Washington Wrap-Up

Holy smokes, has it really been like 3 weeks since I posted anything???? Eeeeek!  I totally had plans of posting all during our stay in Washington, but it totally didn't happen and then I was thinking I'd break our stay up into a bunch of different posts, but I don't think that's going to happen either.  So, get a tall glass of water, sit back, and enjoy an extremely long and overloaded post!

We celebrated Christmas as a family on December 22nd in Kansas.  I spent all day packing and cleaning and putting away what I could because we flew out to Washington the next day.  Holy horrible flight.  Because Wichita's airport is getting more lame and more lame (I know, I know Southwest is coming) it was going to cost our family an extra $1600 to fly, so we chose to make the extra 3 hour drive up to Kansas City and fly out of there.  So, we got up in the morning and hit the road and made it to the airport only to find an extremely long line trying to check into United, they had 6 stations, but only 2 workers helping people check in, so 1 hour later, we check our bags and make it through security.  The kids eat food and finally it's time to board our plane.  An announcement, "Our flight is overbooked, so if you are willing to take tomorrow flight out, we will give you $300 voucher per seat."  Royals like, "Ooooo $1200! That would pay for a flight out to Washington"  I'm like, "Not worth it."  We hand our boarding passes over to get check onto the plane and are offered $400 vouchers per seat if we give ours up.  I still say no.  We get in our seats in the literally last 2 rows of the plane, get the kids situated, and another announcement.  "We will give $1000 voucher per ticket if you will give up your seat on this plane."  Royal and I look at each other, and at the last minute I'm like, "We're here.  Let's just stay.  I don't want to have to explain 500 times to our kids why we aren't in Washington tonight or to their cousins who are waiting for them to get there."  Hindsight is 20/20, we should of taken the vouchers and spent the night in a hotel with a swimming pool.  We get to Denver and get to our connecting flight and discover our plane is broken and they don't know how/when it will be getting fixed.  They flew in a part from New Mexico.  It shorted out when they put it in the plane.  4 hours later, they find a different plane for us to use.  Hallelujia!  We get on the plane and they thankfully give everybody free DirectTV on the flight.  Royal watches the Seahawk game and both our overtired and hungry kids are entertained for the 2.5+hr flight.  We get to Seattle only to wait for our bags for forever and go outside baggage claim to find there is an accident and they are only letting a few cars in at a time to pick people up while the accident and firetrucks and ambulances are cleared away.  It takes my dad an hour to get from the cell phone lot to pick us up.  Blech.  But we finally make it to dad's house around 11pm.  An 18 hour travel day and it feels like 1am to our poor tired bodies.  On a good note, that meant the kids went right to sleep with no issues!

We spent Christmas Eve out at my mom's house and started the processes of eating more food than really should be humanly possible.  But most importantly, the cousins were reunited!

Christmas morning we woke up to snow outside!  We didn't have many presents to open since we did the majority of ours before we left Kansas, so the kids spent the morning out in Papa's hottub watching the snow fall.

Then Wilow came inside, put her pajamas back on and played with some toys,

while Royal and Jayden went outside to play in the snow.

Then everyone came over to Papa's house to eat more food and open the rest of our gifts.

I was not very good about taking pictures this trip, and I really need to because my memory is terrible and we cram so much stuff in I forget what we've done.  But I did manage to go for quite a few runs, one even in the snow! And I read 3 books - The Winter Letter:good, The Maze Runner:ok, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats:excellent.

One of the days, we went over to Olympia and visited my mom and sister's new studio, Let's Paint!
, and let the kids do some paintings.

I even got to go over in the evening a couple times a take a couple classes from them.
One was the LampPost

The other was Paint your Pet night, where you bring in a picture of your pet and recreate it on canvas.  It was pretty darn funny and really fun!

