had a crunchy, grainy texture. Mmmm. The kids got a hold of the cheese puffs bag right away and the sandy Cheetos didn't seem to bother Ethan as he crammed at least 5 or 6 in his mouth.

After a nap for Ethan (and no nap for Blythe - she just fooled us into thinking she was taking a nap until she decided to walk into Ethan's room then walk out and slam the door behind her thus waking him up earlier than expected), then we ate dinner and went to pick blackberries. There are TONS of wild blackberry bushes in our neighborhood and the neighborhood across the street. I think the combination of lots of rain and probably less deer around has made them grow like crazy. And they are delicious! Especially on ice cream...mmmm...

Blythe loves them and ate lots. Ethan won't even attempt to swallow one. So that's a little weird (that Blythe will eat something that Ethan won't). Unfortunately we found out the hard way that eating too many blackberries causes upset stomachs in little girls. I'll spare you the details.

I'm big time now

Look at my cool new 22" widescreen computer monitor.

It's ginormous.

What's even cooler is the box it came in....

I got it because Braden brought back an older computer my dad had (that actually used to be ours) so I could again try to set up a computer for the kids. All he brought back was the PC itself and a keyboard though (not even a power cord...apparently it was lost). So I got a power cord on ebay for $4.90, I bought a new mouse (for myself since my other one was crap and belongs on a kids computer anyway), the new monitor seen above, and a computer game for Blythe. Everything got here only 2 days after I ordered it. Amazing.

So I was very excited because I'm a computer dork. And Blythe immediately pulled the game out of the box and wanted to play it. I told her I just needed to set up the computer and then she could play. As easy as plugging in the mouse, keyboard, and monitor and starting it up. Yeah right.

Here we go again with the crappy old computers that apparently are more likely to break sitting on a shelf than they are being used on a daily basis. Won't recognize the operating system and just keeps restarting. I tried everything I could find online to fix it, but without a recovery CD, there's not much else I can do. Oh, I guess there are things I could do with it. Like make another computer smashing video....

Anyhoo, we went to Home Depot today to get the supplies for our next project that will likely take 6 times as long as it's supposed to...a new kitchen faucet. Seems easy enough. Mwahahaha.

And while we were out and about, we hit up Old Navy so Blythe could pal around with her mannequin family.

Big sales at Walmart

I know the economy is bad and everyone's trying to save pennies where they can, but seriously?

As Ethan was trying to get a hold of the hamburger buns so he could squish them and Blythe was gathering things she felt we "needed", I was able to maneuver a camera phone shot of this stupid sign. Wow! What a sale!

Actually Blythe and Ethan were pretty good in Walmart. I only had to switch out the hamburger buns once after he squished them and I only had to tell Blythe twice not to open the cookies in the cart.

Blythe was very cute tonight as I was putting Ethan down to bed. They almost always kiss each other good night and Ethan says "Bye Bye" to Blythe, so they did their normal routine. Then as I was reading Ethan a book, Blythe came in and said she had forgotten to give Ethan a hug, so she hugged him and left. Then a bit later she came in and said she forgot to tell Ethan "I love you", so she told him she loved him and then left again. Then a bit later she said she forgot to give Ethan an Eskimo kiss. So she touched her nose to his and then left again. After that she didn't come back. I guess she ran out of ideas and ran out of time.

July 4th week/end

I know it's been a while since I was on here blogging. I had to take a last minute trip to New Jersey last week on Monday to a client up there. New Jersey is most definitely not my favorite place to go, but this time I had a colleague that went with me and we stayed just on the other side of the river from Manhattan, so 2 of the nights we went into New York City. And I had never been before.

The first night we walked down to Times Square and zigzagged around trying to find a restaurant. Our problem was that there are too many restaurants, so when we saw one we might like, there was always the wonder about what else there was available. Finally we were just too hungry to keep walking so we settled. It was good, but damn, it's expensive to go out to eat in NYC. Anyway, we walked off our dinner calories by browsing the M&M store. 3 stories of walls covered with M&M's.

I bought nothing though (it was a good thing I was really full at that time!).

Then we walked back to the train and marveled at the fact that there were lawn chairs in the middle of Times Square (the streets were closed). Apparently it's something new for the summer.

