Egg Hunter

We had a typical wet Washington Easter…even though we are in Kansas…Kansas, the 4th sunniest state…whatever… I’m just not sure what an egg hunt looks like without rubber boots, hats, wet clothes, the dyed eggs dye running when they come back inside. Maybe next year. :)

We bundled up the kids and Jayden got to business.



Willow hung out on the porch with dad, under a blanket, with a hat on. It just wasn’t very warm. This Kansas, it just really keeps you on your toes.



“I’m looking for something about this big”





“Ahhh, yes. Here it is!”



And since it was so rainy and Jayden has come down with a nasty little head and chest cold, we stayed inside and did inside Eastery things, like decorating bunny sugar cookies with some fantastically bright sprinkles that Grandma and Grandpa sent in their Easter package.


And then things got all crazy : Jayden eater of much too much Easter candy and all hopped up on cough medicine, Willow refuser of afternoon nap and cranky-pants yeller, Royal and Rachel seriously thinking of drinking all the alcohol in the house. But then, miraculously, (thank the Lord for miracles!) both kids in bed and asleep before 7:00. This just proves there is a God, and He knows how much we can handle. Hallelujia!

HAPPY EASTER!

Crash!

This one’s for you Jessie!

Today was the first day I got to go for a long ride on my new bike. The weather and my spare time never seemed to coincide. I’ve riden my bike around the neighborhood just because it’s hard to see a new toy in the garage that you don’t get to use, but today was 65 degrees and a weekend, so Royal was home, so that meant I could actually go somewhere! I fed the family, put Willow down for a nap, and then headed off down the road.

I have been nervous about riding my bike ever since I decided to get clip-in pedals. When I was getting my bike fitted, I said something to the guy adjusting my bike about being scared that I was going to forget to unclip my feet and he said, ‘Well, everybody does it! You just pretty much tip over!’ Didn’t do much to quell my fear. Then I remembered my dear friend Jessie’s story. And then just a few days ago I was talking to my friend Tonya about my anxiety about my shoes and crashing and she said that it happens to her all the time and because of it her bike has been named crasher. Oh, crap.

I did really well all during the ride, I made sure I was going slow enough when I had to cross a road that I had time to get my feet unclipped. Until the very last road I needed to cross. Guess I was getting cocky. And well, I fell over. And did any car stop to see if I was ok? Nope. They were probably too embarrassed for me to say anything. :) So, I got a skinned knee, a bruise forming on my hip, and did I mention I sprained my wrist this week? Yea, well I did. During one of our stroller fit work outs this week. And then this morning at stroller fit there was a pushup competition and well I’m never one to back down to a competition and the pushups pretty much killed my wrist and I didn’t even win. Push ups are not my forte and well, I’m a little wimpy. So, anyway, when I fell over on my bike, I caught myself with my sore wrist. So needless to say, typing this is painful, but I figured you’d all get a good ole laugh at my expense and I’m not one to deprive anyone of a little happiness. Even if it causes me physical pain.

The sweet thing was when I got home and showed Jayden my scraped up knee, he immediately grabbed his stool and went over to the linen closet and tried to get me a band-aid. Sooo sweet!

Takin' it to Dad

Royal and Jayden are wrestling masters. Royal comes home and that is all Jayden wants to do. “Dad, let’s wrestle” “Dad, get down on the floor. Put your forehead on the floor” “Dad, don’t get up” “Dad, you stay there or you’ll go to timeout” “Dad, stop acting asleep” And really it’s not so much wrestling, in my opinion, it’s much more like street fighting. I’m pretty sure Jayden will be able to hold his own if it ever comes to a fight. I’m more worried about the other kid. Uncle Gabe (Royal’s brother) is actually the one who taught Jayden this little move. Kick ‘em while they’re down and don’t just kick ‘em anywhere, go for the head!
(sorry the pictures aren’t so good, but I found it hysterical)







And I know…Willow in her bumbo up on an elevated surface. I think it says on the darn seat like 3 different places to not put it up on an elevated surface. I’m just not sure she isn’t safer up there than on the floor. Plus someone’s got to ref the match.
This is Jayden checking on Royal making sure he’s ok. “you ok, dad? you ok? sure? sure?”