We also managed to be in Washington for one of Royal's favorite activities, clam digging!  His parents just bought a little cabin at the beach, so we took the kids and 2 of my nephews down for the night.  The dig was in the evening and I don't have any pictures of it because it was pitch black out, but it was pretty darn fun.  I didn't dig one clam this time because I was too worried about the kids getting overtaken by a wave, so I had them loaded up with glow sticks and headlamps and would yell at them to run every time a wave was coming up the beach.  It was freezing out, so I was really quite glad I wasn't getting my hands and arms down in the wet, cold sand.  I was just running up and down the beach with the kids carrying clam shovels and clam guns, helping them find clam holes and dig them up.  Oh, did I forget to mention I was also the pack horse?  Besides the equipment, I also had 5 clam bags tied to a belt around my waist.  One for my limit and then one for each of the kid's limit.  With 15 clams per bag, I ended up hauling 75 clams back to the truck!
All the kids were really interested when we got back to the cabin and started shucking the clams.

The next day the weather was bea.u.tiful!  It was sunny and slightly warm and no wind, so we headed down to the beach to play during daylight hours!

We spent a couple more days up in Shelton before heading down to Kelso and Royal's family.

The kids spent a lot of time in hot tubs.  Willow even started giving imaginary people swimming lessons, guess it's time to get her plugged back in!

We got to see lots of friends and their kids and we got to see our newest nephew, Myles, a bunch!

We made trips to Portland, one for a girls day of shopping - and let me tell you shopping with Norma and Lisa is always an adventure, especially when Costco is in the mix.  Royal and I went to Portland another evening to spend some time with my brother, Jordan.  We totally ate way too much sushi and then because we are gluttons for punishment, we topped it off with some of the best ice cream I've ever had!  And then we went to a movie, and non-kid movie.  It might of even been rated PG-13.  I know, living on the edge!

Jayden got to go hunting for the first time this year.  Royal and Fireball have been getting him ready by taking him out scouting a few times over the past couple years, but this is the first time he has gotten to get up early, jump in the truck with the boys, and go find some elk to shoot.  Jayden, as it turns out, was their lucky charm.  They went out 3 times and each time shot an elk.  Fireball has shot at and missed 2 elk since Jayden has left.  Norma is offering to fly Jayden out so they can finish up their hunting season successfully!  I personally had a few doubts about Jayden and hunting.  He is usually so compassionate about things getting hurt and I was worried he would have a great time riding in the truck, actually finding the animal, and then struggle when the awesome alive animal they just found gets shot.  And then not only shot and killed, but ripped open and gutted.  And then dragged back to the truck and thrown in the back.  And then hung up in a garage and skinned.  It makes me queasy just thinking about it, but I also think it is really good to know where exactly meat comes from.  What actually has to happen to an animal in order for us to eat it.  We have such a disconnect from our food and where it comes from.  Meat comes from fresh and frozen packages in the stores, not alive clucking and mooing animals, that may or may not have had clean, happy, and natural living environments.  Vegetables are bought off of cold shelves in the store, not painstakingly planted and watered and cared for and harvested and preserved (or eaten by your dog right before you harvest them).  So, as disturbing as it is for me to witness the hunting experience, I think it is so important for my kids to see and understand, so they can make their own decisions about what they will and will not eat one day.  Anyway, that's a soapbox for another day!  Back to hunting.  Jayden did awesome and I think it was a really great thing for him and Royal to do together.  It sounded like they both enjoyed each other a lot.  Jayden didn't shy away from the gruesome parts of it and asked questions the whole time and wanted to see the heart and lungs.  He played in feet of snow on the side of the road and watched Fireball get his dually, one-tun, truck stuck and then winched up a hill.  Then he didn't complain about being tired for the rest of the day, willingly went to bed early so he could get up with the boys and go hunting again.  However, after 2 days of waking up early and hunting, he got up in the morning and ate 16 pancakes.  16!  Did those hunting boys forget to feed mine????  Sheesh!  16!

Jayden got a little too close to Royal gutting the elk and Royal got a little over zealous in pulling out the guts, and it resulted in Jayden getting sprayed across the face with blood.  Ewwwwww.

After Kelso, we spent one more day up in Shelton before heading back to Kansas.  We spent the majority of the day at my mom's house, so we could get some good time in with her.

And then spent the night at my dad's house, with one more gathering of the cousins and one last soak in the hot tub before getting up at 3:30am to head to the airport.

And now, we are back in Kansas, trying to get back into the swing of things and already feeling behind the ball, since everyone else has been off Christmas Break for a week now!

