What I love about Saben

I am so completely in love with my sweet boy. I love his curiosity, the endless questions about absolutely everything. I love how he will one minute be struggling to understand the concept of adoption, asking deep questions about why some people aren't ready for babies and then, when he's had enough, suddenly switches to something mundane like "And...why is our rug brown?"

I love how he always tells me that papa Ken knows A LOT of things, he knows everything. "I'll ask papa Ken, he knows....you don't mom." I love that I can teach him absolutely anything and he'll be excited and into it. This morning we watched a youtube movie about how bees make honey and he watched the whole 7 minutes enthralled.

I love how Saben loves collecting bugs as much as he likes picking flowers. Lately he has spent hours outside, searching for potato bugs, beatles, "ear pinchers" and anything else creeping in our garden. He puts them in his cage and I love how he has such great pride in the fact that "I take really good care of my bugs mom". He always puts the cage carefully back in our closet (an outdoor one) so it doesn't get too hot in the sun, gives them spoonfuls of water & fresh leaves. But he also likes to step on ants or anything else I tell him to smoosh and giggled uncontrollably when he got two ladybugs to crawl on his arms simultaneously.

Saben is holding a hollow stick "tunnel for my ants to play in". They also have access to balance beams for their amusement.

Looking at Saben's bug collection

I love it when Saben makes bouquets for me. Most of them are dandelions & buttercups, but when I let him, he loves using flowers from our garden. The other day, we had picked one bunch of purple lilacs on a walk and Saben told me he wanted to go outside and pick a few more flowers from our garden to go with it. We have flowers of every color out there, but somehow he came back with this ridiculously beautiful combination. I couldn't believe it.

I love love love how much Saben loves to draw. For quite a while, he's been just drawing rockets with occasional family portraits, etc. Then suddenly he started busting out cars on his drawing board. These are a few of the first ones I took a few weeks ago, but they have gotten much more elaborate since then.

Race car number "101" with another car following it

Race car "21" with a driver and smoke billowing out the pipes in back.

More elaborate pipes with smoke. I have no idea where he got this idea of pipes with smoke on race cars but it is awesome.

I love Saben's attention span (what mom wouldn't) and how he can spend hours building with his "new" lego set. We recently pulled down Kyle's old legos, which just happen to be a bunch of space rocket/moon explorer themed kits. Him & kyle have built a ton of them. They make a mess, but he loves it.

I love Saben's hugs goodnight, his special nose kisses and the way he still loves to cuddle in my lap. I even love how he still insists on describing each and every bowel movement he takes to me. "Look mom, its in an "S" shape!" I love riding bikes with him and how excited he gets when he makes skid marks from braking fast. I love watching him workout how to get along with other kids, especially ones older than him who hurt his feelings. I love watching him be ridiculous with his preschool buddies, singing the "Daddy Pusher" song, pushing eachother and wrestling around .

Don't worry, plan to do Annika too. Might take a while, its been busy. Two weddings, an anniversary and a family reunion in May - we were gone 4 out of 5 weekends. We are also rolling on our basement again - working hard on getting everything ready for carpet by the end of the month. Well Kyle's working hard, I'm actually writing in my blog for once. (so much for taking a break till fall, the carpet went on sale, so we plunged ahead.)

Saben's first bike ride - 4yrs 2 mos old

First of all, I missed getting pictures of Saben's very first ride on a pedal bike with no training wheels because I didn't even bring the camera. I honestly didn't think he'd really get that far because he was whining about not wanting to do it. Obviously I was quite wrong.

We adjusted the seat and he pretty much just rode off down the hill. It was insane. Kyle just barely helped him back up the hill to home by pushing his hand on Saben's back when he struggled to get the pedaling strength. He mostly did it all by himself.

After a whopping 20 minutes of practice, he was riding through this mud puddle, no problem, not putting his feet down at all. Seriously, i was in shock. He was turning, pedaling through bumps, having a ball. Honest, he has never pedaled a bike without training wheels until this evening.

We are so extremely proud and excited for him.

