Sprinkler Fun!

Big announcement folks - It's finally summer in Seattle!!

Jack received a darling bug sprinkler for his birthday, and since he's not walking yet, we decided to let Brooke give it a try this afternoon. The temps were in the high 80's and she couldn't wait to take a test drive. After over an hour of fun, I had to drag my pruned-up, shivering girl into the house. A few tears were shed. That's the most fun Brooke has had in a while.

2 Little Piggies

These two adorable pigtails took 3 years to grow so I thought we better spread the news! And as a throwback to my own childhood, check out the Saltwater Sandals. Ah, the memories.

A little discouraged

I know this is probably wussy to say, but after 3 weeks of working out HARD five days a week (I mean really working it - sweating and sore, 30-40 minutes on the elliptical plus weight lifting)... shouldn't I have lost just one pound? The scale has not budged. I know you gain some weight first when you weight lift so if a friend said this to me, I'd say keep it up, it will pay off soon... but I'm not feeling the optimism right now. Off to the gym I go, again. I really want to see some results soon!

Nightly check-in

I have to confess. I really adore my bedtime ritual of checking on my kids before I go to sleep. They are both such dynamos all day, except for Jack's single nap (he never took two naps, neither did Brooke, who gave up her nap at 20 months of age). They also took about 8 months each to sleep through the night, so my heart still skips a beat seeing them sleeping deeply, blissfully dreaming away.

Just now, Jack had his leg thrown over his stuffed orca whale (his first birthday present, bought at the aquarium on his birthday, and it's almost as big as he is). Brooke was sprawled out on her back, pillow cast aside, breathing deeply. It fills me with tingly, heart-throbbing love and affection to see my sweet babies so still and relaxed and comfortable in their beds.

My latest project and Gym Characters

My parents are throwing a baby shower for a co-worker of my dad's, so my mom asked me to make a diaper cake. She knows that I like to do this kind of creative project... so I went all out and had a blast! What do you think? How much could I sell one of these for on eBay?


On another note, I have had a lot of time to observe people at the gym lately since I've been going 5 days a week. Today I increased my time on the elliptical from 30 minutes to 40 minutes so I had even more time to observe people. I get a real kick out of the characters at the gym. Those of you who go to a gym know what I mean. One of the things I love about my gym (24 Hour Fitness) is that it's not a showcase for hardbodies by any means. The membership is made up of all kinds of different people, different body types, ages, races, etc. I always feel like I fit in there because it seems like every "type" is represented and everyone is there to work out and do their own thing. Some of my favorite types that I've seen lately:

• The senior citizen wearing sneakers that, I kid you not, have to be as old as I am (and that's old!) I imagine him rummaging through the bowels of his closet after joining the gym, thinking to himself "I know I've got an old pair in here somewhere... no sense in spending good money on a new pair when these will work just fine."
• The middle-aged woman I saw today who was sporting an authentic Jane Fonda style leotard, paired with a huge pair of black baggy sweat pants and a pair of ratty, big, unlaced black Reebok high-tops that just look like they smell bad. She had this hilarious hair that was dyed bright red and back combed so it stuck out all over, she had 80's style big black plastic hoop earrings and a plastic bead necklace, and she spent at least 15 minutes getting ready to work out. She fiddled with her iPod (encased in gold sparkly sleeve), filled up her water bottle (pink, Race for the Cure logo), sought out the remote so she could change the channel on the nearest TV to CNBC (must have a lot of stocks to keep up with!) By the time she started, at a very leisurely pace, I was already half way done with my routine. Then, ten minutes later, a gentleman about her age came in and climbed onto the elliptical next to her and she chatted him up. I felt sorry for him.
• The 20-something who had a braid down past her bottom and low-rider sweats, rolled down to the middle of her hips, and dropped a full cup of lemonade and ice on the treadmill and the hysterical look on her face as it rode the treadmill at running speed and then flew off the back and all over the place. She was mortified. Yes, she cleaned it up.
• The elderly woman who always walks on the treadmill in jeans. Not that there's anything wrong with that but it does seem a little weird...
• The tiny dynamo with 2% body fat who stripped naked in the sink & mirror part of the locker room (which I consider one of the "Clothed" areas - there are naked areas, by the lockers and by the showers, but not where you wash your hands!) and threw ALL of her clothes into the sink and washed them out at a feverish pace with hand soap. Then, she left them to soak while she whisked off to the shower. Some people surprise me at how comfortable they are zipping around strangers and going about their business all while completely naked.