Oh great, you’re fine, well then I’ll jump on your stomach

Good Day, Sunshine

Well the freaky Kansas weather has finally freaked on the good side. No snow today, that was a few days ago, just sunshine, little to no wind, and in the 70’s. It was fantastic!

The past couple of days, Jayden and I have decided that it would be a good idea to take a trip to the neighborhood park. Usually I put Willow in the stroller, and I always have to take the double stroller because at one point Jayden gets upset that he has to walk and he wants to ride with Willow and if he can’t ride, well then he wants to be carried, and really I don’t want to walk a mile pushing a stroller and carrying Jayden on my shoulders or listening to him whine the whole way home. So, I busted out our backpack and we did a little urban hiking. Willow loved it! I’m not sure why she wouldn’t, she’s up high and can see everything. I think I’d like it!





Jayden did some super sliding down the fast slide.











And it was sooo warm, well, Jayden just had to run through the sprinklers









And it’s just not a sunny day without an ice cream cone!

Bowling and Blankets

This weekend Royal bowled in a charity event for Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Wichita. He actually didn’t do any of the fundraising for the event, someone just couldn’t bowl at the last minute, so Royal stepped in for them. And thanks to it being a kids event, Jayden got to throw some balls down the alley too! Sorry, but I didn’t grab my camera, so I have no pictures for you. :)

But here are some other pictures I took today while trying to get Jayden to cooperate so I could take pictures of the blankets I knit up for kiddos - so I could post it on KnitWits. Jayden has grown quite fond of his blanket and pretty much had a cow when I took it off his bed and refused to let the blanket out of his site for fear I might wash it or something.

Little miss Willow



Jayden - not really wanting anything to do with getting his picture taken. He just wanted to put his blanket back on his bed.



Hello? Are you guys there? Will you at least look at me????



Sheesh, thanks!



I guess one chance was all I was gonna get.



At least Willow can’t throw a blanket over her head.



Jayden told me he was sleeping. What a happy sleeper. :)

Changes

As April inches along, getting closer and closer to my brother’s Heaven-iversary, the thoughts of 2 years ago creep into my mind more and more during the day. Easter is coming up fast, and Easter has become one of my least favorite Holidays, not because of what it is celebrating - thank God for what we get to celebrate, but because of all the things that have happened around Easter. 2 years ago on Easter, we were sad as a family because it was the 1 year anniversary of my Papa dying. We were sad because it was the last family gathering we were going to have for a long time. We were sad because we were saying good-bye to Kaylee and her family who were moving to Phoenix. Ahhh…hindsight is 20/20. What I didn’t know was God was giving us one last opportunity to get together and love on each other because 6 days later God was going to take Willie so He could love on him a little more in person Himself. I found out a week later that I had been saying goodbye to the wrong person, and that I no longer felt like Phoenix was too far away for one of my siblings to live.

I am a non-breather by choice, well really involuntarily, by choice until I figure out how to use a different coping mechanism. I have learned that people who don’t breath, don’t feel. It works out fantastically when I feel like I need to numb myself up, not that it’s a conscious thing, my body just does it. I find I am short of breath all the time and a bit short on patience and quick to be angry. All those pent up feelings have a way of leaking out as anger and now I feel bad for the people around me. I really need to figure out how to deal with things… :)

Thursday nights I find I miss my brother more and more. Thursday evenings I go to a class called Restore the Core, a pilates/yoga/ab class mix that focuses on strengthening the poor part of my body that got most stretched out while I was pregnant, but also focuses a lot on breathing. Lots and lots of deep breaths and breathing. Lame. If I would of known I was paying to have an hour of breathing, I may have rethought it. I know what me breathing will do to my fantastic coping. Needless to say, all the breathing gives my body enough oxygen to release some of pent up feelings from the past 2 years. And while I leave the class feeling quite relaxed - crazy what breathing well will do for you! - I find myself much more sad and dwelling on everything I have lost on this earth. And then I get so annoyed because I’m sure there have probably been far more blessings good things for me the past 2 years, but of course the things that stick in my head are the things that have gone wrong. Time to figure out how to change what I remember most.