I have to add that riding a glider bike is what taught him the balance & skills to just hop on a bike like that. He's been riding this one for two months and had a different one for part of last summer. He's ridden it up to 2 miles (to town & back easily), takes it down 5 ft. dirt jumps (just rides down the big dirt hill) and can do almost anything he wants on it. Uphill, downhill, it really gave him the confidence that he can ride & balance on a bike.

After our experience, it seems almost criminal to put a kid through the torture of training wheels. Seriously, go buy your kid some sort of glider or take the pedals & training wheels off the one you already had. The gliders are generally extremely lightweight, which makes them easy to get uphills, so I think they're worth the money instead of just taking pedals off a heavy one. Just make sure they learn to pedal on a tricycle or something and they should be ready to go.

Anniversary Weekend

This year, for the first time in 8 years, we stayed home for our anniversary. Scratch that...we've stayed home 2x before - when we went to Egypt a month before our anniversary and last year when we traveled to Hawaii and then Italy. (I can't believe now that we did both trips in one year. crazy) But this is the first time we've chosen to stay home but still do something special.... Usually we take a nice long weekend away someplace not to far away like portland, the methow valley, vancouver island, etc.

My parents took the kids Friday night until Monday morning and let me tell you, I really needed the break. It was so nice to just be calm for two whole days and do whatever we wanted. I love my children dearly, but the peace of no screaming, no fighting, no chattering, no complaining....it was heavenly.

The best bit was that I was able to clean & organize the house Friday because there was hardly any packing or planning to do. And it was so motivating to know that my cleaning was going to last TWO ENTIRE DAYS. I love that.

So friday we put the kids to bed at my parent's house and then drove home late when my parents got home.

Saturday morning we got up whenever we felt like it (ah.....) and then walked downtown for breakfast at old town cafe. Another nice perk of staying home is that you already know your favorite restaurants and don't feel guilty spending the money because you aren't paying for a hotel. I highly recommend it.

After breakfast we went out for my first time kayaking in puget sound - something I've always wanted to do. We borrowed the kayaks, strapped them onto a borrowed truck, grabbed sandwiches at old world deli and launched near the fairhaven ferry dock. The water was calm which is amazing luck since I throw up at the slightest wave. A kid & his dad came flying past me in their double kayak, but stopped long enough to point out that I was paddling completely wrong. Dang.

Along the way, we passed some small rock islands covered in seals. I paddled towards them but they succeeded in intimidating me. What if seals were notorious for tipping over kayaks and I just hadn't heard? They certainly had the aggressive glaring down....We admired them from afar and my fantasy of paddling with a smiling seal swimming alongside vanished. Almost.

We headed south all the way to Chuckanut Island, ran around a bit on the island and then headed back. Going back was painful and felt about 4x longer than the trip out. We rounded at least 4 different points that I thought were the last one before the launch dock finally came into sight.

In the evening, we did a couple more things that we NEVER EVER get to do. We rode bikes downtown, chowed some carne asada burritos at Casa and then rode to some friends' house who have kids our age (the kids were in bed already) for late evening drinks. awesome. So fun to be the ones out & about with no kids.

Sunday...slept in again, breakfast at Avenue Bread. Seriously, what is with that place? It is like they are so cool, they don't have to have decent service. We got our pastries, kyle got his cooked-to-order breakfast sandwich and then we waited ten more minutes for our tea & latte. Ridiculous. (But I only get that attitude at the fairhaven one, the rest are much better.)

Did a little shopping & kyle helped me pick out a dress to wear to summer weddings because he is such a sweet & patient guy. I think it nearly killed him. We were physically tired from kayaking and it was warm & sunny so.... we decided to come home & wash our cars. Weird, I know. But we NEVER wash our cars and it sounded sort of fun, lots of water to cool us down, etc. But of course kyle got freaky about the whole thing and ended up completely detailing his car from top to bottom so I had plenty of time to finish Eclipse finally and then do some gardening. So nice.

Sunday night we finally went to Prospect Street Cafe, which is absolutely our favorite place in town. We walked again (kids really make you appreciate the freedom of taking long walks together) and had a nice long dinner.

So seriously, staying home was the most fun ever. It was so relaxing and I loved having the house clean, not much unpacking to do, low stress nature of it. The kids came home at 11am Monday so I even got to go grocery shopping before they arrived.