First Snow

It snowed last night!  Finally!  It was a bit of a pathetic showing, and in true Kansas form, it's blowing 40mph, so the snow is all piled up in drifts.  And it also rained before it snowed, so there is a nice solid sheet of ice on the roads, but all that didn't stop the kids from waking up and demanding I find all their snow clothes because they were going outside!  Poor Jayden, that kid is growing faster than I can keep up with.  He has been wearing an old pair of my boots to go apple picking and pumpkin patching in since he grew out of his old rain boots and snow boots, but this morning, with wool socks on, those boots were so tight they made him almost cry when he was walking.  So, in order for him to go out in the snow, I had to give up my awesome wool lined Kamik boots, since we now wear about the same sized shoes.  I almost cried.  But then I reminded myself he will probably grow out of them in about a month, hopefully that's a short enough time for him to NOT destroy them and I can wear them again next year.  :)

And it seems with the high winds, our basketball hoop has taken a turn for the worse.

Double the Fun

I have reached a new motherhood milestone.  I hesitate to even post this because well there's nothing fun about it, but it's gross and it's my life and it's definitely something that I am going to want to remember and this blog is a great record of my life the past years and I figure my kids will probably laugh about it later when they read what they did to me.  So, feel free to skip this post entirely or read on and laugh at my expense.  :)

This morning the kids came into my bed like normal and Jayden said, "My stomach hurts".  I was like, "Really?  Maybe you're just hungry.  Let's get some water and toast and see how you feel."  The first batch of toast I made was "too brown", the second batch of toast I made was "too soggy".  I gave up after that.  I mean, who is this kid, Goldilocks???  So I set some water and toast on a table with a barfing bowl, just in case.  I was really kind of bummed.  Royal and I had plans for this evening.  We were going to go see the Hobbit with some friends and Royal had even pre-bought our tickets on Sunday.  We had a babysitter lined up and everything, but you can't help having a sick kid.

Jayden never throws up, but he keeps every once in awhile rolling around and moaning on the couch that his stomach hurts.  I at this point am just thinking he's probably really hungry and if he'd eat something he'd feel better.  But just to be safe, I call Royal to have him cancel our babysitter (a coworkers daughter), and I text the girls I am suppose to tutor this afternoon and tell them not to come.  Then I text a neighbor of mine, who I know is getting ready for a big drive tomorrow and ask if she is out making a last minute stop to Target, if she would please pick me up some Saltine crackers and Sprite.  She brings them by my house 15 minutes or so later.

At this point I really think Jayden is faking.  He's been laying on the couch for 6 hours with no action, no fever, no barfing, nothing, and then he sees me playing Bad Piggies on my iPad and he instantly perks up and is all, "Oh I feel better!  Let me play that!"  No way, dude.  No way.  Willow has been acting just like herself all day.  She took a bath this morning, has been skipping around the house changing her clothes every 30 minutes, standing in the middle of the room declaring "Look!  I'm Pocahontas!" and then running and flying headfirst into the couch.  So, when she saw Sprite come through our door she starts jumping, "Oh!  Can I have some?  Please, please, please!?!  I LOVE Sprite!"  My poor soda deprived children.  So I pour Jayden a cup and Willow and cup.  Jayden refuses to touch his, Willow skips around the house pounding hers like it's, well, soda.  :)