I'm sure tomorrow I'll see some more characters to add to my list.

Our Trip to the Dairy Farm

My good friend Marie came up from Portland for a visit this weekend. We had pedicures and lunch out on Saturday, and when Jack woke up from his nap, we packed up the whole family and Marie in the Family Truckster and headed out to the country. Marie has a friend who runs a dairy farm with her husband about 45 minutes from our house, and she had invited us to come for a visit. We had a fantastic time! We had no idea our visit would be so fun and educational. Leann and Mike are two of the most gracious people I've ever met - they took 2 hours out of their day to show us around the dairy farm and explain how everything works. We asked a LOT of questions and Leann was happy to answer them all. It was a very impressive operation - almost 800 cows, mostly Holsteins and also a few Jerseys. They are in production 24/7/365 - which translates to a whole truckload (around 7,000 gallons!) of raw milk every day. Some interesting factoids that we picked up:

• A milk cow can have a career of 16 years or more
• Cows weigh about 125 pounds at birth.
• A cow produces on average 7-10 gallons of milk and per day.
• Cows like mariachi music. In fact, when these cows hear it playing in the milking room, they begin to "let down" their milk!
  
• For every gallon of milk they produce, they also produce 3 gallons of manure :-)
• Investing in the cows' comfort pays big dividends in higher milk production.
• Cows get 2 months paid sabbatical each year to graze and frolic (who says happy cows only live in California?)
• The two biggest times of year for milk demand are back to school time in the fall and the Superbowl (because of all the cheese consumed on pizza!)
• Cows don't have teeth in front on the top, instead they have a leather-like pad that enables them to grasp blades of grass with their bottom teeth.
  

Our kids were absolutely fascinated by the whole thing. Jack kept pointing and yelling streams of unintelligible "words" when he saw the cows, it was hilarious. I have to say, I have so much respect for the very hard work that is done by people like Leann and Mike to put milk on our table every day. As big consumers of milk (our kids drink about 1/2 gallon of whole milk every day) I really appreciate what they do. It is not an easy job or an easy lifestyle. So thank you to the dairy farmers of America!

The "ladies" lining up to be milked.

You have to imagine the mariachi music blaring to get the full picture in the milking parlor.

Check it out - a calf that had been born the very same day we were there!

The calves live in these interesting pods known as "igloos."
They seemed quite comfortable in there... plenty of room to move around and stand up or lie down.

We all got to experience a baby calf sucking on our fingers. Brooke and Jack were both brave and gave it a try!

Brooke was invited to "drive" the front loader and jumped at the chance!

That's my girl, piloting a $200,000 John Deere.
She kept raising and lowering the bucket as she and Mike tooled around the yard.

And they have a to-die-for view of Mount Rainier from the farm!

Thanks again, Mike and Leann! We really enjoyed our visit.

So this is what it's like having a boy

I was just checking my email when I heard that familiar panting noise (human) and the sound of Leo running up & down the stairs. You know those moments of "mom intuition" when you suddenly realize something is not quite right?

This is what I found:

The gate is actually pulled out of its position and just moved aside! Cripe!

This boy is strong and fast! And with a canine co-conspirator, he is unstoppable. Heaven help us!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately

I have not updated the blog this week because I've been SO TIRED! I have been working out every day and it's really catching up to me. I am exhausted and I find myself sore much of the time... I know this will get better and I'm sticking with it. I think I may have lost a teeny tiny bit of weight so I'm encouraged.