The ironic part of all this is that we are also doing a weekend in Seattle - I realized it would be super awesome & convenient if Kyle's parents watched the kids the weekend of a wedding we are going to (in Seattle) and then I was able to book the westin for super super cheap. woo hoo! Since those are our only vacations planned (so far) this year without the kids, I didn't feel super guilty.

But then...On Monday my friend emailed me about tickets she found to Madrid for $388. And I could get one at that exact, insanely cheap price, for immediately after Kyle's bike show in Germany. He'd just have to meet me there two days after the show. What to do, what to do.....

Lastly, in case you haven't noticed, we have the most amazing parents ever. I am so very grateful, from the bottom of my heart, that both sets of parents love our kids and are willing to invest their time and energy in relationships with our children. Not only that, they are willing to watch them for us so that we can get breaks and strengthen our husband/wife relationship. It is one of the best gift I've ever recieved. (and I'm not just saying that cause I want to go to madrid.)
: )

This made my morning...a kids album by the Presidents of the United States of America frontman, Chris Ballew. You can preview the entire album on the website. Thanks Todd & Betsy! I can't wait to listen to more great kids albums that I am sure you'll unearth. : )

We had a most fabulous weekend celebrating our anniversary by staying home without the kids. I really really want to write about it soon, but between the garden, basement projects & fun park dates it might take a day or two. Or maybe I'll do it this afternoon if it rains.

This weekend annika was running down a hill FAST and suddenly tripped and fell. This is nothing new, but when she stood up, her leg kept buckling under her. We tried to pick her up, but she wanted to keep running. But then her leg would buckle and down she went tilll we forced her, screaming, into the stroller.

Seriously, is this a second child thing? Impervious to pain? She limped the rest of the evening, but no swelling and was fine the next morning. Sheesh.

How do you teach a child that there is a direct correlation between the painfulness getting your hair brushed and running your gooey food covered hands through your locks at dinner time (rice dreads), lunch time (jelly gel) and breakfast (cornflake mats)?

Annika

Screams a lot.

Definitely entering the terrible twos, albeit a few months early. She has an opinion about how everything should be done and if I don't do it exactly right....she screams. (and by scream, I mean full on SCREAMING. Not fussing. screaming.) If I've done something to particularly offend her, such as say....put away the milk before handing her her milk cup - she shrieks, lays down, kicks her feet and screams some more. Or if I forget to immediately zip/button up her jacket - another fit. Definitely her first stage of trying to assert herself and the last couple weeks have been exhausting.

Laughs, runs, falls down, jumps, dances. You name it, she loves it.

Loves to copy her brother. Yes, they fight a lot, but they also are playing more and more "games" together with Saben telling her exactly what to do. Sooooo cute.

Climbs onto my lap with a book everytime I sit down. It took a while, but Annika definitely loves books now and would spend all day reading them if she could.

Makes a huge mess a million times day by poking, pushing, grabbing & spilling everything. She is always getting things off the kitchen counter (saben hardly ever did this) and is just a bundle of exploratory mess making energy.

Is definitely the clown, she tries to make us laugh all the time and loves it when we laugh at her.

Saben

Loves preschool & playing with kids his age

Talks constantly about absolutely everything, especially Chitty Chitty Bang Bang & rockets.

Asks questions about absolutely everything I say or do or that he sees.

Copies his sister whenever she is making a fuss so that he can get some attention too. (yes, he screams too)

Sings Chitty Chitty Bang Bang all day everyday. Even loudly as we go through the grocery store.

Is getting really good on the glider bike he got for his birthday. He loves going down the huge (5 ft tall) dirt jumps at Daddy's work and is so confident on it. He rides it all the way downtown with us and back home with no problem. (1.5 miles roundtrip) We love that thing.

Has eaten Salmon, salad shrimp, pork pupusas and steak in the last couple months. He also likes green beans, which mommy has almost never offered him because it was the vegetable I hated as a child. However, even I enjoy fresh ones sauteed with garlic.

Dad

Has been gone a ton - 4 out of the last 6 weekends including a 6 day trip to colorado.

Won his first ever downhill bike race and placed 3rd in the next one.

