Tyler needs an alarm clock

Tyler opened his bedroom door and started yelling his "please, please" at 6:15 this morning. I had to tell him to go back to bed and he ran into a corner of his room. I put him back into bed and as I was leaving he was half way off the bed. He didn't open his door again but at 7:15 when Lauren got up he was just standing in his room waiting.

We had cereal and toast, our usual breakfast on the weekdays. Lauren's favorite is a bowl of mixed cereal. It doesn't matter what it is but she needs two different kinds. Tyler doesn't really care but he will eat whatever cereal and milk with his hands. After breakfast Lauren went into her play kitchen and started baking up a storm. She made birthday cakes for all of us and we all sang Happy Birthday to each of us.

For lunch we went downtown to see Matt. We ate at the Rice Box which is next to Trader Joes. We had to pick up some ground beef (Matt chose ground beef for tacos even though we could have picked up ground tofurkey or some other cool ground meat substitute). Oh well, he was cooking.

Dinner was good. Lauren had a cheese burrito, followed by a cheese and tomato burrito and then to top it off she wanted a cheese, tomato and black olive burrito. She ate as much as I did. And afterwards on the way to the Y for my step class I realized that I should have stopped at 2 burritos. The whole family went to the Y and Matt did one of my workouts for the treadmill. I was pleased to hear that it was as hard for him as it is for me. When we picked up the kids in the childwatch Lauren wasn't too quick to come out. She was busy listening to a story and apparently had a good time.

When we got home the basement was already full of the poker crew ready to play the Monday night game. And that's where they are now. The kids went to bed quickly and I'm about to head up there now.

I hope you enjoyed our day which pretty much revolved around food. Tomorrow L has school and then in the evening she has her spring recital. That will be fun to watch.

Sorry no pics today. I took one of Tyler in one of his birthday outfits but it turned out too blurry to make out. G'night y'all.

"you're stinky, you need to take a shower"

Those were the last words I heard from Lauren when I tucked her in. Matt came down a minute later bragging that he got a special prayer from her. No fair. News to her though...I did shower today. I just didn't brush my teeth after eating dinner. Which was good, by the way. Panko breaded baked pork chops, sauteed peppers and creamy corn.

There's not much to say about today. I'm probably only posting because basketball has delayed Big Brother from starting on time. And as I've mentioned before I'm a BB addict. And I might add to all the fans (most likely only my mom and I) ...Oregon resident and floozy, Natalie (Gnat as the blogs call her) is still in it and will be for awhile it appears.

But anyway, we did our usual Sunday breakfast made by Matt, cereal (L's choice) and dippy eggs (my choice.) Then Matt worked on some welding project in the basement, the kids watched way too much tv and I got a 55 min. jog on the treadmill in followed by a shower...see I did shower today. After lunch we went to the new dirty Kroger (they remodeled but it's still full of aliens) and bought the weeks groceries. Matt and I argued about the worth of prosciutto. He thinks ham will suffice and I say the cured ham makes all the difference. Comments? opinions? He's thinking $$$ and I'm thinking taste and quality. While loading our groceries in the car we were approached by a man asking if we were from Oregon. (he saw my eye-sore of a front license plate.) Turns out he recently moved here from Lake Oswego. He even showed me his OR drivers license which he hasn't had changed yet. Small world.

Well I can hear the Big Brother music on the tv in the den so I better make my way in there. Here's a couple pics from tonight for your amusement. (notice the naturally g-rated bathtime pic I managed to take)

big boy bed

Today we took a side off of Tyler's crib. I'm so sad that my little baby is growing up. He took his first nap this afternoon and did just fine. We put a gate on the outside of his door since his room is so close to the stairs. I don't want him wandering around at night and accidentally falling down. During his nap I did a killer workout on the treadmill and then showered. After my shower he had his door opened and was saying "please" at the gate. Matt was napping on the sofa downstairs and so he didn't hear the poor guy's pleas. I guess he's going to be a little different than Lauren. If you remember she would sit in her bed and chit chat to herself until I came in her room and told her she could get up. The gate will come in handy.