Meanwhile I jam on the elliptical and the weights at the gym every morning. If anyone can recommend any must-have workout tunes, I'd love to hear them! It's amazing how stale a couple hours of music can get when you're listening to it at the gym 5 times a week.

Jack's Checkup

My baby boy is a rockstar! He had his one year checkup today (and two shots, poor kid... he cried!) He weighs 24 lbs. 3 oz, which is 50th percentile, he is 31.5" long which is 90th percentile (shouldn't we all be so lucky to be long and lean?) and as expected, his head is 90-95th percentile. He and Brooke have both always had huge heads. At one of his previous checkups, the pediatrician told me it usually comes from one or both parents having a large head - so she measured mine only to find out that it's a good bit OVER the top of the charts for adult head circumference. Grrrreaat. Anyway, Jack is awesome. He's hitting all his milestones and happy as a clam. The doctor was thrilled to hear that he's fully transitioned to whole milk and mostly drinking from a sippy cup. I could throw the bottles away now if I wanted to and I probably will within the next week or so. So hooray for Jack!

One side note that is interesting - I've been tracking the two kids' height, weight and head circumference in a spreadsheet (I know, I'm a nerd) and they are almost exactly the same size at the same age. Jack is a tiny bit heavier than Brooke was at one year (about 3 oz) but he's a boy so I expected that. I wonder how long they will track to one another.

Yo Gabba Gabba Obsession

Brooke is obsessed with Yo Gabba Gabba on Nick Jr. I mean really obsessed. We've been printing the Yo Gabba Gabba coloring pages for her - there is one for each of the five monsters (for those of you who aren't blessed with this lovely influence in your home, they are Plex, Brobee, Toodee, Foofa and Muno). Honestly, I think she alone is responsible for destroying a whole tree because she colors 2-3 sets of these per day. Everything in her life is related back to Yo Gabba Gabba - especially by colors. "What color plate do you want for your breakfast Brooke?" (insert lots of debating, hemming and hawing here). "Plex yellow! I want Plex yellow 'cause I love robots. Plex is my favorite. No wait, I want Muno red. I love Muno 'cause he has one eye and red bumps!" This dialogue can go on forever as you can imagine. It was fun for a while but now it's just getting silly. There are even songs that she breaks into spontaneously when I say something unrelated to her. Today I told her something (I can't remember what) was dangerous and she launched into Plex's rendition of "Dangerous, so dangerous..." Aye aye aye!! Brooke is a character!!

Father's Day

We had a great Father's Day this year! Our tradition on Mother's Day & Father's Day is to do an excursion or day trip as a family... it usually involves one or more meals out and we try to go somewhere new. Today we started out early - we were on the road slightly before 9:00am which is a real feat for the four of us. We were heading to the Washington coast, so we stopped for breakfast at IHOP in Olympia, where they served up a scrumptious and inexpensive feast. The kids were ravenous and we enjoyed every bite. What's not to love about pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream on them?


Then, we drove west on a very scenic drive through timber country to the town of Westport, WA. Not much happening there - we barely got out of the car (kids did not). Turns out Westport is a fishing town and it was D.E.A.D. So we backtracked to Aberdeen and headed to the north side of Gray's Harbor to Ocean Shores. Now that was a cute beach town with a fantastic beach! There were a bunch of very cool gigantic "kites" (or windsocks?) that were being flown on the beach and the kids were FASCINATED. Even Jack saw them through the window as we drove in and started pointing and yelling. Leo had his first taste of the beach. Too bad we only had an hour to enjoy it before we had to head back! Justin did accomplish his one big goal for the day - to fly his own kite, with some help from his little assistant, Brooke.

Dad and kids on the beach - look at those kites!


Mom and kids - that's a rainbow slug behind us!


Brooke loved this penguin.


Justin and Jack - My two handsome young men


Kite flying from the back of the car!

Our kite!