Is so hot and good looking.

Mom

Taking care of the kids by myself a lot

Declared "taking a break" on our basement remodel to protect our bank accounts and sanity

Planting our veggie garden & coddling my tomato starts

Helping others with veggie garden plans and my parents with a new landscape design.

Planning all the family vacations for this summer & some fun stuff for our anniversary. So sick of looking at calendars, cabin rental sites, camping reservations and hotwire. blech.

Joined a gym (in february) and loving it

Dreaming up crazy ways of making money (that would be fun for me), now just need to pick one and go for it. (write a book? become a professional blogger? garden consultant?) Or not.

waffles

Tonite Saben & I were praying before bed. Usually I have to sort of prompt him to think of things to say and do most of the praying myself. As I was leaving Saben calls out:

"Mom, I have one more thing to ask God. I want to ask him to make our waffle machine make waffles faster."

We haven't even had waffles in a couple weeks, so funny that this is what he thought of and especially that its one of the first "prayer requests" he's come up with on his own. Last time we had waffles, we did talk about how we'd need another machine soon so that we could make waffles faster. Still....

In the last photo below, Saben was saying something like this:

"Annika, you need to get these things on so that you won't get hurt when we go to fight. Come on, put the hat on. Ok, now here is your weapon....No put the hat back on. We need to go in our tent now so that we don't get wet, but keep your weapon..."

My two little warriors in their battle outfits.

10 on 10

Not super inspired, but the day got super busy around noon and I spent all afternoon cooking....

Find out more about 10 on 10 here.

clothes

First, there was the raincoat Grandma Young gave her. She always seemed to want to wear it, but I ascribed this to her love of puddle jumping that usually took place in the coat. Then there was her ballerina skirt. She always seemed to pull it out of the drawer when she went to find something to wear. Give a little hop & dance when I pulled it up over her leggings. Smooth her hands down over the tulle.


Then last week, we got some serious joy from these saucy pink silk pajamas. They had been in the drawer for a while, but I hadn't let her wear them because they are so light-weight and it was winter. This particular night, mommy was out shopping and Annika came running out with the terribly light-weight pajamas at bedtime and handed them to Daddy.

Thinking nothing, absolutely nothing, about the flimsy warmth giving qualities of the pajamas, he helped Annika into them. And she went nuts, smiling, laughing, touching them. Sooooo happy. Now she always pulls them out if they catch her eye and often throws fits if we don't put them on, even if its the middle of the day.

Last night, I bought Annika her first pair of dressy sandals so she'd having something to wear with her Easter dress. This morning I wanted to try them on to see if they fit, and they did not leave her feet for the rest of the day. She was running, jumping, laughing, pointing at them, saying "shoes!" over and over. It was so adorable and she kept at it for an hour.

Then I tried to take them off before going to the park. It quickly became apparent that this was NOT going to go over well, so I quickly gave in figuring they had to get broken in sooner or later. I tried again at nap time, and gave in again as she screamed and wailed. Decided it was worth getting a picture of the princess napping in her precious shoes.

We did finally remove them tonight before bed, but she was screaming, wriggling, writhing even, huge sobs of despair. It was heartbreaking. Trying to get out the door to where they were, we could barely get it shut.

The annoying part is that the sandals are already looking scuffed from just one day of wear. Stupid cheap target shoes.

The amazing part is that she has never been this attached to anything - no toys, dolls, stuffed animals....

Speaking of dolls, she has been playing with this doll I got her a lot and seems to really like it, but its so funny....some nights she wants it in bed with her & on other nights she screams and holds it out to me yelling "doll! doll!" and I have to actually remove it from the room before she'll calm down. Just had the throw that tidbit in there.

My son has reached that oh so sweet stage of a boys life where spending 20 minutes running around with a friend shouting "Dog Poop!" is the funniest fun thing ever and sober stories about Christ's death & resurrection lead to games that involve the phrase "I'm whipping you!".
(not to mention "I'm going to punch you in the face!")

And yet he is still sweet, thoughtful and innocent and generally his testosterone is under control. I am so proud of him & sort of enjoy his little bursts of potty talk/violence because its a sign of him growing up, being a boy and he does a good job listening when I explain things that are innapropriate. He's so careful & measured in everything he does, its fun to see him let loose sometimes with these things. But mostly, it's just plain hilarious.