Last night was the series finale of ER. Dear little ER. I have watched that show since the very very beginning and for a good 10 years I never missed an episode - talk about obsessed. Royal came along and I ended up missing some episodes to hang out with him - should of known then that it was love. :) But still, ER has been a constant in my life for what seems like forever, since I was 16, Thursday nights 10:00 (well 9:00 here in K-land) you could find me with some knitting (well knitting for only the last 9 years or so) in front of the TV. And thanks to all my stupid breathing I’d been doing earlier in the evening, my brother was on the forefront of my mind. And I went to bed sad and depressed because all I could think about was what life was like for me when I was 16. So much easier. So much happier. Kaylee and I shared a room (we didn’t live across a freaking country from each other), we picked Willie up everyday at the middle school when school was out, and I always made him sit in the back, because Kaylee was always driving, and he used to get so mad about. Willie was Willie, but was becoming more bearable and less annoying. He knew he was going to be a freshman the next year and I was going to be a senior. Time to start kissin’ up so he could use my friends to be cool. When Willie and I were in high school together, that was when I felt like we really started to become closer. He’d hang out with me and my friends in the parking lot after school, sitting on the back of the aqua colored Duster that I got to drive. I even think there might be a picture of that in the year book…I’m gonna have to see if I can find that…where in the world are my year books??? Probably at the lake house in Washington, or in storage somewhere.

Anyway, I’m rambling now…must be all the extra oxygen floating through my blood stream. Time to cut off the air, already! All I’m saying is that ER being over FOREVER, is just one more thing that makes me think about all the changes that have happened for me over the past few years. Some changes temporary, some changes permanent, some changes still changing. Having babies, quitting jobs, people moving, us moving, losing family members, losing relationships, losing friendships, making new friends, trying to restore lost relationships, trying to figure out who the heck I want to be and what is important to me, trying to figure out how not to live my life trying to make everybody happy. Some people don’t freaking want to be happy, and it’s not on me to fix that. So many things up the air, so many things different. At least God is constant. God is the same now as He was before my brother died. God is the same in Kansas as He was in Washington. God is the same now as He was before I put that tattoo on my arm. My tattoo. I love my tattoo. It is a constant reminder that I have changed too.

From the Storm

I finally figured out how to shrink some of the pictures I took during storm on my camera, since Royal’s work computer has hardley any programs on it and nothing that I could use to make a smaller sized file. Don’t want you guys getting all mad at my blog because it’s all bogged down trying to load pictures…that would NOT be good. :) (sorry Jord, I forgot the trick you told me on how to take pictures of snow so it turns out white instead of grey. I’m gonna have to start writing down all the tips you give me)

Jayden and I braved the blizzard because he just couldn’t stand to be inside watching the snow anymore. He just had to get out there so he could throw snowballs at me. He told me he was trying to give me a bruise when he hit me…awesome.





We had solid ice at our house for awhile, nothing like 24 hours of freezing rain before the snow to give everything a nice coating. See the little imprint? That was me trying to determine how much was snow and how much was ice. I’m gonna go with mostly ice.





This was one of my favs. Even the little blades of grass got coated with ice. It was like little icicles popping up from the ground. Normally, when I think of icicles, I picture them hanging down. Not here though! Everything’s backwards in Kansas.



Here is our frozen crab apple tree. We weren’t sure it was gonna make it, it looked like it was about to blow over. But thanks to the little supports you have to put around new trees here until their root systems are strong enough, it managed to stay upright!


But boy, was it frozen. Poor little guy, just wanted to blossom.



Here is one of our hyacinth that bloomed. Now it just looks like a frozen bunch of grapes. Well, actually, NOW, its thawed out and is pretty much turning brown and dying. Who knew that even the plants didn’t expect the freak snow storm. Although, I watched the news last night and there might be more snow in our forecast. Will I ever be able to plant my strawberries????