February 2012: Week 4

One of these days, I'll catch up to the present. Slow and steady wins, right? If you're wondering where the rest of week 3 went, well, it has been lost to the back recesses of my mind. I do, however, have two photos to prove that I was on the planet in some fashion:




Sunday of Week 4, we had our dates with the kids. We took off from church to take each of the kids to lunch. I had Everest with me, and we hit up KFC, his favorite place. (It's combined with an A&W.) After lunch, Everest was lucky enough to accompany me to the grocery store. He was actually quite helpful too.




Since it was pretty late by time we got back from the store and put everything away, I took Julie out after Everest went to bed. We stopped by a store to which she had a $5 birthday certificate, then had dinner at Chipotle. We walked over to the movie theater afterwards to see The Muppets. She loved it!




Monday there was no school due to President's Day. Julie helped Everest build a "shield of faith" like the one she'd made in Sunday school the day before. They are going through the armor of God (see the book of Ephesians) and creating a new piece each week.




I'm not entirely sure what happened specifically on Tuesday, but we definitely made it to the gym and also to my mom's store for lunch, as evidenced by the following images:



Wednesday of that week, Everest received a very special package in the mail: his first big set of real Lego bricks! He's had the bigger ones (Duplo, I think they're called) for awhile, and we even got him a small Lego kit once, but this was the real deal.





The rest of the week until Saturday is completely lost to me. Though apparently we had hot chocolate one afternoon. Good Heavens. How would I remember anything without my camera?

February 2012: Week 3

Now we on to the week starting with February 12.

That Sunday, we were scheduled to serve in Julie's class at church, and I took my turn so Heath could do preschool later in the month. The lesson was on the Heart House. (Not sure if this is something only our church does or if it is well known in kids ministry.)



The gist is that we allow Jesus into our hearts to "run the house," but sometimes we allow bad people inside (e.g. Mr. Mean, Mr. Selfish, etc.). Jesus is the only one who can kick them out. Something really clicked for Julie, and later for Everest. I wrote an article about it for the church's online magazine.

We did dates with the kids after church, each of us taking them out to lunch, then to another special place. Everest and I ended up at KFC and the new bookstore, where we did the exchange of kids after awhile.




Julie and I went to World Market to wander a bit. She'd been there before a long time ago, but not recently. We had a fun time looking at all the imported candies and foods. I found some items (Vegemite and Marmite) that reminded me of my friend Linda, who was a world traveler as a missionary and exposed to all kinds of different international foods.




Monday, I have no recollection whatsoever of the day. How bad is that? But the kids must have made a fort or something because I have this picture:



Tuesday was Valentine's Day. Everest had a party at school, which I attended. I didn't have any of the ice cream sundaes because we headed to the gym afterwards. But it's always fun to go to his class and see him interact with his classmates. In that second image, Everest's art is the one with the figures on the far right.





After we picked up Julie from the bus stop, we went to the little Korean market near our house to get wonton wrappers. I have been promising to make the kids some cream cheese wontons at home, but we could never find the wrappers at the regular grocery store. They definitely them at this market though--along with quite a few other interesting items.




After Heath got home from work that night, I went to Chili's to pick up our Valentine's dinner. We watched a few episodes of Breaking Bad and ate our dinner, but otherwise, it was pretty uneventful. Ah well. I guess we have celebrated enough V-days that it has ceased to be a big deal. :oops:

3 Days in January: Arts & Cats

Tuesday, January 17, 2012
It was frosty out that morning, but I made it in to the church office anyway after taking the kids to school. After working my hours at the church and coming home, I spent some time designing the cover for the Inkaholics 007 book, which was long overdue for completion.



Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Julie had recently picked up a how-to drawing book from the library that featured lots of cartoon animals. She had a great time that night drawing and practicing all the little characters. With some practice, she could get to be really good for her age!




Thursday, January 19, 2012
We stopped by the new bookstore after getting Julie from the bus stop. George Wilikers was there as usual, being cute and frisky.




I love that bookstore. It's so cozy and inviting. I think I'll be stopping by there tomorrow to get some work done.

End of the Week Rush

We have a friend coming in from out of town on Saturday and staying for a week, so I had better get this blog caught up! With guests and normal busyness, I'm apt to lose the next seven days in the whirlwind.

Wednesday, I had to take the morning and afternoon to handle all kinds of stuff for Everest. Kindergarten registration was in the morning at the school, so I headed out solo to fill out the 10-page application to get Everest enrolled.

We had one last thing to do to complete the registration, and that was finishing Everest's immunizations. He had a couple more shots to get done. Sad! I made an appointment for him for later in the morning. The nurse was very nice, but Everest still got really upset. :o( Thankfully, my iPod was a nice distraction afterward.



Thursday, I went to Panera to meet Legolas and work on the church magazine for the morning. I'd finished by time Julie got home from school, and it was time to head over to the church to print. Printing took a strangely long time because I kept having to change toner cartridges.

Once the final sheet was folded, we zoomed over to Chick-fil-A to pick up dinner before the collating meeting. The kids were really good there. Julie even helped with the stapling. She was very productive!



Friday was spent answering emails primarily, and getting my next young writers groups dates and times pinned down. I really wanted to make it to the gym, but it didn't work out timewise. Oh well. We picked up Julie after school and went to the grocery store to get that out of the way.