First of all, Annika is scared of flying bugs. Extraordinarily scared. Or maybe just ordinary scared, I haven't really compared her to any 1 yr 9 month olds other than saben. (he was also scared, but ordinary scared) But...If you heard her, you'd think she had fallen and broken her arm. First...blood curdling screams. Full on screams. Then hysterical sobbing and sobbing as I hold her and comfort her until she finally calms. This happened about five times today and I can only guess what the neighbors are thinking.

Kyle was gone this weekend, 2nd weekend in a row. (for a bike race in port angeles....he got first place last week in Spokane and 3rd place this week. Woo hoo! Except really, he's just there to network, he's not a serious racer. thank goodness.) Yesterday, we went to the farmers market and Saben rode all the way there & back, all by himself on his new glider bike. It was really fun, even though the market was incredibly chaotic & crowded. I did score some leeks, shitakes & mizuna which I used for dinner tonite. More on that later.... The kids scored honey sticks and donut holes. My hair also scored some honey stick when Annika waved her honey hands in my hair.

The rest of the weekend was blissful under the warm spring sun (in the 60's...for the record when I read this later and have forgotten the awesome springy-ness of this weekend) We went to the park, I got to do some serious yardwork & lawn mowing....

Then tonite I was enjoying my filet mignon (on sale at haggens!) and sauteed shitakes & leeks with truffle oil on top of a bed of mizuna when Saben says "There's poop on my train tracks!". Oh bother. Sure enough, Annika's diaper had leaked & the goo was on her hands, on Henry The Train & on the train tracks. So I took a little break from my beefy feast & immersed myself in the poo cleaning. But the best part was sticking both kids in the shower and finishing my dinner in the bathroom. Yum.... Sipping red wine, finishing off my steak, while the kids splashed in our rubbermaid tub, climbed into it - swamping the bathroom & then drank the water they were sitting in. That's always sooooo cute.

And then somehow I was in a good enough mood to give the kids popcorn, let them stay up late watching CARS and wait for Daddy to get home so they could give him hugs. Am I an angel or what? Too much sun I guess.

Generally, Annika spends about 75% of her day in wet pants and goes through 2-3 pairs of pants each day. This girl loves water and is constantly dousing herself in it. A few of her favorites:

Puddles
She loves to stomp in puddles, run through puddles over and over, throw rocks in puddles... and my favorite - sit in disgusting muddy puddles. We went to our favorite nursery the other day and it was cold, rainy and she would not stop sitting down in the puddles - IN HER TIGHTS & skirt. I had dressed them in rain boots & rain coats, but somehow didn't anticipate the sitting down. It never seems to bother her either.

Water dispenser
So just when Saben has finally reached the age where he can go get a glass of water for himself from the fridge door dispenser - Annika reaches the age where if you leave the dispenser unlocked for even a few minutes, she'll find it, fill up multiple cups, put things (like sandwiches) in the water, dump water from cup to cup and finally dump it on the floor & splash around in it. Awesome.

Cups of water
Annika loves drinking from cups, but usually spills most of it down her shirt. I can't tell if it is on purpose or not because I usually start doing something nearby while she drinks.

I'd love to continue, but you get the general drift and the kids are fighting over the plunder from Saben's preschool easter egg hunt. Oh joy.

Hey Kari, what did you do this morning?

Motherhood, where turning your head for 2 minutes = 1+ hours of extra work.

(you are only seeing 1/2 of Annika's "art piece")

My big 4 year old

Happy Birthday Saben!

Its going to be a busy day tomorrow....

Random Pics

St Patrick's Day party
Mommy's clever idea to make up for lack of a bath tub

Cousin seth with Grandma

Cousin Seth with Great Grandma.

(apparently he only sits still & doesn't cry when people kiss his head)

mirror mirror

Oh the joy of having a bathroom mirror for the first time in 10 months. I almost forgot what I looked like. Our friend built us this mirror and it is absolutely gorgeous. It made my day to get it hung up today.