Our plan was to go straight to a very cool new(ish) Mexican restaurant at U-Village and meet Justin's dad, Jim, there for a Father's Day dinner. However... due to the rollover accident on the freeway, we spent over an hour in bumper-to-bumper traffic and missed our reservation (we first called and moved it an hour later, then realized we were going to miss that too and the littlest family member was grouchy having skipped his nap). So we canceled it and met Jim at our house for Chinese takeout, which was delish.

A nice day indeed. Happy Father's Day!

Brooke loves to "drive" the car.

Jack enjoyed exploring the back of the car (and getting out of the wind for a bit).

Our guy, Leo, on his first trip to the beach.

The Parade of Wildlife continues

Note: this isn't the actual coyote we saw. My camera was in the other room so I missed it. But it looked just like this only scruffier.

Holy Moly. The kids and I were just now eating breakfast and Brooke said "Look! There's a deer!" Only it wasn't a deer, dear... it was a coyote! In our backyard. I am more and more concerned every day about our kids and our dog being out in the backyard. In the last year we've seen one bear, one coyote, multiple deer, multiple raccoons, and one bobcat. SCARY! You'd think we live in the sticks but no, we live in a 20 year old development in the middle of the metropolitan Eastside of Seattle.

Hilarious!

My friend Tiburon just blogged about this hysterical site. I am guilty of (ahem) several (ahem) of the things on the list (Britax car seats, Swedish high chairs, children's books to name a few). What are YOU guilty of?

Thursday already?

This week is flying by. I can't believe it's Thursday evening already. The sun came out today which was lovely and I took the kids to the park this afternoon. Jack amazed me - crawling & cruising everywhere, he really enjoyed it.

I've made good on my workout commitment this week. I have been to the gym 3 days in a row, and am feeling better than ever about it. I was almost shocked today - when the timer ended on the elliptical machine at 30 minutes, I didn't notice it. I looked down and it had stopped at 33 minutes for some reason and I wasn't even tired. Fantastic! The only hitch was that I spent 90 minutes this morning (with babysitter here) downloading and organizing new workout music for my Shuffle. Then, I got to the gym and all my old music was still on it. Totally maddening! So tonight I'm going to make SURE the new music is on there, I can't wait to jam out to it.

Since Sarah asked how I find the time to get to the gym, it depends on the day. This week, I had a sitter Tues & Thurs so I was able to work out while she was with the kids those days. Yesterday, I took them with me to "Kids Club" at the gym which was a big hit. They loved it! Tomorrow I'm going to the gym at o'dark-thirty (probably 6 or 6:30) before Justin goes to work. I think my goal is twice a week early am, twice with the babysitter, and once to bring them to Kids Club. But any combination of the 3 is fine with me.

The other new thing I've been working on is changing up our dinner routine. We've been in a routine of feeding the kids at 5:30ish, then putting them to bed (we usually divide and conquer) by 7pm, then making/eating/cleaning up ourselves. The good thing about that routine is the time alone with Justin to eat a peaceful dinner after the kids are in bed. But the downsides are that (a) the kids miss out on eating together with the family, (b) I have to make two dinners, and (c) we end up finishing dishes at like 9pm! The whole evening is shot then. So for the past few nights I've been working on having dinner on the table for all of us together by 5:30 or 6pm. It's been wonderful to have a real wide open evening after the kids are in bed! Of course, the meal itself is not very relaxing - lots of "primitive behavior" - sometimes I think we have two little cave people living in our midst! There is constantly food being thrown / smeared / spilled everywhere, and me in an endless loop of "eat with your fork! no, put that down... take a bite please, no you may not get down yet." Then there's the constant jumping up & down for napkins, thrown sippy cups & utensils, etc. It's exhausting. But I have to believe that if we keep it up, over time it will get easier. It will get easier, right?

OK, I guess that's it for tonight. Hope your week is going well!

Colder than Siberia!

So relieved to know it's not in my head... we are having the coldest, wettest, most winter-like spring you can possibly imagine. It's snowing in the mountains and raining and freezing here... the Seattle Times had this graphic on the front page today. I don't know whether this makes me feel better (that I'm not crazy thinking it's awfully cold) or worse (accepting that our weather really truly does suck.)