We have been literally watching movies all day long.  I love streaming Netflix!  So, Willow at one points sits down on the couch and starts watching a Veggie Tales with us.  She does this funny burp-gag thing.  I look at her, "What the heck was that?  You feel ok?"  Willow replies, "Oh yeah!  That Sprite just makes me do funny burps."  A few minutes later, another burp-gag.  "Are you going to throw up, Willow?  How does your tummy feel?"  "It feels fine!  I'm not going to barf!"  So, I get up and hand her Jayden's barf bowl and say, "Hang onto this just incase.  I sit down in a chair right next to the couch.  All the sudden Willow sits up right and barfs right down the front of her.  I jump and grab the bowl and put it right under her face.  What the heck?!?  She's been fine all day long!  I look over at Jayden, who is sitting right next to her.  His eyes are really wide, and his lips are pursed together, and he's pointing to them with a panicked look.  I'm like, "GO TO THE BATHROOM!  GET TO THE TOILET!"  Nope, he leans over the same bowl that Willow is actively barfing in, and starts emptying his stomach at the. Exact. Same. Time.  Are you kidding me?????  If anybody knows me, let me repeat, I do not do barf.  Barf makes me barf.  I can't handle it.  So, I pull my shirt up over my nose, close my eyes, turn my head, and keep gagging into my shoulder.  I mean, there's no room in the bowl for me if I start barfing.  Where is Royal, oh man with the stomach of steel?  My kids are only allowed to throw up in the evenings and on the weekends.  So, while my head is turned away, I'm holding the bowl and Willow's head down over the bowl, Jayden is trying to find room next to her and manages to lifts his head up just enough to projectile barf all over my legs, and then Willow starts hitting my hand saying, "I'm done!  I'm done!  Let me up!"  So the kids finally finish, I quickly bring the bowl to the bathroom telling myself the whole time it's just a bowl full of water and quickly flush it down the toilet and start rinsing it out and Jayden comes running into the bathroom for round #2.  Willow is right behind him with a huge smile on her face.  "I threw up in the bowl!  That was so fun!"  Who is this child?  Throwing up in a bowl was fun?  Are you for real?????  If I hadn't birthed this child at home, I'd swear she got switched in the hospital, because she can't be related to me!

So, now that I've stripped Willow down and put her in pj's, wiped down the couch, changed my clothes, tucked both kids back into the couch, started laundry, washed my hands probably 10 times, I'm pretty sure this is where we will be for the rest of afternoon/evening.

5 days until we get on our plane for Washington.  I guess I just started my laundry for packing a little early.

Ice Skating

We went ice skating today with Jayden's school for their Winter Celebration.  It was the first time for both of the kids and they both had so much fun.  So much so, that Willow is now crashed out asleep in her bed and Jayden came home and strapped on rollerblades and is skating down the street!  :)

I wasn't really sure how it was going to all work out with me trying to stay upright with two wobbly kids pulling on me for stability, so I asked Royal if he wanted to take a couple hours off of work to come and help.  Turns out Jayden didn't need so much help, he took a little instruction and then started skating laps around the rink.

When we first got our skates on, an instructor gave the kids a few pointers.  Like bending your knees and putting your hands on your knees.  Then getting them to touch their toes and then reach for the sky for balance, but to always come back to hands on bent knees.  Then he told them to put their arms out like penguins and take tiny little marches and they would move.  He swore to me he could have Willow skating on her own by the end of the day.  I was not so confident since she refused to do anything unless she was holding my hand, and by holding my hand I mean pulling on my arm to keep herself upright.

Here we are getting our instructions.

And here is Jayden taking off, while Willow refused to budge her feet.

Maybe one of the reasons Jayden had such awesome balance out there was because he and I were wearing the same sized skates!  The kid's feet are huge and he might as well be standing on skis!  :)  However, it's also the reason he is able to rollerblade at home right now, because he is wearing my old rollerblades!  :)

Well, turns out that instructor was right.  I kept working on Willow doing a little more and a little more by herself and after about an hour, she could let go of my hand and I'd skate off and turn around and then she'd skate to me.  It was pretty fun to watch!

Jayden is begging to go back, so I'm pretty sure this won't be our last time at the ice rink.

Swimming Update

We had our last swimming lesson of 2012 today!  Both kids have done so great this year, even when the pool was so cold they came out with blue lips.  I just love the Wichita Swim Club, and what I have loved even more is that for some reason our time slot that we've picked has hardly any kids in it, so both Jayden and Willow were in classes by themselves for the majority of the time.  So if you ask what time we are swimming, I might just lie about it to keep it that way.  :)

Jayden started out the year in Level 3, which he quickly passed in 1 session and has spent the rest of the time in Level 4a, where besides backstroke and freestyle, he had to put together his dolphin kick with the butterfly arms and learn both breast stroke arms and kick.  Because he is the only kid in his class, he doesn't get as many breaks and has to keep swimming and swimming and swimming.  He started complaining about his legs being weak and his head feeling dizzy when he was looking at the bottom of the pool.  So I started making him protein balls (protein powder, peanut butter, oatmeal, honey, flaxseed, coconut oil) and he eats a bunch of those right before swimming and hasn't complained since.  Poor kid is burning through fuel fast!   Just this week he swam backstroke for 100 meters, when he started he could only do 25.