If you look on the bottom of the counter, you will notice my husband's dirty q-tip. Apparently he believes that just because I have not purchased a suitable trash container, he can just leave them willy-nilly on the counter as he pleases. It is super gross.

On another gross note, I was reading back in my blog from last year, trying to remember when we started our bathroom remodel and I noticed that I TALKED ABOUT POOP ALL THE TIME.

Thank you for sticking with me through the potty training phase, I was grossing myself out just reading what I wrote back then. Why on earth did I tell everyone that I used prune juice to make saben poop? And that it was messy to clean up? GROSS!

Speaking of which, we started Annika sitting on her potty seat this week and I'm really hoping, praying, begging for an easier time this go around. Otherwise watch out, this blog will be filled with poo again before you know it.

Some days, I feel inspired to run ahead of the parking ticket person (did they ever get a new name besides meter maid?) and stick a dime in each parking meter that is empty so no one gets a ticket.

On other days, I watch someone get a ticket from "The Interceptor" (the little parking meter car has this in big letters above the bumper) and silently cheer that some lazy good for nothing finally got what they deserved.

Other days, I get stuck behind a Sherwin Williams truck and wonder for the 100th time why anyone would want to cover the earth with paint, why does it look like blood and lastly, why on earth do they still use this slogan that is so weird, even if it is their original one from eons ago. Then again, it did cause me to give them free advertising on my blog. Brilliant.

From Sherwin Williams:

"Our historical logo is one of the most recognized company logos in existence. Created in the late 1800's, the logo's purpose was to represent the company's desire to help beautify and protect the buildings of the world. It was a symbol of a young company's enthusiasm, idealism and hope regarding its future and the possibility for achievement that hovered on the nation's horizon. Over the years our "Cover the Earth" logo has become a figurative emblem signifying integrity and service."

L-I-E

In the last couple of months, my son has become a quite proficient liar.

Did you hit annika?
No, she's screaming bloody murder because she hit her head.

Did you go potty?
Yes, I went two minutes ago. (funny how I didn't hear it and his pants are still zipped up...)

It started slowly with teeny lies and now we are up to 3-4 whoppers a day. I can usually tell when he is lying, but man....what to do.

I think I found a solution today, but I'm wondering what others have done....grandparents, parents, people who think they know exactly how they will parent someday.....

It's the whole catch 22
a) you're only 80-90% positive he is lying so its scary to just accuse him and go based on that.
b) if you get him to admit he is lying, and he tells the truth, how do you deal with punishment/rewards? Still needs a punishment for doing something wrong and lying about it, but on the other hand, a reward for finally telling the truth.

Argh. What have I gotten myself into? Can I just say this is 10x harder than training horses or dogs? : )

hand holding

I have always thought that if I were "rich", right after the live in housekeeper, I would want a personal shopper/stylist. Someone who knows my style and brings things for me to look at & pick to buy. My own personal curator.

Nothing makes me more miserable than a day of fruitlessly shopping - not seeing what I am looking for, or finding it but it being way out of my price range. Or post children, going out and having none of the styles looking familiar at all, let alone something I might actually wear. (embrace the leggings kari. you can do it!)

Anyways, I usually just give up and don't buy anything, especially when it comes to furnishing our house. So I was delighted when Orange Poppy volunteered to come up and help plan our basement colors, carpet, furnishings etc.

We spent a fun rainy saturday pouring over pictures, hitting up the fun stores here in town and she filled my head to bursting with fun ideas to give our space some character. While the husbands cared for cranky kids who wouldn't nap. Thank you husbands! I am so excited about what we have planned!

But then yesterday I went to pick the final carpet color and realized that somehow the neutral color I had planned did not match the rather neutral wall color we picked. (the gray carpet was too blue and the blue/green had too much yellow in it) And I wished she were back, full time, to hold my hand for the entire process.

Do I do a totally different carpet color? (beige instead of gray?) tweak the wall color? (but then it might look exactly like our bathroom we just did) Spend an extra $700 to get carpet in a better color? (we are buying dirt cheap carpet, so a slight step up isn't all bad...unless our basement floods again) Seriously, what is my problem? Why is this so hard? I guess that's why design centers exist - for people like me that get completely overwhelmed by all the choices.