Other than graduating my baby to big boy status we opted to not spend any money today. I napped while Matt and the kids dropped off recycling, and donated clothes and also stopped at the cleaners. It was a pretty boring rainy day. We did take some time out this evening for a bit of dessert. Even Thomas got some until Tyler realized how good the german chocolate cake was.

we're back

After school on Tuesday we loaded up the car and headed down to Jacksonville. Matt had a leadership conference to attend and the kids and I went to get some sun. Matt had a rough morning waiting for Lauren to finish up with school. Since he was home and it was out of the norm, Tyler wanted constant attention from only him. He whined pretty much the whole morning. Since there was nothing I could do I went downstairs and worked out and then took a shower. (I took complete advantage of Tyler wanting nothing to do with me...sorry Matt.) Finally it was time to get Lauren and begin our mini vacay.

After a very smooth trip the kids were very excited/wired when we got the hotel room. They ran around and played and played until around 10pm when they went to bed without any fuss. Tyler, for the first time, slept in his sleeping bag (sectioned off with an over-turned table) instead of his pak-n-play. And Lauren had a pull out sofa all to herself. We managed to get an executive suite at the Jacksonville Hyatt to give us some elbow room.

Wednesday Matt was at the conference all day and the kids and I explored all over the waterfront. I even got a jog in. We watched trains, chased birds and explored all over. We had lunch at a greek deli where the employees all spoke French and then headed back for a naps. (all of us.) For dinner we went to our favorite little Italian restaurant and then back to the hotel to play until around 10pm again.

Today Matt finished up with his conference and then we quickly packed to head home so he could attend a Sportsman's Dinner at the fairgrounds here in town. While he was at the dinner Dana came over and brought stuff to make chicken fajitas. It was a good dinner and the kids all played well together. Now Matt's back home from his dinner but went immediately to the basement to play a couple games of poker with the boys. He's going to be tired tomorrow!

That about catches y'all up. I uploaded the pics from our trip. I just replace them on my Flickr account since the free account only lets me keep 3 sets at a time. So the previous links in previous posts probably won't show the correct pictures. When I take more time I'll try and find a better way to display the groups of pictures that correspond to each post.

Anyway enjoy the pics from our mini vacation.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellentee/sets/72157604221863601/

Happy Birthday Tyler

***Tyler loves comments***
I thought I should update y'all on Tyler's birthday celebration. It was a day like any other until after Daddy came home. This morning we ran some errands and picked up Tyler's cake. On my way to pay I noticed they sold a Thomas the Train cake but it would have been too much for us to eat before our little trip to Jacksonville tomorrow.

And speaking of Thomas the Train...that was pretty much the theme of his birthday. He received 3 Thomas trains, a carrying case, a Thomas t-shirt, blanket and dvd. He also got a sleeping bag set, a couple of truck books, and some much needed clothes. By far the Thomas stuff was his favorite but boy did he sure need the clothes.

We finished up with birthday cake and were led in the Happy Birthday song by Lauren. I think Tyler really enjoyed himself and didn't really act too upset since he didn't get a big birthday party with all his friends.

Here's a link to all the recent pictures I took over the last few days.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellentee/sets/72157604221863601/

In other news... Matt had an appt with the dermatologist after work today. He had a couple of moles looked at and they took a biopsy of one on his chest. We'll find out if it's another spot of skin cancer but Matt's suspects so. He was instructed to watch another mole for any growth or changes too.

Happy Easter....all week

We've been pretty busy with all the Easter activities that I haven't been able to get a posting done. That'll be my excuse this time.

Thursday:
Lauren had her Easter party at school. I forgot to bring her Easter basket so she was a little upset but she got to borrow a basket they had at school. Festivities included an Easter egg hunt on the playground, a foam Easter egg craft and of course lots of snacks. Tyler was pretty grumpy and throwing tantrums the whole time because he wanted to stay and play on the playground.

**side note on Thursday: I saw a University of Oregon front license plate just like mine on another car! I tried to catch up with her but she turned before I could. Hopefully I'll see her again and ask if she went there or just jumped on the cool bandwagon that I started with my license plate. =)

Friday:
Easter continued at our playgroup today. We went to Abigail's house and her parents set up an Easter egg hunt in their yard. My camera was on the wrong setting so none of the pics turned out. Lauren and Tyler had fun finding the eggs and got lots of candy. After the hunt we went inside and the kids got to play more while Nicole, Claudine and myself (the mom's) talked. That night we colored Easter eggs and then we had Morgan come over to watch the kids while we went to Taco Mac to watch the Duck game. Not a happy ending for the Ducks but we were happy to get out of the house.