Anyway, the second night we headed to Little Italy for dinner, which again there were too many choices. But with Italian food, you really can't go wrong. Then we hit up the H&M store (oh how I missed it since moving from Chicago). I had never shopped for kids clothes there since I didn't have kids in Chicago. They were so cute! I bought 4 things for $15 and then we headed back.

So on Thursday I flew into Charlotte since we were planning on going to my parents for the 4th anyway. Braden drove the kids, the dogs, and 2 of our friends from Blacksburg and their nephew down on Thursday and met me there. The guys got their chance to play golf and we hit up the pool with the kiddos. Ethan tried out the arm floaties (which are "illegal" aka not Coast Guard approved anymore) and loved them. He loved being able to swim on his own. We'll try them out at our pool next time and see if the lifeguards say anything. At first Blythe wouldn't go down the big slide and then once she finally did, she never stopped. People were amazed that she would go down by herself with no flotation devices on and we would tell them that 2 weeks ago she wouldn't even put her face in the water. And then we would tell them that her dad is a swim coach and they'd be like, "oh, wow. no wonder." when in reality that makes no difference at all since she listens to about 0% of the instruction we give her in the water.

On the 4th, my friend Emily came up from Charlotte and Doug and Ada drove down from Durham and we all went out on a pontoon boat on Badin Lake. We did some tubing, some swimming, some sightseeing and then at night we watched the fireworks. My kids actually made it through all of the fireworks, and didn't go to bed until 10:30, which is incredibly late for them! Which made me optimistic that they might sleep in, but alas, they were up at 7:15 like normal. I can't win. Ever.

Braden stayed at my parents (he's doing some recruiting down there tomorrow) and I drove the rest of the crew back. We had short naps in the car and then no more napping once we were home. Ugh! It was raining, so the last thing I wanted to do was drag 2 overtired children in the rain to the grocery store, so instead we hit up McDonalds. And Blythe was stylin there.

Too bad she forgot her giant oversized sunglasses that she was wearing later. She would have looked like a total movie star.

Ethan's first haircut

I took the kids to SuperCuts yesterday, which isn't SuperCheap, but I took Blythe there for her first haircut and they fill out a nice "first haircut" certificate with some of the hair for the baby book, so I figured we'd go there for Ethan's first haircut experience. We tried to get him in the chair first, but he wasn't having it. So Blythe went first to show him how easy it is (not that she's an old pro - since it was only her 3rd haircut). Then after that he was okay with sitting in the chair too.

Blythe brought him cars to play with while sitting in the chair.

And even with Ethan turning his head this way and that, the stylist managed to give him a cute little boy haircut.

A doggy dilemma

I took my dogs to the vet the other day for their routine annual visit. You know, just like a rabies shot, kennel cough vaccine, and an exam to make sure they're all good. I walked out of there $465 poorer. Mostly because I had to get heartworm prevention and flea/tick prevention. But seriously? $465 on dogs? I can think of many many things I'd like to buy with that $465.

And it doesn't stop there.

Juni, our lab, is abnormal in that she doesn't like to chew. Well, she did when she was a puppy (thus the huge bill we had to replace the carpet in a house we rented due to chewing a big hole in the middle of the living room carpet). But nowadays she won't chew at all, no rawhides, not even a big nice ham bone. What this means is that she has terrible teeth. She's 5 years old and they are very bad, so she needs to get them cleaned. Which means general anesthesia, which of course equates to dollars.

Okay, simple enough. Pay money so Juni can get her teeth cleaned. But actually, not that simple. You see, this year in her exam they discovered a heart murmur. A level 2 on a scale of 6. So not bad, just something to watch out for. But they won't give her anesthesia for teeth cleaning unless she has an echo cardiogram by a vet cardiologist.

So fortunately Virginia Tech has a vet school, so a vet cardiologist is right here in town. But I'll have to shell out a few hundred for the echo cardiogram, which I'm sure will show that her heart is doing okay and that she can get her teeth cleaned. Either that, I guess, or they'll say she can't get anesthesia in which case she can't get her teeth cleaned and will add on another health risk. I'm not exactly seeing the silver lining here.

The thing is, we all like Juni more than Bogie (good thing dogs can't read blogs) and I've never really envisioned a world where we had only Bogie and no Juni. So I'd like to do what I can to prevent that. If only money grew on trees...