Wish me luck and someday when we finish all this I'll post a photo tour. Still waiting for the bathroom towels I want to go on sale, then I'll post the bathroom tour...

Oh and I forgot to mention the 3 hours Kyle & I spent "thrifting" on Sunday. We came home with exactly one rather funny rabbit figurine for .99 and that was it. Obviously we need some training.

And now I've officially used up my boring rambling quota for at least 1 1/2 weeks. sorry about that. : )

Birthdays & food ramblings

We have entered the period of birthdays. Three of us in just 3 weeks.

Mine comes first and I had a lovely day celebrating last week. Kyle stayed home with the kids in the morning because Saben was sick and I was going to have to cancel plans to meet up with some friends. (awesome husband award) After enjoying a nice peaceful shower, I headed off for my birthday brunch/board meeting. Sounds boring maybe, but so nice to just hang out and not have the kids interrupting every 5 minutes.

While I was gone:

Saben: I need to get mommy her birthday present
Kyle: What do you want to get her?
Saben: one of those noisy things
Kyle: What? Where?
Saben: At the nursery
Kyle: Where is the nursery?
Saben: I know where it is...

Full of faith apparently, Kyle loaded the kids in the car and Saben directed him to the Garden Spot where we had seen some windchimes the week before.

Last time we were there, Saben had asked me to lift him up so he could rattle them (what exactly is the word used for "activating a wind chime" Chiming it? I know, TINKLE it. Much better.) After tinkling the chime, he asked me to buy one. Thinking it might be fun to have in the garden, I casually mentioned he could get me one for my birthday, never dreaming he would actually remember.... I can't wait to be even more strategic about this for mothers day, I had no idea it would actually work... hmmm.....

Saben picked out the giant $600 chime for me but settled for a cute little clay one (kyle forgot how violent our winds get, I'll have to be careful). Kyle got me a computer printer and annika "picked out" a little red flowered houseplant. : )

In the evening we went out to dinner at our favorite restaurant ever - Prospect Street Cafe. Whenever we go, we always ask the chef to do little tasting plates of whatever he feels like making. (Kyle knows the guy, he rides mt bikes when he's not cooking). They went all out for my birthday (we also had a gift certificate) and our meal went something like this:

Duck breast on a crispy wonton w/ hoison guacamole & mango salsa
A "BLS" sandwich - a scallop w/ bacon & shredded lettuce, sandwiched between two little crisp triangles of grilled bread
Shredded Potato pancake topped with horseradish cream, raw salmon & tuna and crispy leek shreds

Sea bass two ways - cooked on a bed of pureed potatoes & raw ceviche style (marinated in lime juice w/ serrano chiles)
Cold smoked pork loin medalions w/ maple apple shreds, a butternut squash ravioli and brown butter sage sauce
Duck breast slices w/ candied kumquats & kumquat sauce
NY Steak slices w/ risotto cakes stuffed w/ fontina
lamb chop w/ bean & goat cheese springroll (the springroll was much tastier than it sounds)

flourless chocolate cake dessert

It was incredible (yes, that's a 9 course meal) and I probably messed up some of the sauce/side combinations, so if Spencer finds this - sorry!

Every single bite is so fabulous, he cooks all his meats perfectly, has amazing textures in the sides, awesome sauces.... I never was a huge fan of raw fish, duck, or lamb and now those three are my absolute favorite. After tasting the steak compared to the lamb & duck, I almost wondered why anyone even bothers with steak. And I LOVE steak. (it was NY steak - not my favorite. Maybe a ribeye would have stood up to the lamb & duck) Last time we were there we had fois gras for the first time ever and I fell madly in love.... Then there was the green papaya salad, caviar...I could go on and on. Seriously, the only great perk of kyle owning the bike company is getting treated great by this guy. : )

Now I am scurrying to plan Saben's party next week...and finalize paint & carpet for our basement...and making green bread for st. paddy's day tomorrow. Phew.