His butterfly I couldn't get a very good picture of without it looking like he was drowning out in the middle of the pool.  It is still by far the hardest of the 4 strokes for him, but he can almost make it the length of the pool without stopping.
I guess he's a bit of a natural at breaststroke, at least that's what they told me.  He's been working on his arms and kick separately this whole time, but earlier this month his teacher had him put the two together to see what would happen, and he swam the length of the pool.  So, I guess that one just clicked or something. :)

It has been really fun to watch Jayden work so hard and get better.  And all his hard work paid off today when he was handed his certificate and he had all his skills checked off.  So starting in January he will be in Level 4b, where they get this snorkel thing so they can keep their heads in the water while working on their strokes.  Jayden's a tad bit nervous about the snorkel so I told him we'd buy it before he started in lessons again and he could practice breathing through it in the bathtub.  :)

Willow started the year out in Level 3 and will continue to be in Level 3.  At this point, I'm pretty sure we are just waiting for her motor skills to catch up.  She has mastered everything except for freestyle arms.  She gets one of her arms really big out of the water and the other one looks more like a chicken wing.  :)  It's pretty hilarious, but she loves swimming so she just keep going.  She is so fun to watch and never complains about the temperature of the water, but she never turns down finishing her lesson in the smaller, 10-15 degree warmer pool.  :)

Another New Smile

Jayden is dropping teeth like flies!  He never just loses one here, one there, it's always a grip-load of teeth all at once.  He has had two wigglers for awhile, he lost one this weekend while out Christmas shopping with Royal.  The story goes something like, Jayden was biting onto the sleeve of Royal's sweatshirt, Royal ripped his sleeve out of Jayden's mouth, and in the process ripped his tooth out too!  Jayden was pumped about that, he called me right away on the phone.  It was awesome.   Since then he's been working on that other tooth.  Of course it happened the moment quiet rest time started today.  I sit down quietly at the table and take one deep breath and start preparing myself for the rest of the afternoon, and Jayden comes screaming out of his room, "I DID IT!  ITS OUT!  I TOLD YOU IT WOULD COME OUT WHEN ITS READY!"  Jayden is a big believer in letting his teeth fall out on their own, non of that violent rip them out before hand stuff.

So, I believe this was #7 and #8.

Jingle Jam

This weekend, our church put on a Jingle Jam Celebration.  It was the brain child of our Children's Pastor, so I really didn't know what to expect, but I had been sent home notes saying Jayden should come as a shepherd and Willow would be a gift, but that her costume would be provided at the church.  I had plans to make Jayden an awesome shepherd outfit, but then he told me he wasn't going to be in it anymore (I think this came around the time he was told he would be singing on stage and it probably freaked him out), so when he changed his mind again 2 days before Jingle Jam and said he wanted to be in it, we had to settle for a pillowcase, a headband, and a stick.  Besides shephers and presetns, other kids there were blizzards, angels, Cindy Lu Whos, and elves.  It was quite the combo. :)

Willow's outfit was awesome.  They cut a hole in the top and sides of a big sparkly gift bag and stuck it over her head.  Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of her, because I think she stripped herself of her gift bag before she made it from the kids room into the sanctuary, and then where she was sitting on the floor I couldn't see her anyway.  :(

Jayden on the other hand, I had great viewing of when he went up on stage.  I chose to sit in the very back in case someone tall wanted to sit in front of me (which always happens!), then I could stand on my chair and take pictures with my super zoom lens.  Looking through these pictures, I just don't know what the heck was going on up there on that stage.

Jingle Jam was actually quite hilarious, and it was one of those hilarious that you'd have to be there for, because me retelling the story would make you all just look at me sideways and say, "She thought that was funny???? I don't get it."  But the overall message was Jesus is coming!

And just for a taste of what when on I have a video of the 3 wise men.  Willow thought they were the most hilarious part and she is still laughing about them every time she talks about them.