Sadly, the kids were antsy and tired and just plain worn out in general, which equates to their misbehaving at the store. We survived though, and on the drive home, they decided that they were going to unload the groceries for me. They did a fine job of it, and not even the bread got smashed. :o)

I made a special dinner of Alice Springs Chicken for Heath--delicious! It's chicken with a honey Dijon mustard sauce, topped with bacon, cheese, sauteed mushrooms. NOM NOM. The kids were silly and wanted to eat their Lunchables for dinner. Ha! Everest did end up having half a chicken breast though, and he liked it a lot.



After the kids went to bed, I got started on majorly straightening up the house. Julie came down because she couldn't sleep and helped me make coffee cake and lunch sandwiches for next week. We also worked on transferring all the important info from the 2011 calendar into the 2012 one. Now we can use it--wahoo!



Well, it has somehow gotten to be almost 3:00 a.m., and we've got a busy day tomorrow. I should probably get into bed. Of course, there's currently a little sleepy-eyed, bedheaded boy stretched out on my side. He came in a few hours ago, very, very tired-looking. I had him get into my bed, and he was asleep within 15 seconds. Literally.

Parting Shot
This is Everest's "famous guy," as we like to call him. It's the same stick figure that he draws every time he draws a stick figure. So cute!

Now this is vacation

Thursday, my workout plans were fully thwarted by the weather. The car had had trouble getting both up and down the hill during a sunny afternoon the day before, and I wasn't about to risk an accident in the cold, snowy weather to do it again. Though I really, really wanted that workout, I more wanted to avoid car damage (mine or anyone else's) and hassle.

When I awoke, Heath had already been up and left with Julie to run errands. Everest crawled into bed with me, and we hung out in the morning, having breakfast together and doing some games and drawing. It was really nice to just be relaxed together.




Heath came back with Julie, bearing all the monthly supplies shopping stuff. I helped him get everything put away, and the kids watched episodes of Kipper together. Heath eventually laid down for a nap, and I got a few things done on the computer and hung out with the kids. They worked on some crafts and Christmas presents, then Heath was gone to go rock climbing.

We relaxed for the rest of the evening by watching Liberty's Kids, a really interesting animated series about American history. Julie is absolutely loving it! I managed to get up the motivation to get all the laundry folded, which was a bonus.

Heath and I got to have a stay-at-home date after he came home because class was canceled tonight due to the weather. It was so nice to just relax all day in the warmth of the house. It was probably the most vacation-like day I have had since vacation started!

Tomorrow's going to be a busy one, so I had better get some rest while I can.

Parting Shot
Four of the kids from my writers groups gave me Christmas gifts this year. SO sweet! Their notes to me were very encouraging. This is a piece of the Panera Holiday Bread and a coffee mug given to me by two of the boys.

Best laid plans...averted

Wednesday morning, I was determined to take an actual sick day. After Heath took the kids to school, I had some breakfast and coffee and set my mind on taking a nap before I had pick up Everest. Then I started thinking about how much the bathrooms really need to be disinfected after my being sick. And how the trash needed to be taken out. And the dishes put away. Soon, I had my mind set on doing chores all day even if I had to cough through them all.

Then I got the call. "This is Everest's preschool. He's okay, but we have you down as bringing snack today."

Aaagh. I wrote it on the calendar wrong apparently. Thankfully, we already had the stuff, so I just packed it up, got dressed, and headed to the school. By the time I got there at 9:15, I figured I might as well stay because I would just have to turn around and come back in an hour anyway.

This proved to be a fabulous idea! Everest was thrilled beyond belief that I was there, and I was able to help the teachers with organizing folders for parent-teacher conferences. It was neat to see Everest in his element. And since he brought the snack, he got to be the class helper by cleaning the tables, setting up snack, picking the song to sing, etc. It was fun!





We decided to go visit my mom at her store for lunch after school. On the way, we passed by this power plant or relay station. We've passed by it many times before, but this time Everest asked me to take a picture. He calls it a "wire castle," which I thought was a very good observation.



Everest helped my mom with some of the cooking. She made chicken wings (Everest's fave), cheese wontons, and Thai noodle soup (for me). Everything was so delicious! I'm so lucky to access to such great Thai cuisine.



When we got home, I had high hopes of taking a nap with Everest. Unfortunately, he wasn't in the mood to nap at all, so I ended up just being extremely drowsy while laying down with him to sleep. Eventually, I had him play in his room while I laid in my room to rest for 40 minutes. Then it was time to get Julie.

Once she was home and had finished her homework, I tried to rest again while the kids watched a movie downstairs. I think I may have dozed for 15 minutes before I realized I really needed to get started on dinner.

My original plan was to make grilled chicken salads, but all of our lettuce froze in the fridge. :-P So much for that. Plan B was to make use of the cabbage I'd purchased on the last grocery shopping trip. I ended up making a sort of twist on a traditional Russian/German immigrant dish. It's basically ground beef, cabbage, and some other veggies, cooked up, then encased in a bread exterior. I used crescent rolls that I pinched together for the bread dough. They were absolutely delicious if I may say so myself.



The kids played in the back for a bit while we got the kitchen cleaned up. Then it was time for showers and bedtime. Heath fell asleep with Everest while Julie took her shower. She had written me a poem while Everest was showering, and I was supposed to write one back. I didn't take a picture of my poem, but I did get hers. :o)




We played some iPod games for awhile before she finally went to her own bed. I got a long shower for myself, and have been answering emails, IMing, and trying to get this blog written. Now it's time for bed because this is the last chance I'll have to get some extra sleep today. I'm taking it!