Spiritual training

Saben: "Jesus dies and grows again, dies and grows again and dies and grows again! Over and over!"
Mommy: "Are you sure that's right?"
Saben: "That's what Mrs. Stevenson told us" (preschool teacher)


Saben: "In Chapel today (preschool) they had an egg. Each week until easter we open an egg and there is something inside about Jesus. The eggs today had teeny tiny things...like a donkey....and a metal cup that you drink beer out of!"

Mommy: "um.....do you mean a cup for drinking wine out of?" (he meant a communion cup I think)

Big questions

Saben has hit the "question stage" full stride lately. Here's just a sample of some of the things he's asked lately:

"mom, what's inside my tongue?"
"How do they make metal?"
"How do they get the metal out of the rocks?"
"What is the sky made of?"
"How do they make cars?"

Notice a definite theme about how things are made. Then yesterday we saw one of those big black beetles upsidedown waving his legs around. I tried to flip it over, but it just kept going upside down so I told him it was dying and was probably hurt.

Saben: "Mom, when I die, I don't want to lay on my back and wave my legs around"
Mom: "Don't worry, you won't do that Saben, that's just the bug"
Saben: "When will I die?"
Mommy: "When you are a lot older I hope"

This Morning

Saben: "Mommy, I don't want to die"

So we had a discussion about going to heaven when you die and how everyone will be in heaven with him when we all die because we love God, how God loves us, how no one will be mean anymore in heaven, yadda yadda.

Saben: "Will the chameleons be in heaven too?"

For some reason Saben always calls Aliens chameleons. Its so funny. So we had a big discussion about how we don't know if aliens actually exist, its just how we imagine creatures on other planets might look.

And then on to Revelations....

Saben: "Mommy, will we ever come back to earth after we go to heaven?"
"Will the old earth go away & be broken before God makes the new one?"
"How does God make the Earth? How does he make the sky? What is it made of?"

At this point I said I had no idea what the sky is made of and we'd have to look it up in a book or on the internet because its hard to remember how everything on earth is created or made. His very next question was:

"Mommy, I want to look on the internet to see how they make picture frames"

From God, heaven, death...to picture frames. Phew. We also touched on soldiers at this point, that's been an ongoing theme as well, trying to figure out why people fight eachother. It was funny because he was watching the superbowl with me and kept wanting to put them in "bad guy & good guy" categories. It was hard for him to understand it was just a game and both sides were good.

But seriously, my heart was bursting the entire time, I just love him so much and its so amazing to hear him asking all these questions. Listening to a child thoughtfully sort these things out is so beautiful and heartbreaking.

friendship

How to know you've got a great friend:

When your childless friends let you wash sheets with throw-up all over them in their washer & dryer. (because your washer & dryer were unhooked just 4 hours before you child decided to vomit all over her bed.)

When you friend loads the not-too-vomity but still yucky crib bumpers into the wash for you.

When your friend looks in her washer and see chunks inside that did not magically wash away and picks them all out herself instead of calling you over to do it. (and you feel like a complete moron for not shaking the sheets out somewhere before washing them)

When your seriously crazy friend also folds your kids clothes for you instead of just shoving them into the laundry bag.

Thanks Vale (and Abe), you are awesome!

Hailey

On Saturday we went down to meet lovely Miss Hailey. After a brief meeting, the uncles and grandpa managed to get Saben & Annika wound up completely out of control with plenty of screaming, laughing, yelling - luckily poor Hailey slept through the commotion. (The hyperness may have had something to do with the 2 hour car ride followed by milkshakes too)


We couldn't be more excited, it is so fun having babies around to cuddle! Shauna and Pete were beaming, despite lack of sleep and she was pumping out the aura of "wow, I did it, I delivered this gorgeous baby all by myself". I love the self confidence that comes with that sort of childbirth. (birthcenter, all natural, no complications. Read here if you want the full story.)

"Where's the baby Annika?"

"Eye"

Seth

I just realized I never put up some pictures I took a month ago of our nephew.... It was quite the photo shoot (my first one ever with the new camera on someone other than my kids). Seth had a few accidents on the bed because I forgot to tell them they could put his diaper back on and then I managed to take nearly the whole shoot on ISO 100 (we were indoors) by accident. Whoops. Lesson learned.

Still, Seth is adorable and defnitely a natural in front of the camera. : ) We had lots of fun.