RIP Michael Jackson

If only I had pictures to scan from my sister's Thriller birthday party she had when she was 6 or 7 and she and I looked so cool in our knee socks (pulled up to our knees of course. In Texas. Because it's so cold in the summer you need fabric covering the lower half of your leg.) and velcro shoes, and really short shorts. We were the coolest. And my sister was the BIGGEST Michael Jackson fan all growing up. If I had to hear one more thing about Michael's monkey Bubbles, I was going to lose it! She always had posters of him in her room and pretty much knew everything about him. And that was before internet, so it wasn't exactly easy to obtain the information.

Or if I had a video of the dance my brother and I made up (along with our friends) to the song "Black and White", except not only was it a dance video, it was actually a whole new song named "Dumb or Smart". I still know some of the lyrics. If only....

Then you might know how cool I really was back in the day.

Alas, my children will never really know the awesomeness of Michael Jackson, but they will certainly hear his music. I still love listening to his songs. I think I burned a Michael Jackson CD in college, and it was the first CD I had ever burned. Pretty sure I downloaded the songs off of Napster, before it was illegal to "share" songs. Ah the memories...

We will miss you Michael Jackson.

Goodbye 20's...hello 30's!

Well, as I'm writing this, I'm enjoying my last 10 minutes of my twenty-somethings. I thought it was official at 1:15pm today, but then I realized I was born in CENTRAL time. Ha! I bought myself a whole other hour. Nothing fancy today...woke up to Ethan talking in bed earlier than I wanted to, changed a poopy diaper, got the kids up and ready for school, took the dogs for a walk, started work, went to step aerobics at lunchtime, and now I'm writing my blog. So far, a great day! Not as great as my weekend though!

What I thought was happening last weekend was that my parents and sister were coming in town so they could babysit while Braden and I went out to eat. I thought Doug and Ada were coming in town Friday night, basically because Lynette was shooting a wedding on Saturday so Doug had nothing better to do :) So I figured we'd hit up the pool on Saturday, grill out Saturday night and call it a weekend. But Braden had done well and made secret plans. Doug magically showed up earlier than expected and as I was getting ready for dinner, so was everyone else and then 2 of our regular babysitters showed up. So we all went out to eat, and at dinner my great friends Emily and Amy joined us. A really nice surprise! We had a VERY nice dinner then hit up a local bar for some drinks afterward. Emily had also gotten to the dinner early to decorate a bit and my parents gave me a gorgeous "I'm 30" baseball cap. You're so jealous...

Oh shucks, and as of right now I am officially 30. Well, cheers to hopefully a great decade!

Anyhoo, the next day we did hit up the pool. My other great friends (Blythe's godparents) Sue and Richard were supposed to surprise me at the pool, but Emily let it slip before they got there. Oops! Oh well, still great surprise to have them come in town!

Ethan, Blythe, and Ada had a good time swimming in the pool and were all pretty exhausted afterward.

So while they napped, we got out the Dairy Queen Blizzard ice cream cake (so we didn't have to share with them).

Mmm....mmm. So good, I ate the leftovers for dinner last night :) Braden said that Target didn't have a "0" and Walmart didn't have a "3", too bad he didn't look in our drawer at home as we already had both!

I opened my gifts and my family did quite well in their choice of gifts (since I'm a hard person to shop for...hey, at least I admit it). They gave me large canvas photos of 2 of the great pics Lynette took at the beach. I think I'm going to hang them in my office (at home) so I can see them all day long!

We grilled out, drank wine, played some games, and then called it a night. Great day!

Sunday was Father's Day, so to celebrate we let the oldest father here (my dad) pay for lunch :) Thanks Dad! It was a beautiful day, so we ate out where we could sit outside and enjoy. Later that afternoon, everyone left and Braden started swim camp. The kids napped and I enjoyed reading a magazine outside. Ahh - blissful.

Blythe also started swim lessons (again) yesterday, which go for 4 straight days, so we'll head back there this evening. The first one didn't go so well, but afterwards she was swimming by herself again (so far this summer she had yet to). So Emily - hopefully she'll be doing still on July 4th so you will owe her whatever it was you promised her (ice cream?).