So glad we have Hawaii to look forward to.

Hawaii here we come!

I am SO excited. We just booked our tickets to Hawaii in December. Which is a long way away but I'm actually thrilled because it gives me time to shed some poundage before wearing a swimsuit. We're staying at the Hilton Waikoloa Village where Justin and I had our best vacation ever (in 2002), except (of course) our honeymoon. They have a boat the travels around the resort, dolphins, a lagoon with sea turtles you can swim next to, live flamingos, countless pools and even waterslides. The kids will be in heaven!

Meanwhile, my goal is to get to the gym at LEAST four times, preferably five times, every week. It's aggressive but I have a lot to lose between now and December. Send me some good vibes! I'm going to need it!

Trying to get rid of the BPA...

This whole controversy about Bisphenol-A (BPA) in children's products has gotten to me. I was the first one to jump on the glass bottle bandwagon when I was pregnant with Jack, but then with his reflux and colic, we reverted to Dr. Brown's because he was miserable and he did SO MUCH better on Dr. Brown's and at that point we were tired and worn down. Now that he's one and completely off formula, I'm starting to transition him off of bottles -- we're down to 2-3 a day but he uses sippy cups the rest of the time. So once again, I'm going to try to simplify our exploding collection of one bazillion different kinds of sippy cups down to one or two varieties (either the same for both kids or one kind of Jack and one kind for Brooke) and only a few cups of each. Brooke is learning to drink responsibly from a "big girl cup" (ie, a regular cup) so I don't want to invest too much in sippy cups or straw cups for her, but to be practical, it will be at least a few months if not more before she can kick the sippy cup for good.

Today I bought these two stainless steel cups from Target - Foogo by Thermos. They are quite cool, I have to admit. They were expensive (almost $15 each) so we only have one per child right now before we decide if we love them or not... but they are insulated and claim to keep beverages cold for 6 hours (the small one) and 12 hours (the big one). They even claim to have proven in a lab that the insulation in this cup reduces or eliminates bacteria growth in that time period. Jack took to his right away - didn't seem to notice the difference from his old Playtex handle cup, and Brooke thinks hers is the best thing EVER. She was hilarious in Target... they only had the straw cup (12 oz capacity) in blue/yellow, but they had the handle cup (7 oz) in pink or blue. I tried to convince her that 7 oz. was going to be too little for her, but she kept saying "but I'm a girl (gerrr-uhl) so I need PINK." So I reluctantly agreed, and then ten minutes later while we were browsing another aisle she suddenly announced "I need that big blue cup. I'm a big girl." Yay! My convincing worked, albeit on a slight delay. I promised her that if she loves it, I'll order her a pink one too.

The only downside, aside from cost, is that they are "dishwasher safe but handwashing recommended." So for now I figure I'll hand wash them a couple times a day if they have milk in them, once a day if they have water, and see how that goes.

The Party of the Year

Well, at least it was the biggest party I plan on throwing this year! Phew! 50 people (of which 20 were children), I made barbecued bratwurst, baked chicken with home made barbecue sauce, my special potato salad (3 batches!), fruit salad, and the assorted veggie & chip appetizers. Oh, and the most popular food item of the day appeared to be Bugles. who knew people were so nostalgic for this salty vending-machine snack?

Jack had a fantastic tie and performed the requisite cake smashing with great skill and aplomb. After he was through, I had to carry him at arm's length up to the bathtub where I quickly stripped and showered him. He was wondering what the heck was going on but there was no choice, he was simply covered in red frosting!

Anyway, on to the pictures. There aren't as many as I wished for but it's hard to be photographer, hostess, and mommy to the birthday boy all at the same time.

The invitations I made. My first foray into stamping - you like? I have a lot to learn but I think they turned out cute.

The cake, pre-smashing.

Notice he even took over Brooke's plate - we had to cut her another piece!