Saturday:
Yet another Easter egg hunt. This was at the church where Lauren goes to school. There were so many kids going for the eggs that Lauren only got 2 and Tyler got 1 egg. They did get some popcorn and cotton candy and Lauren even won a stuffed bear she calls "doggy." She's been taking it everywhere. So now her entourage is comprised of Cat Baby, Bella and "doggy". That night we went to Easter service at our church and then it was poker for Matt while I watched the movie Rendition.

Sunday:
Easter is finally here. I asked Lauren what Easter meant and she said finding eggs. I asked her what else it meant and she said "Jesus is alive". That will work for me. The kids got a lot of Easter presents. 2 Easter baskets with lots of candies and toys. Tyler got a big Thomas the Train (it's actually a carrying case but don't tell him). It's the size of a briefcase and he takes it everywhere. I got him up this morning and Daddy let him take it to bed...in his crib. After we exhausted our baskets we went to the park to enjoy the sunshine. That was about it for our Easter Sunday. During nap time Matt attempted some improvements on his mini-chopper. I'll let him talk about that in his own posting, ok Matt?!

Now that Easter is over...we move on to Tyler's birthday...TODAY!! Happy 2nd Birthday Mr. T. More to come as we'll be having our little family birthday party later tonight when Matt gets home from work.

rain and tears make one soggy day

***I love comments***
I woke up with the intentions of working out...well, actually I went to bed with the intentions of working out today. Since it stays dark until close to 8 o'clock the kids and I all slept in until...close to 8 o'clock. Since my step class started at 9:30 I decided we just wouldn't make it. One of these days I'm going to get serious again. In my defense, however, I have been pretty good about getting 30 min. of exercise a day either on the treadmill at home or walking around the neighborhood.

So instead of working out we just puttered around the house playing silly games and watching way too much Disney channel. (we all have one of those days don't we?) I did make the important discovery/decision at breakfast today while Tyler was eating his yogurt that he definitely is cleaner and more accurate with his left hand. He grabs the spoon with whatever hand he wants but right-handed he flips it over and sends it into his mouth upside down and eats whatever didn't fall off in the process. His left hand sends the food directly into his mouth without the unnecessary flip over. Time will tell if he truly is in his right mind like I am.

This afternoon, during a torrential downpour, Lauren had her 4 yr old check-up with the Dr. I tell you, it's a major hassle to get 2 kids, a stroller, a heavy diaper bag, and 2 umbrellas out of an SUV and across the river of a parking lot and into the office. We were all soaked but at least it was almost 70 degrees.

The fun part of Lauren's appointment was getting her measurements and passing her hearing and vision tests. During her hearing test she wore headphones and was instructed to say "beep" whenever she heard a beep. She was a little nervous and displayed this with attitude. Whenever she heard a beep she said "beep, hmph" Every time!! Even the nurse made a mention of it. I'm going to have to work with her about this attitude because she said "hmph" with a total scowl. When we had her raise her hand to the beep she did better. As for the vision test she stood a ways from a kiddie eye chart. They had pictures of circles, stars, flags and moons and such. She did great...calling a plus sign a cross and a moon a crescent. I was proud.

And her measurements...drumroll...Weight: 35lbs Height: 39inches Blood Pressure!! 88/149 Dr. J said she's right on the middle of the growth chart. Based on her growth over her 4 years he predicts she will be about 5'4". He's very surprised at this since both Matt and I are so tall. I told him I have a short aunt near the 5 foot mark (am I off by too much, Aunt Karen?) And Grammy (I hate to say it) isn't that tall herself...5'5", 5'6"?? Oh well, so she'll be petite and cute...

(sorry this is dragging on...I'm watching Survivor while I'm typing this)

And last but not least Lauren got 4 shots today. Don't tell her but this was my choice. I could have spaced them out over 3 years but I opted to get them all over with today. Now she won't need anymore shots until she's 10. She cried and cried and Tyler cried too since this appointment was in the middle of their nap. At least the rain had stopped by the time we left.



Back at home I made a dish from my new Indian cookbook. It was called Pork Kheema but I used ground chicken instead because it was cheaper. It was delicious and very very spicy. I gave the kids a small serving and Tyler even tried it but I could tell it was a little too warm for him. He only had a couple bites. They loved the melted peanut butter dip for their flat bread though.

After dinner we went straight to bath and got ready for bed. Tyler actually fell asleep on my lap while I was reading our 3 bedtime stories. And after all of it both kids were in bed by 7:15. And now it's probably time for me to concentrate on Survivor and soon Big Brother. (I should go to meetings....My name is Christine and I'm a reality tv show addict.)